Читать книгу Casaday Girls, Book 2: The Creature Returns - Michael Markey - Страница 7

As Grandpa gave a mighty pull on the leaden door the hinges made a loud creaking sound that could literally wake the dead. Perhaps the undead. “That thing could use a little lubrication, kids.”

The three peered into the abyss. A long flight of wide stone steps led to a lower room, as best they could see in such faint lighting.

They listened. Nothing. “Quiet as a tomb.”

“Twice as spooky too, Rache,” Alexa added.

“I guess nobody paid the electric bill lately down there,” said Grandpa as he spied a barely lit oil lantern hanging on the wall at the top landing. “They left just a bit of lighting so visitors will not fall and break their stinking necks on the stairs, I guess.” He removed the lamp and adjusted the wick, to make it burn brighter. “That is more like it. Shall we move on?”

Rachael answered his question by taking the first cautious steps. “Be careful, Grandpa. These stairs are slippery.”

“No need to tell me twice. It is quite damp.”

They descended nearly twelve feet into the cavern, much more than a normal flight of stairs, to a basement floor. Grandpa examined the walls as they worked their way down. “Quite a feat, what somebody did to build this chamber under a dilapidated factory. Why would they go to all this trouble?”

“Maybe we are about to find out,” Rachael answered.

He ran his fingertips along the stone walls. “You realize that the soil in this area is quite sandy. For somebody to excavate and carve out these rooms, how could anything stay in place?”

“Do you think it was here forever and they built a factory on top of it later?”

“Somebody would have noticed, unless they intended to cover it over and disguise it for some reason. My guess is that the catacombs were created as an afterthought.” Grandpa looked to the ceiling. “Wow, they worked hard on this, shoring up the floor above to create vertical walls under this place. It would take a small army of construction workers to do it, from my experience in this business.”

“Maybe just a few builders with incredible strength,” Rachael said, thinking aloud.

He examined closely, taking a small pocket knife to scratch along the surface. He smiled. “Hold on. They aren’t really stone walls at all. It’s only a heavy coat of stucco material over a hard concrete wall. Plaster, to give it the appearance of stone.”

“What was the reason, Grandpa?”

“Alexa, it means that instead of building an actual stone vault they gave it this facade, like something you might see at Disney World. Those Disney guys are great at it.”

“You say this is something built in recent years, and not back in the days of Count Dracula.”

“Yes, assuming there was a Count Dracula, Rachael.”

“Well, Grandpa, you know that story told about a nasty person called Vlad.”

“‘The Impaler’? Yeah, I read all about him, too.”

They touched ground at the bottom of the long stairway, a well-packed floor of moist sandy soil. Someone before them had dimly lit the cavern with smoky lanterns spotted at various points along the walls.

Grandpa stopped and took a look around. “Yep. It is like the old horror movies of the thirties. I watched those films when I was a kid and they scared me out of my wits! Actors like Bela Lugosi, and Boris Karloff.”

“Who?”

“Alexa, I suppose the names would not mean a thing to you. Long before your time. Long before your mother’s time, now that I think of it.”

“Can we talk about scary guys another time?. You are creeping me out,” Rachael said.

They looked around and up ahead. There, in two long rows, they discovered the crude wood coffins.

“Oh dear,” Alexa whispered. “It really is a tomb.”

“Maybe...maybe they are all empty, Lex.”

“Then again, maybe not.”

“I hate to be the one to mention this but there is only one good way to find out. We need to open each one.”

“Grandpa! You have GOT to be kidding.”

“Nope, Alexa.”

“No way am I going to touch those boxes.”

“Look. You two wanted to find this Isaac Fromme guy. Now you have your chance.”

“There are so many of them.”

“So I guess that means we better get started if we want to find the answer today, girls.”

Grandpa began at the end of the row and lifted the first lid. It partially raised up and then crumbled in his grasp.

Both girls screamed.

“Oops. Guess some of these crates are quite old.”

“Be more careful!” Alexa cried.

Inside the first box they discovered nothing but moldy soil.

“Moving right along...” He continued with the next one, a bit more gently this time. The lid dropped off its hinges and--again--there was nothing there. “Anybody want to keep score?”

“Just keep going, please,” said Rachael.

The third box appeared more resilient to his prying motion. The lid opened, still secured by its hinges, but revealed no corpse.

“Nobody home again. Maybe he went out for a bite, girls.” Grandpa laughed at his little joke.

“That is not amusing.”

“I know, Alexa. I want to keep it light so the three of us do not decide to run out of here screaming before this is over.”

He lifted the next lid. This burial box was, again, in relatively good shape. Granda judged it to be an inexpensive coffin of pine, a very old conifer. Perhaps a product of The Pinelands, as folks called the local state forests in this neighborhood.

“Here is one guy who invested very little money into his--” Grandpa stopped mid-sentence.

There he was. The elderly gentleman. Stretched out serenely on a bed of soft earth. Mr. Isaac Fromme in the flesh! All three stared--dumbfounded--for the moment.

“Is this Isaac Fromme?” Grandpa asked, for he was not present for identification that night at the lake.

Both girls peered in again, and then nodded. They would never mistake the face of that injured man they found, despite the fog and gloom of that fateful evening.

“It is, Grandpa. The mysterious Isaac Fromme,” said Alexa.

“Mystery solved then.” Frankly Grandpa could think of nothing else to say at this moment.

“He looks so peaceful,” Alexa said. “Do you think he is really dead?”

Grandpa shrugged. “I could think of a few ways to check, but none of the options thrill me at the moment.”

“What should we do?” Rachael asked.

Her question needed no answer. At that point Alexa noticed a slight movement from his chest. “Did you see that? Is he breathing?”

They observed and detected the faint rise and fall. Yes, Isaac Fromme was indeed alive.

“Perhaps our body heat around him could be the stimulation he needs to touch off a few vital signs, girls.”

Suddenly his eyes opened, staring straight ahead. Alexa screamed and grabbed Rachael’s arm.

“Ow! Quit it.”

“Sorry, Rache.”

The colorless face continued to gaze, scarcely breathing. Alexa looked up to her grandfather, as if to ask permission.

“Try talking quietly to him. Say his name, at least,” said Grandpa.

Conflicting advice for a man with a bag full of wooden stakes to drive through a vampire’s heart at any instant, Alexa thought.

“Mr. Fromme? Alexa. I am one of the Casaday girls. We want to help you. Again.”

For the moment he simply stared straight ahead, a wide-eyed look on his face, Alexa remembered later.

“How are you feeling, Mr. Fromme?” Rachael said. “What happened to you?”

As Rachael and Alexa asked these simple questions, Grandpa investigated the surroundings. He picked up a glass vial on an ornate wood table nearby and examined it. The container held a small quantity of red liquid. He shuddered at the thought of what that crimson fluid might be.

A weak smile came to the lips of the man in the wooden box. “You came to rescue me. You really did,” he said in a hoarse whisper.

“Mr. Lasnikov sent us an email that said you were here,” Rachael told him. “He told us we could dig up the key and come down here and--”

“Why would he tell you?”

The Casaday sisters looked at each other.

“We really have no clue,” Alexa said. “The important thing is, we found you and people will finally believe us when we tell them what we saw that night.”

Mr. Fromme attempted to lift himself from the crude box, but he had no strength. “No. This is not the way it should be, girls. I appreciate your great pains to rescue me, but to tell someone? This cannot happen at the moment.” He looked around to study his immediate surroundings. “Did you discover a small vial? My elixir of life?”

“Your what?”

“Elixir of life. A small glass bottle, something like a test tube. There is a very small portion of red liquid in it.”

“It was on the table over here, girls,” Grandpa said as he produced the container Mr. Fromme sought. Alexa took it in her hands and studied it carefully. As small as it was, the red fluid scarcely covered the bottom half of the tube.

“Not much here,” Alexa said.

“Not a problem,” said Isaac with a sigh. “Now that I am rescued, I only need the slightest bit to restore my strength to leave this dungeon.”

Alexa handed it to the man as he struggled to rise up and accept his elixir. He received it, inched the stopper out and tilted it upward to let the slightest bit reach the tip of his tongue. Mr. Fromme exhaled and attempted to get to his feet, an exercise in futility.

“Take your time,” Rachael said.

Isaac dropped his head for the moment and rested. “Perhaps another dash to rejuvenate me.”

Another few drops did the trick. He reached for the edges of the coffin and lifted himself, fighting for breath. As Rachael and Alexa watched, Grandpa clasped his bag of stakes, just in case.

Mr. Fromme looked knowingly at Grandpa. “Relax, my friend. You are in no danger. Not from me, anyway.”

Grandpa released his tight grasp on his sack of vampire disposal tools and watched as Fromme got to his feet. The aged man appeared to recover somewhat from his catatonic state in the casket. He made abbreviated stretches, to relieve his stiffness from reclining in days of captivity. Isaac attempted to move forward but collapsed to his knees.

Even in fear of the unknown with this man, Alexa and Rachael rushed to his side. “Do you need help?” Rachael asked.

He sat back down on the edge of his coffin. The girls feared it would collapse from his weight, but the smelly bed of earth within stabilized his wooden resting place. “So tired. That bit of my elixir of life was not enough. It will take a bit more to restore--”

“Hey, wait a minute. If he thinks he needs more of that stuff, what do you propose we do to get it?” asked Grandpa.

Rachael ignored the remark and studied the man. “You do not look well at all. Maybe we should get you to a hospital. Do you have health insurance to pay for care?”

Fromme waved off her suggestion. “No, I have a better plan. My friend. A doctor.”

“Doctors do not have office hours on Saturdays, especially in the afternoon,” Alexa reminded him. “It IS Saturday, you know.”

“It matters not. My physician will see me any time of the day or night. We have this special bond, and he never refuses my requests.” He looked to his newfound friends. “Is transportation available?”

Naturally, both girls looked to Grandpa, the driver of this rescue party.

“Why not get an ambulance? I have my cell phone in the car, so--”

“Grandpa, do we want to do that? How can we explain to somebody what is going on in this awful place?”

“Rachael, we tell them the three of us happened to be hiking in the area and we came across a guy who needs medical attention. Then, we load him in an emergency truck when they get here and--”

“They will then ask what we were doing in the building and why Mr. Fromme was in the factory. What do we tell the paramedics?”

“Just say he was a homeless person who looked for shelter in an unlocked building. Happens all the time these days.”

Weakened old man? Perhaps. A vagrant looking for a dry spot to crash? They will never believe it, thought Rachael.

“Grandpa, we cannot call Mr. Fromme some kind of hobo. That is just not right.”

He looked back at her. Was it a look of defeat? “You have a Plan B, I suppose.”

“Would it hurt to take Mr. Fromme to see his doctor friend?”

“You want me transport this guy--who might be a vampire--to some doctor’s house, so...”

“So we can leave once we do our good deed, Grandpa. That is why we are here: super kids doing the right thing when someone calls for help.”

He could merely sigh. Suddenly Rachael’s reasoning was not a debatable issue. “Okay, we go to the doctor’s house and drop him off. Then we get out of there. All three of us can go home and forget this ever happened.”

“Yeah, something like that,” Rachael said. “Maybe we could still go shopping, if we have enough time.”

Grandpa did not answer. Instead, he looked back at Mr. Fromme. “I was curious. Are there any more of you to be rescued? In the wood boxes?”

Fromme shook his head sadly. “No, the rest are gone. Moved out long ago. Nothing for them in southern New Jersey.”

“Sorry, but I am relieved at that.”

“I understand your distress at seeing our lair, Mr.--”

“Maguire. Marty Maguire. The Casadays’ crazy grandfather and personal chauffeur. You were saying?”

“Most of the others migrated south. It is so much warmer there.”

“You guys retire too? I do not blame you for going that direction.”

“We prefer the old cities like New Orleans. Havana and San Juan, Puerto Rico, too.”

“Some days I wish I could join them,” Grandpa said, mumbling to himself.”

“Maybe we should get going. I have had enough of this place,” said Alexa, turning to Mr. Fromme. “Are you strong enough to walk?”

“I shall try. Perhaps you could help me on the stairs.”

“Is there no other way out?” Grandpa asked.

Isaac shook his head. “There once was a sizable exit at the other end of the building. Beyond the warehouses. One evening recently the walls came tumbling down and tons of masonry collapsed over it.”

“We know that fateful night quite well,” Grandpa recalled as they approached the slippery stairway. “It nearly killed us.”

“The debris made it impossible for me to escape. With my limited strength I labored to remain barely alive in the tombs.”

“Alive in a sense, I guess,” Grandpa said, still clutching his bag of protection against vampires.

Isaac Fromme stopped at the landing to the stairs, pulled the vial from his long dark coat and drained the remaining drops, to give him vigor for the ascent. “Sorry. I am impolite in not offering any of you a sip as well, but there was so little left and I assumed you--”

“Thanks anyway, Mr. Fromme,” said Rachael quickly.

“Yeah. Give me a pass on that one, too. Not exactly my thing.” Grandpa winced when he said it.

Fromme teetered as he took the first few steps up the slick stone stairway. When he hesitated to move on, Rachael and Alexa grasped his arms for support. Knowing the potential danger of personal contact with this fellow, Grandpa watched with pride at the caring gesture of his grandchildren.

Reaching the top of the dark stairs they emerged from the catacombs to the light of day. Immediately Mr. Fromme slipped a hand into his inner coat pocket and produced tinted glasses to protect his eyes...and his undead soul, no doubt. With a few seconds of rest he could breathe normally. Isaac looked back at that massive blue door. “Would you be so kind as to secure the portal. Perhaps it will become a necessity for my fellow travelers in the future.”

“You expect them to return?” Asked Alexa.

“One never knows, Miss Casaday. One never knows. We are an unpredictable ever-changing lot.”

Isaac walked without assistance the rest of the way--slowly, but with no help from the girls. Once they left the building and continued across the open grounds to Grandpa’s car his pace became labored again. Every few steps he took a brief pause to regain his strength.

“Is it far to your doctor’s office?” Asked Grandpa.

“A few miles. I shall guide you to his home, sir.”

“He is okay with that, you said? The doctor?”

“Any time of the day or night. Our friendship goes back many years and he is more than willing to repay. Seven fold, as they say.”

The four approached Grandpa’s car. Taking the risk, he placed all the vampire protection products in the trunk and they crawled in, Isaac Fromme riding on the front passenger side.

“I can direct you to his home, Mr. Maguire.”

“Just call me--uh--just call me Marty, okay?”

“If that is your wish...Marty,” Fromme replied as he reclined back in the bucket seat, closing his eyes for a moment.

Oh man! I am to be directed to the home of an evil doctor by a guy who is probably a vampire? What am I doing? Grandpa thought as he traveled down that lonely stretch of road, to who knows where?