Straightening his shirt and attempting to look as professional as possible, Ulrich wiped the sweat from his brow and prepared his identification. He wanted things to go as smoothly as possible, and hoped that the police wouldn't be nearly so opposed to speaking to out-of-towners as the citizens of McArthur were proving. Stepping through the threshold, he entered the carpeted lobby. Just inside the door, blocked by a sheet of bulletproof glass, was a desk. Behind it, sat a stern-faced officer with a bushy grey mustache.
OK, this is it. Don't blow it, he thought. Just act natural. With the warmest smile he could manage, Ulrich sauntered up to the desk and gave the man a nod. The officer looked up at him without amusement and stood up.
“Yeah?” asked the officer, leaning forward and giving Ulrich a once-over.
The lobby was austere; two plastic chairs flanked the windows. Sunlight drifted in through the thick panes, washing over the carpet. The blue carpet was washed out in places, thanks to the cumulative effect of the sun over the years. There was a potted plant, presumably fake, sitting on top of a side table that also featured a few dog-eared issues of Reader's Digest. Even from the door it was easy to see the thick layer of dust upon its waxy leaves.
“Sorry to bother you,” began Ulrich. “My name is Harlan Ulrich, I'm a private investigator out of Toledo. You know, up north. I was wondering if Officer Brent Stanley was in.”
The officer, whose name tag read Lt. Brown, arched a salt n' pepper brow. “Yeah, I know where Toledo is, guy. And Stanley's off today. On vacation, in fact. What can I help you with?”
Ulrich gulped, leaning against the counter and struggling to maintain his friendly demeanor. He was starting to sweat again, the interaction making him terribly nervous. Great, the one guy I wanted to talk to is off today. And this guy's already getting annoyed with me-- I haven't even told him what I want. It's like he can smell my fear. “I'm, uh... I've been hired to look into something.” He waved one of his hands in the air. The gesticulation was supposed to flow naturally, was supposed to convey a spirit of “Yeah, I talk to cops and ask them to do stuff for me all the time.” Instead, he looked like an idiot at a total loss for words. “T-there's a missing person in McArthur and I... I understand that your department was tasked with looking into it?” His voice was trending into the upper register, betraying his fraying nerves.
Lt. Brown grunted, hiking up his pants and throwing a glance over his shoulder at the office to his back. “You lookin' for that doctor?”
“Yes,” blurted Ulrich, “Dr. Siegfried Klein. That's the one.”
The officer licked one of his fingers and bent down to rifle through a folder, flipping through a number of papers. From this he removed a few sheets, which he scanned before passing to Ulrich through the drawer set just beneath the counter. “Fill this request form out.” It was one of those metal drawers, like the kind found in banks, which allowed both parties to exchange things without making physical contact. Precisely the kind that Ulrich always had trouble using. When the lieutenant had sent over the document, Ulrich fiddled with the drawer, tugging on the handle confusedly until it lurched open with a groan. He chuckled, casually removing the document and patting the drawer closed with an awkward motion.
Clearing his throat, Ulrich attempted to lighten the mood with some friendly chatter. “Things always this slow around here?”
“Most everyone's out on patrol,” replied the lieutenant, returning to his seat.
“Ah. They're sitting in the speed traps right about now, am I right?”
The joke went over like a fart in church.
“The request for information costs twenty bucks, by the way,” the officer added with a grunt.
Ulrich nodded soberly and made his way over to one of the plastic chairs, where he folded his lanky frame into the seat and leaned over the forms. He hadn't been given a clipboard or anything to write on, and instead tried to make due by pressing the paper to his knee. He filled out the paperwork sloppily, going through it as quickly as he could, before signing off on the bottom and fishing a crisp twenty out of his wallet. Then, fiddling with the drawer, he crammed both inside and shut the thing, watching as the lieutenant locked it. When the officer had both in hand, he looked over the messy work with a smirk and dropped it down onto his desk disinterestedly.
“Just a minute,” said the officer, turning around and disappearing from view. He could be heard to rifle through some papers just around the corner. Soon thereafter the humming of a copy machine sounded in the quiet office and copies were promptly spit out. Lt. Brown returned to the window and dropped the paperwork into the drawer. When Ulrich had it in hand and had succeeded in clumsily batting the drawer closed, he returned to his seat, and to the sales circular that sat upon his desk.
Reviewing the police report was a job of only a few moments. Literally, the sheet had mainly been left blank, featuring only a few indecipherable signatures he took to be those of the responding officers, and some generic notes about the exterior of the building and the grounds. There was no mention of the building's being searched beyond its entry-point, and a hasty note had been written, calling the place “obviously undisturbed”. It'd been a cowardly cop-out, a pathetic excuse for an investigation, yielding nothing of value. And a terrible waste of twenty dollars, too.
The investigator cleared his throat, catching the officer's attention once again and, with it, a glimmer of real annoyance in his eye. “T-thanks for this,” replied Ulrich before launching at once into his other request. “I wonder, though, if I could ask you another favor. You see, I'm supposed to look for this fella in town, but the place where he went missing is a little dangerous. It's, uh... taped off, you know. A crime scene, I suppose.” Ulrich tucked the papers under his arm and leaned in. “Is it possible, maybe, that your department could provide an officer as a guide? I mean... someone who could come with me to have a look at the place? For safety reasons as well as legal reasons...?”
Lt. Brown seemed poised to laugh in Ulrich's face, but his amusement rapidly faded and he gave a firm nod. “Y'know, as a matter of fact, I think I can help you out.” He looked to his back, barking into the office so loudly that Ulrich startled. “Hey, Mark, get out here, will ya?” He turned back to the jumpy investigator, chuckling. “Been trying to get this rookie out of here all day. He's still in training, but he'll be able to handle something like this.”
From the office there came a young man. Tall, blonde, with cheeks stained red as though from exertion. He was thin and his uniform fit him poorly. When summoned by his superior he took on a dramatic firmness however, and stood bolt upright. “Yes, sir?”
“You're gonna go with this fella here, mister, uh...” He glanced at the paperwork Ulrich had just filled out. “Harlan Ulrich. He's a PI, gonna go poke around in that infirmary for the missing doctor, got it? In Moonville?”
The youth's firmness was shaken by this news, and his glance jumped around between the lieutenant and the investigator. “W-wait, what?”
Lt. Brown stuck a thumb out, motioning to the rookie. “Mark here lives in McArthur. Knows that area pretty good, I reckon. His shift's almost done, so when you're done with him, just drop him off at his mama's house.”
Officer Mark looked on the verge of protest, but a slap in the arm from the lieutenant was sufficient to change his mind.
“Take good care of our PI here, got that?” The lieutenant opened a door, allowing Mark out into the lobby. He staggered, as though dazed by his new assignment, and looked to Ulrich with something like disdain.
Ulrich extended his hand to shake, but the grip that met his was limp and unenthusiastic. “Right, well, I'm Harlan Ulrich. Pleased to meet you.” When more talk was not forthcoming, Ulrich ambled out of the office and into the bright afternoon, leading the way to the mud-splattered SUV. Unlocking it, Ulrich opened the passenger-side door for the officer, who paused to appraise the vehicle with a grimace, before carefully and hesitantly getting inside.
“You been there yet?”
asked Mark, putting on his seatbelt and looking straight ahead with a grimace. “To the Sick House, I mean.”
Ulrich nodded. Realizing that he might be charged with trespassing for his earlier visit, he chose to gloss over the bulk of the details. “I drove by it, at least.” A slight shiver passed down his spine as he recalled, with altogether too much clarity, the things he'd seen there. The foul air, the littered floors. And then, chief among his awful recollections, was that thing that had reached out and touched him. He wasn't sure what it was, if he'd even encountered anything at all. The whole visit had left him so disordered that he couldn't trust his memory. The disappearance of the handprint had only further confused things. But now, he'd have a witness. This time, if something happened in the infirmary, Ulrich wouldn't have to face it alone. “Looks like an awfully rundown place,” he added.
Mark scoffed, crossing his arms. “Trust me, it's a whole hell of a lot worse than it looks.”
Ulrich knew he was right.
Chapter 14
Conversation with the Officer Mark Dennison was sparse. Ulrich did manage to gather a few details; he was fresh out of the academy, made to do a lot of grunt work around the station by the lieutenant, and had lived in McArthur all his life. The investigator tried to act friendly, to further break the ice, but it was for naught.
The closer they got to Moonville, the more silent, and seemingly frightened, the officer became.
Mark provided directions to the infirmary, giving the lefts and rights as Ulrich needed them in the way that only a local could. Mark knew the twisting, tree-shadowed roads of his hometown well, and before long they'd left behind the small businesses and homes of McArthur and were entering into wilder territory. Moonville. One moment they'd been in town, the next the scene had changed profoundly. Both Ulrich and his companion grew tense and pale as the road transitioned into gravel, then into dirt. Dense tree cover shaded them from the otherwise pleasant sun.
This was a part of the same path he'd driven on during his initial visit to the Sick House. Ulrich noticed that the ground had firmed up a good deal since the recent rain, but this was little comfort. Some miles into this new path, far from the borders of town, when the first of dozens of ruined shanties came into view, Ulrich found his courage had completely abandoned him. It was like being on the top of a very large hill on a roller coaster and deciding at that moment that you want off the ride more than anything in the world. The fearful momentum was too much for him to resist. By robotically going through the motions, he pressed on, containing his fear and searching out that miserable building in the woods.
Desperate for conversation, Ulrich decided to ask the officer more about the Sick House. There seemed little harm in it; it was even possible that he'd learn something, what with Mark being a local and all. “They say this place is haunted. You buy that?” he chanced, his voice a little high.
Officer Mark didn't reply, but merely looked out the window narrowly. His body seemed tensed, like he was readying himself for some sudden fright. But then, when a few moments had passed, he finally spoke. His hands rested on his knees, and his right leg wouldn't stay still, rocking nervously as though he had to take a serious leak. “As kids, you know, sometimes we'd poke around in this area. The tunnel, the cemetery, the infirmary... they're all woven into the fabric of local life. Our mothers would warn us against visiting them, would tell us stories about how they were full of this monster or that ghost. We'd never listen, though. When you're young, there's a certain thrill to going to such places. Your life is boring, uneventful, and you feel the need to prove yourself. Never once did I meet a kid who willingly paid a visit to the Sick House more than once, though.”
Ulrich looked to the rookie, whose cheeks were flush again and whose hands were balled into fists.
“Once was enough,” continued Mark. “I... I remember, I was about ten years old. Set out with a couple of friends to seek out the place. Before that, I'd never gotten particularly close to the building. It was a summer evening, still light out, and we lied to our parents. Said we were going to go out to the pond for some swimming.” He gulped. “When we got there, we were stunned by just how quiet it was. These woods, you know, they're filled with birds and animals. But when we got within a stone's throw of that shithole, everything just went quiet. Felt like we'd gone deaf, almost. Me and two of my friends decided to keep going, to look into the windows and try the door. The smart ones stayed behind, cowering by the road.”
A rundown shack entered into view. With its missing door and shattered windows, and an interior packed with shadow, it presented like a human skull, picked clean. The white, chipped plaster on the outside even gave the impression of bone. As they passed, Mark nodded towards it. “Oh, places like that, there must be a hundred or more scattered throughout the woods. Used to poke around those a fair bit as a kid, and though I never faced much trouble for it, there are stories of the things that've been unearthed in those buildings. Things that shouldn't be there, or that no one expected to find. One shack, I heard, was full of bodies. Five or six of 'em, at least. This was years back, but I heard from a guy who's been on the force for ages that the bodies were lined up perfectly on the floor of the main room, in a straight line, like they were put there by somebody, or like they'd laid down to wait and simply never gotten back up. No telling how long they'd been there, or who they were; the bodies were too degraded to be recognizable, and I guess that this was in the days before modern forensics were really up to snuff. Rumor was that they'd been out-of-towners, or maybe squatters, but they were buried and the thing was kept hush-hush. Then there are the tunnels. Mind you, I don't know that there's any truth in this, but I heard that certain of the houses in this area sat above a vast system of tunnels.
“There were active mines around here once upon a time, which is probably where the stories come from. And the miners, I guess, were said to have tunnels beneath their homes through which they could meet with neighbors or access sites all across Moonville. I've always thought this one to be bullshit, a wild story, but just a year or so back, some local kids were poking around in an abandoned shanty and, what do you know they fell through the rotten floors and into a tunnel. They all needed stitches and one broke both of his legs. While the others scrambled out to get help for little Tom Richardson, whose legs were good and busted, he claims that something in that tunnel, something that he couldn't see, tried to drag him further down to God knows where. When the paramedics got there-- and it takes a while for the help to arrive in a place like this-- the kid was hysterical, whiter than a sheet. Despite his broken legs, he'd tried to walk, to scramble away from whatever it was he thought had been trying to get at him, and after he got squared away, the medics found some weird-looking scratches on his calves that they couldn't account for...”
At this junction, Officer Mark chuckled. It wasn't a happy laugh, however. It wasn't the laugh of one who'd just told a great jest. It was clear that Mark believed every last word he'd spoken, and that yet greater insights were to be divulged. Without realizing it, Ulrich had taken an unreasonably tight grip on the wheel. While he listened, his eyes were busy leaping from side to side, scanning the woods for any trace of the specious horrors that populated the shacks all around them.
“Growing up in a place like this, well, weird shit is par for the course. We were all used to it, hardened, if you will, even as kids. Great fuel for fireside ghost stories, for gossip at school, but it didn't keep us up at night-- most of the time. Let me tell you though, that Sick House? It's a different kettle of fish. That evening, when my friends and I walked up to it, I felt, for the first time in my life, that something was out to get me. I mean, seriously out to get me. Out for blood. Haven't been on the force long enough to see some real shit, but that building is meaner than any perp I've run across yet. I was shaking pretty good, all worked up, and I couldn't even tell you why. That place just put a scare in us.
“So, we kept going, like the stupid kids we were, and looked up into
the windows. One of my buddies claimed he saw someone looking down at us from one of the windows. It was hard to tell; those things are old, dusty, and it's so dark inside. Well, when we got to the door, I tried the knob and it opened. Christ on His throne, it opened. I was terrified, thinking that there might actually be someone up there watching us from the windows, but at the same time, I just felt the need to poke around. It was like knowing a bear trap was right there, in plain view, but insisting on stepping into it. So we walked inside, just a bit. Went just inside the door.”
When Mark didn't continue, Ulrich urged him on. “Yes? And then what?”
Mark, though, was staring wide-eyed through the windshield. The outline of the infirmary had caught his eye and stolen the words from his lips.
Pulling up to the byroad that led to the infirmary, Ulrich parked the car and joined his companion in gawking at it.
Mark continued in time, unbuckling his seatbelt and never once letting the building out of his sight. It was clear he considered it a threat, and refused to turn his eyes from it lest it capitalize on his inattention. Licking his lips but finding his mouth bone-dry, he choked down a bolus of dread and wiped at his pallid brow. “We walked in there, and I swear to you, there were people inside.” He gave a shuddering sigh. “The main room in there, it's big, open. Two doors on either side that have little glass panes in 'em. Well, there were faces pressed against the glass, a few of them. Awful faces. Couldn't see them so good because the glass was thick, cloudy, but the general outlines were there. And in that main room, standing in the corners, still as statues, were others. They looked at us, stared real hard. Couldn't see their eyes... even now I'm not sure that they had any. All of them, five or more, were pale, unkempt-like. They were stationed about the room like pieces of furniture, just watching, waiting, for God knows what. Maybe they just wanted us to come in, to wander further. I don't know. In the years since I've tried to convince myself that they just wanted someone to talk to. Like they were lonely, right? But, no... those weren't lonely eyes. There was hate in 'em. We didn't stop long enough to figure it out one way or another-- me and my buddies, we ran, crying, till we left the woods and ended up back in town. And on our way out, looking up through the window, I saw another face. Something up there was watching us flee. Had big, white eyes. Dead eyes. Like eggshells. The skin was a glowing white, too, except that its whole body was streaming in blood. Ever seen a man bleed out? Seen a guy die from a serious gunshot wound or a slashed artery? It was like that, except for as long as I watched, the blood never stopped flowing from head to toe. And though its eyes were dead, blank, I sensed in them that same hatred. Envy for the living or something, who knows. I never been back since.”
The Sick House: An Occult Thriller (The Ulrich Files Book 1) Page 11
