Hazardous Goods aatd-1

by John Mackie

  Huh. Well, we would have to get the system up and running once things settled down a bit. But that wasn’t going to solve today’s problem. Mr. Rat.

  Key in lock, deep breath. Open door, flick on light and enter.

  Nothing.

  “Where the hell are you?” I nudged the stack of carpets with a toe, then the coat rack. “For God’s sake. Must’ve gotten out somehow.”

  “Or maybe your rat was just a little mouse, and he’s hiding.” Here came Kara, blonde hair bouncing with her every step.

  I snorted and stepped aside. She moved toward the clothes rack, and as she was reaching out to shift a coat aside, a bright light filled the room.

  When I was in grade eight, my science partner was Mike Cooke. Mike was all dork. Dungeons and Dragons club, chess on weekends, and threw a baseball like a girl. But when it came to science, no one could have a better partner. He was the mad scientist, never afraid of anything. When it came time to dissect frogs, he was in there with wires and a battery, making muscles twitch and grossing out the girls. And when our teacher introduced us to magnesium strips, well let’s just say that it was the only time in school where I experienced a fire alarm that was not a prank.

  You remember that brilliant, almost painful light magnesium emits when it burns? For just a brief moment, that’s what we experienced in the Lost and Found Room.

  “Jesus.” I winced at the flash, then rubbed at my eyes. The afterimage glowed, even when my eyelids were closed.

  It took a good five seconds for my vision to clear enough to see around the room. I was staring at the far wall, watching a small bright ball of light darken and jitter. Gotta love it when you burn your retina out of your head. In any event, I was looking away from Kara when the next surprise came up. She announced it in the form of a shriek.

  “Spider! SPIDER!”

  I turned, and she charged past Maggie out of the room. The whole thing was just so bizarre I had to laugh.

  “Oh, big brave guy now, are you?”

  I glanced down and spotted it. A daddy longlegs. Big one. Leg span a good seven inches across. Freakish big, really. But while I can’t say I’m a fan of spiders, the daddy longlegs bother me the least. They’re all legs (hence the name). More important, they were easy to track and stomp.

  That’s me, friend to nature.

  I stomped.

  A quick check of my shoe confirmed that Mr. Spider was indeed dead. In the off-chance that the brown goop on my shoe was not in fact his innards I checked the floor. Matching goop stain.

  “He’s dead.”

  “Thanks.” Kara was blushing, her porcelain skin so white that I could see the red rising ten feet away. I decided to hold back on the taunting, just in case she was better at handing it out than taking it.

  That would have been the end of it all, had I not bothered to clean the floor and the bottom of my shoe. But I did, and that’s why I found myself staring intently at both for so long that Maggie spoke up.

  “Everything okay?”

  “Yeah. I think so. It’s just — this doesn’t — it sounds strange, but this doesn’t look like dead spider to me.”

  It didn’t. Sure, I would expect to see brown goop. But that’s all there was. No legs. Every insect I had ever killed ended up looking like a mangled version of its original self, except those rabid little mosquitoes that disappear in a cloud of the blood they just drained from your calf. And I seem to recall that when I last stomped a longlegs, those legs kept twitching for some time afterwards. So what had happened to Mr. Spider?

  “What’s up?”

  “Hey, Jamar.”

  “We had a spider!”

  Kara went on to tell Jamar of her close call with the massive spider-beast that had been dwelling in our Lost and Found. The whole time she spoke, he had a hint of a smirk on his face.

  “Well, maybe the spider and the rat are working together.”

  I snorted. Smartass.

  “Come over here for a second.”

  I watched as he pulled his shoulders back, pumped his arms up and walked towards me like some Victorian era strongman. All he needed was a one-piece and a handlebar moustache.

  “I’ll handle the little spiders, Donnie. Why don’t you go sit with Kara and the two of you can commiserate.”

  “Check over by the coat-rack.”

  He stepped past me and I took three quick steps back, so that I was just outside the room. If I was right, it was going to happen in just a…

  Flash.

  “A rabbit? You’re afraid of bloody rabbits?”

  I laughed so hard my stomach muscles hurt. Jamar and Kara were staring at me as though I had just walked out of the mental health institute, still wearing my white gown and shoes without laces. Unbelievably, Jamar had inched behind Maggie, as though seeking protection from the floppy-eared villain. All I could think of was the vorpal bunny from Monty Python and the Holy Grail (one of my all-time favorites) — “What’s he do, nibble your bum?”

  By the time I was done laughing I had to wipe tears from my face. Kara was finally smiling, but Jamar looked like he was going to be sick.

  “Sorry, man.” I closed the door on the rabbit. “I had a hunch.”

  “Some kind of fear spell, or something?” Kara had her arms crossed, hip jutting out. I was sensing hostility.

  Jamar glanced from me to Kara, sensing he was on the outside of this particular conversation. I let him in.

  “Hey, not my fault! When John started going on about the rat, I was convinced we just had a pest problem. But then I couldn’t find it, and suddenly the spider shows up when Kara goes in. When I stomped out that one, it looked like that ecto-goo. Ghostbusters slime, or whatever they call it. So I figured I’d test it out on you.”

  “Thanks a lot. As if I didn’t have enough crap going wrong right now.”

  “Sorry, big guy.” I’d forgotten about the ring. Something to follow up on later.

  “Wait a minute — how come it didn’t work on you?”

  Kara’s question was a good one. Hadn’t even occurred to me, I was so caught up in the fun.

  “Yeah, if it worked on Big John, Kara and me, what about you?”

  “No fear, baby. No fear.”

  They snorted. “Yeah, right.”

  “Don’t know. Maybe it’s because I’m new? Maybe the spell takes time to take effect?”

  Jamar seemed to accept that as a possibility, though he looked as though he just wanted to get on with the day. Kara seemed less open to the idea. I shrugged, and gave her an apologetic look.

  “Listen, why don’t you guys get started, and I’ll try and figure out what caused it.”

  Jamar seemed relieved to be moving away from the Lost and Found Room. I waited until both had left the staging area, then headed in to face the killer rabbit.

  As I suspected, with Jamar headed out front the rabbit was nowhere to be seen. But the second time, I had paid more attention to the magnesium-like flare. The most intense afterimage was in a very specific location, so I went straight to the spot. I parted the line of coats, cloaks and other sundries on the coat-rack, isolating one double-breasted trench coat, beige. I lifted it from the rack by the coat hook, and laid it out on one of the chairs standing along the west wall.

  I felt like I was on CSI. Call it CSI Canada, with half of the episodes dedicated to investigating mysterious deaths involving hypothermia, beer, and a killer moose.

  I scanned the coat front and back, looking for something, anything, out of the ordinary. Nothing of note. Bit of a smudge on the seat, but looked like normal wear and tear to me. Buttons, shoulder straps, belt, cuff straps — all of it looked standard to me.

  I opened the coat. Burberry, so it was higher end than I could afford. Size was 36S. A little guy. Nothing in the front pockets or interior breast pockets. I lifted the jacket by the coat hanger, and balanced the tip of the hanger on my finger. Hmm. It was weighing down on one side. Felt along the hem, and that’s when I found it.

&nbs
p; Same place I always found loose change, between the lining and the coat, right at the hem. I unzipped and removed the lining, and voila — a tiny stone egg. Wasn’t just a stray rock or gravel, it was far too smooth. Looked like a tiger’s eye, that neat mix of multiple browns and dark yellows. Small as the tip of my little finger.

  It was the only anomaly I had found in the coat, but was it the cause of our haunted house? I figured a test was the only way to find out.

  Three minutes later we had another phantom bunny hopping around the premises, and Jamar was packing the van at record speed.

  I left the stone in the Lost and Found Room while I worked my morning route. Kara was kind enough to call Professor Irving, who called back later in the morning with some suggestions on how to defuse the damned thing. But first he gave me his thoughts on Jamar’s ring.

  “I’m almost positive that it’s cursed.”

  “Great.”

  My sarcasm seemed to float right past the Prof.

  “Not great. No. This is serious magic. Imbuing an object with that kind of energy requires a practitioner with considerable ability, or a significant power source. Either way, not good.”

  “What do you mean, power source?”

  “Think of it like having a rabid dog sicced on you. The practitioner can turn the object into a rabid dog. It bites everyone in its path, unless instructed otherwise. Or the practitioner can turn the object into a sort of alarm bell. When someone triggers the bell, a third party sends a rabid dog your way.”

  “Third party?”

  “A spirit or a god, notionally. In this case I haven’t been able to identify which type of curse it is, but everything I have read suggests the curse is pretty much impossible to break, unless we can locate the person who cast it in the first place.”

  “Can I even assume that the woman Jamar met cast this thing?”

  “I would think not. His description of events sounded more like someone trying to rid themselves of the ring, rather than a person with a specific grudge against him.”

  “So what do we do?”

  “I don’t know. I’ll keep asking around.”

  “OK. Thanks. What about this stone? Any suggestions?”

  “The fearstone? That’s more of a prank than anything else. Much easier.”

  The process for neutralizing the spell on the ‘fearstone’ involved a bucket of hot tap water, salt, and some rubbing alcohol. Sounded like something I might have drank in college. I think it worked, but neither Kara nor Jamar would agree to a test. Since it didn’t seem to affect me, I agreed to keep it on hand, so by the end of my lunch hour the egg was resting in my pocket, next to the leper coin. At this rate, I was going to need a Batman utility belt.

  Still, that left the mystery of who put it there, why, and how it ended up sitting in the Lost and Found room. Problem was, I already had a mystery on my hands — what to do about Niki the Bull. My solution? I exercised my powers of delegation, and pawned the new investigation off to Kara, who seemed pleased to take on the project.

  I also asked her to check in on Hidden Pleasures, to make sure everything had turned out all right with Ted’s night on the door. The big guy still hadn’t called in, so I was getting a bit queasy contemplating the possibility that things had skewed sideways at some point.

  I was getting that feeling a lot recently.

  CHAPTER 13

  It turned out my concerns about Ted were unwarranted. When I returned to the office that afternoon, Kara told me that Melodi Roberts had been delighted with the way things had gone the prior night, and was even considering taking on Ted for special events. Just goes to show you that as intelligent and level-headed as someone may seem, they can still make grievous errors in judgment.

  Jamar, though, was still having a rough time. The news that Professor Irving had come up with no real suggestions for dealing with the ring had hit him hard. And now Jamar’s father had announced he had been dating a Ukrainian woman half his age. Online. Next up was a trip to Kiev to meet her face-to-face and try to convince her to return with him to Canada.

  Jamar was despondent, and I felt like we had to try something. Which is why I told him I was going to spend my Saturday scouring cottage country for some crazy lady, even though he was going to be at an uncle’s birthday party and couldn’t make it.

  As it happens, Kara noted we had a run up north that was in the neighborhood. I guess we had a two week window to make the delivery each quarter, and that window opened on Saturday. She was also able to get contact information on Crazy Lady from the Treasure Chest — the customer outside Orillia that Jamar had done the original delivery for. I had a name and address, and figured it was worth meeting with the scheming wench.

  “By the way, I think I might have a lead on that fearstone thing.”

  “Really?” That was quick.

  “Well, it’ll sound silly, but I swear I have seen that jacket before. I checked with Clay, and he thought I might be right.”

  “Okay. And…”

  “Bindings. I think it belongs to the owner.”

  Bindings. Interesting. Kara was going to look for some evidence to back up her suspicions. Then we would need to decide what to do about it.

  The following day I picked up Arcane 1 from the office and headed out for a weekend drive. It was a beautiful sunny day, rolling emerald hills, bales of hay baking in open fields, and mile after mile of glorious quiet. That absence of sound that I love so much. No horns honking or engines revving, no voices shouting. Just quiet.

  “Goddamn this is boring.”

  Oh — one thing. When I told him about my trip north, Ted had insisted on riding along. I flipped on some music, in an attempt to humor him.

  “C’mon. No traffic, just tunes…” Arctic Monkeys. Great band.

  Ted snorted. “You can’t even understand the guy! Please tell me you’ve got some Southern Rock on that thing. Skynrd? Allmann Brothers?”

  “Forget it. My van, my iPod, my tunes.”

  The complaints continued for the next hour.

  I spotted the sign for Anadale Corners as we swept out of a long swale in the road. Kinsmen, Shriners and Knights of Columbus seals. Pop. 2387. Est. 1833. Just ahead I could see our destination. Just this quick drop, then we were off to find Crazy Lady.

  “Is that it?”

  Ted tilted his head forward and opened his eyes.

  “Looks like it.”

  I slowed, checking my rearview mirror to make sure no one was watching. Then pulled over onto the gravel shoulder, careful not to wander too close to the ditch. The van crunched along, kicking up dust as I slowed to a stop in front of an old cemetery.

  Seventeen headstones of various sizes and shapes, all arranged in a semicircle facing a wooden arch which bore the legend Founders’ Resting Place. A path lined with woodchips ran from the road through a wooden lych gate to a point in front of the centre headstone, which was also the tallest of the group — a speckled granite cross that stood three feet high. Interspersed among the headstones were a number of shrubs, as though nature felt it necessary to bring life to this testament of death.

  The nearest building was a home a half mile back, and there wasn’t a person in sight. I stepped out of the van, and Ted joined me.

  It was quiet. Peaceful. When they laid me down to rest, this would be a good choice. A red-winged blackbird hopped on the branches of a birch ten yards behind the graves, its scarlet red epaulets vivid against the white and grey background.

  A sneeze shattered the stillness, thundering across the landscape.

  “Gesundheit.” Ted had been sneezing in the van for the whole drive, no doubt infecting me with some lethal virus.

  He sniffed, a Kleenex in his hand. His eyes were watering.

  “Must be my allergies.”

  I stared around the cemetery. Wild flowers, grass, ragweed. A witch’s brew of allergens. Ted was your classic outdoor allergy sufferer, so late Spring and late Summer were the worst for him. Still, he didn’t usuall
y get much more than a runny nose. Must be a bad year.

  “Got your Claritin?”

  “Nah, forgot it at home. I’ll be alright, just the sniffles.”

  The two of us walked in silence to the headstones, then drifted in either direction along the line of them, taking in the names and dates.

  In Memory of Benjamin Pollock, died 12th August 1841, aged 30 years.

  James Bain, son of Archibald and Ellen Bain, died 19th July 1841, aged 6 years.

  Two stones side by side — In Memory of Archibald Bain, died 31st July 1841, aged 28 years; In Memory of Ellen Bain, died 28th August 1841, aged 23 years.

  “Christ, are they all the same on your side?”

  “July and August 1841?”

  “I have one in June.”

  Seventeen tombstones, five families, all dead in less than three months during the summer of 1841. Pollock. Bain. Davies. Bryson. Turnbull. Six children ranging in age from three months and four days to ten years. Nine adults. Four couples and Josiah Davies, husband of Charlotte, father to John and Alexander.

  “Anything for Charlotte Davies or the kids?”

  “No.”

  “No one else made it?”

  Presuming they were the only families in town at the time, it appeared so. Life had been tough for the early settlers.

  As instructed, I left the package behind the smallest headstone — Josiah Davies.

  “That’s it?”

  “Yup.”

  “Kind of bizarre, huh?”

  “Yeah.” It was bizarre. And sad. For some reason, I found this place incredibly sad.

  We strode back to the van in silence.

  We had traveled no more than a mile when Ted called out, just as he had when we were kids.

  “I need a washroom.”

  I slowed the van and began rolling to the shoulder.

  “Not a piss. I have to take a squat.”

  Great.

  As it turned out, Anadale Corners was not far, just on the other side of an apple orchard that spanned both sides of the road. A four corners collection of buildings, the first few abandoned, then a general store with a somewhat bizarre list of offerings posted on a shingle by the front door — “Key Cutting, DVD Rentals, Spring Seeds, Ice Cream”. Gas station with adjoining diner, a church, and Anadale Depot — the local farm equipment sales office.