by Tim McGregor
Coasting through a stop sign, she pedalled the bike for downtown and cursed aloud. “Damn it, Gantry. Where are you?”
Her phone chirped in her pocket. Rolling to a stop, she pulled it out to find a text message.
Green door, end of Chatham street
Gantry
Billie blinked at the message. She hadn’t given him her phone number but she supposed he could have found it easily enough. At least she could reach him now. She texted him back.
What address?
The text bounced back, undeliverable. Jesus, she griped. Even the dude’s messages were spooky. She pushed off the curb and headed west toward the other end of town.
Chatham Street was little more than an access road that serviced the back ends of a factory and warehouse spaces. Tumbleweed territory with few street lights and almost no traffic this time of night. A squat raccoon waddled across the road and scurried on as she approached.
Cruising slowly down the strip, Billie saw grey doors and beige doors but no green. Was Gantry pulling her leg? Steering around an oily puddle, she spotted a figure up ahead. Standing alone outside a looming warehouse, smoking a cigarette. She picked up the pace but the closer she came, she could see the heavy form of the lone smoker. Too big and bulky to be Gantry.
The heavy man looked up when he heard her tires on the pavement. Lit under a single bulb behind him was a green painted door. Music thrummed from the windows above.
Locking her bike to the chain link fence, she marched for the entrance but the big man stopped her. “Private party,” he said.
“I need to find someone inside.”
“Sorry.”
Doormen, she murmured. “I’m not crashing the party. I just need to find the guy. He texted me to come here.”
“Izzat right?” Disdain dripped from every syllable. “Who?”
“John Gantry,” she said.
“That asshole is in here? Shit.” The big man dialled his phone and marched inside. The door swung slowly back into place and she darted forward, slipping inside before it clicked shut.
A club of some kind. Dark and moody, humid from all the people elbowing into one another. Music thumped the air but she couldn’t see a stage nor a DJ. The patrons were an odd mix. No hipsters or nerdsters, no one close to her own age. Older and well dressed with a baffling mix of tongues. Her ears picked out French and Spanish, a little German. Lots of Italian and what she thought was Russian. Men with gold chains and too much product in their hair. The women with bursting cleavage and gaudy jewelry. Eurotrash.
Most of the patrons towered over her. How was she going to find Gantry among all these sleazesters? She checked her phone but there were no new messages. A hand brushed her behind and she turned sharply but all she saw were shoulders and big hair.
Someone tapped her shoulder.
Spinning about, she expected to see Gantry but instead she was beset by a woman with dark hair and decolletage that plunged all the way to her navel. The woman leaned in, speaking with a hot whiskey breath. “Are you Gantry’s little friend?”
“Not by a long shot.”
The woman curled her finger in a come-hither motion. When Billie hesitated, the woman took her hand and slid through the crowd toward the back of the vast space. Billie collided into shoulders and elbows until the bodies cleared and the woman spun her around like they were dance partners. She mocked a kiss and waved Billie on before melting back into the crush of bodies.
The music wasn’t so blaring here in wallflower territory and above the din she heard Gantry’s laugh.
He sat hunkered over a table lit by a tall candle. Four other men seated around him, grim-faced and silent. Gantry was the only one laughing. She drifted closer and clocked the mess on the table. Cards and a gun and rounds of bullets spilt about. Something wet was speckled over the loose cards and as she closed in, she saw that it was blood. The cards looked all wrong too and she realized they were tarot, rather than the standard playing deck.
Gantry flung a card onto the table and guffawed like an ape. The grim man to his left spoke harshly, responding in a language Billie couldn’t place.
Gantry spit onto the floor and bellowed at the man. “That’s because you’re a lying sack of shite, mate.” The man grumbled again, his eyes burning hatred but Gantry laughed and turned to the equally grim fellow on his other side. “Do you believe this nonsense? What do you expect from a fucking thief?”
All four of the other men looked ready to kill. Gantry flapped his hand, flicking more blood on the table and took up his drink. “Piss off. Come back when have a real offer, yeah?”
The men exchanged glances. The one with the knife snapped it closed and they all stood and walked away.
Billie gave the men a wide berth and came around to the table. “Gantry?”
“Hello Billie.” He grinned up at her, his eyes sparkling. “Hand me that cloth, would you?”
She shook a cloth napkin out from under the mess of cards and held it out to him. A bullet rolled to the floor. “Are you bleeding?”
“Just a scratch.” His left hand was bleeding but it was difficult to see how bad the cut was. He wrapped the cloth over it. “What do you want?
“Every time I see you, you’re bleeding. What happened?”
“Tossers. Trying to swindle a swindler. Ha!” He fumbled a cigarette from a pack on the table and lit it. His good hand was shaky.
Billie took a seat, perching lightly on it. “How did you text me?
“With a phone. Pour us some of that, yeah?”
There was a bottle on the table with no label or maker’s mark. Dark liquid inside. “I think you’ve had enough.”
“Don’t be a fucking pilgrim.” He snatched up the bottle and splashed some into two glasses, spilling the booze over the table as he did. He handed one to her. “Cheers.”
She sniffed it. Whiskey. She took a sip, set it aside and took out her phone. “What’s your number?”
“Put that away. I despise phone calls.”
“How do I get in touch with you?”
“You don’t. What do you want, Billie?”
She swirled the whiskey in the glass. “Have you ever known a ghost to haunt a specific person? Instead of a place or whatever, it goes after one person?”
“Sure. They’re like leeches sometimes.”
“Leeches?”
“Feeding off somebody. One person in particular.” Gantry winced, tightening the cloth on his hand. “You know how ghosts work, yeah?”
Billie felt reluctant to answer, like it was a trick question. “No. Why would I?”
“Someone’s been skipping their homework,” he tisked. “You need to catch up, sweetheart.”
“I don’t want this, remember?”
He leaned forward, the smoke billowing around him. “They dead feed off the living. Well, most do. As far as I can figure out anyway. The feed off the energy of people. Emotions, mostly. The stronger the emotions or the drama, the more they feed. They’re cold, you see. And you and me, we’re like little campfires for them to warm their hands over.”
He smoothed down his tie but it didn’t help. “Take a look out there. How many dead people do you see?”
She looked at the crowd around them. The Eurotrash set, drinking and sweating and yelling over the music. “I don’t see any.”
“Open your eyes.”
She looked again and the dead emerged like magic. Crushed in with the crowd, skulking through the press of flesh. None of them took notice of her, their focus on the people around them. “There’s lots.”
“They’re drawn to people,” Gantry said. “Drawn to their emotions. Happy, sad, angry or horny. They suck all that stuff up. They’re drawn to wherever people are. It’s rare you find one rattling around some deserted house. That’s why you found refuge in the park that night. There were no people there, so there were no dead arseholes either.”
She had intuited as much herself. That’s why she met Mockler there, instead of a crow
ded coffee house like he suggested. “But they latch onto specific people too?”
“Some of them, yeah. The nasty ones.”
“Why?”
He shrugged. “Some people swim in drama all the time. They’re work in situations where emotions run hot. Certain jobs attract that. Cops or firemen or paramedics. They’re around trauma all the time. Sometimes they bring the dead home with them.”
Cop. Billie flinched at the word. A homicide detective would be around death all the time. Unnatural death. And the grief of the families, the anger or fear of the suspects. It must happen all the time.
“Occupational hazard, I suppose,” Gantry went on. “That’s why I’ve avoided getting a proper job myself.”
“Is it harmful?” she sputtered. “If the dead latch on to one person?”
“Very. The more one of them hangs around, the more it feeds. Makes people sick. Or depressed. Wears ‘em down. They start ailing or they get cancer.” Gantry dropped his cigarette to the floor and crushed it under his shoe. “Sometimes it becomes a bit of a nasty cycle. The more it feeds on the poor bastard in question, the stronger it grows. The more it can manipulate the physical world. The more it can torment the person, ratchet up the drama so it can feed more.”
She thought of Mockler standing on his porch. The defeated look he carried, like pressure bearing down on him. His reluctance to go home when she suggested it. That it wasn’t a place to find refuge. “How,” she said, “do you get rid of them?”
He shrugged. “Damned if I know. Some will leave if you bark at them. Others though, especially the stronger ones, the well-fed ones? They might need a stronger push.”
“Like what? The salt thing?”
“See, this is where your homework comes in. You have to figure that part out. There’s no one-size-fits-all. You have to find what works for you.” Gantry lit up again, his features lost in the fog of smoke. “So. Who’s the poor son of a bitch who’s being haunted?”
Billie chewed her lip, reluctant to drop a name. “Just someone I know.”
“You flinched when I said ‘copper’. Who is it, Billie?”
“Mockler,” she said with a here-goes-nothing sigh. “Something’s latched onto him. A nasty one. I watched it reach into him and make him hurt.”
“You’re having me on.”
“It followed him home. I think it’s slowly killing him. I need to know how to get rid of it.”
The Englishman’s laugh was as cruel as acid. “You gotta be fucking kidding me? That stupid bastard. Serves him right.”
“Don’t be cruel, Gantry. He needs help. I need help.”
“Do you think I’m gonna help that prick? I hope the spook fucking eats him alive.” He waved his cigarette at her. “Stay away from him, Billie. Toodleyhoo.”
“You’re being petty,” she said.
“Petty’s my middle name, luv. Now shove off. I’m working.”
A scream rose up from the crowd behind her, harsh and guttural. She turned to see a man charging through the tangle of bodies, brandishing something over his head. It was a sword, the blade long and curved. Shrieking the whole way, the man charged in running and swung the weapon down hard on Gantry.
The chair was empty, Gantry had vanished. The heavy sword cleaved through the leather and wooden frame underneath. White stuffing blew through the air and the crazed man struggled to pull the sword free.
Billie dove into the crowd and elbowed her way quickly back to the entrance and burst out the green door.
23
THIS IS HOW crazy people live. The shut-ins and the twitchy paranoids who believe the government is tracking their every move. This is how it starts.
Billie looked over the mess piling over the counter, the stack of dishes in the sink. Despite having every window open, the air inside the apartment was as flat as day-old soda and was beginning to smell. She hadn’t left the house in almost two days. Too many ghosts out there. The cupboards were bare now, as was the refrigerator. Last night, she had ordered a pizza but that was down to one crusty slice in the fridge. She hadn’t even bathed in the last two days.
Do crazy people know they’re going crazy at the time?
The image of the dead man haunting detective Mockler would not go away. Yes, she had taken to referring to him as detective Mockler in a bid to distance herself. It wasn’t really working. The mental snapshot of the flies crawling over its face drifted back in her dreams, snapping her awake and leaving her terrified.
The dead were everywhere and the only defence she had was to barricade herself inside and keep them out. Crab-boy continued to stalk the hallway and scratch at her door. The dead lingered on every street corner. Some stood out on the street, silently observing her windows for movement. Looking to see if Billie could come out to play.
No, Bille cannot come out. So go the fuck away. See? She was already talking to herself.
So this was the plan. Hide away from the world, or at least the dead world. Which seemed to be everywhere now that her eyes were open to it. Most of them had these shocked expressions on their faces, as if they didn’t understand how they ended up here. Fine. They can have the world. She would pull up the drawbridge and hold up in her squat little flat like an outlaw making a last stand in a bad movie.
Yeah, as far as plans went, it sucked hard. Planning had never been her strong suite so Billie remained kind of baffled about what else to do. She had no precedent to go by, no handbook to reference. This wasn’t her problem, these dead people who got stuck here and were too stupid or shocked to move toward the bright light. If there even was a bright light. She had yet to see one. So everyone can just look after themselves, thank you very much. Sybil Culpepper could barely manage her own small life. She certainly couldn’t be expected to fix anyone else’s. Tough titty, as Tammy would say.
Even detective Mockler would have to get along without her. The creepy ghost who looked like a mute undertaker was his problem, not hers. She was never leaving this apartment again.
Billie leaned back and let out a sigh, almost laughing at these paper convictions. Vows made of smoke, a resolve that held the consistency of jelly. There was nothing she could nail to the wall and she gaped at her capacity to lie even to herself. The look of pain on Mockler’s face as the dead man tormented him rarely left her mind. The thought of him trapped in his own home with that awful thing was too much.
And yet, what was she to do? Tell Mockler? Like he would believe her. So what did that leave? Getting rid of the ghost herself. She tried that once and it blew up in her face. She had no idea how to deal with these things, let alone eject one from a house like a landlord handing out eviction notices. She had nothing to back it up with, no consequences or follow-through.
She had spent the last few hours searching online for information about ghosts but it was a tiresome slog. There were a few common themes however. Burning sage to cleanse a dwelling or placing salt over thresholds. Sometimes iron was the key.
So what did she have? The one common element in her encounters with the dead was their need to vent their personal tale of woe. Some wanted revenge and others wanted to share their grief or sorrow. The common thread was the need to talk, to be heard, to be acknowledged. Which, if she thought about it, was what everyone wanted. Wasn’t it? Even in death, these lost souls needed to be heard.
Billie was not one to give advice. Where some seemed to have an infinite supply of wisdom or ability to fix problems, she had none. She could listen. Hear the person out. Whenever Jen was fuming over a fight with Adam or Tammy needed to vent about the idiots she worked with, Billie found that simply hearing the person out helped the aggrieved party better than any advice she could offer. And it always arced the same way. A blast of anger or despair followed by a long-winded story with many sidebars until the spewer flushed it all out. The spewer would slump back with the satisfaction of having let it go. More often than not, the person would come to a solution all on their own when given the chance to talk it all out.
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Maybe the dead were no different? The Undertaker Man had a story to tell like all the others. She would hear him out first, then tell him to leave. Her mistake last time was trying to banish the ghost first from Jen’s shop. This time would be different. She would hear the dead man out, no matter how long it took. After he leaves, she would burn the sage and salt the doorway.
With that settled, there was only one small detail left to sort out. Getting into Mockler’s house when both he and the fiance weren’t home.
24
SHE HAD A plan. It just wasn’t a very good one.
Coasting along Bristol Street, Billie made a reconnaissance pass by Mockler’s house. The cracked driveway was empty. His car was gone but she had no idea if the girlfriend had a car too. She didn’t see one the other night. Turning the bike around at the end of the block, she doubled back and swung into the driveway.
The house loomed before her, framed against dark-bellied clouds passing overhead. Rain was on its way. Two windows on the second story felt like eyes, watching her lean the bike against the juniper trees.
Slung over her back was a heavy courier bag with the things she would need. A sack of sea salt and three smudge sticks of dried sage she had bought at an occult boutique just around the corner from Mockler’s house. The shop owner was helpful and friendly, tossing in a bundle of sweetgrass for free. Alongside these supplies was a small bottle of holy water. Ducking into Our Lady of Souls church on the way over, she had tried to be discreet while plunging the plastic bottle into the marble basin near the entrance. Thankfully there was no priest around but an old woman had hissed at her for doing so, like she was a stray cat that had wandered into the church.
She had been surprised to see the dead inside the cathedral. She counted five of them, sitting quietly in the pews as if attending mass. All of them turned to look at Billie when she stepped inside. When the nearest one rose to his feet, she capped the bottle and fled. Riding away quickly, she wondered what the priest would say if she informed him that the spirits of the dead had come to pray.