Welcome to the Spookshow: (Book 2)

by Tim McGregor

  Hot on Tammy’s heels came Jen, who smiled sheepishly as she swept in, and then Kaitlin. That surprised Billie. Kaitlin had never been to her flat before. “I’m still kicking,” she said.

  Tammy looked the room over; the mess of bottles and take-out cartons on the coffee table. Dirty clothes draped over chairs. “I like what you’ve done with the place,” she sneered.

  “Love and squalor,” Billie shot back. She wasn’t in the mood for being upbraided and wished her trio of friends would just leave. “Anybody want some wine?”

  Kaitlin slid an empty pizza box from the green armchair and perched herself on the very end of it, as if afraid to touch anything. “What kind is it?”

  “The cheap kind.”

  “My favourite.” Tammy clasped her hands with mock gusto. “Let’s have a drink.”

  Jen rearranged a pillow on the sofa and sat down, back straight and knees together. She’d yet to say anything or even look Billie in the eye. She fetched the remote from the clutter and killed the TV.

  “I’ll get some glasses.” Billie retreated into the kitchen with a lead weight dragging in her guts. Tammy’s bravado was false and the other two looked like they were on their way to a funeral. What were they up to, some kind of half-assed intervention? Glancing at her reflection in the darkened kitchen window, Billie shrivelled up. Her hair was a mess and there dark circles under her eyes, like she hadn’t slept in days. She hadn’t, really.

  Sweeping back into the living room with the glasses, she poured a round of plonk and avoided her friend’s weirdly earnest eyes. “So, what’s the big emergency?”

  “You are.” Kaitlin sniffed the glass. “You haven’t returned any of our texts.”

  Billie leaned up against the old hi-fi cabinet. A big floor unit in burled walnut that she had found curbside. It was the nicest piece of furniture she owned. “I’ve been busy.”

  “Barricading yourself in?” asked Jen. Her face remained neutral.

  “Nope,” Billie shrugged. She refused to let the ladies get under her skin. “I’ve just had a lot going on.”

  Kaitlin looked over the mess. “Like what? Hoarding?”

  “It’s a new look.”

  “It has a squalid charm.” Kaitlin raised her glass in a mock salute.

  “Let’s play nice,” Tammy interjected, taking the role of referee. “It’s a rescue operation, Billie. Like that time you broke up with whats-his-name. Brian?”

  “Ryan.”

  “Whatever. We came to save you from yourself and drag you out of your Fortress of Solitude.”

  Billie sipped her glass. “Thanks. But it’s not necessary.”

  “Come on,” Tammy said. “Out with it. What happened? Did you meet somebody?”

  Of course they would think that, Billie fumed. It had to be a guy, right? She wanted them to leave.

  Jen smoothed the hem of her dress. “We just want to know what’s going on, Billie. That’s all.”

  “How’s the shop?”

  “Coming along,” Jen said. Her cheeriness felt forced. “The repairs should be done soon. I hope to re-open in a week or so.”

  The guilt of it stung like salt in an open cut. Billie took a breath and looked her oldest friend in the eye. “I’m sorry about what happened, Jen. I honestly am.”

  “It’s okay. Not your fault.”

  “Yes, it was my fault. I wanted to help but instead I fucked up. As usual. And ruined everything you worked so hard for. I’m sorry.”

  “I know.” Jen’s eyes were wet but she was fighting it down. “I know you wanted to help.”

  Tammy studied the two of them, observing every tic and creak of body language. “Is that what this about? The fire?”

  Billie drank her wine, letting the question just hang there like a bad smell.

  Taking her silence as an affirmative, Tammy got to her feet. “Problem solved. Why don’t you change out of those stanky clothes and we’ll go out.”

  “No thanks,” Billie said. “Have a nice time.”

  “Ugh.” Tammy rolled her eyes heavenward. “You’re gonna make us work for it, aren’t you?”

  “I’m not asking you to do anything, Tammy.” A little too much edge to her voice. Billie set her glass down and tried again. “I appreciate the effort. The concern, I really do. But there’s nothing to do. I just need to figure this out.”

  “Figure what out?” said Jen. A matching edge was undercutting her tone now too. “You’re not yourself.”

  “Losing three days in a coma will do that to you.” It was a cheap shot and she immediately regretted it.

  The three of them looked at their shoes or into their drinks. Jen broke the silence. “You’re still recovering from that?”

  “I guess. I don’t know. Yes.”

  “Then what?” Tammy never did well with impatience. “Whatever it is, you can tell us, Bee. No one’s gonna judge you.”

  Kaitlin would. It was her nature to judge everyone but Billie was used to Kaitlin’s skewed sense of herself, her blissful blindness to her own double standards. In this case, it didn’t matter. All three would judge her certifiably insane if she told them the truth. Still, the idea floated on the surface and a giddiness flushed over at the prospect of telling them everything. It was like that feeling she got looking down from a rooftop; an irrational urge to actually jump.

  The clock ticked on in the kitchen, stretching the silence beyond comfort. Tammy sighed and leaned against the wall. “Jesus, Bee. If you can’t trust us, who can you trust?”

  The giddiness was irresistible. “Have you ever seen a ghost?”

  “What?”

  “I see them,” Billie said quietly. “I see them all the time.”

  Tammy laughed. “You’re hilarious.”

  Billie said nothing. Jen leaned in, a gentle crease in her brow. “Billie, what are you talking about?”

  In for a penny, in for a pound. Aunt Maggie’s saying. Billie took a breath and let it all out. “After I woke up in the hospital, I started seeing things. Weird things. I thought I was hallucinating. But I’m not. They’re real. Dead people. They’re everywhere. And they won’t leave me alone.”

  She watched them react. Tammy guffawed, dismissing it like she did everything. Jen squirmed in her seat, physically uncomfortable. Kaitlin became very still, her eyes on the floor. Billie shrugged and said “You asked.”

  “You see ghosts?” Jen squinted at her, as if trying to see through smoke.

  “Yup.”

  “You know how crazy that sounds, right?”

  “You don’t have to believe me.”

  Kaitlin raised her eyes. “So these ghosts, they’re just, like, wandering around everywhere?”

  “Yes,” said Billie. “There’s one right behind you.”

  Kaitlin shot out of her chair. There was nothing there. “Stop it.”

  Something dark scuttled away, leaving a trail of blood on the floor that Billie knew only she could see. She dipped her head, wondering why she had even bothered. Did she expect them to believe her? No. She had simply wanted to shut down this bullshit intervention.

  Tammy wasn’t laughing. “You need to pull yourself outta this, B. This,” she gestured at the state of the place and at Billie herself, “this isn’t helping. Clean yourself up. Get out of this apartment. Go back to work.”

  Billie scowled. Tammy prided herself on her practicality, her knack for cutting through the bullshit to hack at the truth. Under normal circumstances, it was an asset, but these circumstances were less than normal and Billie resented being dismissed. “You think this is just a funk, Tammy? You think I’m, what, depressed?”

  “Clearly. Look at you. Look at this place. You’re a cliche, you’re so fucking depressed.” Tammy set her glass down. “Get outta your own head for a while. Get some fresh air. Stop drinking.”

  “Everything is so simple for you, isn’t it? Do this. Do that. ‘Get better’. Jesus, you sound like a man.”

  “Easy,” Jen interrupted. Always the peac
e-maker, a role learnt from having two sisters and one that played out within her circle of friends. “We just want to help, Billie. How do we do that?”

  “You can start by believing me.” It was asking too much and she knew it but she was tired of hiding it, tired of pretending that the world hadn’t turned completely upside down and batshit crazy.

  None the women spoke and the silence flattened the mood like a badly told joke.

  Billie looked up. “Maybe you guys should go. Thanks for the visit.”

  Tammy was already on her feet. Jen was stuck in the middle as usual, pulled between the pole of two people. Unsure of what to do.

  Kaitlin waved at something in the air, buzzing too close to her face. “We could help you clean up, if nothing else.”

  Billie watched as Kaitlin, with her perfect nails and precious manners, did something she had never seen her do. Kaitlin gathered up the empty take-out cartons with their crusty food remains, piling them into a stack to be taken away. Disturbed from their feeding, insects took to the air. “This stuff,” she said, “is attracting flies.”

  A handful of them at first, then it seemed to be hundreds. Buzzing and circling the table as Kaitlin tidied up. Simple houseflies, feeding on the food left out to spoil, as flies will do.

  Something cold sluiced down the back of Billie’s neck at the sickening buzz of the flies. An unnaturally thick swarm of the vile things.

  The glass fell from her hand. “You have to go.”

  “Hold on.” Jen held up a hand, calling for a time-out. “We want to understand what—”

  “Not now,” Billie hissed, shooing her friends toward the door. They shuffled so slowly. “Just go. Please.”

  Tammy didn’t need to be told twice. Kaitlin brushed her hands and sauntered away, shaking her head.

  The dark man with the flies in his mouth had found her. Had he followed her home or simply tracked her down? Did it matter? He was here and if she didn’t get the ladies out, he might hurt one of them. Or follow them home to infest their lives like an unholy plague.

  Jen lingered, oblivious to how her need for keeping the peace was putting her in danger. “Don’t leave it like this, Billie.”

  More of the flies pelted themselves at the window, the racket of their wings impossibly loud. Billie shoved Jen toward the door. “Get out!”

  Jen wavered, the hurt on her face was crystal. This, Billie realized, was the worst position to put her in but the alternative was unthinkable. Tammy, bless her pragmatic heart, snatched Jen’s wrist and tugged her away.

  “Billie, for God’s sakes—”

  The three of them staggered over the broken barrier of salt on the threshold and out into the hallway. Jen glanced back once and Billie winced at the look on her face as she slammed the door shut on her oldest friend.

  She held the door shut for a moment, as if the trio might bust it down. Then she turned around.

  The man with the flies in his mouth was there.

  28

  “WHERE IS THIS asshole?”

  “Chill,” said the man across the room. Crypto Death Machine slumped back in the great wingback chair like some debauched king. His ghoulish face paint was cracking. “He’ll be here.”

  The man with the paunch did not chill and he did not stop pacing the floor. “I don’t know, Crypt. This guy sounds like a bullshit artist to me.”

  “Better hope he doesn’t hear you say that, Marty. I hear he can be vindictive.”

  “Ooh, I’m real scared,” Marty spat, a tad overly emphatic. Marty was a band manager, had been for the last seventeen years. Drug busts, overdoses, psychotic fans, these he could handle. Even a dead prostitute once, down in Tijuana in the late nineties but this? This spookshow, underworld supernatural shit was a first and, frankly, he could do without it. Managing Crypto Death Machine and his unnatural appetites was enough. “Twenty bucks says this dipshit ain’t gonna show. John Gantry. Oooh, big spook.”

  “I wouldn’t do that,” said the bodyguard standing at the door. Big, with a bull neck and a tattoo running up the back of his bald head.

  “Do what?” Marty snapped.

  “Say his name.”

  Marty whipped around to the doorman. “Oh yeah? Why not?”

  “Bad luck,” replied the doorman in a flat tone, as if any fool knew this.

  “What the fuck is he, Voldemort?” Marty continued to pace. “Jesus Christ!”

  “I’m just relaying what I heard.” The doorman looked at the king slumped in the tall chair. “You heard that too, right Crypto?”

  “That’s what they say.” Crypto Death Machine swung his leg off the arm of the chair, letting his heavy boot thud to the floor. His driver’s licence, which had been rescinded after a DUI in ‘05, stated the name Stanley Gottferb, but no one called him Stanley any more. Thousands more knew him as Crypto Death Machine, mysterious titan of the death metal scene. Hero to a hardcore fanbase of mostly white, all male suburban kids who daydreamed in vivid Technicolour about violent revenge fantasies.

  Crypto (formerly Stanley) held an abiding obsession with the occult and the paranormal, something he used to cultivate his persona of diabolical and perverted mystery. Accompanying these obsessions was the collecting and curating of well known but rare occult objects. This was the intent behind the hard-to-arrange meeting with the man known as John Gantry.

  He kicked a bottle with his boot, rolling it across the floor to Marty, his long suffering manager. “Any word?”

  Marty scrolled through the phone in his hand. “Nope.”

  The doorman clicked his radio handset, spoke quietly to his counterpart outside the building and listened to the squawk-box response. “No sign of him,” he reported to his employer.

  Marty checked the time. “Mister spookshow was supposed to be here thirty minutes ago. Let’s get outta here. He ain’t gonna show.”

  “Have the Rover brought around,” Crypto said to the doorman. “Keep it running. We’ll give him a few more minutes.”

  “It’s a fucking scam,” Marty said. “This asshole is all rep and no show.”

  Crypto Death Machine shifted in his throne, growing annoyed at his manager’s whining tone. And then, just like that, all the lights went out.

  “What the fuck?” came Marty’s voice from the void. The darkness was total.

  The doorman’s voice rumbled from the other end of the darkened room. “A fuse musta blown.”

  “I like the dark,” said Crypto.

  “Fuck Gantry,” leaked Marty. “Let’s just blow.”

  A small flame erupted in the dark. There was a crackling sound and then the flame went out and all that remained was the glowing end of a lit cigarette. Red then orange in the darkness. A voice. “All right, mates?”

  “What the fuck?” Marty again, shriller than usual.

  The voice behind the cigarette drawled out in a heavy accent. “You talking trash about me, Marty?”

  “Oh fuck…”

  The overhead lights fired on and everyone in the room squinted against the harsh light.

  John Gantry nabbed a chair, swung it backwards and flopped down. “Right. Let’s get on with it.”

  Crypto sat up but maintained his mask of practised indifference. “Do you always make a grand entrance, Gantry?”

  “I do have a reputation to uphold.” Gantry shot a look at the band manager. “Right, Marty?”

  Marty mumbled something under his breath but kept his distance.

  “Do you have it?” Crypto asked.

  “Yeah.” Gantry nodded to a black bag at his feet. It was big with a tortoise shell handle, like an old doctor’s bag. “You prepared to pay for it?”

  “If it’s real, I am.” The musician’s eyes lit up with a dark sparkle. “Let’s see it.”

  Gantry gave the bag a hard kick, sliding it across the floor to the man in the wingback chair. No one made a move to fetch it.

  “Bring it here,” Crypto ordered his manager.

  Marty didn’t move. “How do
we know it ain’t rigged?”

  Gantry took a drag on his cigarette and grinned from ear to ear. “Life’s full of risks, innit?”

  “It’s moving,” said the doorman.

  The cracked leather folds of the bag swelled and shifted, as if something inside was moving around. Marty took a step back. “See?”

  Crypto snapped his fingers and the doorman retrieved the bag and set it at his employer’s feet. “What’s inside, Gantry? A rattlesnake?”

  “Just the item in question. If you don’t want it, I can find plenty of other buyers.”

  The sparkle in the musician’s eye deepened. He reached down and undid the metal clasp.

  Marty jerked forward. “Whoa, boss. You don’t know what’s in there.”

  “Don’t spoil my fun, Marty.” Crypto beamed with a sort of glee. “Will it hurt? Let’s see.” Crypto reached inside. He winced, then dug his hand in further and lifted something out. A package wrapped in oily cloth.

  Crypto set the leather bag back onto the floor and propped the package on his knees and began to unfold the cloth. A boy at his own birthday party. “Ahh,” he cooed, lifting up his prize. A handgun. A standard military issue Browning 1911. Old, the gunmetal aged into a dull patina.

  Marty pursed his lips. “How do we know it’s real?”

  “Oh it’s real.” Crypto cradled the weapon in his hands like it was made of eggshell. “I can feel it.”

  Gantry draped his arms over the back of his chair. “It’s engraved. On the side of the handgrip.”

  Crypto turned the piece over and examined the metal run under the trigger guard. An inscription bored into the metal. To Reverend Jim Jones, with love.

  “Still,” Marty cautioned. “How do we know this is the piece he used to blow his brains out?”

  “It’s the same one found in his lap,” Gantry said. “The original evidence bag is inside the satchel. The police inventory too. It’s real.”

  Crypto studied the gun, captivated by its look and feel. “It’s beautiful.”

  “Check the magazine.” Gantry straightened his tie but it still looked rumpled. “Marty, can you offer a mate a drink?”