‘Why?’
‘Ice cream cones don’t last.’
‘That’s a silly thing to say.’
‘Ice cream cones are always gettin’ done with. Seems I’m no sooner bitin’ the top than I’m eatin’ the tail. Seems I’m no sooner jumpin’ in the lake at the start of vacation than I’m creepin’ out the far side, on the way back to school. Boy, no wonder I feel bad.’
‘It’s all how you look at it,’ said Doug. ‘My gosh, think of all the things you haven’t even started yet. There’s a million ice cream cones up ahead and ten billion apple pies and hundreds of summer vacations. Billions of things waitin’ to be bit or swallowed or jumped in.’
‘Just once, though,’ said Tom, ‘I’d like one thing. An ice cream cone so big you could just keep eatin’ and there isn’t any end and you just go on bein’ happy with it forever. Wow!’
‘There’s no such ice cream cone.’
‘Just one thing like that is all I ask,’ said Tom. ‘One vacation that never has a last day. Or one matinee with Buck Jones, boy, just ridin’ along forever, bangin’, and Indians fallin’ like pop bottles. Gimme just one thing with no tail-end and I’d go crazy. Sometimes I just sit in the movie theater and cry when it says “The End” for Jack Hoxie or Ken Maynard. And there’s nothin’ so sad as the last piece of popcorn at the bottom of the box.’
‘You better watch out,’ said Doug. ‘You’ll be workin’ yourself into another fit any minute. Just remember, darn it, there’re ten thousand matinees waitin’ right on up ahead.’
‘Well, here we are, home. Did we do anything today we might get licked for?’
‘Nope.’
‘Then let’s go in.’
They did, slamming the door as they went.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
The house stood on the edge of the ravine. It looked haunted, just like everyone said it was.
Tom and Charlie and Bo followed Doug up the side of the ravine and stood in front of the strange house at nine o’clock at night. In the distance, the courthouse clock bonged off the hour.
‘There it is,’ said Doug. He turned his head right and left, as if he was looking for something.
‘What are we gonna do?’ asked Tom.
‘Well,’ said Bo, ‘is it haunted, like they said?’
‘From what I’ve heard, at eight o’clock, no,’ said Doug. ‘And not at nine. But starting around ten, strange sounds start to come from the house. I think we should hang around and find out. Besides, Lisabell said that she and her friends were going to be here. Let’s wait and see.’
They stood by some bushes by the front porch steps and they waited and at last the moon came up.
There was a sound of footsteps along the path somewhere and from inside the house, the sounds of someone going up some stairs.
Doug stood alert, craned his neck, but he couldn’t quite see what was going on.
‘Heck,’ said Charlie at last. ‘What are we doing here? I’m gosh–awful bored. I got homework. I think I better head home.’
‘Hold on,’ said Doug. ‘Let’s wait just a few more minutes.’
They waited as the moon got higher. And then, a little after ten, as the last peals of the courthouse clock faded away on the night air, they heard the noises. From inside the house, faint at first, almost imperceptible, there came a sound of rustling and scraping, as if someone was shifting trunks from one room to another.
A few minutes later, they heard a sharp cry, and then another cry, and then a sort of whispering and rustling and, finally, a dull thump.
‘Those,’ said Doug, ‘were definitely ghost sounds. Like someone getting killed and the bodies being dragged around the rooms. Doesn’t it sound like that?’
‘Heck,’ said Tom, ‘I don’t know.’
‘Don’t ask me,’ said Bo.
‘Well,’ said Charlie, ‘it’s sure a god-awful racket. If there’s another scream, I’m getting out of here.’
They stood alert and waited, almost not breathing. Silence. And then, suddenly, more groans and cries and then something that sounded like a weak cry, ‘Help.’
Then it faded away.
‘That’s it,’ said Charlie. ‘I’ve had enough.’
‘Me too,’ said Bo.
The two boys turned tail and ran.
There was a great whispering and the hair stood up on the back of Doug’s neck.
‘I don’t know about you,’ said Tom, ‘but I’m gettin’ out of here. If you want to stay to listen to some darned ghosts, you can, but not me. I’ll see you at home, Doug.’
Tom turned and ran.
Alone, Doug stood for a long while staring at the old house. Then he heard someone coming up the path behind him. He turned, his fists clenched, ready to defend himself against the midnight assailant.
‘Lisabell,’ he said. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘I told you I’d be here. But what are you doing here? I thought you were a scaredy-cat. Is it true what they say? Did you find out anything? I mean, it’s all darn foolishness, isn’t it? There’s no such thing as ghosts, is there? That place can’t be haunted.’
‘We thought,’ said Doug, ‘we’d come here and wait and see. But the others got scared and left and now it’s only me. So I’m just standing here, waiting, listening.’
They listened. A low cry wafted out of the house into the night air.
Lisabell said, ‘Is that a ghost?’
Doug strained to listen. ‘Yes, that’s one.’
A moment later they heard another great whisper and cry.
‘Is that another?’
Doug looked at her face and said, ‘You look like you’re enjoying this.’
‘I don’t know,’ said Lisabell. ‘It’s kind of strange, but the more I hear, I —’ And here she smiled a strange smile. The whispers and the cries and murmurs from the house grew louder and Doug felt his whole body turn hot and then cold and then warm again.
Finally he reached down and found a large stone by the front of the house, reared his hand back, and flung it through the glass panes of the front door.
The glass exploded with a loud crash and the door creaked open, slowly. Suddenly, all the ghosts wailed at the same moment.
‘Doug!’ cried Lisabell. ‘Why did you do that?’
‘Because …’ said Doug.
And then it happened.
There was a rush of feet, a torrent of whispers, and a swirling mob of white shapes burst out of the house and down the stairs and along the path and away into the ravine.
‘Doug,’ said Lisabell. ‘Why’d you do that?’
‘Because,’ said Doug, ‘I couldn’t stand it anymore. Someone had to scare them out. Someone had to act like they knew what they were doing. I bet they won’t come back.’
‘That’s terrible,’ said Lisabell. ‘Why would you want ghosts not to be here?’
‘Why would you think,’ said Doug, ‘that they had a right to be here? We don’t even know who they were.’
‘Well,’ said Lisabell, angrily. ‘Just for that I’m going to teach you a lesson.’
‘What?’ said Douglas.
And Lisabell stepped up to him, grabbed him by the ears, and planted an immense kiss on Douglas’s mouth. It lasted only an instant, but it was a blow like a bolt of lightning that had come out of the air and struck his face and anguished his body.
He shook from head to toe, his fingers extended, and somehow he imagined sparks firing out of his fingertips. His eyelids jittered and a fantastic flow of sweat broke out on his brow. He gasped and could not breathe.
Lisabell stood back, surveying her creation: Douglas Spaulding, hit by lightning.
Douglas fell back, afraid that she might touch him again. She laughed, her face merry.
‘So there!’ she cried. ‘That’ll fix you.’
She turned and ran away and left him in the invisible rain, a terrible storm, shaken, his whole body now
hot, now cold, his jaw dropped, his lips trembling.
The explosion of the lightning bolt hit him again in memory, even stronger than when it had first struck.
Slowly, Doug felt himself sink to his knees, his head shaking, his mind wondering at what had happened and where Lisabell had gone.
He looked up at the now truly empty house. He wondered if he should go up the stairs and find out if maybe he hadn’t just come out of the house himself.
‘Tom,’ he whispered. ‘Take me home.’ And then he remembered: Tom wasn’t there.
He turned, stumbled, almost fell down into the ravine, and tried to find his way home.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Quartermain woke laughing.
He lay wondering what in god–awful hell had made him happy. What was the dream, gone now, but so wondrous that it cracked his face and uncorked something resembling a chuckle beneath his ribs!? Holy Jesus. What?
In the dark he dialed Bleak.
‘Do you know what time it is?’ Bleak cried. ‘There’s only one thing you ever wait half the night to churn my guts with – your stupid war. I thought you said the damned thing was over!’
‘It is, it is.’
‘It is what?’ shouted Bleak.
‘Over,’ said Quartermain. ‘There are just a few more things I want to make sure of. It’s what you would call the joyful aftermath. Bleak, remember the collection of oddities and medical freaks we put together one summer for a town fair, all those years ago? Do you think we could find those jars? Are they up in an attic or down in a basement somewhere?’
‘I suppose so. But why?’
‘Find them. Unlock them. We’re bringing them out in the open again. Gather our army of gray. We have work to do. It’s time.’
Click. Hummm.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
A huge question mark, painted on a plywood shingle, hung over the tent entryway. The tent had been erected on one side of the lakefront grounds, and the entrance gave way into the darkness of a haphazardly constructed plywood lean-to museum. Inside was a series of platforms on which were no freaks, no beasts, no magicians, no people. Somehow, overnight, this mystery tent had appeared, as if it had pitched itself.
Across town, Quartermain smiled.
That morning, in school, Doug had found an unsigned handwritten note in his desk. Its message was simple, written with black ink in large block letters: ‘THE MYSTERY OF LIFE EXPLAINED.??? AT THE LAKEFRONT. LIMITED TIME ONLY.’ Doug passed the note among his friends, and as soon as school let out for the day, the boys had rushed down here, as fast as their feet could carry them. Now, entering the question mark tent with his friends, Doug was incredibly disappointed. Migawd, no bones, no dinosaurs, no mad generals at war, he thought. Nothing but night-dark canvas and flat platforms and … Douglas peered. Charlie squinted. Will, Bo, and Tom came last into the smell of old wood and tar-paper. There wasn’t even a curator with a tall hat and baton to guide them along. There was only—
On top of a series of small tables were a number of large one-and two-gallon jars filled to the brim with a thick, clear liquid. Each jar was topped by a glass lid, and each lid had a red number on it – twelve in all – each number, painted in a shaky hand. And inside each of the jars … maybe that was it, at last, the things implied by the huge question mark outside.
‘Heck,’ muttered Bo. ‘There’s nothing here. What a gyp. So long, you guys.’
And Bo turned, pushed the tent flap aside, and left.
‘Wait,’ said Douglas, but Bo was already gone. ‘Tom, Charlie, Will, you won’t leave, will you? You’ll miss out if you go.’
‘But there’s nothing here, just some old jars.’
‘Wait,’ said Doug. ‘It’s more than just jars. What’s in the jars? C’mon. Let’s look closer.’
They edged up to the platform and crept along, staring into the jars, one after another. There were no labels to tell them what they were looking at, just glass and liquid and a soft light that seemed to pulse within the liquid and shone on their eager, sweaty faces.
‘What is that stuff in there?’ asked Tom.
‘Gosh knows. Look close.’
Their eyes moved along, darted and stayed, stayed and darted, fastened and examined until their noses dilated and their mouths gaped.
‘What’s that, Doug? And that? And that one there?’
‘How do I know? Move!’ Doug went back to the beginning of the row and crouched down in front of the first jar so his eyes were level with whatever was inside it.
The big bright glass jar held what looked like a giant cold gray oyster. Doug peered at it, mumbled something to himself, then stood up and moved on. The boys followed.
Suspended within the liquid in the next jar was something that looked like a bit of translucent seaweed or, no, more like a seahorse, a miniature seahorse, sure!
And the glass jar after that held something that resembled a skinned rabbit or a raw cat with its fur shucked, getting bigger …
The boys’ eyes moved, darted, stayed, flicked back to examine the first, second, third, fourth jars again.
‘What’s in this one, Doug?’
Five, six, seven.
‘Look!’
They all looked and it might have been another animal, a squirrel or a monkey – sure, a monkey – but with transparent skin and a strange sorrowful expression.
Eight, nine, ten, eleven – the jars were numbered but had no names. There was nothing to hint at what the boys were looking at, what it was that froze their veins and iced their blood. Until at last, at the far end of the row, near the exit sign, they reached the last jar and all leaned toward it and blinked.
‘That can’t be!’
‘Naw.’
‘It is,’ gasped Douglas. ‘A baby!’
‘What’s it doing in there?’
‘Being dead, dummy.’
‘Yeah, but … how …?’
All their eyes swiveled to rush back – eleven, ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five and four and three and two and one – to the first jar, the one holding the pale little oyster curlicue.
‘If that’s a baby …’
‘Then,’ said Will, all numbness, ‘what in blazes are all those creepy things in the other jars?’
Douglas counted backward, then forward again, but stayed silent, his icy flesh all goose bumps.
‘I got nothing to say.’
‘Upchuck, Doug, upchuck.’
‘Those things in the jars …’ Doug began, face pale, voice paler. ‘They’re – they’re babies, too!’
It was as if half a dozen sledgehammers had slammed into half a dozen stomachs.
‘Don’t look like babies!’
‘Things from another world, maybe.’
Another world, thought Douglas. In those jars, drowned. Another world.
‘Jellyfish,’ Charlie said. ‘Squids. You know.’
I know, thought Douglas. Undersea.
‘It’s got blue eyes,’ Will whispered. ‘It’s looking at us.’
‘No, it’s not,’ said Doug. ‘It’s drowned.’
‘C’mon, Doug,’ Tom whispered. ‘I got the willies.’
‘Willies, heck,’ Charlie said. ‘I got the heebie–jeebies. Where’d all this stuff come from?’
‘I don’t know,’ Douglas said, chafing his elbows.
‘The wax museum last year. That was sort of like this.’
‘These aren’t wax,’ said Tom. ‘Oh, gosh, Doug, that’s a real baby there, used to be alive. I never seen a dead baby before. I’m gonna be sick.’
‘Run outside. Go on!’
Tom turned and ran. In a moment, Charlie backed off and followed, his eyes darting from the baby to the jellyfish or whatever it was and then to the seahorse or what might be someone’s earlobes, tympanum and all.
‘How come there’s no one here to tell us what all this stuff is?’ Will wondered.
‘Maybe,
’ said Doug slowly, ‘maybe they’re afraid to tell, or can’t tell, or won’t.’
‘Lord,’ said Will. ‘I’m froze.’
From outside the tent’s canvas walls came the sounds of Tom being sick.
‘Hey!’ Will cried suddenly. ‘It moved!’
Doug reached his hand out to the glass. ‘No, it didn’t.’
‘It moved, darn it. It doesn’t like us staring at it! Moved, I’m telling you! That’s enough for me. So long, Doug.’
And Doug was left alone in the dark tent with the cold glass jars holding the blind things that stared out with eyes that seemed to say how awful it was to be dead.
There’s nobody to ask, thought Douglas, no one here. No one to ask and no one to tell. How do we find out? Will we ever know?
From the far end of the tent museum came the sound of high–pitched laughter. Six girls ran into the tent, giggling, letting in a bright wedge of sunlight.
Once the tent flap closed they stopped laughing, enveloped suddenly in darkness.
Doug turned blindly and walked out into the light.
He took a deep breath of the hot summer–like air, and squeezed his eyes shut. He could still see the platforms and the tables and the glass jars filled with thick fluid, and in the fluid, suspended, strange bits of tissue, alien forms from far unknown territories. What could be a swamp water creature with half an eye and half a limb, he knew, was not. What could be a fragment of ghost, of a spiritual upchuck come out of a fogbound book in a night library, was not. What could be the stillborn discharge of a favorite dog was not. In his mind’s eye the things in the jars seemed to melt, from fluid to fluid, light to light. If you flicked your eyes from jar to jar, you could almost snap them to life, as if you were running bits of film over your eyeballs so that the tiny things became large and then larger, shaping themselves into fingers, hands, palms, wrists, elbows, until finally, asleep, the last shape opened wide its dull, blue, lashless eyes and fixed you with its gaze that cried, Look! See! I am trapped here forever! What am I? What is the question, what, what? Could it be, you there, below, outside looking in, could it be that I am … you?