Contents
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Author's Note
• Dedication
• Quote
1 • Catalyst
2 • Sorrow
3 • Zamość, Poland
4 • The Bockerman
5 • Midnight Wanderings
6 • Retellings
7 • Sleeplessness
8 • Ghost Hunting
9 • Cattle Car, Poland
10 • Night Terrors
11 • Another Death
12 • Sèance
13 • Kindererziehungslager
14 • Investigations
15 • The Lebensborn Heimschulen
16 • Interrogation
17 • Auschwitz Concentration Camp
18 • The Searchers
19 • Los Angeles, California USA
20 • Theories
21 • Secrets
22 • Rune
23 • San Francisco, California USA
24 • Trust
25 • The Jerry Killer
26 • The Nightmare
27 • Dead Ends
28 • Mothers
29 • The Past
30 • The Bungalow
• Dear Reader
• About the Author
The Elk
by Dominika Waclawiak
Copyright © 2015 Dominika Waclawiak
www.dominikawaclawiak.com
All rights reserved. Except as permitted under U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the author.
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, businesses, events or locales is purely coincidental.
I greatly appreciate you taking the time to read my work. Please consider leaving a review wherever you bought the book, or telling your friends about it, to help me spread the word.
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For Dave
without you, none of this would be possible
The tragedy of old age is not that one is old, but that one is young.
-Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray
Ghosts walked the halls at this time of night, when every living thing slept, and they could roam undisturbed. It was 3 a.m., the devil’s hour. Jesus Christ died on the cross at 3 p.m. and the devil mocked the Son of God by choosing 3 a.m. as his favored hour. I thought the devil’s choice to be an inspired one and adopted this hour for myself. I prowled around the silent halls of the former Bockerman Hotel, and remembered Rudolf Valentino sneaking into starlet’s rooms every night he stayed there, or Greta Garbo sauntering down the hallway enticing Marlene Dietrich. None of them would step foot in the place now. The assisted living facility it had become had none of the glamour of its previous incarnation, but at night I could imagine it in its heyday.
The eighth floor hallway, dingy in the bright light of day, was illuminated by a soft amber light from Art Deco lamps along its length, and held a distinguished beauty with rich colors of red and orange lined with gold. Doors stood sentry on either side of the hallway, each beckoning me to enter. I ignored them all as I’d already made my choice.
Creaks and whispers filtered through the ancient vents as I walked the length of the hall towards Room 837. A moth banged against the nearest wall sconce, desperate for its light. I caught it in the palm of my hand and crushed it. I hated the damn, filthy creatures. I wiped the guts on my shirt as I reached the door. Her door.
I unlocked it with the key I’d pilfered from her last week. The lock disengaged with a low click. Such a trusting woman, our Barbara. My heart sped up as I stepped inside with one swift movement and closed the door behind me. Howard Carter must have felt the same way I did, at this very moment, when he penetrated Tutankhamun’s tomb. The treasure lay right before me.
I expelled my breath with a low wheeze and swore softly. I hadn’t accounted for my treasure hating any sort of ambient light. I stepped forward, impatient, and half-blind, towards the window. The creak of the old floorboards screamed in my oversensitive ears as Barbara moaned and gave a small snore. I held my breath and waited. The silence blanketed the room quickly and I tiptoed to the window, pulling the curtains back to let in enough light for me to go about my business. Her white blond hair shined like a beacon flashing through a thick, dense, black fog and beckoned me closer.
I leaned over, my face inches away from hers, and watched as a nightmare flickered across her closed eyelids. The sheets twisted around her frail body as her gnarled arm clutched the edge of her blanket. She rolled to her right, emitting a soft moan. She made it so easy.
I pinned her arm against the mattress and forced it straight. I pulled the syringe out of my pocket and found a good, proper vein and slid it into her arm. My finger caressed the plunger. I licked my lips and savored the moment.
One. Two. Three.
Goodbye Barbara. I pushed the plunger down and filled her vein with a syringe full of air.
A rush of adrenaline made my extremities tingle as I watched the effects of the air bubble shake her body. Pleasure rolled through me as she startled awake with a gasp, eyes wide. Her body arched as the first convulsion shook her. And then another. And another.
She clutched at her chest and moaned before her eyes closed, and her face softened. My heart thumped in my chest. The final moments of a life were a wonder to behold.
I bent over and gave her a kiss. Her cheek felt warm on my lips. I brushed a few strands of grey hair off her forehead, took out my pen, and made my mark. Maybe someone would find it this time.
I lifted the blanket, placed her arms on either side of her body and pulled down the flowered nightgown that had ridden up her thighs during the convulsions. I appraised my work and smiled. The killing wasn’t like before, but it worked well enough. Time changed everything.
A knock sounded on the wall above the headboard, and I went rigid. The knocking moved over to the wall behind me and I twisted to catch whatever it was. A wall of black greeted me as I peered into the darkness and found it empty. Blackness. Nothing but blackness.
The floorboards creaked under my feet as I rushed back towards the door. Loud knocking erupted all around me. I spun but only
saw dead Barbara in her empty room.
“Barbara?” I whispered.
Fear. I remembered that feeling and didn’t much care for it. I needed to move and now. My feet felt encased in concrete as I shuffled backwards, my back hitting the door.
“Why? Why?” The whispers swirled around me. “Why? Why?”
My hands fumbled for the knob. Why was the room so damn cold? I’d read something about ghosts and cold rooms. Had I just created a ghost? I’d heard Barbara dabbled in what she called the black arts, but I didn’t believe in any of that nonsense. People were plenty evil enough without having to go about creating ghosts and demons to explain away sins. I was the perfect example of that.
“Now, you get to live forever, Babs,” I whispered as I pulled the door open.
“Why? WHY?” A gust of freezing wind pushed me out into the hallway, and the door slammed shut behind me, the impact rattling the walls. I hurried down the hall before anyone could see me, adrenaline pushing me forward.
Sara Caine pulled her cap down further down to shield her green eyes from the harsh midday sun glaring off the concrete of 5th and Main Street, home of numerous crack dealers, and famous for nickel and dime bags strewed like confetti on the sidewalks. The march towards respectability and development failed at this particular corner of Los Angeles, with dealers haunting each of the four corners and skid row sitting two blocks away.
Even in its heyday in the 40s, Main Street resisted a good reputation and now, as developers bought up many of the grand old buildings and priced out the artists, the place was filled with a strange mix of wealthy, young professionals and the destitute.
Sara was headed toward the first of these new developments, the Old Bank District. In the 1980s, no one in their right mind ventured downtown past nightfall. Many people died on this street over the years and many of their ghosts still hung about. Sara fixed her gaze straight ahead and pretended she didn’t see them. The moment the ghosts ascertained what she was, they’d be all over her.
Sara slowed her pace as she reached the San Fernando Building on the corner of Main and 4th Street. Her client lived on the top floor.
She took a deep breath and prepared herself for the encounter. Ghosts extracted much of her personal energy to present themselves when she called for them, and it felt like getting mononucleosis times a thousand. She meditated to build walls of protection around herself, but dropping them was part of her job.
The lobby of the San Fernando was eerily silent and was, at first glance, part of a deserted building, the only clue of occupation was the stack of LA Weekly’s next to the double bronze doors. She dialed the client’s apartment number into the call box, and the buzzer sounded within moments. Sara passed through the interior lobby and called the elevator down, spreading her attention ahead for any signs of activity. Finding nothing extraordinary, she stepped into the elevator and pressed the client’s floor. The elevator shook once and began its slow ascent. Maybe she should have taken the stairs, she thought, and grabbed the handrail. The thing didn’t feel as if it’d been repaired in years.
“I’m so glad you came on such short notice,” Mr. Delancy said as he opened the door to her knocking. He was a large man well into middle age with a round belly, and dandruff sprinkled onto his shoulders. She followed him inside the loft, a strong smell of whiskey wafting after him. He cleared his throat.
“So, uh, how does this work? I’ve never done this sort of thing before.”
“It’s pretty simple. Nice view, by the way,” Sara said as she gazed west to the Continental building, an architectural gem and, formerly, the tallest building in Los Angeles. Usually, her cases consisted of bad plumbing, rodents, and ever shifting foundations, but most of her cases at the Continental ended as being real hauntings and she had a fondness for the place.
“Do you know the top floors of this building were a gambling and gin joint,” Sara asked him as she touched the exposed brick wall to her left. In some cases, her touch alone called up the spirits of the dwelling and played their story in her head as if she watched a movie. It didn’t happen often but once in a while she got lucky. She preferred this touch technique over some of the others since buildings and objects didn’t sap her energy as people did.
“Really?” he asked with a look of boredom.
“Run by the LAPD and the mob,” Sara added and took her hands off the brick. He perked up at that.
“That’s so cool. Could that be my problem?” He smiled wide. “So did anyone die in here? Can you feel anything or how does it work? Oh and my girlfriend wanted to know, how do you become a paranormal investigator anyway?”
Sara took a deep breath and gave herself a moment before she spoke. She’d been asked this question multiple times, and she still hadn’t come up with a smooth enough answer to satisfy clients. Today, she wasn’t in the mood to be clever and decided to just tell the truth,.
“Your building is a historical one, so yes that could definitely be the problem. I can’t entirely explain to you how it works. I see ghosts or apparitions in front of me, and sometimes I feel their thoughts in my mind. On some rare occasions, I can touch a wall or an object and the story that the ghost wants to tell comes flooding in.” She stopped and checked her client’s expression. He was still with her and looked more interested than he had the entire visit. She continued, “My parents died in the same car crash I was in when I was in high school, and when I woke up, I just had this new ability.”
“In high school?” he said, looking aghast. “That sounds horrible. I mean, high school is painful just being high school. I can’t imagine what that must have been like to lose your parents and get this new ability.”
“Thank you for saying that. I really appreciate it. And yes, I barely made it out of high school. A therapist and a priest saved me from myself and well, as I grew older, I figured out a way to help people with it. I try my best.” She shrugged. “As far as how today goes, I’ll do a preliminary analysis of paranormal phenomena in your residence. If you do have a paranormal problem then I’ll call in my cleaner, and we’ll get rid of whatever is plaguing you.”
“So you can really see ghosts?” he asked, shaking his head in disbelief. “If we hadn’t seen that couple, I wouldn’t have believed in any of this. I still can’t believe what I saw with my own eyes.”
And there it was. Even when she spoke the truth, the first impulse of any client was to state their disbelief. It was almost as protection for them not to sound mentally disturbed or something. To be fair, she couldn’t wait to transition to a more mainstream profession.
As a private investigator, she wouldn’t need to expose her odd abilities daily. Odd abilities. Johan, her cleaner, coined that term when she kept calling herself a freak. Johan strongly disapproved of that description, but most people looked at her differently when they saw her abilities in action. Even with all the ghost hunting shows on TV making the supernatural world no longer so taboo, the general population thought she was a charlatan and even worse, a grifter. The new wave of paranormal shows did make talking to her clients easier.
“What’s the most haunted building in Los Angeles? Is it my building?” He stepped in too close to her and she moved back to get away from him.
“No. No, it isn’t.” Was this just another creep? Her hand traveled down to the place in her bag where she kept her pepper spray. One more move buddy, she thought. “Supposedly it’s the Bockerman Hotel. Or rather former. It’s an assisted living facility now called Sunshine.”
“Oh yea,” he said, his eyes already drifting. “Have you been?”
“No. They won’t, uh, let paranormal investigators in.” Sara stumbled over the words.
“I see. So how does this work again?” He scratched the back of his head, and Sara watched the white flakes accumulate on his collar. Sara shook her head in wonder and deflated. She thought she’d made a connection like half a second ago, and now the guy was pretending it didn’t happen. He had to be drunk, she thought.
&
nbsp; “Like I said before, I open my mind...” She trailed off as his eyes glazed over. “I see them. Ghosts, I mean. I see dead people.” She imitated that small kid from that movie, The Sixth Sense. Mr. Delancy cracked a smile and focused back on her. “So tell me about this couple,” Sara said.
Mr. Delancy rubbed his face with his hands and sat down on a green, leather couch, the stuffing coming out in two different places.
“My girlfriend and I were eating dinner one night last week, and we heard these voices that sounded as if they were in the room with us. They sounded as if they were coming closer and closer to us, and we freaked. Then, a couple appeared right in front of us, just like that.” He snapped his fingers. “The man, wearing a suit and fedora, pushed the woman, wearing a blue dress, out the window.” His hands gestured towards the window. “She screamed, and they both disappeared.”
Sara closed her eyes and opened up her mind. She slowed her breathing and brought one of her walls down. Jazz music filtered in from somewhere distant followed by the clink of glasses, laughter and voices. She smelled the cigarette smoke but felt no specific presence.
“Have you experienced any other phenomena since living here? Noises, cold drafts, nightmares?” she asked. She built her walls back up, and the music and sounds faded away behind it.
She opened her eyes and looked around the loft one last time.
“No, I haven’t experienced anything like that,” Mr. Delancy said. “But I’m afraid to sleep in here which is why I called you.”
“No need to fear anything. You experienced an echo and not a presence. Since this building has such a unique history, both the happy and the dark emotions of its former inhabitants exist as echoes in the space, in the very walls. Human emotion has energy, like an electric current, and these walls are like sponges.” She stopped and waited for this to sink in. Mr. Delancy just stared back.
The Elk (A Caine & Murphy Paranormal Thriller Series Book 1) Page 1