CANDLELIT CHRONICLES: HISTORIC HAUNTS

May 27 Free Read 1097 word count

Child Puppets of The Testament Logging Corporation, continued:

Chapter Four

“Let's go to the park, Alice!” Lisabeth exclaimed as soon as she'd licked up the last drops of ice cream and tossed the empty cone into the small city waste receptacle beside the root beer stand. Alice was still swallowing her float, unaware that Danny Wilber, standing back off in the shadows of the concession stand, watched her reactions avidly.





“I guess, Lis, but I don't feel so well. Let's just go to the park and get out of the sun, okay?”





         She finished off the last drops of the float and handed the glass back to Danny without meeting his eyes, then wiped her hands with a napkin from the counter and threw it in the trash. Instead of carrying the glass back to the sink to wash in very hot water, as was the H&K custom, Danny stashed it in a concealed pocket under the front counter, to the side, where customers wouldn't see. This was a very special glass with a very special task, given to a very special girl-Alice Cavendish, who had a very special errand to perform at the request of The Testament Logging Corporation. Of course, Danny chuckled silently, Alice did not know that yet. She only knew her head and heart had begun to feel a little fuzzy, but that would pass soon, once she got to the park and stayed out of the sun.





         Alice and Lisabeth walked away from the H&K Stand, which sat on a grassy corner in what until five years ago had been an empty vacant lot. The construction of the Stand and its operation by independent proprietor Danny Wilber, dead since birth, had been due solely to the adoption of Alice by Jerralld and Louise Cavendish, after her biological parents were killed when she was two. The Testament Core had marked out Alice since birth, or even before, and had made certain that she would kill her parents when she turned two, in order to be adopted by the Cavendishes, who were kind and compassionate people, but, in the eyes of The Testament Core, were neither sufficiently clever nor cynical to intuit what Testament had in mind, nor why Alice's parents had died.





         The two girls walked on to the park, very close by, and of course Lisabeth wanted to spin on the merry go round, which sat out in the hot sun, and was already too hot to touch. Alice was still a trifle queasy, so she excused herself to use the park restroom. An older lady, probably a mother, Alice thought, asked if she was all right, and did she need to go home?

“You look peaked, little girl. Are you sure you don't need to go home? Maybe I could walk you home? Is your mother here, maybe? In the Park?”

Alice did not know where this lady had appeared from; when she walked around the corner from the outside door she had thought the building was empty. Boys had their own restroom on the other side, and the door was diagonally opposite. Alice heard a shoe scrape as someone exited on the far side of the wall. As Alice passed the sinks and mirrors, she heard the lady speak for the first time, and jumped a little, startled. She looked up and didn't see anybody in the mirrors, but when she turned, the lady stood right behind her.





Alice told her, “No, thank you,”  and went on into the farther cubicle, where she carefully bolted the door, just as her Mamma had taught her. She made use of the facilities and washed her hands, then walked out and over to the swings, which were much shadier. There Lisabeth joined her. Alice never saw the lady exit the park restroom, but as she began to feel better and enjoy her gentle arcs, she thought no more about it. She had no way of knowing that the lady in question, who had blond hair worn in an early 1940's style, and wore an unappealing red suit, was Monica Wilber, mother of dead-since-birth Danny, the unprepossessing proprietor of the H&K Root Beer concession located conveniently near Klydesdale Park.





         Monica did indeed disappear, and then reappeared in the rear of the Stand, near the side door. She reported to Danny her conversation with Little Alice, and that the girl had remained in the park, and in fact was right then on the swing. Danny was relieved; for he had been worried that he had applied too strong a dose of the poison chemical given into his possession by “Mr. Joe,” Vice President of Personnel of The Testament Logging Corporation. Danny had been instructed that only certain children were to receive that particular concoction, whether in a float, an opened bottle of RC Cola, a cone, or a banana split. So far Alice was the only child about whom he had received specific instructions, and now he made sure, while conversing with his mother, that both the bottle of poison and the glass to be used were locked safely away in the designated hidey-hole.





         Danny had no fear of a surprise inspection by franchise auditors of H&K Root Beer Concessions Inc., for two reasons:

1-H&K Root Beer Concessions Inc. was secretly a wholly-owned subsidiary of The Testament Logging Corporation, just as was Madison Mill's only nonsectarian private school, Summerset Academy. (The sole Roman Catholic church in the City did operate its own parochial school, but Testament considered Saint Mary Columbine Parish and School no threat to the continued, and perpetual, existence of The Testament Core.) As a Testament arm, H&K need have no worry that its franchisees would immediately, and permanently, toe any line, obey any rule, follow any instructions, the higher-ups at H&K set.





2-Danny Wilber, dead since birth, was, it is true, an independence proprietor-owner of an H&K Root Beer Concessions stand. He was placed in that position solely due to its ability to access young children, of whom The Testament Core had determined on a campaign to enroll, inflame, and incite.


However, even more importantly, Danny Wilber was a sworn Tool of “Mr. Joe,” Vice President of Personnel at The Testament Logging Corporation. “Mr. Joe” was the only individual with direct access-really, any access-to Chief Executive Office and Ectoplasmic Manifestation of The Testament Core, Jepthah Starkes Kenneally.


“Mr. Joe's” position as Vice President put him in charge of ALL Testament Corporation employees: living and dead; human or horror.