Puppet Graveyard

13

She had barely finished reading the letter and absorbing all it had to say when her cell phone rang. She answered it, almost hesitantly, grateful to be able to talk with another sane, reasonable person, but terrified that she might hear the sound of teeth chattering when she answered it.

But it was Danny Paul Regis. “Charlie Bascomb’s dead,” he said.

Kitty sat there on the edge of the bed, staring numbly at a print on the wall of some peasant boy balancing a bowl of fruit atop his head. She felt panic seize her, squeezing her throat to a pinhole, her heart galloping in her chest like it was trying to burst free and run. Her hand shook so violently she could barely hang onto the phone.

“Kitty?” Regis said. “Kitty? Are you all right?”

She breathed in and out, forcing herself to mellow incrementally. If she got this wigged out over some bad news, how the hell did she think she’d be able to handle the McBane clan when the time came for—

“Kitty?”

“I’m okay,” she said. “A bit of a shock, that’s all. What happened?”

“Suicide.”

She almost started laughing. She did not think suicide was in the least bit amusing, but suicide? Really? Really? Is that what the police had come up with? Well, of course they did. They knew nothing of the McBanes and the foul seed of evil they carried within them. They knew nothing of what Ronny had done out of desperation and madness. They didn’t know what he had called back from beyond the pale of the grave.

“He jumped out of his apartment window, apparently. Eight stories. Not much left when he hit, if you know what I mean.”

“He jumped, eh?”

“Yes.”

“I guess the question is,” she said, “did he really jump or was he thrown out the window or compelled to take a swan dive?”

“Kitty… what the hell are you talking about? You’re not making sense.”

“Oh, I think for the first time in these many weeks I’m finally making perfect sense.”

Regis was no fool. There was no need to spell things out for him. He understood what she was thinking because he had thought many of the same things himself and he knew exactly what sort of dark paths it would lead you down. “You think Ronny did it. Or, better, you think Piggy did.”

“Don’t you.”

“That’s not rational.”

She chuckled. “I have a feeling there are things in this world that are not strictly rational by our definition, Mr. Regis. I think they’re rare, but they do exist. And now and again some very unlucky idiot like yours truly gets a glimpse of them.” She paused a second, trying to catch her breath which was coming a little fast, she realized, making her sound just a bit less than rational. “And you know what happens to these idiots? They either become agoraphobic nutbags that are so terrified of the world that they’re afraid to leave their houses or they end up in intensive therapy or in padded rooms where they’re fed a steady diet of lithium and thorazine for the rest of their tortured, pathetic lives. Then there’s the other variety. The types that are not about to bow under. Their own fear and anxiety pisses them off to the extent that they fight, they track their fear to its source and destroy it before it destroys them.”

Regis sighed. “And I guess you’re in the latter category?”

“Yes. And that’s why I’m going to the McBane house.”

“Kitty, listen to me. That’s dangerous as hell. If even half of this shit is true then you’re walking into a snake pit. Even if this witchcraft shit is total B.S., Ronny McBane might be psychotic.”

“And I’m going to find out.”

“Let me go with you.”

“No. You’ve done enough. Now it’s up to me. I’m the one who’s been wronged and that means I’m the one who has to put things to right.”