CHAPTER THIRTEEN

 

 

"Watch it, Rod!" shouted Father Higgins. It was late at night, and Professor Childermass had taken over the driving duties. The big Oldsmobile was barreling through New Hampshire, heading into Maine, but the professor drove this car no better than he drove his Pontiac. The Oldsmobile clattered, jerked, and skidded in tight turns, while Father Higgins held on and muttered prayers under his breath.

Professor Childermass did not reply. He leaned forward over the steering wheel, as if he could push the car a little harder that way. "We just passed through Berlin," he announced. "We'll be in Maine in a few minutes. Let me see—Gilead, then Bethel. Then north to Newry, and seventeen miles past Newry, Mesopotamia. That scoundrel certainly chose a forsaken countryside to hide in."

Johnny was trying to keep from being jounced off the backseat. "P-professor," he said, "th-that isn't t-too far from—"

"From Lake Umbagog and my late brother Perry's old estate," said Professor Childermass grimly. "I noticed the irony, John."

"I don't think I've heard much about your brother," said Father Higgins, with the tone of someone trying to take his mind off his present danger.

"There isn't a lot to tell," returned the professor. "Peregrine Pickle Childermass was a bit of a scatterbrain, a rich man, and a dabbler in things he should have left alone."

"Oh," said Father Higgins. "Totally unlike you."

"That's right," said the professor. "Actually, a few good things have come out of Maine, though I wouldn't number my late lamented brother among them. There was Louis Sockalexis, for instance. He was a Penobscot Indian who played baseball for the Cleveland Spiders before the turn of the century. A real slugger. Later, they gave the Cleveland Indians their name in honor of Sockalexis. He had a brother who was a wonderful runner—" The tires bawled as the professor almost lost control of the car in a curve.

"Rod!" shouted Father Higgins. "Please watch the road!"

"Oh, very well," muttered the professor, and he hunched over even farther. They drove into western Maine on Highway 2, and eventually they turned north. Even with a brilliant moon out, Johnny couldn't see much, but he knew that this was a mountainous part of Maine, where the roads twisted and turned, rose and fell, through peaks covered with evergreens, birch, and beech trees. He had dozed a little, but now he was wide awake. His luminous watch said it was past one in the morning.

The car jounced over a gravel road for what seemed like a long time but probably was half an hour or less. Then they were on pavement again, and at last the professor said, "Here we are, you two. The wonderful Mesopotamia, Maine, as dreary a little burg as you're likely to find. And naturally everything is closed."

Johnny looked out the car window. Mesopotamia was a little cluster of wood frame and brick buildings. He saw a hardware store, a drugstore, a general store, and a grocery, but as the professor had observed, they were all closed and silent. "I know one thing that will be open," said Johnny. "The train station."

"My thought exactly," answered the professor. He drove a little farther until he spotted the station, and then he parked the Oldsmobile in a gravel lot. They all climbed out, stretching their cramped arms and legs, and crunched over the gravel to the station, a modest clapboard affair painted a dull yellow. The moonlight gleamed in long, silver lines on the railroad tracks just the other side of the station.

They pushed through a door and found themselves in a small waiting room. Four benches, like church pews, stood around empty. A tall green candy machine and a red soft-drink machine stood against the far wall next to the big doors that opened onto the platform, and doors to the men's and women's rooms were on the left. To the right was a counter that opened through into another room. Behind the counter, a short, potbellied, balding man of about fifty was asleep in a wooden chair. He had the chair tilted back against a filing cabinet, and his feet were propped on a small black cast-iron stove. The man wore a green celluloid eyeshade that cast a green shadow over his long nose, scraggly black mustache, and weak chin.

"Service!" roared the professor, clapping his hand down flat on the counter.

The man jumped at the sound, scrambled up from his chair, and hurried to the counter. "Sorry, sorry," he said, rubbing his palm over his face. "Didn't see you come in. Yes, yes, what'll it be for you fellas?"

"Just a little information," said Father Higgins, pushing in front of Professor Childermass. "Early yesterday morning, a long-haired old man got off the train here. He had a great big trunk with him. Did you notice him?"

"Hum," said the stationmaster. "That woulda been old Mr. Omen. Yep, I recall he got off the mornin' train, all right. He hauled that trunk out to his car himself—wouldn't let me touch it."

"Where does the villain live?" asked the professor in a voice like the first rumble of an earthquake.

The stationmaster backed away. "Say, who are you men, anyways? And who's that boy?" He narrowed his brown eyes. "Seems t' me we had a bulletin t' look out for a runaway kid."

Professor Childermass swelled like a frog. "You are wasting our time, your time, and perhaps the life of the very boy you read about! Sir, if I have to, I will come behind that counter and persuade you myself, but before we leave here, you will tell us where this so-called 'Omen' lives!"

The little man looked alarmed. His eyes grew round, and he tugged nervously at his shaggy black mustache. "Now, now, don't get all in a lather. Why, that old fellow's a character in these parts. Yessir, a real character. His name's Armyn J. Omen, an' he lives in the old huntin' and fishin' lodge, out toward Lake Mooselookmeguntic. You go north on th' gravel road, up the side o' Camelback Mountain and across Black Bear Notch. Then you follow the road, oh, I dunno, about three, four miles, an' you'll see a dirt road on your left that turns off to the west. Well, y' take that until you cross th' old bridge—you'll know it when you come t' it—an' then look sharp for a lane that cuts off to th' right. It goes straight to th' old Mooselookmeguntic Lodge."

"Thank you," said Father Higgins, and he hustled the professor out to the Oldsmobile before anything more could be said. "I'll drive," the priest announced. "Roderick, you should watch your temper. It's a wonder that fellow told us anything, the way you blew up at him. You can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar, you know."

"Phooey!" erupted the professor, yanking open the passenger's door. "Who wants a handful of sweet, sticky flies?"

Sighing, Father Higgins started the car. "I suppose," he said, "you noticed the clever alias."

"Yes, yes, of course," grumbled the professor. "Armyn J. Omen is an anagram of Jarmyn Nemo. Even though he doesn't possess much imagination, our precious Dr. Thanatos has more names than Heinz has pickles!"

"Now, there is a welcome sight," said Father Higgins. They had passed through most of the town, but ahead on the left was a little motel, a flat-roofed, U-shaped building with only about a dozen units. Its blue-and-red neon sign said it was the Mesopotamia Inn and that it had vacancies. Father Higgins drove into the motel parking lot.

"What in the world are you doing?" asked the professor.

"Roderick," the priest said patiently, "it is the middle of the night. Even if we can find this place, we can't see much, and if we use lights, we'll give ourselves away. I think our best plan is to snag a little sleep, start out again at daybreak, and get there in the early morning. At least then we'll have some faint hope of catching Thanatos by surprise. I very much doubt that he's hurt Fergie—yet. He had no idea that Sarah would be so quick to track down his movements. From what you found out, he must think anyone looking for him would head for his old stamping grounds in Vermont, not to his hideout in Maine. As far as Thanatos knows, he got away from Duston Heights scot-free, and no one there has an inkling of who he really is."

After some grumping, the professor gave in. They rented a room with two regular beds and a Murphy bed, which is the kind of bed that folds up into a compartment in the wall. Although both men were world-champion snorers, Johnny was so sleepy that he conked out at once. Not even the fear of what they might find at the end of their journey could keep him awake—but he tossed now and then with bad dreams about the malicious Dr. Thanatos.

One dream in particular was odd. He thought he was playing Pickup Sticks with a sad-faced boy a little younger than he was. The game never really got started, though, because the other boy kept bunching up the sticks and tossing them onto the ground. "It's hard to make sense in the dark," the boy complained.

Johnny had no idea what he was talking about. But he noticed that every time the sticks clattered to the floor, they formed patterns. Something about the patterns almost had meaning. But the boy always picked the sticks up and threw them down before Johnny could make heads or tails of them. "Who are you?" Johnny asked.

"I'm nobody," answered the boy. "I was someone, but he made me nobody." He threw the sticks down again, and they clattered very loudly.

Johnny looked at them. They had become miniature bones, ribs and femurs and humeri. And they fell together to spell out the word NEMO. The boy reached to pick them up again.

With a gasp, Johnny saw that the bones had become thin sticks again—but the boy's hand was a skeleton's hand. He looked up, into the empty eye sockets of the aged skeleton he had seen in the coffin. The skeleton's jaw opened and closed, and the boy's voice came from the fleshless mouth: "He locked me in the dark. I tried to dig my way out, but I was too weak, too weak! Remember the four elements!" And then the skeleton flung the sticks one last time.

They landed in the pattern of the letters that had been scratched on the inside of the coffin lid. Everything grew dark, but the letters glowed with a faint light of their own. Johnny reached to pick up the sticks and his hand hit something smooth and hard, something made of metal. He flattened his hand against it and realized that the sticks had become scratches. And somehow now they were above him—

He was locked inside a coffin.

With all of his strength, Johnny pushed at the lid, but it was shut fast. He couldn't budge it. His chest heaved. The air was running out. And now the letters were writhing, coming to life, becoming those horrible dry husks of insects. They crept about just above him, and then dropped onto his face—

He screamed and sat up. The professor and Father Higgins were already up and dressed, and they stared at him. Milky morning light came through the motel room window. It was daybreak, and they were ready to attack Dr. Thanatos in his stronghold.