“What does it mean?” Maggie asked.
“I don’t know. I’ll ask around when we get to the station.”
They drove the rest of the way in silence, Charlie contemplating all that he had seen in the short trip. His unease didn’t abate when they arrived at the police department, either. Sergeant Moore sat at the front desk of the waiting room. He was a portly old guy with salt and pepper hair and skin paled from working a desk job for too long. He gave Charlie a cursory smile and hung up the phone he was talking on as Charlie walked up to the desk.
“Hey, kid. Funny seeing you here. I wish you were here to work. I could use you.” He said.
“Why? What’s going on?” Charlie asked.
“Craziest thing. I got four guys that didn’t show up today. Didn’t call in or nothin’. Then I got a dispatcher, supposed to come in early, but she didn’t show up either. Plus I got missing persons calls coming out of my ears.” Sergeant Moore shook the thick stack of papers in his hand to accentuate the statement. “And third shift has you and Vasquez out already. How’s he doin’, by the way?”
“Al? Good. He was up and talking earlier this afternoon.” Charlie felt no need to elaborate on the blood tests the doctors were giving Al to make sure he hadn’t been infected with some blood borne pathogen when that psycho bit him. “Which dispatcher didn’t show?”
“That Miller girl. Um, Denise. You know, the one that’s got a thing for you.”
Maggie cleared her throat and raised one eyebrow at Charlie, a devilish smirk creasing her mouth.
“I’ll explain later.” Charlie whispered to her.
Sergeant Moore, realizing his error, apologized. “Sorry, Ma’am.” He said to Maggie, then shifted his gaze back to Charlie. “So, what do you need? I’ve got a lot of work to do.”
“She wants to file a police report and get a restraining order against an ex-boyfriend.” Charlie answered.
“But I got nobody with the time to do that right now, Charlie.” Sergeant Moore said. Then he looked at Maggie and sighed. “The ex, he do that?” Sergeant Moore asked Maggie, motioning to her black eye. She nodded. “I got no love for scumbags like that.” He grumbled. “Hide in the back at Dinsmore’s desk.” He said to Charlie. “Write up the report and bring it back to me. I’ll put my name on it and send it up the chain. But remember, you ain’t even supposed to be here, so anyone says anything about this and you tell ‘em you snuck past while I was in the john.”
“Thanks, Sarge.” Charlie said as he grabbed Maggie’s hand and dragged her back to Dinsmore’s desk.
It didn’t take Charlie long to write up the report. He dropped it off with Sergeant Moore, but not before asking a few of the guys if they knew why Bum Town had been cleared out. No one had heard anything about it, which left Charlie even more baffled.
He and Maggie left the police department and drove towards her apartment. It was a while before the quiet got the best of her and she spoke. “You’re awfully quiet. Care to let me know what’s going on in there?” She asked, pointing at his head.
“My Spidey-sense is tingling.” He said.
She laughed. “Your what?”
“You’ve never read a Spider-Man comic? Or seen a movie? A cartoon?”
She shook her head.
“In the comics, whenever Spider-Man gets a feeling that something bad is about to happen, he says his Spidey-sense is tingling. Well, mine is tingling.”
“So, what do you think is going to happen?” She asked.
“I don’t know, but it might be a good idea for you to stay somewhere safe. You’re welcome to stay at my place if you want.”
She laughed. “Now that sounds like a line!”
“No!” He smiled. “I’m serious! Scouts honor.” He held up three fingers in the scout salute. “I’ll be a perfect gentleman. You can have the bed. I’ll sleep on the couch.”
She was still grinning. “First, I don’t think you’ve ever been a Boy Scout. Second, I have the animals at the office to care for. I can’t leave them alone.”
“Fair enough. And no, I’ve never been a Boy Scout.” Unable to coax her into staying someplace safer, she, in the end, agreed to let him walk through her apartment and the vet’s office to make sure no one was lurking around. When he was satisfied that there was nothing to worry about, they talked for a bit, then said their farewells and Charlie left to head home.
It was already well past dark when he arrived at the little apartment complex that held his humble abode. He walked through the parking lot and down the long hallway to the door of his apartment. His Spidey-sense didn’t tingle at all until he entered his apartment and by then, it was too late.
Steely hard arms wrapped around his throat and wrestled him to the living room. He fought with the attacker on his back while two others closed in and grabbed his arms. He tried to throw the assailant from his back but received a punch in the stomach that felt like a sledgehammer. He buckled and found himself sprawled face-down on the floor with the weight of all three on top of him. He was verging on panic, realizing that he was in the worst spot he could possibly be at that moment.
The struggle continued. The attackers turned him over so he was nearly lying on his back. He fought and fought but his assailants were impossibly strong. Every move he made allowed them to tighten their grips. He was beginning to feel like a rodent trapped in a snake’s coils. He had no room left to move. The attackers had him right where they wanted him and all that remained in him was defiance. A cold hand grabbed his lower jaw and forced his mouth open. He could smell the breath of his attacker as he whispered in a soft, raspy voice, “A gift. From the Golem.”
At that, a cold, thick liquid ran down his tongue. He shook his head as much as he could. He tried to spit to no effect. It was either swallow or drown. The liquid continued to seep down his throat. The taste of iron flooded his mind. His eyes widened. Were they were pouring blood down his throat? What are these sick fucks doing? He thought. The Golem?
Suddenly the struggle stopped and Charlie stared at the ceiling. It was in focus, then blurry, then in focus again. The room began to drift away as the grip his attackers had on him began to ease. He felt drunk and he was suddenly weak as a kitten. They let him rise, but he paid them no mind as his complete disorientation took hold. He bent over to wretch as his stomach roiled with whatever they had forced him to swallow but nothing would come out. He was floating on a cloud then gliding through the air. He wanted his bed. He stood and moved towards his bedroom until he collapsed face-down on the living room floor and stared into nothingness. His head lolled to one side as he heard soft footsteps approaching. Lacking the strength to raise his head any higher, all he could see was a pair of well-polished black wingtip shoes and the foot of a cane.
“Did he drink it all?” Asked a disembodied voice from above him.
“Yes, Mr. Dannus.” Another voice answered.
Charlie’s train of thought jumbled. An uncontrollable stream of drool began to ooze from his mouth and his vision slowly faded to black.
Chapter 7
Virginia spent much of the night lying awake in bed. She had tossed and turned until late in the night. Even then, she was awakened by a dream. She dreamt her mother was hiding somewhere cold, somewhere deep and dark. She was holding Virginia’s childhood doll and crying. Even as Virginia woke, the quiet, ghostly sobbing wouldn’t leave her. She was sure she could still hear it for hours. The sound would come and go. Sometimes noticeable, and sometimes just a flicker, like her mother’s spirit was already walking the halls of the house.
Somewhere around seven in the morning she decided that sleep was no longer a possibility. She turned on her television and grabbed a couple tissues from the dispenser on her nightstand. Her heart ached. Not just the normal “my boyfriend found somebody else” ache, but real, tangible pain. She understood now where the term broken heart came from. She felt like someone had cranked a vice down on her heart and left her chest spread wide open while infection took root;
like she was dying a slow, agonizing decay from the inside out. Her mind found it impossible to believe her mother was gone, but her heart knew the truth.
And what made matters worse is that they waited for word from Julia, but still nothing. Her father had talked to her from the emergency room last night and that had been the last time they heard from her. She couldn’t help but be angry with Julia. Lack of communication from her was pretty typical, but in this instance, one would think she’d be a little more responsible. They had tried her cell phone a dozen times since then and it always went straight to voice-mail. Even for Julia, this was a bit extreme. As if losing her mother wasn’t enough, now Virginia was beginning to worry about her sister, too.
She flipped through the television channels and absentmindedly stopped at the local news. She began to mentally drift away from the TV as the anchorman droned on about sports, weather, and a series of muggings and attacks near a late-night sporting event.
“Good morning, Bob.” One of the station’s roving reporters was saying to the anchorman as her attention returned to the television. “We’re here at the scene of a horrific attack that occurred sometime late last night. We’re about five miles South of Rockford, Illinois where a bus bound for Milwaukee was attacked by what seems to be a pack of wild animals. The police aren’t telling us much and definitely haven’t released the names of any victims, yet, but from what we hear, it is a very disturbing scene.”
Virginia’s heart picked up speed. A bus headed to Milwaukee? It couldn’t have been Julia’s. No. She heard the house phone ring twice and then stop. She sat up and strained to hear her father talking while the reporter prattled on. A few moments later, his footsteps were slowly shuffling to her door. His knock was so quiet; his knuckles barely brushed the door.
“Come in.”
He opened the door and poked his head in. “You up?” He asked. She nodded. His eyes were red and his skin was a sickly, bone white. Last night had been so terrible, it left his face looking like nothing more than skin pulled taut over a jagged skull. He walked in and sat down on the edge of her bed with his back to her.
He held the cordless phone weakly in his hand. “That was the Winnebago County Sherriff’s Department in Illinois.” He looked over at the TV and stopped talking for a moment. “They think your sister might have been…” He trailed off, clearly having difficulty with the words. “They think Julia might have been killed in that.” He pointed at the TV. The reporter was still talking, but neither of them heard the television. All they could hear was each other’s breath, each other’s inner struggles to not cry out. How is this happening! Why is this happening! “They want me to identify the body.” And at that, he broke down.
She sat up and hugged him. They wept in each other’s arms for the second time in two days. “Don’t worry.” She said after a long while. “It’s not her. I’m sure it’s not. C’mon. I’ll go with you.”
He took her hand in both of his and sighed. “I’ll go. Someone needs to stay here in case she calls or comes home.”
Virginia’s stomach tightened. That meant she’d have to sit home and stew in her thoughts and worries. She wanted to protest but he was right. Someone needed to be home in case Julia showed up or called. She nodded, reluctantly.
He gave her another hug and kissed her forehead. “I’ll call as soon as I know anything.” He got up from the edge of the bed and left, closing the door behind him as he went.
She sat in bed for a while, blankly watching the television. She was in shock. Her mind was trying to process things it couldn’t understand, as though the whole world had begun speaking a foreign language overnight. She listened to her Father’s car start and pull out of the garage. She heard the garage door closing as the sound of the car’s engine drifted away down the street. She turned off the TV and everything in the house grew deathly silent, eerily still. The circuit boards inside the TV crackled a little as they cooled. A soft breeze blew outside her bedroom window.
Then she heard a sliding sound above her. It was muffled, quiet. She looked up and saw nothing but the ceiling. Nothing out of the ordinary. She shook the sound from her mind. She was just hearing things. But she wasn’t just hearing things. She had definitely heard the sound. A prickle of goose bumps ran up her spine. The entire house seemed to be holding its breath while she held hers, waiting for another sound. She was just beginning to feel silly when she heard a board creak from the same place in the ceiling. An animal, maybe? Could something really be moving around in the attic?
With her heart racing, she crept out of bed and slid open her closet door. She reached around the door frame and grabbed her old softball bat from inside. She moved quietly, hoping not to alert whatever was hiding in the attic.
She entered the hallway and approached the trap door in the ceiling that led to the attic and stopped underneath it, pursing her lips. She hadn’t thought of how she could open the trap door and lower the rickety steps without alerting whatever animal had made its way into the attic.
She braced the baseball bat against the edge of the trapdoor so that when she pulled the string that unlatched it, it wouldn’t fly open. The latch came open with a quiet click and she slowly lowered the door. She watched the gaping hole in the ceiling for some time. She waited for some diseased rodent to launch itself at her from the blackness of the attic, but none did. Her hands trembled as she unfolded the ladder that would allow her to ascend into that blackness and cursed herself for watching all those old horror movies, when terrible images of what could be lying in wait flooded her mind.
She crept up the stairs, trying desperately to stay silent. Her grip around the neck of the baseball bat tightened. Halfway up the stairs, they groaned loudly as they accepted her weight and she decided the jig was up. She rushed up the rest of the steps and hopped into the attic, poised to strike out at whatever might be lurking nearby. She did her best to look menacing even though she knew that at a mere five feet tall and one-hundred fifteen pounds (her driver’s license read one-hundred ten), intimidation was not her strong suit.
Her heart was pounding. Only the slightest bit of rusty orange sunlight filtered in through the attic vent on the far wall and it did little to illuminate anything. She could see the edges of a few boxes near the vent and an old chest that sat open. She stalked over towards the vent, listening for anything suspicious, her head jetting quickly, side to side.
She was almost to the vent when she saw, out of her peripheral vision, a dark figure step up next to her. She screamed and swung around wildly with the baseball bat. It wasn’t until she heard the glass shatter that she realized she had swung at her own reflection in a tall mirror that had been stashed away long ago. The broken glass rained down and out across the floor, some of it nicking her bare arms.
She plopped down on a large box as her chest heaved for air. Now her heart was really pounding. The thick dust of the attic was wreaking havoc with her asthma and she was quickly finding it harder and harder to breath. She knew if she stayed much longer, the dust would get the better of her. She got up and moved back towards the stairs, but a flare of pain shot up her leg as she cut her bare foot on a large chunk of glass. “Son of a bitch!” She hissed at her foot and tried to balance well enough on one leg to inspect the damage. She had a big gash on the bottom of her left foot and the blood was seeping out at an unhealthy rate. She hobbled back towards the stairs in the floor, using the tiny bit of light that spilled in from the lowered stairs to guide her way through the mine field of broken glass.
Not until she was standing over that hole in the floor did she feel something watching her. She looked over her shoulder quickly, expecting someone to be standing behind her. When Virginia was satisfied there was no one anywhere behind her, she turned her attention slowly to the other half of the attic. On the other side of the hole in the floor, the other side of the stairs leading out of the attic, the attic that seemed so suddenly to be closing in around her, she could barely make out two silvery orbs, hovering
a foot above the ground, like the eyes of a cat waiting to pounce.
Her heart felt like it would explode. They’re probably just part of some shiny lamp we stuffed up here years ago. She told herself. But deep down, she knew it wasn’t true. She stared at the orbs for a long time, trying to gauge her next move. Should she scream? Run? Lunge at them? She was pretty sure lunging at them was a bad idea. As for the other two options, they seemed much more likely. But she couldn’t move. She reached down for her voice and it failed her. Her body went numb and it was all she could do to force out one word. “Who?” It came out in a feeble little squeak, but she was glad she wasn’t losing complete control. Days later, she would recall how frightened she had been during the encounter. But not your every day, run-of-the-mill kind of frightened. This was the type of unbridled fear that could stop an old man’s heart or turn your hair white in the blink of an eye. Days later, she would recount how sure she was that she was going to die in that instant.
A voice was what ultimately broke her paralysis and allowed her body to move again. A voice so soft, it was just a whisper, but a thunderous whisper that echoed in the chamber of her mind like it had been shouted directly into her thoughts. It simply said, “Leave me!”
Virginia’s legs moved on their own. She practically leaped down the stairs without another thought. Her foot stumbled on the last step and she fell, twisting her ankle but she barely felt it. She had the attic stairs folded back into their compact position and had slammed the trap door in the ceiling shut before her mind had even caught up to the last few seconds’ events. She ran to the garage and got her dad’s stepladder. She was relieved to see the trap door still closed when she got back to the hallway and propped the stepladder up underneath it. She ran to her room and grabbed an armload of her old text books and returned to the ladder, where she set them on top of the ladder, high enough to wedge them in under the trap door. Whatever the hell was in the attic was damn sure going to stay there! She thought as she hammered the last book in with the palm of her hand.
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