The Spookshow - The Spookshow 1

by Tim McGregor

  “I don’t know.”

  “Then let’s go back up,” Tammy hissed, bringing up the rear.

  They kept moving. The pathway led to an arched doorway and they passed through into a large open chamber. A wide open floor of gritty concrete and damp limestone walls. The smell of wax mingled with the reek of dirt. Billie threw the beam of light over the walls and Kaitlin gasped.

  Tammy’s voice was barely a whisper. “This isn’t good.”

  The graffiti continued down to the cellar but it was not the tags of vandals branding their names in fancy script or the defiling of property with dirty words by the addle-minded. These were symbols strange and foreign, crude renderings of animals and people. The paint dribbled down the bricks, giving every glyph the sense that it was melting.

  There was more of it on the uneven floor. An enormous star inside a circle with candles fixed onto the five points. A pentagram.

  “This isn’t good,” Tammy repeated. “This is freaky devil shit. Let’s go.”

  “Hang on.” Kaitlin reached down to touch one of the candles. The wax tip squished between her fingers. “It’s still warm.”

  “What does that mean?” Tammy spat.

  “Someone was just down here,” Billie said.

  “I’m leaving. You guys do what you want.” Tammy turned to retreat but with only one flashlight between them, she faced a wall of darkness behind her.

  Billie moved further into the clearing, past the painted line of the circle until she stood in the fulcrum of the five-tipped star. Lifting one foot, she kicked at the floor as if it was ice that she could break.

  “What are you doing?” Tammy hissed. “Get out of the circle.”

  Billie stopped kicking. She swept the light over the tangle of debris behind Tammy. “I need a shovel. Or a hammer. Something.”

  “What is it?” Kaitlin said.

  “Help me find something,” Billie said.

  They sifted through the trash until Kaitlin came up with a length of cast iron pipe. A heavy elbow joint fitted to one end gave the pipe the heft of a rude club.

  “Hold the light for me.” Billie took the metal rod from Kaitlin’s hand and carried it back to the centre of the pentagram. Swinging it overhead, she bashed the thick end against the floor. The sharp reverberation stung her hands.

  Tammy was close to tears. “What the hell are you doing?”

  “Bring the light here,” Billie said. Kaitlin trained the beam onto the floor. The concrete was cracked.

  Billie shook her hands before gripping the pipe again. Another swing and the pipe cracked through the concrete and the floor opened up.

  Even Tammy couldn’t stay back. The three of them leaned over the hole that gaped in the floor and waved the dust away. Kaitlin shone the light down. A shallow pit opened up below the crust of concrete. Flaring up in the shaky beam of light came the twin hollows of a skull looking back at them.

  3

  “JESUS CHRIST.” TAMMY backed away from the pit like it was poison. “Let’s get out of here.”

  “Wait,” Billie said. “Give me the flashlight.”

  Kaitlin handed up the light and Billie angled the beam down. The pit in the broken concrete was a shallow hollow four feet deep and the human remains were propped up against one wall. Partially mummified, the flesh and clothing had dried into a brittle husk draped over the bones. The sightless cavities of the eye sockets were tilted up, as if in greeting to whomever found it. Whoever the deceased had been, they had been down here a long time.

  “Seen enough?” Tammy needled.

  “Wait.” Kaitlin leaned forward, pointing to something. “What is that? On the walls.”

  Kaitlin placed her hand over Billie’s to aim the light at the walls of the sunken pit. Yellowed squares of paper lined the inside of the pit like some deranged attempt at decorating the concrete tomb. Kaitlin reached down to retrieve one.

  “Don’t touch it,” Tammy spat.

  “Would you relax?” Kaitlin said. “I want to see what it is.”

  Plucking one of the slips of paper from the wall, she held it up under the light. Fine print, like a page torn from a book.

  “What is it?” Billie squinted at the print but could make no sense of it.

  “A page from the Bible,” Kaitlin said. “The whole thing is lined with it.”

  “Okay,” Tammy spat. She snatched the flashlight from Billie’s hand. “Now we’re leaving.”

  Tammy didn’t wait for a reply, immediately beating a retreat. Billie and Kaitlin scampered after her, each one gripping the shirt-tails of the one in front until they daisy-chained through the debris and back up to the main floor. Billie told them to slow down but Tammy didn’t stop until they clambered back over the broken plywood of the entrance and into the cooling air of nightfall.

  Halfway down the long driveway, they finally stopped and looked back at the big house.

  “Remind me,” Tammy panted, turning on Kaitlin, “to never listen to you again.”

  “Oh, like I had to twist your arm to go?” Kaitlin rejoined.

  Billie stepped between them. “Stop, both of you.”

  “Did you at least get a picture of it?” Kaitlin asked.

  Tammy lifted the camera slung on her shoulder, completely forgotten in the chaos. “Shit!”

  Billie examined a rip in her jeans, torn against something sharp in their haste to get out of the house. The sound of crickets chirping all around them brought a sense of security.

  Kaitlin brushed the dust from her hands. “Now what?”

  “We call the police,” Tammy stated, as if there was any other answer.

  “And tell them what? That we broke into the place and, whoops, found a dead body? No way.”

  Billie looked at both of them. “We can’t just leave it.”

  “Think about it,” Kaitlin said, pacing the ground. “How much trouble are we gonna be in? What if they think we had something to do with it?”

  “They’re not gonna think that.”

  “Look,” Kaitlin seethed, “We just leave. And forget we ever came here. Agreed?”

  Billie shook her head. “We can’t do that.”

  “This is your fault.” Kaitlin pointed an accusatory finger at Billie. “Why did you bust the floor up like that? How did you know?”

  Billie bit her tongue. There was no way to explain the magnetic pull she had felt coming up from under her feet. They wouldn’t understand. She didn’t understand it.

  “If you hadn’t bashed open the floor, none of us would have ever known.” Kaitlin kicked at a pebble in the dirt. “Therefore, we leave it and go home. End of story.”

  “God,” Tammy said, her eyes dulled to a faraway stare. “How do you think he got down there? Do you think he was buried alive.”

  “Who cares?” Kaitlin railed.

  Tammy wouldn’t let it go, reliving the whole experience. “Or all that devil-worship stuff? What was that about?”

  Kaitlin waved her hand. “My point exactly. See? All the more reason to get the hell out of here.”

  “All the more reason to call the police,” Billie said.

  Kaitlin turned on her friend. “And what are you going to tell them when they ask how you found it? That a ghost led you to it? Yeah, they won’t get suspicious at all.”

  “Kaitlin, somebody died in there.”

  “Twenty years ago!” Kaitlin said. “Fifty years! Does it matter? They’ll find it when they come to demolish the place. It’s not our problem.”

  Tammy rolled her eyes and Kaitlin fumed in a stalemate and then the sound of the crickets returned. They both looked to Billie for the deciding vote.

  Billie pulled her cell phone from her pocket.

  “Oh, terrific.” Kaitlin threw up her hands. “That’s just great.”

  Ignoring the outrage, Billie dialled but then stopped. “Do I call nine-one-one?”

  “Of course,” Tammy huffed. “There’s a dead guy.”

  “Yeah but it’s not exactly an emergen
cy, is it? I mean, it was fifty years ago but now?”

  “I dunno. Who else do you call?”

  “Jesus!” Kaitlin was in agony. “We don’t even know who to call. Let’s just book!”

  “What about that cop you know?” suggested Tammy. “The one who knocked you into the harbour. Call him.”

  Billie had already thought of that. She knew one police officer. More than that, he was a homicide detective with the Hamilton Police Service. He was exactly the person to call and, conveniently, she had his name and number in her phone.

  The only problem was that he was the last person she wanted to call.

  Ever.

  She looked at her two friends. Kaitlin wore a mask of disgust while Tammy sighed impatiently, wondering what the delay was. “Call,” she demanded.

  Billie scrolled through the list of names and stopped at one. Ray Mockler, Detective. She thumbed the call button and listened to it ring with a single thought clanging around inside her head.

  This was a bad idea.

  4

  RED LIGHTS STROBED against the facade of the old manor, painting the Murder House with an even more sinister air. Two police cruisers idled in the gravel driveway while three uniformed officers stood on the wide steps of the main entrance. A utility truck trundled through the weeds to the side entrance, emblazoned with the words Hamilton Police Forensics Unit.

  The three women cooled their heels near the patrol cars where they waited to be questioned, a thorny knot building in each of their bellies. When an unmarked vehicle crunched its way up the gravel drive, the knot in Billie’s gut twisted sharply. She watched the car pull parallel to the forensic truck. Two plainclothes men climbed out and spoke briefly to the uniformed officer before entering the house. Billie recognized one of them and her belly flipped. They were inside a long time and twice Billie thought she was going to throw up.

  She didn’t want to see Detective Mockler. She couldn’t wait to see him again. It was confusing and it stung and it made her angry at him before he had even said hello. Their paths seemed to cross continually ever since the night he almost drowned her.

  When the detectives finally reemerged from inside the house, they crossed slowly to the central drive but kept their distance from the women detained for questioning. Detective Mockler was young for the homicide unit, a fact Billie knew from Mockler himself. A topic of ribbing used against him from the veterans in the murder bullpen. He was handsome to her but perhaps not to everyone. The butterflies rumbled up in her guts again but when she looked up at him with a teeny-tiny smile, there was no return smile or even a nod of recognition.

  “Tammy Lanza?” Mockler said, waving his hand for the young woman to step forward. “Can you come with me, please? Kaitlin? You’re going with Detective Odinbeck.”

  The two women rose up, bashful and reluctant as two schoolchildren told to step to the front of the class. Tammy gave Billie a scared shrug that seemed to plead for luck.

  Billie watched her friends walk away with the detectives, anger prickling up her spine. Why were they going first? Was Mockler really going to let her stew out here even longer? Anger tilted sideways into fear, with Billie wishing they had all gotten their stories straight before the police arrived, like they were some gangsters out of a bad movie.

  They hadn’t done anything wrong, she reminded herself. A little trespassing maybe. But they had done the right thing, calling the police in, hadn’t they? Then why were they being questioned separately?

  Twenty minutes later, both Tammy and Kaitlin were escorted outside by the detective named Odinbeck. The two women were hustled into the back of a waiting patrol car and driven away from the scene. They didn’t even say goodbye.

  Mockler spoke to the other officer for a moment before sauntering over. “Hi Billie,” he said, casual as a run-in on the street.

  Billie felt her mouth sneer involuntarily. “We didn’t do anything wrong, you know.”

  “I know.”

  “Then why are we being questioned separately?”

  Mockler shrugged. “Procedure. That’s all. We live and we die by it.”

  Billie looked off to the road, where the tail lights of the leaving patrol car were diminishing in the night. “Where are they being taken to?”

  “Down to Central. They’re statements will be typed up and then they have to sign them. You’ll have to do it too, I’m afraid.”

  “Paperwork?”

  “Yup.” Mockler rocked back on his heels, taking in the facade of the crumbling house. “Quite the mess you found, huh?”

  “Dumb luck,” she said.

  “What were you guys doing in there anyway?”

  “Didn’t they tell you?”

  “Of course,” he said. “But I have to ask you too. Procedure, see? I have to cross my tees and all that stuff.”

  “They wanted to see the place. Kaitlin heard that it’s going to be torn down soon. Is that true?”

  “Far as I know.”

  “Why?” Billie looked back at the leering windows of the house behind her, as if the house itself could offer some answer.

  “Someone must have bought the place.” He scratched his chin. He needed a shave. “What did Tammy and Kaitlin think they’d find in there?”

  Mockler’s tone wasn’t hostile but it wasn’t friendly either. It was bored and business-like. It irked her. As did the question itself. “The place has a reputation. You know that. They just wanted to see it before it was gone forever.”

  “Right,” he said. “To see if it was haunted?”

  Billie said nothing.

  “So?” he said. “What’s the verdict? Is it haunted?”

  “Extremely.”

  “Anything I can use? Did any ghosts tell you who killed them? We got shelves of cold cases back at precinct that need closing.”

  The look in her eye was as sharp as cut glass. “Why are you being a dick?”

  “I’m not sure,” he said flatly. Mockler sighed then lowered himself down to the step next to her. “Procedure? Rules?”

  “Sounds like you’re making excuses.”

  “Maybe.”

  “So it’s personal?” she said.

  He looked at her. “Why would it be personal?”

  There was a notebook in his hand, the spiral ring type common with students. He opened it to the last scribble of notes and frowned then he closed the book again and laid it flat on the stone slab between them. “How did you know the remains were down there?”

  “Lucky guess.”

  “Billie…”

  She looked at him again. Mockler was aware of her abilities. He just didn’t believe in them. “You’re not going to like the answer,” she said.

  “I need to put something down in the report.”

  “Let’s say it was a smell coming up from the floor. That’s actually pretty close.” Billie expected him to jot it down in the notebook but he didn’t stir. He looked out over the unkept grounds and tall trees as if he’d come for the view.

  “Do you know who he is?” she asked. “The man in the pit?”

  “No idea. I doubt we ever will. The body’s been down there a long time.” His eyebrow shot up at her. “How do you know it’s a him?”

  “Just a guess.”

  “Do you know who he is? You know, like, how you see things?”

  It was her turn to look archly sceptical. “You’re gonna believe what I say?”

  “Anything would help at this point.”

  She wished there was something. A baffling urge to help him came over her. “Sorry.”

  He fell silent and the crickets chirped their mindless songs and Billie became all too aware of the space between herself and the detective next to her. Less than two feet. Think of something else, she scolded inside her head.

  “What about all that other stuff down there? The candles and pentagram?”

  “The Halloween party?” He shrugged. “God knows. Probably just kids screwing around. Seems to be a trend, though.”
<
br />   She sat up. “What do you mean?”

  “I’ve been seeing a lot of it lately. Devil-worship is a hip thing now. Especially at places like this.” Here he cocked a thumb at the house behind them. “Places with reputations.”

  Billie turned to take in the expanse of facade at their backs. It loomed up over them like a threat. “You know what they call this place, right?”

  “Murder House? Yeah.”

  “Is it true?” she said. “Was there a murder here?”

  “Not in my time. Any place that stands empty long enough becomes a haunted house. There’s dozens of them all over town.”

  “Maybe the whole city is haunted.”

  “No doubt.” He brushed dust from his knee. Then he tugged at his tie, loosening it. “So. Aside from trespassing and finding corpses, how have you been?”

  “I’m okay,” she lied. “I’m good.”

  “Yeah?” He took another look at her. “You look a little thin actually. You taking care of yourself?”

  “Thin? What does that mean?”

  “Easy. I’m just asking if you’re eating your veggies, that’s all.”

  “Oh.” She had a habit of doing that around him. Misconstruing a remark, bristling over something that wasn’t there. “Well, you look tired, detective.”

  “Thanks.” He smiled at the jab. He gathered up his notebook and got to his feet. A pop sounded from his knee. “You ready to go downtown and fill out a long boring report?”

  “Not really.”

  “Come on. I’ll get one of the officers to drive you down.”

  “Aren’t you taking me?”

  “I gotta stay here. Look for clues and stuff, ya know?”

  She rose from the step and brushed herself off. “Mockler, how much trouble are we in?”

  He squinted up at the house, like he was trying to square its property value. “Not sure. A few minor things. I’ll see what I can do.”

  “Thanks.”

  He walked back toward the side door. Another vehicle had pulled up and more officers were spilling out. He waved at her. “Go make your statement. I’ll catch up with you later.”

  Billie waved back at him but he didn’t see it, swarmed by the newly arrived officers on the scene.