Chain Letter Omnibus Read online

  · · ·

  He was back in the vast abyss of despair. The place of red and purple lights, foul smells, and far-off cries. The pit of loud thunder and watchful eyes. He was approaching the huge dark wall, and this time he could see it clearly. It seemed to divide the very universe in two. But what a universe it was. On one side was pain. On the other was only more pain. What choice could he make? All he knew was he didn’t want to join the tortured people. He knew they were trapped for eternity.

  As he closed in on the wall, he saw that it was riddled with black portals or holes. There was no wind, yet he felt himself being sucked toward one of them, and he was unable to stop himself. His panic grew as the narrow opening swelled into a maw capable of swallowing a battleship. He drifted inside, and the lights and thunder were lost behind him. He was in a vacuum of blackness. Yet the sulfuric fumes had thickened. He felt himself smothering and prayed for it to end, but even as he did so he knew he was in a place where prayers were no longer heard.

  But was that true? Or was it just another of their lies?

  Them. The Caretakers.

  Suddenly, in the black void, he could see into a bedroom lit by moonlight flooding into rectangular windows. He saw the place as a slice of reality cut out of his space of nonexistence. But the slice grew as he moved toward it, and soon he was inside the bedroom, although he could still sense the void behind him, waiting for him to return. On the bed lay his friend Kipp, snoring peacefully.

  “Kipp,” Tony said softly. “Can you hear me? Wake up. Where am I?”

  His friend stirred and sat up. “Hello? Who’s there?”

  “It’s me, Kipp. Tony. I’m right here.”

  Kipp didn’t hear him. But he heard something. “Hello? Mary Lou?” Kipp climbed out of the bed in his underwear and walked to the bedroom door, passing right by Tony. Kipp peeked out into the hallway. It was then Tony noticed the noise that had awakened Kipp. He had to assume Kipp hadn’t heard him since he didn’t seem able to see him.

  Am I a ghost? Am I dead?

  The noise was coming from downstairs. Kipp started to call out to his aunt again—Tony remembered that Kipp’s aunt’s name was Mary Lou—when he decided to go investigate the noise himself. Tony didn’t like that idea. He ran after Kipp as he made his way down the stairs.

  “Don’t go outside,” Tony said. “One of the Caretakers might be out there. Kipp! Listen to me!”

  But Kipp wasn’t listening. Still in his underwear, he walked to the front door and opened it and peeked outside. The noise appeared to be coming from the garage. It sounded like someone scratching a rake across the hood of a car.

  “Who’s there?” Kipp called.

  “It’s one of them!” Tony pleaded, standing at his friend’s side. “Don’t go out there.”

  “Hello?” Kipp called again. He went outside. Tony tried to grab hold of his arms, but he could have been trying to grab his own reflection in a mirror. Kipp strode across the overgrown lawn and entered the garage through a side door.

  “Oh, God, stop!” Tony cried.

  The raking noise inside the garage had stopped. Kipp fumbled for a light, but when he threw the switch, the garage remained dark. Kipp frowned. His eyes grew wide when he noticed that the paint on one side of his aunt’s car had been largely scratched away.

  “It doesn’t matter,” Tony hissed. “Get out of here.”

  Kipp heard a sound coming from the bowels of the garage. Brave fool that he was, he walked toward it. “Hello?” Kipp said.

  A wave of liquid came flying out of the dark directly at Kipp. In a moment he was drenched, and a metal bucket clamored to the concrete floor in front of him. Kipp hardly had a second to register what was happening before a wooden match flared to life, scraped along the side of the ruined car by a figure wrapped in black shadow. Tony’s nose was working fine, and the air stunk of gasoline.

  “Kipp!” Tony screamed even though Kipp couldn’t hear his words.

  The shadowy figure tossed the burning match toward Kipp. It bounced harmlessly off his chest without igniting the gasoline, but it landed in the puddle at his feet. Kipp stared down at the tiny orange flame, amazed, but only for a second before he was transformed into a human torch. The flames whipped up his legs all the way to his hair, and the scream that poured out of Kipp’s throat rent Tony’s heart. Kipp thrashed up and down like a demented scarecrow for several seconds in the worst imaginable pain a human being could experience.

  Tony tried to grab him, to hold him, to do something for him. But he couldn’t, and it didn’t matter anyway. It was too late. Kipp fell to his blackened knees, and his screams began to die as the flesh surrounding his mouth was peeled away in crisp layers. Yet the screams didn’t stop for Tony. After he watched his friend slowly die, he was suddenly back in the black portal that ran between the two hells. And the screams of those on the far side of the wall were no longer so distant, no longer so different from human wails. In fact, they sounded very much the same as Kipp did as he passed out of the world of the living. Filled with anguish, devoid of hope, forever forsaken. . . .

  · · ·

  Tony opened his eyes and found himself staring up at a strange ceiling. At first he hadn’t the slightest idea where he was. Nor did he care. He was just happy the nightmare was over. Never in his worst dreams had he experienced anything so terrible.

  Tony moved his head to the side and saw Sasha curled up in a sleeping ball on the couch. The entire evening came back to him in a flash. The relief of waking from the nightmare faded as he remembered Alison’s betrayal. How could she have been kissing another man when she said she still loved him? She was worse than the Harlot of Babylon. She was a whore. Sasha had said it right.

  Tony sat up and shivered. Except for the towel around his waist, he was naked. He couldn’t imagine how Sasha had managed to turn him over without waking him. But he’d been under a lot of stress lately. He was exhausted. He had to get home and into bed.

  The images from his nightmare wouldn’t leave him, though. Watching Kipp burn had seemed so real. Tony wondered why he had dreamed Kipp was at his aunt’s house, although it would be a logical place for Kipp to run. Kipp had not told anyone where he was going. Hugging the towel around his waist, Tony slipped off the massage table and tiptoed into the kitchen with his phone. He was being silly, he knew, but it couldn’t hurt to give Kipp a call and see how he was doing. Tony dialed, and a moment later he had Kipp on the phone. It sounded as if he had woken his friend up. Made sense—it was the middle of the night. Tony didn’t mind. It was such a relief to hear Kipp’s voice.

  “Yeah, what is it, Tony?” Kipp mumbled.

  “I wanted to see if you were all right.”

  Kipp yawned. “I’m fine.”

  “I’m sorry to wake you. Go back to sleep. Call you in a couple of days.”

  “Everything cool there?”

  “Everything’s cool,” Tony told him. “Good night. You got your night-light on?” It was a reference to a remark Kipp had made just before Neil had kidnapped him. Kipp laughed quietly.

  “Sure do,” Kipp said. “Happy dreams, buddy.”

  Tony set the phone down. He walked back into the living room, still clutching his towel, and found Sasha sitting on the couch. A tunnel of moonlight cut through a nearby window and landed on her legs. But her face remained dark. Her green eyes—he could hardly see them.

  “What’s the matter?” she asked.

  “Nothing.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “Nowhere.” He reached for his pants.

  “You must be going somewhere.” She stood and smoothed her nightgown over her sleek hips. “You’re getting dressed.”

  “I have to go home.” He couldn’t find his underwear. What had she done with it? She strode across the room and put her hands on his shoulders, interrupting his search.

  “Why?” she asked.

  “You don’t want me staying the night.”

  In response she reached up and
kissed him on the lips. A hard wet kiss. And he kissed her back, and her hand went around the back of his neck, into his hair, and began to pull at his blond strands until they hurt. He yanked away from her and took a breath. She mocked him with a naughty smile.

  “Why can’t you stay?” she asked again.

  Her lips had tasted like pure pleasure. Suddenly he couldn’t think of a single reason. “All right,” he said. “But I’ve been told I snore.”

  She took his hand and led him toward her bedroom. “Who told you that? Alison?”

  He hesitated. “Yeah.”

  “Is that who you were calling?”

  “No. I was calling a friend of mine—Kipp Coughlan. He’s staying with his aunt in Santa Barbara for a few days.”

  “Why?”

  “There’s some trouble that he’s trying to stay out of. It’s a long story.”

  They entered her bedroom, and she let go of his hand and pulled back the covers. He couldn’t believe what he was doing. He was about to make love to a girl other than Alison. He should have felt no guilt, after what he had seen that night. But he did—plenty of guilt. He felt scared, too, and he didn’t know why. Sasha took his hand again and pulled him onto the bed and kissed him some more. These kisses were softer, slower, like the strokes of her massaging fingers when they were not probing deep into his sore body. She scratched her fingernails across his hard belly.

  “Tell me your long story,” she whispered.

  “You don’t want to hear it.”

  “But I do. It’s on your mind. I want to put your mind at ease.” She nibbled on his ear with her wet teeth. “I want to make you happy.”

  Tony began to talk. He didn’t know why. Maybe because he was exhausted. Maybe because he was in the arms of a beautiful girl. He talked a lot. He told her about Neil and the original chain letters. He even told her about the new Caretaker, and the horrible nightmares he’d been having. Sasha listened silently between caresses and kisses. When he was done, she just nodded and touched him all over, and kissed him so deep he felt as if he were being swallowed whole. But she didn’t let him make love to her. She kept her nightgown on the entire night and eventually he fell asleep and dreamed no more.

  Chapter Eleven

  Eric called Alison early Sunday morning. He had good news and bad news. The new owner of James Whiting’s record store was not going to be in till Tuesday, and the help refused to give out his home number. That was the bad news. The good news was that James Whiting’s brother was the guy who had bought the store. If anyone knew where James had been during those missing two weeks, it should be him, Eric thought. Eric told Alison to keep her head low and call him if anything happened between then and Tuesday. All day Sunday Alison tried to reach Tony, with no luck. His parents didn’t know where he was. That made her worry all the more.

  Come Monday there was still no sign of Tony.

  He didn’t even show up for Fran’s funeral.

  They buried Fran in the same cemetery where Neil had been laid to rest. Of course, Neil had been alive at the time of his funeral, and they had unknowingly spent the afternoon mourning the remains of James Whiting. Such could not be said for Fran. As the doctor at the hospital had said, she was as dead as they came. Alison stood dressed in black beside Brenda and couldn’t be free of the idea that Fran lay only a couple feet away without her head properly attached. The attending minister spoke about the valley of the shadow of death and lying down in green pastures to rest beside clear waters. It all sounded like a badly written fairy tale to Alison. If there was a God, he was keeping his address secret. Maybe he didn’t want to get a chain letter. Alison was beginning to believe the Caretaker was working for the devil. She had had a hellish dream the night before, filled with weird colored lights, sick smells, and tortured souls.

  The funeral finally came to an end, and Alison hugged and kissed Fran’s parents and told them if there was anything she could do . . . What a futile offer. What could she do for them? Be their daughter? Fran had been their only child. It was all so sad.

  Alison said goodbye to Brenda and her own parents and drove home by herself. But as she had on Saturday, she passed by her usual off-ramp and headed for the mountains. An hour and a half later she found herself walking beside the lake where she had met the intriguing stranger. She went to the door of his cabin and knocked repeatedly. There was no answer. She tried the knob, and the door swung in easily. But the inside was not as she had remembered it, not exactly. There was the same wood stove, the same black kettle sitting on top of it. But the place was filled with dust and cobwebs, as if it had been months since anyone had lived there. It made her wonder whether her encounter with the stranger had been a dream—or worse, a hallucination. Yet she knew in her heart that it had been neither. She wondered if she should discuss the matter with Eric. She’d have liked to tell Tony about the mystical encounter. Where could he be? That morning his parents had said he was out doing errands.

  Night was falling when Alison finally returned home. She sat in her room and read a book before going to bed. She had trouble concentrating on the story, and when the heroine died unexpectedly at the end, she felt nothing. She was too worried about which of her friends was going to die next. Thank God Kipp had done what he promised and gone away without telling anyone where he was. She had cursed God that morning, and now she was thanking him. She hoped he gave her no more reasons to destroy her faith.

  But God did. Or rather, the Caretaker did.

  Another call shook her awake in the middle of the night. She turned on the light before picking it up. She knew the news couldn’t be good.

  “Hello?” she said.

  “Ali.” It was Brenda, broken and tearful.

  “What’s happened? Is he dead? He can’t be dead, dammit!”

  Brenda moaned. “He was at his aunt’s. Tony just called me. The Caretaker got him there. Soaked him with gasoline and set him on fire. Oh, Ali, Kipp’s gone.”

  “Do you want me to come over?” Alison asked.

  “No.” Brenda’s voice suddenly sounded distant. “I’m next on the list. There’ll be a letter for me in the morning. Stay away from me.”

  “But we have to have another meeting of the group. We have to go to the police. Brenda?”

  Her girlfriend had hung up. Alison quickly dialed Eric. She woke him up, but he didn’t sound mad. She told him what had happened. He cursed softly.

  “Tell me the order of the people on the list again?” he asked.

  “It’s Brenda, Joan, and Tony. Brenda will probably get a letter in the mail tomorrow, the way this Caretaker works.”

  “You say you guys are going to have a meeting tomorrow?”

  “I’m going to try to organize one,” she said.

  “Make it for the afternoon. I want to come, but I have to do some things in the morning first.”

  “I don’t know if the gang will let you come.”

  “It doesn’t matter. You tell me when and where it is, and I’ll show up. They’ll have to listen to what I have to say.”

  “You’re going to tell them we have to go to the police, aren’t you? We have to put a stop to this.”

  Eric was evasive. “I hope I’ll have a better idea tomorrow about what to recommend.”

  “Where are you going in the morning?”

  “The record store. It’s more on my side of town, so you don’t need to go. Just stay home and rest. The newspaper office, too. I want to see if I can trace who’s been placing these ads.”

  They had tried a similar tactic with Neil’s chain letters. They had been unsuccessful. “Good luck,” she said.

  “Once you have the meeting set, call and leave the information on my answering machine. And, Ali?”

  “Yes.”

  “We’re going to stop this bastard.”

  “How can you be so sure?” she asked.

  “He’ll make a mistake. They always do. He may have made one already.”

  “What?”

  He h
esitated. “Let me talk to you about it tomorrow.”

  They said their goodbyes and Alison set down the phone. Tony had called Brenda but hadn’t called her. That said a lot about the condition of their relationship. Reluctantly she picked up the phone again and dialed his number. Someone answered quickly on his end, but didn’t speak.

  “Hello?” she said. “Tony? Are you there, Tony?”

  She could hear breathing. It could be his. Then behind him she could make out faint whispering. This did not belong to Tony.

  It was a girl.

  “Tony?” she cried.

  The phone clicked in her ear, and she heard nothing but a dial tone.

  Chapter Twelve

  The gang met at twelve sharp in the park beside the rocket ship. Once there had been seven. Now there were only four: Brenda, Joan, Alison, and Tony. Alison had had to get Joan to call Tony about the meeting. Tony wasn’t returning her calls. Tony sat on the slide across from her and stared at her as if he had never seen her before. But he knew who she was. She had tried to give him a comforting hug and tell him how sorry she was about what had happened to Kipp, but he had brushed her away with a sharp move of his arm. Life was wonderful.

  Brenda had received a letter in the morning mail. Kipp’s name had gone the way of Fran’s—into nothingness. There was an ad in the Personals section of the Times for Brenda. Decoded it read:

  Cut off your trigger finger and give it to Joan with her letter.

  Trigger finger? Brenda didn’t even own a gun.

  But Joan’s dad did. He was a cop.

  The gang wanted to start the meeting, but Alison stalled them for a few minutes. She was waiting for Eric to arrive. She had called and left the information he requested on his machine. He didn’t disappoint her. Out of nowhere he came walking over a grass hill and strode into the center of the group. Joan and Brenda stared at him, amazed. Strangely enough, Tony didn’t seem surprised to see him. Tony shook his head and spit on the ground.

  “Hi,” Eric said. “I’m a friend of Alison’s. I know about the chain letters, but please don’t get mad at her. I made her tell me what she knew.”