Dead Jack and the Old Gods, page 7
“I hate asking this question, but do you have a plan, Jack?”
“We start by breaking out poor Herbert.”
“Why do we have to break him out?”
“I think we’re going to need him. Besides, don’t you think it’s sad that he has to waste away in that place just because he read a book?”
“What if this guy’s screws are really loose?”
“I’ve dealt with you all these years.”
“You know the cracks are getting tired, right? They’re not funny anymore.”
“Who says I’m being funny?”
When I got out of the Studebaker, I spotted an unconscious leprechaun against the stone wall that bordered the park. He had what looked like soot around his nose and mouth. His little legs twitched and the pointy ends of his shoes danced in the night air. Another Black Powder head.
Not many people walked along the Wood’s edge. People were afraid a hungry specter would snatch them and drag them into the fog. Countless pets have gotten lost inside, never to be seen again. I’ve had to go into the Wood only a few times to get information from a ghost. They have plenty of knowledge, but getting it out of them is another matter. It’s hard to threaten a specter, unless they’re the types who like to drink blood.
That lep was asking for it, sleeping there. I thought about helping him, but I had more important business to attend to. I went around to the trunk, opened it, rooted around for a minute, and pulled out two sets of blue scrubs. I glanced back at the lep. He was still there.
Oswald came around to the trunk.
“Remember these from the case we had with the haunted animal hospital?” I said. “I knew these would come in handy one day.”
“That’s the plan?”
“We just walk in and walk out.”
“Easy as pie.”
“You’re not such a dunzy after all.” Something howled deep inside the Wood. “Hold up.”
My conscience got to me. I dropped the scrubs back in the trunk and walked over to the passed out lep. I bent down, catching a strong whiff of whiskey and formaldehyde. Our poor lep must have gotten drunk on Devil Boy before taking the powder.
“Rolling a drunk?” Oswald asked.
“We need to wake him or get him away from the Wood before he’s ghost food.”
I shook the lep. His head lolled on his neck, but he didn’t stir. I gave him a couple of slaps to the face. No response.
“He’s on Black Powder,” Oswald said, just now noticing the black residue on his face.
“I know that.”
“Then you’re not going to wake him up.”
Perfect. A brilliant plan just came to me.
I dragged the lep to the Studebaker and leaned him against the back tire.
“Put the scrubs on,” I said.
“What about the leprechaun? You’re not leaving him there.”
“Just put on the scrubs.”
Oswald reached into the trunk, got his outfit, and threw it on. I took off my coat and put it in the trunk, along with my fedora. Then I slipped the scrubs over my shirt and pants.
“How do I look?” I asked.
“Like Dr. Corpse.”
“Perfect. We’re taking the lep with us.”
I picked up the leprechaun, who couldn’t have been more than four-foot and seventy pounds. I held him in the crook of my left arm like a football.
“The lep’s our ticket inside,” I said as we headed to the Home.
“I thought you already planned just to walk in.”
“Think of the shamrock sniffer as insurance.”
The Home for the Cosmically Insane was a sturdy non-descript brick building, twenty stories high and a city-block wide with blacked-out windows. The entrance, between 97th and 98th streets, faced the Wood of Shadows. The vampire stock brokers and fairy art dealers probably hated having this place in their swanky neighborhood. The book gnome said it was a fortress, and it sure looked like it. Apparently, a lot of lunatics resided in the Five Cities.
No sign above the double front glass doors announced that we had arrived at the Home for the Cosmically Insane, but I knew this was the place.
I carried the inert lep inside.
Two large ogre guards, who had been standing on either side of the lobby, stopped me.
“What’s going on here?” the first guard asked. He had one eye that drooped and an upper lip that curled up.
“This lep had escaped,” I said. “We caught him trying to get into the Wood of Shadows.”
“Why is he unconscious?” the second guard asked. He was thinner and shorter than his partner with a neck that was actually narrower than his head, which was unusual for an ogre.
A patient, a moleman in a johnny, scrawled on a wall in the lobby with a crayon. I tried to read what he was writing, but it wasn’t a language I was familiar with. There were quite a few consonants, I noticed.
“When he saw us,” I said, “he tried to jump over the stone wall, but he didn’t make it. The lep must have been looking for a pot of gold, if you know what I mean? But the poor little guy knocked himself out. I should get him up to his bed to rest it off.”
The two ogres looked at each other, and then the bigger one asked, “Why didn’t we see you come out of the building?”
Good question. “We’re just coming on duty. We were coming in when we spotted him. You guys should make this place more secure.”
“That’s the third one this week.”
“Should we report it?” the second guard said. “I can get the supervisor.”
Oswald shot a glance at me. “You guys care for a smoke?” I asked.
They exchanged looks again. The first one said, “Sure. As long as they’re Dragons.”
“I don’t smoke any other kind.”
I reached into my pants under the scrubs and pulled out my last pack of Lucky Dragons. I handed it to the ogre. “Take it. There are only a few hellfire sticks left.”
He took the pack, slipped it into his shirt pocket, and gave me a hearty slap on the back that nearly toppled me over. The lep, however, wasn’t so fortunate. He crashed to the ground.
The little guy lay limp on the ground. The ogres thought that was hilarious. They both doubled over.
I scooped up the lep.
“Go on,” the bigger ogre said. “Get out of here. No need to report it. He’s back, safe and sound.”
“Thanks,” I said.
Once we passed the guards, I said, “Phase one accomplished.”
“Real smooth, Jack. We need to find the room assignments.”
“Simplicity. Remember?”
A gremlin nurse walked by. “Excuse me. I’m looking for a patient named Herbert. I just started here and one of the doctors asked me to fetch him, but I seemed to have gotten lost. Could you help me?”
“What’s that you have in your arm?” she asked, startled.
I had almost forgotten about the lep. “Oh, it’s past his bedtime. I’m getting him back to his room.”
“We have wheelchairs for incapacitated patients, you know?”
“Like I said, I’m new here.”
“I see.” The gremlin looked at me and Oswald questioningly. She wore bright lipstick and huge dangling earrings.
“Tom here was just exhausted, so I wanted to rush him off to bed. Herbert. Do you know where he is?”
“Herbert. He’s always in the day room on the third floor. Usually working on puzzles.”
“Thank you.” When the nurse left, I said, “Phase two.”
Oswald smiled painfully.
“Before we go up to the third floor, we need to stash this guy,” I said. “He’s getting heavy.”
We searched the halls for open doors. Oswald found one and we went inside. It was a spa room filled with large tubs. I had thought it was empty, but then I heard someone shouting from behind the wall facing me. There must have been another room back there.
I sat the lep in a deep tub.
“You’re just going to leave him there?” Oswald looked at me like I was Jack the Ripper.
“He’s safer here than at the edge of the Wood. This is a hospital, after all. They’ll take care of him.”
The shouting got louder. Then I heard crying. I should have figured someone else was there. People usually shout at another person. Then again, this was the Home for the Cosmically Insane.
Suddenly, someone came running from out of the back area. It looked like that patient who was scrawling graffiti in the lobby. A tall gremlin orderly pursued the moleman, grabbed him, and began yelling again. “What did I say about writing on the walls?” He backhanded the moleman in the face, jerking his head to the side. Then he slapped him again, on the other side of the face.
I didn’t like seeing big guys pick on little guys, so I got between them. I pulled the gremlin off the moleman, giving him a good shove. The gremlin slid across the tile floor and banged against a tub.
“Hey, now,” I said. “That’s no way to treat a patient.”
The gremlin scowled at me. The moleman brandished a crayon and went back to scrawling on the wall. The orderly rushed over to him, but I blocked the gremlin.
“Who the fook do you think you are?” he said, spittle flying out of his mouth, which was filled with tiny sharp teeth.
“I’m the guy stopping you from abusing this poor sap.”
“Fook you.”
The moleman took a swing at me, landing a fist on my shoulder. I popped him with a quick left jab to his chin. This time the orderly slid across the tiles and fell backwards, his skull cracking against the edge of the tub. At first I thought it wouldn’t be so bad, but then I saw the blood pooling on the tiles. The gremlin didn’t move. Not even a twitch.
Oswald stood over him, shaking his head. “He’s dead, Jack.”
“I didn’t mean it.”
“We should get out of here.”
What about him?” I jerked a thumb at the moleman graffiti artist. He never turned around.
“I don’t think we have to worry about him. Let’s at least clean this up. I’ll go find a mop or something.”
Oswald went searching around the room. I dragged the gremlin into the backroom. There were more tubs here, except they were bigger. They could fit three or four psychos in them. As I lifted the gremlin, his shirt pulled up, exposing a swastika tattoo on his side. Now I didn’t feel so bad about killing the bastard. I put the Nazi gremlin in the tub and noticed something else: the walls were covered in graffiti.
“Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn” was written over and over in green shaky letters a foot high. I recognized only two of the words. When I went back to the front room, I saw that the moleman had been scrawling the same message here, too. He paid me no mind as he went about his business.
Oswald had finished mopping up the gremlin’s blood and was rinsing it off in a tub.
“Our friend here likes to write this same message over and over,” I said. “Have you seen it before?”
Oswald looked over the graffiti and shook his head.
“Hey, moleman, what are you writing?” I asked. But as I figured, he didn’t respond. I didn’t think it wise to pursue it, so I left the cosmically insane creature to his writing.
We took the elevator to the third floor.
“You just killed a guy.”
“He was a Nazi. I bet this place is crawling with them.”
“That’s not the problem. You left a dead body in a tub.”
“Probably not the first time it’s happened here. We’ll be in and out before anyone notices.”
When we got off the elevator, we followed the signs to the day room. I heard banging and sobbing and crying and laughing coming from behind the closed doors that lined the corridor. A troll grasping for invisible flies came rumbling past us.
The day room was a large open area with chairs and tables. A radio played soft music. No one was there.
“Phase 3,” Oswald said.
“Shut up.”
Someone tapped me on the back. I swung around, ready to explain ourselves to a head nurse or administrator. A dead-eyed lunatic in red pajamas stared at me.
“Can you help us?” I said. “Do you know Herbert?”
“The door is open so all may come through,” the lunatic said.
“Herbert? A gnome who likes books?”
“Enter through the exit and you are home. The truth lies beyond the transom.”
“Okay, have a nice day. Thanks.”
The lunatic walked over to the radio and changed the station.
Now for the adventures of the masked devil woman... Luciferna! a voice crackled over eerie music.
“I think he was giving us directions, telling us where to go,” Oswald said. “Let’s find an open door.”
“What’s a transom?”
We searched the third floor looking for open doors, but they were all locked.
“You think you’re too smart, Oswald. He was just a lunatic.”
“Enter through the exit. The stairwell. Come on.”
We ran-walked to the end of the corridor, and wouldn’t you know it? The door to the stairwell was open and above it was an EXIT sign.
When I entered the stairwell, I heard the distinct sound of puzzle pieces being snapped together. It was coming from above us.
Herbert sat on the fifth-floor landing, assembling a puzzle. All the pieces were black.
“Hey, Herbert,” I said to the little gnome in red pajamas and wire glasses. “How’s the puzzle going?”
“They let me stay here. Nobody bothers me. It’s quiet and nobody bothers me.”
“We’re not bothering you. We just want to talk to you about the Necronomicon.”
Herbert let out a scream that would have made a banshee wet her pants. I quickly slapped my hand over his mouth.
“Just relax,” I said. “We’re only trying to get help. We’re friends of your old boss, Mort.”
His body heaved and he fought me. I applied more pressure. He wanted to let out another scream.
“I’ll let you go if you promise not to scream. We need your help, Herb. We’re in trouble. I think we’re all in trouble. Are we copacetic?”
After a moment, Herbert nodded, and I took my hand away from his mouth.
He sat there in silence for a second.
I needed him to relax before I broached the subject again. “Let’s talk outside of this place. Would you like to get out of here?”
“Sure, but after I finish my puzzle.”
I saw he had only half of one border done. “We don’t really have the time, Herb.”
“You want me to scream again?”
But it was too late. Two large gremlin orderlies—which meant they were about five-foot tall—entered the stairwell.
“Who are you two?” one of the gremlins said. “I’ve never seen you before.” I wondered if he had swastika tattoos, too.
I needed to act fast. “We’re the puzzle police,” I said, and drove my knuckles into the big guy’s neck, dropping him like a bag of dirt. The second one walloped me in the jaw. I barely felt it. Then I walloped him in the ear. He went down next to his buddy.
“Let’s go.” I grabbed Herbert by the arm and pulled him up.
“My puzzle!”
“You’ll have a much bigger puzzle to solve soon enough.”
We ran down the stairwell.
“Which Phase is this?” Oswald asked.
“Is there a back entrance?” I asked Herbert. “Another way out?”
“All the side doors are locked,” he said. “We have to go out the front.”
When we came out on the first floor, two more gremlin orderlies rushed us. I socked one in the nose, and Oswald bashed the other with a fist the size of a watermelon, sending him into the first gremlin. They both slammed against the wall and fell on top of each other.
We raced down the corridor and turned left into an identical corridor. Raised voices echoed behind us. We rushed down corridor after corridor, following the signs to the main entrance.
The voices behind us got louder.
I grabbed a door handle. It opened.
“Get in,” I said. Oswald and Herb hustled inside the room. I managed to close it before I heard footsteps enter the corridor.
The lunatic was still pouting about his puzzle. “I was almost finished, you know?”
“Are we close to the front lobby?” I asked.
“It’s right on the other side of the room. There’s a door.” He walked over to the door and was about to open it.
“Whoa, dunzy! Don’t open that door.”
Herb jumped away.
Beside the door was a window covered by venetian blinds. I opened them a crack and peeked out. We were next to the lobby. The two ogre guards stood beside the door, one on each side, and now there was a large ogre clerk at the reception desk.
“The front door is only a few yards away,” I said. “We could make a run for it. Just dash out and keep going until we burst through the door.”
“Or we can come up with a better plan,” Oswald said.
“I don’t know if we can get through them,” I said. “They’re all bigger than the gremlin orderlies.”
“Maybe I can do something,” Herbert said.
“What? Scream at them?”
“Just wait.” He casually walked out of the room.
“Oh crap. He’s going to blow it. We’re screwed.”
“Should we follow him?” Oswald asked.
“Hold tight.”
Through the blinds, I watched as Herb approached the guards. They talked for a bit. The big one smiled and shook his hand. Then Herb waved toward us and motioned for us to come over.
“I think he gave us up,” I said. “The slimy bastard!”
He motioned again, more enthusiastically this time.
“Come on,” Oswald said.
Maybe I could sucker-punch the big one after I distracted him.
“Follow behind me, Oswald.”
I opened the door and walked toward the guards with a big fake smile on my face. I felt like I was on a death march.
Herb said, “Goodbye,” waved to the guards, and walked out the front door.
Me and Oswald nodded at the guards, who nodded back, and followed Herbert outside. No one followed us.
When we got to the corner, I asked, “Why did they let out with no hassle?”
