The Black Heart Crypt

  Aunt Ginny closed her eyes.

  Motion in the front of the ambulance caught Zack’s attention.

  Grandpa Jim! Sitting in the passenger seat.

  “Shhh,” he said. “Don’t let on you can see and hear me. Ginny and Judy can’t, because I don’t want them to.”

  Zack budged his eyebrows up half a millimeter to ask Grandpa Jim what he was doing there.

  “You’ve got to find that black heart stone, champ. You need to finish what Ginny started. Listen to what your mother told you.”

  Zack still had no idea what Grandpa Jim was talking about.

  “Remember everything she said. Everything!”

  “Zack?” It was Judy.

  “Yeah?”

  “You okay?”

  “Yeah. I’m just worried about Aunt Ginny.”

  “She’s very lucky,” said the paramedic. “The bullet went clean through her shoulder.”

  Zack looked back to the front seat to check out Grandpa Jim’s reaction to the good news.

  Only he was gone.

  Leaving Zack to wonder: What had his mother said that could help him find the stone?

  Azalea Torres was on the school bus, cramming for a science test.

  That meant opening the textbook for the first time, checking out the chapter.

  “Got it,” she muttered to herself. Yes, a photographic memory was a girl’s best friend. Right now, she knew more about solar and geothermal energy than even Malik Sherman!

  The bus made its standard fart noises, swung out its squeaky red stop sign, and came to a halt at the corner where Malik boarded.

  Only he wasn’t at the bus stop.

  Three kids climbed aboard, but no Malik.

  Maybe the big meeting of the Pettimore Trust down in New York City hadn’t gone so well.

  Losing his big reward, which was supposed to cover all his mom’s medical bills, would be a total bummer. If that was what had happened, Azalea might need to go home sick today, too.

  She’d ask Zack if he’d heard anything.

  His stop was only two away.

  Right after Haddam Hill and the totally creepy but totally cool cemetery.

  Zack, Judy, Aunt Hannah, and Aunt Sophie sat in the emergency room waiting area.

  It was nearly eight a.m.

  A television suspended on a bracket was blaring the local news but nobody was paying much attention to it.

  Judy was on her cell phone, talking with Zack’s dad. He would be on the next train home to North Chester.

  “Come straight to the hospital,” Judy suggested. “Aunt Ginny will be here a while.… We will.… Love you, too.”

  Judy closed her cell and glanced up at the TV.

  “What’s that?”

  She and Zack got up and walked closer to the monitor.

  “That’s Ickes and Son,” said Zack. “The hardware store on Main Street.”

  The TV showed a short man, his face sad and gray, standing next to a big guy with a shaved head and a tiny chin beard. The big guy was chewing gum, grinning, and waving at the camera.

  “That’s Norman’s father,” said Zack. “And a Snertz who works at the hardware store.”

  As if to prove Zack correct, titles appeared on the bottom of the screen: Herman Ickes, father. Stephen Snertz, coworker.

  The camera zoomed out and a reporter lady jabbed a microphone under Mr. Ickes’s nose.

  “This is terrible,” he said. “I don’t know what could have gotten into my son.”

  “The real question,” said Zack, “is who got into his son.”

  “Didn’t you recently fire your son?” asked the reporter. “Yes.”

  “Didn’t you have his name painted over on your sign?”

  Stephen Snertz grabbed for the microphone. “It wasn’t his name. It was the ‘and Son.’ Basically, Herman here was telling the world he no longer had a son, isn’t that right, Herm?”

  Mr. Ickes didn’t answer. He dropped his head in shame.

  So the reporter concentrated on Snertz.

  “You worked with Norman. Do you think his father’s recent actions are what sent the younger Mr. Ickes over the edge?”

  “Definitely. Of course, Norman was always nuttier than squirrel poop.”

  “So you’re not surprised at this turn of events?”

  “Nah. Except the horse. Who knew the nerd could ride?”

  The reporter turned to face the camera, which zoomed out even further, taking in the hardware store and the other shops lining Main Street.

  “There you have it, Chip,” said the reporter. “A father’s public humiliation of his only son sends him spiraling into a violent rampage that has terrorized a picture-perfect small town in this bucolic corner of Connecticut.”

  While she talked, the camera panned right and took in more storefronts, the village green and town hall, the town clock tower … The clock tower!

  With its hands rusted in place.

  Where the time was always frozen at 9:52.

  That was what his mother had told him right before she disappeared.

  Nine-fifty-two!

  She had broken the rules and told him exactly where he had to go.

  “The town clock!” Zack said to Judy.

  “What?”

  “That’s where they hid the black heart stone!”

  Azalea was seated in her usual spot near the rear of the bus, so she saw him first.

  A guy dressed all in black and wearing one of those hats they wear in Colonial Williamsburg came charging down the cemetery hill on a horse.

  “Um, Ms. Tiedeman?” she called up to the bus driver.

  The guy on the horse was gaining on them. Azalea could see he was wearing a mask that made his head look like a burlap pumpkin, complete with the triangle eyes and nose and the sawtooth jack-o’-lantern grin.

  “Ms. Tiedeman?” She shouted it this time.

  The bus driver looked up at her rearview mirror.

  “What’s the problem back there, Azalea?”

  The horse rider raced past Azalea’s window. He was moving faster than the bus. She heard him scream, “Onward, Satan! Fly, Satan, fly!”

  Great. Pumpkin Head’s horse was named Satan.

  “I think this guy wants us to pull over.”

  The bus driver leaned forward to check her side-view mirror.

  “Stand and deliver!” the horse rider shouted as he drew parallel to the driver’s window.

  “What?” said Ms. Tiedeman.

  “Stand and deliver, I say!”

  “Yeah? Well, I say, ‘Shut up and go away!’ ”

  “Pull over to the side of the road, wench!”

  “Sorry, pal. I have a schedule to keep.”

  Azalea felt the rumbling bus accelerate.

  “Everybody buckled up?” the bus driver shouted at the panoramic mirror, in which she could see all the kids. “Grab hold of a seat back and brace yourself!”

  Then she pressed the pedal to the metal.

  But the black stallion, with bubbly foam streaming out around its mouth bit, pumped it up a notch, too. The colonial jockey reached down into a saddlebag and pulled out a flaming lantern, which he hurled about twenty yards up the road.

  It hit the asphalt and erupted into a gassy fireball.

  “Hang on, kids!” Ms. Tiedeman pulled her steering wheel hard to the right and then immediately back to the left, sending the school bus careening through a cloud of smoke, but clear of the blaze.

  Azalea turned around and saw that the bandit on horseback was behind the bus now, having just blown through the smoke cloud where the lantern grenade had exploded.

  He spurred his horse hard, and in an instant, horse and rider were only a few feet away from the bus’s rear bumper.

  Being a soldier’s daughter, Azalea leapt into action.

  She raced to the back of the bus.

  “Azalea?” shouted the bus driver. “Sit down! I’m pulling over.”

  “Not yet. I’ll knock this dude on his b
utt.” She reached the rear emergency exit. The masked man was right outside and standing up in his saddle.

  Excellent!

  Azalea would kick open the door and whack him off his pony.

  She reached for the handle.

  Pumpkin Head leapt up, grabbed hold of a light or something.

  And hauled himself onto the roof of the bus!

  Zack and Judy were whisked home in a police car.

  “I’ll go in and grab Zipper,” said Zack as Judy transferred Aunt Ginny’s carpetbag full of gear to her own sporty sedan. “We might need his nose to help us find where they hid the stone.”

  “Great idea. And call Malik. Tell him we’ll swing by and pick him up.”

  “Right.”

  They needed Malik to take the black stone puzzle apart again, which was the only way to dislodge the miniature black heart in the center. If Judy, Aunt Hannah, and Aunt Sophie could exorcise the Ickleby demon out of Norman’s body and then crush the black core, Barnabas’s soul would go straight down to H-E-double-hockey-sticks.

  Zack called Malik.

  “Can you take apart that black heart again?”

  “Oh, yes. The second time you work a puzzle always takes much less time.”

  “Great. We’ll meet you out front in five.”

  Next, Zack scooped up Zipper, who was taking his morning nap, and started to carry him out to the car.

  “Time for your nose to wake up, boy. It’s got work to do!”

  Zipper barked once, leapt out of Zack’s arms, and raced him out to Judy’s car.

  “Hop in!” Zack shouted to Malik.

  Malik slid into the backseat with Zipper.

  “Where are we going?” he asked as they pulled out of the driveway.

  “The clock tower,” said Zack. “Downtown. That’s where they hid the black heart stone.”

  “Who?”

  Zack didn’t have time to explain the whole dybbuk, soul-in-a-body-that-wasn’t-its-body deal. So he simplified things. “The bad guys.”

  “I see. And how do we know the clock tower is where the bad guys stashed their loot?”

  “My mother told me.”

  “I did?” said Judy from behind the wheel.

  “I meant my other mother.”

  “Excuse me? Zack?” said Malik, raising his hand.

  “Yeah?”

  “I thought your birth mother was dead.”

  “She is. But, well, she found a way to come back to life just so she could stop by the house and drop me a huge hint.”

  “I see. Well, that was very thoughtful of her.”

  “Yeah. I think being dead has made her a much better person.”

  As the bus eased to a stop, Azalea heard boot heels clomping along its riveted steel roof.

  “You stupid bus driver,” whined Kurt Snertz, an eighth grader who was sitting near the front of the bus today, just so he could finger-flick a new kid’s ears. “Why’d you pull over?”

  “Kurt?” said Azalea.

  “What?”

  “Be cool.”

  “Make me.”

  “You heard the lass,” croaked the masked man as he strode onto the bus, both pistols aimed at Snertz. “Sit still, lad.”

  “Yes, sir,” Kurt said, gulping. Azalea thought he might burst into tears.

  “Children,” said the masked man, “I hereby declare you all to be my hostages!” His voice was hoarse and raspy. “May God have mercy on your souls!”

  And then the bad guy’s eyes went buggy as he cocked his head sideways as if he was listening to something nobody else could hear.

  Norman Ickes was having a blast sharing his body with his evil ancestor Barnabas.

  He’d punched people, gone horseback riding, killed a priest, and shot an old lady who’d been making fun of him.

  Now he was in heaven. The smart-mouthed kid in the third row was Stephen Snertz’s nephew—the punk who had crazy-glued Norman’s fingers to the hardware store phone one Saturday when he came in to watch football with his uncle.

  “Barnabas!” his soul cried out.

  “Silence,” his dybbuk thought back. “I am otherwise engaged.”

  “That boy, the beefy one with the red hair.”

  “What about him?”

  “He is a Snertz.”

  “So?”

  “The Snertzes are the richest family in all of North Chester.”

  “What about the Spratlings?”

  “They’re all dead. Besides, the Snertzes are richer. Mark my word, that boy will fetch us a handsome ransom.”

  “Where are his people, that I might make my demands known?”

  “Go see his uncle. Stephen Snertz.”

  “And where might Stephen Snertz tarry at this hour?”

  “The hardware store on Main Street!”

  “Coachwoman?” Norman heard Barnabas say to the bus driver. “Take me to the hardware store on Main Street, where I shall parley with the Snertz family for their heir’s ransom! Satan, follow the yellow carriage!”

  Checkmate, thought Norman. We’re comin’ to get you, Stephen!

  “What is that school bus doing over near the hardware store?” asked Malik from the backseat. “Was there a field trip today?”

  “I don’t think so,” said Zack, who thought a hardware store would be a pretty odd place to take a field trip.

  “I don’t remember signing any permission slips,” added Judy.

  She had parked her car right in front of the town clock tower, the tallest building in North Chester. Zack looked up at its face, five stories above the street.

  Nine-fifty-two.

  His dad used to joke that no matter what train he took to New York City in the morning, it was always the nine-fifty-two, because the town clock had been frozen in that position for as long as he could remember. Zack, of course, wished he had figured out his mother’s clue sooner.

  Next he checked out the door at the base.

  It looked to be unlocked, because a stiff breeze squeaked it open a crack.

  “Oh, no,” said Judy, who was looking up the block to the town hall. “There’s a black horse standing next to the bus.”

  “Unusual,” said Malik. “You certainly don’t see that every day.”

  Now it was Zack’s turn to say, “Oh, no,” because he was the first one to see Jack the Lantern climb off the bus, a pistol poked into Azalea Torres’s back.

  He was using her as a shield!

  “Who’s that guy in the mask manhandling Azalea?” asked Malik.

  “Your friend,” said Zack. “Norman Ickes.”

  “Where is Squire Stephen Snertz?” Azalea heard the masked man snarl at the crowd outside the hardware store.

  In the mob were a bunch of TV reporters with microphones and cameras. They swung around to aim their gear at the shaved-head goon who had harassed Norman Ickes on Halloween night—the dude who had pulled the plug on all the pumpkins.

  In the distance, Azalea could hear the wail of police sirens.

  “What is going on?” the masked man whispered tensely. “What is making that high-pitched squeal? Why are all these townsfolk idling about? I am Jack the Lantern. I lurk in the shadows, where none can find me.…”

  “Sorry, sir,” said Azalea. “Somebody must’ve alerted the authorities.”

  “The king’s soldiers are coming?”

  “Uh, no. The police.”

  The masked man pulled her closer to his chest.

  Great. To shoot him, the cops would have to try to miss her.

  “Where is Stephen Snertz?” the guy who called himself Jack shouted again. This time, he brandished a new weapon: a very modern, very lethal-looking pistol.

  Azalea was eager to hurry things along.

  “That’s him. The bald dude with the chin goatee.”

  Stephen Snertz brought his hand up to his chin, trying to hide his facial hair.

  “Sir Snertz,” said the kidnapper, “know that I hold your scion as my hostage!”

  “M-m-my
w-w-what?” said Snertz, who was trembling pretty bad and looked like he might wet himself.

  “He means your nephew,” said Azalea. “Kurt? He’s on the bus.”

  Stephen Snertz sort of squirmed and snorted some snot up his schnozz before he said, “So?”

  “We two must come to terms,” said the man in the mask.

  “About w-w-what?”

  “Young Kurt’s ransom!”

  “R-r-ransom? What are you talking about, Norman?”

  “My name is Jack the Lantern!”

  Snertz put a hand on his hip and tried to look tough.

  “Really? I thought it was Crazy Izzy Ickleby.”

  “That was yesterday. This is today.”

  “Man,” Snertz chortled, “you are nuttier than all the pecan pies in Georgia!”

  Azalea heard a pistol hammer cock back right next to her ear.

  “Hey! Th-th-that’s my pistol!” said Snertz.

  “Indeed it is!” said the masked man. Then he started mumbling to himself. “No, Norman. Not yet.” He cleared his throat and loudly addressed Snertz again: “If, sir, you do not meet my demands and present me with twenty pounds of solid gold bullion within the hour, I shall be forced to sell young Master Snertz to certain ship captains I know of in these parts.”

  Azalea raised an eyebrow. Pumpkin Head was definitely living in the past. There hadn’t been any ship captains living in North Chester since the nineteenth century.

  “Drop your weapons!” cried a brusque voice through a bullhorn.

  Azalea looked left. Sheriff Hargrove and six of his deputies had their guns up and aimed at Pumpkin Head, which meant they were also, more or less, aimed at her.

  “Is the door locked?” asked Judy, studying the base of the clock tower.

  “No,” said Zack. “Somebody busted it open.”

  “Probably Norman,” said Malik. “He’s the top lock picker in our puzzle club.”

  “Hurry, guys,” said Judy. “Find the stone. Toss it in Aunt Ginny’s bag with the rest of the junk.”

  Zack grabbed the carpetbag from Malik in the backseat.

  “I’ll see what’s going on with the school bus. When you find the black heart, use the signal mirror. Flash it at me from down here in the doorway,” said Judy.