HAMILTON FISK part 2

Copyright (c) 2019 by Randall R. Peterson ALL RIGHTS RESERVED This is a work of fiction. All persons, locations and actions are from the author's imagination or have been used in a fictitious manner.

Hamilton

Fisk

Part 2

By R. Peterson

Ham held her breath for almost three seconds before her mind recognized the voice behind the gun barrel jammed into the back of her neck. “Creeps! Damn you!” she gasped. Dorian Edwards lowered the gun and laughed as she turned. “I thought you were going to wet your pants.”

“When did you get here?”

“I was standing around outside throwing snowballs at busses. When Joseph Amati left, I came inside. He didn’t even lock his door. I guess he must think he’s invincible.”

“But the door was locked when I came.’

“The old goat must have sensed something was wrong, probably starting to fry on the acid. I also heard that Recluse Spider venom makes you paranoid as hell.”

“He’s in an old time sailor’s rope sleeping net, and it’s protected. I think it came from the Mary Celeste. A name inked on a sewn-on pillow reads Benjamin S. Briggs. When you look in his bedchamber, the room appears to be swaying but the hammock is perfectly still.”

“Then we can’t mess with him?”

“No. When I opened the door my fingers were frozen. It took ten minutes before I could move them.”

“But I can take the bike?”

“I don’t see why not. It would be a good idea to find out where it came from though. I’ve looked in a few of the rooms. Amati, is as we thought a meticulous collector of enchanted objects, but the way he brings his Boogoos to life gives me the creeps.”

“Something gives Creeps the creeps?” Ham laughed. “This I’ve got to see.”

Dorian led her down the hall and opened a door on the left.

-------2-------

It was as if when walking into the room you were transported back two hundred years. Painted lath-walls and hand-woven rugs appeared to be authentic. A grey-haired man sat at a wooden table with an open book before him. Stacks of ancient silver coins littered the splintered surface. A candle flickering in an ornate holder reflected off his open eyes. An open bottle of ink and a quill pen poised in his hand made it appear as if he were about to make a notation in his ledger.

On the other side of the room a tired looking woman in a blue gingham dress snuggled a baby in a dusty rocking chair. A shaggy dog, with a bushy tail lying just under one of the bent-oak runners, appeared to be sleeping.

“Are they enchanted?”

“Long dead and stuffed,” Dorian said, “even the woman and the baby. Amati or his brother does excellent taxidermy work on humans. Every bit of hair and skin is in its proper place and perfectly preserved.”

“Why?” Ham gasped.

“The Boogoo has a spirit inside it that gives it special powers but no cognitive abilities. He duplicates the environment the enchanted object is used to … and tricks it into believing it is home. He then uses whatever special powers the object has … for himself.”

“Which object is the Boogoo?”

“The candle,” Dorian told her, “it has an eternal flame.” He reached out and pinched the wick with his fingers but the light refused to be extinguished.

“What does he do in this room?”

“My guess is, any dealings he has that concerns money he brings to this room. If he places a stock prospectus or some other venture on the table the candle probably flickers or goes out. Then he knows it’s a bad deal.”

Ham reached out and touched the silver holder. “An object like this must be worth a fortune!”

“The merchant who originally owned the Boogoo probably never knew his accumulated wealth came from a simple candle holder. If he had lost it or had it stolen he might have ended up poor.”

“How could he not know?”

“Our lives are full of Boogoos some good … some bad,” Dorian said. “That bed you slept in as a child might have decided who you will grow up to marry as an adult. A tea-cup on a shelf might portend your death. All objects are influential things … they just don’t function the same way we do.”

-------3-------

“You’re right,” Ham gasped as Dorian opened the next door down. “This place really gives me the creeps.”

An enormous, balding man sat smiling inside an ancient claw-foot porcelain container with his huge stomach and lower-half thankfully covered in soap foam. A half-dozen bubbles continually floated into the air and then burst. Two young women dressed in late nineteenth century maid’s attire, complete with appropriate blushes, appeared to be readying towels for his extraction. “The Boogoo is the bathtub,” Dorian said.

“How do you know?”

“You can stuff a lot of things with sawdust to make them appear real,” Dorian said, “but bubbles aren’t one of them.”

“I suppose this room has something to do with sex?”

“That would be my guess,” Dorian said as he gazed at the fastidiously re-created cleavage on one of the young girls.”

-------4-------

“What the hell?” Ham screamed.

They appeared to have walked into a nineteenth century butcher shop. An ancient looking meat-slicer occupied the center of the room. Stacked against the walls were dozens of naked corpses. Some were men with stark looks of terror frozen on their lips. A woman lay sprawled on the floor holding hands with a decapitated child.

A smiling man with greased-back hair stood next to a bucket of bloody water with mop in hand and watched as two others armed with knives trimmed bone and gristle from what looked like human body parts and wrapped the portions in waxed paper.

            “Why human flesh?” Ham almost gagged.

            “Not all immigrants to America in the nineteen century were given forty acres of land to homestead,” Dorian said. “Some were looked upon as merely a form of cattle ready to fill the soup pots that fed the other wretched starving … yearning to be free.”

            “That is so sick!”

Dorian pointed to the mop. “The power of this Boogoo is being able to clean up a man-made sickness so that the world never knows.”

            “I don’t want to see any more!”

“I don’t think we’ll have to,” Dorian said as he closed the door. “Amati’s office is right up here.”

-------5-------

Ham was thankful that this room was only filled with filing cabinets and a desk. No dead were made to appear living. If there was a Boogoo here she didn’t see it. “What are you looking for?”

            “We need to find out who Amati acquired the Adler Damenrad from.” Dorian said. “We know the bicycle can fly … but it might have other powers as well.”

Ham stood in the doorway as Dorian searched through endless files. A catsup smeared McRoast-beef wrapper lay on the floor a few steps farther. She thought she heard a noise at the end of the hall and was just turning. “Got it!” Dorian lifted a handful of papers. “It seems the previous owner died not too long ago … and under suspicious circumstances.”

            “Shhhh,” Ham warned. “I think there’s someone else in here!”

            “Where?”

            “At the far end of the hall!”

“That’s Amati’s bedroom! He must be waking up!”

“How is that possible?”

“Amati murdered all these people hundreds of years ago. He has special powers that keep him alive. A little Recluse Spider venom wrapped in LSD isn’t going to keep him asleep for long.”

Ham and Creep fled down the hallway and flew down the stairs into the antique shop below. Ham was afraid the ancient two-wheeler would be impossible to move, but it lifted easily and the wheels rolled without effort. “The bicycle likes you,” Dorian said as he stuffed the stolen pages into his coat.

-------6-------

They were halfway down the snow-covered street, and almost to the idling Ford F150 where Walter Havens waited, when the door to Joe’s Attic banged open behind them.

A cold wind caused the branches of dormant trees lining the street to briefly sway. Two birds who had decided not to fly south for the winter fell dead on the concrete. For a moment the moon was unable to illuminate the strange and illusive figure standing below. Then he and another began to reflect light.

            “Did you attach the eye so that they can be followed?”

            “I put it in the kid’s pocket after he fell … asleep.” The huge man standing next to Amati grinned showing broken and jagged teeth. A leather-covered length of lead-pipe, with drops of blood smeared at the end, hung by a motorcycle chain from the man’s belt.

Joseph Amati stared at the dark figures as they disappeared into the shadows. He smiled.

“Ho una stanza vuota che ha bisogno di riempito,” he said. “Thank you my brother. I have an empty room that needs filled.”

TO BE CONTINUED …