The Frighteners (26 page)

Frank started after them, but then two figures stepped in and took hold of him. He recognized Cyrus and Stuart, no longer emanations, but now pure, white spirits, glowing with ethereal health and confidence. Frank looked at them in amazement.

“Hi, guys,” he said, his grin as broad as the ocean.

They returned his smile. But then Frank’s face turned serious once again as he looked at Johnny and Patricia trying to escape back down the corridor. He made another move toward them, but was restrained by Cyrus and Stuart.

“Just step back, Frank,” Stuart said. “This isn’t going to be pleasant.”

As he spoke the white corridor began to transform. The swirling white changed swiftly from pure light to pink-red tissue that spread and grew all around. Jagged teeth formed and protruded from all sides of this fleshy gullet, which began to flex in huge and rhythmic grinding and swallowing motions that made a noise that was horrible, but not loud enough to entirely drown out the dying screams of the murderous couple caught inside. The white corridor had become the inside of a demonic, carnivorous worm that had trapped Johnny and Patricia in its belly.

They screamed and screamed as the fleshy walls closed in around them, the acid of digestive juices eating away at their bodies, slowly, inch by inch, the teeth grinding away at them.

Startled and more than a little frightened, Frank stepped back as what had been the tunnel mouth slammed shut with a thunderclap that resounded throughout the night sky over Fairwater, shaking the windows and doors of the Maine coastal town far below. Frank found himself staring into the face of a huge, blind worm. It broke away then, and wriggled down through the turbulent night skies, toward the fires of hell.

“That’s what I call a first-class ticket,” Cyrus said, standing with manicured hands planted on immaculately dressed hips.

“How’d you guys arrange that?” Frank asked.

“As much as we’d like to take credit, that’s the reception awaiting all truly evil people,” Stuart said.

“Go home, Frank,” Cyrus said.

Frank was confused. “I crossed over. This
is
home.”

Stuart shook his head. “It’s not your time,” he replied.

“But I used up my second chance at life,” Frank said.

“We had a word with the Man,” Cyrus said. “He’s agreed to give you a third. Start living, dude.”

With that, Cyrus gave Frank a firm push. He fell into space, falling faster and faster, tumbling as lights of many colors swirled past his eyes, but he wasn’t afraid.

When he woke up, he was lying on the floor of the old hospital morgue. Lucy knelt over him, giving him mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. His eyes fluttered; he groaned and gasped for air. Tears were streaming down Lucy’s face and she lifted his head off the floor and hugged him.

“You’ve alive!” she said gleefully.

“Round three,” he gasped, coughing and then sitting up on his own.

“What happened?”

“I died again,” he said, his breath returning to normal. “You’re looking at the only guy to survive one assisted suicide and one murder. Think of it: in less than a day I’ve been frozen to death, shot, and strangled.”

“Thank God you’re okay,” she said, kissing him all over his face.

“I feel pretty good,” he said. But then he went to stretch his arms and felt the bullet that remained in his shoulder. “Ow,” he said, feeling for the wound and then touching it gently. A touch of red spread out from his shoulder.

“You’re lucky that was only a twenty-two,” Lucy said.

“It feels like an eighty-eight,” Frank replied. “Am I going to die—again?”

“Not for a long time, I hope,” she said, looking around the dark mortuary. “I don’t suppose there’s anything like bandages around here.”

Not spotting anything, she said, “You’re a dreamer, Dr. Lynskey. Well, so much for antiseptic procedure.”

She ripped a piece of cloth from his shirt and formed it into a crude bandage. Then she used a larger piece to make a sling.

“When you can walk, I’ll take you out of here and we’ll go to the hospital and get you patched up. Sit for a moment and tell me what happened.”

She sat back against one of the mortuary trolleys and pulled him to her. Frank nestled against her, and after a moment forgot the pain in his shoulder and the rawness in his throat from where Patricia had wrapped the cord around his neck.

His feet touched something soft. He looked down and saw Patricia’s body, lying right where he had left it. Oddly, in all the excitement he forgot that there were remains still on earth.

“Jesus, I forgot about her,” he said.

“That’s where you left her, and that’s the last thing I remember—you died, Johnny was holding me, and she was coming at me with that old surgical saw.” Lucy reached out with the tip of her toe and kicked the trepan across the floor. It clattered to rest against one of the old body freezers.

“And then?” he asked.

“Then she convulsed or something, keeled over, and died. I assume you had a hand in it.”

“That’s exactly what I had,” Frank replied.

“I couldn’t see your spirit, but I knew you were there. Then Johnny just screamed and disappeared. Two minutes later I was resuscitating you.”

“Two minutes,” Frank said, surprised. “That’s all it was?”

“Maybe three.”

“I felt like I was in there for an hour.”

“In where?” she asked.

He told her about pulling Patricia into the corridor and using her as a lure to get Johnny in there, too. He recounted how Cyrus and Stuart had appeared as if by magic. And he told her about the creature that carried the two killers to their doom. She digested all that information, then said, “A carnivorous worm wasn’t exactly my idea of what the devil’s disciple would be like.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Frank said. “Native Americans had serpent gods, in India snakes devoured the world, in the Middle Ages Europeans ran from fire-breathing dragons, and Jonah just barely got out of the belly of the whale.”

“I didn’t realize you studied these things,” she said.

“Stuart did. He was kind of obsessed with mythology. He’ll make a great spirit.”

“I’m glad you got to see your friends one more time,” she said, picking up one of his hands and holding it in both of hers.

“I have a feeling they’ll never be far away,” Frank said.

He turned his head and kissed her on the forehead. It was then that he saw something he had wanted to see for a long time.

“It’s gone,” he said.

“What’s gone?”

“The tattoo. You’re no longer marked.”

“I guess my time isn’t up yet,” Lucy said, getting to her feet and offering her hands to help him up. “But it
is
time for you to go and get healed. Pay attention to your doctor.”

“I was just getting accustomed to this morgue,” he said, but allowed her to help him to his feet nonetheless.

Nineteen

F
rank stood on his front lawn, holding a mug of hazelnut coffee that Lucy brought him from the Dunkin’ Donuts. Dawn’s long sun rays were cutting through his house where the unfinished beams stood fragilely in the crisp, dew-filled air. It was a gloriously clear day, one in which you could see for miles out to sea. The lobster fleet was out in force, and smoke poured from the twin exhausts of the ferry as it chugged its way from Fairwater to Plum Island. A light wind was coming down from the hills, and it rustled the old tarps and bits of plastic Frank had put up, over the years, to cover the holes in his unfinished house.

There was a roar as the bulldozer driver powered up his engine. It was followed by a crash as the gigantic hunk of metal smashed into the side of the house, splintering timbers.

Frank took a sip of coffee and watched his house come down.

“I always said you’d never finish that house, Frank,” said the Judge. He was off to Bannister’s right, the upper part of his body saddled to Rustler. His legs stood nearby, ready to follow him wherever he went.

Frank gave his old friend a fond smile and rested a hand on his shoulder.

There was an especially loud crash as the first wall came down, sending splinters everywhere and impelling several giant crows to go cawing and flapping off in search of a quieter neighborhood.

“I’d call it finished, Judge,” Frank said.

“You spent a good old buffalo’s age sittin’ inside those four walls, waiting for something to happen, wasting a lot of time.”

“You sound like you don’t have much faith in my ability to get things done.”

“Well, look at it this way. For an architect, you sat up a lot of nights in little more than a shack.”

“It suited me,” Frank said. “It was unfinished. So was I. Say, did I tell you I decided to get my license back?”

“The way you drive, I’m surprised they didn’t take it away long ago,” the Judge said.

“No, I mean my architect’s license. I’m going to bone up and take the recertification exam. I think I can get a job in town.”

“It’s time to start building things again,” the Judge said. “I’m right proud of you, the way you took a couple of green frighteners and turned ’em into something good. It damn near killed you.”

“It did kill me. Twice.”

“I’m gettin’ outta here before you decide to make it three,” Judge said. “I came here today to tell you I’m leaving.”

“You’re taking the corridor?” Frank asked.

“Nope. I’m taking the interstate,” the Judge said proudly.

“To where?”

“I’m going west, son. Me and Rustler are goin’ west.”

Frank glanced down at the Judge’s legs, which were kicking at the dirt restlessly.

“Aren’t you gonna walk?” he asked.

The Judge shook his head sadly, then lowered his voice. “Me and my vitals have come to a parting of the ways.”

Frank nodded knowingly. It was a tender moment, such as happens when two old friends part for good.

“So this is good-bye, Frank.”

“Goodbye, Judge. You take care of yourself.”

“You, too, son. Let’s go, Rustler.”

With that, he doffed his hat and wheeled Rustler around, urging him forward. The Judge’s legs followed, pausing briefly to kick a can into the bushes.

Lucy slipped up alongside Frank and slipped an arm around his waist. “Take care, Judge,” she called out.

“Good-bye, missy,” he said, waving his hat as he and his strange mount disappeared into the tall grass across the street.

Frank gave Lucy a strange look. She had said good-bye to the Judge, whom she wasn’t supposed to be able to see, and he had replied.

“There’s something I have to tell you,” she said.

Frank turned to her, and Lucy kissed him tenderly.

“That’s the same thing you told me this morning,” he said.

They kissed again.

“And it’s the same thing I’m going to tell you every morning for the rest of our lives,” she said, hugging him.

He rested his cheek atop her head. The bandage—the one put on at the hospital the week before—was itching him, so he reached inside his shirt and pulled it off. Then he tossed it onto the ground.

“Let me see that,” she said, opening his shirt and inspecting the scar.

“How am I healing?” he asked.

“I wish all my patients were this healthy. Which reminds me, do you want to keep Ray’s rowing machine? If not, we can have a yard sale and get rid of it and the rest of his things.”

“Let’s have a yard sale. I prefer to walk for exercise.”

“Smart man,” she said.

“I must be . . . I’m marrying you.”

“After a suitable time, of course,” she said. “I mean, you’re a distinguished member of the community now. A hero, in fact, ever since the town found out how you caught the crazy woman who had killed your wife years ago and who was responsible for those recent deaths.”

“A hero, huh? Well, whaddaya know? It’s too bad I can’t rub Magda Ravanski’s nose in this.”

The bulldozer had half the house down and was making even more of a racket than before, so Frank and Lucy walked away from the house, down the driveway to the edge of the road. They just got there when Sheriff Perry drove up in a squad car—the same car, it turned out, in which Dammers’s had kidnapped Lucy.

Perry huffed and puffed his way out of the car. He had put on even more weight in the week that had passed.

“Hi, Walt,” Frank said.

“Good morning. Sheriff,” Lucy said with a smile.

“Sorry to interrupt, folks. Whaddaya know about Ouija boards, Frank?”

“Not a lot, Walt.”

“That’s too bad. We found a whole stack of them up at the Bartlett House. It looks like Patricia had herself a direct line to her dead boyfriend.”

“I think she did,” Frank said idly, mainly trying to be agreeable.

“Oh, well, it was a lead. Say, Frank, can I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

“You know, I got a lot of vacation time owed to me. How about you and me collaborate on a book about all this? It could be my ticket outta the force.”

Frank shook his head. “Sorry, Walt, I don’t know how to write. Why don’t you get that Bayliss kid to write it with you?”

“Who? Oh, the boy reporter. Jeez, you scared him so good that one night I think he’s still running. By the time his dad got there to bail him out, he had given up the newshound business for good.”

“Did he go back to the lobster boat?”

“Nah, he wanted to get out of this town. I heard he’s down in Boston writing poetry for an underground newspaper.”

Frank smiled.

“I guess that beats working on the lobster boats,” Perry said. “Are you sure you won’t write a book with me?”

“I’m sure,” Frank said. “Then he pointed at the back of the squad car. “You could try asking your guardian angel.”

Sheriff Perry spun around with alarm, but found that his car was empty. After a moment’s pause he chuckled.

“That was a good one, Frank. You really had me going for a moment.” Then he laughed, hopped back into his car, and gunned the engine.

Frank waved sweetly, and not just to the sheriff. For the ghost of Milton Dammers stared sourly out of the backseat of Sheriff Perry’s car.

“That guy Dammers, he sure looks pissed,” Lucy said.

Frank did a double take at Lucy, then at the receding car, and then back at Lucy. She saw the Judge. She saw Dammers.