Spookshow 4: Bringing up the bodies

by Tim McGregor

  The chanting began, the voices of the participants undulating low in an ominous chorus. The melody droning and alien, the words chanted out in a language Billie did not know or even guess at.

  She barely had the strength to sit up, let alone run. Evelyn’s touch had syphoned off her energy along with her warmth, leaving her weak and shivering. Her plea, crackled out from a parched throat, was little more than a whisper. “Stop. Please.”

  One of the robed figures spasmed slightly and listed to one side, as if struck off-balance by the sound of Billie’s voice.

  The woman’s voice rattled from out of nowhere. “Block your ears,” Evelyn called out. “Stay vigilant.”

  A candle guttered as if from a breeze and the form of Evelyn Bourdain took shape at the periphery of the circle. She hissed at the faltering acolyte. “Hold fast and keep your position. The circle mustn’t be broken.”

  The robed disciple straightened up, stiff and formal. The chanting went on.

  Resplendent in her dress as it twinkled against the candlelight, Bourdain turned to the lone member outside the circle. “Come,” she said.

  The figure strode forward. Something dangling from one hand glinted as it caught the light. A long dagger.

  “No,” Billie creeched, forcing herself to get up. To do something.

  The figure swept in fast and snatched Billie up in a powerful grip, holding her from behind. She felt the sharp tip of the blade press against the small of her back, cutting through her thin shirt to press against her flesh.

  Evelyn Bourdain sallied in and cupped Billie’s cheek in her cold fingers. “Be strong now, Sybil. A small incision, that’s all. A little pain to shuck out the root of your sad little soul and sever it. Be brave.”

  It was quick and, at first, Billie felt nothing more than a sharp pressure at her spine. Then the pain hit, stinging between the third and fourth vertebrae. A precise, almost surgical incision.

  The chanting of the hooded disciples grew in volume, their voices urgent and guttural in their odd rhythm. Each one rocking back and forth in a fit of rapture and ecstasy.

  Evelyn’s face contorted into something resembling a grin. “Pull away the masks now. Show little Sybil your faces.”

  Each member of the cult raised their hands to draw back their hoods. The first to reveal didn’t surprise Billie as the faces of the men who had abducted her glowed against the light. Justin and Owen, formerly of the Paranormal Trackers, now enthralled to the lady of the house.

  The other acolytes broke her heart as they pulled off their hoods. First Kaitlin, and then Tammy and finally Jen. Squired at their respective points of the pentacle, her only friends, the trio she referred to as ‘the ladies’ stared back at her with eyes glazed bloodshot and fixed hard in an unnatural focus. Possessed like the two men, caught in some unholy thrall to the dark spirit of Evelyn Bourdain.

  “No.”

  It was all Billie could muster before her heart fractured into a thousand tiny pieces.

  The disciple holding her slipped the blade out and Billie flinched, her knees buckling under her. The figure gripped harder to keep her upright, the hood falling away. She gasped when the candlelight hit his face.

  “Ray…”

  Mockler’s eyes flared hot with the same crazed mania as the others, the pupils dilated into an unholy aperture. A puppet like the rest, jerked to and fro on its strings by the mistress of the Murder House. What little remained of her heart imploded in on itself, unable to endure anymore.

  “Hold her still,” whispered Evelyn.

  Snatching up a fistful of hair, Mockler yanked her head back. His other hand gripped her jaw and pulled her mouth open. Evelyn Bourdain slithered up close, kissed her bottom lip and then forced her hand into Billie’s gaping mouth.

  The pain was blinding as the woman slid her hand down her throat. Billie feared her jaw would snap as Bourdain kept pushing in, up to her elbow and then all the way to the shoulder. The dead woman’s hand scrabbling and clawing inside of her, then the unearthly sensation as something intangible and sacred was clutched fast in the woman’s fist.

  “There you are,” Evelyn cooed to her. “Out out we go.”

  Billie felt her insides collapse as her soul, the essence of her being, was tugged hard by the icy hand and drawn out. The image of a red balloon flashed in her mind, hovering by a string from the hand of a child, the string slipping away and the balloon drifting into the clouds. Was this really how it would end?

  A spark ripped through the air, sharp and electric. Some new torment of the Bourdain woman, Billie thought, until she caught a glimpse of something scuttling across the ceiling above her. It left a trail of dark blood behind. Something cold riffled her hair as it passed and a noise hissed into her ear. A gurgling snarl that was barely human nor intelligible in language but its intent was crystal.

  Fight

  The disciples were still chanting, holding their posts at the points of the pentacle. A dark shape dropped from the ceiling and scrabbled across the floor, propelled along on its hands in a grotesque trot as it slammed into the nearest robed figure. Kaitlin’s eyes rolled over white and she gave out a cry as the thing passed through her. She folded up and dropped to the ground, the strings of the puppeteer snipped.

  Bourdain, with her arm all the way down Billie’s gullet, flinched and spun around. Her face twisted into a gorgon’s mask of fury as she watched her acolytes drop like flies from the small thing hobbling around the circle of the pentacle.

  The cold pain inside her guts eased off and Billie heard again the single urge whispered into her head by the mute ghost. Fight. She bit down, hard as she could, her teeth cutting into the woman’s arm.

  Evelyn Bourdain screeched, her face twisting again from the pain, and she tried to tug her arm out but it would not slip free. “Stop!” she ordered.

  The woman in the sparkling dress was dead. Ethereal and as tangible as smoke but what had Gantry told her? That she gave the dead strength. That she made them solid.

  Billie bit down harder, her teeth sinking through spectral flesh and the ghostly blood spattering dark and foul over her chin. There was a click when she hit the bone but she torqued the pressure until it snapped and she bit clean through.

  Bourdain reeled back, spinning free from the younger woman’s grip. Black blood geysered from the torn stump of her arm and she wailed and shrieked, eyes popping in disbelief at what had been done to her.

  Billie doubled over and retched onto the floor. The severed arm slipped out and flopped to the concrete like a dead fish. The fingers were still moving and clawing, the nails scratching at the floor as if would crawl away on its own power.

  Something thudded against her back and as Billie turned, she saw Mockler drop to the floor. His limbs twitched as if seized in an epileptic fit, the eyes rolling back. Just like the others, writhing in seizures on the floor.

  Bourdain was still shrieking and spinning around as if she sought to outrun the catastrophe to her arm. An endless spume of blood splattered over the writhing bodies and the painted lines of the pentacle. It hissed as it doused the candles, the tapers smoking darkly as they snuffed. The smell was obscene.

  Half-Boy came charging out of the darkness like a ram and slammed into the woman’s knees, cutting her legs out from under her. Bourdain went down.

  Still spitting out the foul taste of the woman’s blood, Billie marched forward and snatched the woman by the hair. As spectral as she was, Evelyn Bourdain was solid in Billie’s grip and she dragged the woman to the centre of the five-pointed star and threw her into the pit. The severed arm wriggled nearby, the fingers scratching at the floor. Billie kicked it into the crypt after her.

  Something clattered over the concrete, spinning until it bumped into Billie’s foot. The dagger that had cut into her back. She snatched it up and clambered down into the hole. Gripping it tight, she plunged it straight down into the shrieking mouth of Evelyn Bourdain where it plunged through the skull and sunk into the dirt, pinning
the woman to the ground like a butterfly to a corkboard.

  “Give me your hand.”

  Billie looked up to see Mockler reaching down. She took his hand and he lifted her out. He staggered from the effort, his eyes disoriented. He tottered leeways, unsteady on his feet until Billie steadied him. “Are you all right?” she asked, looking into his eyes. The awful gaze from before was gone.

  “No,” he wheezed.

  Clutching her arm to stay upright, he leaned over and looked into the pit and then turned away with a sour grimace on his face. Whether he saw what she did, Billie didn’t know. Around her, the others were coming to, waking with groans and moans as they struggled to their feet and threw off their awful robes.

  “Help me with the others,” she said.

  They filed out of the house one after the other into the clean chill of night, reeling like drunkards. No one spoke, their eyes still blasted with horror as they staggered to Mockler’s car.

  Billie caught sight of the red cannister near Mockler’s vehicle. “What is that?”

  “Gas,” he said. “I was going to burn the place down.”

  Billie grabbed the handle and hoisted the heavy container back toward the house.

  “Billie, wait!”

  “Stay here,” she said before slipping back inside.

  The fuel spilt from the spout in glugs onto the floor of the main hall. Trailing a line of it through the corridor, she worked her way back to the entrance and tossed the can away. Patting down her pockets, Billie realized she had nothing to light it with.

  “Here.” Mockler appeared in the doorway. He held out the long-stemmed lighter. “Be ready to run when you set it off.”

  A tiny click as she ignited the lighter and touched the flame to the thin slime trail she had left behind. The fuel whooshed up in an angry inferno, racing down the corridor back to the great hall. She took his hand and they ran.

  The others were waiting near Mockler’s car when they stumbled, coughing and gagging, from the house.

  “Where are the other two?” Mockler said to Kaitlin. “The men?”

  “They ran off,” Kaitlin said.

  “Get in the car,” he barked. All them piled in save Jen, who stood mesmerized by the flaring light of the flames.

  “Jen, get in!”

  “The fire,” Jen mumbled, lost in reverie. “The one you warned me about.”

  Billie pulled the woman away and forced her into the car. Gravel spit from the rear wheels as Mockler spun the car around and careened down the path to get away from the burning house. They stopped at the road and Tammy and Jen climbed out. Kaitlin stayed in the car, clutching Billie’s hand.

  “Are you okay to drive?” Billie asked.

  “I’m fine,” Tammy assured her. “We’ll be right behind you.”

  They waited for Tammy to start her car and then both vehicles drove away.

  Billie looked back once at the house. It was engulfed in fire, the bright flames reaching up beyond the trees to curl and spin against the sky. When she felt Mockler’s hand on her wrist, she turned away and didn’t look back.

  32

  SHE HAD WOKEN UP twice in the last twelve hours, both times parched as a hangover. The ache in her bones so deep that she worried there might be permanent damage. The water glass on the bedside table was dry but the short trip to the kitchen sink was too much to bear. She put her head down and went back to sleep.

  The glass was full when she opened her eyes hours later. Pushing herself into a sitting position, she guzzled half of it down in one go. Once the cottony desert in her mouth was quenched, she wondered if Mockler had dropped in while she slept.

  “Hello?” she called out.

  There was no response, the apartment as quiet as a tomb. Then a fractal movement in the corner of the room. The boy sat perched on the old wooden chair that was heaped over with clothes. The ruined stumps of his legs bled all down the laundry under him and his dark little eyes shone under the brim of his cap. Watching her, as he always did.

  She held up the glass. “Did you refill this?”

  She hadn’t expected a response but chatting with the little ghost had become something of a habit. She looked at the clock. “How long have I been asleep?”

  With wakefulness came clarity, followed hard by memory. Scraps of it flashed up in her mind, reliving the awful events inside the Murder House. Try as she might, the cold sensation of the dead woman’s hand down her throat would not go away. She looked up at the lad.

  “How did you find me there? At that house?”

  The boy looked away.

  “I wish you could talk,” she sighed. “So you could tell me why you’re here. Or why you always show up.” Another scrap of memory came to her. “You saved Kaitlin that night, didn’t you? From those men who attacked her?”

  The legless ghost clambered down from the chair and sprung up onto the window sill. He looked down at the street below.

  Billie drank down the rest of the water and set the glass onto the table. The motives of the boy were driving her crazy but she was settling into the idea that she simply would never know why he did the things he did. Does anyone, really? If the Half-Boy could suddenly speak and ask her the reasons behind her own actions, could she provide a true answer? Probably not.

  Another memory flared up but this time it was something that the psychic Marta Ostensky had told her. Marta was convinced that she had a guardian angel. She had assumed the woman was referring to either Mockler or Gantry but she could see now that she was wrong. Why hadn’t she seen it before?

  She watched him as he gazed down at the traffic on Barton Street. A pitiful sight, this orphan that had perished a long time ago. Who had severed his legs and cut out his tongue? Had he died from those injuries or had he survived them? “Why are you here?” she said softly. “Who sent you?”

  He didn’t move, as if suddenly deaf as well as mute.

  A moment passed and then his head shot around to look at the door, like a dog hearing a sound before its master did. Dropping from the sill, he scrabbled into the other room.

  A knock at the door. “Billie?”

  “Hi!” A smile spread over her face at his voice. “I’ll be right out!”

  Steadying herself against the dresser, she looked into the mirror. The smile dropped away. She did what she could to rub the puffiness from her eyes and got the robe hanging off the back of the bedroom door.

  “How are you feeling?” Mockler asked when she came into the living room. He held a bag of groceries in one hand and flowers in the other. In her foggy state, she wondered if perhaps he was off to visit someone in the hospital.

  “Lousy,” she said. “I look worse than I feel too. Sorry.”

  “You look fine. Here.” He handed her the flowers.

  “What?” She looked at the bouquet like she didn’t know what to do with it. Then her lip quivered when she realized that they were for her. “For me?”

  “I picked up some food too. I figured your cupboards might be bare.” He set the grocery bag down and pulled her close. “Hi.”

  The first kiss was a quick peck but when he leaned in for more, Billie pulled back. “Don’t. I’m gross.”

  “Yeah, you’re revolting,” he said, pushing in and kissing her cheek.

  He smelled like smoke. She wriggled free. “I’m serious. I’ve spent the whole day sleeping.”

  “Good. You needed it.” He took up the groceries and ducked into the kitchen. “You hungry?”

  “I ought to be but no. Still kinda queasy.” Billie leaned against the kitchen door frame and watched him rifle through the cupboards. “What are you looking for?”

  “Coffee.”

  She pointed at the counter. “The green tin.”

  He set about making coffee and Billie sank into a chair and watched him. Something about the sight of Mockler tooling around her kitchen made her smile. For a second time she caught a faint trace of a campfire. “Haven’t you had a chance to go home yet? You still sme
ll like smoke.”

  “I’ve been at the house,” he said. “Watching it burn.”

  “Still?”

  “The fire chief said there was no sense in saving any of it so they just kept it contained. I had no idea a fire could burn that long.”

  “Oh,” Billie said. Then worry stitched fast across her brow. “Do they know how it started?”

  “Not yet. But they will.” Mockler turned to her as he turned on the coffee maker. “They’ll find the accelerant used but the police report will say something about an unknown arsonist.”

  The machine gurgled and steamed. Mockler pulled out the other chair and joined her at the table. “You up for talking about what happened?”

  “Not really.” Her eyes rose to meet his. “What do you remember?”

  “Not much. I must have blacked out. I went there with the intention of torching the place. Next thing I remember was seeing you jump down into that pit.” He got up again and took a cup down from the cupboard. He filled it black, set it down before her and sat again. “When I was there, watching the last of it burn, the place felt different. I know that sounds a bit kooky but, I dunno, it didn’t have that awful feeling anymore. Is she gone?”

  “Yeah. I’m pretty sure she’s gone.” Billie raised the cup to her lip and the first sip of java put the world to right.

  Mockler leaned back in the chair. “Listen, there’s a couple things we need to talk about. Well, there’s a million things we need to talk about but they can wait.”

  “All right. What’re the important ones?”

  “Your mother’s remains. The medical examiner is done with them. They’ll release them to you. You should think about what to do now. We could find a proper place for them. Maybe a small ceremony.”

  Billie thought it over. “I’d like that. I have no idea how to do that, but I like it.”

  “I can help you with it. My mom’s up at Holy Sepulchre in Burlington. It’s nice.”

  “Thanks.” She dropped her hand over his and ran her thumb over his knuckles. “What’s the second thing?”

  “It’s about Gantry,” he said.