by Tim McGregor
“So what do I do?” she said finally. “How do I get it to go away?”
“You don’t. It’s not one of the dead. It was never human so it doesn’t respond that way. You stay the fuck away from it, yeah?”
Billie slid further down the bench, her head resting against the hard pew. “I can’t deal with this anymore, Gantry. This ‘gift’ is ruining my life.”
“Please don’t tell me your gift is really a curse, okay? That’s a wee trite. Even for you.”
“What does that mean? Even for me?”
“You’re a bit of a sad case, aren’t you? Mopey-wopey, feeling sorry for yourself. Where does it get you?”
“You’re an asshole,” she said.
“That’s better. I’m just saying be careful. Pity can be a slippery slope.” Gantry sighed and looked back up at the vaults overhead. “Yes, this sucks. This ability you have is a terrible thing and life would be so much more simple if you never had it. There. I’ve said it out loud. Feel better?”
She didn’t respond.
“But you do have it,” he went on. “So accept it and make the most of it. I know it’s a freaky and it’s terrifying but you’ll adapt. You’re stronger than they are. The dead. They should fear you. Do you know that?”
“No.” She tried not to sound petulant but failed. “What about the shadow thing? Am I stronger than that?”
“Hell no. You’re up shit creek there.”
“Terrific.”
“You were meant for something special,” he said. “I’m not sure what that is but your abilities are keen. You have the potential to be a powerful medium. More.”
“Well there’s the problem, genius. I don’t want to be one. Who would?”
Gantry shrugged. “Point taken.”
“You want me to become that, don’t you?” She looked looked down. Her shoes were scuffed. “Why are you doing this?”
“Just trying to help,” he grinned.
“Don’t bullshit me, okay? What are you after?”
His grin fell away and he sat up, about to say something but then stopped and lit another cigarette. “Something bad is coming. And I’m gonna need some help when it gets here.”
“What? What is coming?”
“I’m still trying to sort that out. It’s hard to explain. But it’s big and it’s nasty.” He ran his hand through his hair but it did nothing to straighten the mess. “Maybe I’m wrong about this. I hope I am. But if I’m not, well, we’re all up a creek then.”
“Well, thanks. That clears everything up.”
“Anytime, luv.” He sat up quickly. “Let’s get out of here.”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
“Why not?”
“Because,” Billie said. “That thing is out there. The undertaker man.”
“Oh come on,” he scoffed. “No way he followed you here.”
“It’s already here. Looking for a way in.”
John Gantry startled, whipping his head around as if he could see the thing. Billie felt a tiny smidgen of satisfaction for having spooked him for a change.
~
“How long ago?” Mockler said, clambering out of his vehicle.
The other man wheezed as he stepped out of the shadows to meet him. “Twenty minutes ago.”
The street was quiet and underlit by a few blown streetlights. Mockler looked east then west down the strip but there was nothing. Not even a stray cat. “You sure it was him?”
The other man was an informant known in the detective units as Tapeworm. A stick of a man who ate constantly yet never gained a pound, as if the namesake parasite was in his guts, eating his dinner before he did. He had phoned in the sighting of John Gantry. This happened from time to time but Tapeworm travelled in strange circles. He was also reliable, so his tip was taken seriously. Mockler had blown three red lights racing uptown to meet him.
“It was him,” said the informant.
“Where did you lose him?”
“Right here,” nodded the Tapeworm. “I was hanging back, saw him turn up this street. Running too, like he was in a hurry. When I caught up, he was gone.”
Mockler studied the street. “How long? From the time he disappeared until you got to this spot?”
“Not long.”
“How long?”
The man looked at his shoes. “Two minutes. Maybe.”
“Okay.” Mockler was already marching away at a smart clip. “Thanks.”
“Yo, Mockingbird.” Tapeworm rubbed his finger and thumb together in a charade clue for payout. “How about a thank you?”
The detective was already running. “Call the office. And clear out of here!”
The strip he ran down, like so many parts of the city, was a jumble of style and eras. Victorian row houses buttressed against squat concrete bunkers. A hundred shadowy doors or breezeways for a wanted man to vanish into. And the man he was after was a master at vanishing.
Mockler slowed to a stop and looked back the way he had come. Something tugged at his peripheral vision and he rotated a quarter turn. A church loomed up before him. Limestone blocks sullied by a century of soot and washed-out stained glass. Nothing out of the ordinary. So why were his eyes drawn to it.
There was no way Gantry would have slipped inside a church. Was there?
The sudden and immediate boom changed his mind. A heavy thud that he felt in his feet. Then shattering glass, followed by a scream. A woman’s voice. The massive doors blew open as if thrust apart by an explosion.
31
A GALE FORCE wind tore through the church. The candles winked out at the feet of the Virgin, tumbling to the floor. The pages of an open hymnal tore away, billowing and dancing in the air. Billie closed her eyes against the grit stinging her face.
“Duck!” Gantry hollered.
She felt herself yanked down hard between the pews, her elbow rattling smartly against the upright kneeler. Something shattered behind her and to the left came a thud so heavy that she felt it through the floor. It sounded as if the building was collapsing around her ears.
Gantry was huddled for cover beside her as the lights popped and flared in a sickening strobe. “Do something!” she barked at him.
“Like what?” he hollered back.
The curtain over the altar tore away and flapped through the air like a vulture let loose indoors.
Billie hugged the floor. “You’re the whatever, supernatural guy here! Do something!”
Gantry scowled at her. Peeking up over the pew, he cupped his hands around his mouth and hollered. “Oy! Piss off!”
The wind blew harder. Gantry ducked. Billie shook her head. “That’s the best you can do?”
“This is your territory, Billie, not mine. I say we rabbit.”
“What?”
“Run.”
The wind died instantly and without warning. Loose pages from a torn up Bible fluttered back to earth and along the far wall where the candles had fallen, something had started to burn.
Billie rose up slowly, eyes darting everywhere for signs of the entity or another attack but the bulbs had blown and the church was dark. Street light filtered in through the stained glass, mottling everything in reds and blues.
“Nasty bastard, isn’t he?” Gantry said, already fumbling out another smoke. His eye caught something. “Christ, now what?”
The nave of the church was littered with debris and loose paper but something else had changed. There was a coffin propped up at the transept, surrounded by wilting lilacs, as if readied for a funeral service. An open casket but Billie couldn’t see inside from where she stood.
“Leave it,” Gantry warned but Billie was already moving toward it. She had to see. The smell of the lilacs was strong but too sweet, as if past their date. The little petals of pale purple fell to the ground as she approached.
“I have to see,” she whispered.
“Leave it!” he hissed.
She could see the folds of the casket liner then the hands of the dec
eased clasped one over the other. Holding her breath, she saw the chest and arms and finally the face. How does one prepare for the worst? She had expected to see herself lying there, dead and ready for the grave. Or even Gantry, with coins over his eyes to trap his soul inside. But it was neither.
Laid out inside the casket was a woman. Dark hair, same age as herself, the features sagging from the pull of death but some hint of recognition therein. The curve of the nose, the shape of the lips. It took three more steps before Billie realized it was her mother.
She had never witnessed this tableau, her mother’s remains laid out in a casket within a church. There had been no service, no visitation, no proper mourning. She just wasn’t there anymore.
The woman in the casket sat up. Slow and creaking, the eyes still closed. A dry whimper leaked from Billie’s throat.
“Get away from it,” Gantry’s voice rumbled behind her. “It’s just screwing with your head, Billie.”
Her mother rotated her head to face Billie and then opened her eyes. The pupils were milky with cataracts, as if burned out from what she had witnessed beyond the veil.
Billie wanted to speak but her mouth didn’t work, her lips stuttering over the first syllable. Mother. Such a simple word. The first word.
In contrast, her mother’s mouth opened and Billie felt her knees falter when the flies came vomiting out.
She heard Gantry curse as he rushed past her and kicked the casket over. It toppled backward, her mother along with it, and thudded to the ground. The lilacs tumbled and the petals scattered everywhere. Gantry was barking like a lunatic, cursing out a blue streak of every obscenity he could muster.
The lights blinked back on. The casket was gone and the white noise had vanished. A single lilac petal had landed on Billie’s knee. She brushed it away.
“Time to go,” Gantry said, taking her arm.
Staggering to the doors, Billie looked back over her shoulder at the chancel but the casket was still gone. Gantry pulled her along but stopped abruptly as the church door blew open.
Detective Mockler had his firearm drawn and positioned in both hands, the barrel levelled straight at Gantry’s face.
“Get your hands off her,” he said.
32
MOCKLER SNARLED WHEN he spoke, his teeth bared. “Get on the ground.”
“Christ,” Gantry spat. “Not now.”
Billie felt her jaw hang open. Like witnessing an accident, everything slowed down as each man glared at the other across the church pews. “Mockler. Put the gun down.”
“Billie, are you all right?” Mockler didn’t take his eyes off the other man. “Are you hurt?”
“I’m fine. Please. Just put the gun away.”
Mockler took two paces, closing the distance between himself and the murder suspect. “Get on the ground, Gantry. Or I swear to God, I will blow your head off.”
“Who’re you trying to fool, Mockler? The girl?” Gantry kept smiling. “You’re not cut out for this tough guy shit and we both know it.”
“Wiggle a finger,” Mockler hissed. “It’s all I need to call it self defence and paint this church with your brains.”
Gantry nodded at Billie. “You got a witness here, ace.”
“She’ll be in shock. Her statement unreliable. But you’ll still be dead.”
This time Gantry stepped closer. “Look at me, mate. That gun is awfully heavy. Pull it up.”
Billie felt a crackle against her skin, as if the air had suddenly charged with electricity and she watched the gun tremble in Mockler’s hand. She didn’t know what Gantry was doing but there was power behind his words. Voodoo or hypnosis or mind control, she had no idea but she felt the power in it. And so did Mockler.
“Pull the gun away,” Gantry said softly. “And then put the barrel in your mouth.”
“Stop it!” She marched between the two men, directly in the line of fire.
Mockler turned the gun away. “Billie, get out of the way!”
“No.” Billie hissed. “No one’s shooting anyone. And no one’s getting arrested.”
“Have you lost your mind?” Mockler snapped, the trigger piece hot in his hand. “He’s a murderer. Get out of the way.”
The leer on Gantry’s face fell by a shade. “Billie, clear off. Before you get hurt.”
Billie scrambled for some way to defuse the whole mess. Sweat was beading over the detective’s face and his hands seemed to tremble. “Mockler, listen to me. He didn’t do it.”
“Snap out of it. He’s lying to you. It’s what he does.”
“I can’t explain it right now, but he didn’t kill those women. Mockler, please. Put the gun down.”
Something in her voice broke through the adrenalin juicing Mockler’s brain. All he wanted to do was help her but not like this. How did this all get turned around so badly? The gun dipped toward the floor but then, behind Billie, he caught sight of the leer on John Gantry’s ugly face. He snatched Billie hard by the arm and pulled her away quickly and kept her at arm’s length. Her struggling would spoil his aim but he had a full magazine in the clip, all of which he was more than happy to unload on the murderous Englishman.
The leer on Gantry’s face brightened. “You don’t like guns much, do you Mockler? Not since that incident with the kid.”
“Shut up.” Mockler gritted his teeth, keeping his hand steady as Billie struggled to get out of his grip.
“That piece looks heavy. It looks all wrong on you, mate. Ten quid says it won’t fire.”
Billie cursed at them both to stop. Gantry was working some angle. Something in his voice was off, a heavy tone that buzzed the air, trying his voodoo trick again. Mockler, on the other hand, seemed possessed. The look in his eyes was frightening. She heard him growl. And then he pulled the trigger.
The firearm didn’t go off. Misfire, as Gantry had predicted. Mockler tried again but the trigger piece locked up.
Gantry didn’t waste the moment. He was fast and he fought dirty and Mockler stumbled back, falling to one knee under a flurry of fists and boots and thumbs to the eyes.
Billie tried to pull Gantry off but he too seemed possessed, single-minded in his assault on the police detective. She was shrugged off and then she heard a rumbling growl as Mockler roared back. Snatching fistfuls of jacket and hair, Mockler pivoted and swung, hurling the Brit into the pews. Gantry crashed into the wooden benches and flopped to the floor.
The two men crashed and tumbled through the pews. A light overhead popped, plunging the nave into partial darkness and Billie lost sight of the combatants. But she could hear them curse and roar at each other.
“Stay down, Gantry!” Mockler’s voice bellowed. “Or I’ll snap your fucking neck!”
Another crash and thud, then Gantry hissed back. “See you in Hell, mate. Save me the window seat.”
More scuffling and crashing from the far side of the chancel then Billie heard something heavy thunder against the floor.
“Mockler?” She groped her way in the dark. “Gantry?”
One of them rose up from behind the altar. Mockler, woozy and unbalanced. Of Gantry, there was no sign save for the jacket clutched in the detective’s hands.
“Shit.” Mockler spat blood from his mouth and flopped into a pew like a spent boxer.
~
“You sure you’re okay?”he asked.
“I’m not the one with the bloodied lip,” Billie said. She held a handful of paper towels she had found in the kitchenette in the church basement. There was a refrigerator but no ice in the freezer so she dampened the towels with cold water and ran back up to find Mockler standing outside the front doors of the church. “Sit down. Take this.”
Mockler eased down onto the steps and touched the wad of wet paper to his swollen lip. Wincing, he looked at the blood staining the paper towel and then gingerly re-applied it to his face.
Billie sat down next to him, her eyes falling on the bloodied knuckles of his hand. “Your hand’s a mess too. I’ll get more
towels for it.”
“Stay put.” He worked his jaw, testing the pain. “What the hell were you thinking, Billie?”
Billie blew the bangs from her eyes. How could she explain this? “He didn’t do it.”
“Bullshit.”
“I don’t have proof or anything,” she sighed. “I just know that he didn’t kill those two women. He was trying to help them.”
He turned, ready to refute it but the effort made him wince and he said nothing. He leaned to the other side and spit on the church steps. Bloodied foam dribbled down the concrete. Mockler took the towel away, folded the wet paper to apply a clean patch to his lip.
She watched his hands. “Your shaking.”
“Adrenalin will do that to you.” His words were garbled by the swelling lip. “Why would you do that? I thought we were friends.”
She flinched. Was it the bitterness in his tone or the word ‘friends’? It stung and it soothed at the same time and it was maddeningly confusing.
“What does he want with you?” he asked. When she didn’t answer, he shook his head. “Whatever he’s selling you, don’t buy it.”
He lowered the towel from his face and the limp paper quivered from the shaking in his hand. He tossed it away and bunched his hand into a fist but the trembling would not go away.
“Does that happen a lot?” she asked. “The trembling in your hand?”
“When I’m tired. I haven’t been sleeping much.”
She could guess at the reason why but asked anyway. “How come?”
He shrugged. “Dunno. Just stuff going at home.”
I’ll bet, she thought. “You can talk about it. I mean, if you want to.”
Mockler looked up at the dark street. “It’s nothing. Forget it.”
Typical. Like he had it all under control and there was no need to discuss it further. Why do men do that? “Can I ask you something?”
“Of course.”
“The stuff at home. Is any of it weird? Odd things? Creepy stuff you can’t explain? Nightmares?”