Ghostly Attachments (Haunted Series)

by Alexie Aaron

  “Why? Do you think bi-location is natural?” He laughed at her. “You are so naïve. How long have you been traveling.”

  Sabine just looked at him with disdain and said nothing.

  He ignored her silence and informed her, “Traveling has no bounds, well maybe water, but once you learn how to overcome the crossing of it, you can go anywhere. I once moved through a mountain,” he bragged.

  Once again he grabbed her arm. Although this time he tucked it securely under his. This way he could keep her close to him as he moved through the house.

  She saw row after row of display cases holding trinkets and treasures. Paintings hung in alcoves carved into the walls. Rich carpets lined the halls of this museum of Sire’s. “How do you keep it clean? There is no dust.”

  “Oh, I have help. I let them out thrice daily.”

  Sabine reeled back stopping their progress. “You have slaves, in this day and age?”

  Sire laughed. “Undocumented workers is the term I prefer. They survive because I have a need.”

  “It’s wrong. Taking me is wrong. Why have you done so? When will you take me back? I will not survive much longer without joining with my body.”

  He turned and faced her, his face inches from her. “This is my kingdom, Pramada, I make the rules. You are here because I wanted you. You are part of my collection. And when your body dies, you will still be here.”

  “I will ascend,” Sabine said stubbornly.

  “I am confident that you won’t, but no matter, until that time, you are mine.”

  Sabine pulled back and almost broke his grasp. Either he was unprepared or his power had a limited time. She would gather as much knowledge as she could on this man and use it to escape from this prison.

  ~

  Gerald sat waiting in the car while his driver made some inquiries at the marina’s office. He had phone calls to make. The first was to Father Santos who listened intently as Gerald gave summary to the events thus far. He offered several names of experienced bi-locators to contact. Concerning ley lines, Gerald would leave that data collection to Beverly. She would consider his help in her area of this project an affront, and he didn’t need another argument today.

  His driver returned and handed a paper over to his boss. Gerald looked at the address and said, “Let’s go. I’ll text Mia to get a cab back to the apartment.”

  The trip to the Twenty-third ward of Chicago was ripe with stoplights and Midway International Airport traffic. They navigated around the perimeter of the airport down West Fifty-Fifth Street until they pulled up to the address his driver had obtained. It was a small, post-war house with an immaculate lawn in a neighborhood of immaculate lawns and scrubbed cement porches. Gerald got out of the car, conscious that window curtains were twitching, and the Polish communication system was already in full swing. He smiled as the older males of the neighboring houses were suddenly shoved out the door to work on their lawns, their women anxious to know why an elegant, dark-skinned gentleman was at the Duda house.

  The door was opened before Gerald reached the porch. A man stepped out, letting the screen door close behind him. The aroma of meat roasting reminded Gerald that he hadn’t eaten in some time.

  “Can I help you?” the man asked.

  “If you are Alfred Duda, Captain Duda, you can,” Gerald said.

  “Yes, I am he. What is this about?”

  “I’m inquiring about a boat trip to an island in Lake Michigan you made yesterday. One you have been making quite often.”

  A brief flash of worry crossed the man’s face and disappeared into a guarded expression. “What’s it to you? You the government?”

  “No, but a very wealthy, private party interested in your passengers.”

  The man laughed. “There ain’t no passengers.”

  “I don’t understand?”

  “Come in and I’ll explain it to you,” he said and opened the door. “Can I get you a beer?” Alfred asked as he stepped aside and let Gerald into a clean, orderly living room.

  “Yes, thank you, it’s been a hell of a day.”

  “I hear you. Come on into the kitchen, the air’s cooler in there.”

  Gerald followed the captain through a plastic-covered three-suite living room, past a cherry dining room set, and into the heart of the house. The glare from polished appliances under the bright overhead lights momentarily caused him to wince. The cleanliness of this home gave credence to the adage “you could eat off the floor.”

  “Have a seat,” Alfred pointed to the kitchen set. He opened the refrigerator and rummaged around and brought out two beers. He thought a moment as he let the door shut and walked over to the cupboard and asked, “Glass?”

  Gerald preferred a glass, but sensed the male thing to do was decline and he did.

  Alfred twisted off the bottles’ caps and handed one to Gerald. He took a pull of the icy cold beer before speaking. “Since this job ended this morning, I feel free to give you the particulars,” he started. “I’ve been dying to tell someone, but while I was under contract I couldn’t say a word.” He took another drink of the beer. “It all started with a letter from this law firm I received several months ago.”

  “Do you have the letter?”

  “Oh I have that and more. You mentioned you were a wealthy man?”

  Gerald smiled. “I’ll pay you for your time, and a bonus for all the documents you can come up with.” He mentioned a price that raised Alfred’s eyebrows.

  He stood up and said, “I’ll be right back.”

  Gerald texted his driver to wait before sitting back and enjoying his beer.

  ~

  Burt left a message on Mia’s voice mail. She had left one updating him on how the search for Sabine was coming along. Regretfully, she informed him that it was going to take longer than she expected and to go ahead with the investigation without her. She would catch up with the team as soon as Sabine was found. He thought very carefully before responding. To say he was disappointed would make her feel bad. To say they could do this without her would make her feel less. He eventually said, “Bebe, we gots to do what we gots to do.” Burt hoped it didn’t sound lame.

  Ted and Beth were inside setting cameras and stringing wires throughout the house. He and Mike were left with the outside where there were several logistical problems to deal with. The warm weather made sitting in the equipment van too uncomfortable. And running the air for a ten hour investigation was too costly. They discussed moving the command station indoors but agreed that due to Grandma and company’s penchant for destruction, the house and garage were no-gos.

  Ted suggested they go camping. Beth nodded in agreement. Ted, the god of techs, had thought ahead and packed the tent. Mike helped Burt erect a screened marquee in the backyard. As they lugged the sensitive monitoring equipment to the rear garden, they applauded themselves on this move, as they had drawn quite a few onlookers.

  Mike nodded at the pair of little old women staring at them lustfully. “Burt, your fan club is waiting.”

  “Nah, I think since you’re the face of PEEPs, they are after a piece of Mike Dupree.”

  Mike sighed, saying, “So little time, so many women.” He smiled at the women which gave them, as Mia called it, the twitters. The two ladies giggled their way back to their front porch a few houses down the street.

  Burt just shook his head and picked up another heavy box. He wondered if they knew that across the street, according to Mia, the old gals were being serenaded by a ghostly a cappella group.

  Ted placed a tiny motion sensor on the seat of the rocker. He also tagged the e-book with a twin sensor. If, and he hoped when, the chair or the e-book moved, it would send a signal to the tripod that held a digital full-range camera for stills, and to a digital voice recorder and the video camera that would be filming all night, sending the data to the command center. He also set several trip cameras in the vicinity of the chair, just in case Grandma decided to take a stroll.

  Beth stood in th
e nursery looking with sorrow at the condition of what was once a happy place. The team of cleaners had carted away all the destroyed bits of furniture and toys, but the skeletal remains still spoke of a powerful anger directed at these little boys. There were gouges on the window sill that looked suspiciously like teeth marks. The toy train wallpaper border was shredded and hanging limp like crepe paper streamers after a birthday party. The carpet, although cleaned several times, still held the faint odor of urine and feces from the upturned diaper pail. Beth placed her recording devices quickly. The urge to flee this room was too great for her to dawdle.

  Mark and Susan sat in their parked car across the street, observing the operation at George and Marjorie’s house. Both homeowners refused to return to the home they had loved. They weren’t even living in the same space anymore. George had decamped for his father’s home, and Marjorie was living with the boys in a Courtyard Marriott suite. She needed time alone and feared that the boys liked Susan far more than was comfortable for her paranoid state of mind presently.

  The younger Hofmanns were happy to see the noise and confusion leave their home. They enjoyed their privacy, and the few days the twins had been with them shored up Susan’s resolve to continue to avoid pregnancy at all costs.

  “So are you camera ready?” Mark teased her as she checked her lipstick for the third time in the last ten minutes.

  “Oh you know me well. What a camera hog.” She patted her hair down and reached over and squeezed her indulgent husband’s hand. “Come with me.”

  “No, I’m going to save my fifteen minutes of fame for my dream, Celebrity Bowling,” he said, following with a click of his tongue and a wink.

  This caused Susan to laugh so hard that she needed to dab her eyes with a tissue.

  “Madam, I think you aren’t taking my dreams seriously.”

  She looked at Mark who was feigning outrage and laughed some more. The tension eased out of her shoulders and the nervous feeling of being in front of the camera fell away. She air kissed her husband, not wanting to smear the carefully placed color. Her phone sounded a tone alerting her to a text message. It was from PEEPs. It said, Showtime. Mark walked her to the front door where she would stand and greet Mike before the tour of the house. Burt, who was holding the camera, mentioned that he was welcome to sit with Ted and Beth in the command center. Mark nodded his head and gave a thumbs up to his wife before heading for the backyard.

  Ted offered Mark a caffeine-charged energy drink which he declined. Beth smiled and pointed to an empty chair. “Have a seat, Mark. We, Ted, Burt and I, only have one rule. What is said in the command center about Mike stays in the command center.”

  Having met Mike briefly and taken in his Hollywood persona, Mark had no problem in agreeing. “Only if my comments fall under this cloak of deniability.”

  Ted swung around in his chair. “Dude, you’re one of us. Bethy, hand that man a tee.”

  She dug in a gear bag and came up with a fresh shirt. “I hereby make you a deputy PEEPer, on the condition you never call me Bethy.”

  Mark held his right hand over his heart and said, “I accept this position and the conditions given.”

  Ted laughed. “You want in on the douche-bag pool?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “We guess the number of douche-bag remarks Mike will make in the opening interview. The winner gets the pot. Ante in, is five bucks. The biggest loser has to ride back to the hotel with the fuckwad,” Ted explained.

  Mark dug in his pocket and came up with a fiver and handed it over.

  Beth handed him a slip of paper and pen. He jotted down a number, folded it over and handed it back to the young woman. She dropped it and the money in a large manila envelope.

  “How many in the pool?”

  “Five, including you. There’s Burt, Mia, Ted, me, and Mike’s Mother.”

  “His mother?” Mark questioned.

  “Dude, she’s won the last four pools,” Ted said. He turned to Beth and asked, “Hey, I didn’t know you talked to Mia.”

  “She gave her number to Burt before she left,” Beth explained.

  “Mia, she’s the one with the saltshaker right?”

  Ted and Beth laughed. “Dude, she loves that sodium chloride,” Ted said.

  “Thing is, Mia is weird but very gifted. If she wants to back up a truck and pour road salt all over me to keep me safe, I’d let her do it. She’s had a hard life. It can’t be easy existing in a world where the walking dead are always trying to cozy up to you.”

  “Where is she tonight?” Mark asked.

  “Chicago, taking care of business,” Beth said.

  “Get your pen and paper, Bethy, it’s show time in five, four, three, two and go Mike.” Ted put on his head set, and Beth scooted forward to be an extra set of eyes.

  Mark watched in amazement how this group of supposed amateurs resembled a professional group of investigators once the spotlight was on them. He thought about the missing member of the group, Mia, and wondered what kind of business would be so important as to miss this.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Time to Murphy was an almost forgotten concept. He had a pocket watch his father had given him, but he rarely wound it in life. He instead used the position of the sun to tell his time. Watches were for city people, pastors, and doctors. Farmers depended on Mother Nature to dictate where they should be during a given day. Since his death, there was no reason to pay much attention to the day passing. There would always be another one and one after that and so on. His days were filled in between the world of the tangible and the ether.

  He had never envied the living until Mia put in his mind this morning that there may be a way for him to move beyond his farm. He had accepted that being at the farm chopping wood with his sharpened axe was his purgatory. Even when that fancy priest of Mia’s promised that he could move on, he declined. He was happy on the farm. He was… that was the problem… he was no longer was happy. Fighting the hag’s minions had awakened a feeling that he thought forever gone when his breath ceased to fill his lungs. He had desire, want, envy and need. Today he touched Mia. His fingers held her hand. Stephen Murphy now knew that impossible was possible.

  ~

  Susan had just finished her tour with Mike, the lead investigator of the PEEPs team. He was a very handsome, charming man who seemed very comfortable with a camera following him around. She pointed out the hot spots of the house from the rocker to the nursery. At one point she had to choke back a laugh as she started to feel ridiculous. If she hadn’t seen Grandma reading while rocking in the chair herself, she would have felt like a complete fraud. It wasn’t her house. The problems that these walls witnessed weren’t hers.

  Her husband greeted her as she stepped out of the backdoor. His face showed an admiration she hadn’t seen in a while. This warmed her and she blushed.

  “You were wonderful,” he gushed. “I sat there watching and thought, what a babe. And then I remembered that you are my babe.”

  “Oh, you,” she said moving into his arms. The kiss they shared was impressive enough to receive wolf whistles and cat calls from Ted and Beth. Susan blushed more and hid her head in Mark’s shoulder.

  “Don’t mind them. They’re jealous,” Mark said patting her back. “Come on, I want to show you all the gizmos they have back there.”

  Susan took his hand and carefully navigated over the cables across the yard and into the command center. Beth handed her a bottle of water and gave her a thumbs up before returning to her station beside Ted, monitoring the several camera feeds they had set up in the house.

  Mark offered her his chair, found another and unfolded it and sat beside her. Their hands brushed each other and he reached for hers. She smiled at him and wondered how long they needed to stay with the investigation.

  Burt lumbered over, setting the heavy camera down on the equipment table. “Nice job in there.”

  “Thank you. Do you need anything else from either of us or can we leav
e?”

  Burt smiled, happy to know that the “civilians” didn’t want to play a part in their investigation. “No. I will want to do a follow up after we have finished here in a few days. If it’s alright with you, we will keep monitoring the house for the next few days and nights.”

  “Marjorie has given you carte blanche. George, her husband, is a bit of a wild card, but I don’t expect him to return to the house without contacting us first.” Susan turned to Mark and asked, “Did you want to stay any longer?”

  He squeezed her hand and shook his head. “I think the PEEPs team have everything under control. Let me know who won the pool though.” He got up and shook Burt’s offered hand before helping Susan rise out of the camp chair. He tucked her arm in his before they walked around the side yard and out to the car.

  “Somebody’s getting lucky tonight,” Ted said.

  “Ever the class act, Ted dear,” Beth commented as she leaned in and pointed to the kitchen monitor. “Mike’s in the refrigerator. Somebody remind the man that we don’t live here.”

  Ted tapped the com. “Mike, this is Ted, roger.”

  Mike whirled around, forgetting for a moment the new ear piece in his ear. He looked at the camera and mouthed, “What?”

  “Bethy says stay out of the fridge. You’re looking fat on camera.”

  Beth hauled off and hit Ted on the back.

  “Like, no violence, we have a PG rating to maintain,” Ted complained.

  “Children,” Burt said to get their attention. “We are adults here. Ted, you need a serious course in tact. Beth, Mike is looking a bit fat on camera.”

  “But I didn’t say that. Now I am going to have to deal with pouty Mike for the rest of the investigation.”

  Burt nodded in sympathy. A movement in the upper right corner of the large monitor caught his eye. He pointed it out to the techs, and Ted adjusted the size so they could see better.

  In the nursery one of the remaining dolls was moving. Just a slight head turn and the eyes opened.