She swallowed two Tylenol dry and turned back towards her bed when she heard the sound of a woman crying. She held her breath and tried to make out which direction the sound was coming from. The crying grew louder and Lou stared down at her feet. It was coming from below her. She knew no one lived above or below them. Could the sound be coming from elsewhere?
The crying faded to silence and Lou stood in place for several more minutes, listening as hard as she could to the more typical sounds of the building. Chalking up the crying to some sort of disturbance caused by her concussion, she got into bed and was about to lay back down when she heard the squeak of a faucet turning on and water gushing out into the sink. Worried that the old pipes in this dump were acting up, Lou got back out of bed and padded to the bathroom.
The bathroom faucet was turned off.
She checked their kitchenette and that faucet was not running either. The mystery faucet squeaked again, and the gushing water turned off. Maybe her concussion was worse than she thought and she vowed to call Dr. Jerris in the morning to get herself checked out.
The crying sounded again and crescendoed to the most anguished sobbing Lou had ever heard. It was no longer coming from the floor but from all around her. She spun to see whether there was anything behind her, but the room was empty. She ran back into her bed and pulled the covers above her head like she used to do when she had nightmares as a child. This was all in her head, she thought. The sobbing subsided.
A window creaked open, and the sound of wind came whooshing around her making her heart drop. Lou bit her lip as she tried not to scream and wake up Dads, and pulled the covers down to face whatever was climbing through their window.
Their window was still closed. “This is just a hallucination,” she whispered to the room and willed it to go silent again. Instead, the sobs turned into a howling scream that reverberated round the room.
Her scream mingled with it, and Dads sat up in bed, awake and disorientated. The scream subsided abruptly, and the room fell silent again. Lou scrambled over her comforter and sheets to get to him. The last thing she wanted was him getting out of bed.
“It’s OK, Dads. It was me. I had a nightmare,” she said, stubbing her toe on the chair as she crossed the room. “Damnit,” she cried as the pain shot up her leg. She grabbed at it and fell onto Dads’ bed. “It’s me, Dads. It’s Lou.”
She put one arm around his shoulder as the other massaged her toe.
“Is she OK? Did you hear her scream?” Dads asked.
“That was me. I had a nightmare,” Lou said.
“No, the other scream. I heard it,” he mumbled. “Who is she?” Lou stopped massaging her toe and stared back at him. What the hell was he talking about?
“Who have you seen? Dads?” He turned his head towards the window, his eyes blank again. Was Ambien causing hallucinations? Wait. The Ambien. She bit her lip. How did he wake up through the dosage she gave him earlier?
“Will you lay back down, Dads? We should both get back to sleep,” she said and he did as she requested. She tucked him in, humming to herself to keep both of them calm.
Lou waited until Dads’ first snore before climbing back into her own bed. She lay on her back, covers pulled up all the way to her chin. How had Dads woken up? The dosage was so high she didn’t think it safe to up it anymore. Could he have been sleepwalking? Really asleep but eyes open? Or was he not taking the medication properly? She couldn’t just stick fingers into his mouth to check. He’d bite. She was sure of it. Whatever thoughts of sleep she had were long gone. She stared up at the ceiling, chewing on her bottom lip, fear of screams and running water replaced by something darker and more terrifying.
Sara Caine’s parents barreled down a dark road in the silver Jaguar with the rich, red, leather seats. She listened from the backseat as her father pumped hard on the brakes.
“Shit,” he said, fear permeating his voice.
“What’s wrong, James?” Her mother whipped her body towards him and grabbed his arm.
“The brakes, they’re gone,” he shouted back and pulled hard on the hand brake. She saw his knuckles turn whiter with effort, and she noted down the observation so she wouldn’t forget it. She didn’t remember that detail from the other times. Nothingness seeped all around the edges of the dream, and she knew the end was coming. She memorized the other new details like her mother’s pearl earrings, her father’s watch and the briefcase sandwiched between them. The scene went black before the sound of twisting metal, the crackle of fire, and the explosion took over all her senses. Her mother screamed in terror.
Sara Caine sat up in bed screaming, the nightly dream never loosening its grip on her. Johan warned her about accessing the last moments of her parents’ lives, but she forged on, ignoring his advice. She needed to know who killed them and knew the clues were in the dream. Why else would she have it every night since they died nine years ago?
She grabbed the small notebook, and pen she kept on her bedside table and wrote down the new details: pearl earrings, the watch and the briefcase. A drop of sweat plunked down on top of the word briefcase and caught the ink in its salty water. Sara smudged it into a black blob and wrote briefcase underneath and placed the notebook back onto her nightstand. She wiped the sweat off her face with the sleeve of her T-shirt and lay back down.
The orange light from the outdoor sodium lamps gave her small studio apartment an otherworldly glow. Of all the ghosts she interacted with in the nine years since she discovered her gift, the only ghosts she wanted to speak with never surfaced. She watched the headlights from the cars outside create patterns on her ceiling and debated whether to get up. The dream visited her only once a night and she never fell back asleep after it. She preferred it coming towards dawn since she was an early bird anyway and didn’t mind getting her day started so early.
She groaned when she saw it was only 2:30 am and hoped that maybe tonight the sandman would come and knock her out.
Sara got out of bed when the sky took on the golden hues of a Los Angeles dawn. She ground her single source coffee beans and scooped two heaped spoonfuls into her French press while the water boiled. Her father loved coffee and when she kicked her alcohol habit, instead of switching to cigarettes like everyone else she knew, she chose caffeine as her new go to. She poured the boiling water in and watched as the grounds swirled and stained the water. Each time she made a cup, she thought of him and smiled. He’d been particular with his coffee, and Sara took up his routine by researching and finding single source beans from an outfit called Intellegentsia, switching to drinking it black and having at least five cups a day.
She sat at her small kitchen table and gazed at the sky smudging brighter and brighter. The coffee awakened her senses and she let the quiet of the morning wash away the stress and sadness of her night. Most of Los Angeles didn’t wake up before 9 am since most people here didn’t work typical 9-5 jobs. Whenever Sara was out working a case, she marveled at the amount of people out and about during the day. How they all lived in such a wealthy city as Los Angeles she’d never understand. She took another sip of coffee and checked in on her mental walls. Even with such a rough night, she’d learned her lessons well enough for them to be strong. They were all up, and she felt protected. Almost.
Sara swigged down the last of her coffee and washed her favorite coffee cup, red with a white snowman on two sides, formerly, her Dad’s prized possession.
She crossed her small living room and grasped the doorknob. She paused and closed her eyes in preparation to clear her mind and try to see the evidence from a new angle. She stepped across the threshold and flicked on the lights, her eyes focusing and unfocusing. She let them wander through the familiar landscape of files. Evidence of the fatal car wreck, and subsequent investigation into her parent’s death, filled every inch of wall. Her eyes stopped on the composite drawing of the suspect or witness, the police were never sure which.
Did he make those phone calls that terrified her father so much?
As a prosecuting attorney, her father was used to threats but these affected him differently. Even at thirteen years old, she knew fear when she witnessed it. It was the first and last time she saw that on her father’s face. He was dead five weeks later. Sara went through her mental list of questions.
Where were her dad’s files from his last case?
What were her parents arguing about that night?
Who made the strange skid marks on the road? Were they from another car?
Who was the man running from the scene?
The questions haunted her the same way the dream did and after so many years, she wasn’t any closer to the answers. She tracked down every possible lead but that only uncovered more questions. Her eyes flew over the images of the twisted metal and the few visible blood droplets on the pavement. If she could just get admitted to the police academy, she’d have access to more advanced investigative classes. As the sole survivor, the LAPD granted her several meetings to view the investigative files but she figured she was missing something because of her lack of schooling.
Her phone rang, and she ran to get it. It had to be Johan. He was the only one who called this early in the morning.
“Hello?” she said, slightly out of breath.
“You awake?” Johan asked.
“Been up for hours.”
“Can I come up? I think I’ve made a breakthrough,” Johan said and Sara knew the excitement in his voice had to be about Luther, the demon he’d been hunting since she’d met him.
“Of course,” she said and left her evidence room, making sure the door was firmly closed. He must have been standing right outside her door because the knocking started immediately,
“That was fast,” she said as she opened the door to Johan Luken, looking as though he hadn’t slept in weeks. His ever present six o’clock shadow had grown into a short beard, and his hair was sticking every which way as if he had slept in his car. He was still handsome enough to make her heart leap, however.
He jumped inside, energy crackling all around him. “Asmodeus is back. I saw his symbol burned into the side of a building in Koreatown. I knew I was feeling him close by. He’s come back to Los Angeles after all this time,” he said, his blue eyes alive with what Sara recognized as the fever. She’d looked like that on more than one occasion when she went down a new rabbit hole, chasing some previously unknown clue.
“Are you sure? When was the last time you slept? Do you want something to eat?” she asked as she led him to the couch. His clothes hung loosely on his usually built frame, and she’d never seen him in this shape before. “How can I help?”
The moment he hit the couch, his eyes closed and he began to snore. Sara went and poured herself another cup of coffee and got herself comfortable across from him on her easy chair. Even if she had to wait all morning, she’d get the full story out of him. He’d only mentioned Asmodeus, or Luther as he sometimes referred to him, twice to her before and both times he was at the point of exhaustion. This time he looked worse.
Lou Fairbanks glared at the sign flashing “The All-Star Theatre Cafe & Speakeasy” above her head as she shuffled into the cafeteria, eyes glazed and burning. All the unnecessary throwbacks to old Hollywood reminded her of Barney Leonard and made her scowl in irritation. His stupid stories were making her doubt her sanity and think maybe the crying was a ghost. There had to be another explanation. Whoever was crying last night had to be quite a distance away from their apartment as her floor was partially occupied. That made it even worse. It was a disgrace to hear someone’s private moments like that.
When she woke up at 5 am, her head still hurt but she figured she was out of the woods as far as the concussion was concerned. She’d had worse. To her surprise, Dads had been uncharacteristically subdued this morning and it was Thursday, which meant no morning rounds. She’d gotten lucky.
She went over to the buffet and loaded her plate with eggs and bacon. She’d need protein to make it through her day though the smell of the breakfast churned her stomach. Not really wanting to interact with anyone, she sat at an empty table nearest the door and focused on her food. She steeled herself and speared a piece of dry, scrambled egg on her fork and shoved it in her mouth. As she chewed, she overheard the conversation happening right behind her.
“There were footsteps...” She heard Doreen say but couldn’t hear the whispered response.
“I know I heard...” Barney’s voice came to her in snatches. She felt the anger from yesterday rise up, and she had to spit out the bacon she was chewing to prevent herself from choking on it. He was at it again, she thought. Disturbing everyone with his crazy stories of ghosts. She leaned back to better hear him.
“Sobbing...water running...” Barney said a bit more loudly. The vivid memory of the sobbing made her swivel in her seat in surprise.
Doreen, Barney, and Mary Ann were gathered at the table behind her, all of them sleep deprived with dark circles under their eyes. Mary Ann shuddered at whatever Barney whispered to her.
“Did you hear the sobbing too?” Lou asked and scraped her chair closer to their table. “Do any of you know who it was? I was going to complain to Diane right after breakfast. The privacy issues in this place are too numerous to count and the fact that we all heard such a private moment because of the pipes...” She shook her head in disbelief. “On top of the fact that someone in this facility is in a lot of pain and needs to be helped.” They all stopped talking, and three pairs of eyes found hers.
“Why are you so sure that it was one of the residents?” Barney asked as Mary Ann and Doreen exchanged knowing glances.
“Well who else could it have been? I heard her sobbing, and the pipes are so faulty that I could even hear when she turned on the water,” Lou explained, worried that one of her patients could be in so much pain.
“So it was a woman?” Barney asked.
“Absolutely,” Lou said. “My floor is pretty sparse so I’m thinking it could be one of the residents on the ninth or the eleventh floor. The sound was so loud that I can’t imagine it being further way. I was racking my brain about whom it could be, but every one of them seemed fine. Do any of you have any ideas?” she asked, her worry over the poor woman making her drop her guard. Barney turned and nodded to Mary Ann in an ‘I told you so’ sort of way.
“It’s Irene—it has to be Irene,” Barney said to the table.
“Irene? Who’s Irene? I don’t know of a resident here by that name?” Lou said, confusion on her face.
“Could it be Barbara?” Doreen whimpered. Barney shot her a look.
“Barbara supposedly died of natural causes. Ghosts don’t die of natural causes, do they?” Doreen said.
Lou glared at him. “Who said anything about ghosts? I heard the poor woman. So did Dads. She was real,” she said.
Barney ignored Lou’s outburst and shot Doreen a nasty look. “We don’t know whether she died of natural causes, do we?” he said and stabbed at his cold eggs. Mary Ann squeezed his shoulder in support as Lou scowled, her anger building.
“Did you hear what I said? There are no ghosts,” she reiterated.
“What makes you the expert, Nurse Lou?” Mary Ann piped up, massaging Barney’s shoulder. He shrugged her off, and Lou felt his full attention on her.
“Did you know that Irene Lentz stayed right above you on the eleventh floor? She checked into Room 1129, went to the bathroom, opened up the window, and jumped to her death.”
“What does that have anything to do with a sobbing resident in the middle of the night?” Lou demanded. Her hope to keep her stress level at a minimum was shot to hell and, truth be told, maybe a fight was what she needed.
“Because that is probably who you heard last night,” Barney shot back.
“Why did she kill herself?” Doreen asked, and Lou gave the old lady props for stepping into the middle of her and Barney. Barney’s look had to mirror hers, Lou thought. It was one of pure hate.
“She loved Gary Cooper. They had an affai
r and when he died, she came here to kill herself,” Barney explained, never taking his eyes off her. “It has to be her. Suicide is a violent act and that terrible pain imprisoned her here,” Barney finished and Lou saw the challenge in his eyes.
“I can’t believe I’m hearing this and that you two—“ She pointed at Mary Ann and Doreen. “—are buying into this nonsense?”
“You don’t have a better explanation though, do you?” Doreen said, catching her off guard. Doreen had flights of fancy here and there, but Lou never believed she was as gullible as the others.
“So all three of you believe that I heard a ghost last night?” she said, the cafeteria lights pulsing around her. The headache she’d had all morning was in danger of turning into a migraine. Why was she even arguing with her patients, she thought.
All the fight evaporated from her, leaving her spent and shaky. “There must... has to be another explanation,” was all Lou said. Mary Ann fell back into her chair in exasperation, crossing her arms against her chest.
“Why don’t you prove us wrong?” Mary Ann said.
“How do you propose I do that?” Lou asked, wishing she had never turned around.
“Talk to all the residents on the ninth and eleventh floors. I bet you that you won’t find anyone who was even awake last night,” Mary Ann said.
“No one will admit they were sobbing all night long,” Lou said.
“Aren’t you a nurse? Shouldn’t you be able to see signs of depression and crying? Puffy, red rimmed eyes, swollen face...” Barney said.
“Fine. I’ll do exactly that and prove to all of you that ghosts don’t exist,” Lou said, taking up their challenge.
“You know we’re right, Lou. But go ahead and get your proof. You’ll be back asking us about ghosts in no time,” Barney said and the women at the table nodded in agreement.
The Elk (A Caine & Murphy Paranormal Thriller Series Book 1) Page 5