by Tim McGregor
Mockler leaned back against the wall and wiped a sleeve over his mouth again. “I counted six of them. I don’t know if I can stop them all. Not without someone getting hurt.”
The chanting ticked up a notch in its rhythm. The tempo quickening, the urgency building. They peered back into the vast room. The hooded figures were closing in on the unconscious woman at their feet.
“We have to do something,” Billie hissed.
He pulled her back and then scanned about the floor, searching for something.
“What are you doing?”
Fetching up something from a pile of debris on the floor, he handed her a length of cast iron pipe. “Here. Use it if you have to.”
The metal was heavy in her hands. Could she actually hit someone with this?
“Stay behind me,” he said. “If someone comes at you, hit them with that. Ready?”
She nodded that she was, even though it was a lie.
The chanting from the other room stopped.
“Oh shit.”
Mockler charged into the chamber with the gun raised in both hands, barking loud and furiously. “Police! On the ground! Now!”
Staying on his tail, Billie knocked into him when the detective stopped suddenly, his bark trailing off.
The hooded figures were gone. All six of them, vanished into the shadows.
The prone woman remained on the floor inside the pentagram.
“Kaitlin!” Billie ran for her friend but something wasn’t right. She dropped to her knees and rolled the woman onto her back.
It wasn’t Kaitlin. The same build, same hair as her friend but the woman on the floor was a stranger.
“It’s not her,” she said. “It’s not Kaitlin.”
Mockler swept the gun over the room one more time, then knelt down beside Billie. “Is she alive?”
Billie touched the woman’s neck, feeling for a pulse. “Yes.”
Mockler looked at the woman’s face. “Do you know her?”
“I’ve never seen her before.”
The chanting rose up out of nowhere, loud and frighteningly urgent. Billie startled at its ferocity and looked up.
The hooded figures were back, positioned at the points around the pentagram and surrounding them. Carrying on with their ritual. The one with the dagger rushed in, swinging the blade.
Mockler blocked it with his arm and the blade sliced through his jacket, drawing blood. He spun fast and brained the hooded figure in the skull with the butt of the pistol. The others rushed in, swarming them.
Billie shot to her feet, swinging the iron pipe, more than willing to brain every last one of the creepy figures but the one with the dagger slashed at her. The blade sliced across her knuckles and she shrieked in pain and reared back suddenly as the figure slashed at her again.
The gun went off, cracking loud and sharp near her ear. Three times. Pop, pop, pop.
The one with the blade came again but Billie swung the pipe fast and connected hard, bringing the figure down. It splayed across the floor and Billie’s blood boiled and she wanted nothing more than to smash the bastard’s skull with the pipe. She raised the iron for another swing when the figure rolled over and the hood fell away.
The face of a woman leered up at her, her features twisted up with venom.
“Kaitlin?”
Kaitlin slashed at her again and then something knocked into Billie from behind. All around her was the scrum of Mockler swarmed by the robed congregants. He lashed out in a berserk rage, clubbing and kicking out at the mob. The gun reported in two rapid bursts and then another. Robed figures fell and others scampered into the darkness like cockroaches. Mockler roared like a madman, incomprehensible with rage.
Kaitlin lunged at Billie and the two of them tumbled back and fell into the broken pit in the floor. Billie panicked at being trapped in the hollow that had held the skeleton for so long. She scrambled to get out but she was pinned down under Kaitlin, who had fallen on top of her. A slow hiss leaked out of the crazed woman and the fury in her eyes dimmed rapidly. Billie pushed her off and struggled to clamber out of the narrow space.
Kaitlin collapsed against the wall and her eyes fell to her stomach where the robe was turning red with blood from the dagger stuck in her belly.
“Kaitlin!” Billie thrust her hand over the wound, unsure of whether or not to pull the blade. She left it and tapped Kaitlin’s cheek to rouse her. “Kaitlin, look at me. Don’t pass out.”
The light was fading from the young woman’s eyes. Billie had no wish to see Kaitlin’s ghost. She screamed at Mockler for help.
The detective lurched across the room with a pronounced limp. One last member of the hooded coven was crawling away on all fours like some wounded animal looking for a place to die. Mockler swung down hard with the pistol and a sharp crack sounded as it connected with the fugitive’s skull. The figure fell flat in the folds of its robe.
Mockler swung around and staggered back to Billie, already dialling his phone. His face fell as the phone went dark from the barely charged battery.
“Help her!” Billie roared, grabbing hold of his collar.
He dropped to his knees but, taking in the extent of the wound, he seemed at a loss as to how to help the woman bleeding out onto the flagstones.
Billie fell silent and when her screams ceased echoing off the stone walls, their ears hooked another sound filtering in from outside. The wailing shriek of a police siren.
21
THE SOUNDS OF of the waiting room grated Billie’s nerves. The droning voice over the PA system and the squeak of sensible shoes underscored the throbbing pain in her hand. The cut across her knuckles had been bandaged up but she needed to keep the hand raised to quell the pain throbbing through it.
Billie had never liked hospitals in the first place and that sentiment had only deepened after waking up in one two months ago and learning that she had been in a coma for three days. That was the moment when her whole world had turned on its head. Nothing had been the same since. She watched the doors to the Emergency Room slide open as people shuffled in and stifled the urge to get up and walk out.
“We should just go home,” Tammy said, curled up on the chair next to Billie. She let her shoes drop to the floor and tried to get comfortable. “We won’t hear anything for hours.”
“Yeah,” Billie sighed. Neither of them stirred from their chairs.
They had been told two hours ago that Kaitlin was in critical condition, her injuries severe. They hadn’t heard a peep since, despite asking the harried staff for an update.
“We could take shifts,” Tammy suggested. “You go home, get some sleep. Come back in a couple hours and relieve me.”
“You go. I’ll take the first watch.”
Tammy didn’t move. “Should we try Kyle again?”
“I guess,” Billie shrugged. They had called Kaitlin’s boyfriend a number of times but he hadn’t picked up. For all they knew, he might even be in this very same hospital. Neither of them had a contact number for Kaitlin’s parents.
Billie looked up to see Detective Mockler and a uniformed officer appear in the corridor. They spoke quietly for a moment before the uniform nodded and carried on to the exit. The detective scanned the waiting room, clocked the two women and made his way over. His shirtsleeves were rolled up to accommodate the heavy gauze bandaged over the left forearm.
He took a seat across from the two women. “Any word on your friend?”
“Still in critical condition,” Billie said. “But that was hours ago.”
Mockler noted the bruise on Billie’s cheek and the dressing swathed over her knuckles. “How’s the hand?”
“Four stitches,” Billie replied. She nodded at his own wound. “You?”
He raised his arm. “Stings. I think one of those bastards bit me.”
Tammy perked up. “Who were those people anyway?”
“We don’t know yet,” he said. “Even the two we apprehended. They had nothing on them and they don’t
speak English.”
“What language do they speak?”
“I think it’s Norwegian,” the detective shrugged. “We’re still trying to find a translator.”
“They didn’t have any ID on them?” Billie asked.
“They weren’t even wearing clothes under those robes.”
“What about the woman?”
“She’s still unconscious. The doc thinks she was drugged.”
A call came over the PA system and the three of them sat quiet until it was done. Tammy tucked her feet under her. “What do you think they did to Kaitlin? I mean, why was she with them?”
He looked to Billie before replying, as if she had an answer he didn’t. “We don’t know. Hopefully she can fill us in when she wakes up.”
“That wasn’t her back there,” Billie said. “She wasn’t herself.”
Neither Tammy nor the detective responded, leaving the statement to hang in the air.
Tammy stretched her arms. “Will she be charged with anything?”
“I really can’t say at this point.” He glanced at Billie. “All depends on how much we can piece together about what happened to her.”
Tammy leaned in and lowered her voice. “Billie said there’s been other incidents like this. This weirdo devil worship stuff. Is that true?”
Again, he fired a look at Billie but it was a little sharper. “Miss Culpepper shouldn’t be talking about stuff like that.”
The three of them fell silent for a moment but Mockler seemed unable to sit still, his knee bouncing rapidly.
“You all right?” Billie asked.
“I need to talk to you about something but it can wait,” he said. “It’s been a long night. Why don’t I get someone to drive you home.”
“We’re gonna stay. Someone should be here when Kaitlin wakes up.” Billie sat up straight and stretched. “We can talk now.”
He got to his feet. “Okay. Let’s get some air. Excuse us, Tammy.”
They passed through the doors into the night where a slight breeze was pushing dry leaves down the sidewalk. They crossed to a bench near the hedgerow and sat down.
“You holding up?”
“I guess,” she shrugged. “I feel kind of numb right now.”
“That’s shock. It’ll burn off soon enough. You’ve had a hell of a night.”
“I seem to be having a lot of those.” Billie leaned back and looked up at the night sky. There were no stars. “You know, I used to have a normal life. Quiet. Before that night you almost killed me.”
“I see. So this is my fault?”
“Yup. You’re a bad influence.”
He smiled at the joke, but only for a second. He still seemed fidgety.
“Okay,” Billie sighed. “What is it?”
He reached into a pocket and placed something on the bench between them. A long stick and cap sealed in clear plastic.
She picked it up, the packaging crinkling in her hand. “What is it?”
“It’s a swab stick. For DNA sampling.”
Now she was confused. “You want my DNA?”
He nodded. “It’s about the remains you found in the basement. Remember I said we found some moldy ID with it? The lab was able to recover some of the print.”
She sat up, even more confused. “And? Who is he? Or she?”
The detective scratched his chin, something she’d seen him do a hundred times before. Stalling before delivering bad news.
“According to the ID, his name was Franklin Riddel.”
The name snagged in her ear, like an alarm tripping. Something from a long, long time ago. “Riddel?”
“I ran the name through the system,” Mockler said. “It came back with a big red flag. Franklin Riddel was married, briefly, to one Mary Agnes Culpepper.”
A sharp click sounded in Billie’s ear. She couldn’t breathe. “No. That can’t be right…”
“Billie, he’s your father.” He settled his hand over her wrist. “He’s also the man wanted for the disappearance of your mother twenty years ago.”
The numbness crept back as the rug was suddenly yanked from under her feet.
Franklin Riddel was a name without a face. A father she barely knew, rarely mentioned by a mother whom Billie had lost when she was a child. None of this made sense and she wished the man next to her would stop talking. What was he saying?
“I don’t know what to make of it either,” Mockler said. “Somehow you located his remains. But how did he end up there?”
“It has to be a mistake,” she said.
“That’s why I brought the swab kit. To be sure.”
Dead leaves tumbled around their ankles and blew off down the concrete. Neither spoke for a long time.
Mockler turned when he heard a sob. He moved the kit out of the way and put his arm around her. “I thought this all started in June, when I knocked you into the harbour. But it goes back much farther than that.”
“Yes.” She let her head rest against his shoulder.
He let out a long breath. “Okay. Why don’t we get some coffee and then go back to the beginning. And start there.”
“Can we just sit here for a bit?” she said.
“Sure.”
A leaf fluttered down from above and settled onto her knee, dry and brittle as paper. Billie reached for it but the wind swept it up again before she could catch it.
Afterword
DO YOU BELIEVE IN GHOSTS?
A simple question. A timeless question. Around how many campfires has it been asked, the questioner and questioned staring at one another across the flames?
My answer? Maybe. Sometimes.
I never used to. Despite a lifelong passion for horror and the supernatural, I never for a moment believed that any of it was real. Or even possible. It was all just good spooky fun. Sort of like church.
Growing up, I had aunts on my dad's side who believed in all kinds of things. They relished anything spooky and supernatural but most of all, they loved 'true tales' of the unexplained. Ghost stories and hauntings and tales of poetic comeuppance. This, I should add, was also the deeply Catholic side of the family so there may be some correlation there. I dismissed them as eccentric. Possibly mad too.
These days, I'm not so certain about the whole paranormal thing. My scepticism has worn away incrementally over the years. Now, as a husband, father and pulp writer, I find that I want to believe more and more. Is it just age, creeping up like arthritis in the bones? Or is it the same impulse that drives the elderly back to the church; the fear of death. Or the judgement that might come after that.
Ah see, there's that old time Catholicism creeping back in when I'm not looking. Like a mouse facing the coming winter, it will sneak its way into the house through any crevice it can find.
There wasn't any single event that changed my mind. It was a sliding scale of small events that stacked up over time. To be fair, these things may all have been coincidence that my feeble mind decided to string together as cause and effect.
Five years ago we renovated the basement of our house and I think I may have disturbed something in the process. Tearing out a section of the broken concrete floor, I unearthed a small bone from the musty dirt. Measuring about seven inches long, it appeared to be a leg bone to my untrained and non-expert eye. The bone could have belonged to a medium sized animal, like a goat or a dog. Maybe even a pig. It could also, I believed, be human.
What was it doing under the slab cellar floor of a Victorian rowhouse built in 1896? I had no idea but apparently this wasn't the first incident of skeletal remains found here. Other small bones had been uncovered years before when the old boiler had been removed to make way for a modern forced-air furnace. According to local lore, it wasn't uncommon for early 20th century homeowners to bury animal bones under the dirt of their bare-earth cellars. I have no idea why they would do such a thing, nor have I been able to confirm this tidbit of local lore.
It's possible that this lonely bone is all that remains of some
poor lamb butchered for some holiday feast by the original home-owners of the late 1800's. I simply don't know. After digging it up, I washed the thing and showed it to my daughters, joking that I had unearthed the ghost of old Mrs. O' Malley. (Don't ask me who old Mrs. O' Malley is, it just sounded right at the time. I do remember reading that children's classic “The Teeny-Tiny Woman” around that time). Neither daughter thought it was very funny at the time. The missus even less so.
The incidents after that were small but odd. Our youngest would sometimes talk to an imaginary friend. Other times, she refused to go to another floor by herself, scared of something she couldn't articulate. The cat, who rules the house, balked at a certain section of the basement, refusing to go anywhere near the spot where the bone was uncovered.
Neither of these two incidents are significant. Cats are just strange and childhood fears are common. The clincher for me was the voice in my ear. A sunny summer afternoon and a quiet house. My wife was out with the kids and I was alone. Sitting on the front stoop after mowing the lawn, something hissed into my ear and I damn near jumped out of my skin. There was no one there (not even the obnoxious cat). But the voice was unmistakable and as loud as bombs, as if someone had hissed right into my ear. To this day I'm not even sure what the voice said. Something simple and non-threatening. My name or 'hey' or 'you'. But it scared the hell out of me and that awful voice put a chill down my spine like nothing else before.
Unable to shake the creepy feeling, I began drawing connections to the events. The bone and my daughter's fears. Her imaginary friend and the odd behaviour of the cat in the renovated basement. The awful voice in my ear and old Mrs. O' Malley.
With a new slab floor poured and a fake hardwood floor installed over that, I had no way of returning the little bone to its original place of internment. Flustered, I buried it in the front garden, down amongst the roots of the aging rose bushes.
