Jokers Club (10 page)

“Well, we better hurry.”

“Yeah.”

Woody aimed the flashlight beam to guide Geoffrey who began climbing the metal mound. He proceeded cautiously as if he was uncertain about the foothold for each step he took. Woody had visions of him planting his foot on a sharp metal shard and having it come right up through the top of his sneaker, or of losing his balance and falling backwards and impaling himself on a jutting pointed spike that rips through his back and out his chest.

The higher Geoff got, the easier the going seemed, and he moved quicker. He was almost within reach of the refrigerator. With his next step there was a sudden screech of metal as his right foot sank into the pile.

“Geoff?” Woody called from below, this time in a lower voice than earlier.

“I’m okay.” He pulled on his leg. “I’m stuck, though.” He looked back, but Woody only looked up at him helplessly. Geoff was close to the refrigerator. He leaned forward and stretched his arm out. The handle was just five or six inches from his fingertips.

“I can’t reach.”

There was a sound in the night air that froze Woody. It was a flapping sound. Could it have been a bird, he thought, or a bat, flying overhead? But it sounded more like the raising of a window shade.

Slowly he turned and, lifting a shaky arm, scanned the flashlight beam across the windows at the back of the house, petrified he’d see the image of that cragged face staring out at him. But the window shades were all drawn. He turned back around quickly.

Stupid
, he thought. Shining the light in the windows might stir the old man.

“Did you hear that?” Woody asked.

“I think so.”

“Hurry up,” he called to Geoff.

He pulled on his leg, again to no avail. “You’re gonna have to come up here. I can’t budge it.”

“Are you kidding?”

“Hurry up so we can get the hell out of here.”

To his surprise Woody had little trouble making his way up the side of the pile lighting the way with the flashlight. When he reached Geoff, he grabbed onto his leg and pulled hard on it. It gave a little, but did not come free.

“You’re stuck good,” Woody said, letting go of the constrained limb.

“Get Jason out and he can help.”

Woody handed the flashlight to Geoff and moved up to the refrigerator. He put his ear to the door and rapped his knuckles on it.

“Rise and shine, Jason.”

“Come on, Woody,” Geoff said, keeping the light trained on the refrigerator, “just open the door.”

He grabbed the cold metal handle tightly and pulled. There was a sound of rushing air as the door swung open.

The light shone directly on the figure in the refrigerator. Jason was slumped down inside it, his eyes wide open, the skin on his face a purplish hue. His mouth was also open, a blackened, swollen tongue protruding from it. Long jagged gouges, caked with dried blood, ran down his neck all around it. His hands lay frozen in front of him, twisted into claws, the fingernails tipped with blood and bits and pieces of flesh. These were the hands that had ripped and torn at his own throat as he tried to get air to breathe.
He couldn’t breathe. My God
, Woody thought,
he couldn’t breathe. The whole time in there, and he couldn’t breathe.

Then Woody screamed.

It was a scream that pierced the air with a crack. Geoff dropped the flashlight and the light flicked out on impact, but the glow of the moonlight still framed that horrid face. Woody started to back down the pile, but before he got any further, he stopped to do something – for what reason he had no idea. He reached up with his hand and threw the door shut. Maybe so those eyes wouldn’t see him.

He turned and saw the horror on Geoff’s face and felt he was looking into a mirror and seeing his own reaction. He moved down the pile quickly, as if his feet touched nothing but air. Geoff must have gotten his leg free because he soon heard running feet behind him. At least he hoped it was Geoff behind him as he raced down Shadow Drive, but he did not dare look over his shoulder. He was afraid one of Jason’s bloodied, clawed hands was reaching out to grab him.

After writing, I left the inn and took a walk down to the beach. It was sunny and warm enough that I was glad I left my jacket in my room. I even pushed my sleeves up to my elbows. Indian summer. It reminded me of youthful hot days, school vacation and playing outdoors. But that made me think of Jason and the chapter I had just completed. There were very few days for him, Indian or otherwise.

As I stepped onto the beach, I looked at my watch. It had stopped. I shook my wrist and held it up to my ear, but no ticking.

The soft sand yielded to my every step and my balance felt beyond my complete control. It dawned on me that I had been walking on concrete so much the past few years that the beach felt like an alien surface. Just like I had forgotten what it was like to be a kid until this weekend, I had forgotten what it was like to walk on sand. As I approached the edge of the water, I was able to get on firmer ground and steady myself.

Someone was at the opposite end of the beach walking in my direction. Otherwise the immediate area was deserted. Out in the middle of the lake sat Professor Bonz in his boat. A slight breeze brushed across the lake, causing the water to reach the edge with a soft lapping sound at my feet. It was all so peaceful here, not the type of scene that would include such a vicious act of violence. Maybe in my stories, but not here. Not in real life.

I reached into my pocket and felt something soft and wet. I pulled it out and saw it was the rotten piece of apple I had hastily put in there and forgotten. I hurled it into the lake.  There were footsteps on the boardwalk and I turned to see Carrothead. He shuffled slowly along the wooden planks. I could hear the faint sound of his voice, mingled with static from the walkie-talkie in his hand, but none of the words he was saying were clear. He didn’t look any older. Maybe his mind was so damaged that he didn’t know he was supposed to age.

Didn’t anybody grow old in this town? Everyone looked exactly as I remembered them when I was a kid. As if they had frozen, waiting for me to return. Like the town only existed when I was here, and when I left, everything stopped, so nothing grew older.

Dale wouldn’t get old, I thought. He was trapped in the town now, forever frozen in his youthful look.

The figure on the beach was getting closer, its gender indeterminable. It appeared to be wearing a baggy jumpsuit and a strange hat.

Again I thought of Jason Nightingale.

The morning after Woody and my grisly discovery, we all went to Oliver, asking him what to do. We gathered behind his house near the fire- scorched tree that was the sole remainder of our clubhouse. Martin was crying. Woody had a distant look in his eyes, as if he were somewhere else. That’s where I wanted to be and I implored him with my eyes,
take me too, wherever it is you are. I don’t want to be here.

We all waited for Oliver to tell us what to do, but even he seemed unsure. He finally decided we would do nothing. We would pretend nothing happened. We couldn’t find Jason after the game and assumed he had gone home. Let someone else find him. Oliver even started to smile, as if this was the most ingenious plan he had ever devised. Or maybe he was smiling from relief, now that he had found a way out of our situation. Even I felt some sort of release of the tension gripping me that had brought on a tremendous headache and queasy stomach.

Oliver made us all take an oath and swear that none of us would ever tell a soul about what we did. Cross our heart, hope to die, stick a needle in our eye.

We all swore. It would be the hardest thing to do, but fear of what would happen to us sealed the oath.

When Jason was reported missing, Hooper questioned us. We all stuck to our story. A search party canvassed the neighborhood. I remembered looking out my bedroom window and seeing them going through the area. I wanted to scream at the top of my lungs,
Look behind the Tin Man’s house.
But they went about their mission, going door to door, combing the ravine and the woods and fields out beyond the ballpark and cemetery. I looked across at Woody’s house and saw him also at his bedroom window. Our eyes met. Our eyes that had seen what no one else on Earth had seen. Without a gesture of any kind, he pulled his window shade down.

A couple of days went by without a trace of Jason Nightingale. Fliers went up around town. Fliers with the smiling face of a young boy. But I knew what that face looked like right now in that dark tomb of the refrigerator. I knew the expression etched into skin that was as far from smiling as humanly possible. It was a face of terror, madness and horrible death.

The waiting and anticipation was driving me crazy. I would lie in bed at night and think about Jason being out there, think about his parents staring out their window and wondering when or if he was coming home.

Woody wouldn’t come outside his house. Whenever I looked up at his window, his shade was down.

I thought maybe they would never find Jason. They would give up and stop the search. The case would go unsolved. The years would go by and they would never realize how close he was, his body sitting in that refrigerator rotting away like a piece of leftover meat forgotten on a back shelf. I didn’t want that to happen. It seemed too lonely. I didn’t want his family to never know what happened to him. That would be too cruel.

But they did find him.

They finally searched through the Tin Man’s junk pile. Finally climbed that mound and opened that refrigerator door and saw what Woody and I had seen that night.

The funeral was the worst.

I remember standing in the cemetery looking at that little coffin. It was hot and my body sweated and itched beneath the suit I wore. The tie was noosed tight around my neck and my fingers tore at it, trying to get some air. There was sobbing. I looked across the coffin at Jason’s parents and his younger sister who clutched tightly to her mother’s hand, a vacant look on her face. I wanted to go up to his sister and take her other hand and tell her how sorry I was that I caused her brother’s death. But she probably wouldn’t understand. Probably never would.

Back in the present I heard a faint jingling sound, almost like sleigh bells, coming from the distance. Pain started to inch its way into my head, and I felt dizzy, my vision blurring. I didn’t want to have one of my spells. I squeezed my eyes shut. I wished I could put my hand through my skull and rip the tumor from my brain, throw it on the ground and stomp on it.

When the headaches came, I imagined them originating in the same spot in my brain where I had built that attic room. That was where the tumor was. I could feel it. It was as if all the horrifying and evil thoughts that I had developed within that space for my stories had created the tumor. I was really starting to believe it. The horrors in my thoughts had created a real sickness in my brain: a sickness that was killing me, my own imagination poisoning me.

Yes, I could believe that.

The jingling sound grew louder, and I wondered if it was coming from my head. Real or imagined? But it originated from my left and I turned and opened my eyes. The figure on the beach was getting closer to me. It looked like someone dressed in a clown costume. I stared in wonder as the figure approached.

When I realized what it was, numbness spread through my body, right down my legs to my feet and the sand seemed to shift beneath my soles as I thought my balance was finally giving way.

“Expecting me?” the stranger said.

The figure was dressed in a black-and-white striped court jester’s costume. The jingling had come from the bells attached to his head piece. His face was painted white with the exception of his black lips and black eyebrows. His long, narrow face ended in a pointed, jutting chin. His nose was also long and pointed with flaring nostrils. His ears stuck out, with thick dangling lobes.

I knew this person.

It was the Joker. The spitting image of the joker from the deck of cards we used, from the drawing that used to hang on the clubhouse wall.

“Aren’t you happy to see me, Geoffrey?”

“This isn’t funny.” I managed to keep my balance. “Who the hell are you and how do you know my name?”

He was grinning madly. “Come on, Geoffrey. It took me so long to get here. Don’t act like this. You know who I am.”

I looked at him long and hard. I thought about Dr. Cutler and what he said about the spells: headaches, dizziness, blackouts and hallucinations. But this was ridiculous.

“You’re not real,” I said.

His grin reversed itself. “But I’m here. I’m talking to you.”

“Why are you here?”

“Because I want to be.”

“I don’t want you here.” I turned around, hoping the image would go away.

“You need me.”

I was wrong. I turned back and saw him grinning again.

“What do you want?”

“Want? Do I have to want anything? I sense how you’re feeling. I thought I could help.”

I started walking at a slow pace along the shoreline. The Joker followed alongside.

“How do I feel?” I asked him.

“You’re pretty torn up inside. Heck, you just lost your best friend.”

“I still can’t believe it happened. I can’t believe he’s dead. Not just dead, but murdered. Killed like that. I never knew anyone who was murdered.”

“Oh, no?” He looked at me with a puzzling stare. I knew what he was thinking.

“That wasn’t murder. That was an accident.”

“Is that what you believe?”

I stopped and looked at him. Of course I believed it. “We didn’t want to kill him. We just wanted to punish him, make him suffer. We had no idea there wouldn’t be any air in there. At least, I didn’t. What we did was wrong. We made a mistake, but we were just kids.”

“Do you think that was how Jason felt?”

I lowered my eyes. “I try not to think about that.”

“But you have to now. Seems like the past is catching up to you.”

“I can’t escape the past. It’s all around me.” I looked from the lake to the woods to the boardwalk and the town beyond it. “It’s everywhere here.”

I continued walking, the Joker still beside me.

“I keep thinking about the possibility we were brought here on purpose,” I said. “But I’m not sure I can accept the fact that one of us might be the killer.”

“Why not?”

I shrugged. “It just seems too contrived.”

“Like one of your stories?”

I looked at him with surprise. “My stories weren’t contrived.”

“Then how come you never sold any?”

I laughed. “I used to think I was going to be a great writer. When I was young, thoughts seemed to flow out of my head. When I left here, I think I left them behind.”

“That was your mistake.”

“But now that I’m back, I feel like I’m immersed in a story.”

We stopped at the end of the beach at the marina. The sound of the water slapping the wooden pylons competed with our voices.

“So, what happens next?” the Joker asked.

“Figure out a suspect. If Oliver was telling the truth, and Woody was the one who suggested the reunion, that would make him the obvious choice.” I shook my head. “Even with all he’s been through, I can’t see him doing something like this.”

“Jeepers, why not? He’s a frickin’ lunatic! He was in the funny farm.”

“Oliver, but he’s a successful businessman.”

“And a vicious bastard who cares for nobody but himself.”

“Lonny –”

“An insomniac drunk, who’s desperate and on the edge.”

“Martin. It couldn’t be Martin.”

“How can you be so sure about Martin? He resents that you all returned.”

“He wouldn’t hurt a fly.”

“The quiet, meek ones are always the crazy ones.”

I stared down at the sand around my feet.

“Are you forgetting someone?” The Joker asked.

I looked up at him. “Huh?”

“What about you?”

I stared in disbelief at his mad grinning face. I stepped backwards away from him.

“No,” I said, backpedaling some more, slowly. “NO!” I turned and ran, my feet digging into the soft sand, trying to propel myself as fast as possible, but hampered by the supple surface of the terrain. I did not look back as I ran. I did not want to.

When I climbed the steps to the boardwalk, I felt I was going to pass out. I got down on my knees and clutched at my stomach as I gasped deeply for breaths. I looked over my shoulder at the beach.

It was empty. Only my footprints marked the sand.

Footsteps approached, echoing off the wood and I looked up. Carrothead stood over me.

“I was watching you,” he said.

A strand of drool descended from the corner of his mouth, and I got out of its way and stood up. I wanted to ask him if he saw me talking to someone, but I was a bit afraid of what the answer would be. “That’s nice.” I started to walk away.

“I remember you.” He laughed.

I stopped and turned around. “You do?”

“And he remembers you.” He indicated his walkie-talkie.

“Who?”

“The one on the other side. In the shadows. He’s watching you. He’s coming soon.”

“Then I’d better be going.” I turned to leave.

“You shouldn’t be laughing at me!” he screamed, startling me.

“I wouldn’t laugh at you.”

“He tells me it’s not nice to tease,” he said, his head cocked sideways.

I remembered one late summer night when we followed Oliver up Autumn Avenue on our bikes. Lonny was carrying two cartons of eggs in a grocery bag, trying to be careful not to crush them. We didn’t know where Oliver was leading us; he was being very secretive. But his face could hardly contain his grin.

We took a left when the road forked. I thought I had been to just about every part of town in my young life, but hadn’t remembered ever coming this way. We came to a narrow dirt road that was barely noticeable and turned left onto it.

Just before a sharp bend, Oliver told us to stash our bikes behind some bushes. He signaled to be quiet and led us on foot down the dirt road. It didn’t seem possible there’d be a living soul out here; the place seemed desolate, but as soon as we rounded the corner, I could see a house.