Lucas Mackenzie and the London Midnight Ghost Show Page 6

  “You’d look lovely in anything, my dears,” said Professor McDuff. “At times we must accommodate the prejudices of the living.”

  “I like this,” said Lucas. “It’s a publicity shot of a skeleton selling tickets in the theater’s ticket booth. It’s perfect for one of the McClatter boys.”

  It sounded like castanets falling on the floor as the McClatter boys suddenly looked up from the crossword puzzle.

  “There’s always the old standby of passing out life insurance policies,” said Oliver.

  “And we could have a nurse standing by in case of heart attacks,” Yorick added.

  The Gilbert girls perked up. Lucas knew that they loved their nurse uniforms.

  “Gorillas always go over well,” said Professor McDuff. “Our old friend Ray-Mond had a skit called ‘Beauty and the Beast.’ A gorilla would attack his scantily-clad dancer, carry her to a table, and then rip off her arms and legs and toss them into the air. Gruesome!”

  “This one’s better,” said Lucas, looking up from his papers. “A gorilla chases a girl around in the balcony, and the magician on stage fires a revolver at the beast. That’s crazy already. When a spotlight shines on the gorilla, it tosses the girl off the balcony and she lands with a thump. Of course, all they have to do is switch in a dummy, and some assistants drag the ‘body’ off to the lobby before anyone notices. Cool.”

  “Oh, we could do that!” said Alexandra. “Oliver could throw me over the balcony.”

  “Or me,” said Belinda. “I could land light as a feather.”

  “And if Lucas could come up with a sound effect,” said Clarice, “like a body hitting the floor—”

  “Better yet,” said Eddie. “Lucas could just fly off the balcony himself, like he did through that window in Amarillo. Splat! The kids would love it!”

  “Hilarious, Eddie.”

  The cast continued to consider the publicity ideas of their eerie mortal colleagues. Radio promotions held possibility. There could be a contest to guess the size and weight of Oliver’s shoes. Or Professor McDuff could give an interview while lying in a coffin. Or they could use a game show ploy invented by a performer named Philip Morris. Mr. Morris held a rock and roll dance contest with the winner, always a girl, getting to take home a “real dead body.” They would blindfold the winner and tell her that the pallbearers were bringing out the corpse. When the sightless girl touched it, she always screamed, because the “dead body” was really just a frozen chicken from the grocery.

  Professor McDuff looked up from his notes and turned to Columbine. “You’ve been quiet, my dear. Any ideas to share with us?”

  “There was a Dr. Q,” she said. “From Ohio. He used to have people listen to a Talking Tea Kettle. Those who listened heard messages from the other side. It terrified them. I think I know why. When they see our ghosts floating in the dark, they assume they are seeing magic tricks. But if they thought they were making genuine contact with the departed, that’s different. If you really want a memorable frightening experience, I could always conduct a séance. They would never forget it.”

  “I daresay you are correct,” said Professor McDuff. “But, as always, we must be careful not to give away the game. It never pays to be too authentic. Meanwhile, thanks to all of you once again for a sterling performance this evening. Please get some rest. Unless my calendar deceives me, tomorrow night is Movie Night. Lucas?”

  “A triple feature, Professor. We’ll have: It! The Terror from Beyond Space, How to Make a Monster, and Ghost of Dragstrip Hollow. Bring your flashlights and your blankies, boys and girls. It’s going to be scary!”

  * * *

  The bone-white moonlight of the following night poured over the gravestones and cenotaphs that protruded from Saint Theresa Cemetery. Threading their way among the monuments, Professor McDuff’s crew bounced up the dirt road to this hilltop Wisconsin burial ground in an old black truck with flat sides. It had passed its better days as a local moving van.

  Once the truck was strategically parked, the Gilbert girls rose to its roof and draped a large bedsheet over one side. Lucas and Oliver finagled their way into the small caretaker’s shack for an electrical tap, and from there it was easy to ignite the projector.

  Lucas felt that watching movies at night in a cemetery was like watching movies at a drive-in theater, except that instead of sitting in an automobile and watching the movie on a large screen, viewers sat on tombstones and watched it on a suspended sheet. And just as hotdogs and marshmallows tasted better when cooked outdoors, so did the movies seem more thrilling for the almost irreverent pleasure they provided in this normally dark and quiet setting.

  Several of the cemetery’s permanent residents turned out and seemed grateful for a bit of modern entertainment. A Mr. Qualls, who used to be a local millionaire, was first to welcome the visitors, followed by a Mr. Royer, who used to teach mathematics at a local high school. Multi-generational families emerged as well from the crypts, some of whom had never seen motion pictures.

  Eddie sat on a husband-and-wife doublewide headstone in apparent hopes that Columbine would sit with him, but she declined his offer and chose instead to perch on one of the high monuments to the richly departed, alone, with a knapsack slung over her right shoulder. Given her own lengthy frame and the height of the monument, she had the best view in camp of their surroundings, like a pirate in a crow’s nest. Lucas would have loved to sit with her and watch a movie, but he, of course, had to run the projector.

  For weeks, Lucas had been seeking the opportunity to let Columbine know that he was “really” fourteen, almost her age if you didn’t count the 267 years since her death. Yet every time he came close to mentioning it, he would glimpse himself in a dressing room mirror or his reflection in a pool of rainwater, and he would see the ten-year-old boy who had no chance with a fifteen-year-old mystic, no matter how much he “felt” fourteen. And why, he wondered, on Movie Night when he might have had a chance to speak with her, was she sitting all the way up there, anyway?

  Lucas wasn’t surprised that It! The Terror from Beyond Space seemed to give Oliver the shivers. A subscriber to three journals dealing with flying saucer sightings, Oliver could hardly be expected to enjoy a movie about being trapped aboard a spaceship while some stowaway Martian viewed the human crew as in-flight snacks.

  Indeed, despite its cheesy special effects, the movie proved delightfully scary. The McClatter boys huddled together and rattled so much that Lucas had to turn up the volume. The Gilbert girls let out little shrieks whenever a new member of the cast was captured. Yorick, looking very Hollywood with a pair of sunglasses over his eye sockets, floated just behind Oliver and peeked over his shoulder whenever he felt it was safe. Eddie looked as if he should have selected a cozier seat. Only the Professor and Lucas himself seemed to be enjoying the movie without undue concern, while Columbine seemed more interested in the surrounding countryside.

  The first hint of any real trouble was a distant rumble. It might have been thunder from one of the storms of early summer, and Lucas didn’t give it any mind.

  The next hint, still too far down the hill to make out clearly, was a cluster of tiny lights, like a swarm of lightning bugs, except that the distant buzzing made them sound more like bumblebees.

  Lucas edged away from the projector and closer to Columbine, where he could see better. By the time the lights were close enough that he could see them clearly, he realized that they emanated from a congregation of motorcycles closing fast on the remote cemetery.

  Professor McDuff rose from his headstone and joined them, standing just next to the monument where Columbine had an excellent view.

  “Oh, dear,” he said. “This is an unfortunate turn of events. Are they human?”

  “No,” she said from her high perch.

  “What then?”

  “Vampires.”

  “And when did you first see them coming?” Professor McDuff asked.

  “Yes
terday.” She leaped off her seat and floated gently down beside the Professor and Lucas.

  The locals politely excused themselves and sank back into their tombs.

  “How many?” asked the Professor.

  “Fifteen,” Columbine said. “Twelve males plus three females riding behind.”

  Lucas wished he could make himself invisible. Oliver, Yorick, and Eddie tried to make themselves as inconspicuous as possible behind a large tombstone. The Gilbert girls stood with their backs to each other, ready to face trouble from any direction. And the McClatter boys were now so nervous they appeared to be nothing but a pile of bones shaking in the night.

  As the riders reached the cemetery, the bright headlights and terrific roars created a huge commotion. The vampires began riding in a fast circle around the band of entertainers, generating a thick cloud of dust.

  It was Lucas’s first look at vampires. Here and there through the dust he could make out their leather motorcycle gang jackets, their long yellow teeth, and their wild uncombed hair that was full of bugs. He could also make out their smell, like bad meat that needed to be returned to the grocery. Oddly, he felt no fear. In his first months with the show, he might have been terrified, but he had grown into this world where the unusual was usual and, unlike his trembling companions, he had learned to take his cues from the Professor and Columbine. If they weren’t afraid, he wasn’t afraid.

  The vampire motorcycle gang finally stopped circling and parked their bikes in a ring with the headlights facing inward on the troupe of players. Up on the makeshift screen, a monster from Mars was still tracking down and dining on stray crew members.

  One of the riders dismounted—Lucas assumed he was the leader—and walked straight to Professor McDuff. Another, one of the riders with a female companion, also dismounted and approached the back-to-back-to-back Gilbert girls. Lucas saw that the female still sitting on the bike had a gray face, and there was drizzle coming out of her nose.

  The vampire leader said, “What is this, a pajama party?” Then he abruptly stopped and yelled, “Nooooooo!” He stalked over to a marble obelisk and beat his head against it.

  “What’s the matter, Drago?” asked one of the still-mounted riders.

  The leader, Drago, turned to him. A fresh blood blister formed on his forehead.

  “Can’t you see, you numbskull?” Drago snarled. “These guys are ghosts. The undead. You can’t feed on ghosts.” He sniffed the air, then turned to look at Eddie. “Maybe you can nosh on that guy a little, but there isn’t enough here to go around. We should vamoose.”

  “Wait!” said the vampire who was circling the Gilbert girls. “They’re kind of cute for ghosts.” He looked the girls up and down. His grin was a sickening display of yellow teeth.

  “Don’t get ideas, Remy,” said the female vampire on the bike.

  “Shut up, Margaux,” said her boyfriend.

  “So what’s going on here, Casper?” Drago asked Professor McDuff. “This setup don’t look right.” He looked over at the hodgepodge of bones that the McClatter boys had become.

  “Tonight is what we call Movie Night,” Professor McDuff said. “It’s what we do for recreation. You and your friends are welcome to join us, if you please. I fear the first feature is nearly finished, but—”

  “Can it, Daddy-o,” said Drago. He turned his attention to Columbine. “I want to talk to Olive Oyl here. My, you are a tall one. What’s your story, sweetie?”

  Columbine said nothing.

  Lucas felt the muscles in his arm tightening. If the vampire started anything with Columbine…

  “Maybe you’re right, Remy,” Drago said. “Just because we can’t feed doesn’t mean we can’t have fun with this bunch.” He leered at Columbine as though he was considering sinking his fangs into her long pretty neck.

  Columbine simply smiled.

  “Hey,” he said. “You’re so high and mighty. What do you have to smile about?”

  She met the vampire’s stare. “Only that I know what’s going to happen,” she said. “I’ve known since yesterday.”

  The vampire’s gray eyes blinked. Something in the girl’s tone seemed to give him pause, but he turned to his soldiers and continued. “Okay, here’s what we’re gonna do,” he said. “We’re gonna take these little phantom fatales for a bike ride. Maybe over to Illinois.”

  The gray eyes then surveyed the male half of the ghostly contingent, settling on Lucas. “If you girls want to stay behind and play with what’s left, like the runt here, be my guest.”

  But suddenly the other vampires’ faces displayed pure there’s-no-way-out-of-this-alive terror. Astride Remy’s bike, the female called Margaux let out a horrified scream.

  All eyes flashed toward Professor McDuff.

  That is, toward what had been Professor McDuff. For the Professor began to change. He grew taller, a good head taller than Oliver, and wider. He had removed his suit coat just in time for the great leather wings behind him to unfurl and shake themselves to test the air. His fingernails became talons, his teeth elongated into fangs, and his eyes glowed. But as formidable as the Professor’s appearance had become, Lucas assumed that the most frightening turn of events, from a strictly vampire point of view, was that Columbine had opened her knapsack and was offering the Professor its contents—a selection of sharp wooden stakes.

  Lucas backed away as discreetly as he could, unable to take his eyes from the nightmarish scene developing before him.

  Before any of the riders could turn his motorcycle, the Professor grasped one of the stakes and launched it with whip-like speed. His aim was deadly true. The wooden shaft penetrated the chest of a mounted vampire with a sickening thunk. The creature twitched as though being electrocuted, then exploded in a burst of body ash. All that was left was a motorcycle jacket and a riderless bike.

  The remaining vampires recoiled. Their eyes darted this way and that, seeking any avenue of escape.

  But stakes flashed through the air in quick succession as the motorcycles roared. More vampires exploded, covering the fallen motorcycles in ash and leather.

  Taking advantage of the chaos of ash and death, the female called Margaux leaped to the driver’s seat of Remy’s motorcycle and roared off through the tombstones.

  “Margaux, wait!” her boyfriend shouted. But as he ran to catch her, a stake penetrated his back, right through his NIGHTWINGS motorcycle jacket.

  The Professor dispatched seven more vampires, male and female alike.

  The last vampire standing in the cemetery was the leader, Drago. He turned to Professor McDuff, and defiance crossed his face. What sounded like nasty words in French spewed from his mouth as his executioner lifted him up with one powerful hand and plunged a stake into his heart with the other. With a burst, the air suddenly filled with a charcoal-gray cloud, and the leather jacket dropped to the grass, empty. The cemetery fell silent.

  The Professor wiped his huge hands together to brush off the body ash that remained.

  Far down the hill, the light of the one motorcycle raced away.

  The Professor ran a few steps in its direction, caught with one hand a final stake that Columbine tossed him end-over-end from her supply, and then leaped into the air. The great wings took hold, and the creature the Professor had become soared like a black glider down the hill into the darkness.

  The stunned crew scanned the Wisconsin night and tried to see what was happening. Then came the sound of a crash, and suddenly the light from the motorcycle stopped moving. The beam veered off at a crazy angle into the far woods.

  The female vampire’s fate might have ended in a motorcycle crash, but then against the moon Lucas saw what appeared to be something flying. At first he thought it was the Professor, then realized it was too small, not more than six feet across. The female vampire had transformed into a bat and had taken to the air.

  Seconds later a larger set of wings appeared against the moon and rapidly closed on the firs
t set. The two sets of wings became one, and a faint, distant scream communicated the end to the tale.

  “It’s the gift of transmogrification,” Columbine said to Lucas. “Only the most talented Class IV spirits can do it that well.” She turned and went back to watch the movie.

  “If I had any special powers, I’m certain you wouldn’t want to see them,” the Professor had once said to Lucas. No wonder! Lucas had never seen such a sight in this or any other life.

  “That’s the answer!” he said. “If the Professor could do that in the show, we could pack the house every night.”

  “He would think of it as showing off,” said Yorick, who by this time had levered his sunglasses up to his forehead. “Not to mention the little problem of passing it off as something a mere mortal could do. It’s Cecil B. DeMille-spectacular when he does it, though. I first saw him do it in ’47, when we had a little problem with a zombie uprising down in Baton Rouge.”

  “Does he always transform into that?” Lucas asked.

  “He can become whatever is necessary to deal with a situation,” Oliver said. “A surprise, usually. Whatever suggests itself.”

  “The boss is all sweetness and light,” said Eddie, who was admiring the motorcycles, “but you don’t want to make him mad.”

  The McClatter boys jabbered among themselves like six pairs of wind-up novelty Yackety Teeth.

  “A pity about the vamps,” said Alexandra. “Ours was kind of cute. Unless you count the overbite.”

  “And the fragrance,” said Belinda.

  “And the cooties,” said Clarice.

  Chapter Six

  Spooksville

  The little yellow taxi completed two tight circles in the fog before coming to a halt. Its dim headlights stabbed valiantly into the predawn mist. If an airport lurked nearby—and the driver had tried to tell the old man that no such facility existed—the headlights failed to reveal it. In this hushed mystery world of shadow and fog, the taxi’s back door opened and a huge figure emerged. It reached back into the cab and extracted a large hatbox. Three ladies came next, followed by some sort of young roughneck. A long, thin leg issued forth that proved to support a willowy girl in a wide-brimmed hat. A boy of perhaps ten followed, and then the old man himself. Adding to the preposterousness of this scene, like clowns extracting themselves from a midget vehicle in some Circus of the Dead, six adult skeletons clambered out of the hired conveyance.