Weeping Walls

by Gerri Hill

  CJ covered her head with her arms when she felt herself falling out of the chute. She landed in a heap, her shoulder taking most of the brunt of it, but her head hit the ground nonetheless. She opened her eyes, seeing nothing but total darkness. She sat up slowly and rubbed the back of her head, feeling a knot forming where she’d hit it.

  “I thought you said you wouldn’t harm me,” she muttered. She got no response. For that, she was thankful. She decided the next time someone—something—told her to open up a door, she was definitely going to ignore them. Or better yet…run.

  She got into a sitting position but no more. It was pitch black, and she was afraid to move. She held her hand in front of her face but couldn’t see it. Panic was about to set in. She held her arms out to her sides and moved them in a circle. She nearly screamed when she hit something.

  “Paige?” she yelled. “Can you hear me?”

  “CJ? Are you okay?” Paige yelled back.

  CJ ignored her question. “Will you please toss a flashlight down the chute?”

  “What?”

  She heard something behind her and she turned toward the sound. But it was like she was in a vacuum, she could see nothing. She was nearly afraid to breathe. Her chest tightened with the tension and fear she was feeling.

  “CJ?” Paige called again. “Can you hear me? Where are you?”

  “Flashlight,” she yelled back.

  “What?”

  “Jesus,” she muttered. She fumbled in her jeans, finding her cell phone. The light was bright when she turned it on, but her hands were shaking so badly she needed three tries to put in her passcode. It rang twice before Paige answered.

  “Are you okay?” Paige asked, fear in her voice.

  “I don’t know. I’m afraid to move. I can’t see a thing.”

  “Where are you?”

  “Hell if I know. But it’s so dark I can’t see my hand in front of my face. So, can you toss my flashlight down the chute?”

  “Okay. Doing it now.”

  CJ heard the flashlight as it bounced along the chute, but she had no idea where the chute was. She finally saw the beam of light to her left and she ducked just in time. The flashlight landed with a thud beside her. She snatched it up like a lifeline, shining it around her in all directions, expecting to see demons or monsters waiting to attack.

  “CJ?”

  She picked up her phone again. “Thanks.” She paused. “Please don’t leave me here alone.”

  “I’m not going anywhere. Can you tell where you are?”

  CJ looked around, seeing old pipes running up the wall. There were two large tubs and a couple of tables that she could see. She found the door and hurried to it. There was no doorknob. She pushed at all corners, but it didn’t budge.

  “I don’t know. Could be an old laundry room. There’s plumbing. There’s a large door but no doorknob. It won’t open,” she said. “I’m obviously back on the first floor.” She stood, then shone the light upward, finding the chute. “Can you see my light?”

  “No.”

  CJ blew out her breath. When she was falling, she had no sense of how many curves there were. She was too busy screaming. She shook her head. Screaming like a girl.

  “Look, we’re coming back downstairs,” Paige said. “Knock on the walls with the flashlight or something once we get down there.”

  CJ looked around the floor. It appeared to be an earthen floor, which seemed odd if this were indeed a laundry room. She went to the far wall, feeling along the surface. It felt like concrete. Cinder blocks, she assumed. It looked like there was writing on the wall. She stepped back away from it, getting a broader view. Stick figures. A man and a woman. Two kids. A dog or maybe a cat. She stared at the words below written in child-like scribble. Help me. She tilted her head. Chalk. It was written in chalk.

  She walked over to the tables, flashing her light around. There was an overturned chair. She moved a table away from the wall, searching along the floor. She stopped when she saw what appeared to be a small white tube.

  “Okay. We’re in the kitchen now,” Paige said.

  CJ knelt down, a frown on her face as she picked it up.

  “Jesus Christ,” she murmured. “It is chalk.”

  “What?”

  “Chalk.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “There’s…there’s a piece of chalk here. I’ve got writing on the wall. White chalk.”

  “White chalk?”

  “You know, they found chalk on Paul Canton’s belt.”

  “That’s right. I forgot. But let’s first find you, okay? Can you bang on the wall? The door?”

  “There’s nothing in here to use, but the walls appear to be cinder block. Any banging will have to be on the door.” She went back to it and made a fist, knocking hard against it. “You hear?”

  “No. Hang on. Billy’s going to get Ice.”

  “Good luck getting him back inside.”

  “He’ll do it for you,” Paige insisted. Then CJ heard a quiet laugh. “We’re doing this the hard way, you know.”

  “Meaning?”

  “It’d be simpler if you gave us your GPS coordinates, wouldn’t it.”

  CJ laughed too. “Our phones. Yeah, I never even thought of it. Okay, hang on,” she said as she put Paige on speaker. “Can you still hear me?”

  “Yes.”

  She fumbled with the GPS app, trying to remember how to use the damn thing. “My position,” she murmured, tapping on it. Her GPS coordinates popped up immediately. “Okay, it’s got a share mode. I’ll text it to you.”

  That was almost too easy, she thought, as Paige got it just a few seconds later.

  “Okay, we’re back at the entryway,” Paige said.

  “Is Ice with you?”

  “Yes, he’s here. Now we’re in the dining room. Can you knock again?”

  She did. “Hear me?”

  “Yes. Faintly.”

  CJ knocked again, using the end of her flashlight this time.

  “Okay, it sounds like it’s coming from behind the door.”

  “The door in the dining room? That opened into a huge closet, remember. I don’t think there was another door in there,” she said.

  “Hang on,” Paige said. “The door is locked.”

  “No way. I opened it. I went inside,” she said. “Remember, it slammed shut after I left the room.”

  “Well, it’s locked now.”

  CJ leaned her head against the wall, slowly shaking it. “Okay, so you’re going to break it down then, right?”

  “I think you’re missing the point,” Paige said.

  “The point is, I’m locked in here.”

  “Well, there’s that. But unless your ghost is locking doors, then the point is, someone’s been in the house.”

  “Oh. That point.” CJ swore she heard a noise behind her, and she spun around, her light moving back and forth, side to side. Nothing.

  “You okay?”

  “I thought I heard something,” she said. “Please get me out of here.”

  “Okay, tiger, hang on. Ice is going to kick the door in.”

  CJ clung to her flashlight, noticing the light was getting dimmer. Of course it is. And even though she was prepared for it, she still jumped when she heard Ice slam into the outer door. It took three tries before she heard it burst open.

  “We’re in,” Paige said. “But you were right. There’s not another door.”

  CJ made a fist and pounded on her door. “Hear?”

  “Yes. But it’s just a wall on our side,” Paige said.

  CJ leaned her head against the door, trying to think.

  “The floor.”

  The unexpected voice made her scream.

  “What’s wrong?” Paige asked frantically.

  “Nothing,” CJ said, her heart beating almost painfully in her chest. She took a deep breath. “Okay, look at the floor. Remember I told you about some marks. Like scraping.”

  “Yes. I see t
hem.”

  “Something sliding across the floor repeatedly, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “So feel along the wall. There’s got to be a trigger somewhere for this door. I’ll check my side too.”

  Tucking the phone against her shoulder and ear, CJ ran her hand along the wall next to the door, feeling for any abnormality. She jerked it back when she got it tangled in a spiderweb. She reached above the door and slid her hand along the top, still finding nothing. She then went to the left of the door, the beam of her light getting dimmer by the second.

  “You know, if you want to help, now would be a good time,” she murmured.

  “What?” Paige asked.

  “Sorry. I wasn’t talking to you,” she said.

  “You’re really starting to scare me, CJ.”

  “Yeah. Me, too, baby.”

  She squatted down on the floor, staring at the bottom cinder block. She could see where the ground had been scraped clean. She pushed the block and it moved.

  “I think I found something,” she said. Before she could turn the block, the door started opening.

  “So did we.”

  The door turned on a center pivot and three flashlights shined in.

  “Thank you, thank you, thank you,” she said with a grin as she pocketed her phone. She met Ice’s frightened gaze. “Hey, baldy, glad you could make it.”

  “Let’s just get the hell out of here,” he said.

  “Yeah. I need a little daylight myself,” she said, pushing past them.

  Feeling like she’d been freed from a prison dungeon, CJ hurried out, through the dining room and into the entryway, out the front door to the porch…and daylight. Even though it was dark and gloomy with a steady rain still falling, it took a moment for her eyes to adjust. She turned. The others were right behind her.

  She looked at Paige and smiled. “Thanks.”

  “You want to tell us why the hell you took a dive into the chute?”

  CJ shook her head. “I was pushed.”

  “We didn’t—”

  “It wasn’t by you.”

  “So, the…the ghost pushed you?” Billy asked.

  “Let’s don’t call her a ghost,” she said. “It’s not like Casper is there, dancing around. It’s a…a voice. Not even an image. I don’t know if the voice is in my head or what.” She frowned. “And don’t look at me like I’m crazy.”

  Billy held his hands up. “Hey, I’m just glad it’s not talking to me.”

  “I just wish we could stop talking about it,” Ice said. “Because it’s crazy talk.”

  CJ opened up her palm, almost forgetting she still held the chalk. “So there’s this,” she said. Paige took it from her, inspecting it.

  “I think we should request a forensics team,” Paige said. “Dust the room for prints, see if there’s any useable evidence.”

  “There’ll be something,” she said. Why else were they led to the room in the first place? Of course, acknowledging that some…some spirit or something was talking to her, telling her to open the doors, shoving her down the chute so that she’d find the piece of chalk was…well, it was damn near crazy. “Listen…there’s no reason Howley needs to know about…well, about the…”

  “The voices in your head?” Billy asked.

  “Yeah. That.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Paige and CJ stood back, letting Ice and Billy handle things with Deputy Brady. Howley had suggested they solicit the sheriff’s department to secure the house until the forensics team got there.

  “I’m going to read over the file we got from Brady,” CJ said. “See if something jumps out. I want to see if the old file from fourteen years ago and the new one mention anything about a locked door in the kitchen.” She headed over to her truck, but Paige stopped her with a light touch on her arm.

  CJ’s words had been robotic. It was so unlike her, it caused Paige concern. “Are you okay?”

  “No. Not really.” CJ paused, then tried to smile. “I don’t mind saying, as I was flying down that damn chute, I thought I was a goner,” she said as she rubbed the back of her head.

  “Sore?”

  “Yeah. Got a little bump.”

  “When you fell?”

  “Yeah. Banged my head on the floor. Thankfully, it was an earthen floor.”

  “So you think you were led to the shaft?”

  “I know it sounds crazy, Paige, but yeah, I was.”

  “Not as crazy as it is to hear you talking to…someone,” she said.

  “I’m just trying to keep my sense of humor and not lose my fucking mind,” CJ said. Then, quickly, “Sorry.”

  “It’s okay. I’ve heard the word before.” She grinned. “I’ve used the word.”

  CJ smiled too. “The beautiful and very proper Paige Riley has said fuck before?”

  Paige blushed. “Thank you. Now go.”

  “You want to kiss me, don’t you? Because I’m cute.”

  “Yes, I do. And yes, you are. Don’t get a big head,” she said as she went to join the guys.

  “Too late for that, baby.”

  Paige laughed at her parting shot. Didn’t take long for CJ to get her swagger back. Billy saw her walk over, and he stepped away from the others.

  “CJ okay?”

  “Yes. A little shaken, but she’s…CJ,” she said with a quick smile. “How are things here?”

  “Oh, hell, Ice is having to listen to stories about how the house is haunted,” Billy said with a quiet laugh. “Look how pale he looks.”

  Ice was standing by, wide-eyed, as one of the deputies was recounting a story from his high school years.

  “Man, I about peed my pants when we saw a person looking out the window up on the second floor. Susie—she’s my wife now—swore it was a young girl. Hell, I didn’t stick around long enough to find out,” the deputy said with a shaky laugh. “Gives me the creeps to be here now, you know, but hell, it ain’t dark yet.”

  Paige walked closer, thinking Ice needed rescuing. “Special Agent Riley,” she said, extending her hand to him.

  “Deputy Carter, ma’am,” he said politely.

  Ice stared at her. “We got no damn business being in this house,” he said. “Did you hear what he just said? A young girl in the window?”

  “Yeah,” Billy said. “She’s friends with CJ, apparently.”

  Paige couldn’t contain her laughter at the look on Ice’s face.

  “Glad you find it funny,” he said.

  Paige turned to the deputy. “Deputy Carter, where was the little boy found the other week?”

  “Oh, around front there. In one of the few places where the undergrowth hadn’t taken over. Could just barely see him from the road.”

  “So if whoever dumped him wanted him to not be found, they could have put him almost anywhere else?”

  “Yes, ma’am. Like I said, kids still come out here. Someone would have seen him eventually. But where he was placed, I’m thinking whoever did it wanted him to be found.”

  “Why is that, do you think?”

  He shrugged.

  “Any luck finding the car?” Billy asked.

  He frowned. “What car?”

  “The sports car,” Ice said. “Weren’t you working this case with Brady?”

  “Yeah, man, but we turned it over to y’all,” he said. “He hadn’t said anything to me about a sports car.”

  Paige watched as Billy and Ice exchanged glances. She knew neither of them liked Brady. And CJ had described him as a “prick.”

  “Carter, quit running your mouth and give me a hand over here,” Deputy Brady yelled from the porch.

  As soon as Carter was out of earshot, Ice turned to her. “I should have known the little bastard wouldn’t take us seriously.”

  “We didn’t really give him much,” Billy said.

  “He probably never even drove out to Thompson’s like he said he would.”

  “Perhaps we should confront him,” Paige suggested.

>   “Perhaps we should keep him out of the goddamn loop,” Ice said instead.

  “But Howley said we should—”

  “Damn, Billy, I know what Howley said,” Ice said.

  Paige held her hand up. “Okay, let’s wait and discuss this as a team,” she said. “How about you show us where the window was broken from the inside? We can have them dust for prints on the pane.”

  “Yeah, okay,” he said. “This way.”

  * * *

  CJ rounded the corner of the porch, surprised they weren’t there. She found the spot where the window was broken from the inside. She squatted down beside the glass, careful not to step on any of it. She listened, hearing a faint conversation and recognizing Ice’s voice. She followed the sound, finding him, Paige and Billy out among the trees in the back. She stepped off the porch, the light rain of earlier only misting now.

  “What’s up?” she asked.

  “Saw these ruins from the back porch,” Paige said. “Looks like an old building of some kind. A garage maybe,” she said.

  The woods had overtaken it, and vines clung to the few remaining boards that still stood. A pine tree grew in what was probably the center of the building.

  “Don’t think it was a garage, though,” CJ said as she stepped over a fallen tree. “Wow. Looks like lead pipes. They had plumbing out here. But didn’t they stop using lead, like, back in the fifties?”

  “So this would have been built back when the house was built,” Paige said. “So maybe it was a guest house.”

  “The dude who built it, Spencer, was he wealthy? I mean, back in the day, this thing was probably a mansion,” Ice said. “Maybe if he had servants, this is where they lived.”

  “Yes, that could be,” Paige said. “I would assume he was wealthy to have built a house this size.”

  “Does it matter?” Billy asked. “I mean, fourteen years ago, this couldn’t have been in much better shape than it is now,” he said.

  Paige smiled at him. “I think we were more curious about it than thinking it had anything to do with our case.”

  “Yeah, speaking of that,” CJ said. “Howley called. Forensics should be here in about forty-five minutes. And I think we could have secured this place without getting the sheriff’s department out here.”

  “Yeah, but Howley wants them involved,” Billy said.