Gerry the Wonder Boy struggled up to wakefulness, and found he was bound to a chair. His head was throbbing. He couldn’t remember how he had gotten into this. The room was dark and cold, with stone walls, and he could just make out a stone staircase and a window high in the wall. It was clearly night, and a cloudy one: he could see no stars. His bonds were tough and tight, of leather and metal, and the chair had a steel frame and was fastened to the floor. “But it’s alright,” he told himself, “Green Moth will save me.” He kept thinking that over and over. His heart was racing.
A door opened at the top of the stairs, and Green Moth came through. He was carrying a lamp and a case. As loudly as he dared Gerry whispered, “Moth, I’m here!” His relief evaporated quickly when his partner didn’t respond. He came down the stairs unhurriedly. The light from the lamp hid his face.
In the light Gerry could see he was in a dungeon; in the Monteroi ruins, he guessed. It was a small castle that had been brought over from Europe, stone by stone, a hundred years earlier by a millionaire. After his death his estate became a park and it was now a tourist attraction. At night the park was deserted, as he knew from his patrols with Green Moth.
“Moth?” whispered Gerry. He felt very cold. Green Moth put his case down on a table that Gerry had not seen in the darkness. It was the one he used to carry his surgical instruments in his other identity as Templar Mayne, society doctor. He placed the lamp next to it. “Moth, please,” Gerry pleaded. He told himself it was an impostor, but he knew Green Moth too well. He pulled at his bonds desperately.
Green Moth opened the case, laid a cloth on the table, and began to lay out instruments. He watched them intently as he did so. “If it were handcuffs you could do it,” he said, “but not bonds like those. I know what you can do, and what you can’t. I taught you.”
“Why? Why?” Gerry croaked out. It was all he could manage. Green Moth looked over at him and grinned. “I’m afraid,” he said, “that our relations have been founded on deception from the start. I will find your body. I'll be very distraught. No-one will suspect me.”
He grinned even more broadly. “I’ll bring your killer in. I haven’t decided who he’ll be yet.”
He selected a scalpel. “No need to sterilise,” he said happily. He was tense with suppressed excitement. As he advanced towards Gerry he crossed the light, and his face was obscured by darkness. “I’ve been waiting for this,” he said, “for such a very long time.”
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Humour is the Key
A Bonus Story for Halloween
The police came this morning. They found blood in the mattress and fragments of bone in the garbage disposal, which they say are human bone. I don’t know how she did that. They’re planning to test their DNA to see if it’s hers. I’m betting it will be.
But they’re wrong about what happened. What happened was this.
It was the evening of our seventh anniversary. I had reservations at the best restaurant in town for the next day, and as we settled down for the night I was feeling very pleased with myself. She was already in bed with a book, a collection of ghost stories. I was in the bathroom cleaning my teeth.
She gave a laugh of pure delight. “Oh, that’s marvellous! I wish I’d thought of that!”
“Mmmm?” I asked, my mouth full.
“This story. It’s about a ghost that’s only ever seen by one man. It turns up all the time, wherever he goes: in the subway, in the street, at home, at work. After a while he can’t bear it. He starts grabbing people and saying ‘Look there! Can’t you see it?’ But they never can. Everyone thinks he’s crazy. Finally he’s committed. He now sees the ghost all the time. He becomes violent, and they put him in a padded cell. When they’re alone he says ‘Why did you do this to me?’” (Her voice was laden with sorrow as she read the line.) “Then the ghost smiles, and vanishes.”
By now I was finishing up. “No doubt he had it coming. I bet it was his best friend he killed for money.”
“No. He has no idea who it was.”
“So why did it pick on him?”
“Because it could. Ghosts are sociopathic. They no longer have hearts.”
I slid in beside her. The bed was warm, and she smelt delicious. She placed the book on her bedside table, and turned to me and smiled.
“Turn off the light.” I said.
She placed her arms over my shoulders, and they were warm too. “Not yet. I want to show you trick. Are you watching?”
“I’m watching.”
And just like that, she was gone.