Hangman's Curse Read online

  “Have you heard me say one thing about religion?”

  He got silence for an answer. He started paging through the chapter. “The chart showing the embryos looking similar during development—page forty-seven—is a fraud. The Miller experiment on page fifty proved nothing, and every honest scientist will admit that. As for four-legged mammals evolving into whales . . .” They waited for his answer. “That’s pure fantasy, pure imagination. There isn’t one shred of scientific evidence that it ever happened, nor is there any proof that birds evolved from dinosaurs. As for the statement on page forty-five, ‘The first living cells emerged 3.8 billion to 4 billion years ago,’ just look at what it says next: ‘There is no record of the event.’” He almost laughed again. “They say there is no record of the event, so . . . come on . . . ,” he prodded.

  “So how do they know it happened 3.8 to 4 billion years ago?” Elisha offered.

  “Exactly. They don’t know.” He stood to his feet and started walking around the class, the textbook in his hand. “Ladies and gentlemen, I want to impress upon you that evolution is a theory with many unanswered questions—and a lot of wishful thinking, I might add. I’m not here to erase or debunk the theory, or even come near preaching religion, but I’m not going to lie to you, either. I’ll tell you what we know for sure, and those of you who want an A in this class will have to show me that you’ve checked it out for yourself. Now for your next assignment . . .”

  Elisha relaxed in her desk, warmed with encouragement. Where did this school ever find a teacher like Mr. Harrigan?

  Leonard Baynes was a junior, a poor student, not good-looking, and generally unhappy. His life at home was miserable, he found it hard to fit in anywhere at school, he was not athletic, and he excelled at very little except for one thing: being tough. Of course, he could only be tough by pushing around smaller, weaker students who didn’t have the strength to fight back, but so what? At least he could be better than somebody at something.

  Slapping Ian Snyder around had become a regular pastime, and Leonard could even justify it by reminding himself that Ian Snyder was weird. Weird people deserved to be slapped around. They asked for it. There were plenty of other guys who slapped them around. It was an okay thing to do.

  But things took a bad turn yesterday at lunchtime, and word had gotten to the guys in wood shop. While he worked at his station, sanding the side panel of a cabinet, he could hear and see the same cruel tidbit being passed from classmate to classmate, from the drill press to the drafting table to the power planer: Baynes got whipped by a math geek. They were all snickering and looking at him.

  Then came the little jabs from the boys who were tougher than he was: “Heard you got decked by a geek, Baynes.” “How’s your arm, Baynes? Did that little squirt break it?”

  He said nothing back. What could he say? He couldn’t slug them because they could slug him back. All he could do was try to concentrate on his work and mutter cusswords to himself.

  They started talking about Ian Snyder.

  “Hey,” one of them said, “maybe that geek is the ghost!” They all laughed.

  “Hey, I know,” said another. “Snyder put a spell on him.”

  “Yeah,” said a third, “turned him into a girl.”

  They had a good laugh at that one, too.

  Leonard could feel his face heating up, turning red with a double anger: anger because they were laughing at him, but on top of that, anger because he couldn’t do anything about it.

  He heard one of the guys say, “Don’t laugh. You don’t know what that Snyder can do.” He was serious.

  Leonard’s hands started to shake. He could feel a twisting pain deep in his guts. Something else was flaring up inside him.

  He felt afraid.

  Afraid of what? The ghost? A spell? He started having flashbacks of that moment in the lunchroom, a slow-motion replay. He didn’t remember the face of the geek very well, but the sinister face of Ian Snyder he couldn’t get out of his mind: that weird black hair, that grayish complexion, and those eyes! The whole time Leonard was slapping Snyder around, those eyes showed no anger or fear—only a dangerous, sinister control. Snyder was muttering something. What was it, a curse?

  Leonard tried to shake off the fear, but it kept coming back. He tried to keep sanding his project, but his hands were getting weak and unsteady.

  Some guy at the drafting table was talking in hushed tones with his buddies, talking about him, talking about Snyder, the geek, and then Leonard heard the name “. . . Abel Frye . . .”

  He froze right there, his whole body shaking, glaring at his mockers, wanting to throw something, wanting to grab them, wanting to run. Don’t say that name! What do you want to do, bring the ghost in here?

  They must have seen the fear in his eyes. Some looked afraid themselves, but some mocked him all the more. “What’s the matter, Baynes? Afraid of ghosts?”

  All he could do was curse them at the top of his voice.

  They sent his cursings right back, getting a big kick out of the whole thing.

  They must have seen the fear in his eyes. Some looked afraid themselves, but some mocked him all the more. “What’s the matter, Baynes? Afraid of ghosts?”

  Mr. Tyler, the wood shop instructor, heard it. “Hey, is there a problem over there?”

  The mockers turned back to their work. Leonard tried to do the same but couldn’t.

  “Baynes?” Mr. Tyler called sternly. His voice sounded far away to Leonard, not really in Leonard’s world. “Baynes! I’m talking to you!”

  Leonard looked around frantically, especially toward the ceiling. Something was coming into the room. He could feel it. It was coming in like smoke through all the cracks. It was coming for him. He dropped his sanding block, backing away.

  Was this the ghost of Abel Frye? Is this what happened to the others? The guys had spoken the name. They’d called this thing in here. They were saying things about him, letting the ghost know who he was, where he was.

  Mr. Tyler was lecturing him, but his stern, corrective words only flitted around the room like bats, never landing. The thing, the ghost, was filling the room. Leonard couldn’t breathe. He could feel pins sticking him all over his body.

  Then, like an image projected on a sheet of smoke, a face appeared. A dead thing. Gray, with black, sunken eyes. A hawk on the shoulder. Just like the painting.

  He bolted, ran for the door, dodging around a worktable, slipping on some sawdust, almost falling, running into someone, running some more.

  “Baynes!” he heard Mr. Tyler holler.

  He was out the door, out of his mind.

  5

  the forbidden

  hallway

  It all started with the Ten Commandments. Mr. Carlson, Elijah’s humanities teacher, was commenting on a recent court decision that required a small town in Indiana to remove the Ten Commandments from the lawn in front of its courthouse.

  “What makes this a good decision is that it once again upholds the whole idea of tolerance and multiculturalism in our society,” he was saying. “Posting the Ten Commandments on any public building is nothing more than the state imposing religious dogma on the people, asserting that one religious viewpoint is superior to all others. And even if we didn’t consider the religious part of it, it would still mean the state was imposing a certain morality, and that would be wrong as well. Truth should be left up to the individual. Right and wrong should be left up to the individual.”

  Elijah raised his hand. He just couldn’t help it.

  Mr. Carlson cringed a cringe the whole class could see. “Yes, Mr. Springfield, what is it this time?”

  “You’re saying that it’s wrong to impose morality on people?”

  He sighed. “Yes. I hope I’ve made that clear.”

  “Then how can you say it’s wrong to impose morality? You can’t say something is wrong if it’s wrong to say something is wrong.”

  The class snickered, something Mr. Carlson detested.
<
br />   “Mr. Springfield, does it ever occur to you Bible advocates that the posting of the Ten Commandments might make others uncomfortable?”

  “Are you saying there’s something wrong with that?”

  Mr. Carlson laughed, the hint of a sneer on his face. “Oh, no! You’re not going to suck me into a morality debate. I said right and wrong should be left up to the individual and I’ll stand on that.”

  “Well, I don’t think you believe what you’re saying.”

  “Well, of course I do, and so should you.” He looked at the rest of the class. “Now, as far as the court ruling applies—”

  “Uh, excuse me?”

  Mr. Carlson only simmered and nodded to him.

  “Mr. Carlson, you keep using the word should. Truth, and right and wrong, should be left up to the individual; I should believe what you’re saying. I should. Doesn’t that mean you’re imposing your morals on me, your sense of what I should and should not do?”

  “I’m telling you what’s right. That’s my job, my duty!”

  “So what if I don’t see it your way? Am I wrong?”

  “In this case, of course you are.”

  “Then you don’t believe right and wrong should be left up to the individual.”

  “Oh, yes I do! I believe all viewpoints are equally valid.”

  “With all due respect, sir, no, you don’t.”

  Mr. Carlson sat on the edge of his desk, a smug expression coming over his face. “Mr. Springfield. How can you say I believe something other than what I say I believe?”

  “Because if you really believed that all viewpoints are equally valid, you wouldn’t be arguing with me.”

  “I’m not arguing with you.”

  “Yes, you are.”

  “No, I’m not!”

  “Yes, you are.”

  “No, I’m—!” The whole class was laughing by now, so Mr. Carlson ended that little exchange and shifted gears. “Class, be mindful now, that Mr. Springfield is a Christian. Now, I’m not knocking that. That’s his right, his privilege. But we have to be careful: Anytime a person argues from strong, personal convictions, you have to question the way he sees things.”

  A voice came from the back. “Then we should question you.”

  “But I’m not speaking from personal convictions.”

  “Then Springfield’s right. You don’t really believe what you’re saying.”

  Mr. Carlson only smirked.

  “That’s my whole point,” said Elijah. “You don’t believe what you’re telling us.”

  “So why should we listen to you?” came the voice in the back.

  “Oh, but you’re wrong,” said Mr. Carlson. “I do believe it!”

  “Then you’re speaking from conviction,” said Elijah.

  “No, I’m not!”

  “And you’re telling us we’re wrong!” said the voice. “I thought that was up to us to decide.”

  “I’m not—” The class was laughing again. Mr. Carlson’s face was getting red. He started over. “Listen. I’m simply saying that it’s wrong to think one person’s viewpoint is morally superior to any other person’s viewpoint.”

  The voice piped up, “See? You’re saying something is wrong.”

  Now Mr. Carlson was angry and didn’t try to hide it. “Of course I am! Absolutely!”

  Elijah had to laugh. “So now you believe in absolutes.”

  “I do not!”

  “But you do think your viewpoint is superior to ours?” came the voice.

  Mr. Carlson held out his hand, palm outward. “Ohhh, no. You’re not going to get me making value judgments. I’m not falling for that!”

  “So I guess you won’t be grading our papers either,” said Elijah, and the whole classroom broke into cheers and applause.

  Mr. Carlson didn’t think that was funny. He rose to his feet, his expression grim, and said, “Well, there is one absolute I believe in right now, Mr. Springfield, and that is that you are absolutely going to be here after school today and make up for every minute you have taken from our class time with this silly debate!”

  Elijah wasn’t surprised. He’d asked for it.

  Then Mr. Carlson said, “And you, too, Snyder! Be here, right after school!”

  Elijah spun in his desk and looked.

  Yes. It was Ian Snyder, the voice from the back of the room, slouching in his seat defiantly but giving Elijah the secretive smile of a comrade.

  Sarah Springfield winced just a little when she got the phone call from Elijah. “So did he say how long he was going to keep you?”

  “I don’t know.”

  She drew a patient breath and sighed it out. “I do hope you were respectful.”

  “Yes, ma’am, I was. But . . . it was a debate, and we, uh, we were both pretty firm in our positions.”

  “Oh, dear.”

  “But guess what? Ian Snyder got into it, too, and he was on my side! So now he has to stay after school with me. Isn’t that just like something the Lord would do?”

  She stifled a laugh as she shook her head. “God does work in wondrous ways. Well, listen to me: You follow Mr. Carlson’s wishes, do you hear? He’s still in authority.”

  “I will. Gotta go.”

  “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.