Graverobbers Wanted (No Experience Necessary) (21 page)

   Confetti only accounted for about two inches on top. The next layer consisted of tacks.

   "Good thing you didn't shove your face in there," Roger noted. "I had a really serious temptation to do that, and thank God I resisted."

   
"
Har-har."
Next
was a layer of those packing bubbles, which I can sit and pop for hours. I pulled that out and set it aside, revealing more confetti. There were probably more tacks under there, or something worse, so I dumped it out onto the floor with the rest.

   "Damn it!" I shouted, as a quart-sized plastic sack of black ink tumbled out, landing on the tacks and splattering all over the carpet. The confetti blocked some of the ink, but not nearly enough.

   I rushed into the bathroom and grabbed a stack of towels. Using the first towel as protection, I scooped up most of the tacks, then wadded up the towel and set it aside. I pushed the next towel tightly against the carpet, soaking up as much ink as
possible
,then
repeated the procedure with the third and fourth towels. It wasn't wet anymore, but there was now a very large black splotch on our light gray carpet.

   "
I'mgonna
kill
him!" I said.

   "Weren't those Helen's good towels?" Roger asked.

   "
She'sgonna
kill
me!"

   I picked up the towels and dumped them in the bathtub for the time being. I needed to focus on the problem at hand, not worry about the future agony to be inflicted upon me by my spouse. I returned to the living room, sat on the ruined carpet, and looked inside the box.

   More confetti, but the corner of a videotape was sticking out. I took it out and saw a note taped to it, which I unfolded and read aloud:

   "Dearest Andrew, I hope that your hands stop hurting, or that you didn't ruin anything expensive with the ink. I also hope that you enjoy this tape. I made it just for you. Watch carefully, because it will tell you who I am. Figure it out, and the game ends today. You get to be a hero. Have fun!"

   "That sounds kind of promising," said Roger. "Maybe he's not such a bad psychopath after all."

   I inserted the tape into the VCR and pressed "play," then sat next to Roger on the couch and turned on the television with the remote control.

   We watched snow for about thirty seconds, and then a picture appeared. It looked like a setup for a puppet show, with a colorful wooden booth upon which was painted "The Gaggles and Boo-Boo Show!"

   Cheery piano music began to play. The sound quality wasn't very good, as if it were coming from a tape player next to the microphone.

   "Hey, kids!" said an excessively perky narrator. "Ghoulish Delights is pleased to present The Gaggles and Boo-Boo Show, starring your very best friends Gaggles and Boo-Boo!"

   I couldn't recognize the voice for sure, but it kind of sounded like The Apparition.

   Two skulls popped into view from behind the stage. Each of them looked like a regular human skull, except that their teeth were filed into sharp fangs. One of them wore a cowboy hat.

   
"Hi,
Gaggles!"
The
first skull's mouth began to move, and a comically high-pitched voice spoke for it.

   "Hi, Boo-Boo!" said the second skull, the one with the hat. It sounded sort of like
GroverfromSesameStreet
.

   "How are you today, Gaggles?"

   "I'm fine, Boo-Boo! What do you want to do today?"

   "I don't know.
Whatdoyou
want to do today?"

   This was really a sad excuse for theatre. Their mouths didn't even match the words, like some badly dubbed Japanese monster movie.

   "I asked you first."

   "I asked you second."

   "Well, Boo-Boo, why don't we eat somebody?"

   "That's a good idea, Gaggles! I love to eat people! Who shall we eat?"

   "I know! Let's eat the woman tied to the bed in the next room! Won't that be fun?"

   "That sure will! You're my very best friend, Gaggles."

   "And you're my very best friend, Boo-Boo!"

   "Shall we sing the Friendship Song?"

   "Nah, fuck that. Let's just chow down on the bitch."

   The camera panned over to the other side of the room, where a woman in shorts and a tank top was tied to the same bed as the man in the first video. I couldn't be positive, but I was pretty sure this was one of the women I'd seen at the end of that video. She had a blindfold over her eyes and a gag over her mouth, and struggled violently against the ropes.

   Gaggles popped up in front of the camera.
"
Mmmmm.Looks
tasty."

   Boo-Boo joined
him."
Very
tasty."

   "What should we eat first?"

   "I'm in the mood for a drumstick."

   The skulls dropped out of sight, and the camera moved in close to the woman's leg. It stayed there for almost a full minute, when suddenly Boo-Boo burst into view. I could see the hand controlling him—covered with a black glove like the hand in the first video. The skull's mouth opened wide, and then the sharpened fangs clamped down on the woman's thigh.

   I turned down the volume several notches at the sound of her scream

   "
Mmmmm
...
yumyumyum
..." said Boo-Boo.

   Roger turned his head away from the screen. I wanted to do the same, but the note said that the killer's identity would be revealed, and I couldn't afford to miss anything.

   Gaggles soon joined his friend. Cold sweat poured down my sides, and my leg began shaking, but I kept watching, even as I felt a dizzy spell coming on.

   It went on for over ten minutes, during which Roger took occasional looks at the screen and I kept my eyes firmly fixed on the picture. Every once in a while, one of the skulls would turn toward the camera and laugh. At one point, Gaggles disappeared from the scene and returned wearing a bib.

   The woman died about two minutes before the end of it. There was no doubt whatsoever that she was
dead.None
.

   Boo-Boo moved up to the camera, opening his bloody mouth wide. "That hit the
spot
!Nummynummy
!"

   The cheerful piano music started up again. The perky narrator said "We hope you've enjoyed the adventures of Gaggles and Boo-Boo, best friends to the end! Good night, don't let the bed bugs bite, and don't forget to
buyUnited
States savings bonds! Bye-bye!"

   The picture faded to black.

   I staggered into the bathroom and threw up.

Chapter 16

    ROGER AND I each had a tall glass of ice water before we said anything. I guess this tape hadn't been much worse than the first, but seeing it on a large screen, in full color, with sound, made it much more disturbing.

   "Was the other one like this?" asked Roger.

   I nodded.

   "And you actually watched a second one?"

   "I didn't have much choice." I hit the fast forward button on the VCR remote to see if there was anything else on the tape. "But I sure didn't see the killer's name anywhere, did you?"

   "Not unless he's named Gaggles or Boo-Boo."

   "What about the voices? To me it sounded like The Apparition might have done all of them. What do you think?"

   "I think you're probably right," said Roger. "Even if it wasn't him, it didn't sound like any of our other suspects, so that doesn't help."

   "Well, there has to be a clue somewhere. We'll just have to keep watching the tape until we find it."

   "So we're still not going to the police?"

   "We can't. I have to believe that if the cops show up, he'll be able to kill the remaining prisoners before they can stop him. Or suppose the police are actually able to figure out who he is, and arrest him at the taping today...he might never tell where the prisoners are being kept. If he thinks he'll be dead soon and has nothing to lose, why would he? We just have to figure it out ourselves and trust that it'll really be over today."

   "It could end with a slaughter," Roger pointed out.

   I suddenly pressed the pause button. "Did you see that?"

   "What?"

   I rewound for a few seconds, catching a momentary glimpse of something on the television screen. I pressed play, and then watched until the message flashed on the
screen
,pausing
the tape before it vanished again.

   "
Oooooh
, this one's a toughie! Need an extra hint, Andrew? Go to1214
Cruor Avenue
.Alone, of course."

   "
Where'sCruor
Avenue
?"
Roger asked.

   "No idea." I pressed fast-forward again and watched the screen carefully in case more messages popped up.

   "Are you going?"

   "Not yet. Hopefully we won't need an extra hint if we can find out who he is from the rest of the tape."

   We sat there for several minutes until the tape came to an end, with no other bonus hints that I noticed. I rewound the tape and we watched the section with Gaggles and Boo-Boo a second time.
Ipaused
it right before the first bite, not wanting to have to watch the torture again until I was sure the clue wasn't hidden in the introduction.

   "What do you think?" Roger asked.

   I sighed. "I'm not seeing anything that's pointing me in a specific direction. Maybe Gaggles and Boo-Boo are actual nicknames."

   "What about the cowboy hat? That could mean something."

   "It might," I agreed. "I wish there was some way we could safely get a copy of this to Rachel."

   I suddenly had a paranoid mental image of somebody sitting outside in a van, listening to our conversation being transmitted from a bug that was hidden in the confetti. It was certainly possible. I hoped I hadn't doomed the rest of the prisoners.

   We rewound the tape and watched a third time. I scooted up right against the screen, searching for hidden messages that might be in the background. Something about the way the skulls moved when they spoke seemed a little odd—odd beyond the way their mouths didn't match their words.

   I pressed the mute button so their voices wouldn't be a distraction, and continued watching.

   "Look at that," I said, tapping the screen on the skull with the cowboy hat. "Which one is this, Gaggles? Look how his mouth moves compared to Boo-Boo's."

   Roger watched silently for a moment. "It definitely seems like two different people are working them."

   
"
Right.Gaggles
isa
lot more haphazard.
Boo-Boo almost looks like he's being controlled by a computer."

   I thought about that. It was an interesting thing to notice, I guessed, but what was it supposed to mean?

   Maybe two members of Ghoulish Delights were working
together.Dominick
and Linda, or Carl and Farley. Or, it could just be another helper like The Apparition. Either way, this observation did approximately squat in terms of revealing the killer's identity.

   We rewound the tape yet again, but the fourth viewing provided no new insights. A fifth viewing had the same result.

   So the clue we needed could very well be hidden after the skulls started their vicious work.

   I really, truly, wholeheartedly did not want to watch that part of the video again, but I had to. Considering that real people had gone through the agonizing torture recorded on the tape, and to stop it from happening again all I had to do was sit in the comfort of my living room and watch it, I really had no excuse.

   I watched the death of the woman in its entirety.