Chapter 10 #2
“I am certain. This is Salem and someone thinks it’s fun to twist history and legend; and as we all know, it really goes crazy at Halloween.
I think that if anyone with this tour group is involved, it’s to rub right in our noses the ease with which they’re getting away with everything.
But you still need to be licensed to be a guide, right? ”
“You do,” Gavin said. “And the company, naturally, employs several guides. So we can’t be sure which guide you’re going to get, but that doesn’t matter, because we don’t know which guide you’d want to get.”
“Well, I can work on that a bit as we drive,” Zach said. “And,” he added, “I think this may be the best scrod I’ve ever had.”
“Delicious,” Skye agreed.
Back in the car, he held on to Beau Carter’s T-shirt.
He closed his eyes and wished he could combine his strange sixth sense with what Skye possessed.
He needed to see the night that Beau and Allie had gone on the tour, but he knew he couldn’t do that. But he could see Beau.
Beau was sitting on a log as dusk began to fall.
There were others around him, but they seemed to be forms in a mist. Zach couldn’t tell how many people there were, what their ages might be, nor could he begin to see their faces.
There was something off about Beau, and Zach quickly realized what it was.
He had been drugged.
And he was staring at a man who was speaking to them, but the words he heard were jumbled.
The speaker was there, in front of Beau.
But his face was as much of a haze as everything else Beau saw.
Then …
The man was gone and someone else was moving in, ushering those who had been watching and listening along.
Then … nothing.
* * *
“Zach?” Skye asked softly.
“They are drugging the older kids and the adults they’ve taken. I don’t know what they’re giving them, but it makes them pliant. And I imagine, it sinks into their psyches so that they believe anything that they’re told.”
“Some personalities will resist that,” Gavin noted.
“They will. I was in Patricia’s head last night, and she was very afraid that someone was going to die.”
“I so desperately hope you learn something on the tour,” Gavin said.
“I’ll drop you at the Old Burying Point, or Charter Street Cemetery.
They start there, then head down Essex Street, where they point out the Peabody Essex Museum and some of the other shops and attractions there.
Next they move on over to the Salem Witch Museum and talk about Salem Common, and then point out the Hawthorne Hotel and a bit of history regarding Nathaniel Hawthorne, before heading into the trolley to drive out by the House of the Seven Gables.
I think they drive out to the Rebecca Nurse Homestead and the Witch House—sorry—”
“Yeah, yeah, the Jonathan Corwin place, it’s one of only a few structures still standing that had to do with the trials, since Corwin was one of the judges,” Skye said. “We got it, Gavin, honest.”
“Well, good, then. I’m going to drop you where Essex Street becomes strictly pedestrian. I don’t want to chance being seen. I mean, I don’t want to take a chance of being seen with you.”
“You know, we’ve been around here, too, talking to Fin and just doing a few things on the street,” Skye reminded him. “We’ve probably been seen—”
“But not with a police lieutenant,” Gavin reminded her.
“True,” Skye agreed.
“So we’re going to hope you don’t run into anyone who might have seen you as anything other than tourists,” Gavin said. He grinned. “Mr. and Mrs. Smith, dropping you off here. You can give me a ring when the tour is over, and I’ll pick you up—”
“Gavin, if they drop us off where they pick us up, we can walk with no problem—”
“Except that I’ll want to know what happened,” Gavin told them.
“All right, all right. We’ll call you!” Zach groaned.
Gavin had pulled over on Hawthorne, leaving them near the entrance to the pedestrian area of Essex Street.
Zach and Skye exited the car, with Zach handing Skye Beau’s T-shirt. She gave him a nod and slid it into her shoulder bag.
And as Gavin drove away, Zach looked around them. He had always loved the city so much. From history to the present.
“What is it?” Skye asked.
“Salem. This is such an amazing place; what’s happening is making it so that …” He shrugged, his words trailing.
“That you’re infuriated by what’s going on, anything that hurts the city like this?” Skye asked.
He laughed softly. “One of those old sayings I got from my mom. ‘When life gives you lemons, make lemonade.’ In my mind, Salem has rather managed to do that. ‘Witch City.’ But what always impressed me most was that the events had such a strong influence on the legal system created by our Founding Fathers. I mean, think about it! Anyone could get on a witness stand and say that they were tormented by the spirit of a person—when that person was right there in the courtroom. No spectral evidence! Innocent until proven guilty, instead of guilty just because you were accused. Freedom of religion. Laws came into being that kept mass hysteria from causing the deaths of innocents. Anyway …”
Skye set a hand on his shoulder. “We’re going to stop this!
So let’s walk through the pedestrian mall and cut back over to the graveyard.
We have a few minutes. There are shops here that I love!
Starting right there around the corner. Crow Haven Corner!
I love that shop. Laurie Cabot used to own it, and she had another shop on Pickering Wharf—the Cat, the Crow it’s central, easy access …
but Swampscott is a bit off the main, but it gives them tons of space and allows them to cater to the locals and those in the know when it comes to the best selections around Halloween.
Somewhere along the line—though I’m not sure why—I’d like to get back to that shop and see if I can’t get a better view of whoever it is dressing up as witches. ”
“More than one. And they’re keeping protestors quiet and pliant with drugs,” Zach said wearily. “Which I hope is working on whoever it is that Patricia is so worried about.”
“You know, we could solve this easily,” Skye said.
“How?”
“Have the entire population and all visitors speak one-on-one with Gavin—and he can tell us if they’re telling the truth or not!”
Zach groaned. “Did you learn nothing in the academy?” he demanded.
She laughed as they came to the Old Burying Point, or Charter Street Cemetery. They had spent more time on the street than either one had realized.
By the time they reached their meeting point, the tour guide was there collecting names of those on the tour and checking them off on his tablet.
“Hey!”
It was a young man in his early twenties who was leading the tour.
Unruly light-brown hair fell over his forehead.
Medium in height and build, he appeared to be the least-threatening human being possible, especially when he smiled.
His hazel eyes lit up; his face appeared to be a mask of friendship.
“We’re the Smith couple on there,” Zach told him. “I’m Elijah and—”
“Your lovely wife, Sheila! Welcome. First trip to Salem?”
“First trip when we’ve had a chance to enjoy it!” Skye told him, catching Zach’s arm and holding close to him in an affectionate gesture. “And we’re together, just in case it gets a little too spooky for me!”
“I’m Nick, Nick Sandoval,” the guide told them. “And,” he said, “this is mostly a history tour. But it is night, and things can get a little creepy! We’ll be getting started in one more minute!”
He was true to his word. He pointed out the oldest gravestone remaining in the cemetery, the Cromwell Stone, placed there when Doraty Cromwell had passed away in 1673.
The graveyard had been laid out in 1637, but Doraty’s was the oldest remaining stone.
No, those executed for witchcraft were not in the Old Burying Point; their bodies had been treated like rubbish.
It was assumed, though, that in some cases, the families of the deceased had gone by cover of night to retrieve the bodies of their loved ones.
They spent time looking at the memorial at the graveyard, stone benches that commemorated each of the accused. Then it was time to move on. He took them along Essex Street, speaking about the growth of commercialism in the city.
He talked about the Hawthorne Hotel, opened in 1925 and named after Salem’s son, the great Nathaniel Hawthorne. The site was near Hawthorne’s birthplace on Union Street, and not far from the House of the Seven Gables.
They learned about events on Salem Common and were given a glowing review of the Salem Witch Museum.
Then it was time to hop aboard the trolley and head out to see the Witch House, once the property of Judge Corwin, and then onward to the House of the Seven Gables, and, for the finale, a drive out to the Pioneer Village.
As they moved from site to site, Zach and Skye split up to stare with awe at different things, chatting with the guide when they could, studying the others on the tour. There was a trio of teenage girls on the tour, and it seemed the guide was spending most of his time with them whenever possible.
Natural? He was a young, good-looking guy. And the girls were young, too, cute and giggly, and ready to flirt.
But it seemed that at times Nick was leaning in a little bit too close to the girls to simply be answering a question one of them might have asked at a particular moment.
And at one point, he thought he saw the young man brush the hand of one of the girls.
“Giving her something?” Skye whispered to him.
“Drugs, maybe,” Zach whispered back. “We need to keep watch. He seems to be getting especially close to that one girl. The thin girl, with the reddish-blond hair. I think one of her friends called her Cathy.”
“Should we—”
“We can’t just bust him on drugs,” Zach said.
“We need to see where it goes from here, follow them when the tour is over,” Skye said.
“Maybe it’s natural. A boy flirting with a girl, supplying her with a bit of encouragement so that they get together after?”
“Hm. Natural,” Skye murmured.
And then maybe not. Maybe a possibility, while others were culled as well.
Their guide was also spending time with a woman on the tour who was with a little boy of about seven or eight.
Zach’s instincts, and all that they had learned, came to credence when they were on a remote road by the Pioneer Village.
The driver, a man of about sixty, suddenly seemed to have a heart attack, driving the trolley a bit off the road, sliding into the embankment.
“Oh, no! Hank, Hank!” Nick Sandoval cried.
There were screams and chatter coming from the rows of seats on the trolley.
Of course, Nick immediately began to apologize and worry, asking everyone to sit still or call for a pickup if they could; he’d be getting an ambulance out himself.
“I can solve this!” Zach told Skye, hurrying forward with her at his heels.
“What if it’s real?” she murmured.
“It’s not!” he assured her. “But we’ll find out.”
“Nick, Nick,” he said, rushing forward. “I’m a doctor. I can—”
“What?” the guide demanded.
“Let me get to him,” Zach said, reaching over to touch the driver’s face.
The man’s eyes immediately opened wide. As he stared at Zach, they could hear those on the trolley speaking with concerned anguish.
“My cell is saying there’s no service,” a woman cried.
“Mine too!” a man replied.
“You’re a liar!” Zach told the driver.
“No, no!” the man protested.
“Zach!”
He turned and saw what Skye saw; she was already racing into the forest, running after the guide, who had called himself Nick Sandoval.
And one of the teenage girls, with whom he’d been flirting, It was hard to tell exactly what had happened. Had he grabbed her and dragged her into the darkness of the forest as well?
There was no telling what she might face. Nick Sandoval didn’t seem like much of a danger himself.
But he was just a player in the game—whatever the game might be.
“Get help, keep an eye on him!” Zach shouted, his own phone out.
No service.
Their guide and the driver had known exactly where to stage their little emergency!
It was insane! There’s a whole tour group, at least another fifteen people, available to tell the authorities exactly what had happened. And the driver—
As Zach started his own race into the forest, he saw the man throw off all pretense and fly into the forest himself.
Hell no!
Zach went after him.
And while the older man might have known where he was going … he was older. And he’d never gone through some of the rigors of the academy, and probably didn’t maintain a gym membership.
They ran through the trees.
There was no damned way that Zach was going to lose him.
And he was going to get him down damned quickly. No one should be chasing someone like their guide, with a possible victim, into the stygian darkness of the forest at night.