Messages from the Dead

by Sandy DeLuca

  Three days later, Joe and Lena waited for me when I got home from work, standing on our front walk, faces sad and mournful. Joe, his long leather coat flapping as gusty wind blew, arms folded, gazing upward at falling snow; and Lena in her wide-brimmed hat and long black coat, tapping her right foot. For a moment I feared they were about to confront me about things I’d done, but it wasn’t about me, I realized, when Joe put his hands on my shoulders. “Have you spoken to Andrea’s mother?”

  “Yeah, she said Andrea’s gone. She called the cops…talked to a detective…I…”

  Tears now fell freely down my grandmother’s face, and blonde wisps stuck out from beneath her hat. “Cops found her car at school, with blood on the driver’s seat. Missing-person report was out on her as of last night.”

  “She cut herself recently,” I told her.

  Lena slipped a hand in her pocket, removed an embroidered handkerchief. She wiped her face, leaving mascara stains on white cotton. “Oh, I don’t know, Donna, there was a lot of blood.”

  Joe reached for Lena, put his arm around her, and then he reached for me. “They found clothes—jeans and a shirt…bloodstained—like in the car.”

  “My God. What’s happened to her?” I asked.

  Lena sobbed hard. “I wish I never spoke to them.”

  “What are you talking about, Gram? Who did you talk to?”

  “The dead. The damned dead.”

  Images of Lena’s long-ago séances drifted through my mind. She sat there, hands clasped, eyes fixed on a smoky specter, mouth trembling. She let out a soft moan, her face turned chalk white, and smoke turned to ashes when someone flicked on lights.

  “I should have ignored them,” she sobbed. “I shouldn’t have gone with him.”

  Joe shot Lena a sidelong glance, and then spoke softly. “She’s upset. We all are, and I hope to hell somebody figures out what happened.”

  The three of us stood there, in falling snow, holding each other, looking up at the sky. I wondered what Lena meant by them, and if she and Joe knew more than they let on.

  Detective Mansi questioned Joe, Lena and me, his dark eyes looking into mine, pulling me aside, speaking softly. “Who else did you say was with you—last time you saw Andrea?”

  “My teacher, Alex Soleau.”

  He shook his head. “Talked to Soleau. Said Andrea seemed upset, distracted.”

  “Yes, she was…”

  “Call me if you remember anything else.” He paused a moment, shaking his head. “Andrea and I were tight…for a while. It’s personal, you know?”

  “I know.”

  “Your teacher…she’s into some twisted shit…got bad-ass friends. I’m keeping an eye on her.”

  “She’s harmless.”

  He shrugged. “Take care, Donna.” He handed me his card, and then jotted something on a small pad. I couldn’t help him, not then…and not when the terror escalated.

  13

  A month went by, and Alex assured me my friend had merely gone off to get her head together, telling me, “I did the same thing a few years ago. She’ll be back.” I wanted to believe Alex, but something inside told me Andrea wouldn’t return.

  And I dreamed of her every night, walking through the bowels of Castell, children by her side. Sometimes Ben was there, opening doors, leading them into rooms filled with aged furniture and bloodstained floors.

  One evening, when leaving the art studio, I spotted Ben standing by the bulletin board, gazing at papers inscribed with faces of the missing.

  I went to him, and then asked, “Did you know any of those kids?”

  “Donna, where’d you come from?” He seemed startled for a moment, but then broke out in a smile.

  “I just got out of class. Saw you standing here. I thought—”

  “Just thinking of your friend Andrea, and then I started thinking about others. Girl went missing from here years ago. Found her body in the boiler room. It had been there for weeks, stashed underneath some boxes. Smell got real bad. That’s when I found her. Must have passed by those boxes hundreds of times.” His eyes glossed over. “They said she bled to death, stabbed in her belly. I could have saved her…”

  “How would you have known?”

  “I should have known.”

  “Did they check down there—for Andrea?” I imagined my friend’s lifeless body stashed in between boxes and dirty rags.

  “Yeah, cops went over everything. No evidence, no trace of her.”

  “Take me down there?” I begged him.

  “Why? There’s nothing to see.”

  “Please, Ben?”

  “Come on then. You have a taste for the macabre.”

  “I just want to know Andrea’s not there.”

  “Cops checked. I told you that.”

  “I want to see,” I told him, knowing Andrea wasn’t there, but something else—dark and vile—drew me in.

  He gazed at his watch, then looked over his shoulder. “Supervisor might come looking for me, so I’ve got to make it quick.”

  “Thanks, Ben. I understand about supervisors.”

  He nodded, and then we walked together down poorly lit stairs. Light dimmed as we descended farther into the belly of Castell. Smoky tendrils of steam rose from the floor, and the air had a pungent smell—oil, staleness.

  “Door straight ahead,” Ben told me. He moved ahead of me, unlocked a door with streaks of red paint spattered on its frame. He went into gloom, and I followed. Sounds of machinery and water dripping onto steel and cement filled the air. A wrought iron boiler hissed. Puffs of smoke spiraled from it. Dust, dirt and spiderwebs hung from splintered beams and littered the floor.

  A child’s carriage, missing a wheel, spattered with something brown and thick, lay against a filthy utility shelf. A rag doll, torn, damaged, lay beside it.

  I walked the length of that room, peering behind the boiler and into darkened corners; taking in thick, acrid smells, my fingers brushing against dangling webs.

  “Told you—they went through everything,” Ben whispered.

  “I know…”

  I spotted another door behind the mechanism, bolted at its top and bottom. I moved toward it. Ben reached out, gently grabbed my arm. “Off limits. Bad enough I took you here.”

  “What’s in there? Do you have keys?”

  “I can’t open it, but it leads to a tunnel. They transported dead bodies through it. It’s five hundred feet long, and used to lead from the hospital to railroad tracks. They transported the dead, by gurneys, through the tunnel…so patients wouldn’t see hearses waiting…or bodies. Lots of hazardous stuff there, too—sharp things, and the like. Come on. We need to get out of here.” He stopped, thinking for a moment. “People who’ve walked through the tunnel claim they’ve heard voices…”

  He ushered me to the exit. I turned and red eyes glared at me from the darkness, and then an eerie hiss sounded. “Ben, what is that?”

  “Just damn rats. Come on,” he said, pushing me a bit too hard, and then quickly locking the door. “I think Andrea’s all right, that she’s okay.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Gut tells me.”

  “Hope you’re right, and she just split to get her head together.”

  I looked to Ben’s key ring, knowing he could unlock that door, knowing he was capable of showing me whatever lay beyond it. “Are you going back upstairs?”

  He didn’t answer. His eyes seemed duller, and his mouth slack. Fright filled me at that moment, and I left him there, retracing my steps, bolting up stairs, into cold night air, away from ghosts.

  * * *

  “The dead are there,” Lena tells me in a murky dream, in a memory I’d tucked away. She lay in a hospital bed, tubes in her arms, bedsheets wet with sweat.

  “They’re real aren’t they, Gram?”

  “They’re all around us. Some of us hear them. Most go about their lives never seeing—never knowing.”

  “Can they hurt us?”

  “Not
usually, but sometimes their vengeance is awakened. They prey on our frailties…our broken hearts…our tears…and sometimes love brings them back…”

  14

  I couldn’t shake Ben’s strange behavior, or what I’d seen and heard the previous evening.

  Castell Community College seemed ominous, threatening in the distance, visible from all major highways in the state, a dungeonlike structure made of concrete, a place with corridors seemingly leading nowhere, and I walked quickly, clutching my belongings, thinking of ghosts and Alex’s strange stories.

  Darkness bathed the massive parking lot, and shadows covered rows of cars. I clutched a small canvas beneath my right arm, and moved quickly between vehicles, veering onto an icy walk, and then passing a light pole. A poster, torn and weather-beaten, hung amid ads for local nightclubs and bands. A missing girl with empty eyes stared back at me. Her name had been Tammy Shields.

  Did a madman grab the girl when she made her way through the lot, or had the building swallowed her, taking her deep inside its dark underground? The incident happened before Andrea went missing, and Tammy never returned.

  Young people disappeared from town a lot; in the ’40s, ’50s, ’60s and ’70s. And someone hung macabre reminders on school bulletin boards, and they’d become cold cases. Files filled with more questions than answers.

  I remembered Lena lighting candles for the missing after Sunday Mass. Her hands trembled as she watched the flickering flames. She’d whispered, “God, guide their souls to heaven.”

  I saw Lena’s face for an instant, sad, tears glistening, and then I spotted a white van parked illegally by the walk. Shadows moved over its windows, so I walked quickly, holding my breath, as thick fog curled and rose from ice-slicked cement. A door slammed and footsteps sounded. I skidded on ice, but kept my balance.

  “Hello,” called a strange, wraithlike voice. I turned. A young woman waved at me. A little girl, no more than four, or five, held the woman’s hand.

  I took a step forward.

  Steam spiraled from a manhole cover. It enveloped woman and child, and then vapor slowly dissipated, leaving behind only wispy tendrils.

  I moved to where the two had stood. A puddle of brownish red liquid shimmered beneath winter moonlight. The stench of copper permeated the air. I began to tremble, remembering I’d taken too many pills, prescribed because I became jittery and anxious after Andrea’s disappearance, and the bottle warned of adverse effects like dizziness, loss of appetite…and hallucinations.

  “Hello.” Now the sound became chilling and deathlike. Fear filled me. I dropped my canvas. It tumbled into slush. Streaks of red and brown spattered onto white linen, and a wooden stretcher split in half.

  I backed away, and then began to run. Cold and wind assaulted me. My hands and face were numb by the time I reached the ramp. I looked back, before climbing the steep hill. Only vehicles of all shapes and sizes beneath a starless sky were evident, but the terror remained as I sprinted toward massive glass doors.

  I wondered where the woman and child had gone. Had they found shelter somewhere? Did they wait for me beneath an archway or beside a tree? My heart pounded as I reached my destination, as my feet touched the ramp. I felt relief when I arrived at the entrance, pushed open the door. I spotted several students, gathered in the hall, arms laden with books, and faces aglow with excitement. Girls huddled together, chatting softly, and then they shifted, revealing a woman in their midst, head bent, red hair wild and curly—like Andrea’s. She lifted her head, looked my way, and waved. Dark circles lined her eyes, and her skin seemed abnormally pale. She took a step and smiled at me, transparent, wispy—like smoke.

  “Andrea?” I called out, and a flurry of students emerged from an elevator; Andrea had gone, replaced by a spiraling cloud of mist.

  I heard Ben’s voice. “Evening, Donna. I’ll see you later.” He turned a corner, waving quickly, and then disappeared into darkness. I wondered if he’d encountered strange women and children on his rounds. Lots of young mothers took night classes. Sometimes they brought their kids along. I scolded myself for overreacting, telling myself the girl I’d seen had merely looked like Andrea, suddenly remembering I’d dropped my canvas in the lot.

  “Still time to buy another one,” I whispered. I reached into my pocket, pulled out a crumpled ten-dollar bill, and then made my way to the bookstore, and to where white canvases had been piled high. I thought about Andrea again, and a dull ache filled me as I approached the register.

  “All kinds of things in the smoke,” said the cashier when I handed him the crumpled ten. He tilted his head to the side.

  “What?”

  He smiled. Dull eyes took in my body. He didn’t answer, just reached for my money, and then handed me change. His hands were cold, dry, lingering too long. That’s when I noticed he wore a coat, similar to a doctor’s, yellow with age. Probably an eccentric art student who’d picked up old garb at a thrift shop.

  I left him, feeling his eyes on me, and feeling dread.

  I moved toward stairs. Four flights to the art department. I climbed slowly, moving in dusky light, wondering once more about the woman and child I’d seen. I’d been working hard. Five days a week at my job, plugging away at my art, and struggling with electives like math and science. I told myself it had been worth it. I was tired—overdoing it on my prescription.

  “All kinds of things in smoke,” I whispered, as I reached the second-floor landing. There were all kinds of things in night—things that tormented Andrea before her disappearance. I remembered her face when she painted, distant, eyes tinged with fear. I wished I could go back to that time. I wished I could cast out the turmoil inside her. I could still see her hands moving rapidly, making art, breathing life into things dead and buried.

  15

  I continued to climb the dimly lit stairs, telling myself nothing hid in dark corners, or waited behind doors, or lurked in the art studio, where I’d take my place in one of the sectioned-off spaces, painting or drawing in solitude, without interruption. It had been every art student’s privilege, but few took advantage.

  I reached the fourth floor, sat on the top stair to catch my breath. I heard a soft knock on the wall, startling me, but when I gazed over into dark corners, nothing was there. Several more thuds followed. Probably old pipes rattling, I rationalized.

  A childhood memory played out in my mind when suddenly the stairs creaked and another knock erupted. I must have been around ten, sent to bed early, knowing Lena would be entertaining guests in her parlor, knowing phantoms might appear.

  I’d been awakened by pounding in the still of night, sounding as though someone thumped on the front door, anxious to find shelter from a tropical storm, battering rain and wind up the Eastern seaboard. I heard Lena cry out. Fearful she’d been hurt or frightened; I got out of bed and made my way downstairs.

  I found her alone on her knees, in her candlelit parlor, hands pressed against a wall. She wore a thin nightgown. Sweat trickled down her pale face. Another loud rap erupted, and then she called out, “Are you here?” Smoke swirled in semidarkness. Rain pummeled windows and gusting winds shook the house.

  “Gram?”

  She turned to me, shivering, eyes glossed over with tears. “Go back to your room. Bolt your door behind you.”

  “Gram, what’s wrong?”

  “Please do as I say, my sweetie. I’ll talk to you in the morning.”

  I lingered for a moment. A car passed the house, headlights flashed through a rain-streaked window. Then I noticed Lena wasn’t alone. Someone sat in a chair, head bowed, as though in prayer. My eyes adjusted to the gray-black night. I saw its head slowly rise, and then the figure laid a thin finger to its lips. For a flash—a split second in time—its eyes glowed in the candlelight. Slits of yellow peered at me, and then flames went out.

  “Go back to bed, Donna. It’s all right now.”

  I backed away, as smoke and darkness filled the room, as a raspy sigh sounded. Fear filled me
for a moment, and then Lena laughed, a tinkling sound, like chimes in a warm summer breeze.

  She said, “I love you.”

  Only the storm, and its fury, responded. I never asked about her visitor, knowing it’d been one of her secrets tucked away in an ornate box. Who was I to question the woman who’d taken me in, who’d loved me and guided me through adulthood?

  I wondered if Lena’s visitor lurked in shadow, as I rose from the fourth-floor stairwell, slipped canvas beneath my arm, and then pushed open the art department doors. I wondered if that figure followed me, finger to its lips, head bent, a mystic spell cast as it flitted across paint-stained tile. I looked over my shoulder. No one followed. The smells of oil paint, chemicals from the photo lab, and dampness struck me. I moved past empty chairs, tables and easels laden with colorful artwork.

  Alex sat in her office, lost in an open book, a small lamp glowing to her right. She’d piled papers to her left, and had propped the stone slab of Mada against her coffee mug.

  Overhead lights were out. Moonlight spilled onto paint-and-ink-stained tiles.

  I thought about setting up my stuff, working in semidarkness, without disturbing her, but decided against it. I wanted her to know I’d arrived, so I peeked into her office, cleared my throat and said, “Hi, Alex.”

  She looked up, and then smiled. “Do you even stop for dinner after leaving your job?”

  “Parking—it’s bad at this time. Once it gets closer to seven you have to park down by the trees. Hey, I’m going to use the studio for a while.”

  “That’s cool. Then turn on the lights.” She gazed at my canvas. “Planning anything special for that?”

  “We’ll see,” I said, and then looked to her stone slab. “Why do you keep that thing on your desk?” I asked her.