by Tim McGregor
When Odinbeck poked his head in the room, Mockler had the photos pinned to the corkboard and was scrawling notes on the whiteboard. “The hell you doing, Mockler?” gruffed Odinbeck. “Day shift’s long gone, man.”
“Extra credit.”
“Brown-nosing Gibson is tricky business, boyo. She can smell that a mile off.”
“You speaking from experience?” Mockler jotted another bulletin point onto the whiteboard. “If you don’t wanna help, find someone else to harass.”
“I am helping, dumbass. If the Inspector sees this shit again, she’ll tear you a new one.”
“Not this time,” Mockler mugged. “Hot hit, old file. She’ll love it.”
“You’re a glutton for punishment, man.” Odinbeck turned his attention back to the open bullpen behind him then swung back with an even wider grin. “Looks like we get to test that theory.”
Mockler kept his back to his colleague. “How’s that?”
“Because the Inspector is right here.”
Mockler spun around to find his superior darkening the doorway of Task Room Three. Staff Sergeant Thea Gibson topped out at little more than five feet, far shorter than the two men she faced but she wielded the presence of a giant. She folded her arms as she surveyed the sprawling mess in the room. “Detective Mockler, why have you made a mess in my task room?”
Odinbeck just grinned like an ape, lapping up every moment of his colleague’s distress. Jabbing a thumb in the direction of the corckboard, he said “The kid’s itching for a gold star on his homework.”
Gibson’s cold stare was somewhat legendary among the officers of Division One. Levelling her lethal glare onto Odinbeck vaporised the grin right off his face. “Don’t you have bad guys to catch, Odin? Or paperwork, at the very least?”
“I’m on it, Sarge,” Odinbeck grumbled.
“Because if not, I can find a broom and you can make yourself truly useful around here.”
The detective hurried along, moving with a quick step that belied the basketball-sized lump that hung over his belt. Mockler knew better than to gloat so he kept his grinning on the inside. “Sergeant. I didn’t expect you back till tomorrow.”
“Clearly.” Gibson stepped further into the room and leaned over the table to squint at the frames of paper tacked to the cork. “That’s not what I think it is, is it?”
Mockler already felt the quicksand under his feet. “There’s a perfectly good reason. He’s back—”
Her hand went up to cut him off. “I know all about it. Did you think I’d just let you commandeer the room because your ghost showed his face again?”
“I almost had him this time. He was in my grip.”
Sergeant Gibson’s glower hardened. Mockler had seen tough-as-iron cops wither under it and now he felt its heat. “You also railroaded a civilian into the harbour and put her in the hospital,” she said.
There was no getting around that one. Mockler steeled himself for the flaying about to come. “I screwed up.”
The Sergeant leaned against the table. “You don’t get off that easy. If that young woman files a lawsuit, I’d have no choice but to throw you to the wolves.”
“Understood.” Mockler felt the noose slacken from his neck. “I spoke to her, the woman who was injured. I didn’t get any sense that she’s looking to sue.”
“Why did you do that?”
He felt the noose tighten again. “She was talking to Gantry.”
A flicker of interest passed over his superior’s face. “Is she a friend of his? Girlfriend?”
“No. She says she doesn’t know him.”
“Do you believe her?”
“Yeah. I do.”
Gibson rolled her eyes to the ceiling and sighed. “So you knock this young woman and Gantry into the water. You fish her out. What happened to Gantry?”
“He didn’t bob up,” Mockler said. “I suppose there’s a chance he drowned.”
“We should be so lucky.” Gibson swept her hand over the corkboard. “This has to come down. Immediately.”
“But he’s here. I saw him.”
“I get that. But that doesn’t entitle you to a task force. You add him to the open files on your desk. You do not pull an Ahab on this again. I can’t afford it now.”
It was his turn to sigh. This wasn’t the reaction he’d hoped for.
“Detective,” Gibson warned. “Are we clear on this?”
“Crystal.” He watched his boss march out of the room, then called out. “Hey, how was the conference?”
“An excruciating waste of time,” she called back. “Go home, Mockler.”
He tore down the material from the corkboard and tossed it back into the box. The centrepiece of the evidence display was a still taken from a security camera eleven months ago. Grainy and fuzzed out, it showed John Gantry smiling up at the camera cheerily as if someone offscreen had said ‘cheese’.
As much as Mockler despised the smug look on the bastard’s face, he found the snapshot to be motivational. “Fuck you too, amigo,” he said.
~
The scratching sound wouldn’t stop, grating Billie’s nerves until she opened her eyes. She was still on the sofa, Jen fast asleep on the other end and their legs tangled. Raising her head from the cushion, she listened for the sound.
Of course it stopped the moment she opened her eyes. The apartment was still, the only noise was the muffled hum from the street outside. Laying her head back down, the noise returned the instant she closed her eyes.
Scratching. Like cat’s claws on wood but when she lifted her head this time, the sound didn’t vanish. It was coming from the front door.
Someone in the building must have gotten a new cat, she thought. It was clawing at her door to get in. Newly adopted and left in the hallway, the tabby must be mistaking her door for that of its owners. Easing off the sofa without waking her friend, Billie padded silently to her apartment door. The scratching ceased as she approached, the shadow under the door moving away. Turning back the bolt, she cracked the door open a few inches.
The hallway was empty. Dim, lit by only one of the four sconce lamps running the length of the corridor. There was no cat. Nothing at all to see. Spooked by her approach, the cat must have bolted away. Easing the door home, the scratching sounded again.
There. Further down the corridor, where the sconces were dark, something moved in the gloom. It was too dark to see clearly but she could see that it was bigger than a cat. Someone’s dog? No one in the building owned a dog. Unless it was a stray pooch that had somehow gotten inside.
Opening her door all the way, Billie tiptoed into the hallway. “Hey pooch,” she whispered, wanting to simply get its attention.
When its head raised up, she saw it was no dog. A child. A little boy, hunkered down on the floor.
“Hey,” she whispered, not wanting to spook the tyke. “Are you okay?”
The boy shifted around but she still couldn’t make out much of him in the darkened hallway. Had he been locked out of an apartment? He didn’t look familiar to her. There was only one family with kids in the building, the Santos on the second floor. They had two girls, eight and twelve. Maybe his family was visiting someone in her building. Or he was lost and had wandered inside.
She took two more steps. “Hey, are you lost?”
The boy scampered across the floor to the opposite wall in a peculiar crawling motion, like he didn’t know how to walk. He turned to her but all she could make out were his eyes, twinkling in the dark.
Another step. “Where’s your mom?”
A shriek rang through the hall, unnatural and startling. A brief flash of his face as he jerked back but his features seemed all wrong and then he scurried away like an injured crab. The boy had no legs. Wet stumps cleaved at the thigh, leaving a smeared trail of blood on the dirty floor.
Her heart froze and her brain hiccupped in disbelief at what her eyes relayed. What had happened to him? Had he been in an accident, hit by a car, and crawled in
here? She padded after him but the boy had vanished, scuttling away with surprising speed. The hallway ended at the door to the back stairwell, no boy in sight.
The rear door hadn’t opened. The thing squealed its hinges every time. Where had he gone? Feeling a wet slap, she looked down to find her bare foot in the bloody trail. She hopped back.
The scratching noise returned. At her back. She spun round to find the boy scuttling behind her. Twisting back, he looked at her with his sparkling eyes and then crawled away on his hands, dragging his darkened stumps behind him.
Her apartment door stood wide open. The half-boy skittered inside and the door swung closed with a heavy thud.
This isn’t happening. This isn’t real. Her legs felt paralyzed, her feet rooted to the floor.
Shaking it off, she ran to her door but it wouldn’t open. She pounded it with her fist. “Jen! Jen, open the door!”
There was a crash from inside the apartment, like glass breaking. She rammed her shoulder into the door and it popped open, spilling her inside. As she hit the floor, something moved in her peripheral vision but it was on the ceiling. Scampering away like an enormous spider, it was gone before she locked on it.
She screamed Jen’s name again. How could she sleep through this racket? Dashing for the sofa, she skidded to a cold stop.
Jen hadn’t moved, dead asleep. The boy with the stumps was perched on the arm of the sofa. One thin hand reached out, touching Jen in a way that made Billie shudder.
“Jen!” Fear boiled over into rage and Billie dove for the kid to shove him away. He shrieked at her and something sharp cut her arm as his dirty fingers clawed her skin. He toppled over the back and a dark shadow skittered from the room.
Jen thrashed about, groggy but alarmed to find Billie on top of her. “Ow! What are you doing?”
Billie climbed off and ran to the foyer. The door remained open, beyond it the dim corridor. The boy was gone. So too was the bloodied trail he had left on the floor.
9
“IT WASN’T A nightmare.”
Billie folded her arms in frustration. The adrenalin had burned off, leaving her insides feeling cored out like an apple. Why wouldn’t Jen believe her? “It was real.”
“I’m sure it felt real,” Jen said with her head tilted slightly. A gesture meant to convey empathy or sometimes pity, depending on the circumstances. “Nightmares often do. That’s why they’re so scary.”
This was their third go-around of the events that had awoken Jen. Billie knew she hadn’t dreamt the whole horrid experience but when Jen asked for proof, there was none to be found. No tell-tale blood smears on the floor or shattered glass on the floor. The only aspect that remained were the angry red scratch marks running down her arm. She held her forearm aloft again. “Then how do you explain this?”
“Maybe you did it in your sleep. Or I did it when you clobbered me. I got hurt too.” Jen yanked her sleeve up to reveal a welt on her left arm. “You whacked me good here.”
The logic was tedious, eroding Billie’s strength faster than sandpaper. She could already feel herself shut down, withdrawing into herself like she always did. Old habits and old dogs, she thought. Unwilling to learn new tricks.
“Look,” Jen soothed, the sympathy tilt deepening by two degrees. “You just spent three days knocked out. A head injury no less. You can’t walk away from that without some lingering affect. Right?”
“So my brains are scrambled?”
“I dunno. Head injuries are nothing to laugh at. Or maybe it’s the meds they gave you.”
Billie’s face soured. “I wasn’t on any meds. Just some painkillers.”
“Maybe that’s it. Or that combined with the injury. I don’t know.” Jen blew her bangs from her eyes. “All I know is that I see no sign of any home invasion by some amputee crab-boy.”
Silence settled in like dust across the room. Stalemate.
Jen caved. “Let’s just get some sleep. We’ll figure it out in the morning.”
Billie looked out the window. The sky above the trees was already burning with a pink glow. “It is morning.”
Jen’s face fell as she registered the time on the clock. “Then brew some coffee, cause I gotta open the shop in a few hours.”
“Fine.” Billie got to her feet slowly and opened the chipped cupboard door to get the coffee tin. She stiffened when she felt her friend’s hand on her shoulder.
“Hey,” Jen said. “I didn’t mean to be so harsh. I’m still half-asleep and can’t think straight.”
An olive branch. Billie smiled at her. “It’s okay. I’m not myself right now.”
“Do you mind if I take a shower? I need scalding hot water to wake up.”
“Help yourself. Check the dresser. I might even have some clean clothes too.”
~
Vexed was how she felt. Vexed was also a word she loved to use but rarely did because it often only occurred to her once the moment was gone. Jen’s scepticism still stung long after she had left for the shop and Billie couldn’t shake it. Alone in the apartment, the quiet was too much and she kept seeing after-images of the creepy child from last night in every dark corner. She needed to get out of the house.
The promise of the bike did not disappoint. The moment she glided away from the curb, she felt better, lighter. The clammy gooseflesh that had clung to her skin fell away under the warmth of the morning sun. Focused on the road ahead with her senses on full alert, her mind cleared. She hadn’t been on the bike for a week, almost forgetting how cleanly it swept out the cobwebs inside her skull.
Zipping through intersections, she guided the bike clear of the shadows to keep herself in the sunlight. She wanted that warm sun on her. It was an anti-septic that scoured away the taint from the previous night. The morning traffic had other plans for her as the cars seemed to clutter around her to block every route and slow her down. Veering across Barton Street, she took a back alley detour until the water hemmed up on her north side. Coasting through a gate, Billie rolled onto the grass at Pier 4 park, a stone’s throw from the place where she been knocked into the cold water. The rusting fence she had broken through was still down but webbed with yellow caution tape.
Leaning the bike against a picnic table, she stretched her back and her muscles groaned. Three days in a hospital bed had turned her muscles to mush. She plunked down on the bench seat and looked out over the park. A couple were spread out on a blanket to her left and two nannies pushed strollers on her right, speaking rapidly in Filipino. The lake stretched out before her, its dark surface rippling with sunlight.
Picture perfect, if one didn’t count the man crawling up over the breaker from the water below. Sopping wet, his clothes hung heavy on his frames like dark streamers. His skin was so pale it seemed blue and he shambled forward like he was drunk. What Billie had at first thought were streamers of torn clothing, she could now see were thick tendrils of seaweed. The man was tangled in them, as if he had swum up from the icy bottom of Lake Ontario.
Her sweat turned cold, the clamminess coming back instantly. There was something wrong with the man’s eyes, all white and clouded over, like the water-logged gaze of a dead fish. His jaw moved, as if trying to speak but all that came out was a gurgling sound and a trickle of black water flowing over his blue lips. His dead eyes fixed hard on Billie and he stumbled forward like he had a bone to pick with her.
Billie shot to her feet. Why wasn’t anyone else reacting to this? The picnicking couple continued to moon over one another and the nannies chattered on as if they encountered seaweed-tangled men all the time.
This wasn’t a gag and it wasn’t a joke. Seaweed man wasn’t some casual swimmer who had taken a dip off the pier. There was something terribly wrong with him, wrong in the same way there had been something wrong with the half-boy last night. And no one could see the man with the dead eyes but her.
The gurgling slosh issuing from the man’s throat grew louder the closer he came. As rubbery as her legs felt, Billie snatc
hed up the bike handles and ran it up off the grass to the broken pavement. A quick glance over one shoulder revealed seaweed man tacking his course to follow. She pushed off and pedalled away.
She coasted to a stop after three blocks and clung to the chain-link fence to keep upright. The lateral muscles in her legs burned with pain and her lungs hurt. Was she losing her mind? Was Jen right about the head injury? What if it had shaken something loose, causing her to hallucinate?
No answer came before another freakshow started. A little girl stood on the curb across the heavy stream of traffic. Waving to Billie as if she knew her. Here too, something was off. Her clothes were all wrong. Pinafores and a frock, her hair pinned under a bonnet. There was a chance the little girl was simply dressed up in a costume but this was dispelled when the girl walked straight into oncoming traffic. No car slowed or even blew its horn, roaring past the tiny girl in her pinafores like she was invisible. The updraft of the vehicles tussled the girl’s hair but somehow she managed to narrowly avoid being struck dead by the cars.
“Hello,” the girl said as she stepped up onto the curb in patent leather shoes. “That is a very nice bicycle you have.”
The girl’s smile was big and would have been beautiful if it were not for the fact that all of her teeth were smashed in and a bloody foam was spilling over her lips.
Billie pushed away, forcing her burning legs to keep pedalling. She heard the little girl calling out to her, pleading with her not to go away.
Jen, she realized, had been right all along. The head injury. There was no other explanation. Something in her brain had gotten scrambled after being clobbered, drowned and unconscious for three days. Now she was seeing things that weren’t there.
The hospital was back downtown, uphill at a slight grade all the way and murder on her faltering legs. Plunging back into the downtown core meant fighting traffic again but the alertness focused her thoughts onto a single task and kept the panic pushed down. Even when she spotted the bonfire on the corner of John and Cannon, only to realize that it was a man on fire. The flames rippled up over him in a localized inferno but neither the pedestrians nor the cars noticed him. The burning man flapped his arms, not in an attempt to douse the flames, but rather to flag her down as she glided in his direction. Billie swung behind a city bus to avoid the hallucination and pedalled on.
