Haunted Shipwreck (4 page)

Ahead, he spotted the soft glow of a streetlight. He was almost out of the woods.

The moment his heart leapt, the ground collapsed.

And he was falling. Down a deep hole, dirt and leaves caving around him. He landed on his feet, but his legs gave out and his body sprawled.

“Kill ‘em, spill thar insides, blow boys blow!”

Jack pushed himself up and knelt, catching his breath. The large hole looked like a cavern. The floor was ankle-deep mud.

A circle of lanterns ignited, lining the lip of the hole. Jack slowly stood, his legs sopping, as he stared at the walls. They were not rock or dirt as they should have been, but rather faded wood grain with rusted portholes. On the right side, a giant anchor protruded from the mud; water and seaweed dripped from the stock while the frayed rope slithered into a broken window.

Jack approached the anchor, his shoes squelching, the mud feeling like quicksand. No, his eyes had failed him. Blood dripped down the red-orange shank, not water. And the seaweed - intestines, translucent and veiny.

Jack vomited.
I have to get the hell out of here! Climb up the side! Something!

“Begad!”

Jack wiped his mouth and rubbed his eyes. His jaw hung, driveling, too stunned to shut. A tall, crimson specter, cellophane transparent, towered over him. It was a bearded man - a pirate! - in tattered button-down garb and a skullcap. Both eyes were covered with skull patches.

His voice was a gurgling rasp, his pockmarked cheeks trembling with every spoken syllable. “Yo-ho-ho! I say, a lad fancied me shanty!”

Jack’s feet were cemented, feeling even more so due to the mud. He sputtered, knees wobbling. “Please. I’ve got to…go. I’m late. Late.”

The pirate approached and stopped a few feet away. His stench slammed into Jack. Seared tuna. The ghost jabbed a mangled finger. “No quarter! I?ll have yer lights and liver!”

Jack had no idea what that meant and was afraid to find out. He wrenched his right leg from the mud.

The pirate seized Jack’s throat, his spectral hand quite tangible, and raised him like an anchor. His clutch was defiant and dug into Jack’s vocal chords. “Me hearties will have ye dancin’ with Jack Ketch! Now gangway!”

Jack was thrown aside. He landed on his back, sinking, squelching. He gazed at the portholes. Bloody, screaming faces were pressed against the cobwebbed glass.

Jack groaned and sat up. He thought of Blue, knowing that his friend would soon be wondering where he was at. He doubted he could tell him. That is, if he escaped with his life.

The pirate advanced. His eye patches slapped up against his forehead. Within his sockets, octopus suckers opened and closed, slurped and sucked. His tarnished buttons popped off and his coat flapped back. Beneath the garb he was bones, blood red and glowing. His rib cage was a membranous tank, bustling with monkfish.

“There?s a black spot from the Gold Road to Passing Bell, a scourge of the seven seas! Me bellows! The Bloody Cutlass keelhauls every lubber on the fore ‘til I reclaim it!”

Jack managed to stand, and then backpedaled, but the mud had him stumbling against the portside.

Something sloshed his ankles. He looked down and saw that water gushed from all sides of the hole. It was chest-deep in seconds.

The pirate cackled. The portholes shattered, unleashing screams.

Jack’s head swam.
What the heck? This can’t be happening. I’m in the middle of the forest!

He did a scissors kick and paddled for the lip. He heard a wave crash behind him.

It was then he realized that he was treading dirt. He lay on the dark path, squinting at the intersecting swath of the distant streetlight. The water had vanished, as had the hole and
Pirates of the Caribbean
ride. The lanterns were nothing more than the moonlit trees.

Jack stood and ran for his life. Huffing and puffing, he eked in a sigh when he reached the lamp on Rivulet Road.

Jesus! What the heck was that?

He checked his clothes, certain he was soaked to the bone, but rather he was bone-dry. Now he was convinced. The woods were haunted. And the urban legends were self-help stories.

No more shortcuts. No more.

*****

“Ow!”

Jack clutched his arm. Bobby rounded a bush, chuckling, rifle in hand.

“Lay chilly or you’re Kool-Aid, soldier.”

“Blue, goddamn it. C’mon, let’s get this over with.”

“Get it over with? You take your daily-daily? This is Operation: Skeleton Man. So man up!”

Jack bit his lip. “Fine. But we’re not taking the shortcut.”

“What? This’ll be a skate, and you’re gonna make it a tour? I’m about to call in the turtles.”

“Call in the Ninja Turtles, I don’t care. I’m not taking the shortcut.”

Bobby stepped into the faint light cast by Teddy Shay’s house. He was clad in black and blue camouflage. A green steel pot shadowed his eyes. He slung the rifle over his shoulder. “What has you spooked?”

“Nothing. Just more craziness in the woods.”

“Again? Meaning what?”

“Meaning those stories are true. You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

“I almost believed you last time. Almost. You’re just overstressed. You know how you get about those antiques, and that warden you call Mom. Tomorrow we sting those woods. C’mon now, let’s move out.”

“Down Bodkin. I’m not taking that shortcut.”

“I know, I know. You’re dinky dau, Jericho, but we’ll hump the redball.”

“I’m not humping anything.”

CHAPTER 4

Whispers drifted through Teddy Shay’s room, stirring him from a restless slumber. He sat up and reached beneath his pillow. He then unwrapped a
Whatchamacallit
bar and sidled out of bed. He smiled at the thought of the Tooth Fairy finding milk chocolate instead of a molar.

He leaned forward and peered between the curtains. Jack and Bobby passed his bikeway. Judging by the rifle on Bobby’s back, they were determined to scope out Skelt.

“Crathy bathtardth.”

A scraping startled him, like a trowel being dragged across the hardwood floor. He turned. The candy bar slipped through his fingers. He backed against the windowpane.

The boneshaker blocked the doorway. Teddy had never seen a bike quite like it, and could not figure out how it got into the house. A blue-green bar of electricity traveled the frame, sparking, an EKG line searching for a heartbeat. The front fender wrenched upwards, shrieking as it leveled straight as a shotgun. The wheels and pedals spun in place, whizzing and crackling. The handlebars imitated the fenders, pointed at the ceiling in a vee, resembling antennae.

Teddy trembled, plastered against the sill.
What the hell?

His brainwaves ebbed and flowed, good idea, bad idea. Should he run around it and make for the door? What if he grabbed the
Hershey Kiss
lamp and threw it at the monstrosity? Or he could crawl back in bed, pull the covers over his head, and pray for dancing sugarplums.

He whirled and reached through the curtains, fumbling for the lock. He spotted Jack and Blue by the neighbor’s yard. They were still close enough. If he yelled they might hear him. Then again, his mom might come barging in first. Either way, he was hollering like a damsel in distress.

The boneshaker’s EKG flashed to reddish-orange and inched up the handlebars. Electric fire streamed between the antennae. The wire spokes surged as the wheels burned skid marks into the hardwood.

Teddy flipped the lock and clutched the window crank.

The bowl bell gonged. Teddy snatched a glance; the bedroom withered in the sound wave’s wake. A quake seized the furniture, knocking collectible candy jars to the floor. Then everything charred in a blink. His beloved
Butterfinger
bedspread blackened. The nightstand, the desk, and his bookcase ignited and collapsed to ashes. The walls yellowed, painted by the cancerous breath.

Teddy pulled the window crank. It refused to budge. In his haste, he had turned it the wrong way.

“Jack! Blue! Ma!”

Jack and Blue escaped the street lamp’s glow, disappearing into the night. Teddy opened the window.

The boneshaker’s EKG sizzled to the front fender and turned it into a blowtorch. A flaming tongue lashed out and licked Teddy’s spine like a
Dum Dum
. His cries choked in his throat, unheard, stifled in the makeshift crematorium.

*****

“So, how are we going to break the lock without waking the neighbors?”

“You’ll see, soldier. We won’t need the Big Boys for this one.”

“Says you. My mom probably has it under surveillance.”

Jack and Bobby were out of breath once they reached the top of Bodkin Bend. Jack eyed the Skelt house. The windows were dark, as they should have been.

Bobby lit his camouflage watch. “Less than ten minutes ‘til midnight. Should’ve brought the jungle boots.”

“You should’ve brought the claymores. That lock is die cast.”

Jack and Bobby crept into enemy territory. The Jericho house was dead. Jack took a deep breath. If they woke his parents, he would be grounded for months. He still could not believe he let Bobby talk him into Operation: Skeleton Man.

Bobby looked both ways, as if crossing the street. He lowered his voice to a whisper. “Coast is clear. Hump to the pos.”

“The “pos”?”

“The shed.”

Jack shook his head and then bolted with Bobby across the backyard.

The shed was nestled in a cluster of brambles. The metal roof glinted in the moonlight. They ducked under the poplar and rounded the overgrown bushes. They stopped in their tracks and gaped.

The doors were wide open, scraping against thorns. Bobby withdrew a small flashlight from his pocket and shined it. The silhouettes were many, garden tools, lawn mowers, bags of fertilizer.

But no sign of the boneshaker, which was impossible to miss.

Bobby looked to Jack, roving his searchlight. “See it anywhere?”

A chill passed over Jack. His voice quavered, shaking off the whisper. “It’s not here.”

His mind raced. Had his mom removed the bike and forgot to lock the shed? Or had the dead pirate beat him to the punch? The gurgling rasp haunted him.

A scourge of the seven seas!

Bobby switched off the light, paranoid of drawing attention. “This is fugazi.”

“Why isn’t it here, Blue?”

“Maybe she has it holed up in the barracks.”

“No way. She wouldn’t go to that much trouble.”

“I don’t know, soldier. It’s AWOL.” Bobby checked his watch. “It’s five to twenty-four hundred hours. We need to move out. The bike is a POW.”

Jack shook his head and shut the doors. He was unconvinced that his mom had moved the boneshaker. Something else was going on. Something far more devious. He yearned to tell Bobby about the pirate, but he knew it would sound ridiculous, regardless of how rooted the military was in supernatural cover-ups.

Bobby ducked and dashed through the backyard, zigzagging from imaginary crossfire. Jack was at his heels. His mind continued to grind on the boneshaker. The bell, the burnt smell, the electric vibration. The bike was surging with evil, the gears greased with Hell’s
WD-40
. But what the heck did it have to do with the dead pirate? Maybe he was losing his mind. Or he was ‘overstressed’, as Bobby so put it. His friend had a point. He had grown awfully attached to an antique that he’d possessed for less than an hour. His mom’s argument pestered him.

This addiction of yours stops here.

Jack shrugged off the nagging and bolted with Bobby beyond Skean Street. They lingered near the lone diseased elm at the edge of the Skelt property. It shivered and shed dead leaves, as if sensing Jack’s dread.

“I don’t know, Blue. Maybe this isn’t such a good idea. If my folks wake up and see us…”

“You want to sky out like an FNG? The Jerichos are on R&R. Man up, soldier. It’s time to light up the spider hole.”

Bobby ran to the front steps, envisioning the scattered detritus as landmines. Jack tailed him, hopping over fallen mullions and gutters.

“Blue! What the heck are we doing?”

“Reconnaissance, soldier. We’re not going to snipe a walking casualty from Ground Zero.”

“What are you saying?”

“We’re going behind enemy lines.”

“Inside? Are you crazy?”

Thunk!

Bobby and Jack’s heads cranked to the right. It sounded as if someone had stumbled over one of the broken gutters.

“I’m gonna kill you idiots.”

The soldiers met gazes and stepped back.

“Boo!”

A black shadow slashed the moonlight. Bobby reached back and drew his rifle. Jack jumped and half-turned, on the verge of peeling out.

“Put that piece down, Rambo.”

Charlie Harmon teased his curl with his comb, chuckling. He then stuffed it in his jacket and spit on the front steps.

“Thought you were gonna have fun without us, huh?”

Before either Jack or Bobby could reply, a pair of silhouettes skirted the house. Charlie had brought his broads along for the ride. Chelle and Lisa waved and giggled.

“Hi Jackie.”

“Hi Bobby.”

Bobby holstered his rifle. “What’s this, Chuck? I didn’t radio the A-team.”

Charlie approached Bobby and jabbed his skull-ringed finger in his chest. “I wanted to see how full of crap you were.”

“You’re going to scare him off.”

“What? Scare off a ghost? You kiddin’ me?”

Jack stepped between the boys, nudging them back. “Let’s go inside already. That’s what we’re all here for, right?”

Chelle shifted and toyed with the hem of her skirt. “We’re going inside? This is silly. Bobby, you can’t be serious.”

Lisa tugged Jack’s Duster. “Jackie? Will you hold my hand?”

Jack rolled his eyes and stuffed his fists in his pockets.

Bobby secured his helmet, lit his watch. “Let’s move. We have two ‘til midnight.”

Charlie shook his head, hair stiff as a corpse in the bitter breeze. “Get outta here. You think cause we’re late, Skelt won’t be roamin’ the house? He lives here, moron.”