Helens-of-Troy by Janine McCaw
He said he’d let him go.
Ryan pounded his fist against the cement walls of his cell. He couldn’t believe he had been so naive as to think he had an honor bound agreement with a member of the dark side. He winced as the rough edges of the brick wall tore the skin from his knuckles upon contact.
“Cut that out,” Roy Cohen said. “I don’t want to have to take you to the hospital. Or repair the wall. The last repair bill I got from Mike Webster was ridiculous, and it was just to insulate the window. I hate to imagine what he charges for grouting.”
“How’s Betty?” Ryan asked. He hadn’t had an update on his mother since he last saw her. Sometimes no news was good news. Other times it was just no news. “Have your heard anything?”
“She’s still under observation. By the doctors and us. I have Colin Dayton guarding her hospital door.” The Chief checked the answering service for messages as he was talking, but there were none.
“Do you think that’s a good idea?”Ryan asked, pacing nervously back and forth in his cell. Did he dare tell the Chief what he thought he knew about the Daytons?
“Why wouldn’t it be?” Roy asked the teenager. “I did it as a precaution. I thought you’d like that.” He took his pistol out of his holster, intent on cleaning it, but then decided that perhaps now was not the time. The way things were going, he might have the need to fire his weapon at any time.
“A precaution for who? Betty doesn’t need a guard. The vampire’s not after her.”
“Did it ever occur to you that you might not be the only person in Troy who needs a bodyguard?” the Chief asked, sliding the gun back into its holster on his utility belt. “Betty doesn’t need a bunch of gossiping church ladies appearing by her bedside reminding her that her number one son is behind bars.”
“Betty doesn’t go to church.”
“And you’re not a serial killer. Enquiring minds still want to know.”
“I’m thinking you put Colin there so you’d know where he was.” Ryan stated, immune to the Chief’s attempted dig. “He’s in on it, you know.”
The Chief sat in his chair and gave Ryan a steady stare. “Really? How is it you keep finding all these things out before I do?” he asked. He noticed the poker book lying on the floor. He picked it up and read the description on the back cover. “How did this get in here?”
“Colin brought it in,” Ryan said, pulling the library card from his pocket. “He gave me the book and I pulled this out from it before I tossed it back at him. I’m more of a comic reader myself.” He twirled the card between his fingers. “He said Cody gave the book to him. I don’t know how he got it. I thought you weren’t supposed to lend library books to other people. Red Clark’s going to have some dues to pay if it’s not back tomorrow, just sayin’. Do me a favor, don’t arrest him for it. It’d be a little crowded in here.”
The Chief made no indication to Ryan that he had found the Clark’s bodies in their white truck, over the cliff, just like Helen had told him he would. There were black paint scrapes on the crushed driver-side door panel of the vehicle that had done more than one rollover on its journey down the embankment. In all likelihood, the foreign paint came from the Hummer that Helen also had seen in her dream. There was only one Hummer in town, the Chief knew, and most days it was parked out back of his police station. It belonged to Cody Dayton. So Ryan was right. Unless Cody Dayton was lying in a hospital somewhere, and all indications were that he wasn’t, he was in on it. Whether it was a hit and run, or whether his officer had intentionally murdered the Clarks was yet to be determined. Roy had posted Colin at the hospital to keep him under surveillance for the time being. The hospital had security cameras through the corridors, and he had alerted their security team to call him if for some reason Colin Dayton left his post.
“Why are you pacing, Ryan?” the Chief asked. Ryan had been walking a steady path back and forth in the cell since the Chief had arrived back and it was beginning to irritate him. “If you’re missing any medication, I really need to know that.”
“I’m not missing any fucking medication,” Ryan yelled. “I’m locked up, I can’t sleep, and…”
“And what, Ryan?” The Chief asked when Ryan ended the conversation abruptly. “Spill it.”
“He was here again. The vampire. Dayton invited him in! It’s like they’re best buds or something. You need to fire his ass. He fucking left me alone with him, and I gotta tell ya, that’s happening way too often around here. He left the damn door open like y’all are doing, and Ellie walked right on in. She didn’t know he was here. The vampire hit her over the head with the plunger.” He pointed to the weapon that was still lying on the floor. “Fucking gross, man.”
The Chief got out of his chair and walked over for a closer look. This definitely wasn’t where they normally kept the plunger. “What exactly are you trying to tell me?” he asked his prisoner.
“He took the plunger and swung at her like he was practicing for softball. Ellie hit her head on the wall on her way down. She’s lucky she didn’t crack her skull open. She was out cold, and he hit her again. The bastard hit her across the face.”
“Where is she now?” the concerned Chief asked.
“Finally,” Ryan said excitedly. “Finally someone fucking believes me.”
“Ryan…”
“He took her. He picked her up, put her on his back and they disappeared. I know it sounds crazy, but swear to God, that’s what happened. I wanted to tell you when you first walked through the door, but let’s just say nobody’s been taking what I say very seriously around here.”
The Chief turned to him. He was about to say something to the teenager that would get him laughed out of the legal community. “I believe you, Ryan. I’ll purger myself if I ever have to testify to the fact, but I do believe you.” He reached for the heavy winter coat he had hung on the coat rack and put it on.
“Wait!” Ryan said. “Where are you going? You’re not going to leave me alone again, are you?”
“I have to,” the Chief admitted. “I need to go tell Helena what’s happened. Purdy’ll be in soon. You can trust Purdy.”
“Ya sure?” Ryan asked as the Chief turned to leave. “Will ya tell him to bring me a sub? I’m fucking starving.” He sat back down on the bed and watched the door close, leaving him by himself once more. “I give it five minutes before someone else walks through that stupid door,” he said to himself. With the luck he had been having, he knew it wasn’t going to be Purdy, but he prayed it wasn’t the vampire. This time, he got lucky.
“Right then,” Jacey said, stomping the snow off her boots, as she walked into the police station, holding the door open as she did so. “Come on, Tom,” she moaned. “We’ve got some work to do. Hurry up.” She nodded to Ryan. “He’s not much of a runner, our Tommy.” She had easily outpaced Tom in their dash to the jail.
“You two,” Ryan said angrily as the winded Tom entered the room, “could you screw things up any more if you tried? Did you wake up thinking ‘what else can I do to mess with Lachey?’ No. Because that would take some thought.” He took a closer look at Tom. “Nice eye, dude.”
“A big hello to you too, Ryan,” Jacey said sarcastically. Having never been in the jail before, she surveyed the surroundings. “A bit shabby, innit? Where’s your orange jumpy?” She took her gloves off and put them on the Chief’s desk.
“I don’t do orange,” Ryan sighed.
“Listen, Ry…we’ve got some news for you,” Tom said slowly. He tried to find the words to begin to tell Ryan about his brother. “Stan is…”
“Save it, you knobs,” Ryan protested. “I already know the vampire has Stan.”
“Erm, no. He doesn’t actually have Stan,” Jacey updated him. “Mrs. LaRose has Stan.”
“Really?” Ryan asked hopefully, his mouth forming a slight smile. It was the best news he had heard in hours. He could feel some proverbial weight finally being lifted off his ailing shoulder. He subconsciously rotated it, the motion making him wince. It
still hurt like hell, but his chances of having a doctor look at it were currently slim and none.
“She got him out of the chimney,” Jacey said, like it was an everyday occurrence. “She’s says he’s going to be fine.” She glanced at her fingernails. “All this running about has made my fingers all sweaty. I knew I should have waited longer for the topcoat to dry.”
“What?” Ryan said unbelievingly.
“I got fuzzies from the inside of my gloves stuck to my nails,” she said. “I’m going to have to do them all over.”
“Not your nails, Jacey,” he said with exasperation. “What’s this about Stan and the chimney?”
“Mrs. Larose climbed up on the roof and got Stan out of your whatsits,” Jacey told him.
“Are you kidding me?” Ryan asked.
“Let’s just say I wouldn’t light a fire in your livingroom anytime soon,” Jacey told him.
Ryan looked to Tom for help. “What the hell is she talking about?”
“It’s true, dude,” Tom confirmed. “You should have seen her. I think she’s an X-Man. She totally destroyed your stack.”
“Woman,” Jacey corrected him. “And what you said sounded rude.”
“Whatever,” Tom replied, annoyed.
“Actually it’s ‘X-Men’,” Ryan added. “The chicks are still men. Don’t look at me like that Jacey, I don’t know why they are, but they are.” He momentarily imagined Helena in a spandex suit. He smiled and shook his head, trying to remove the image from his brain. “Quit steering me away from reality. The bastard never should have got Stan in the first place. What we have here people,” he said “is a fucking failure to fucking…”
“Communicate?” Tom asked.
“Launch?” Jacey said weakly.
“I was thinking ‘plan’,’” Ryan said sarcastically. “But execute might be the right word under the circumstances. Weren’t ya listening, Tom? Didn’t I try to tell you the vampire was after Stan? Didn’t I tell you not to leave him alone? ‘Cuz I’m thinking I did.”
“I didn’t leave him alone,” Tom stammered, “I was with him the whole time.”
“Except for when you were lying unconscious on the floor,” Jacey reminded him.
Tom shrugged his shoulders. “A technicality. I’m lucky my neck wasn’t broken during the battle.
Jacey rolled her eyes. “Battle?” The empathy she had initially felt for Tom’s earlier ordeal had clearly worn off. “You could learn a thing or two about battle from Lord Nelson’s statue.”
“That dude,” Tom continued, ignoring her, “he came out of nowhere.”
“Yeah,” Ryan admitted. “He does that. One minute he’s there, and then poof.”
Tom nodded. “We were way too hard on Ellie the day we walked back from the gravel pit. It turns out ‘poof’ and ‘vampire’ actually can happen.”
“Here’s the sit-u-ation…” Ryan began, as he told them what had happened to Ellie earlier in the police station.
“Oh, poor Ellie,” Jacey said, shocked.
“Harsh,” Ryan agreed.
“So what are we going to do now?” Tom asked. “How do we find her?”
“You need to go to Stillman’s Creek,” Ryan replied. “I’d say that’s ground zero in vampireville.”
Jacey nodded. “Ellie was pretty intent on going there herself. She was asking me earlier how to get to the old schoolhouse. She must have been asking about it for a reason.”
“Yeah,” Ryan nodded in agreement. “She told us it was in her dream. She said she saw an old schoolhouse, and I remember thinking about the one out by Tara’s. It’s been abandoned for a while.”
“Then we need to borrow you car, Ryan. So we can get there,” Tom added. “We’ll hide out there until he leaves and then grab her.”
“Take Jacey’s car,” Ryan said quickly. Tom driving the Toyota was not a good idea, even to save a girl. “The Toyota won’t help you. I left the beast on the bridge.”
“They had it towed. It’s sitting at the back of the station in the fenced-off area. I saw it when we came around the corner,” Tom told him.
“It’s gotta be getting low on gas,” Ryan added. “Take Jacey’s will ya?”
“I haven’t got my snow tires on yet,” Jacey pouted. “We might get stuck.”
“Okay, okay,” Ryan relented. “You can take the Toyota, but Jacey drives.”
With that settled, he thought again about the plan Tom had come up with. On the surface it sounded like a good one, except for the fact that it would just be Tom and Jacey trying to save Ellie. That wouldn’t work. They needed more muscle. Cleary they hadn’t thought this through.
“What are you going to do if she’s hurt? Drag her to the car?” he sighed. Sore shoulder or not, he was worth two of them. “You guys have to get me out of here somehow.”
“Way ahead of you, dude,” Tom smiled. “We’ve got the formula.”
“Spell,” Jacey corrected him, “dude, we’ve got the spell.” She reached into her pocket and brought out the three items that had been tucked deep inside.
Ryan eyed the goods with suspicion. “You brought a candle, a fat-boy bottle and some dirt? That’s supposed to get me out?”
Jacey sighed. “Who’s the knob now? What you see before you is incense, holy water and consecrated ground. Singularly, they’re just stuff, but together they are like dynamite for a vampire killing spree.” She pulled her phone from her pocket. “I’m just going to surf the web, enter those words and hit search,” she smiled. “Then all your troubles will be over.”
Ryan looked at Tom. “You’re not seriously buying this?”
Tom shrugged. “I don’t know if we need a spree, exactly.”
“Here we go,” Jacey said. “A perfect spell to set you free, courtesy of Google. Just give me a moment.” She placed the items on the ground. “Does anyone have any matches?”
Ryan shook his head. So much for Jacey’s preparation. “You didn’t think of that? Like wouldn’t that have been the easiest of the things to get?”
She ignored him and walked over to the emergency kit hanging on the wall. Inside the cabinet, she found what she needed. “Fire!” she said excitedly.
“What are you doing, Jacey?” Ryan asked nervously. He didn’t want the jail to catch on fire while he was locked inside the cell. He instinctively backed up from the bars.
“Come closer, Ryan” Jacey said, lighting the incense.
“I’m okay where I am, thanks,” he replied.
“I said COME CLOSER TO THE BARS,” she screeched. “Everybody do what I say. I’m going to stretch my arm, with the palm down, like this,” she demonstrated. “Now Tom, I want you to place your hand the same way, over mine without touching it.”
“Okay,” he said, following her directions.
“Now Ryan,” I need you to do the same thing. Get over here and put your hand over Tom’s.”
“Jacey,” Ryan said with false patience, “we don’t have time to play séance.”
“No séance involved, I promise,” she said. “I had this dream. It told me to go get specific items…that’s why Ellie and I left you and Stan alone, Tom.”
“No dreams!” Ryan yelled at her. “I’ve had enough of other people’s dreams for like, FOREVER!”
“Just DO IT!” Jacey yelled back.
“Okay, okay,” Ryan caved, and followed her orders.
“Good,” she sighed with satisfaction. “Now we do the same thing with our other hand,” she said, placing her left hand above Ryan’s and waiting for them to follow her lead. “Now repeat with me… attero parietis, attero parietis, attero parietis.”
“Jacey,” Ryan sighed, “this idea is baked.”
“I said REPEAT WITH ME,” she shrieked, her facial features distorting grotesquely as she did so.
“I’ve never seen this banshee side of her before,” Ryan said to Tom. “You’re okay with this?”
“Let’s just do what she says,” Tom said, more than a little frightened. “It’ll
be easier that way.”
“Attero parietis, attero parietis, attero parietis,” they chanted.
Nothing happened.
Ryan looked at Tom. Tom looked at Jacey. Jacey got nervous and her foot hit the Buddha bottle. It tipped over, taking the incense to the floor with it. The holy water spilled onto the ground, and the flame that should have been extinguished, intensified.
“Holy shit,” Ryan said. “This is no time for a miracle of water turning to oil. Jacey, what are you doing?”
“Attero parietis, attero parietis, attero parietis,” Jacey continued. “Keep going…”
“Jacey!” Ryan begged. “You do realize I can’t get out of here?”
“Just a little more… attero parietis, attero parietis, attero parietis!” she said, pushing the burning water away from Ryan with her boot. The liquid splashed up the side of the prison wall.
“Will you please be careful, Spacey?” Ryan begged. He detected a smell in the air that reminded him of spent firecrackers. “This is not going to be good,” he said nervously, staring at the liquid that had turned from clear to a red-hot.
The flickering flames used the liquid like a fuse, running from the bottom of the concrete floor, through the brick mortar, finally reaching the ceiling where they could move upward no more. Instead they turned the corner, fanned out, and ran across the back wall of Ryan’s cell.
“Jacey!” Tom screamed in terror.
“Uh-oh,” Jacey said. “Attero parietis!”
“Jacey,” Ryan pleaded, “for the love of God, shut up!”
What happened next would leave the town of Troy whispering for years.An explosion blew up two walls of the Troy jail, leaving Ryan, Tom and Jacey standing debris covered, in a pile of rubble that once was the jail.
“Holy fuck,” Ryan stammered, his mind having a tough time understanding what had just happened. “Did you throw a little gunpowder in that dirt?”
“What did you make us say?” Tom asked.
“Tear down the walls,” Jacey said softly, looking at the damage that had been done. “Are you guys okay?” Tom had bits of concrete stuck to the gel in his hair.
“Yeah,” Ryan nodded. “But next time Jace, next time maybe you could try chanting ‘open the door’. Just sayin’.” He wondered what the Chief was going to say when he saw his non-existent jail. “Mike Webster’s next invoice is gonna be totally insane,” he chuckled.
The sound of the explosion had woken up half the town, and it wasn’t long before they heard the sound of fire trucks in the distance.
“What do we do now?” Tom asked.
“We run,” Ryan answered, making a path through the pile of rubble that had once been his cell. “Jacey, I’ve got to hand it to you. This may go down as the greatest Trojan escape of all time.” He took her hand to help her maneuver through the debris. “But if there’s a mark on the Toyota because of this, I’ll kill you,” he said, squeezing her hand harder than he needed to.
The three of them ran to the back of the police station parking lot, where like Tom had said, Ryan’s Toyota was waiting for them. The fence surrounding the impound lot had come down in the explosion.
“We need a gun. Tom, I forgot to tell you to get a gun. And some silver bullets,” Jacey said while running towards the vehicle. “Do you have the keys to the hardware store?”
“I stocked the shelves this morning and we were all out of silver bullets,” Tom replied, taken aback by Jacey’s request. “Couldn’t you ask for something a little easier to get? Like sulphur?”
“She just had sulphur,” Ryan said, trying to open the car door. It was locked. “Look what happened. Kaboom! No sulphur.” He reached under the car’s frame for a magnetic keyholder he had hidden beneath it.” He took the spare key and unlocked the doors. “Get in,” he ordered.
“Well, let me Google…” Jacey offered, jumping into the back seat as Tom took his place beside Ryan.
“No!” the boys cried out, turning around to look at her. “No Google!”
They tore out of the parking lot, just as Purdy’s police car was arriving on the scene, the lights flashing as he brought the car to a stop.
“What the hell?” the officer yelled to them. He couldn’t believe his own eyes. The police station was a smoldering mess.
“Purdy,” Ryan yelled back at him through his open window. “We’re okay, but we’ve gotta go, dude.”
Purdy shook his head in confusion. Part of him knew he should chase after them, and part of him needed to control the scene in front of him. “Fuck it,” he said. “I saw nothing.”
Tom noticed Jacey reaching into her pocket. “What are you doing, Jacey?” he asked nervously.
“I’m going to try to call Ellie,” she said, reaching for her phone.
“Tom,” Ryan said sheepishly, “do you have any gas money?”
“She’s not answering,” Jacey said, reaching back into her pocket and pulling out a platinum credit card. “I have this for emergencies,” she offered. “I’m thinking this counts.”
“Jacey,” Ryan began, “when this is all over I’m going to give you a big fat kiss.”
Ryan pounded his fist against the cement walls of his cell. He couldn’t believe he had been so naive as to think he had an honor bound agreement with a member of the dark side. He winced as the rough edges of the brick wall tore the skin from his knuckles upon contact.
“Cut that out,” Roy Cohen said. “I don’t want to have to take you to the hospital. Or repair the wall. The last repair bill I got from Mike Webster was ridiculous, and it was just to insulate the window. I hate to imagine what he charges for grouting.”
“How’s Betty?” Ryan asked. He hadn’t had an update on his mother since he last saw her. Sometimes no news was good news. Other times it was just no news. “Have your heard anything?”
“She’s still under observation. By the doctors and us. I have Colin Dayton guarding her hospital door.” The Chief checked the answering service for messages as he was talking, but there were none.
“Do you think that’s a good idea?”Ryan asked, pacing nervously back and forth in his cell. Did he dare tell the Chief what he thought he knew about the Daytons?
“Why wouldn’t it be?” Roy asked the teenager. “I did it as a precaution. I thought you’d like that.” He took his pistol out of his holster, intent on cleaning it, but then decided that perhaps now was not the time. The way things were going, he might have the need to fire his weapon at any time.
“A precaution for who? Betty doesn’t need a guard. The vampire’s not after her.”
“Did it ever occur to you that you might not be the only person in Troy who needs a bodyguard?” the Chief asked, sliding the gun back into its holster on his utility belt. “Betty doesn’t need a bunch of gossiping church ladies appearing by her bedside reminding her that her number one son is behind bars.”
“Betty doesn’t go to church.”
“And you’re not a serial killer. Enquiring minds still want to know.”
“I’m thinking you put Colin there so you’d know where he was.” Ryan stated, immune to the Chief’s attempted dig. “He’s in on it, you know.”
The Chief sat in his chair and gave Ryan a steady stare. “Really? How is it you keep finding all these things out before I do?” he asked. He noticed the poker book lying on the floor. He picked it up and read the description on the back cover. “How did this get in here?”
“Colin brought it in,” Ryan said, pulling the library card from his pocket. “He gave me the book and I pulled this out from it before I tossed it back at him. I’m more of a comic reader myself.” He twirled the card between his fingers. “He said Cody gave the book to him. I don’t know how he got it. I thought you weren’t supposed to lend library books to other people. Red Clark’s going to have some dues to pay if it’s not back tomorrow, just sayin’. Do me a favor, don’t arrest him for it. It’d be a little crowded in here.”
The Chief made no indication to Ryan that he had found the Clark’s bodies in their white truck, over the cliff, just like Helen had told him he would. There were black paint scrapes on the crushed driver-side door panel of the vehicle that had done more than one rollover on its journey down the embankment. In all likelihood, the foreign paint came from the Hummer that Helen also had seen in her dream. There was only one Hummer in town, the Chief knew, and most days it was parked out back of his police station. It belonged to Cody Dayton. So Ryan was right. Unless Cody Dayton was lying in a hospital somewhere, and all indications were that he wasn’t, he was in on it. Whether it was a hit and run, or whether his officer had intentionally murdered the Clarks was yet to be determined. Roy had posted Colin at the hospital to keep him under surveillance for the time being. The hospital had security cameras through the corridors, and he had alerted their security team to call him if for some reason Colin Dayton left his post.
“Why are you pacing, Ryan?” the Chief asked. Ryan had been walking a steady path back and forth in the cell since the Chief had arrived back and it was beginning to irritate him. “If you’re missing any medication, I really need to know that.”
“I’m not missing any fucking medication,” Ryan yelled. “I’m locked up, I can’t sleep, and…”
“And what, Ryan?” The Chief asked when Ryan ended the conversation abruptly. “Spill it.”
“He was here again. The vampire. Dayton invited him in! It’s like they’re best buds or something. You need to fire his ass. He fucking left me alone with him, and I gotta tell ya, that’s happening way too often around here. He left the damn door open like y’all are doing, and Ellie walked right on in. She didn’t know he was here. The vampire hit her over the head with the plunger.” He pointed to the weapon that was still lying on the floor. “Fucking gross, man.”
The Chief got out of his chair and walked over for a closer look. This definitely wasn’t where they normally kept the plunger. “What exactly are you trying to tell me?” he asked his prisoner.
“He took the plunger and swung at her like he was practicing for softball. Ellie hit her head on the wall on her way down. She’s lucky she didn’t crack her skull open. She was out cold, and he hit her again. The bastard hit her across the face.”
“Where is she now?” the concerned Chief asked.
“Finally,” Ryan said excitedly. “Finally someone fucking believes me.”
“Ryan…”
“He took her. He picked her up, put her on his back and they disappeared. I know it sounds crazy, but swear to God, that’s what happened. I wanted to tell you when you first walked through the door, but let’s just say nobody’s been taking what I say very seriously around here.”
The Chief turned to him. He was about to say something to the teenager that would get him laughed out of the legal community. “I believe you, Ryan. I’ll purger myself if I ever have to testify to the fact, but I do believe you.” He reached for the heavy winter coat he had hung on the coat rack and put it on.
“Wait!” Ryan said. “Where are you going? You’re not going to leave me alone again, are you?”
“I have to,” the Chief admitted. “I need to go tell Helena what’s happened. Purdy’ll be in soon. You can trust Purdy.”
“Ya sure?” Ryan asked as the Chief turned to leave. “Will ya tell him to bring me a sub? I’m fucking starving.” He sat back down on the bed and watched the door close, leaving him by himself once more. “I give it five minutes before someone else walks through that stupid door,” he said to himself. With the luck he had been having, he knew it wasn’t going to be Purdy, but he prayed it wasn’t the vampire. This time, he got lucky.
“Right then,” Jacey said, stomping the snow off her boots, as she walked into the police station, holding the door open as she did so. “Come on, Tom,” she moaned. “We’ve got some work to do. Hurry up.” She nodded to Ryan. “He’s not much of a runner, our Tommy.” She had easily outpaced Tom in their dash to the jail.
“You two,” Ryan said angrily as the winded Tom entered the room, “could you screw things up any more if you tried? Did you wake up thinking ‘what else can I do to mess with Lachey?’ No. Because that would take some thought.” He took a closer look at Tom. “Nice eye, dude.”
“A big hello to you too, Ryan,” Jacey said sarcastically. Having never been in the jail before, she surveyed the surroundings. “A bit shabby, innit? Where’s your orange jumpy?” She took her gloves off and put them on the Chief’s desk.
“I don’t do orange,” Ryan sighed.
“Listen, Ry…we’ve got some news for you,” Tom said slowly. He tried to find the words to begin to tell Ryan about his brother. “Stan is…”
“Save it, you knobs,” Ryan protested. “I already know the vampire has Stan.”
“Erm, no. He doesn’t actually have Stan,” Jacey updated him. “Mrs. LaRose has Stan.”
“Really?” Ryan asked hopefully, his mouth forming a slight smile. It was the best news he had heard in hours. He could feel some proverbial weight finally being lifted off his ailing shoulder. He subconsciously rotated it, the motion making him wince. It
“She got him out of the chimney,” Jacey said, like it was an everyday occurrence. “She’s says he’s going to be fine.” She glanced at her fingernails. “All this running about has made my fingers all sweaty. I knew I should have waited longer for the topcoat to dry.”
“What?” Ryan said unbelievingly.
“I got fuzzies from the inside of my gloves stuck to my nails,” she said. “I’m going to have to do them all over.”
“Not your nails, Jacey,” he said with exasperation. “What’s this about Stan and the chimney?”
“Mrs. Larose climbed up on the roof and got Stan out of your whatsits,” Jacey told him.
“Are you kidding me?” Ryan asked.
“Let’s just say I wouldn’t light a fire in your livingroom anytime soon,” Jacey told him.
Ryan looked to Tom for help. “What the hell is she talking about?”
“It’s true, dude,” Tom confirmed. “You should have seen her. I think she’s an X-Man. She totally destroyed your stack.”
“Woman,” Jacey corrected him. “And what you said sounded rude.”
“Whatever,” Tom replied, annoyed.
“Actually it’s ‘X-Men’,” Ryan added. “The chicks are still men. Don’t look at me like that Jacey, I don’t know why they are, but they are.” He momentarily imagined Helena in a spandex suit. He smiled and shook his head, trying to remove the image from his brain. “Quit steering me away from reality. The bastard never should have got Stan in the first place. What we have here people,” he said “is a fucking failure to fucking…”
“Communicate?” Tom asked.
“Launch?” Jacey said weakly.
“I was thinking ‘plan’,’” Ryan said sarcastically. “But execute might be the right word under the circumstances. Weren’t ya listening, Tom? Didn’t I try to tell you the vampire was after Stan? Didn’t I tell you not to leave him alone? ‘Cuz I’m thinking I did.”
“I didn’t leave him alone,” Tom stammered, “I was with him the whole time.”
“Except for when you were lying unconscious on the floor,” Jacey reminded him.
Tom shrugged his shoulders. “A technicality. I’m lucky my neck wasn’t broken during the battle.
Jacey rolled her eyes. “Battle?” The empathy she had initially felt for Tom’s earlier ordeal had clearly worn off. “You could learn a thing or two about battle from Lord Nelson’s statue.”
“That dude,” Tom continued, ignoring her, “he came out of nowhere.”
“Yeah,” Ryan admitted. “He does that. One minute he’s there, and then poof.”
Tom nodded. “We were way too hard on Ellie the day we walked back from the gravel pit. It turns out ‘poof’ and ‘vampire’ actually can happen.”
“Here’s the sit-u-ation…” Ryan began, as he told them what had happened to Ellie earlier in the police station.
“Oh, poor Ellie,” Jacey said, shocked.
“Harsh,” Ryan agreed.
“So what are we going to do now?” Tom asked. “How do we find her?”
“You need to go to Stillman’s Creek,” Ryan replied. “I’d say that’s ground zero in vampireville.”
Jacey nodded. “Ellie was pretty intent on going there herself. She was asking me earlier how to get to the old schoolhouse. She must have been asking about it for a reason.”
“Yeah,” Ryan nodded in agreement. “She told us it was in her dream. She said she saw an old schoolhouse, and I remember thinking about the one out by Tara’s. It’s been abandoned for a while.”
“Then we need to borrow you car, Ryan. So we can get there,” Tom added. “We’ll hide out there until he leaves and then grab her.”
“Take Jacey’s car,” Ryan said quickly. Tom driving the Toyota was not a good idea, even to save a girl. “The Toyota won’t help you. I left the beast on the bridge.”
“They had it towed. It’s sitting at the back of the station in the fenced-off area. I saw it when we came around the corner,” Tom told him.
“It’s gotta be getting low on gas,” Ryan added. “Take Jacey’s will ya?”
“I haven’t got my snow tires on yet,” Jacey pouted. “We might get stuck.”
“Okay, okay,” Ryan relented. “You can take the Toyota, but Jacey drives.”
With that settled, he thought again about the plan Tom had come up with. On the surface it sounded like a good one, except for the fact that it would just be Tom and Jacey trying to save Ellie. That wouldn’t work. They needed more muscle. Cleary they hadn’t thought this through.
“What are you going to do if she’s hurt? Drag her to the car?” he sighed. Sore shoulder or not, he was worth two of them. “You guys have to get me out of here somehow.”
“Way ahead of you, dude,” Tom smiled. “We’ve got the formula.”
“Spell,” Jacey corrected him, “dude, we’ve got the spell.” She reached into her pocket and brought out the three items that had been tucked deep inside.
Ryan eyed the goods with suspicion. “You brought a candle, a fat-boy bottle and some dirt? That’s supposed to get me out?”
Jacey sighed. “Who’s the knob now? What you see before you is incense, holy water and consecrated ground. Singularly, they’re just stuff, but together they are like dynamite for a vampire killing spree.” She pulled her phone from her pocket. “I’m just going to surf the web, enter those words and hit search,” she smiled. “Then all your troubles will be over.”
Ryan looked at Tom. “You’re not seriously buying this?”
Tom shrugged. “I don’t know if we need a spree, exactly.”
“Here we go,” Jacey said. “A perfect spell to set you free, courtesy of Google. Just give me a moment.” She placed the items on the ground. “Does anyone have any matches?”
Ryan shook his head. So much for Jacey’s preparation. “You didn’t think of that? Like wouldn’t that have been the easiest of the things to get?”
She ignored him and walked over to the emergency kit hanging on the wall. Inside the cabinet, she found what she needed. “Fire!” she said excitedly.
“What are you doing, Jacey?” Ryan asked nervously. He didn’t want the jail to catch on fire while he was locked inside the cell. He instinctively backed up from the bars.
“Come closer, Ryan” Jacey said, lighting the incense.
“I’m okay where I am, thanks,” he replied.
“I said COME CLOSER TO THE BARS,” she screeched. “Everybody do what I say. I’m going to stretch my arm, with the palm down, like this,” she demonstrated. “Now Tom, I want you to place your hand the same way, over mine without touching it.”
“Okay,” he said, following her directions.
“Now Ryan,” I need you to do the same thing. Get over here and put your hand over Tom’s.”
“Jacey,” Ryan said with false patience, “we don’t have time to play séance.”
“No séance involved, I promise,” she said. “I had this dream. It told me to go get specific items…that’s why Ellie and I left you and Stan alone, Tom.”
“No dreams!” Ryan yelled at her. “I’ve had enough of other people’s dreams for like, FOREVER!”
“Just DO IT!” Jacey yelled back.
“Okay, okay,” Ryan caved, and followed her orders.
“Good,” she sighed with satisfaction. “Now we do the same thing with our other hand,” she said, placing her left hand above Ryan’s and waiting for them to follow her lead. “Now repeat with me… attero parietis, attero parietis, attero parietis.”
“Jacey,” Ryan sighed, “this idea is baked.”
“I said REPEAT WITH ME,” she shrieked, her facial features distorting grotesquely as she did so.
“I’ve never seen this banshee side of her before,” Ryan said to Tom. “You’re okay with this?”
“Let’s just do what she says,” Tom said, more than a little frightened. “It’ll
“Attero parietis, attero parietis, attero parietis,” they chanted.
Nothing happened.
Ryan looked at Tom. Tom looked at Jacey. Jacey got nervous and her foot hit the Buddha bottle. It tipped over, taking the incense to the floor with it. The holy water spilled onto the ground, and the flame that should have been extinguished, intensified.
“Holy shit,” Ryan said. “This is no time for a miracle of water turning to oil. Jacey, what are you doing?”
“Attero parietis, attero parietis, attero parietis,” Jacey continued. “Keep going…”
“Jacey!” Ryan begged. “You do realize I can’t get out of here?”
“Just a little more… attero parietis, attero parietis, attero parietis!” she said, pushing the burning water away from Ryan with her boot. The liquid splashed up the side of the prison wall.
“Will you please be careful, Spacey?” Ryan begged. He detected a smell in the air that reminded him of spent firecrackers. “This is not going to be good,” he said nervously, staring at the liquid that had turned from clear to a red-hot.
The flickering flames used the liquid like a fuse, running from the bottom of the concrete floor, through the brick mortar, finally reaching the ceiling where they could move upward no more. Instead they turned the corner, fanned out, and ran across the back wall of Ryan’s cell.
“Jacey!” Tom screamed in terror.
“Uh-oh,” Jacey said. “Attero parietis!”
“Jacey,” Ryan pleaded, “for the love of God, shut up!”
What happened next would leave the town of Troy whispering for years.An explosion blew up two walls of the Troy jail, leaving Ryan, Tom and Jacey standing debris covered, in a pile of rubble that once was the jail.
“Holy fuck,” Ryan stammered, his mind having a tough time understanding what had just happened. “Did you throw a little gunpowder in that dirt?”
“What did you make us say?” Tom asked.
“Tear down the walls,” Jacey said softly, looking at the damage that had been done. “Are you guys okay?” Tom had bits of concrete stuck to the gel in his hair.
“Yeah,” Ryan nodded. “But next time Jace, next time maybe you could try chanting ‘open the door’. Just sayin’.” He wondered what the Chief was going to say when he saw his non-existent jail. “Mike Webster’s next invoice is gonna be totally insane,” he chuckled.
The sound of the explosion had woken up half the town, and it wasn’t long before they heard the sound of fire trucks in the distance.
“What do we do now?” Tom asked.
“We run,” Ryan answered, making a path through the pile of rubble that had once been his cell. “Jacey, I’ve got to hand it to you. This may go down as the greatest Trojan escape of all time.” He took her hand to help her maneuver through the debris. “But if there’s a mark on the Toyota because of this, I’ll kill you,” he said, squeezing her hand harder than he needed to.
The three of them ran to the back of the police station parking lot, where like Tom had said, Ryan’s Toyota was waiting for them. The fence surrounding the impound lot had come down in the explosion.
“We need a gun. Tom, I forgot to tell you to get a gun. And some silver bullets,” Jacey said while running towards the vehicle. “Do you have the keys to the hardware store?”
“I stocked the shelves this morning and we were all out of silver bullets,” Tom replied, taken aback by Jacey’s request. “Couldn’t you ask for something a little easier to get? Like sulphur?”
“She just had sulphur,” Ryan said, trying to open the car door. It was locked. “Look what happened. Kaboom! No sulphur.” He reached under the car’s frame for a magnetic keyholder he had hidden beneath it.” He took the spare key and unlocked the doors. “Get in,” he ordered.
“Well, let me Google…” Jacey offered, jumping into the back seat as Tom took his place beside Ryan.
“No!” the boys cried out, turning around to look at her. “No Google!”
They tore out of the parking lot, just as Purdy’s police car was arriving on the scene, the lights flashing as he brought the car to a stop.
“What the hell?” the officer yelled to them. He couldn’t believe his own eyes. The police station was a smoldering mess.
“Purdy,” Ryan yelled back at him through his open window. “We’re okay, but we’ve gotta go, dude.”
Purdy shook his head in confusion. Part of him knew he should chase after them, and part of him needed to control the scene in front of him. “Fuck it,” he said. “I saw nothing.”
Tom noticed Jacey reaching into her pocket. “What are you doing, Jacey?” he asked nervously.
“I’m going to try to call Ellie,” she said, reaching for her phone.
“Tom,” Ryan said sheepishly, “do you have any gas money?”
“She’s not answering,” Jacey said, reaching back into her pocket and pulling out a platinum credit card. “I have this for emergencies,” she offered. “I’m thinking this counts.”
“Jacey,” Ryan began, “when this is all over I’m going to give you a big fat kiss.”