The Unclaimed Victim

by D. M. Pulley

  Kris took a plaintive step toward the flowered chair. “No. I really do.”

  “It’s just a sign best forgotten. Leave it alone.”

  “Why? What sort of sign is it?” Kris frowned, staring at the thing.

  “The old Mennonites would call it a hex sign . . . not that they’d admit to believing in such things.”

  “What does it mean?” Kris lowered herself onto the couch, making it clear that she wasn’t leaving without an answer.

  “Nothing. Everything.” The crone laughed a stream of hot phlegmy air. “Just depends on who you ask.”

  “Did you carve that on your door?”

  “Hell no. I’ve got nothing to do with them anymore. I’m old and I’m tired and I don’t want to go diggin’ up all this.”

  “But who did then?” Kris pressed, turning the word hex over in her mind and eyeing the points of the star. “Is it supposed to be some sort of curse?”

  “A curse? You can’t go believin’ that nonsense. Some fools used to say it keeps the devil away, but from what I seen of the devil, huh . . . good luck to you.”

  “Mind if I take a picture of it?” Kris stood up and headed toward the duffel bag she’d left on the floor.

  “Why on earth would you want to do that?” The way she laughed almost made Kris turn back around, but she was too busy digging out her camera.

  Kris lifted the lens and centered the carved star in the frame before answering, “Someone painted one of these on my front door. They painted it in bright red. What the heck do you think that means?”

  As she snapped the photo, a hand fell on her arm. The star lurched out of the frame as Kris startled, finding the old woman standing right beside her. The lady looked her dead in the eye, and Kris could see that, for the moment, she was still all there despite the coughing and shuffling routine.

  “It means you shouldn’t go home.”

  CHAPTER 27

  Kris lurched back from the bony claw on her arm. “I—I’ll go see if I can find Norma,” she sputtered.

  Out in the hallway, she brushed the woman’s creepy touch off her arm and shook her words out of her ear. It means you shouldn’t go home.

  “What the hell?” she muttered to herself and then began calling out in an overly loud voice, “Norma?” until she reached the end of the hallway.

  She glanced back at the open door behind her, expecting to find it gone, hoping the senile lady and her cat were nothing but an apparition. As though on cue, a shriveled face crowned with pink curlers poked out of the door and into the hall.

  “Be careful out there,” the woman said in her cracked voice.

  Kris stumbled over her own feet. “Uh—thanks . . .”

  “It’s not curses you should be worrying about, little girl . . . It’s the people that are scary. Remember that.” The head disappeared back into the bright room. Her orange cat escaped out into the hallway and mewed plaintively at Kris.

  Sorry, kitty, she thought to herself, turning the corner at a brisk pace. You’re on your own.

  Closed doors lined the hallway, and there was no telling how many crazy folks were living behind them. Kris slipped past each one, holding her breath. Her instincts told her to march straight out of there and call social services. Or the police. Little old women shouldn’t be left to eat cat food in an abandoned building like homeless squatters. Little girls shouldn’t be trapped with the rats.

  Footsteps creaked on the floorboards behind her. Kris spun around, expecting to see the little old lady hobbling up with a knife in her hand, but there was no one there. A cold chill swept past her, sending goose bumps up her arms.

  “I gotta get the hell out of here,” she muttered and promised herself that she’d call proper authorities the minute she got out. It wasn’t safe to go storming around the abandoned building on a crusade to find a little girl. Or her father. Not with crazy people and God knew who else waiting behind closed doors.

  Kris retraced her steps back out into the courtyard. The window from where the little girl had waved down to her stood empty. She gazed up at it, half wondering whether she’d even seen the girl at all. Ten other windows looked down into the open space between the brick walls. Two broken sashes hung open on the upper floors, letting fresh air and sunlight and any number of odd creatures inside.

  Eyeing the windows with growing certainty that someone was watching her, Kris tripped over a dead potted plant. She stumbled back and nearly fell into an open hole in the brick floor of the courtyard. “Jesus!” she breathed, regaining her feet. A round manhole cover had been lifted up and pushed aside. She peered down into the two-foot-wide opening and saw the rungs of a ladder leading down.

  “It’s an old access point.” A woman’s voice came up behind her.

  Kris stumbled back from it in surprise. “Oh, God!”

  “Sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.” The woman gave her an appraising look before reaching down and dragging the manhole cover back into place. “Be glad you didn’t fall in. It’s a twelve-foot drop down into the old cisterns. I should’ve had it filled in years ago. I keep putting the cover back down, but they keep lifting it up.”

  She wore coveralls, a tool belt, and a frown. She looked to be in her mid-fifties from the weathered creases of her face and the gray in her cropped hair. She straightened herself up and extended a work glove. “I’m Jill. Who the hell are you?”

  The name sent a jolt of anxiety through her. Jill owned the old Bible factory, and Kris was trespassing. She straightened herself and shook her gloved hand. The woman looked strong enough to beat her ass twice. “I’m Kris. I was just . . . looking for someone. I’m sorry. I should’ve—”

  “You a photographer?” She motioned to the camera still hanging from her neck.

  “Not really.” Kris lifted it off her ribs self-consciously. “I guess I’d like to be. It just doesn’t seem practical . . . my father thinks I won’t be able to get a job . . .” She bit her lips together to make them stop flapping.

  “Getting a job is overrated.” Jill waved a hand in mild disgust, then grabbed a heavy piece of metalwork leaning against the brick wall behind her. “So what are you doin’ in here? You lookin’ for somebody?” The iron railing dropped down onto the top of her work boot, and Jill waited for her to say something.

  The name Norma ran through her head as all her other thoughts seemed to scatter for cover. “Um . . .”

  “Don’t know anyone named Um. But who knows? This place is full of characters, maybe I just haven’t met ’im yet.” She shook her head as if to say, Junkies, and picked up her hunk of metal.

  Jill had walked halfway across the courtyard when a name finally came to Kris. “Jimmy. I’m sorry, I’m looking for Jimmy.”

  Jill didn’t bother to stop. She just called over her shoulder, “Top of the stairs to the left . . . and please tell your friend Jimmy to keep his dealin’ out on the streets, okay? I don’t need more trouble with the police. I swear I got half a mind to just clear these bums out . . .”

  “But I’m not g—” The slam of a door cut off her words. The owner was gone.

  Kris crouched down and picked up her duffle bag where she’d dropped it by the manhole cover. She paused to look down at the heavy metal plate. I keep putting the cover back down, but they keep lifting it up, she said. They . . .

  She hauled her bag back onto her shoulder and hurried out of the courtyard without looking up.

  Once she found the right stairwell, the rest was easy to remember. She headed down a hallway she recognized and through an open doorway into Jimmy’s place. The stale smell of full ashtrays and spilled beer hung in the air. The couches lining the two walls sat empty and dejected. Sunlight streamed in through the huge window overhead. Motes of dust and ash shimmered under the glass, making the whole room feel like a sunken ship under ten feet of water.

  “Jimmy?” Her voice bounced off the high ceiling and into the second-floor gallery. The giant speakers sat silent at the far end. Empty beer cans ra
ttled across the floorboards as she crept inside.

  She climbed up the stairs toward the bedroom where they had all gathered by candlelight to hear Madame Whatshername spin her bullshit. Wood spindle coffee tables overflowed with food wrappers and refuse. The stale air buzzed with silence.

  “Jimmy?”

  No one answered. Somewhere outside, a heavy truck rumbled down the street. It screeched to a stop and started beeping as it backed up into some tight spot. Kris wandered down the hallway toward the séance room. From what she’d seen the night before, it was also Jimmy’s bedroom.

  The door was closed.

  Kris’s stomach tightened as she debated whether to knock. The damn truck outside kept braying. Beep. Beep. Beep. If he was still asleep, he might be furious at being woken up. Or worse. He might pull her down into bed with him.

  Beep. Beep.

  She should just find a couch and wait for him to wake up, she told herself. She should just sit and get her head together. Too much had happened for her to keep straight. Somewhere outside, a crazy person was leaving her hex signs and stealing police reports. At that moment, Ben might be speeding down the highway, hell-bent on finding her and dragging her home. Somewhere inside the building, a little girl and a senile old woman were sitting and waiting for something or someone to come, and her father was nowhere to be found.

  The beeping outside stopped. The truck outside cranked back into gear and roared down the road.

  Kris grabbed the doorknob and cracked open the door. “Jimmy?” she whispered. “Are you there?”

  He didn’t answer.

  She gave the door a couple of knocks. “Anybody home?”

  He clearly wasn’t, but she stood there listening for several more seconds before pushing the door open. The room lost all its mystery in the dull light filtering in through the cheap Indian batik prints hanging over his windows. The dark purple walls that had pulsed heat by the glow of the candles showed garish cracks and pockmarks in the light of day.

  The quotes about altars and sacrifices standing out amid the hippie drivel looked even creepier than they had the night before. For the life of the flesh is in the blood . . .

  She surveyed the room for pentagrams and upside-down crosses. A cheap statue of a praying Buddha sat in the corner, holding a cone of half-burnt incense. A low coffee table by the bedside was covered in red and purple candle-wax drippings of five or six melted votives.

  The entire room smelled like him. Incense and sandalwood and smoke. She glanced back at the odd testimonials scrawled across his wall. It is the blood that makes atonement.

  Atonement for what?

  Kris stepped back out into the hall and listened to the silence. At least she hadn’t woken him up, she reasoned, shifting uncomfortably on her feet. She set her bag down next to his door and stretched. It could be hours until he was back.

  Down the hall another door stood open. She puzzled at it for a moment. Jimmy hadn’t said anything about a roommate, but then again, they hadn’t really talked much about anything besides ghosts and her father. She hardly knew a thing about him, and here she was snooping through his home.

  A door slammed a floor below where she stood, making her jump. She stumbled back down the hall, tripping over a beanbag chair and landing on her ass with a thud.

  “Hey! Who’s up there?” Jimmy’s voice boomed. Footsteps pounded furiously up the stairs toward her.

  She scrambled back to her feet, eyes darting, but there was nowhere to go. “Uh. Hi.” She gave him a little wave as he reached the top of the stairs.

  He lowered his fist and raised his eyebrows in surprise. “Oh. Hey.”

  “I’m sorry, I just . . . let myself in.” She took a step back, positioning herself in front of her duffle bag, wondering if coming there had been a terrible idea. “I—uh—ran into Jill, you know, the owner. She said you’d be here.”

  “Hey. No problem. I told you you’re welcome anytime.” He gave her a slow grin.

  She felt herself smiling back. His light brown eyes were too soft and sweet to be a rapist’s or a killer’s, she told herself. “I guess I just had to see all this in the daylight . . . um, did you know that there’s a decrepit old woman living in the next wing?”

  “You met her? Isn’t she a trip?” He picked an unopened beer up off the nearest coffee table and offered it to her “Hair of the dog?”

  “Oh. No, thanks.”

  He gave her an almost-shrug and cracked the beer for himself. He plopped down onto a couch and patted the seat next to him.

  She took a chair by the stairs instead. “Doesn’t, uh, anyone worry? A little old lady living all by herself here? I mean, her window’s broken. Her apartment reeks of mold and cat urine. Does anyone check on her?”

  “I think she’s got a friend or two.”

  “Who? Norma? Have you ever actually seen this person or anyone else visit her?”

  “I figure people have a right to live their lives. Don’t they? She seem unhappy to you?”

  “Well, no. But she didn’t seem exactly right in the head either.”

  “You a doctor?” He cocked an eyebrow at her, amused.

  “Okay, no. Fine. But what about the little girl that lives above her?”

  “What about her?”

  “Well, is she alright? Where are her parents? Did somebody bring her here, like, against her will?”

  “Wow. You don’t even know the girl, and you’re just ready to swoop in and save the world, huh?” He chuckled and took a long swig of beer.

  “No . . . I don’t know.” She shifted in her chair uncomfortably. Here she came to ask for a favor and now she was lecturing him. “Don’t you worry about the other people here?”

  He took another long drink of beer and considered her a moment. “Yeah. I guess I do. But I’m sure as shit not gonna run to the cops or child services. That’s sometimes the worst thing you can do to somebody you’re trying to ‘help.’”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Take Old Girl in her flowered apartment. Where’s she gonna go? She’s got no money. She’s got no family. You ever seen a state-run nursing home before? You ever see what they do to old ladies like her? Strap ’em to their beds. Dope ’em up when they start cryin’. Maybe she’s better off here where she’s happy.”

  Kris frowned, trying to weigh whether or not he was right. The old lady could fall and break a hip. What then? she wanted to ask. “What about the little girl?”

  “Don’t know much about her yet, but I’ve seen her in here with a lady that looks to be her mom, and her mom’s beat up pretty good. I’m guessing the dad could be the problem.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because the two of them are hidin’ out here from somebody, right? Do you know the first thing a cop’ll do?”

  Kris shook her head.

  “The cops will arrest Mom for kidnapping and return the little girl back to her lovin’ daddy. You think that’s the best thing for her?”

  “You don’t know that. They might . . .”

  “Might what? Put her in a foster home while her mama serves time? You ever been in a group home?”

  Kris shook her head.

  “This is the reason you should mind your own business. How you gonna help people when you don’t even know what the real problem is? How can you know if your solution will be any better?”

  “But . . .” She shook her head, not ready to concede. “They can’t stay here forever, can they? They need food and running water. The little girl needs to go to school.”

  “Hey. I get it. Your heart’s in the right place, but don’t worry so much. Nobody stays here long. I’m guessin’ Mom’s just getting a plan together. She’ll go stay with family somewhere else. Hopefully somewhere out of state.” He downed the beer and leaned in to take a closer look at her. “I know you didn’t come here to spy for social services.”

  She dropped her eyes and shook her head.

  “So why are you back?”

  Kris
bit the inside of her cheek, debating what to tell him. “Something happened. Last night.”

  The smile pulling at the corners of his mouth dropped. “What happened?”

  “I heard someone walking outside my house in the middle of the night. When I got up this morning, they’d left me a message.” She studied his face as she talked. Was it you? Was it your fortune-teller friend?

  “What’d it say?”

  “It didn’t say anything. It was just this giant star.” His eyes betrayed nothing but concern as the story came spilling out. “They painted it on my door in red. The old lady over there has one on her door too. She says it’s a hex sign or something, whatever the hell that means. I called the cops, and they didn’t do a thing about it. They filled out a report and told me to ‘vary’ my ‘routine.’”

  He nodded. “They’re not going to do shit about it. Not until it’s too late anyway.”

  “What do you mean ‘too late’?” She couldn’t help but think of the black-and-white photos of hacked-up bodies in her father’s books.

  “Cops are there to solve crimes, not prevent ’em. It’s kinda stupid really when you think about it. So what are you gonna do?”

  Kris shook her head. “I don’t know.”

  “You’re welcome to stay here.” Jimmy offered a half smile. “Got plenty of room.”

  “Oh. That’s really nice, but . . . I wouldn’t want to be in your way.” Her eyes circled the giant two-story gallery. There were enough couches for ten people to sleep comfortably, but that wasn’t the point. It was a big favor to ask. A favor she couldn’t repay with anything but . . .

  “Hey. Mi casa, su casa.” He reached over and patted her knee like it was settled. “It’ll be fun having a roommate again. This place can sort of get to you after a while.”

  “Yeah. I’m sure it can.” This was her last chance to leave gracefully. She would just get into her car and go back home to Cridersville and Troy and the cavernous void left by her missing father.

  “So why do you think somebody marked your door like that?” he prodded gently.

  “I don’t know. I thought for a minute it might’ve been your friend the fortune-teller,” she admitted. “You know, trying to scare me into getting a reading or something. Or putting some sort of spell on the house. It is called a ‘hex sign,’ right?”