Chain Letter Omnibus Read online

  “But how can you possibly win like this?”

  He smiled. “I was born under a winning star, don’t worry.”

  He spent the next ten minutes plodding up and down the football field, searching for his legs. A tall lanky fellow in Crete High colors, loosening up near the starting line, caught his attention. Tony groaned; he recognized him—Kelly Shield. The guy was traditionally a miler, very strong. Crete High must be dropping him down, hoping for an upset. Tony leaned down and massaged his knotting calves. This was going to be harder than the last one.

  The fat starter called his number and Tony found himself being placed in lane two. Kelly Shield was at his back and that bothered him more than it should have. He did not feel the perspiration roll in his eyes but his vision blurred and he assumed it must be from stinging sweat. His usual routine of mild hyperventilation started to make him dizzy and he had to stop it.

  “Set!”

  Tony crouched down, swaying slightly. The bang of the gun made him jump up rather than forward. Like before, he was off to a bad start.

  Naturally, the pace was not as frantic as the quarter mile and he did not feel as quickly winded. On the other hand, he didn’t feel very swift, either. Striding down the first backstretch of the two-lap race, he was amazed to find that Kelly Shield had already made up his stagger. Going into the second turn, the guy had the nerve to pull slightly ahead. This time, Tony did not press the pace. Mr. Shield was making a mistake. He would go through the first lap like a hot dog and die on the second lap. Then Tony glanced to the fourth lane, where his teammate Calvin Smith was running, and began to have doubts. Taking into account the varying staggers, Calvin was also ahead of him, and Calvin normally couldn’t have beaten him on a motorcycle. Could they all be off pace?

  You just keep telling yourself that, buddy.

  Passing the timer, Tony heard numbers being called out that he hadn’t heard since his freshman year when he’d run a race with a sprained ankle. By then, however, the clock was not necessary to tell him that he was out of it. The entire pack was in front and pulling away with what seemed like magical ease. Kelly Shield would romp. It struck Tony then with complete clarity, just when his mind started a headlong dive into a fuzzy gray well, that the Caretaker had gotten to him. If he’d had double pneumonia, he wouldn’t have felt as he did now: trapped in slow motion, his chest filling with suffocating lactic acid, hopelessly out of control. He had probably been poisoned, maybe even hexed.

  I won’t quit, he swore. His last place was assured but what was left of his fading mind and will wanted a morsel of satisfaction. He would lose but he wouldn’t be beaten.

  But it was not to be. He was a hundred yards from the finish line, weaving over the brittle reddish clay, wandering in and out of lanes, when his right knee buckled and he hit the ground. The last thing he saw was a crowd of anxious people running toward him. One of them was probably the Caretaker.

  Chapter Nine

  Opening nights always made Alison nervous. There were so many things that could go wrong. She could miss an entrance, forget a line, trip on the carpet, or burp when speaking. And tonight, on top of everything else, she had to worry about getting shot. The Caretaker’s ad had been clear.

  A.P. Flub Lines Opening Night

  No way. Famous last words.

  “I’m so scared,” Fran whispered. They were standing in the backstage shadows. On the other side of the living room wall, they could hear the audience settling. Curtain was soon. “What if they don’t like my walls?”

  “In the entire history of the theater,” Alison said, “I’ve never heard of a set being booed. By the way, it was nice of you to finally decide to bring them in. Rehearsing without them was uninspiring.”

  “Two minutes,” Mr. Hoglan whispered, moving like a ghost in the dark. He had replaced Brenda the day he had dumped her. The new Essie was standing in the corner with a penlight, frantically studying the script. Alison felt sorry for her.

  “Mr. Hoglan, did you find your keys?” Alison asked. He had complained about having misplaced them earlier in the week. In her opinion; that was a bad omen.

  “This afternoon,” he said, his eyes twinkling. “They must have been on my desk all along. I don’t know how I could have missed them.” He patted her arm affectionately. “I know you’ll be wonderful tonight.”

  “Thank you.” What if the Caretaker had simply duplicated the keys or had already planted his bomb? She wished her parents had not insisted on coming tonight. But her dad would soon be going to New York on a business trip, and her mom would be accompanying him. They felt they had to see the play now or else possibly miss it altogether.

  Mr. Hoglan went off to encourage the new Essie and she and Fran were left alone again. “Is the gang all here?” Alison asked. “Come to watch the latest sacrifice?”

  “I haven’t seen Brenda, Kipp, or Joan. But Tony and Neil are here.” Fran’s eyes lit up. “Neil’s sitting in the front row!”

  “Did you talk to him?”

  “No! I can’t do that.”

  “How do you expect to seduce him if you won’t talk to him?”

  Fran surprised her. “Can’t talk and kiss at the same time.”

  “Touché. Now get out of here. I have to psych myself up.”

  Fran was used to working with temperamental actresses—this one in particular—and was not offended at the brush-off. But when Fran was gone and Alison was left alone in the dark corner—the bulk of the cast was already in place next to the entrances and she did not wish to disturb them—she almost went searching for her. Around other people, her chances of getting hurt were small.

  Of course, Tony had been in front of two thousand people.

  Alison was still furious with herself for having allowed him to run the second race. She had known he was ill, he had told her as much. She would have gone to Coach Sager and insisted he be withdrawn. She had hesitated because, if she knew nothing else about him, he was a determined fellow and would not have wanted anyone to stand in his way. No one else she had ever met could have pushed himself as he had over that last lap. His willpower almost frightened her.

  Alison heard the curtain rise and the opening antics of her stage mother but her mind was back in the stadium with the shocked crowd. When Tony had lapsed into his drugged stride, clawing at the air as if for invisible strings that could hold him up, she had cried. And she had not cried since last summer. Maybe the Caretaker had done what he had for that very reason, to keep afresh their memories.

  The meet officials and coaches had prevented anyone from getting near while he lay unconscious on the track. When the paramedics had arrived and loaded him in the ambulance without even a brief examination, she had thought he was dead. If Neil had not taken her by the arm, she might have wandered around the stadium until the sun had gone down.

  The hospital had been jammed. Anyone else, and a dozen kids might have come by. But for Tony, half the student body showed up, and there was no horsing around. “He is alive and recovering nicely,” the doctors had announced to a loud ovation not long after their arrival. Most had left then, but she had hung around with the rest of their unlucky group, and eventually they had learned of the diagnosis from Tony’s parents.

  Someone had spiked something Tony had either eaten or drunk with codeine, a powerful painkiller. Neil mentioned a suspicious-tasting lemonade, but when he went to search the ice chest back at school, he found it empty. The police made inquiries, but no one (i.e., none of them) who could have presented a motive spoke up.

  Crete High had won the track meet by two points.

  With his stomach still recovering from a thorough pumping, Tony had left the hospital the next morning.

  “ ‘God is the State; the State is God,’ ” Alison heard in disbelief. Had she been woolgathering a whole ten minutes? Someone must have slipped her codeine, her entrance was in a few seconds! Quick . . . Where was the script? What was her first line? What was her character’s name? What was she doing
here?

  Love it, Alison thought, laughing to herself. The last-second anxiety attack was an old friend; she didn’t feel comfortable without it. Stepping confidently to the side of the front door, she heard the sound effects of a real door opening and closing. She paused momentarily on the threshold, took a deep breath, and then swept into the lights.

  “ ‘And so the beautiful princess came into the palace,’ ” she said, allowing her tension to flow into her character, who was supposed to be a shade nervous. She kissed Alice’s mother, father, and grandfather, saying, “ ‘And kissed her mother, and her father, and her grandfather.’ ”

  The magic started. She was not a deliberate actress. She was at her best when she let herself go. This style always contained its element of doubt: What if she cut free and whoever took over had decided to take the night off? Fortunately, tonight, that was not the case, for Alice—a lovely fresh young girl—had dropped by for a visit.

  This did not mean that she went into a careless void. Her spontaneity needed to consciously avoid certain dark paths and steep ditches while frolicking on stage. One wrong turn for her was to look at the audience. It was fine to see them, but thinking who they were and what they thought of her was never wise. This was particularly difficult not to do tonight, knowing Tony was watching. When she was not speaking, she found her mind turning his way. This drifting was partly brought on by the fact that Alice’s love in the play was named Tony. He was a poor imitation of the real thing.

  Her first stint on stage, when she told her wacky family about her new love and her plans to go out with him that evening, went over without a hitch—at least as far as her part was concerned. Brenda’s stand-in for Essie forgot two lines, one being a question she was supposed to ask Alice. Immediately recognizing the vacant panic in the girl’s eyes, she had covered for her by asking herself the question and then answering it. “ ‘And I bet you wanted to know if he is good looking? Well . . . yes, in a word . . . ’ ” Waiting for her next line, Alison distinctly heard a chuckle coming from the rear rows. It was Brenda, wallowing in her poor replacement’s misery.

  Alice went to get dressed and Alison went up a flight of stairs that started down after the fifth step. She stood in the dark to the side of the front door, off stage. She had to call, “Is that Mr. Kirby, Mother?” a couple of times, but otherwise she had a few minutes break. She felt high as the kite Tony and she had flown on their date. He had confessed wanting to impress her with his athletic ability, and she was no different when it came to her acting. He would have to love her. She was hot.

  “How did you like the way I arranged the tiny paintings above the fireplace?” Fran whispered, popping out of the shadows.

  “The whole time I was out there, I couldn’t keep my eyes off of them. What kind of question is that? Had you hung a Playgirl centerfold over the fireplace, I wouldn’t have noticed.”

  Fran’s patience with temperamental actresses apparently had its limits. She was insulted. “Brenda’s right; all you care about is being the star.” She whirled and stalked off.

  Sorry! Alison thought, afraid to say it aloud lest the audience hear. Is that how her friends saw her, as an egomaniac? It was a depressing possibility. But she couldn’t worry about it now.

  Collecting her boyfriend from the clutches of her eccentric relatives also went smoothly. But coming up was her big love scene. The young man who played Tony was named Carl Beet. He was a nice enough looking guy—dark, strong, about her height—but his every move on stage was exaggerated, and he had a tendency to mumble. Also, there was absolutely no chemistry between them. Mr. Hoglan knew all this; he had simply cast Carl out of desperation for anybody else. Carl was essentially a humble young man but, it was funny, when it came to his acting, he thought he was blessed; the disease must be contagious. Alison wondered what the real Tony would think when she kissed Carl. The intimacy always grossed her out. Carl had bad breath.

  Yet once again in the spotlight, she slipped comfortably into Alice’s mind, and for a few minutes, actually found Carl desirable. “ ‘I let myself be swept away because I loved you so.’ ” The lines were a bit mushy in places, but what the hell, it had only cost a couple of bucks at the door.

  They decided to get married. It was inevitable—it was in the script. She walked Carl to the door, kissed him good night, and floated back into the living room. Still under love’s spell, she softly leaned against the wall in the same spot she had leaned against during yesterday’s rehearsal. Granted, the set was canvas and, under the best of conditions, could not withstand much pressure. Still, she only put a portion of her body weight against it. There should have been no problem.

  The wall fell down. Alison fell with it.

  The disorientation was similar to being sound asleep and then suddenly being awakened by a bucket of ice water. Alice was a dream character falling into a nightmare. She did not know what was happening, only that she was hitting the floor hard. Pain flared through her ribcage as she rolled on her back, hearing a loud ripping of canvas and a muffled gasp from the audience. The part of the living room wall that was still upright sagged away from the top of her head. Her vision seemed to telescope on a glint of metal where the ceiling would have joined the wall, had the room been real. It was a chain, hooking the lights to Fran’s set, a stainless steel loop that refused to give under the pressure. Since it wouldn’t give, the thin cable that suspended the row of stage lights did, snapping cleanly. The heavily wired metal bar and its accompanying electric bulb fell directly toward her face.

  There was no time to get out of the way. Instinctively, she threw up her arms, her hands catching a wide, yellow light, the glass cracking around her knuckles, the splinters raining about her closed eyes. Her back arched with a sudden spasm. Her fingers were entangled with exposed wires, the hot current vibrating up her nerves to her spinal cord. Letting out a cry of disgust as well as pain, she pushed the bar aside, cutting herself twice over. Blood dripped from her mangled hands onto her costume.

  Tony was the first to reach her side. Grabbing the light support, he angrily pulled it away from her. “I did this,” he said, helping her up, his face ashen, the crowd gathering at his back.

  She would probably cry in a minute, but right now she couldn’t help laughing. In a perverse way, the same way all the Caretaker’s tricks had seemed to her, it was funny. “Looks like I flubbed my lines, after all,” she said.

  Chapter Ten

  The cycle was complete. As the Caretaker had said nothing about restarting it, Alison did not try to second guess him by mailing the original letter to Fran. Instead she did what Brenda had wanted to do at the beginning. She tore it into tiny pieces. The gesture was a weak one and she knew it. Standing at a comfortable distance, humiliating them all, their foe had easily moved each of their names to Column II.

  The Monday after the fiasco at the play, Fran received a pale green letter in a purple envelope. It had been mailed locally and had been postmarked the previous Friday afternoon—the bastard sure had been confident the lights would fall on cue.

  My Dearest Friends,

  No longer can I say you do not know me. In these last few weeks, I feel we have come to know each other intimately. The closeness both stimulates and disgusts me. While I can now more readily share your zest for the performances of the tasks that will be set before you, I must also wallow lower and lower in your evil. But this is to be a temporary situation. The hourglass runs low.

  At the bottom of this letter is a list of your names. The directions and conditions will be as before, only now your names are to find their way from Column II to Column III. Due to the delicate nature of your tasks, they will appear in the paper in a secret code befitting a secret society such as ours. Starting with the first letter, every third letter will help make clear your duty.

  Some of you have sought to defy me. From experience, you have learned how uncomfortable that can be. As your tasks will now be more exciting, your punishment, should you choose to be stubborn
, will be equally exhilarating. Remember, you have been told.

  It has come to my attention that you suspect I am one of you. Let this be made painfully clear: I am not.

  Love,

  Your Caretaker

  Column I

  Column II

  Column III

  Fran

  Kipp

  Brenda

  Neil

  Joan

  Tony

  Alison

  The ad, as it appeared in the Times the same day the letter arrived, read:

  Fran: syrtlorryeunahokltnieaesknaesedrl

  supcoehycomoaidollpulonitcwohig

  Deciphered with the code, it said: Streak naked school lunch.

  · · ·

  Alison sat alone with Fran in Fran’s kitchen. The purple envelope and pale green letter lay on the table beside the paper. Alison had just finished telling Tony over the phone the details of the Caretaker’s latest exercise. Within the hour, probably within ten minutes, the rest of the gang would know what was happening. Fran was crying.

  “Tony is going to the Times offices this afternoon to see if he can’t trace who’s placing the ads,” Alison said, taking a drink of her sugar-saturated Pepsi. She’d given up on diet colas. Why worry about a few miserable calories when a madman would probably be executing her before school got out? “He’ll call if he learns anything.”

  Hot air breezed through the open front door. The rest of the house was empty. Somewhere upstairs, a clock chimed two o’clock, causing Fran to lift her tear-streaked face off her damp arms. “I can’t do it,” she whispered.