Hangman's Curse Read online

  “Gessner!” Carrillo hollered. “Where are you going?”

  “I’ve got to find Mr. Harrigan!”

  As firefighters moved into the school to clear everyone out, Nate, Elijah, and Max came running around the school to the front.

  “Sarah!” Nate hollered.

  “Right here!” Sarah ran toward them, and they met beside a big red hook-and-ladder truck. “Nate, she isn’t out here. No one’s seen her. She won’t answer my radio calls!”

  “Then she’s still down there. Algernon!”

  Algernon hurried over and started talking without needing a question. “She has a chance, a very good chance. She’s wearing a protective suit, correct?”

  “Yes. Toxic hazard.”

  “Fine. Excellent. And as far as we know, she hasn’t come in contact with any female pheromone.” He noticed Max standing beside Elijah. “Yes, yes! Officer! Sir!” The police captain, a very busy guy with radios, weapons, and police gear hanging all over him, hurried over. “Captain, may I introduce the Springfields? This is Nate. Nate, this is—”

  “What do you need?” the captain tried to ask politely.

  “Just tell him!” said Nate.

  “Oh, sorry, sorry,” said Algernon. “Captain, take this dog and have it sniff every student and teacher for any trace of pheromone. Anyone with pheromone on them, set them apart. Quarantine them and then check them for spiders.”

  “Elijah,” said Nate, “go with Max and get him oriented, then come back and get into your hazard suit.”

  Elijah and Max went with the captain as he shouted orders to his men, waving his arms, directing traffic, putting the plan into action.

  “And bring me any intact specimens!” Algernon called after them.

  “Elisha!” Sarah reminded Algernon.

  “I’m thinking!” He let his mental gears grind a moment. “If she’s unconscious, that could be to her advantage because she won’t move and disturb the spiders. If she’s conscious and frightened, well . . .”

  “Well what?”

  He shook his head in frustration. “We absolutely must find her! But we’ll have to wade through spiders to do it. That’s the hard part.”

  “Unless we can reach her through the witches’ passage,” said Nate. “And Elijah may be the only one small enough to fit through there.”

  Elisha figured she could either lie there the rest of her life— which might not be long—or try to do something about her situation. If she moved slowly enough, perhaps the spiders wouldn’t mind. She drew a long breath, gradually so as not to inhale any spiders happening by her mouth, and then did a slow sit-up. The spiders crackled and rustled over the surface of her protective suit, but didn’t seem any more upset.

  Now the rest of the room came within the beam of her headlamp. The ceiling was high, the floor and walls concrete. This had to have been the original furnace room for the old building. The furnace was gone, but the massive heat ducts were still in place, looking like a giant octopus—or spider—inverted against the ceiling. Looking straight up, she could see the opening she’d fallen through, most likely an opening for a cold-air duct that wasn’t there anymore. Somebody had patched it shut with a flimsy sheet of plywood that now hung loose by two bent nails. Far across the room, and high above the floor, was a metal door. The stairway that once led up to it was gone.

  Across the room, against the wall and beneath the leggy furnace ducts, was an old workbench, the yellow paint peeling, the drawer knobs brown with rust. Atop the bench, in neat rows, were clear glass jars and cages of fine mesh. She’d seen jars and cages like these before—in the bio-chem supply room. They were used to hold smaller reptiles and insect specimens.

  Norman Bloom used them all the time.

  Looking straight up, she could see the opening she’d fallen through.

  “Norman?” she called softly. There was no answer. She called a little louder, “Norman, I know you’re down here—”

  Above her, the metal door opened with a shrill creak, and a faint, orange light streamed into the room. The spiders immediately flinched, began to scurry for cover. “Right here,” came a voice.

  “Norman.” She tried to speak quietly, without moving. “Are you all right?”

  He didn’t sound all right. “No, I wouldn’t say so.”

  “Norman. Please listen. You have to think this through now. If you can turn this around, you need to do it. A lot of innocent people are going to get hurt if you don’t.”

  “I can’t, Elisha. It’s too late.”

  “Norman—”

  “Don’t move, Elisha! If the spiders get upset they’ll bite you.”

  With the addition of more light, Elisha could see that the jars and cages were crawling with spiders. In one cage, spiders were crawling over, under, and around several dollar bills. Her heart sank. “I take it those are females?”

  “That’s right. Squirting pheromone all over those dollar bills, trying to attract males—which they’ve done.”

  “Norman.” She swallowed, fear and sorrow tightening her throat. “I’m sure you didn’t intend to kill anybody. You’re better than that.”

  After a difficult, silent moment, he answered, “I’m the one who brought in the spiders, Elisha. The African spotted wolves. I didn’t think there would be any brown recluses around here. They’re only supposed to live in the southern and central United States. Looks like I was wrong.”

  “Brown recluses?”

  “It’s a poisonous spider that can mate with an African spotted wolf, if it gets the chance. And it looks like it did. I took all kinds of precautions: separate males and females, sealed cages, repellents. The wolves were doing great, doing just what I wanted them to do. But now . . . looks like the two species have mated with each other—just like they did aboard the Abel Frye.”

  “The Abel Frye?”

  “A merchant ship carrying cargo out of Kenya. I found out about it on the Internet. It was overrun with spiders and the crew all killed each other. The navy had to sink it. It was such a great story I named the ghost after that ship.”

  “You named the ghost?”

  He nodded. “It was perfect. I gave the school legend a new name, and bam!—I had my very own ghost of death and destruction. I got people believing, didn’t I? Everybody thought the ghost was making people crazy. Even poor Ian.” He peered down through the opening at the crawling sea of spiders. “But I wasn’t planning on this.” He watched for a moment, marveling. “Then again, maybe I wanted it to happen. It would have been easy. All I had to do was find a brown recluse. Just one. I could have slipped it into a cage of females and bam!—this whole school would have gone down just like the ship, gone down with everybody on it.”

  “The wolves were doing great, doing just what I wanted them to do.”

  “But you didn’t want this to happen!”

  “It happened, Elisha. That’s all that matters now. I made a mistake somewhere. A female got out. I probably put her in one of the soda straws—the males and females look alike at that age.”

  Elisha had to remind herself not to move, not to react as she felt the horror creeping through her. “But . . . you put Tricanol in the sugar plugs, right? That had to be a controlling device.”

  “It was supposed to be. It’s a slow-acting insecticide they put in wood preservatives and paints. Once the spider eats it, he lives a day or so, just long enough to bite somebody, but not bite everybody.”

  “So . . . that’s what I mean. You never wanted to kill anybody.”

  “A lot of good that does me now. You can see what happened. The hybrids are everywhere. They’ve chewed their way into my cages, they’ve bred with my African wolves, they’re breeding with each other. I imagine there are even more brown recluses getting into the act by now. I was hoping I could sneak the cages out of here before you found them, but now, here you are, and here the spiders are, all over you, all over everything. It’s out of my hands. I have to go, Elisha.”

  Elisha had t
o remind herself not to move, not to react as she felt the horror creeping through her.

  “Norman! Please, you don’t have to leave things this way! Norman!”

  His voice trembled. “I’m sorry, Elisha. I really did like you.”

  More emergency vehicles rolled up in front of the school, lights flashing, sirens wailing. Paramedics, doctors, and nurses hopped out, unloading their medical kits. Algernon directed them to the quarantine area the police had set up. “Look for symptoms! Screaming, scratching, clawing, irrational fear of everything!”

  They hesitated. From where they stood, screaming, scratching, clawing, and irrational fear seemed to be universal. The school was surrounded by pure bedlam, and now the police were burdened with keeping the local neighbors, as well as distraught parents, out of the area.

  Then Officer Carrillo strode up. “Well? You heard the man! Let’s move! You two, over there, and you—yeah, you—follow me! You got any blankets in that truck?”

  As Carrillo took control of things—“And somebody bring a stretcher! We’ve got a nutty gym teacher around the back!”— Algernon hopped into one of the aid cars, got on the radio, and called the hospital. “Poison control, stat. Yes, hello ma’am. Well, I’m fine, thank you, and how about yourself? Listen, we have a case of spider bite here and we’ll need some antitoxin. Do you have any AT490? Baylor-Schrift came out with a great product this year . . .”

  Ms. Wyrthen and several teachers kept working through the clusters of distraught students, helping, soliciting help, inspecting, separating. “Okay, you’re clean, step over there.” “Stretch that rope between the trees, that’s it. Now all of you, stay on that side of the rope!” “Don’t worry, dear. You’re going to be fine.” “Yes, your folks are right over there, see? Wave so they can see you.”

  Nate pulled a protective suit from a storage hold of the Holy Roller and began putting it on, attaching another headset radio to his belt.

  Sarah and two firefighters in smoke gear went over the building plans. Sarah showed the firefighters the old foundation lines and the location of the witches’ passage under the building. “You may have to break some concrete, but if you can get under there, there might be a connection somewhere between that room and the old furnace room.”

  “Let’s do it,” said a burly firefighter, grabbing a sledgehammer from the fire truck.

  “Ready, gentlemen?” said Nate. They joined him on the run, and Sarah followed. “Elijah!” Nate called over his shoulder, “Get your suit on and meet us in back!”

  “Got it!” Elijah responded, handing Max’s leash over to Officer Carrillo.

  Algernon saw them going. “Wait! You can’t just go in there!” They didn’t hear him. He asked the lady on the radio, “Listen, we need a big-time, industrial-strength exterminator out at the Baker High School right away.” He winced at whatever she told him, then called out to no one in particular, “Does anyone have a copy of the Yellow Pages? Anyone at all?” He asked a fireman running by, “Would you happen to have a can of Raid?”

  “Norman. Please. You can’t leave me here.”

  Norman lingered in the doorway like a frightened deer, ready to bolt at any moment. “Elisha, you know everything. I can’t help you and survive. I have to get away.”

  “No, Norman. You have to stay here and face it and tell everyone why. I think they’ll understand.”

  “Oh, don’t insult my intelligence!”

  “Just tell them—”

  “They don’t care, Elisha! It’s not a big deal, don’t you know that? Drugs are a big deal, guns are a big deal, but not this! I’m a wimp, Elisha, and out there, it’s survival of the fittest, natural selection, only the strong survive. Well, okay, I found a way to survive. I found one way to be able to come to school and get an education without being beat up, laughed at, pushed around, and stolen from. If all those parents and teachers out there don’t like it, well, they only have themselves to blame—but I know they’re going to blame me. This whole thing’s going to be my fault, not theirs! Anyway, good-bye.”

  “Norman! Please! You’ll only make things worse for yourself!”

  “Remember not to move, Elisha. If you move, they’ll bite you.”

  Norman disappeared from the doorway. The door swung closed with another shrill creak and a metallic thud, leaving Elisha in the dark except for her headlamp.

  She reached carefully, ever so slowly—the spiders scurried over her hand, all over the radio—and plugged her headset cord back into the radio on her belt. By God’s grace, the headset was still situated on her head. “Mom . . . ,” she said weakly, afraid even to move her lips.

  Sarah, running alongside Nate and two firefighters, grabbed her radio. “Elisha!” She shouted to the others, “I’ve got her!” then said into the radio, “Where are you?”

  Elisha sat still, watching the spiders crawl across her face shield as she answered, “Under the building, the old furnace room. Norman had a lab down here. He was raising spiders—and they’re loose.”

  “Are you all right?”

  Her eyes moved from side to side, watching the spider traffic as she said, “So far.”

  “Is Norman down there?”

  “No. He came to say good-bye, but he left me here. He looked in through a doorway in the wall a story above me, but there aren’t any stairs. I can’t reach it without a ladder.”

  “Elisha, we’re coming to get you out.”

  “There has to be another way in and out of here, something Norman knows about. I can’t see it from here.”

  “We’ll find it. But be careful to stay away from the spiders! They’re deadly poisonous! Do you copy?”

  There may have been one clinging to her microphone as she spoke into it. “Yes, Mom. I copy.”

  Sarah stayed on the radio. “Elijah? Are you there?”

  Elijah was pulling on a protective suit from the Holy Roller. He’d already grabbed another radio and had the headset in place. “Yes, Mom. I heard what she said.”

  “Tell the police. We have to find Norman.”

  Officer Carrillo was running by. Elijah called him, “Officer Carrillo!”

  The moment Carrillo got the word from Elijah, he handed Max to another officer and went on the prowl, chattering into his radio as he began circling the building. “Be on the lookout: Suspect is thin, with glasses, probably has pimples, isn’t armed but is probably dangerous . . .”

  He passed Mr. Harrigan coming the other way. Harrigan asked Elijah, “What’s this about Norman?”

  “Elisha saw him. He stuck his head in the door of the old furnace room and told her good-bye, and then he left her there. We have to find him. If he could just leave Elisha down there, then he must know a way out—which would be a way in.”

  “He’ll know more than that,” said Harrigan, looking around thoughtfully. “Let me try a hunch.”

  And with that, he ran toward the school.

  No one noticed. All around Elijah were running, shouting, noise, fear, commotion. Medics were running every which way, cops were herding hysterical kids, Max was sniffing everybody brought close to him. Ms. Wyrthen was right in the thick of it, using the bullhorn to maintain order, dashing about like a border collie as she separated kids who were clean from kids who needed to be quarantined.

  It looked like the quarantine area might work. The students were lining up so Max could sniff them. Any student tainted with pheromone was getting set apart and checked over. The doctors and nurses were finding spiders, but now they had several cans of Raid from the local hardware store, and they were using it.

  Oh, brother! Here came a team of medics carrying Mr. Marquardt on a stretcher, heading toward an ambulance. He was squirming and struggling the whole way, hollering like a wildcat and trying to bite anyone within reach. Elijah couldn’t help staring as he zipped up the front of his suit and cinched up the gloves.

  Then a voice behind him said, “Cool.”

  It was Ian Snyder.

  “Ian!” Elijah whispe
red, knowing Ian was still a fugitive.

  Ian must have known it, too. His hair was cut, all his facial jewelry was gone, he was wearing a drooping hat, and—most stunning of all—he was dressed in designer jeans and a Chicago Bulls tee shirt. “So old Marquardt finally got cut down to size. You gotta love it.”

  Elijah looked under the hat to catch Ian’s eyes directly. “Ian. It was spiders. Norman Bloom was planting poisonous spiders in people’s lockers and bags and coats. I don’t know how he knew which kids you were cursing, but—”

  “He was one of us.”

  Elijah did a double take. “Excuse me?”

  “Don’t you get it? He’s—he was—a witch. We had the same enemies. He was with us when we cursed those people.”

  Elijah was incredulous. “Norman?”

  Ian shrugged. “Why not?”

  Elijah considered that and had to nod in agreement.

  “But yeah, I see it,” said Ian. “We put a curse on people, and then Norman sneaked off and planted the spiders.” He wagged his head in wonder. “So there never was a ghost.”

  “No. People were hallucinating. The poison does that.”

  Ian chuckled at himself, obviously feeling foolish. “Norman was with us at the séance when Abel Frye told us his name. He must have made the Ouija board spell it. And he probably made the Ouija board tell us what Abel Frye looked like, too.”

  “Ian. Please don’t hate him. You have enough problems without adding that.”

  Ian wagged his head resignedly. “I don’t hate him. I envy him, maybe. The guy’s clever. He had all of us going. But I guess that doesn’t matter much anymore.”

  “Well listen . . .” Elijah tucked his protective hood under his arm. “Elisha’s trapped under the school and we have to get her out.”

  Ian went pale. “You gotta be kidding.”

  Elijah came clean. “Ian, I have a confession to make.”

  “You’re a team of investigators.”

  Elijah stopped and looked at him. “I guess it’s kind of obvious by now, isn’t it?”

  Ian gave a playful smirk. “Oh, no. A lot of high school kids have drug-sniffing dogs, motor homes, bug-proof suits, and dads who aren’t really janitors.”