CHRISTMAS 1936

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.

Christmas 1936

Cimarron County Oklahoma

By R. Peterson

The Great Depression started with the stock market crash of 1929 and every year after things got steadily worse for struggling farmers in the mid-west and especially for those bedeviled souls working the drought devastated panhandle of Oklahoma … the area of the country people were already calling the Dust Bowl.       

“Stay close by me,” Harold told Ardel and Rodney as they pushed against the gritty wind toward home. He carried a shovel and both boys carried bulging burlap bags and water buckets. “Dust will kill you same as snow!” They were both good boys. Neither one complained even though the weight they carried would tire out a man.

There was no way to farm ground covered with more than a foot of sift dust. It hadn’t rained in more than six months. Most wells had gone dry. Gardens had been kept alive by packing buckets of water from Grasshopper Creek four miles away. But now the Banks owned the only access to the creek and they had put up a wire fence.

The Jenkins’ nearest neighbor Ed Stanton had already been pushed off his farm and had stopped by on his way to California. The smoking and rattling 1926 flat-bed Ford he, his family and all their belongings had been piled on, had bald tires and a plugged radiator that gulped a gallon of precious water every five miles. “Good luck,” Harold had told him.

“Pray for us,” Ed had told him, and the sincerity in the man’s face had made Harold want to cry.

They were just now returning from the Stanton Farm. Ed had told them his well still had water in it and there were still a few un-dug potatoes, carrots and onions in the north end of his former garden. “Sweep away the dust and get ‘em before the tractor does,” Ed had told him. Foreclosed-on farms were being leveled and the land worked by corporate machinery.

Keeping his two pre-teen boys by his side was his greatest concern at the moment but it was far from his only one. The Oklahoma Savings & Loan Corporation was in receivership and the new stockholders were foreclosing on delinquent farm mortgages at the rate of twenty a week. It was late December. The Jenkins had already lost both mules and the milk-cow to interest payments. Harold expected the law to arrive any day with an eviction notice. The family was desperate and starving. He hoped they wouldn’t be pushed off their land until after Christmas. His heart fell when he saw the Cimarron County Sheriff’s car parked in front of the sod-roof house. Sheriff Jackson Clements was from Chicago and had been selected by the banks and the farming corporations to make sure the foreclosures went easy.

            “You can stay the night,” the sheriff told him. “But I want you out first thing in the morning!”

Mary Ellen came out on the porch crying. “Where can we go? The bank already took our truck and the neighbors has most all left.”

The sheriff spit into the dirt and pointed his shotgun at Harold’s worn out boots. Both boys were barefoot. He cruelly imitated Mary’s  third grade talk. “Most all of you got shoes … I suggest you use them and get the hell off the bank’s land.”

           

------- Christmas Eve 2019 -------

Morning light filtered through sheer curtains and illuminated two people sleeping in the queen sized bed. The smell of fresh washed linen woke both people at the same time.

Harold’s mouth gaped open as he stared about the room. A large, framed abstract painting splashed with bright colors covered most of one white-painted wall.  “Where are we,” he gasped.

“Heaven, I think,” said Mary. She pulled the heavy bed-spread back and then pinched the flesh on her leg to make sure she wasn’t dreaming. Her voice cracked. “Are the boys dead too … or was they spared?”

            “Don’t know,” Harold said as he climbed out of bed. He stared at the flannel pajamas he was wearing. “What the hell kind of pants is these?’

            “Don’t you be cursing Harold Joseph! Not here in the Lord’s house,” Mary told him.

Harold walked toward the window and pulled back the curtains. About ten foot below a fresh layer of snow covered an acre sized area of landscaped lawn leading down to a paved road.

            Harold’s mouth gaped open as he pointed toward the street. “I’ve seen lots of automobiles but none like them!” Mary stood by his side and they watched as a UPS truck and a 2019 Ford Escape passed each other on the tree lined street.

            “I don’t care about automobiles,” Mary said. “I want my boys. If they’re here we’ve got to find them!”

Harold and Mary left the upstairs bedroom and were cautiously making their way down richly carpeted stairs when they heard their children’s laughter. They ran the rest of the way.

A large lighted Christmas tree glowed at one end of a very spacious room. Colorfully wrapped gifts were stacked everywhere around the base.

On the opposite end of the room, Ardel stood next to a glowing frame with a picture inside that was moving. Rodney lay on the floor his eyes wide. “We thought it was a radio,” Ardel said. “I found the button that turned it on and Rodney just about jumped out of his skin.”

            “What is it?” Mary gasped.

            “Just about scared me to death,” Rodney said. He stood up and was staring at the flat screen TV. A man and a woman seated behind a large desk were speaking and looking directly at them.

            “It’s one of them motion picture screens,” Harold said. “Like we saw in Denver.”

            “I’ve looked everywhere for the projector and can’t find it,” Ardel said.

            “That ain’t all,” Rodney said as he led the family into an adjoining room. There’s water pipes inside and a whole closet full of cold food!”

------- Christmas Eve 1936 -------

The Jenkins family had walked all day. Night was coming on. Each member carried a large bundle of pots, pans, bags of potatoes and dishes wrapped in blankets. Their yellow dog Rover followed behind wagging his tail. Mary was still bawling over the framed portrait of her mother and father along with a bible she’d left in an abandoned chicken coop at the last farm they’d passed. “I’m sorry Mary,” Harold told her. “We’ll be lucky to make it somewhere as it is. Maybe the big tractors won’t come for a while and we can come back for what you left.”

“I’d go back for the picture … but not for the Bible,” Ardel said with defiance. “What kind of God does this kind of thing to people?” As if in answer it began to snow. Large white flakes drifted down from the darkening sky.

An hour later, Rover left the road and began to bark at something in the darkness. Rodney chased after him. “Over here!” Rodney called. When the three other family members arrived he pointed toward a small wooden shack not visible from the road.

“A light just come on in the window,” Mary gasped.

The family pushed through the drifted snow toward the tiny flickering light.

------- Christmas morning 2019 --------

The Jenkins family was all clustered around the Christmas tree. Torn wrapping paper littered the floor. “Do you really think it’s okay if we open these gifts?” Mary asked. She was wearing a robe that she’d found in an upstairs closet.

The smell of roast chicken and baking bread drifted in from the kitchen.

            “They all got our names on em,” Harold said as he handed her a present. “And according to the mail stacked in the other room this here is our house and we’re rich. I found papers from several banks that says we got more money than you can shake a stick at. I’m even on the board of directors for the Oklahoma Savings & Loan Corporation”

            “I don’t understand how any of this can be … but I’m glad and I thank the Lord!” Mary started to cry … but this time her tears were tears of joy.

She wandered into the kitchen and opened the door to the refrigerator over and over again. “A light comes on,” she told her husband. “Like some kind of magic!”

From the next room Ardel and Rodney had discovered a video game. “I can make the pictures on the screen move!” Ardel screamed as he moved the joystick in his hand. Rover ran in circles around the two boys. “I can make them move!”

------- December 26^th. 1936 -------

Sheriff Jackson Clements prodded the frozen body of Harold Jenkins with his foot. Outside a tractor and workers for the farming corporation waited to level the land. The dead man was huddled with the corpses of his wife and two children around what looked like a burned-down candle in the abandoned shack. “How cold did it get the last two nights? Jackson asked.

“A little below zero,” a deputy said.

“I can’t understand why these damn illiterate Okies didn’t at least try to keep themselves warm,” he said pointing to the blankets piled in the corner. A frozen dog lay on the floor next to the other bodies.

The sheriff kicked a bag of potatoes half covered with drifted snow with his foot. “They had food and water … why didn’t they try to eat something?”

“And the smiles on their faces,’ the deputy said shaking his head. “It almost looks as if their last moments on Earth were the best times they ever had.”

THE END ???

HAMILTON FISK part 4

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 4

By R. Peterson

A bewildered Walter Havens gaped at the birds circling him. He had never seen such a large number of great horned owls flying together. They seemed bizarrely aggressive.  He wasn’t watching the water until something rubbed against his leg. “Whaaa ?” A blue-grey dorsal fin skimmed past his wake-board … then another. Sharks? The furious birds circled closer now and there were more creatures coming up from below in the water. The six foot long body of a barracuda racing past terrified him. A box jellyfish floated just under the surface and more could be seen rising from the darkness below. An owl swooped past his head and raked his neck with its talons. A bomb of feathers exploded in the air as he struck one with his fist. He lay on the board and began to paddle. Three manta rays, their deadly barbed tails twisting in the air, broke the surface a hundred yards to his left gliding toward him.

Liberty Johnson handed the binoculars to Hamilton Fisk. “We have a caller,” she said as she scanned the beach.

“A caller?” Ham watched Worms paddling furiously toward shore.

“Red Point Trident members all specialize in various types of dark magic … as we do,” Herman Wilson explained. “The ability to call dangerous animals and have them do your bidding is an especially treacherous gift.”

“But who is doing the calling?”

A woman and two barefoot youngsters walked along the wet beach. The children had long pointed sticks trying to dig clams from the sand where small bubbles appeared. Several people lay on large beach towels. A man sold sandwiches and drinks from a small wooden shack. Two black labs chased after a Frisbee.

            “The beach appears to be filling up with people,” Dorian Edwards said pointing toward a parking lot overlooking the sand. “And some of them look out of place.”

“The beach was always crowded,” Liberty said. “It’s just that for some reason our magic is washing away.”

A large black SUV had just pulled up and two men wearing dark suits and sunglasses climbed out.

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

The children carrying the sticks began to squeal as dozens of sand crabs suddenly burrowed up out of the sand.

“Worms needs help!” Ham pointed toward the surf.

Several of the owls had landed on the board Worms was on and one was perched on his shoulders with its beak lost in his hair.

“Porta l'acqua grande!” Liberty called raising her arms in the air.

The water under Worms began to swell until he was riding a wave nearly twenty foot high.

The children carrying the sticks smiled wickedly and began to herd the crabs toward the clustered Abra Cadaver members. Wrinkles under the youngster’s eyes made them suddenly seem decades older … and murderous!

Both dogs abandoned the Frisbee and yelped away when a large panther appeared from some trees and charged down the beach.

            “I think we’re about to get wet!” Creeps moaned.

            “Not if we’re already dead!” Liberty pointed toward the men who had exited the SUV. Both had pulled automatic weapons from under their coats and were riddling the refreshment stand with bullets.

            “What the Hell?” Ham shrieked.

            “The Trident’s first concern is to eliminate us,’ Liberty said. “But they also don’t want any non-coven witnesses to their dark magic. I’m thinking the snack shack is about the only thing on the beach not involved in witchcraft!”

All the members of the coven began muttering defensive spells.

The panther was at a full run when it pounced toward Creeps. Dorian raised his hand and the vicious predator froze in md-air. If he hadn’t been distracted he might have noticed the small round and flat object, seemingly with a mind of its own, that fell into his pocket. “That used up everything I’ve got.” Creeps said to Liberty. “I hope you’ve got enough mojo left to get us out of here!”

The ten members of Abra Cadaver who minutes before had been lounging on the beach now huddled around their leader.

            “Gather your things, form a circle and don’t forget the bike,” Liberty said. “If fate delivers Worms to us before we move then we are favored if not … the Trident will have a new disciple.”

            Ham was about to pick up Walter’s clothes when she noticed a pile of coins next to his wallet. One of the silver pieces seemed out of place. She suddenly had a premonition not to touch it. She ran toward the others.

The wave Liberty had summoned was now thirty feet high and starting to break on the beach. Worms rode the wake board halfway to the crest. He appeared to be fighting entanglements coming from all directions.

Leave the sun, for skies grey cold.

The wave broke and Worms tumbled end over end toward them.

Leave the fun, for darkness old.

The coven’s newest member disappeared as two foot deep water and foam roared up the beach.

Leafless trees, in place of dead.

Water from the giant wave crashed against the sand barrier and splashed the parking lot behind it. Liberty hesitated to finish the spell until the water began to recede. Walter Havens appeared as a clump of seaweed struggling on the sand covered with slashing teeth and sting tentacles. It was as if every dangerous creature in the ocean was attacking him at once. Before any of the other coven members could utter counter curses the men holding the guns turned the squirming cluster into an explosion of blood. The woman and the two children, who now looked more ape than human, laughed.

Deliver us from that we dread.

The ten surviving members spun in a circle alternating between dark and light. The world they were leaving gradually vanished and a new one began to take shape.

A large circle of snow in the northeastern section of Salt Lake City Cemetery began to melt just before the ten coven members appeared with a loud whoosh. A flock of starlings nesting in a nearby leafless-tree took flight and were captured by the moonlight.

            “Poor Worms,” Hamilton moaned. “I don’t really think he knew what he was getting into! I’m sure I saw the eye with the other coins he kept in his pocket. It’s my fault; I should have trained him better.”

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

            “It’s nice to be back,” Creeps smiled while the rest shivered. “I’ve always hated that baked-in-the-sun look.”

Ham looked around. The ten surviving members of Abra Cadaver looked worn and tired. Two trips in one day and the fight with the Trident had exhausted their supply of magic. “Do we have enough magic left to perform the ritual?”

Herman (Inks) Wilson still had his face buried in a large book. It was as if throughout the entire mayhem on the beach he had kept reading. “I think so,” he said. “The ritual is rather simple. The 1938 Adler Damenrad ladies’ bicycle was owned by a devoutly religious man named Samuel King. He was a tabernacle caretaker for many years at a small town in Idaho. The children who played around the outside of the stone building used to be terrified of him. They said he had the ability to appear out of thin air. He is buried not far from his spot.”

            “What do we need?” Liberty scanned the frozen headstones illuminated by the full moon. Their escape had been too easy. Intuition told her they must proceed with great caution.

“We need dirt from his grave, a tear from any new one and a stone from a tree.” Inks read from the book. “There’s an incantation that must be read while the bicycle wheels are rolling.”

“Half of you search the trees for a pebble lodged in the branches,” Liberty said. “Look for an empty crow’s nest. These birds like to gather shiny things. There is a good chance one of them dropped a stone while lining their nests with treasure. The rest of you look for a fresh grave with mortuary flowers. Bring all the blooms you can carry. There is a good chance someone cried over a loved-one’s passing. All we need is a tiny bit … frozen or not.”

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

            Ham went with the group searching for a stone. She climbed several trees and even looked in one of the ball-of-sticks nests before she finally found one. It was smooth and had been polished and had a small eyelet for attaching a chain, probably looted by a crow from someone’s jewelry box, but a stone from a tree was still a stone from a tree.

           

            When they returned to the circle the others were already there. Ham was surprised to see the grass inside the thawed portion of the graveyard was growing and turning green under the moonlight. “Plant life doesn’t understand magic,” Liberty said. “All they know is that it’s warm and feels like spring.”

            “The cemetery sextant is going to freak out,” Creeps snickered. “Looks very witchy to me!”

            “The city never hires people who believe in witches,” Liberty said. “If they did, they would never keep their employees.”

            “You climb on the bicycle,” Liberty told Ham. The rest of you hold up the front and the back while she pedals. Not too high she just has to be able to pedal.”

Ham felt a jolt like electricity run down her spine when she sat in the seat. For an instant she saw the future becoming the past and was aware of the circle of eternity. She only captured a fraction of what passed before her eyes. The Damenrad hadn’t always been a bicycle. A thousand years before it had been a tinker’s cart, ten centuries before that a trebuchet and long before that a crude log boat … but it had always been … and would forever be.

            “We need everyone to focus … we barely have enough magic left to perform this ritual. Everyone close your eyes. There will be no more comfort spells tonight. We might have to check into a motel if we want to sleep.”

Liberty scattered the grave dirt and the stone on the ground beneath the wheels and held the flowers in her hand.

            “A wheel within a wheel,” she read from Ink’s book.

            “A seal inside a seal!”

Ham heard a sound and turned her head, several cars were turning into the cemetery entrance.

            “An ever hungry worm.”

            An ever breading germ.”

Ham tried to speak … to warn the others but the only parts of her that would move were her feet. The bicycle wheels began to turn slowly … then faster.

            A half dozen cars skidded to a stop on both sides of the group. Ham recognized Joseph Amati and another man who had to be his brother exiting one of the vehicles. They were stomping snow from their feet as they moved forward. Liberty kept on reading the ritual … oblivious to what was going on.

           

“Give us now these wheels with wings.”

            “And keep your hidden other-things.”

Hamilton Fisk felt the bicycle start to rise seconds before a ball of fire exploded into the group. Liberty had finally stopped talking now her eyes looked wildly at the attackers surrounding her coven. She raised her eyes toward the night sky just before she burst into flames. Ham pedaled across the face of the moon high above a sleeping Salt Lake City.

“With her dying breath, Liberty called, Ride child … ride toward a new beginning.”

THE END ?

HAMILTON FISK part 3

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 3

By R. Peterson

Walter Havens (Worms) lay sprawled against the door of the Ford F150. A drop of blood trickled from the corner of his mouth. “What happened?” he moaned and rubbed his face as Hamilton Fisk (Ham) and Dorian Edwards (Creeps) tossed the Adler Damenrad ladies’ bicycle into the back of the truck and crawled into the cab.

            “Looks like you fell asleep,” Creeps told him.

            “I’m bleeding!” Worms suffered minor hysterics when he saw blood smeared on his hand.

            “You must have been dreaming,” Ham sneered. “Our closest enemies are more than a whole block away! Who on Earth in this utterly righteous-city would knock you in the head while you were sitting innocently in a pickup?”

            “We’ll fix your head when we get back under the bridge,” Creeps told him. “Right now let’s get out of here!”

Worms slid the truck sideways on the icy asphalt as he roared from the parking spot onto the far-East end of Second South Street. He checked his rear-view mirror. “You got the bike!” he gasped. “Any trouble?”

            “No,” Creeps said. His pockets were filled with sunflower seeds and he spoke between cracking shells with his teeth. “And that worries me. We got out of that place with a priceless Boogoo and with very little loss of blood!”

            “Pull over up here and we’ll check for his eye.” Ham told Worms.

Worms pulled the truck to the side of the road just past an elementary school where children were skating on a large ice rink.

            “What are we looking for?” Worms was still rubbing his head.

            “A Ptolemaic coin,” Creeps told him. “An ancient Egyptian silver piece with an all-seeing eye on the reverse side. Most birds can home in on the image the eye transmits to them and then report back to their masters.”

All three members of Abra Cadaver got out and searched every inch of the truck especially the underside but could find no trace of Joseph Amati’s tracking device.

            “I don’t know how he did it, but we definitely have an eye on us,” Creeps said pointing to dozens of sparrows landing on nearby telephone wires.

            “Where’s my BB gun when I need it?” Ham grumbled as they climbed back into the truck.

The drove on …. And a flock of sparrows followed.

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

            Ham looked at the Spanish clock-pendant hanging by a black-iron chain around her neck. “It’s almost one,” she said. “We better grab “Ink” on the way home. Worms had been driving erratically trying to lose the flock of birds which appeared to be growing. He made a hard left onto 400 South. Herman (Inks) Wilson had a job cleaning the Salt Lake City Public Library when it closed each night at six. Worms parked in the near empty lot and waited.

A few of the more than a thousand sparrows that covered the Ford truck and several nearby trees flew when a man with too large eyes and shaky hands rapped on the window. “Are you okay?” He sounded as if he were having a seizure.

            Creeps unrolled his side window. “We bought sunflower seeds in bulk from WinCo,” he said flipping a few cracked shells outside. “They drive these winter birds crazy!”

            “I can call the police if you need!” the man said waving his arms. His red-plaid Andy Cap hat fell-off exposing a handful of long thin hairs struggling desperately to reforest his barren scalp. About a dozen birds flew away, but the truck was still covered. The man waved a cell phone.

            “I wouldn’t do that,” Creeps told him. “I knew a bald-man in Texas called the cops on a swarm of robins ready to fly south. When the Houston Police arrived all they found was a pile of white droppings and a pair of shoes with blood in them.”

            “I’m not bald … but what happened to him?” The man looked at the birds with growing fear.

Creeps couldn’t help himself; he leaned out the window and whispered. “He was spotted wandering barefoot on an Acapulco beach … with a feathered nest and blue eggs stuck on his head!”

Inks arrived and crowded into the front seat. He dropped an armload of books dealing with demonology on the floor. “Who was that old geezer?” Worms asked glancing back at the angry man in the rear view mirror.

            “That was my boss,” Inks said. “Why?”

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

A cold wind blew gusts of snow under the Second South Street Bridge. Almost a dozen ragged figures were huddled around a burning garbage can. “Thank the spirits you’ve arrived,” Liberty Johnson cackled when Ham, Creeps and Worms walked in. “I’m sure the last cop who stopped by for a social visit called for a shelter bus … even though we all told him we were fine.”

“We parked in a lot two streets over,” Ham told them showing off the bike. “Is everyone ready?”

The sound of vehicles stopping on both sides of the bridge and a cluster of flashing lights made Creeps look. “It’s the Social Services Bus with a police escort,” he said. “Anyone feel like spending the night in a shelter?”

“No,” the answers were unanimous.

Eleven figures held hands as they huddled around the burning barrel. “Don’t forget the bike someone said. Ham reached out and touched it. There was a swirling of heated air around the garbage can. Flames shot from the top as if escaping from a fiery vortex. The eleven began to chant …

Leave the cold, bring on the warm.

Leave the bold, to suffer harm.

Leaf the trees, on distant shores.

Leave me please, where sunlight pours.

The bridge trembled and there was a flash of light. Then suddenly warm air blasted from under both sides of the bridge.

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

Captain Roger Munds directed his officers to guard all escape routes. The homeless usually would not run but a few might be using drugs. Carefully he made his way down the snowy embankment. The homeless in Salt Lake City were an ongoing problem with no easy answers. What most people didn’t realize was that these people were on the street not for lack of housing or job opportunities but because they could no longer function in society. Many of these ragged people were military veterans cast into the cold by the horrors of war or by something in their past that made them non-functional. It was bad politics to have street people freeze to death in the midst of prosperity. The mayor had ordered that they be transported to temporary shelters on especially cold nights whether they desired it or not.

Captain Munds shone his flashlight all over under the bridge; it was empty. He looked accusingly at two of his officers moving in from the other side. “They didn’t run out this way,” both insisted.

The captain kicked away some of the powder snow that had recently drifted in. A melted ring of ice showed where the burning barrel had been just minutes before. People might run but how could they take a hot metal barrel with them? He was especially interested in the tracks of a bicycle that seemed to just disappear.

“You want us to start searching the streets?” One of the cops asked.

“No,” the captain told them. He shook his head as if to clear his thoughts. “It’s going to be a deadly cold night. I don’t want any of my officers outside … unless they have to be.”

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

The crying of seagulls and a warm ocean breeze greeted Hamilton Fisk, Walter Havens, Herman Wilson and Dorian Edwards as they sat with the others on folding lounge chairs on a secluded beach near Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. Most had already changed from the layered cold weather clothing into swim suits. Herman Wilson was reading from his pile of books and other papers. Every person’s body was bronzed, lean and tanned.

“I’m still not sure if the way we look now is the enchantment … or if that cold street scene was.” Worms said.

“This is real,” Creeps told him opening a can of the Mexican beer Carona. “That other life is just to disguise us from the powers … who think they be.”

Ham took her time examining the antique bicycle parked on the white sand.

Liberty Johnson looked all of eighteen years old as she walked over wearing a blue polka dot bikini that showed off her long shapely legs. “Getting the Adler Damenrad is only half the work,” she said. “The Boogoo must choose us as its new home and you as its new master.”

            “How do we do that?” Ham asked her.

            “First we need to find out everything possible about the previous owner … and then there are exacting rituals to be performed.”

Inks still had his face buried in the books and pages … but he answered. “Joseph Amati and his brother are both members of the Red Point Tridents from Chicago. They are the most blood thirsty coven in the US. These butchers specialize in murder and extortion and are often given contracts by organized crime bosses when they want to send an especially gruesome and gristly message to someone.”

            “Are we safe?” Ham asked.

            “Their magic is very powerful,” Creeps smiled. “But unless they know where their meat is they can’t stick their forks in it.”

Worms was far out in the water with a small wake board trying to catch a wave. After a few minutes Creeps stood up and stared intently.

“What? Do you see a shark?” Ham asked.

            “No, it’s nothing.” Creeps said shading his eyes. “It’s just that I’ve never seen so many gulls clustered around our newest member.”

Liberty lifted a pair of binoculars to her eyes. When she finally lowered them, her expression was somber. “Those aren’t gulls,” she said.

TO BE CONTINUED …

           

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 …