Читать книгу Shallow Graves - Rev. Goat Carson - Страница 11

RABBIT WAS NOT COOPERATING, or if he was, I was not aware of it. Sleep that night fell over me like a black blanket—no sights, no sounds, no visions. Right before I woke up though, a tiny quiet dream tiptoed into my head. I was sitting with Ben Franklin in a small antique room while a group of naked women with bags over their heads paraded in front of us. It was a pleasant way to wake up. I was still plenty sore from my bout with the bouncers as I stretched and looked at the clock. Four in the afternoon, down at the beach another day was drowning in the gray Pacific. I decided to gather a little more information about my enemies before the night crawled over the mountains and came after me. I called the Speedster’s friend, Doctor Zachary MacDonald, at U.C.L.A. He invited me over after his last class. He had a place off Sunset down below the campus. I agreed on 5:30, even though it meant I’d barely have time for the big three S’s before heading down to his place to continue my occult three R’s.

I always enjoyed the ride down Sunset during rush hour traffic. There is a wide, tree-lined median strip that divides the two directions of traffic. From the outskirts of Beverly Hills down to the inskirts of Santa Monica, this strip becomes a stage for some sort of jogger’s Gong Show. Since the health advantages of an hour of extreme physical exertion while deeply breathing exhaust fumes, was the equivalent of smoking three packs of Turkish donkey dung cigarettes, I concluded that the true motivation for this pageant was the thrill of parading halfnaked past the lines of creeping cars. It was the thirst this town has for more and more insipid forms of exhibitionism that kept the wheezing old queens, in their satin shorts, chasing their pretty boy days through the smog and haze up to Beverly Hills and down to Santa Monica. The same was true for the office bimbos out tightening their tummy tucks and fanny lifts in outfits that exposed a flirtatious peek of bosom and cheek. Today’s show was a real three star extravaganza. I counted at least four confirmed sightings of real prostitutes; the wigs and flashy make-up are a dead give away but I only confirm the sightings when they actually approached a car. And I saw, God bless America, seven out of town students in string bikinis who thought they had finally discovered the really “in” place to jog.

As I sat in my car and admired the passing parade, the smoggy, hot-orange light of the late afternoon began to burn my tired eyes. I massaged them gently from the apple to the edge. When I opened them I saw my dream girls jogging naked with bags on their heads through the sweet streams of sunset light. I heard sounds now, like singing, but not like singing, human voices just holding a single note. Suddenly the chorus of voices became a chorus of car horns, the spirits vanished and I was left holding up traffic.

I was still a little shaky when I pulled into the good doctor’s drive way. I double checked the address then walked up the winding brick path that led to a house which would have been more at home in New England. It was that English manor style with broad wooden beams exposed in the brickwork. I rang the bell, a small man, with the face of an elephant, opened the door and bid me enter.

I followed him to the library where a steaming pot of tea and two cups sat ready on a small table between two Queen Anne chairs. The walls of the room were lined with books packed into dark wood shelves. In the rear of the room was a small marble fireplace, and in the front, a huge dormer window of leaded glass. The floors were a darkened hardwood covered with oriental carpets. It all looked somehow familiar, maybe a scene from an old movie or a painting I’d seen somewhere. The light pouring in from the window made little diamond patterns on the floor, the chairs and the table.

”How can I help you?” The good doctor asked as he poured my tea.

“I need some information about witchcraft.”

“I see, what country and time period?”

“Here. Now.”

He leaned back in his chair and sipped his tea thoughtfully.

“Are you in trouble?”

“I think there is a coven after me, the Molochians, but I have no proof and I don’t know why they’d want to harm me—I don’t even know, for sure, that they really exist.”

“Oh, they exist alright, and if they are after you, well, then you are in trouble.”

I sat there for a moment, fumbling for words as the light outside paled to a tender lavender. The doctor stood up and walked over near the fireplace to a small bookcase with a glass door. He unlocked the door and selected a book. He stood there for a moment, reading to himself then returned to his chair. As he sat down, he handed me the open book.

“The Feast of the Beast,” he said, “that’s what you’ve come to see me about, isn’t it?”

“Speedster told you?”

“No, he said you were having paranoid delusions and asked me to dispel your fantasies.”

“Great introduction.”

“It was your mention of the Molochians that gave me the idea. How much do you know about them?”

“Only what I’ve heard, that they use their own children in their rituals and place a great value on corrupting youth.”

“The name is biblical, from the god Moloch, to whom the children of Israel sacrificed their children. They made a great iron statue of the god, which they would heat until red-hot then they placed their infants onto his upturned hands. King Solomon instituted the practice during the last years of his reign to appease his pagan wives. As you know, Solomon is considered the greatest magician that ever lived and is believed to have written down conjurations by which the infernal hosts can be controlled…”

As I sat there listening to him I began to feel dizzy. Then I saw a circle of medicine men from different nations, different time periods. They were standing around a fire chanting, “What is his name?” They all point at me. “Nine Wives is his name.” They laugh. Naked women with bags on their heads came sailing through the dormer window on the last beams of twilight. The good doctor turned into Ben Franklin and the room went spinning into darkness.

Out of the darkness came the eerie chant of witches. I saw two tiny hands wrapped around a kitten’s neck, squeezing, squeezing, until the fuzzy little creature went limp. Then came the sound of applause. I saw a small boy, naked, smeared with dirt, wearing a Halloween devil mask, triumphantly swinging the dead kitten before a group of naked, masked adults. Now a small and thin, crying baby was placed at the boy’s feet and he was handed a dagger. The chanting began again. The boy looked at the baby then suddenly dropped the knife and ran crying to a female member of the group. The chanting stopped. The woman slapped the boy, then turned him back to face the pitiful infant, but the boy refused to pick up the knife.

A young girl, about nine, also masked and naked, stood up from behind the group and shouted, “I’ll do it!” She walked around in front, picked up the dagger and turned to the boy. “I want to be a star,” she told him defiantly. She then tossed her head, raised the blade and knelt down over the baby. The chant began again. There was a slight moment of hesitation then she plunged the dagger into that tiny heart.

I came to, screaming, in the good doctor’s bed. Doctor Zak held my shoulders and calmed me down.

“Relax my friend, you’ve had an out-of-body experience but it’s over now, you’re safe.”

It took me several minutes to get my bearings, I felt like my soul had been slam dunked back into my body.

“I am quite experienced in these matters, so please relax and when you are ready I want you to tell me everything that you saw.”

I took a deep breath and looked around the room. It was small and bare compared to what I’d seen of the rest of the house. It had the look and feel of a monk’s cell. Something in his manner made me feel secure enough to talk about the vision. I started babbling about witches and baby killings, sounding a little crazy even to my own trained ears. But the doctor just took it all in. He had me go over certain sections, searching for details. What kind of knife was it? What did the handle look like? Was there an inscription on the blade? Did I recognize any of the participants? Did I recognize the room? I went over and over the vision for over an hour with him. It was strange, I had never had an experience like this before and reliving it over and over was not making it any easier to take. I definitely was not having fun yet.

“Tell me, was there anything strange that happened right before you blacked out?”

“Yeah, right before I passed out I saw a group of medicine men and they called me Nine Wives. Then a group of naked women with bags on their heads walked through your dormer window and turned you into Ben Franklin.”

“I beg your pardon.”

It was time to bring the good doctor up to date on all the bizarre happenings of the past months. I knew this would take some time so I suggested we do it over dinner. The doctor was delighted. In no time we were back down in the library enjoying a lovely dinner of homemade chicken soup, fresh baked bread, apples and cheese. Once again the doctor had me go over certain sections of my story until he was sure he had all the pertinent details. When I had satisfied him completely I waited a beat then asked:

“What’s the Rabbit up to?”

“Your dead friend has become your spirit guide and protector. Though I’m not sure why, you are being allowed to view these evil rituals through his intercession. The case of Rudolph Steiner comes to mind. He was allowed to view the black magic rituals of high-ranking Nazis during World War II, in much the same way. He was protected from both the evil energy being generated and the psychic view of the adepts he was observing.”

“You think I’m observing actual events?”

“Yes, I also believe you are observing them in different time zones: past, present and future. I think that is the meaning of the medicine men, but Nine Wives I will have to ponder.”

“This is all real great but what are the naked women with bags on their heads?”

“Your friend is telling you to fall in love.”

“What?”

“Ben Franklin’s advice on how to choose a mistress—you put a bag over her head and make love to her. You must have mentioned this to your friend at some time, am I right?”

“I may have…Oh! Wait a minute I did tell him that. After he broke up with his wife and was looking for a new girl. But I still don’t get it; shouldn’t I be learning some sort of white magic, some sort of counter spell?”

“In my opinion there is no such thing as white magic. All magic is tainted by deception. Evil can only be defeated by good. Love, compassion, kindness, these are the forces that destroy evil. One Mother Teresa is worth a million Merlins.”

“Yeah, but Doc, I’m not exactly the Mother Teresa type.”

“On the contrary, you have many character traits in common. You have an obvious disdain for money…”

“That’s lack of money, Doc, LACK not disdain…”

“Don’t quibble. You have an honest mind…”

“Not with girls or government officials—I lie to them all the time; I can’t help myself.”

“Nonsense…but most of all you have compassion, otherwise your friend would not have returned from the grave to protect you.”

“But Doc, this is Hollywood, you can’t expect me to fall in love in Hollywood. Can’t you just give me a magic charm or incantation or something?”

“Absolutely not; it would be far too dangerous. These are Molochians we are dealing with. As I was about to explain to you before you had your experience, Solomon himself, the greatest magician, was lead astray into this abhorrent practice, deceived by the power of his own magic. We might be able to get away with it once, twice at the most, but in the end the astral disturbances created by the counter-spell could be a grave disadvantage. Your friend is leading you on the correct path. Fall in love and base your attraction on feeling and not on appearance; that is the meaning of the bags. Search for a pure heart, not a pretty face.”

I was more confused then ever as I drove back up Sunset. I was uneasy with the prospect of being yanked out of my body at any given moment and shuttled off to view some horrible evil incident. Being compared to Mother Teresa did not sit well with me either; I had too much respect for the woman to be comfortable with the comparison. But the real kicker was this task I’d been given to fall in love with a purehearted girl. It was a little too much like Dorothy being asked to steal the wicked witch’s broomstick. This was the “Me Generation” after all and I was living in the dark underbelly of “Me Town” and without seducing a nun, I didn’t see much hope for this scenario. Driving through Beverly Hills only served to reinforce my conviction that I had been given an insurmountable task. I decided to pay a surprise visit on the Mank, perhaps he had gathered some information by now that would lead me out of this ever-encircling labyrinth. I had bounced like a speeding bullet off the solid wall of the unknown and was spinning out in a direction far away from my intended course.