by Manuel Tiger
“Emotional wise I’m tired,” I said plucking at the flap on my bag. I felt his eyes on me, could feel the vibe of worry coming off of him so I looked up offering a wane smile. “My birthday is coming up and…,” I trailed off.
“We’ll close the office and go spend the day at Pier 39, Sully.” He beamed at me. “You can even invite Heather to come.”
I smiled and nodded my head. “I would like that.” I turned to head out.
“Sully?”
I turned back around. “Yeah?”
“I know you like being distant and all that stuff like vampires are said to be, but,” he paused and stopped typing. “Just know that I’m always hear for you to talk to. We don’t have to talk about this crazy stuff I’m interested in and I’m a good listener at times. I may not have all the answers to everything, but I am here for you if you want to ever talk about anything that’s bothering you.”
I forced a smile and nodded my head. I couldn’t say anything. He, aside from Heather, was the only two I let get as close to me as possible. Yet, I could never tell them about my life before I became a vampire, about my childhood in Boston. Despite the asshole who didn’t care persona I sometimes put forth, there was still the twelve year old Henry that was ashamed, ashamed of what had happened to him that still lurked beneath the surface.
“T-Thank you,” I said stepping backwards.
“Always Sully,” he said. “I’m your friend.” He smiled and went back to typing.
I merely nodded, gave a brief wave of my hand and exited the office. Once outside I drew in a deep breath, getting my emotions in check and started down the sidewalk. I figured I would hail a cab or get an Uber. I think I had enough money for either one.
“Trouble is brewing on the horizon.”
I paused and looked into the alley between the building and the one next to it to see Madame Maddie, the psychic that worked above us, leaning against the wall of the building smoking a cigarette. She had bright red hair tied back into a ponytail and a softly lined face, but I think that was all theatrics to make her look older. She was all about the theatrics, given her attire of a dark green velvet dress adorned with a pattern of gold moon and stars. On her ears hung crystal ball earrings that changed color and on her wrists were what looked like all the bracelets in the city.
“Is it?” I asked pausing for a moment.
She nodded and took one last hit off the cigarette before flicking it away. She pushed off from the wall and walked over toward me, her bright green eyes looking me over. “Your horizon.”
“Nothing new there.”
“This time it is,” she said motioning for me to lean closer. I decided to humor her and leaned in. She lifted her hands and cupped my face. They were cool against my skin as she stared into my eyes. “The past often comes back to us in the most unusual ways, Mister Sullivan.” She released my face and reached inside the top of her dress. When her hand came back out she had a twenty that she pressed into my hand.
“What’s this for?”
“For the taxi.”
“Maddie,” I said shaking my head, handing back the twenty. “You don’t have to. I think I may have enough for that today.”
“No,” she said closing my hand around the twenty with her own. “Never refuse a gift given out of kindness.”
“Then, thank you and I will pay you back.”
She smiled. “I will let you know when you need to,” she replied as she folded her arms across her breasts. “You good?”
I knew what she meant. I considered her an acquaintance, but in the eight years since I began working with Scott I had ran into her quite often, usually in the bookstore or when I was leaving at night and we often had long conversations.
I suppose I should mention that she’s a third person to know about me, but I had never told her or revealed myself to her as I had with Scott or Heather. She had known right away what I was upon sight, which told me she was the real deal. She had not been afraid of me, and always treated me with a motherly fondness which reminded me of my Aunt Jemma back in Boston who had died some years back now. The two even had the same green eyes. Maybe that was why I felt protective of her and vice versa though I never knew her full life story. Like me, she barely talked about her life in our conversations.
“I made a mistake last night,” I said wrapping my hands around the strap of my messenger bag. “But then that’s all I’m good at doing.”
“We can’t live without human affection,” she said reaching out and placing a hand on my arm. “Some are able to, but we all need to feel an occasional touch from time to time, even if it’s fleeting. Enough to strive off the loneliness or we risk falling down that dark hole of depression.”
“That’s what led me to the mistake,” I replied. “I was feeling lonely, aching for a touch, but there has only ever been one whose touch has left me feeling better about myself and not like some dirty whore.”
She looked at me, our gazes meeting for a moment. “Do you want to talk about it?”
I looked up at the sky filled with bruised looking clouds and shook my head. “Maybe, maybe tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow,” she said in a whisper. Yet the way she said it had me arching a brow.
“What?”
“Nothing, nothing,” she said squeezing my arm. “You had better get going Mister Sullivan. Spirits don’t linger for long.”
I wasn’t surprised that she knew, but I still was. “I’ll see you later then Maddie,” I said as she stepped back. “And it’s O’Sullivan.” I gave her a wink.
She merely gave me a knowing smile, nodding her head and I continued on my way.
III
Chinatown
I had managed to find an Uber for cheap which left me with enough money to splurge on a cheap early dinner. Yet, as I stood there in front of the famous Dragon Gate entrance I felt another hunger rising.
The Craving was beginning to softly whisper in the back of my mind, but I knew that eventually it would rise in volume, becoming a demanding voice that would not quiet until it was sated.
Apparently Nameless Face had not quelled that hunger as much as I thought he had.
“Fuck,” I whispered as the low hanging storm clouds overhead finally unleashed their rain with a crackle of lightning and a boom of thunder, coming down on me in a drenching downpour. I ran through the gates and under a nearby store awning. I flicked water from my arms and swept my hand through my now soaked hair. I sighed. I should have brought an umbrella, but then, I need to buy one to have brought one.
I sidestepped as a family passed by me, my eyes tracking them for a moment. I smiled at the little girl that held her mother’s hand who paused long enough to wave at me while her brother was held in the protective arms of their father. Some fathers could be fathers and some? Were best not thought about.
I reached into the pocket of my slacks and withdrew the slip of paper that Scott had written the address of the supposed haunting at. I smoothed it out and began moving my eyes over the numbers on the buildings. When I couldn’t find the one I was looking for I moved further up the sidewalk, quickly running between awnings to avoid getting even more wet. I came to a stop and realized I had arrived at the address I had been looking for.
What pure luck.
It was a three story brick building that had been painted a red the color of dried blood, which did little to quieten the growing hunger in my stomach. Nice going, I thought as I stepped back and looked the building over.
The ground floor was that of a dry cleaners. The second and third was apartments that was accessed by an alley staircase. I started up the stairs using my messenger bag as a cover as the rain began to fall even harder, nearly piercing.
Reaching the door I knocked quickly, ducking under what attempted to pass as an awning but was more a suggestion of one.
After waiting several minutes the door finally opened and a young woman’s face appeared in the thin crack that had been created between the door and its frame.
“Someone called about a ghost sighting?”
“Are you here to get rid of it?” she asked.
I gave her a confused look. “Uh, to take a photo of it.”
“Oh,” she said frowning. “I thought I called someone to come get rid of it.”
“Paranormal Press?”
“That is the one I called. I said there was a ghost here and that I wished for it to be removed.”
I twisted my lips in thought and wondered if Scott had misheard or he simply wanted a ghost photo? Which given Scott? He probably told the girl that we could get rid of it in hopes of capturing something on film.
Sighing I shook my head. “I’m afraid I can’t get rid of a ghost for you, miss.”
She looked me over, her eyes I noticed were a shade of green that was nearly emerald in coloring. “Please come in,” she said stepping aside.
“Uh, I’m not able to get rid of the ghost, if there is one.”
She said nothing as she opened the door wider. Deciding it was better to get dry for a moment, if however brief, I stepped off the porch and through the door. The room was a small kitchen with Formica flooring that was peeling up where it met the wall. The kitchen consisted of a stove, cabinets, an old fashioned deep sink that you could probably bathe in and a small dining table. In front of me was a doorway that led into what looked like a small bedroom and to my right was that of another hallway and a set of stairs that led upward.
I lowered my messenger bag and swept water off it and onto the floor, quickly apologizing. She merely walked over toward the counter near the stove and retrieved a kitchen towel which she handed me.
“Thank you,” I said drying off my bag.
“Up the stairs, right side, down the hall. It’s the last door at the end.”
“The ghost?”
She nodded and I handed her back the towel.
“I can’t remove it for you,” I said shaking my head. “You will need someone qualified to do that, a ghost hunter. I’m not that.”
She tilted her head and gestured toward the stairs.
“Okay,” I said turning. “I’m just going to take a few photos and I’ll be out of your hair and on my way.”
She continued to say nothing so I nodded my head, turned and started up the stairs. I glanced back and she was still watching me, holding the towel in her hands. She nodded her head again so I proceeded on up the stairs.
Once I reached the top I found there was a three doors to my left with room numbers on them and another set of doors to my right with more numbers.
I pulled out my camera and walked down the hallway, the old floorboards beneath my feet creaking with each step. I reached the end of the hallway and the last door which was marked with a 13.
That wasn’t ominous or anything.
I looked back down the hallway half expecting to see the girl standing at the top of the stairs. There was no one, I was alone. I drew in a breath and released it then reached out gripping the door handle.
I yelped.
I jerked my hand back for the doorknob was icy cold to the touch, nearly burning it was so cold.
“What the hell,” I muttered lightly touching the doorknob again like I was teasing a snake that was about to strike. I finally grabbed the doorknob to find that it was no longer burning cold. “Odd and odder,” I said turning and pushing the door open with a creak that was louder than the floorboards in the hall had made.
The door swung inward to reveal a rather Spartan room; a bed beneath a window covered by a thin yellowed curtain, a battered wooden dresser, a rug with the mange, and a very old fashioned TV set on a brass stand. There was a standing closet to the right of the bed that stood opening revealing a few articles of clothing within on hangers. There was a wash basin by the door complete with a pitcher that looked very old.
The entire room could have been my first apartment.
I stepped further into the room and was surprised when the floors didn’t squeak. I looked around, trying to see if there was any recent signs of habitation but it seemed this room had been empty for a while.
A very long while.
I noticed there was a thin layer of dust on everything except the floor itself that looked brand new.
“And it gets odder,” I said shaking my head. I lifted my camera and began taking photos turning slowly as I did so to get a wide shot of the room.
I knew no ghost would appear unless they wanted to. I had a enough run ends with ghosts to know that coupled with what Heather and a few others had told me.
Plus, being a vampire? I could see them.
It wasn’t a gift that came with being turned into a vampire like the quick healing ability, intense stamina and all that other fun stuff. One had to already have some psychic ability present in them for the vampiric change to work on and bring out further, to make it stronger.
I recalled some family stories of my grandmother possessing the ability to see spirits, but it had been brushed off as her being looney.
Only I knew she hadn’t been talking out of her ass.
For I had seen my fair share, at least brief glimpses as a little boy, in the old family home. But there had been scarier things in that house than ghosts roaming about to scare me as a boy.
Now as a vampire I knew what to look for when a ghost presented itself. There was the much talked about drop in temperature followed by an icy chill and seeing one’s breath.
Such as I was experiencing now.
I lowered the camera as my skin broke out in goose flesh, my breath steaming up in front of me like I had ran a mile in the cold. All this I ignored as I stared at the ghost of the little Asian girl that floated in front of me a few feet off the floor.
I was so grateful she did not look anything like that ghost girl from those horror movies.
But then, maybe she should have for that would have been less scary than how she looked.
She had to have been no older than five when she died. Her face was pretty, but it was covered in bruises. A nasty welt on her shoulder where her shirt was torn was still “bleeding”. Both of her arms were lined with bruises and cuts and what looked like cigarette burns. She wore shorts and her tiny legs and bared feet were a match to the arms.
I knew the signs of abuse too intimately.
“W-What happened to you,” I whispered forgetting the reason why I was here, wanting to know who could do this to a little girl, to a child.
She approached me by floating forward. She was no ghost of a past century. Perhaps a few years at most, if not recently. The clothing she wore was a hint of that; the shirt had a cartoon dog that I knew was quite popular with kids this year.
I knew this because Heather sometimes watched some of her friend’s kids now and then that I got to know when I popped in for a visit and they would always have the TV tuned to the station with the dog.
“What happened?” I whispered again. “Who did this to you?”
Instead of speaking she flew at me, merging with me and her story flashed before my eyes.
IV
I was the little girl looking through her eyes. I was in this room seated on the floor, but the floor was not the new one but that of what was in the hallway.
As I, as she, sat cross-legged on the mangy rug clutching a baby doll to her chest a woman walked back and forth before her yelling in Chinese. The woman was not clearly defined, a fuzzy image like an out of focus photo.
Suddenly a hand slapped the little girl across the face so hard she fell over, the baby doll flying from her arms to land at the woman’s feet. The woman plucked the doll up by the arm and began to beat the little girl with it over and over as she screamed, asking why in English and Chinese.
I wanted it to stop. I wanted to reach out and pull the woman off and take the little girl into my arms, to protect her, to tell the woman to beat me instead for I could take it.
Oh, I could very well take it.
But this was the past. It had already occurred. There was nothing
I could do but watch how this played out.
The woman grabbed the little girl by her hair and slammed her against the side of the dresser, spinning her around and grabbing her shoulder, tearing at the shirt as she grabbed a brush off the dresser and began to strike the girl over and over on the shoulder. The vicious welt appeared on her shoulder then all faded to black like an old movie.
When the room appeared again the little girl was laying on the floor covered in bruises. She was sobbing quietly and again I felt the urge to take her into my arms and protect her.
The door opened and the woman stepped into the room, a cigarette clutched between her lips. Again she said something in Chinese and walked over toward the girl. She removed the cigarette from her lips, touching the girl’s arms with it as she began crying and desperately tried to crawl away. But the woman would not let her get far before grabbing her by one of her legs and jerking her back, bringing that cigarette back down to touch it the flesh of her leg.
The scent of burning flesh filled the room.
The woman merely laughed in a cold and mocking way, imitating the crying girl before kicking the girl in the stomach so hard her little body was lifted off the floor and came back down.
Stop it! Fucking stop!
Oh how this brought back memories that I had thought I had buried so deep they would never surface! How I thought I never recall them again!
The room faded to black and the next scene was that of the little girl lying on the floor, of me both seeing her then being her, switching back and forth that I felt sick from the rapidly changing view point.
The door opened and through it came the woman. She was no longer out of focus, but in sharp detail. She wore expensive clothing; Chanel heels, little black cocktail dress and so much jewelry on that anyone with common sense should know better than to wear so much out in public. Her face was heavily made up, her lips red as fresh blood. She was pretty, but I knew the monster that lurked underneath for its face never changed, just the gender.
Why had she done this to the girl? What had she done to deserve this?