Jokers Club (23 page)

And those twisted hands with the bloody fingernails had tried to reach out and grab him. Tried to pull him into that dark refrigerator where the door would shut and he would not be able to escape the grip of those dead fingernails with pieces of flesh beneath the tips. Those fingers would dig into his skin and hold him as the air was sucked out of that confined space.

Geoff let out a breath and looked at the blank piece of paper. He brought his hands up and rested his fingertips on the keys.

If I can only write something,
he thought. Some monster tale that would remind him of how much fun it was to write these stories. That’s what it was all about: fun. Monsters were fun; everyone liked monsters. That’s why people young and old celebrated them every Halloween. Who didn’t like a monster?

Unless of course, Geoff thought, the monster was me. A monster that would let a little boy die in a dark confined space where he would try to rip his own throat out just to get some air. No one likes that kind of monster.

Geoff withdrew his fingers from the keys, lay his hands on the desktop and put his head down on top of them.

“I can’t do it.”

“What’s the matter?” The voice came from behind him.

Geoff lifted his head and looked back. The Joker stood in the middle of his room, though it wasn’t his bedroom anymore. It was now that attic room in the corner of his brain where his stories came from and the Joker inhabited.

“I’m afraid,” Geoff said.

“Afraid of what?” The Joker approached his desk.

“Afraid of writing.”

“Don’t be such a fraidy-cat.”

“Everything scares me now.”

“They’re just stories,” the Joker said. “They can’t hurt anybody.”

“But they’re not fun anymore. Nothing is fun anymore. Not since …” He looked at the Joker. “Well, you know.”

“But you can’t stop,” the Joker said, his face a bit sad and rejected. “We need each other.”

“What do you mean?” Geoff asked.

“We depend on each other, feed off each other. We’re together in this, till the end. We can’t exist without each other.” The Joker took a step closer and placed a white-gloved hand on Geoffrey’s shoulder. It felt surprisingly reassuring.

“Geoffrey!” A distant voice came from somewhere outside.

Geoff stood up, went to the open window and looked out. There was a figure down below in the back yard.

It was Jason.

“Geoffrey,” he called out again.

He could see the lifeless eyes, the black tongue when he opened his mouth and the red scratches on his neck.

“Come on out, Geoffrey,” Jason said. “Come out and play Relievo!”

“No,” Geoff yelled down. “I’m not coming out. It’s dark.”

“It’s not dark where I am,” Jason said. “Come on out, you’ll see.”

“Don’t,” said the Joker from over Geoff’s right shoulder. “It’s a trick.”

“Go away,” Geoff yelled back down. “We don’t want to come out.”

“Then let me come in,” Jason called back.

Geoff stood silent for a moment, turning to look at the Joker who shook his head slowly from side to side.

“Sorry,” Geoff yelled out the window. “I just can’t.”

“Sure you can,” Jason said. “Just open the door. It’s as simple as that.”

“No,” Geoff said, trying to remember if he had locked the door tonight when he came home. He sure hoped he did.

“I have cigars!” Jason yelled up and then began laughing.

Geoff backed away from the window. He wiped sweat off his brow with the back of his hand. It was hot in his room. But summer was just starting. It shouldn’t be this hot already. He could feel heat rising behind him and turned to see the walls engulfed in flames. Fire crept along the floor eating up the carpet and swarming up his desk.

No!
he thought. Not my stories.

The typewriter began to melt, caving in on itself, the letters on the keys running together and flowing out, forming twisted words.

Flames leapt onto the bookcase and the shelf above the desk, grabbing onto the legs of Geoff’s monster models, liquefying the plastic as the creatures writhed in their own melting horror.

The bookcase became a conflagration as the pages of the books fed the fire that rose up shelf by shelf till it reached the top where the rubber dinosaurs sunk into a pool like timeless beasts in a black tar pit.

Geoff heard laughter and turned to see the Joker, his suit in flames, thrashing in a crazed St. Vitus dance. The Joker stretched a flaming gloved hand out toward him.

“Come on, Geoff,” the Joker said. “Dance with me!”

Geoff backed away as smoke swirled around him. He began to cough and covered his nose and mouth with a cupped hand. He looked around for a way out, but flames were everywhere and the Joker danced circles around him.

There was the window, but Jason was out there. He couldn’t go out that way. He wouldn’t.

He dropped to his knees as the smoke thickened and it began getting harder to breathe. His clothes were soaked with sweat as the temperature rose. Through the smoke he saw a door and began crawling toward it.
Strange, though
, he thought. There was no door in the attic room. Where had that come from?

He got to it and reached up to grab the doorknob. It was hot and burned his hand, but he managed to turn it and pull it open enough to crawl through and close it behind him.

He found himself in a dark and small space, the walls close around him; it must be a closet. He curled up in a corner, bringing his knees to his chest and wrapping one arm around them, keeping the other arm up to his mouth to ward off the smoke that seeped through the underside of the door.

His lungs burned and his throat thickened as smoke choked him. Everything was dark and his eyes stung and watered.

Is this what it’s like to suffocate?
he thought. Is this how Jason felt, not being able to breathe? Yes, it must be. Geoff had the urge to claw at his own throat but knew how useless it would be.

Just die
, Geoff thought.
You deserve it. It was as much your fault as anyone else’s. Just close your eyes and let the darkness take you
.

There was a knock on the door.

No
, Geoff thought.
(Don’t open it)
. The door must remain closed.

But there was light as the door slid slowly open.

The Joker stood in the doorway. Smoke flowed out of the closet and Geoff could breathe once again. The Joker was blackened from burns, his clothes melted onto his scorched flesh, his face torched, his jester cap singed. But his teeth were white as he smiled in the doorway and extended one blackened hand.

“You didn’t think I would leave you did you?” the Joker said.

Geoff coughed and spat out thick black phlegm.

“I was afraid.”

“Don’t be afraid,” the Joker said. “I will never leave you.”

“Never?”

“Like I said. We need each other. Where would I be without you? And you me?”

“I don’t know,” Geoff said, reaching up and taking the Joker’s hand.

“Let’s hope you never have to find out.”

I spent the night in the Malton town jail. It wasn’t very pleasant. The cell was cold, the bed hard. They took my shoes because I had the option of taking out the laces or giving them the whole pair. I didn’t want to bother with the trouble of taking out the laces when I knew I’d only have to re-lace them later.

When I first woke up in the cell, I was disoriented. I had no idea where I was, or why. Then the night’s events came back to me.

I remembered sitting in the back of a police cruiser, my hands cuffed behind me, and watching them pull Oliver’s body off the spiked fence and load him into a plastic bag just like the others.

My wound was superficial, just a scratch. It only took a couple stitches to close. Only a dull, throbbing pain remained. My face was bruised a bit. At the police station, I went over the story half a dozen times with Hooper, stressing the fact I was defending myself from Oliver. I wasn’t sure if he believed me.

When they put me in a cell, I had no idea what was going to happen to me.

And now as I sat on my bunk, my feet resting on the stone floor that sent cold chills up through my socks, I began to think I might never get out of here. Hooper had hated our club back when we were kids. We had caused nothing but aggravation for him. He seemed to have carried that hatred with him into the present. And now he had the perfect opportunity to get revenge by putting one of us away for a heinous crime. I didn’t think I stood a chance.

They gave me my shoes back and I was brought into Hooper’s office. It reminded me of the time the whole club was brought in here after the Halloween incident with the “Colonel’s” mummified corpse. He had tried hard to pin that on us. I imagined he would try even harder to pin this on me.  He sat at his desk across from me and took a bite from a hunk of pepperoni, staring back at me in silence. He made me re-tell my whole story from the moment he dismissed the three of us from the Little League field to how I happened to go up into Oliver’s room. Then he gave me a reverse angle of the whole scene as told to him from Mary Torr, who had been with Oliver from the moment I dropped him off at the inn to Oliver’s arrival at the room. How he had been going up to his room with Mary Torr when he heard someone moving around and told her to go to her room and wait for him there.

All thoughts left my mind about the fact that I was suspected of murder. All I could think of was Mary Torr. She was going up to his room with him? It was unbelievable. I was enraged and jealous at the same time. Did she realize what kind of man he was? That he was married? Was he that charming with women? What was she thinking?

“Prints were done on the knife,” the chief said, interrupting my thoughts. “Only Mr. Rench’s were on it.”

I regained my perspective on where I was and why.

“I’m willing to accept the self-defense theory,” he finished.

“Are you checking the knife?” I asked, “to see if it matches Dale and Lonny’s wounds?”

“In time,” he said. “Mr. Rench committed the murders as far as I’m concerned. That will be the conclusion in my report to the county attorney’s office.”

“Just like that?”

“I’m happy with the results.”

“But, you are going to check his knife out?”

“Not your concern. I’m letting you go. Be happy with that.” The stench of pepperoni hung in front of my face. “We’ll be in touch with you if we need anything further.”

He didn’t really care. For all I knew, he could still think I did it, but he had a possible suspect, dead, and that was enough to satisfy him. No need for a long messy trial. No need for any more attention on the town.

“I want you to leave town now,” he said. “I’d rather you didn’t come back.”

I was stunned.

“You’re not going to check this out more?” I was almost angry that he was willing to accept the conclusion I had come to myself. He was willing to accept anything as long as it made a neat finish to the whole sordid mess. I was ready to argue against my own defense.

“It’s over!” he yelled. “You can leave town. And you’re not welcome back.”

I sat there looking at him, knowing he didn’t care anything about justice. He just wanted his town back to its routine.

“Get your things at the inn and leave.” Pieces of pepperoni flew from his mouth onto his desk.

I stood up from my chair. I was almost waiting for him to pull some trick. This was all too easy.

“You can get your valuables from the sergeant at the desk.”

“We’ll be keeping an eye on you,” Hooper said. “Making sure you really leave.”

I looked back at him. There was no reason to stay here anyway, I thought. There was nothing left for me here.

When I got to the inn, I got in my car and drove over toward the west side of town. I wanted to see Martin before I left. I pulled into his driveway, killing the engine, and strode to the front door wondering what he was thinking of me and what I had done.

I rang the doorbell.

I stood there, hearing the noisy quacking of ducks in the back yard, and then heard a faint voice coming from somewhere deep within the house.

“Martin?” An old woman’s voice. “Are you there, Martin?” It was Mrs. Peak.

I hesitated, and then rang the bell again.

“Martin, there’s someone at the door!”

I felt uncomfortable.

I turned to go when the continual noise of the ducks made me realize Martin might be out back feeding them. I walked around the side of the house to the back. I didn’t see Martin. The quacking was loud and grating. They were running all around the edge of the pond. None of them were in the pond itself. As I approached I could see why.

Martin’s body floated face-down in the middle of the water.

My knees almost buckled.

Swirls of red permeated the area around his body.

The ducks danced around my feet, their quacking growing louder, penetrating my eardrums like an alarm clock buzzer that refused to shut off.

“SHUT THE FUCK UP!” I screamed at the ducks.

The noise hindered my thoughts. I needed to think. What was happening here? It was supposed to be over! But what did Oliver say before he died?
It’s far from over.
That was it. Maybe he had gotten here before I killed him. Murdered Martin and saved me for last. But no. What was it Hooper had said? Mary Torr had been with Oliver from the moment Martin and I had dropped him off at the inn.

I turned and ran.

It wasn’t Oliver!

I got around to the front of the house and headed for the car. As I got in, I could still hear the voice calling out from upstairs in the house.

“Martin! Where are you? Why don’t you answer?”

I got in the car and drove away.

If Mary was with him, then Oliver couldn’t have gotten to Martin. I killed Oliver and it wasn’t even him. Oh Christ!

The pain started in the little attic room. The walls were bulging. The horror was trying to get out. I might have been the last one to see Martin alive. Just like I was the last to see Dale and Lonny. Why was it always me? But no. I wasn’t the last to see them. Of course not. The killer was the last to see them, not me. Right?

My head was pounding by the time I got to the inn.

I didn’t see anyone around as I went up to my room. The room itself was a mess. Hooper and his men must have gone through it last night. The bureau drawers were open and clothes were strewn everywhere. I grabbed my suitcase and started throwing everything into it. I didn’t care about neatness. I just wanted to get the hell out of there.

When everything was packed, I looked at the manuscript on the desk and the blank piece of paper in the carriage of the typewriter. Maybe I needed to write a quick fix to this story. Give it a neat tidy ending. The left side of my head pounded as my fingers tapped against the keys. After a few minutes, I pulled the piece of paper out and placed it on top of the others. I didn’t like the way this story was turning out. This wasn’t the way I wanted to write it. I tossed the manuscript into the suitcase.

As a came upon the first floor landing, the moose head’s eyes rolled to look at me. I tried to ignore them as I passed and continued down the stairs.

“Leaving so soon?” the moose head said behind me.

As I stepped off the stairs to the lobby, I heard faint voices off beyond the den. They were coming from the dining room. Though I knew the dining room was closed and was going to ignore it, I hesitated before going out the door.

The voices were joined by a jingling sound.

I set my suitcase and typewriter case down and walked to the dining room.

At one of the round tables sat Oliver, Lonny, Dale, Martin, Woody and the Joker. They were playing cards: Blackjack. The Joker was dealing.

I didn’t even want to move, didn’t even try, but my legs approached the table.

“Hit me,” Oliver said, and the Joker dealt him a card face up. “Again.” Another card was flipped. “I’m good.”

“What’s going on?” I asked.

Lonny rapped his knuckles on the table and the Joker flipped up a card. He rapped again and another cared was flipped.

“I’m busted,” he said, disgusted.

“What are you doing here?” I asked.

The Joker turned to look at me. “Everyone’s here together. Isn’t that how you want it to be?” He was smiling.

I walked over to Oliver.

“I’m sorry,” I said. It was all I could say.

“Don’t think about it,” Oliver said, his teeth stained with blood. “I believed it was you. I wanted to get you, before you got me.”

I looked around the table.

I’m the only one left. The last of the Jokers Club.

Martin placed his cards down on the table. “I’ll stand,” he said. His chest was full of puncture wounds. Dale was beside him, holding his cards, his whole front split open.

“I don’t like this,” I said.

“It’s not that bad, Geoff,” Lonny said, the slit in his throat moving in tandem with his lips. “It really didn’t hurt that much. It felt kind of like a paper cut, only much deeper.”

I looked to Woody. The fingers holding his cards were fleshless. Only patches of skin remained over the grayish bone of his skull. He looked at me and his lipless mouth opened.

“It had to come to this,” he said. “It was our destiny.”

I looked to the Joker who still grinned at me.

He gestured with the deck of cards in his hand. “Do you want to play?”

“No,” I said. “I’m tired of games.”

I looked the Joker square in his puppet-like eyes.

“Did Jason send you?” I asked.

“Of course not,” he said, shaking his head, his bells jingling. “I came here to help you.”

“Then help me,” I screamed realization dawning on me. “Did I kill anybody?”

“Are you capable of killing somebody?”

I looked at Oliver, who sat at the table with a disgruntled look on his face.
But that wasn’t murder
, I thought. That was an accident. Just like Jason’s death was an accident. We never meant to kill anybody. Did we?

“I’m confused,” I said, turning away from the table. The pounding in my head amplified. It throbbed, and I wished it would stop.

“Why are you confused?” the Joker’s voice came from behind.

“I’m not sure of any of the answers.”

The pounding grew louder.

“Where can you find the answers?”

“I’m not sure,” I said, raising my voice to hear myself over the pounding in my head. “The answers may be in the past.”

“Then why don’t you go find them.”

“I don’t know where to start.”

The pounding was deafening, and I realized it was not only in my head. It came from outside me. It came from the kitchen. It came from the refrigerator.

(Time to open the door.)

“Start from the beginning,” the Joker said.

The Tin Man’s house.

When I pulled up to the Tin Man’s house, my heart was pounding along with my head. I got out of the car and looked around. The street was empty. I turned and looked at the house, scanning the shade-covered windows for Emeric Rust. The entire place bore no signs of life.

Hearing a whisper of sound, I looked to one of the windows on the right side of the second floor where a shade fluttered. Out of the corner of my eye, I thought I saw a glimpse of a hand pulling away from the edge. I couldn’t be sure. But the shade did sway back and forth slightly, though no breeze could be blowing in because the window was shut.

I walked around to the back of the yard.

There stood the junk pile.

I expected this towering mass of twisted metal and aluminum, but it was much smaller than I remembered, barely more than a small stack.

Grass had grown up around the edges of the pile, almost overtaking it. There was even a small tree that had somehow managed to sprout up in the middle and now rose above. I imagined the young sapling as it grew up, weaving its way through the gaps between discarded scraps of metal and tin, striving to reach the sunlight that filtered down through the cracks.

Life had grown from a pile that had held death.

I stood before the junk, as if it were some kind of altar. I heard the jingling behind me and turned to see the Joker.

“I’m here,” I said.

“And why are you here?” he asked.

“Because death has been here, and I can smell its scent.”

“And what form has it taken?”

“That’s what I want to know.”

“Well, look there,” the Joker said, extending his arm, pointing his index finger, “and see if you can recognize it.”

My eyes followed the path of his finger. It pointed to a large, broken piece of glass that stood perched halfway up the mound like a mirror hanging on a bathroom wall. I stepped up to it and looked in.

My reflection stared back at me.

I looked at my bruised, haggard, disoriented face. I almost didn’t recognize myself.

Then as I stepped aside, another face appeared in the reflection, just behind mine. It was a face framed in glass. Its eyes were vacuous. I recognized it. It was a face that had peered out of glass at me before. Once behind the window of a locked cell at Acorn Estates. And once from a second floor window at the Tower House Inn.