by Cat Knight
“Her client list. Like she couldn’t find more clients. I swear, when I find that girl I’m going to give a good chat. She can’t be doing things like this.”
They hurried along the still wet and slippery path.
“It’s just ahead, isn’t it?” Charlie asked.
“What’s just ahead?” Monica answered.
“Where we stopped, where you had a wee on a grave.”
“Don’t, Charlie, don’t say that out loud. It’s bad enough that I did it…without knowing it. I don’t need anyone reminding me.”
They turned a corner and spotted Lauren. Charlie stopped dead for a split second then sprinted forward. When she reached her, her voice wailed out, “Oh God. No. It can’t be” A weight dropped in Monica’s stomach.
“I’ll call emergency”, she called in an unnaturally high-pitched voice. Monica punched the key pad. She didn’t have to say much. The dispatcher assured Monica that help was on the way. Had Monica been with Charlie and Lauren, she would have told the dispatcher that the help needn’t hurry. As soon as Monica saw Lauren’s blue face she knew that the worst had happened.
On one knee, Charlie looked up, tears in her eyes. Monica knelt and wrapped an arm around Charlie. Monica didn’t say anything. There was nothing to say. They cried together until the police arrived.
For the police, it was easy. Lauren tripped, hit her head, and became unconscious. Then she aspirated; she choked on her own vomit. Just another young woman who had behaved recklessly and had too much to drink.
Case closed. For Monica, it wasn’t that simple. It was a guilt trip because she could have stayed the night with Lauren. If Monica had, Lauren would be alive.
Monica told herself over and over that it wasn’t her fault. Over and over, she felt a twinge of pain. Even Lauren’s parents had told Monica and Charlie through their tears that Lauren’s death was not their fault, it was a tragic wasted life brought on by bad judgement.
And they should be grateful they were still here, and to live their lives to the fullest making every moment count. As if that erased the guilt.
It was after the funeral, while they sipped punch at Lauren’s house, that Charlie took Monica aside.
“You think it was an accident?” Charlie asked. Monica rubbed her temples, she didn’t feel like listening to Charlies juju superstition.
“Of course, what else could it be?”
“Remember what you did?”
“Yeah, I got drunk. So did you.”
“No, on the way home, remember the cemetery?”
“Of course, I remember the cemetery I had to have a wee so what?”
“You did it on a grave. On a person’s grave. Have any idea what that might do? Especially at bloody Halloween.”
“Nothing, absolutely nothing. Blokes take a leak all over graves and headstones all the time. Do they die?”
“You’re not listening. Kahil says that sometimes spirits take offense when someone disrespects their grave. And they get back at them.”
“Is this Kahil, the psychic?”
“Kahil is very knowledgeable about spiritual things.”
“Kahil is a sinkhole for quid. What do you expect her to say? That spirits love when a chap waters the grave?”
“I’m just saying that if you did something on the wrong grave, the spirit might have taken it out on Lauren.”
“Don’t be daft. Lauren died because she made an incredibly bad decision, which isn’t hard to believe since she was DEAD DRUNK. She paid for her stupidity.”
Charlie took a step back. “You didn’t like Lauren?”
Monica rubbed her face. “I loved Lauren. We both did. But I’m not about to accept responsibility for her death.”
Charlie backed away.
“Wait,” Monica said.
“What happens next is on your head,” Charlie said.
“Oh, come on Charlie you don’t mean that, let’s talk.”
Charlie shook her head, turned, and walked away. Monica let her go. She knew better than to test Charlie’s belief in the supernatural. Charlie had been partial to ghosts and spirits and paranormal phenomena since school.
“You’re coming to the house warming,” Monica called.
Charlie didn’t answer.
Chapter Three
Monica pulled the box from the boot of her car and looked at her new house. Well, it wasn’t new. It was a Victorian three story with freshly painted gingerbread trim. The windows looked like vacant eyes, dark and dead. While the bushes and shrubs were trimmed, she thought the yard looked rough and unkempt, almost wild. It reminded her of those houses in horror films, old places where an axe murderer hides in the basement or some sentient blob waits in a bathroom.
Why did she think that? Not for any good reason at all, she told herself. Because it sits all by itself at the end of the street? Because I’ve got no real neighbours? Because the other Victorian houses sit vacant or condemned? But why does the house look so cold?
She chalked up her feelings to the trepidation of starting something new. It was always that way with new things. People never wanted to leave the safety and warmth of their own bed. It took courage to take on the new, the different.
Monica wasn’t entirely sure she was ready for the change, but she certainly wasn’t going to back down. Smiling, she adjusted the box in her arms and headed for the door.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Monica poured wine into Nigel’s glass and smiled.
“Where did you get this place?” he asked.
“It came on the market, and I jumped,” she answered.
“You must have paid a fortune.”
“You’d be surprised.”
She moved away, knowing he watched. She knew most of the men in the house watched her when she moved. That simple fact made her feel good. Didn’t everyone want to look attractive?
As she passed the parlour, she noted the small divan filled with house warming gifts.
While she hadn’t asked for gifts, she knew some guests would feel obligated to bring something. She always brought a gift. “Quite a haul,” she said loudly
Monica turned to where Charlie smiled. With a little cry, Monica threw herself into Charlie’s arms. They hugged as if they hadn’t seen each other in years. “I’m so glad you came,” Monica said.
“How could I stay away? A house warming for my best friend ever? Colour me there.”
Monica stepped back and looked into Charlie’s eyes. “We’re good? I mean, about Lauren. We’re good?”
“I lost one friend. I’m not going to lose another.”
Monica squealed and held up the bottle. “Wine?”
“Try to stop me.”
Arm in arm, they headed for the dining room with its food and drink.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Charlie was still in the house long after all the others had left. She and Monica sat at the kitchen table, a half-full bottle of red and two full glasses between them.
For Monica, the house had taken on a certain silence, a certain vigilance, as if it watched her. She had no idea why she felt that. No one watched. No one listened. Still, she was thankful for Charlie’s presence.
“You know,” Charlie began. “This is quite a kitchen. When you said Victorian, I expected a wood stove and tiny ice box.”
“The couple I bought it from renovated everything. New fridge, new stove, new furnace, even new air conditioning. The only thing they didn’t update is the dumbwaiter.”
“You have a dumbwaiter?”
Monica pointed at the pantry. “In there, but I don’t think it works anymore.”
“And why do you need air conditioning?”
“I don’t. They do. You know yanks. If it’s not seventy-five degrees, it’s too hot.”
They were yanks?”
“Going back home and had to sell fast. I got a terrific deal.”
At that moment, a blast of cold air swept through the room. Monica looked at Charlie who frowned.
“In October?”
Charlie asked.
“I swear the AC is off,” Monica said as she stood. “Probably one of our ‘guests’ thought they’d play a joke.”
Monica left the kitchen and checked the heating system control in the hall. According to the system monitor, the AC was off. If that was so, where did the blast of cold come from? Frowning, she returned to the kitchen.
“That’s better,” Charlie said as Monica sat. “Cheers.”
Monica didn’t have the heart to tell Charlie that the AC had never been on, and Monica secretly promised herself that a repairman would soon examine the entire system.
“You’re staying the night, right?” Monica asked.
“I wish I could,” Charlie answered. “I have a Saturday play day to supervise. If there are no adults around, the little imps will kill each other.”
Monica laughed. “But you’ll be back soon.”
“Are you kidding? Try to keep me away.”
After Charlie left, Monica locked all the doors and checked all the windows. Satisfied she was alone and secure, she checked the AC control one last time.
Satisfied that it was off, she went upstairs to the master bedroom, another room the sellers had revamped.
And they had done a wonderful job. The room with its poster bed was everything Monica had always wanted. She smiled as she bent down and ran her hand over the quilt.
“Argh!” Monica cried out in surprise as a blast of ice cold air flowed over her.
What in world?
She knew she had checked the system. It was off. Cold air was impossible. Doors and windows closed. Cold air was impossible. She spun, looking around the room for a source of the draft. She saw nothing which bothered her more than the cold air itself. The obvious answer was that the AC wasn’t off after all. She would check that soon enough. In the back of her mind, a tiny voice asked if maybe, just maybe the draft wasn’t the AC. What if it was something else altogether? What if it came from a place that no one could monitor or check? What if…
She silenced the voice in her head. It was the system, and nothing more. Still, she locked her bedroom door before she climbed into bed. The last thing she did was to set her phone on the nightstand. If there was a human answer to the cold air, she wanted a phone nearby.
Monica slept as well as she had slept in years. She smiled as bright sunshine shone through the windows. The little fear she had had the night before was banished. She felt silly for even considering anything other than a balky system. With a sigh and a smile, she reached over for her phone, fingers searching. A niggling worry began to worm into her mind.
She frowned distinctly remembering that she had put it on the nightstand. She had done for a purpose. People living alone needed access to a phone. She ran her hand again all over the nightstand. The phone wasn’t there. Where was it?
She slipped out of bed and went to her hands and knees. Perhaps she had knocked the phone off the nightstand during the night. She looked and felt all around the nightstand and under the bed, but the phone wasn’t there. Where had it gone?
The ring tone sounded. Monica jerked up her head and stared. Her phone was atop the dresser. She shivered. How had the phone reached the dresser? It was on the nightstand. How did it cross the room?
Chapter Four
“There are several perfectly logical answers,” Nigel said.
Monica smiled her third best smile at Nigel who smiled back. He was indeed handsome, but Monica didn’t ask him out for coffee because he was good looking. She leaned over the small table, as if a conspirator.
“You’re a psychologist,” Monica said. “You’re full of perfectly logical answers.”
“Let’s look at the easiest explanation. You wanted to put the phone on the nightstand, and you thought you had. Being a bit tipsy, you assumed you had already done it. Assured because you had mentally already moved the phone, you went to sleep.”
Monica frowned. “I put the phone on the nightstand. I remember.”
“Of course, you do. You would be surprised by the number of people who remember things they never did. I had one client who guaranteed he had attended the Haunted Ball in San Francisco. In fact, he has never left the UK. He merely convinced himself he had been there.”
“I’m not one of your patients.”
“Clients. And you may well have placed the phone on the nightstand. But at some point during the night, you arose and perhaps went to the loo. For some reason you don’t remember, you moved the phone from the nightstand to the dresser. Maybe when it lit up with a message, it bothered you.”
“I did not visit the loo, and the phone was screen down. It couldn’t bother me.”
“If you can’t accept simple explanations, then you are faced with more limited and dangerous causes.”
Monica sipped her coffee, not quite daring to ask. But she did. “Such as?”
“Someone entered your bedroom while you were asleep and moved your phone for some unknown reason.”
“The door was locked.”
“I’ve seen your door locks, and frankly, it wouldn’t take much to jimmy a Victorian era lock.” He waved a finger at Monica. “And relock it so you wouldn’t know someone had been inside your bedroom.”
“You’re not helping.”
“Well, if it wasn’t you, and it wasn’t a third party, then you’re talking extra-human powers. Personally, I don’t believe in ghosts, so I’m leaning toward the simplest solution.”
Monica thought about his explanations for a moment. She wasn’t about to agree that she had convinced herself of placing the phone when she hadn’t.
And she didn’t want to think she could get up in the middle of the night, complete any number of tasks, and remember none of them. That left the movement of the phone to some outside agent. While Monica had her doubts about someone visiting her bedroom in the middle of the night, that was preferable to believing in a ghost! Only crazy people believed in ghosts.
“I’m not crazy,” Monica said.
“I know that. But we all have blind spots, things we don’t see or see wrongly—if that’s a word. And, if I were you, I wouldn’t worry about it. Unless it happens again.
If your phone gets in the habit of jumping about the room, then you might need another strategy.” Nigel laughed as if he had made a big joke.
Monica wondered if she should tell Nigel about the cold air. Would he tell her it was all in her head? Would he tell her it was a faulty cooling system? Or would he wink and say a spirit was trying to get her attention? No, she wasn’t about to give Nigel another reason to doubt her sanity, if you please. After all, she was meeting him in a coffee house because she didn’t want him in her office where a station wannabe could start a rumour about Monica consulting a psychologist. That was all she needed. As if there weren’t enough rumours already.
The first thing Monica did was arrange for an AC expert check out her system. After a full day, the expert announced her system reliable and in perfect condition. If she was feeling cold drafts, it wasn’t from her AC—unless someone had a way of turning the system on and off without her knowledge. Did she have any enemies?
After assuring the expert that she had no enemies who would go to the trouble of playing games with her AC, she contacted the real estate agent who had handled the closing on the property. The agent assured Monica that she had been given all the keys to the house, for all the doors.
There was no way anyone could sneak in and out if the doors were locked. Monica changed the locks on the outside doors anyway. If there were extra keys lurking in the background, they would no longer work.
She felt infinitely better as she sipped wine and answered her email. Especially since she hadn’t felt a blast of frigid air all evening. She sent an email to Charlie that said the Victorian was warm and comfy. Nothing to worry about.
That was when the knocking started.
For a moment, Monica couldn’t move. She was frozen, hands hovering over the keyboard. What the hell!
She jumpe
d up and looked around the kitchen. The knocking wasn’t particularly loud, and it wasn’t particularly constant. It was almost like a code, dots and dashes, gaps between the knocks…the knocks.
Where were the knocks coming from? She snatched a knife from the block on the counter and looked around. Even as the knocks tap-tapped, she locked the kitchen door. She was pretty sure the other outside doors were locked, but she checked them anyway. It was only after she was reasonably sure she was alone that she went looking for the source of the knocks.
It wasn’t upstairs. That much was certain. And it didn’t seem to come from the ground floor, which left—the basement.
Monica had seen enough horror movies to know that the basement was absolutely the worst place to explore alone. It was worse than the attic, even worse than the shed in the garden. Nothing was as bad as a dank, dark basement where spiders grew to the size of apples and dead bodies occupied every freezer and trunk. She didn’t want to go into that world, but she didn’t have a choice. She opened the door, flicked on the light, and the knocking stopped.
She stood at the top of the cracked stone steps that led into horror’s favourite playroom and stamped her foot. The knocking couldn’t stop now. How was she to find the source if it stopped?
“No,” she said out loud. “You can’t just quit.”
As if listening, the knocking recommenced, and that seemed worse than before. It was as if someone lurked in the shadows, hearing her every word. It was as if someone wanted to torment her in ways she couldn’t imagine. Biting her lip, she took the first step down.
The knocking didn’t stop.
Reassured for absolutely no cogent reason, she edged her way down the steps, into the cramped space of shadows and that infernal knocking. It took her almost no time to find the source of the knocking. It was a cover on some sort of intake on the furnace. As she watched, the panel fluttered and then knocked. Because the flow of air was inconstant, the knocking was inconstant.
She didn’t ask herself why there was air flow in the first place. Wasn’t the system supposed to be shut down? She re-seated the panel and closed the metal fastener.