Ghostly Attachments (Haunted Series)

by Alexie Aaron

  “I’ll have what he’s having,” Marjorie said shakily.

  “Sure thing, if there is any left,” Susan said as she turned and walked towards the liquor cabinet. She pulled out a smaller glass and poured the remainder of the whisky into the highball glass and added some water to make it look less stingy.

  Mark walked back into the house, tossing George’s keys on the foyer table before bringing the hastily packed bags into the living room. He looked at Susan who had just finished handing the drink to her sister-in-law. “Any of that left?”

  She shook her head and mouth, “No.”

  He sighed. “Okay, someone is going to have to explain what the,” he stopped talking, taking in the children, and spelt, “H E L L is going on?”

  George gulped down the rest of his glass before speaking, “Everything went nuts. First the chair, then the pictures on the wall, my trophies snapped in half.”

  “Something pushed me in the shoulder, hard,” Marjorie said wide-eyed. “Then the boys started screaming upstairs. I ran up there, the lights in the nursery were on. They were off when I put the boys down. I saw that each of their faces had a red mark on their cheeks as if they had been smacked.” She smacked her own face to show Mark and Susan the mark. She started to smack her face again, but Susan caught a hold of her hand.

  “Don’t. We,” she looked at Mark and continued, “get the picture.”

  “The fucking chair went nuts!” George screamed and tried to rise, but his body was too inebriated and he fell back into the chair.

  Susan looked at her husband. “Mark, what is he talking about?”

  Mark sighed and moved Susan out of earshot of the others before saying, “It’s a long tragic story. Family history. It all started with Great Grandma Hofmann…”

  Chapter Two

  Burt sat hunched over his laptop, banging on the keys, his brown hair falling into his eyes, as he pounded out his last report on the latest PEEPs investigation. Mia sat across from him, coffee in hand, and stared at the man who never broke a promise to her, or she thought wryly, tried his best to keep his word. He was intent on his task, rarely did he look up, and when he did, his eyes met hers and smiled.

  Mia sipped the fragrant brew and counted her lucky stars. They were few but mighty ones. Being able to see the dead, had destroyed whatever chance she had of a normal life. It crippled and isolated her. Driving was near impossible. There were times in the city when she was walking, that she would step out of the way of an oncoming person only to find that it had been a spirit and not a living breathing member of the earthbound plane.

  She had reconnected with her godparents and through them found a group of professionals that helped her to see her gifts without exploiting her. Burt and his team of amateurs, facilitated this reunion by stumbling blindly into a situation in the hollow not far from Mia’s home, where they quickly discovered they were in way over their heads. Together, professional and amateur worked side-by-side, destroying an emerging evil that would have grown to dominate and destroy the breathing population of the Midwestern United States.

  Burt looked up over his laptop and smiled. His body stirred in desire as he gazed upon the petite ice-blonde creature lost in thought before him. He had encouraged her to let the golden dye wash out and embrace the beauty that the gift she bore had imprinted on her features. She was beautiful, strong, but yet so vulnerable. He knew she could take care of herself, and had done so since her teens, but she let him know every night and several times each day how much she appreciated him in her life.

  Commuting to PEEPs’ investigations may have put massive mileage on his vehicle but not on his heart. It resided with Mia. She was his reason for living. She may have even been the reason he was still living. Her sight, her power, and her friends pulled his and his crew’s butts out of the fire, big time.

  “What are you thinking about?” he asked her.

  Mia’s moss green eyes focused on him and brightened. “As Irving Berlin wrote, ‘Counting my blessings.’”

  “Me too.”

  “How’s the report going?”

  “Almost done. Not a lot to write about, residual haunting in a preschool.”

  “Sounds fascinating, do tell.” Mia put her cup down and leaned forward, putting her elbows on the table before resting her head in her hands.

  Damn, she looked sexy. Burt squirmed a bit in his chair as his other brain woke up. “Um, are you sure you want to hear about it now?” his voice dropped seductively.

  Mia laughed. She was pleased that she still had an effect on the man in front of her. “I’m interested in what you have been doing for the past week. We can make up for lost time later.”

  “Promise?”

  “It’s a sealed deal, baby.” Mia sat back again, picked up her cup and signaled with the other hand for Burt to begin.

  “Mike got this call…”

  Mia rolled her hand to indicate Burt should move from his partner receiving a phone call from the head teacher of Little Hands Preschool to the meatier information.

  “Okay, the deal was, the children were being distracted every day at eleven by a parade of ghosts walking through their arts and crafts room.”

  “Parade?” Mia questioned.

  “A parade, clowns and everything,” Burt insisted.

  “Come on, a parade? I find that hard to believe.”

  Burt reached into his satchel and brought out a legal-sized file stuffed with kids crayon drawings and painted pictures. He handed them to Mia.

  Mia opened the file and saw before her, in varying degrees of development, were pictures of a circus parade with stilt walkers, clowns, women in costume and even a dancing bear. She looked up at him and nodded. “A parade, cool. Did the teachers or any adults see this?”

  “No, only the children and a mentally challenged grounds keeper. He was the only adult. He was the key. He told the caregivers, and after a while they saw the pattern, and eventually called us.” Burt got up and walked around the table pointing out some of the artwork. “See how the order of performers stays the same? Every picture the same.”

  Mia spread them out, and, yes, she agreed with him.

  “Mike wasn’t too keen on the project, but his mother, overhearing the conversation…”

  “Speaker phone?” Mia interrupted.

  “No, she was on the extension. Anyways, she insisted that if he wanted to live rent free under her roof, he better get his behind to the school and check it out.”

  “Mrs. Dupree is my hero,” Mia said giggling.

  “You just like her because she can deflate Mike’s ego in seconds.”

  Mia nodded. “Go on, tell me more.”

  “Well as you know he called me, Ted and Beth, and we headed over to Wheatville, this little town near Des Moines, and set up camp. Beth, after seeing the drawings, headed to the local newspaper and dug through their files. Ted sat with the kids at show time with his sensors and recorded only the slightest readings. Mike added a few single teachers’ phone numbers to his black book, and I sat down with Monroe, the groundskeeper, and his mother. He was a wealth of information.”

  “Innocence,” Mia said aloud.

  “Pardon?”

  She shook her head, realizing she had interrupted Burt’s recount. “I’m sorry. I was just thinking how the children and Monroe are innocents. They could still see what adults had long ago dismissed as impossible.”

  Burt smiled. “That’s what I thought.”

  “Cool beans.”

  “Cool beans, baby.” Burt hugged her, acknowledging the kudos from his love. “Anyway, after the first investigation the four of us got together, and this is what we surmised. In the thirties there was a traveling circus that would stop and put up their tents not far from where the school was built. The performers would assemble and parade through the streets, enticing people to part with their dear coins, to come to the performance. Everyone looked forward to the circus. The troop traveled down what was once Main Street, onto First Ave, an
d back up Oak until they reached the field where they had set up, not far from the train tracks.”

  “I’m sensing a residual haunt, an echo here,” Mia said.

  “Yes, you would be right.”

  “But you said it went through the building.”

  “This is where the supreme researching talents of Beth came into play. Evidently, when they decided to revamp the community by the old train station, they closed down some roads, sold some land, and a few years ago a state of the art preschool was built.”

  Mia perked up. “So the parade…”

  “Is still going on, right through the preschool.”

  “I’m confused. I thought that echoes needed fuel? And why every day, and not on the anniversary of the circus parade?”

  “Sharp cookie.” Burt kissed the top of her head. “Again, I have to give Beth credit for this. She found out that one year, the parade set off on their journey and was waylaid by a tornado.”

  “No!”

  “Yes, but don’t fear, my Mia, they found shelter, and all but a few survived. They waited until the storm passed and resumed their parade, but this time looking for survivors along the route. The elephants were used to pull away pieces of crushed houses to aid in the saving of the trapped. Each performer used their honed skills in the relief effort of this community.”

  Mia closed her eyes as Burt continued to tell her the story of how the circus and the people of the community bonded. As World War II pulled America into the fray, the townspeople and the circus folk lost touch and memories faded, until the only mention of that fateful day was an obscure mention in the town archives.

  “So what woke up the parade?” Mia asked.

  “Actually, I think it has been going on since before the school was completed,” Burt said. “Ted tracked down some of the construction employees, and they confided that they heard music just as they were breaking for lunch which would have been…”

  “About eleven o’clock,” Mia filled in.

  “So it wasn’t important why the reel continues to play, but whether it could be stopped, or the parade moved. We sat down with the teachers and their board of directors and proposed a solution. We basically told them, that eventually, this may fade away or it could stay. It was an echo. It wasn’t dangerous to the children. And beyond the thirty or so minutes of classroom disruption, we didn’t feel that it would affect the natural development of the children involved.”

  “Classy.”

  Burt smiled at the compliment. “Mike delivered it like a scholar. There was discussion and a lot of questions. Long story short, they decided to schedule a break time at eleven, and work around any other disruptions of the parade. Also, one enterprising young teacher thought that maybe she would write about the tornado and the circus. Beth is sharing her information with the woman and will be mentioned in a footnote or two.”

  Mia clapped her hands. “Brilliant, bravo and congrats, a storybook ending, my dear.”

  “In the storybooks the hero gets the girl,” Burt mentioned as he closed his laptop.

  Mia looked at him and said seductively, “Come and get her.”

  Burt scooped her into his arms and carried her into the bedroom. “I love happy endings.”

  Chapter Three

  Sabine was bored. She didn’t have to work. Her trust fund, from her mother, took care of most everything. She wasn’t a clothes horse, so shopping didn’t excite her. Reading was tough as the words floated off the page and away because most fiction didn’t interest her. She was a woman-child caught up in a spiritual world. Her special gifts amused and horrified her, but she had this all under control now, well mostly. Each time she opened herself up to a passing spirit, she grew stronger, bolder and, well, bored.

  Bev set down rules for her because sometimes when you were given gifts, you were also shorted on common sense. Sabine looked at the latest missive from her mentor. The spiderlike script was difficult to read unless you were used to it. Most of the words she had to guess at, but Sabine was a great guesser, another gift perhaps.

  Out of body travel. First leave a bloody note! Tell me where you intend to travel and when you intend on being back. Text me for cripes sake!

  Never leave before you have secured your body and left it well nourished. Drink lots of water.

  Sabine set the note down and walked around the apartment. She locked the door, making sure to take off the chain and set the double bolt lock. Bev had keys to her place and would be pissed if the door, by being chained, delayed her entrance.

  Sabine walked into the bathroom and brushed her hair before braiding the long white strands, securing the end with a ribbon. For kicks, she consulted the Wiccan calendar for the color of the day. The silver satin was such a compliment to her pale skin. Sabine was naked as she preferred to be, but she reluctantly pulled on some warm sweats. She would need the clothing to help regulate her body temperature, plus Bev took exception to coming home and finding an unconscious naked Sabine sprawled on the sofa.

  Sabine picked up her cell phone and typed OOB back in. She stopped and thought about how far she wanted to travel. Should she venture beyond the city? Maybe go and see Mia? No, too far, and Mia’s lake took a while to get around. Plus Mia’s paramour, Burt, had just returned home from a PEEPs investigation. They would be engaged in earthly pleasures. She smiled and thought about the theater. Yes. She decided she would go and watch the performers rehearse! Sabine would also wander around and see what spirits still tread the boards along with the living. OOB back in 2hs, she filled in and pressed send.

  She started to fade as soon as she sat on the sofa. Her feet barely made the upholstered cushion before Sabin was lifting out of her body. She looked back and looked down at her willowy form. She looked so peaceful. One didn’t get an opportunity to see one’s self in three dimensions from the sixth or seventh dimension too often.

  Time slowed down, or at least it seemed to, as she sped up. Out of body movement for her was still regulated by the natural order of things. She still had to move along the floor boards, take the elevator and be careful as she crossed the streets. But she did it at an amazing speed.

  Sometimes, she would catch glimpses of others as she moved. Some were spirits oblivious to Sabine and her movements. There were a few she wasn’t sure of, perhaps other OOBs. No one looked at each other as if OOB was a drug that was shameful to be taking.

  ~

  She passed him, unaware that he was lurking in the darkness. He had seen her before. Her icy paleness was a blur to the slow eye but not to him. He saw each strand of hair, the naked expanse of her back, the curve of her slight buttocks, the coral of her nipples. She didn’t dress as most did. Her travel attire was barely a shift of moving light. The woman-child was young, but not too young. She was innocence and light. In some way she resembled the Lladró porcelain figurines he had collected. He wanted her, not in the way a man wanted a woman, but as a collector wanted a prize. He questioned how to contain her? How to lure her to him? The corporal being he had little use for, but this energy, this pure essence of a woman uncorrupted by time he had a deep desire for. He would have to plan. He reluctantly left her to resume his life and would return once he had everything ready. “Soon you will be mine,” he said in the ether recklessly. No one seemed to hear him, as he dismissed all as unworthy of his attention. And as he pushed away from the theater district, he too was watched, and yes, he was heard.

  ~

  Bev Cooper looked at her watch and then pulled out her phone. She frowned. Sabine was pushing her time limit.

  “Problem,” Gerald Shem’s voice broke through her thoughts.

  She looked up and across at her lunch companion. His ageless, dark complexion formed worry lines briefly, until she gave a dismissive nod. “No, not yet. My little bird is out OOBing and hasn’t returned yet.”

  “I don’t know why you let her do this unsupervised,” Gerald said, letting a bit of his West Indies accent butter his words.

  “You and I know
she is going to do it whether I sanction it or not. This way she thinks before she sets out. Takes precautions,” Bev said, more for herself than Gerald. She looked around the restaurant to get their waiter’s attention. Making eye contact, she lightly tapped her glass, signaling she wanted another drink.

  “That makes three, and you haven’t had your entrée yet.”

  Bev flashed Gerald a look of disdain, but did not comment. He and she enjoyed verbal battles like other friends enjoyed compliments. They would debate anything and everything. Each had a solid foundation of education and experience. Shem also had amassed quite an impressive portfolio, almost as big as Bev’s IRS debt. When the government closed in on her years ago, she faked her death to avoid going to jail. She had since purchased new papers and was enjoying her new life. She even paid her taxes in a reasonable time, more or less.

  “Have you heard from Father Santos?” she asked as she accepted her third Dutchess. She took a sip and let the alcohol ease her nerves. The problem with a drink like the Dutchess was that its richness conflicted with many foods. It smelled like a banana milkshake but tasted divine.

  Gerald opted out of a pre-meal cocktail as he got his buzz from being with Beverly. Her roundness, heavy breasts, and thick soft lips reminded him again and again what a treasure the creator made when he gave mankind women. He didn’t understand the trend for women to be skinny. These angular flat chested specimens reminded him of stick figures. Even in his homeland, the girls starved themselves, not wanting to become robust like their mothers. He shook himself out of his thoughts and answered, “He’s in Montreal with Angelo. They’ve been asked to look into a disturbance in a hotel. Foul smells emanating from walls I believe.”