Haunted Shipwreck Read Online Free Page B

do I care?”
    “Cause I have a shop to run, you codger! Do you have something that’ll get me by a day or two? I’ll take anything. A charcoal grill if I have to. My retailer’s in Portage. I’m not trying to pick my nose for three hours on the ferry while my customers line up.”
    Willard blinked hard, and then nodded. “I’ve got just the thing.”
    Willard brushed past Hoyer and headed toward the rear of the shop. Hoyer turned, paused, and took a deep breath. He drooled at the hint of rotisserie in the air. Man, he missed his roaster.
    “Comin’, Mister Milton?” Willard drew aside the curtain. “My antiques won’t walk to ya. They’ll just sit there and collect dust.”
    “Yeah, yeah. I’m coming, old man.”
    The pork rinds crunched as Hoyer followed in Willard’s footsteps. Claustrophobia nagged at him. The aisles were narrow and cluttered; Hoyer was wide and clumsy. He sucked in his gut, but to no avail as a copper stein clunked on the floor. By the time he was halfway down the aisle, ten antiques had toppled over. He scowled, certain the blue-hair was standing there with a grin on his face. But there was only the velvet swaying as if there was a breeze.
    And the odd clanking, which had grown louder and more furious.
    Hoyer forged ahead and crashed his way to the back room. The aisle behind him was nonlinear in his wake. He barged though the curtain.
    Inside the room, Willard stood with the bellows, waving it at the ironworks pile.
    Hoyer furrowed his unibrow. “This ain’t some kind of freaky peepshow, is it? That might explain why the Jericho boy’s over here every day.”
    Hoyer’s sight focused on the junk pile. He grimaced as if he had eaten overdone sirloin. He had never encountered a worse smelling pile of crap in his life. Everything was black as burnt toast and reeked like a skillet after a grease fire.
    Hoyer felt as if he might puke up his pork rinds any second. “What the hell’s this?”
    Willard whirled and stumbled past Hoyer, holding the bellows high. The entire sleek mass shifted and advanced, clanging like loose pipes.
    A potbelly stove with an eighteen-inch tall stovepipe led the army. It was as round as Hoyer’s ex-wife and probably blew more smoke. He shook his head.
    “What’s this, Reed? What are you trying to pull?”
    The potbelly stove rumbled and its bolts rattled loose. The stovepipe coughed a burgundy plume of smoke that blanketed the ceiling. The grate flung open and blue flames lashed out tongues. Hoyer stumbled back and hacked up a lung.
    “Reed, goddamn it! Who do you think you’re messing with?”
    Walter’s eyes rolled into his head. His lips parted and blood streamed down his chin. “Skin ‘em in the riptide…”
    The smoke cascaded down the walls. Hoyer spun, searching for the door. Then the haze parted and the iron army attacked. At that moment, Hoyer wished he had his meat cleaver, or his electric knife, anything for self-defense. Though nothing would have fared against the devilish onslaught.
    Hoyer’s last thought dwelled on the irony. He had been barbecued and skewered like the lamb chops that hung in his butcher shop window.
    *****

When the hour arrived, Jack snuck out his bedroom window as usual and hauled off to Halberd Park. He was grateful his mom’s cleverness only kicked in on occasion. She may have jailed the boneshaker, but she had yet to relocate his room to the attic. He grinned as he wondered what she was thinking by trusting a teenager.
    He glanced down Skean Street. The mist clung to the blacktop, thick as the humidity, burying Bodkin Bend. He considered following the curb to Rivulet Road, and then reminded himself that he was on a time crunch. Whether he wanted to or not, he had to take the shortcut.
    Geez, Jack, stop being a candy-ass!
    His gaze glued to Skelt’s bedroom window. The broken glass and shutters rattled in the wind. His brain burned for confirmation of the Skeleton Man’s presence, but there was no revelation. He