Story Time (29 page)

The book emitted an unearthly glow; then it started to stretch and bulge. A bubble rose from it like a rising red sun. The energy pulsing inside the sun seemed uncontainable. Even Ashley-Nicole recoiled. She ducked down behind the shield, followed closely by her two companions. Kate stood her ground for a few seconds longer, transfixed. But then, just when an explosion seemed imminent, she dived for shelter, too.

The room suddenly felt superheated and sucked dry of oxygen. The air itself turned a hellish red, and then cooled, startlingly fast, into the thickness of a gray London fog. Kate and her group lay flat on their backs, stuffed into the small space, breathing only fitfully in gulps.

Then above them the heavy air started to swirl like a great soup. It turned slowly at first, but it quickly accelerated to a dizzying speed. White wisps of light appeared in the grayness. They grew in brightness and in speed and began to carom off the ceiling and the walls, bouncing everywhere in swift, sharp vectors.

Kate stared open eyed, lost in the spectacle above her, totally beguiled and mesmerized by the white wisps.

And then the faces started to appear.

Kate saw the ghostly faces of children whirling around her, disappearing and reappearing, like images in a kinescope. She saw hundreds of children's faces, some from her own lifetime, some from two centuries before.

Kate did not recognize the faces of her Toddler Time friends from ten years before, but June did. Kate did, however, recognize the last sequence of faces. It began with Pogo, both as a young girl and as an adult; then the wide-eyed Walter Barnes; then the oompah-pahing Bud Wright; then the bloody Heidi the Milkmaid; then the screaming-monkey Whit; then the high-flying Mrs. Hodges. The last face was one familiar to them all. It was Cornelia Whittaker-Austin dressed as old Cornell Whittaker Number Two.

Then, just as quickly as they had emerged, the ghosts disappeared. They sucked back into the red sun like a rewinding video. After a moment of calm, the sun began to bulge once more. But this time, its energy could not be contained. Hie red bubble stretched for ten more seconds until it reached critical mass. Then it exploded in a blinding flash of light and a red wave of ectoplasm.

Everyone in the room lay low for several minutes. The people behind the bookcase struggled to control their heavy breathing, but they need not have bothered, as the terrified pantings of Bud Wright and Dr. Austin filled the room.

Ashley-Nicole stood up first. She studied the target sight and announced, "Okeydokey. That should do it." She took hold of the thick, curving shield and slid it toward the corner, commenting, "This is a remarkably light material, but superstrong."

Dr. Austin and Bud struggled to their feet, grimacing and sweating.

Ashley-Nicole reminded them. "Just let the Laser Cannon cycle down on its own before you cut the power. Okay?"

Dr. Austin and Bud could only stare at her and blabber.

Ashley-Nicole waited a moment, smiling patiently, until Dr. Austin finally managed to articulate, "Ghosts. They were ghosts. It was a ghost."

Ashley-Nicole laughed with delight. "Didn't you know about the library ghost, Dr. Austin? All the kids did."

"They knew?" Dr. Austin sputtered. "They knew about this? Why didn't they ever say anything?"

She laughed again. "Dr. Austin! You know they were never allowed to say anything!"

Ashley-Nicole kissed Bud on the cheek and added, "Anyway, who would have listened to them?" With a last wave to Dr. Austin, she headed through the rotating door and back to her homecoming mixer.

Dr. Austin and Bud struggled mightily to compose themselves. Finally, Bud looked at the empty book cart and said, "Well, that's it. Whatever it was, it's dead. It's finished." The two men exchanged a tense look Bud asked, "Is it too late, Doc?"

Dr. Austin was adamant. "No, it's not too late." He held up one hand and ticked off his reasons: "The First Lady is still in the building. She knows nothing about any of this. The ghost is dead. Everything is fine. It's not too late. Come on, Bud!" Dr. Austin ran out through the rotating door with Bud at his heels.

Kate popped her head up right away, followed by the others.

June spoke first. "I saw it, Kate. Did you see it?"

Kate assured her, "Yes!"

George added, "We all saw it, June."

Kate asked, "But
what
did we see, Uncle George?"

He answered in a measured, awed voice. "We saw a supernatural being, a demon, if you like."

June asked Kate, "Did you see the faces? Did you see the children?"

"Yes! Yes! Who were those children?"

George answered for her. "Every kid Jack ever possessed, I guess. All stored within him, within his memory, like on a holographic tape."

Kate, George, and June went on like that for several minutes:

"Did you see Mrs. Hodges?"

"Yes. And Pogo?"

"Two different Pogos, at two different ages."

"Did you see Walter Barnes?"

Finally, Molly couldn't take any more. She held up her hands in a giant Y until they stopped speaking. She asked, on the verge of hysteria, "Would someone please explain to me what the hell just happened here!"

Kate gestured toward George, indicating that he should reply. He tried to encapsulate the story for them. "You just witnessed the destruction of Jack. He was a supernatural being, the ghost that has haunted this library. After hundreds of years and countless possessions, he finally ran into a being more powerful than himself—Ashley-Nicole."

Molly and Mrs. Brennan looked at George long and hard—first trying to understand him, and then trying to believe him.

William shook his head admiringly. "Wow. So that was the ghost."

Everyone started to talk at once until, suddenly, the approaching sound of clinking metal sent them scrambling back into their hiding place.

Susan Singer-Wright entered the secret room.

Kate, George, and June peeked around one side of the bookcase; Molly, Mrs. Brennan, and William peeked around the other. They watched, breathlessly, as Susan stepped around the Laser Cannon and sat down behind the desk. Then Susan pulled out a cigarette and stuck it between her lips.

The Laser Cannon's tracker whirred into action. As Susan watched curiously, it ignited the tip of her cigarette, like a gallant gentleman. Then her hair stood straight up. Before she could even scream, the Laser Cannon superheated her body from within, causing it to implode in a burst of deadly black smoke.

Susan Singer-Wright, alive just one second before, was now a smoking, charred skeleton draped in silver necklaces. Her left hand, still wearing its wedding rings, held out the cylindrical remains of a cigarette, like a macabre antismoking poster.

Kate and the others followed the entire horrific sequence of events, wide eyed, mesmerized by the grisly sight.

But they had to rouse themselves a few seconds later. A quick scuffling sound in the outer office was followed by the commotion of Dr. Austin and Bud running back in.

"She's gotta be somewhere!" Bud panted.

Dr. Austin told him, "She is. That Agent Pflaum is hiding her. But
we
know this building better than he does. Come on!"

Dr. Austin started to run back out. But he stopped when he noticed that Bud was not following.

Bud was gazing across the room. He asked, "Say, Doc, what's that thing in the chair over there? Looks like some kind of science experiment." Bud's curiosity drew him slowly toward the desk.

Dr. Austin looked hard at the contents of the chair. He realized that it was not a science experiment. His mouth fell open; then he started screaming.

Bud turned back, panicked, and started to scream, too.

Their screaming voices drowned out the soft whir of the Laser Cannon's tracker as it clicked back into action.

Dr. Austin saw the glow of the laser just in time. He hit the red button and killed the light a second before it reached Bud.

Bud did not even notice. He moved closer to the desk to get a better look. "This might sound crazy, Doc, but it looks a little like Susan."

Dr. Austin was way ahead of him. "It is Susan! Look at her cigarette. Look at her jewelry."

"It is?"

"Yes! Obviously!"

"It's my Susan? My wife, Susan?"

Dr. Austin grasped Bud by the shoulders. "Yes! My sincere condolences. But please, Bud, let us think here. Let us think about what your Susan would want us to do under these tragic circumstances."

Bud stared at him, confounded. "I don't know. What would she want us to do?"

Dr. Austin clapped him on both shoulders. "Now you're talking! First, she would want us to get rid of that machine. It's now her murder weapon."

Bud looked from Susan's skeleton to the Laser Cannon, and back to the skeleton until he understood. "Oh yeah. We need to get rid of that crazy contraption."

Dr. Austin pointed at the Laser Cannon. "Unplug it, wheel it down to the basement, and push it into the furnace. That will destroy all the electronics inside. Then it'll just be a big glob of metal with no fingerprints on it."

"But what about Susan?"

"I'll get the shower curtain. We'll cover her and leave her here, just until we find the First Lady."

Bud mumbled, "Until we find the First Lady."

"We can't let the First Lady leave! Not until we've explained everything that happened. We have to tell her the whole truth." Dr. Austin walked daintily forward. He turned Susan's chair so that it faced the wall. Then he helped Bud wheel out the Laser Cannon, adding, "And I think I know just what to tell her."

***

Kate, George, June, William, Molly, and Mrs. Brennan expelled a loud, collective breath. They all rose to their feet again.

"We are incredibly lucky we stayed back here," George said. "Those morons forgot to shut off the Laser Cannon. It could have tracked over here and zapped all of us."

Kate asked, "Is that lady dead?"

"She's about as dead as you can get. Excavated Egyptian mummies look better than that."

"Then we'd better get out of here." Kate turned to the oldest member of the group. "Mrs. Brennan, can you go back up the ladder?"

"Yes, if I have to. If my life depends on it. But couldn't we just walk through Mr. Whittaker's office?"

Kate looked at the rotating door. "Yeah. Maybe we could. Let Uncle George and me check it out first."

But before Kate and George could move, they heard another sound. All six looked at each other in alarm. Then they all crept, quietly and efficiently, back behind the bookcase.

Kate raised her head. The first thing she saw was the barrel of a BioSensor. It was followed by the trembling arms of Agent Pflaum. He entered the secret room with the First Lady three feet behind him. She was no longer smiling.

Agent Pflaum stopped suddenly. He aimed the BioSensor at the back of the smoking chair and checked the weapon's digital readout. He announced, "It's okay, Madam First Lady. Whatever is on that chair is not a living life-form. We're safe to hide in here."

Agent Pflaum started to get the First Lady a chair, but he got his foot tangled in a piece of white twine. This action caused the book cart to move. It bumped the desk just hard enough to make the chair spin around slowly.

Susan Singer-Wright's still-smoking skeleton rotated and came to a halt, face-to-face, with him.

Agent Pflaum screamed and dropped his BioSensor on the First Lady's foot. The First Lady looked down at her foot and cried out in pain. Then she looked up and saw the skeleton. She, too, screamed.

Agent Pflaum fumbled into his holster, attempting to pull out his revolver, but he dropped that, too.

The First Lady dived for the floor and snatched it up. She jumped to her feet holding the weapon in both hands. She took aim at Susan Singer-Wright's skeleton and started firing. Screaming and firing. She fired until the bullets ran out, causing the skeleton to spin around and around and around in the chair.

Just as the revolver's chambers were emptied, Bud Wright and Dr. Austin ran back in with the blue shower curtain.

The bullet-riddled chair was still spinning.

Bud looked from Dr. Austin, to Agent Pflaum, to the First Lady of the United States. He asked her simply, "Madam First Lady, why are you shooting at my wife?"

Kate rose to her knees and peeked above the bookcase. The four people standing before Susan Singer-Wright's smoking corpse had not moved much.

Agent Pflaum remained frozen in his spot, staring in horror at the skeleton in the chair.

The First Lady, still clutching the revolver, was muttering under her breath, disjointed statements such as "Reading is fundamental" and "Breakfast is the most important meal of the day."

Bud Wright was listening to her, and nodding, with a confused look on his face.

Dr. Austin was clutching and unclutching his blue shower curtain, hoping there still might be a way to remove the body.

Then Agent McCoy's voice called from the outer office. "Pflaum? Are you in there?"

Rosetta Turner appeared in the doorway. "Madam First Lady, are you all right?"

The First Lady said, without emotion, "I believe we need to educate every child."

Rosetta answered tentatively, "Yes, ma'am."

Rosetta took two steps into the secret room and stopped still. Her face paled, and she gasped, "Oh lordy."

From her hidden perch, Kate watched as the First Lady's chief of staff absorbed the various elements of the gruesome scene. Then, slowly, she removed the revolver from the First Lady's grip. She told Agent McCoy, in a low voice, "I'll take care of the live lady; you take care of the dead one."

Agent McCoy took control of the revolver. "Okay. Agent Pflaum? Agent Pflaum! Snap out of it!"

Agent Pflaum rotated his whole body to stare at his superior. "Yes, sir," he croaked.

"Take that shower curtain. Cover that corpse with it, and wheel it out of here."

Dr. Austin told them, with quiet determination, "No. This is my shower curtain. You can't take it."

"This is a matter of national security, Doctor. We'll get you another shower curtain."