Hangman's Curse (10 page)

“Good-bye.”

Sarah and Nate were back in the lab section of the motor home, a room filled with flasks, test tubes, bottles, gizmos, and electronic instruments. Nate was just putting a memory card into the computer as Sarah hung up the phone. “I guess it's our own doing. We taught them how to think.”

“I just hope he showed proper respect,” she said, sitting at the lab table across from him.

“Don't worry. We'll get a full report.” He clicked the computer mouse and selected the tiny memory card. “Here's the recording of the Forbidden Hallway from last night. I've cued it up to where the kids finally sacked out.”

Sarah resumed her chemical analysis of the soda straw. “Thank you very much. Could you put it on fast speed? I'll listen while I'm working.”

The telephone rang again. Nate picked it up. “Springfield.”

Sarah glanced at Nate's face, then looked again. Nate's face told her he was listening to serious news. “How long ago?” he asked. “Okay, I'm on my way.” He hung up and grabbed his coat. “That was Tom Gessner. We might have another victim.”

“Oh, no . . .”

“I'm going to meet him at the hospital. I'll call as soon as I can.”

He went out the door.

“We might have another victim.”

Mr. Carlson was still in a sour mood. “Gentlemen, you owe me ten minutes of silence. You will sit in your seats and you will not say a word. If you speak one word, you will remain here one more minute. Two words, two minutes. Three words, three minutes, and so on.”

Elijah had a question and raised his hand.

“No, Mr. Springfield! There will be no opportunity for questions! Ten minutes of silence.” He looked at the clock on the wall. “Starting now.”

Mr. Carlson sat at his desk in front of the room and busied himself with correcting papers.

Mr. Carlson had placed them in desks right next to each other. Perhaps this was his way of placing them in the path of temptation: They were sitting right next to each other but couldn't say a word. That could be tough.

Since her brother was staying after school, Elisha decided to do the same, dropping in on Norman Bloom in the bio-chem stockroom. As Mr. Harrigan's T.A., Norman spent a few minutes at the end of every school day taking care of the lab rats, lab mice, insects in jars, Floyd the boa constrictor, and Jesse the white rabbit. Right now he was dividing the lab mice among new, clean cages, picking them up gently by their tails.

“This one's Fergie,” he said, setting the mouse in its new cage. “He's gone through the maze faster than any of his brothers and sisters. Of course, that could be because he's a teacher's pet and Mr. Harrigan gives him more chances than anybody else.”

Elisha took a close look at Floyd the boa constrictor, curled up in his glass terrarium. “So what does he eat—or dare I ask?”

Norman shrugged apologetically. “Any mice that can't figure out the maze.”

She shuddered. “I thought so.”

“But, hey, watch this.”

He wiggled his finger above the mouse named Fergie, then whistled a short little tune. Fergie rose up on his haunches and, following Norman's finger, danced in a little circle.

Elisha was enchanted. “How did you get him to do that?”

Norman tossed Fergie a kernel of corn. “Oh, a little love and attention can go a long way.” Then he added, “Too bad more people don't realize that.”

Sarah had cut the soda straw into one-inch lengths and run chemical tests on several of them. So far she'd managed to identify the white crystals inside the straw: common sugar, but with some other strange compound added. It was the unknown compound she was trying to identify now. It might be a hallucinogenic drug, or nothing more serious than a candy flavoring. She should know soon enough.

On the desk behind her, the computer was replaying one long, continuous, hissing sound—the sound of a silent hallway many times normal speed. It wasn't very exciting. She could recognize the sound of passing vehicles on the road outside—they sounded like little bees buzzing by—and the sound of the school's big furnace turning on and off—that sounded like waves of the ocean crashing very, very slowly. Every once in a while there would be a sound like someone running their thumbnail along the teeth of a comb and it made her laugh. Even at fast speed she could recognize the sound: Elijah was snoring.

She took a scraping from the inside of one of the soda straw sections and placed it on a microscope slide. She prepared to stain it.

A new sound came out of the computer. Like a distant machine running. Faint. Rhythmical. Repetitive. She reached over, hit the stop button, scanned the track backward, hit the play button.

Nothing but hiss, then another vehicle passing, and then . . . there it was. The same thing, over and over.

She cued the track backward and played it again at normal speed.

Elijah thought it would be worthwhile at least to make eye contact with Ian. Ian looked back at him, and his eyes were actually friendly.

Elijah smiled and gave a little nod.

Ian smiled back and gave Elijah a look that said, “You were good today.”

Elijah pointed at Ian, then held up two fingers: “You, too.”

Mr. Carlson looked up from his work and they quit signaling.

Elisha watched with wonder—and a touch of squeamishness—as Norman draped Floyd the boa constrictor over his shoulders and let Floyd wrap himself around Norman's arms. “Wow. You, uh, you sure have a way with animals.”

Norman returned Floyd's gaze as the snake raised its head and came eye to eye with him. “I saw a guy do this in Africa.”

Elisha was impressed. “You've been to Africa?”

Norman began easing Floyd back into his terrarium. “My dad spent a year in Kenya for his company—they explore for oil and minerals, things like that. So I got to spend the summer with him. I like Africa. You can meet all the animals you want over there.”

“That's wonderful. It really is.”

Norman glanced at a computer in the corner, the screen glowing with a jungle animals screensaver. “So's the Internet. Anything you want to know about animals and insects, anywhere in the world, you can find out. I got a recipe for a really great granola for mice off this thing.”

Elisha looked at her watch. “Well, Elijah ought to be out of the penalty box by now.”

Norman chuckled. “He actually took on Carlson. You're brave, you two.”

She wasn't sure what to say. “We don't mean to cause trouble. I guess we just have this thing about the truth.”

Norman placed some lettuce in Jesse the rabbit's cage and closed the cage door. “I admire that. We shouldn't be afraid of the truth—even if it pokes holes in our pet theories.”

She picked up her books. “It was nice to meet you.”

He smiled. “The pleasure was mine, really. See you tomorrow.”

Sarah turned up the volume on the computer's sound system and hit the play button again. The track played at normal speed. She leaned toward the sound, her eyes closed, and listened. Something was there, barely audible, layered beneath the quiet rush of air through the school's heating ducts. It sounded like a voice, or maybe voices. It ended. She cued the track back and played it again.

Aaa . . . Ahhh . . . Aaaa . . . Aaa . . . Ahhh . . . Aaaa . . .

Like a chant. But was it just something in the rushing air? Was she imagining it?

The computer had its own equalizer. She clicked the mouse, brought it on-screen, and began adjusting the frequencies, filtering out all the sounds around
the
sound, bringing it to the forefront.

Ehhhh . . . Ahhhrrr . . . Aaaaaannn . . .

Her stomach twisted and she felt a chill. She played it again, studying a graphic sound wave on the computer screen, reducing some of the highs, dropping out the lows, turning up the midrange where the sound was.

Lehhhh . . . nahhhrrr . . . Baaaannnn . . . sss . . .

A voice speaking a name over and over.

The phone rang and she jumped an inch off her chair. Gasping for a few stable breaths, she grabbed the receiver. “Hello.”

Nate was at the hospital, in the hall just outside the room where the first three victims lay. “Sarah, we have another victim. They just brought him in.”

“Leonard Baynes?”

Nate looked through the door into the room where doctors and nurses were holding Leonard Baynes down, trying to sedate him and tie him to the bed. He was screaming, grappling, staring wide-eyed at unseen terrors. “That's right. It's . . . it's terrible. I can't begin to describe it.” He turned away. He had no doubts that Sarah could hear the screams coming from the room. “Tom Gessner is here. He's trying to take care of Leonard's mother.” Just a few yards down the hall, Gessner sat on a couch with Mrs. Baynes, speaking words of comfort and obviously trying to keep her under control. She was almost as frantic as Leonard. Nate asked, “How did you know it was Leonard Baynes?”

Sarah stared at the computer, half-covering her mouth with her free hand as the
sound
continued to pulse from the speakers. “A . . . a little ghost told me.”

Night. The hallway dark. Nerves on edge. So quiet they could monitor the volume and tempo of their own breathing, they could hear their hearts beating in their chests, they could sense the tone of the air within the hallway's four surfaces, like the ever-present rumble of air in a monstrous culvert.

Nate stood at the corner of the gym, the entrance to this hallway, peering through night-vision goggles. Through the goggles, the hallway was an eerie world of green shades and shadows, the windows dark, the lockers glaring, the floor mottled with patches of light and shadow.

Some thirty feet from Nate's position, his back against the lockers, Mr. Loman stood motionless—except for the steady sweep of his eyes, now wide with foreboding. Farther down, Tom Gessner stood against the windows, listening, just listening. Halfway down, Elijah sat perfectly still in the center of the hall, headphones on his ears, manning a soundboard and recorder. The recorder was already running, making a digital record through four separate microphones positioned in strategic places up and down the hallway.

At the far end of the hall, silhouetted against the big double exit doors, Sarah waited, watched, and listened, night goggles and headphones making her look like a big insect.

Just beyond him, Elisha sat with her back against the locker that used to belong to Jim Boltz. This was where the first recording was made. She slept through the first one; she wouldn't be sleeping this time. She was wearing her head-mounted light, but had it turned off for now.

At the far end of the hall, silhouetted against the big double exit doors, Sarah waited, watched, and listened, night goggles and headphones making her look like a big insect.

Nate's mind kept racing, going over things. They'd emptied Leonard Baynes' locker immediately, but found nothing—yet— that clarified just what they were dealing with. The locker had been marked, however, with that same cryptic symbol of the little hanging man, the symbol of Abel Frye. With Mr. Loman's help, they'd checked every other locker in the school for the same symbol, but found nothing. The theory that this might be sabotage of Baker's football team was in question—Leonard Baynes was no athlete.

The possibility that Ian Snyder had anything to do with this was practically a no-brainer, but they still needed some kind of direct proof. They needed to
know
.

Ten-thirty. Every passing vehicle on the road outside was a nuisance. The sound overpowered everything else, and came through the headphones so loudly that Elijah and Sarah had to momentarily hold the earphones away from their ears.

No talking. No walking. Whatever it was, they wanted to hear it. They didn't want
it
to hear
them
.

The furnace kicked on and air began to rush through the heating ducts. Sarah and Elijah winced. Another nuisance noise, but there wasn't much they could do about it. The building had to be heated. Not a big problem, though; the voices had come through the other night even though the furnace was running.

Ten-forty. Another vehicle passed. Sarah and Elijah lifted their earphones away. The sound faded; they set the phones back in place.

Clunk
.

Their eyes opened—wide. What was that?

Elijah put his hand up to signal the others, using his free hand to press an earphone close to his ear. Every person in the hall froze. Every breath became shallow and silent.

Elijah and Sarah pressed the earphones against their ears, straining to hear.

A swishing, a scraping. Movement.

Mr. Loman clamped his arms in front of him, afraid he would start trembling. He
thought
he heard something.

Nate and Sarah carefully scanned the hallway through their goggles, every inch of it, looking for anything strange, any movement at all. So far, nothing.

Elisha braced herself against the locker and slowly moved her head about, sampling every direction for sounds.
Come on, Abel.

Come on.

Mr. Gessner was standing so still it was easy to forget he was even there.

Elijah and Sarah heard it first. A faraway moan, low and mournful. Long, drawn-out vowels as if singing . . .

Ahhhhh . . . naaaaahhhhh . . . Iiillllll . . . Errrr . . .

Elijah tried to read Mr. Gessner's face in the dark. He finally moved, if only an inch. He was listening. He could hear it.

Sssshhhhaahhhhh . . . Naaaaa . . . Mmiiiiillllll . . . Errrrr . . .

Mr. Loman crossed himself. He was hearing it, too.

Nate began to move down the hall ever so slowly, listening, scanning. Sarah started moving in from the other direction.

Elisha wasn't as frightened as she was astounded. It was the perfect ghostly sound. It seemed to come from everywhere, all around them.

Nate reached Mr. Loman, who actually grabbed his arm for steadiness, for support.