“Can you speak up?”
“Paper,” she whispered.
“Paper? Dr. Madison, can you give Aabir your clip board?”
“Certainly.” The doctor placed it in front of the psychic, and put a black marker on top.
Her face still devoid of expression, Aabir began to write. Frank moved in for a closer look.
I IS JASPER
The words were in block letters, almost childish in their scrawl. They also took up most of the page, so Dr. Madison flipped to the next one.
I WORKS THE FIELDS AT BUTLER HOUSE
“What’s she doing?” Moni asked.
“Psychography,” Pang said. “Also known as automatic writing. She’s channeling a spirit and writing what it’s telling her. Sounds like it’s the ghost of Ol’ Jasper, the slave that Colton Butler sewed two extra arms on. Shit, my EMF meter is going berserk!”
Tom remembered the Butler House website. The picture of the scarred, old slave with the extra arm.
THEY HURTS JASPER BAD
Dr. Madison flipped to a fresh page.
NOW JASPER GON’ HURT DEM BACK
Frank realized he was holding the armchair of the loveseat so tightly his knuckles were white.
I... IS...
Aabir’s eyes rolled up into the back of her head.
HERE
Aabir screamed, and collapsed onto the floor.
Then the lights went out.
The great room was very dark with the chandeliers out, but enough dusk was peeking in through the cracks in the shudders that Tom could still make out some shadows. A moment later, Pang’s camcorder light went on. Tom followed suit, digging his tactical flashlight out of his pack.
“Cornelius, you’re near the front doors.” Tom pointed the beam in his direction. “Try the light switch there.”
Wellington found the wall panel and flipped the switch, to no effect.
“Nothing. Might be the circuit breaker. Or the generator.”
Tom waved the light across the group, taking a head count. He saw Deb and Mal, Moni, Frank and Sara, Pang, Aabir—”
“What’s that sound?” Frank asked.
Everyone went quiet. Tom was acutely aware of how silent true silence actually was. Living in Chicago, silence was an anomaly. There were always sounds. Traffic, heat or air conditioning, birds, constant human noise from talking, yelling, playing music.
But this house was completely devoid of noise. The only thing Tom could liken it to was when he put on his ear muffs on the shooting range. Silence had its own sound; the steady, inaudible hum of consciousness, which made you realize how alone you really were in the universe.
And then, like a slap to the face, he heard it.
Something dragging across the wooden floor.
Like a claw. Or a—
“Machete,” Tom whispered.
A machete like Ol’ Jasper was supposed to carry.
Tom twisted his flashlight to widen the beam, and then did a slow pan across the great room, trying to locate the sound.
He saw empty chairs, the fireplace, an old piano, a wall, a hallway, a table, another hallway, another wall…
“I think it’s near me,” Wellington said in a metered tone.
Tom turned the beam on the author.
A few meters away from him was—
“Sweet Jesus Christ,” Moni whispered.
It was a black man, muscular, shirtless, shuffling across the floor in a slow, steady gate, dragging a rusty-looking machete behind him.
At first, Tom thought it was Roy.
But Roy doesn’t have four arms.
The two extra appendages sprouted from his back like angel wings, and hung, limply, over his shoulders.
“Well,” Cornelius Wellington said, “I certainly do commend the make-up artist. That’s quite a special effect. And the pure black eyes are a nice touch.”
Ol’ Jasper kept walking toward him.
Tom drew his Sig. “I’m a police officer. Drop your weapon and put your hands up.”
“All four of his hands?” Wellington asked. Tom detected the bravado, but it seemed forced.
Ol’ Jasper didn’t stop.
“Halt right now, or I will shoot.” Tom aimed his 9mm at the man’s center mass, supporting his gun hand with the flashlight.
Wellington tried to smile, but it looked more like a wince. “Oh, let him come, Detective. I’ll pull off one of those phony arms, and we’ll expose this for the farce it is.”
Ol’ Jasper got within two meters.
“Last warning.” Tom placed his finger in the trigger guard, and cocked the Sig with his thumb. “I will shoot you.”
Ol’ Jasper stopped an arm’s length away from Wellington.
Then he slowly raised the machete.
“Oh my.” Wellington giggled, but it sounded forced. “I’m so scared.”
“Get away from him, Wellington.”
“This is only a joke, Detective. I refuse to play along.”
“Drop the weapon, now!” Tom ordered.
Ol’ Jasper didn’t drop it.
Time seemed to slow down. Tom had enough time to think it through, make a gut decision, reverse the decision, then go with what his gut told him to do.
He squeezed the trigger twice, a double tap to the black man’s chest.
He felt the gun buck in his hands.
He heard the shots.
He smelled the gunpowder.
He knew he’d hit the target, dead on.
But Ol’ Jasper didn’t even flinch.
Instead, he swung the machete with vicious force, connecting with the side of Wellington’s neck.
Wellington went down like one of those buildings being demoed, collapsing in a heap right where he stood, his head flopping to the side as if on a hinge, a bright spray of arterial blood painting the front doors.
Chaos ensued.
Tom tuned out all the screaming from the others, tuned out the spectacle of Wellington’s dying body flopping and twitching on the floor like a landed fish, and emptied his magazine into Ol’ Jasper.
At least ten shots hit home.
Ol’ Jasper stood there, unaffected.
Then he looked at Tom—
—smiled wide—
—and roaches came out of his mouth.
It was the scariest thing Tom had ever seen in his life.
He ejected the empty magazine, fished out a new one, and loaded it as he backed away. Tom’s hands had begun to shake, and the beam flitted over Ol’ Jasper, catching him sporadically, until Tom somehow lost him in the darkness.
“Everyone!” Tom yelled. “Follow me! Let’s go!”
Tom hurried to the nearest hallway, alternating between lighting the way for people and trying to find Ol’ Jasper. Pang with his camcorder brought up the rear.
“Keep moving!” Tom said, covering the rear and walking sideways. He followed the group down a left turn, and into a large room.
“Dr. Belgium?” he called, keeping his gun on the doorway. Not that shooting had helped, but Tom didn’t have a better plan.
“Yes yes yes!”
“My fanny pack. I have some glow sticks. Pass them around.”
He pointed the flashlight at his pack, and Belgium fished out a handful. Tom listened for the sound of a machete scraping the floor, but all he heard was cellophane wrappers being opened. Soon the room was bathed in soft, multicolored neon light. Greens and blues and pinks.
Tom took a quick look around, discovered they were in a massive library.
“Pang, Frank, get that desk, move it over here to block the door. Mal, you got your gun?”
“Left it in my room.”
Shit. “Okay, do a head count.”
Tom peeked his head down the hall. Still no Jasper.
“Everyone say your name,” Mal said.
A bunch of people began talking at once.
“Okay, everyone shut up. Let’s try this again. I’m here, Deb is here, Tom, Frank, and Pang are here. Moni?”
“Yeah. Here. I’m here.”
“Sara?”
“Yes.”
“Dr. Madison?”
No one answered.
“Dr. Madison, are you here?”
No answer.
“Did anyone see where he went?”
Sara, bathed in pink light, said, “I think he ran down the other hallway.”
“How about Aabir?” Mal asked. “Aabir, are you here?”
“She was passed out on the table,” Pang said.