Back From The Dead

The adults weren’t laughing at this. They appeared to be taking it quite seriously.

“So he told you about that?” Tim asked them. “About John Elfman being found in pieces? And that his body parts were moving?”

Nods all around the table. Even his parents nodded, their expressions grave. Diane said, “Yes, he did.”

“And you believe him?”

“What Officer Clapton saw was backed up by his partner and several other officers,” Pat Brown said. “I’m not inclined to disbelieve several credible witnesses at this point, especially in light of other events that have happened this morning.”

“What else happened?” Tim asked.

Detective Andrews cut in. “In a minute. For now, whatever you have to say, please tell us. It can’t be any crazier than some of the shit that’s been going on.”

“Before I go any further, I need you to do something.” Tim turned to Officer Clapton. “Can you send somebody to Chelsea Brewer’s house to watch over her and her family?”

Officer Clapton nodded and rose to his feet. “Give me her address.” Tim rattled off Chelsea’s address and phone number and Clapton exited the room. He returned a moment later. “Done. I’ve got a squad car heading there now.”

Tim breathed a sigh of relief. “Thanks.”

“How exactly did Gordon Smith threaten Chelsea?” Detective Andrews asked.

“He said if I told you anything about what was really happening that he would kidnap her and feed her to the zombies in Scott Bradfield’s guesthouse.”

Despite the weirdness of the threat, none of the adults in the room appeared taken aback by it. Only Pat Brown seemed surprised. He glanced at Diane, then turned to Tim. “Zombies?”

“Please start at the beginning, Tim,” Diane urged.

So Tim did, beginning with the day Gordon Smith approached him that afternoon at school about the novel he was reading, how he’d only seemed interested in the scene where the protagonist utilizes a black magic spell to raise the dead. He touched on some of his past history with Gordon, Steve, David, and Scott, then brought the narrative to the Reamstown Cemetery incident. “Gordon told me last night that he did rob that grave, but that he hadn’t intended to drop my book there. He said that was an accident.”

“You don’t have to defend him,” Mom said.

“I know.” Tim looked at the prosecutors. “Gordon told me he needed the remains for a ritual. That’s why he was so interested in my book. He and his friends have some weird idea that this novel, Back From the Dead, is real. That’s kinda what started this whole thing.” He gave them all a brief recount of that long ago first assault when he was in sixth grade, how they’d equated his reading interest with who Tim was personally. As he talked, Diane frowned. Pat Brown gave a slight chuckle, his features displaying astonishment. “Anyway, he thought Back From the Dead was real. And he must’ve thought if he utilized the black magic formula that’s described in the novel for what he wanted to do, well…” He glanced at his mom, who nodded. “He said that he and…Scott and those guys…were involved in some pretty heavy stuff.”

“What kind of heavy stuff?”

Tim told them. About the trips to Philadelphia and Harrisburg to kidnap homeless people, how they were transported back to Scott’s house and tied up in the abandonded guesthouse on the property and beaten and tortured until they died. Mom and Dad looked surprised and shocked by these allegations, but the prosecutors and police weren’t. It almost seemed like they’d expected something that twisted to come from the mind of Scott Bradfield.

It wasn’t until he got to the part about the spell being used to reanimate the dead homeless people so they could be put through more abuse that gasps of shock went around the table.

“Gordon told you this last night?” Officer Clapton asked.

“Yes sir,” Tim said. “I saw them, too.”

“What do you mean you saw them?”

Tim told them about Gordon’s visit to the house yesterday morning and his proposition, the blackmail attempt. As he related this, Mom and Dad became visibly angry. Mom turned to Officer Clapton. “So it’s okay for Gordon Smith, Scott Bradfield and the creeps they hang out with to threaten and psychologically abuse my son and get away with it, but the moment some religious nut gets a hair up their ass about a harmless horror novel he’s reading, you throw him in jail? Tell me what rationale you use to justify the actions of your department, Officer Clapton? I’d really like to know.”

Officer Clapton didn’t acknowledge Mrs. Gaines verbal barb. His attention was focused on Tim and his testimony. “What was it Gordon told you? What did he threaten you with?”

“He said if I didn’t help him get out of the situation Scott and the others were involved in, that he would plant evidence that I robbed that grave. He also said he’d make it hard for me to get out of it.”

“Hard to get out of it?”

Tim shrugged. “He…he made it sound like he had an in with you guys. With the police. You know, because of my reputation and all the shit that’s happened.” The words were tumbling out of his mouth now. “I can’t say I blame him. If I’d gone through life pushing a guy around that always got in trouble for fighting back, I’d think I could get away with it, too.”

“Gordon convinced you that you wouldn’t be believed if you went to us?” Detective Andrews asked.

Tim nodded. “Yes.”

“How did he think you could help him?” Diane asked.

“I think he’s afraid of being caught,” Tim said. “He told me that he didn’t want to get in trouble for participating in the crimes Scott and the others were committing, but he didn’t want to make it seem that he was formally getting out of it. If you ask me, I think he was scared to tell Scott that they were taking things too far. I think he just wanted to ease his way out of it and hope Scott and the others would eventually get bored and do something else. That’s what he wanted me to do. Find a way to make the spell not work, so Scott and others would lose interest in what they’re doing.”

Mom muttered. “What could be possibly worse than what those cretins were doing?”

“So he blackmailed you into helping him?” Diane prodded.

“Yeah.” Tim drew forward in his chair, posture straight. “He told me about the spell, told me what they’d been doing, and he didn’t know how to stop it. He thinks I know how to end the spell, but of course I don’t. I tried telling him that, but he wouldn’t listen. He just said I had to come up with a way to end the spell or he’d make the police aware of the evidence, that he’d frame me for the grave robbery. And…well…” He shrugged and looked at his parents. “My folks and my friends, Al and George, they’ve been through enough because of their association with me anyway. I didn’t want to put them through any more. You know?”

“Oh, honey,” Naomi hugged him. Dad patted him on the back.

“So you felt compelled to help him?” Officer Clapton asked.

“At first I didn’t believe him,” Tim said. “He told me he’d show me proof, so he took me over to the Bradfield place last night and showed me.”

“And what did you see?” Diane asked.

Tim told them how they’d snuck onto the property, how Gordon had instructed Tim to stand back while he’d opened the guesthouse door and shined a flashlight into the interior of the structure. He told them about the two things inside, chained and shackled up against the far wall. “They certainly looked like zombies. I guess.” Tim scratched his head. The five seconds or so he’d gazed into that house had seared itself into his memory but had also scarred him. “They looked dead, they were all messed up, covered in blood and one of them looked…I don’t know…kinda bloated and rotted, I guess.”

Tim concluded the events by relating their drive through town, how he’d tried to come to grips with what he’d seen. “That’s when you pulled us over,” Tim said, nodding to Officer Clapton. “And that’s when Gordon threatened Chelsea. Said that if I told you any of this, if the cops even came around his house to talk to him about it, he’d make sure Chelsea was hurt.”

“Don’t worry about that,” Officer Clapton said. “She’ll be under protection.”

“Her family, too,” Detective Andrews said.

“So did they kill John Elfman?” Tim asked. He looked at Officer Clapton.

“We don’t know that for sure,” Detective Andrews said.