~VI~
Rubbing her crooked neck, Gwen yawned. It had been a long night and she knew the trio wasn’t getting more than a few blips on their gizmos. Scotty had taken one of the meters for a sweep around the room. The Stupendous Kenny was fascinated with one old-fashioned radiator. He decided that one discolored bit of paint on part of the intricately decorated cast-iron, wasn’t paint but skin from an old sailor who had been burned to death. Lou decided to take a scraping because if they wanted actual proof, they should get that tested. Gwen didn’t want to correct them, but the idea of a sailor burning to death on the radiator was more than ridiculous, not even taking into account that no way in hell was the bit of discolored material actually skin left from an incident that Kenny claimed happened in the 1880s. Or the fact that Gwen thought the radiator just wasn’t that old; it looked more like a reproduction than an original. Or taking into account how mentally deranged anyone would be to latch onto a radiator long enough to burn to death. Or that the radiator was exactly across the hall from the old Governor’s office and, what, no one decided to remove the poor grilled sailor? Apparently Kenny decided that the sailor was drunk and just leapt onto the radiator on purpose. Death by radiator. Gwen supposed that neither man was aware that the first rule of Sailors Snug Harbor was total prohibition of all alcohol for the residents.
She yawned again, not as silently as the first time, trying to stifle her desire to start screaming the words she heard hollered down from the gallery above: “Go teach your granny to suck eggs you cod’s head! You lout! You grubshite squeaker!” She bit her lip, not wanting to look up at the one-armed man shouting those interesting insults around his pipe. He was so animated he almost dropped it over the railing again. The woman beside him did lean over and spit toward Kenny and Lou, who looked up suddenly, swiping the back of his neck with his hand, muttering about the ceiling leaking.
Gwen started to laugh but it devolved into yet another yawn.
“That’s Gwendolyn yawning again,” Lou spoke into one of the recorders he held as he stomped down the hall, still wiping his neck, floorboards screeching under his weight. She was surprised he heard her at all. Especially with the number of times his wife sneezed or coughed her hacking smoker’s cough, which was pretty sad since the woman was barely 30. Once Gwen could swear she heard Crystal fart, not cough. That was the only time Crystal had made an announcement about her sound, shouting it from the next room, “That’s Crystal coughing.” Sorry, chicky but coughs don’t smell like rotten burritos.
Screeching into the air like claws on a chalkboard, Scotty’s radio went off. He lowered the volume, apologizing, and stepped outside the building to speak to his partner for a quick moment. While he was gone, the trio seemed to get fidgety. Once again, Gwen became invisible while they stood a pace behind her, complaining about their “lack of hits” in this place which they somehow attributed that to Scotty’s lack of interest in their “work.”
“How do you know your lack of evidence is from Scotty?” Gwen asked, sitting up straighter, turning around slightly to catch the team’s attention. “Have you ever gotten any evidence, besides the bowling pins in Cottage B? I thought you guys were new to this whole deal. Remember, you don’t have to be here. Scotty’s risking his job letting you here and this is your attitude?”
“I think you din’t set them pins right, dat’s why they fell. Dat wasn’t evidence. I didn’t wanna say anythin’ because I didn’t wantcha ta feel bad,” Crystal whined in her exaggerated, affectatious Staten Island accent, snapping her gum. “Yeah, we don’t hav’ta be hea. It’s dead. There was soooo much more happenin’ at Bare-in Hersh. That place was hoppin’. This is just a buncha old buildings. We don’ even got a single EVP.”
Gwen assumed Crystal meant Baron Hirsch, a sprawling cemetery on the Island’s north shore, rumored to be a favorite haunting ground of Andre Rand, Staten Island’s own serial killer of children. Rumor had it that Rand divided his time at the cemetery between burying his victims in the graves of Baron Hirsch’s tenants and digging up bodies to further satiate his perverse desires.
Lou and Kenny just grumbled like two disgruntled crows.
“So, you don’t think a sailor burned to death on a reproduction radiator after all?” Gwen’s anger was increasing. She heard the residents from above, heard what sounded like Stefan’s Dutch invectives. She had half a mind to call them all down from the gallery and use some of their choice language on this group for the benefit of the recorders. “Maybe it’s your attitude that’s preventing any evidence. You’re confused and really have no idea how to speak to people, living or dead. You think yelling at them, demanding they speak to you is enough? Who the fuck are you people?” In a fluid motion that surprised Gwen herself, she stood up, rounding on the trio with such a fury that Kenny sprang backwards, dropping one of his gadgets rather noisily to the floor. Brushing her hair from her eyes, Gwen continued her vituperation. “Just because you see it on a fucking show means that’s how you speak to them? What if they don’t want to speak to you? They could give a shit less what you want. Do you really care what they want? You sit here and pretend to know what the fuck you’re doing, but you have no goddamned CLUE. You sit here and actually presume to think that a sailor, a man who risked his life on a ship at sea, would be stupid enough to BURN himself to death on a fucking radiator? You pretend that you have a clue about this place and yet you further insult that supposedly dead sailor by saying he was drunk? And, the BEST, you can’t even recognize that the radiator is a fucking replica?”
Crystal’s mouth hung open so wide her gum fell out. Lou and Kenny had their heads cocked to the side like Gwen’s brother’s dogs often did when they were utterly confused. Gwen heard a chorus of laughter with an exclamation of, “Hammer and tongs! She is a comely lass when she vents her gall!”
Just as Gwen was about to shout for Stefan to come down and to bring his friends, Scotty came back inside with his partner, Steve. Steve was excited about meeting a group of paranormal investigators. He came pounding into the room, “Let’s go see the chalk drawings up in the attic,” he hollered without realizing there had been an argument brimming over.
Scotty, however, thought there was something bizarre about how the trio, both men flanking Crystal in a protective way, had turned on Gwen, who now stood wide-legged, her hand in her back pocket. The men loomed over her but they were the ones who seemed alarmed. He saw Gwen’s flaming cheeks and knew she was upset, but he hadn’t realized that her hand was in her back pocket in order to finger her knife or that she bounced slightly on the balls of her feet, her stance wide enough to give leverage should she decide to spring.
“What the fuck, guys? There a problem?” He asked, striding over, shouldering Lou aside, shielding Gwen from the others. “There a reason it looks like you three are giving my wife a hard time. What’s going on here?” Scotty gave Steve the sign to hold up as the ex-cop was about to unlock the door to the staircase that went up to the attic.
“Fiancée,” Gwen muttered. “Not married yet love and I was just explaining to these fine folks that the men who used to live here were sailors and not complete mental inepts. I think they have the Snugs confused with the residents of Willowbrook. The guys got all hot and bothered over the idea that a sailor committed self-immolation over a fucking radiator.”
“I think we’re done here,” Lou said, removing his cap to scratch his hideously oval head. Gwen never had a problem with bald men, but Lou’s head was so bizarrely shaped, he reminded her of a cross between an Ancient Egyptian prince she had seen on a history channel special who had had his head bandaged in childhood to purposefully get the skull to elongate— and one of those Aliens from Aliens.
“Seriously?” Steve’s disappointment was almost tangible.
“Yeah. I don’t like bein’ yelled at by this tag-along. She ain’t said much of nothin’ to us in all our visits and now she’s bitching about who the fuck knows what.”
Gwen put a hand on Scotty’s shou
lder as she felt his muscles tense. She didn’t want a full on brawl to happen, but she had an idea.
“So you want to see proof? That’s what all this has been about, yeah?” Gwen asked.
“And you’re gonna show it to us? Like I said, you ain’t done nothin’ all these nights but sit in a corner and—”
Looking at Steve, Gwen interrupted Crystal: “You want to see an investigation, right? Where are these chalk drawings? I’d like to see them.” She looked at Scotty and smiled. “Let’s go take a look.” She gestured with her chin toward the trio. “They’re here so they might as well come up too. After that, I really could not give a shit where they go.” She looked at the three, “Bring whatever you need, and keep your traps shut. You want to see evidence? I’ll give you some.” She set her glasses high on her nose and looked up at the gallery. She clearly saw four spirits, Stefan, a woman with close-cropped gray hair, and two other men she was unfamiliar with. The one missing his left arm had been shouting her praises earlier. The other man stood behind them and it was hard for her to see him. Behind them all were shifting shadows without recognizable faces or features. She bowed her head briefly toward them as a sign of respect and said pointedly, “We’ll be going to the attic now. Please join us, if you would be so kind. All of you are welcome.”
“Who the fuck are you talkin’ to?” Crystal shrieked.
“I don’t know many of their names, but I’m certain they’ll make the introductions. Steve, if you would be so kind. We’ll go upstairs now.”
“Lead on MacDuff,” Kenny said in amusement, almost skipping toward the door that Steve was unlocking with his massive set of keys. Lou slapped him in the arm as though to tell his brother to contain himself.
“It’s lay on MacDuff,” Gwen remarked, “If you’re going to quote the Bard, do it right. Lay on MacDuff and damned be him who first cried Hold, enough.” She laughed quietly and a bit stiffly. It wasn’t funny, not precisely. But, as they all piled through the doorway, Gwen couldn’t believe her own gall just as she couldn’t believe that this bumbling trio actually were listening, almost without question. Scotty, pulled her aside at the bottom of the dusty, disused, staircase.
“What the fuck, Gwen? Why don’t we tell them all to fuck off? What’s going on?” He looked both angry and alarmed.
“I know what I’m here for and it’s not to listen to Kenny make wild assumptions about the errant stupidity of the sailors that lived here. It’s not to hear Crystal yell at the residents or listen to her fucking farts. I think I need to help these people—”
“Who? These clowns?” He pointed to the group slowly climbing the stairs. Steve was ahead telling Crystal about the different paranormal shows he watched with his son, Lou was scanning the walls with one of his myriad devices while Kenny was filming a mold stain on the wall. Gwen had the impression he might have been asking it its name.
“No. The people upstairs. The man in the stove-pipe hat. The residents who are still here. I don’t know why or how, but I need to help them. Maybe that’s why I’ve been seeing their stories, hearing them. Maybe going upstairs I’ll figure it out. I don’t know. Either way, Steve wants to see an investigation, so let’s do one last hurrah with these dickheads, okay? For fun.”
Scotty relented, relaxing his hand on her shoulder. He took her by the chin and kissed her briefly. “Please, be careful, okay? I don’t know about this. Any shit happens, we’re done, ok?”
Gwen nodded, patted his cheek lightly and hastily caught up. Gwen really didn’t know what she was doing or why but she felt a strange compulsion to go upstairs. She didn’t wait for Scotty and soon enough she passed Steve and the rest of them, finally reaching the top floor by herself. She tried the door, but Steve laughed, shaking the set of keys at her. “I am here for a reason, kiddo. Back of the line.” He began the arduous task of trying keys to open the rusty padlock on the decrepit door.
She knew he was teasing, but the look on Crystal’s face was pure spite. Crystal opened her mouth as though to echo Steve. Gwen shook her head, holding finger to lips. “Sssssh. Zip it or leave. For the moment it’s Steve’s show. He’s going to be gracious enough to tell us about these chalk drawings. Then it’ll be my show and my rules, got it?”
As Steve searched for the key, Crystal looked at Gwen with narrowed eyes and clacked her gum. Gwen dug an old tissue from her pocket and, approaching Crystal the way Gwen used to approach the kids she sometimes babysat for for extra cash, she gestured for Crystal to get rid of the gum. “Spit it out.”
“Fuck I will,” Crystal took a step back and found her back literally to a moldering, peeling wall.
“I won’t ask again, Crystal. Unless you want me to rip it from your fucking mouth—” and she gestured with the tissue again. Crystal complied, offering the wad of tissue back to Gwen who shook her head.
“You keep it. Consider it a gift. The first of many, Crystal.”
Crystal looked at Lou and Kenny. “You gonna let her dis me like dat?”
Lou scratched his head, shrugging, “You snapping your gum kinda does take a shit on the audio, hon.” Kenny simply made a mea culpa motion and bowed, saying nothing.
Steve ended the discussion by wrestling with an equally rusty key in the padlock which eventually clicked open, unlatching the door, and pushing it open as far as it would go, which was only about a foot, maybe two. It was a squeeze getting through and surprise, surprise, the only three that had flashlights were Steve, Scotty, and Gwen. Crystal began to whine but Gwen silenced her by shining a super bright light into the blonde woman’s eyes. “Last warning. You won’t get another. Not another fucking word.” She turned to Lou and Kenny. “You going to do something with your gear or just stand there and look pretty? Why pay the money for shit you’re not going to use, guys? Set it up and start rolling. You want to get proof right?”
Scotty shouldered past Lou and Kenny who were checking their settings with the assistance of Steve’s maglite. When he reached out his hand to take hers, Gwen saw a visible blue spark rise off the palm of her left hand like static electricity. She neither heard nor felt the usual zap and unlike static electricity, it changed from blue to green to purple, danced over Scotty’s hand, circled his wrist like a bracelet and then dissipated. He yanked his hand back with his routine refrain, “What the fuck?”
“Static. It’s fine.” Gwen patted his cheek, partly to comfort him, partly to see if the spark would come back. It didn’t. “Let’s get started, huh?” She looked at Steve, “Shall we?”
“Sure, thing. Let’s go single file, Gwen you bring up the rear with your light. Scotty if you could raise yours so you guys can see behind me. There’s lots of stuff on the ground when there is a ground, see?” He raised his light up so they could see that what little remained of the floorboards was heavily strewn with broken glass, shards of metal, splintered wood, and other twisted bits of refuse, all beneath layers of grit, dirt, and dust. Much of the floor surrounding them was gone, revealing open beams and old insulation. There was a path of wood planks that led them forward, through the entranceway into a series of oddly shaped rooms, some with very low doorways, some with, some without actual doors.
Before Gwen turned to follow the group, she faced the door to the hallway, the light from which had been obliterated by an undulating mass of shadow. A curtain of black sprang up where they had all been standing mere moments before. She bowed her head in silent greeting as Stefan stepped from the center of the mass, followed by the grey haired woman, the one armed man, and another, younger man with a handsome but heavily pocked face. She smiled and silently gestured for them to follow, as she did she saw the bluish embers of light exude from her hands, extending outward like arms reaching for a hug. It should have bothered her. It didn’t. The horrified, confused, frightened lump of a woman that had spent upwards of an hour cowering on the floor below because she was too apprehensive and too terrified of the spirits dogging her world was gone in a flash of blue. Gwen extended herself toward them in fri
endship and knew for the first time that they were not there to harm her. She turned back toward the group of live people with a warmth at her back and a cold determination ahead of her.
As they went forward, Steve poured out his knowledge of the attic, which was limited to current information about what electrical work had been done where, and when or how vandals broke in, prior to when Scotty began working at Snug, hence the broken beer bottles. Scotty held his light aloft for the stumbling trio who muffled curses with every other step. Kenny, the tallest of the group, kept trying to walk fully upright, but succeeded in bonking his head every other doorway and, in the rooms with low beams, every third or fourth beam. Crystal’s platform guidette version of combat boots provided better protection than most of her footwear, but the narrow, rickety boards the group walked were an invitation to a twisted ankle. Gwen wondered why Crystal uncharacteristically kept moving forward. Perhaps she was afraid of the challenge posed by Gwen suddenly growing a pair of balls? Perhaps it was curiosity to actually see what would happen? Perhaps it was true confusion because, for the first time, Crystal was not in control and could not determine how to gain it back.
DarkTalesfromElderRegionsNY Page 22
