Rattling Chains

by T. Strange

  Moxie climbed one of the nine flights of stairs, then sat on a landing, panting and refusing to continue. Hamilton and the dog’s handler—Carol—took turns carrying her up the other eight flights. Everyone but Harlan was panting by the time they reached the top.

  After giving the hallway a brief exploration to make sure Moxie couldn’t escape or get hurt, Carol shrugged and let her off her leash. “Let’s see where she goes.”

  Moxie lowered her head and wove her way down the hall, methodically sniffing every few inches. Her huge brown ears swept the plush carpet on either side of her face. Each doorway she passed got an extra-thorough examination, her big, black nose leaving damp spots on the dark wood. She sneezed occasionally—jowls flapping, a mist of drool spraying outward—then shuffled farther.

  “What will she do if she—” Harlan asked Hamilton softly, just as Moxie reached the haunted apartment’s door.

  After a frantic, audible snuffle, Moxie lay down in front of it.

  “If she finds something? That.”

  Carol praised the dog, giving her a well-loved stuffed toy. Wagging exuberantly, Moxie settled down for a good chew. Soon there were spreading damp patches on the carpet on either side of Moxie’s lips. Hamilton and Harlan exchanged delighted grins.

  Hamilton pulled down the police tape sealing the door and unlocked it. “C’mon, girl.” He stepped aside to let Moxie pass.

  She stared at Carol until the handler gave her a signal. Groaning, the dog sighed dramatically, but dropped the toy and stood, leading the way inside.

  Not feeling—or possibly ignoring—Harlan and Hamilton’s mounting excitement, Moxie ambled leisurely from room to room, thoroughly sniffing every inch of the floor and opulent furniture. After she’d inspected the master bedroom—the room farthest from the door—Moxie looked up at Carol, wagging her tail furiously.

  “Does that mean she found something?” Harlan asked, hopefully.

  Carol shook her head, clipping Moxie’s leash back onto the dog’s harness. “She’s not indicating.”

  “She sniffed the carpet for a long time.”

  “The aunt died in here. I’m sure they replaced it, but the floor probably still smells a little…corpse-y. Fuck, what’s the range on one of these?” Hamilton jerked his head in Moxie’s direction.

  “If there was a corpse here, she would’ve smelled it.”

  “Ah”—Hamilton nudged Carol with his elbow—“then we have to search the other floors.”

  With plenty of encouragement, Carol and Hamilton managed to convince Moxie to go down the stairs, with breaks after each flight to sniff down the hallway. She didn’t lie down—Harlan assumed that was what Carol meant by ‘indicating’—again.

  “Fuck.” Hamilton had his phone in his hand, turning it over and over. “That’s it? There’s no body?” They’d even checked the basement, with its storage and laundry facilities. These tenants didn’t wash their own clothing.

  Carol looked offended on behalf of her dog. “She’s found bodies in much more difficult terrain. If there was a body here, she’d’ve found it.”

  “Fuck,” Hamilton repeated. Watching Carol load the dog into her car, he shook his head. He’d switched to tossing his phone one-handed, sending it a little higher each time he caught it. “Fuck. This isn’t good. You said there’d be a body.”

  “I said there was a second ghost,” Harlan protested. “I didn’t say there was a body!”

  “You said ghosts stay near their bodies or where they died.” Hamilton gestured at the empty lobby.

  Fuck. He had. “I’m sorry. I-I don’t—”

  “Can you at least get rid of the ghosts?”

  Harlan nodded, then immediately shook his head.

  Hamilton raised a warning eyebrow.

  “I mean, I can. I just don’t think…” He wilted beneath Hamilton’s glower. “The aunt, no problem, but the other one, the girl, I don’t think I should.” He forced himself to counter Hamilton’s gaze with his own feeble attempt. “She might have been murdered. We should question—”

  Hamilton sighed, digging in the pocket of his crisp uniform pants. He produced a crumpled piece of paper, unfolded it and shoved it in Harlan’s face. “Do you see this?” He pointed at a line of text. “This is for the removal of one ghost. One. The old lady’s. Until—if—the other one causes anyone living any grief, she’s all yours. For now…” He gestured at the elevator. “Look,” he continued, his voice softer. “We’ve wasted enough time on this place. There are plenty of other cases waiting for us. We didn’t find a body, plain and simple. Just…let it go, okay? It’s easier that way.”

  Harlan shrugged stiffly as, dogless, they rode the elevator back to the upper floor.

  In the apartment, the aunt was sitting in plain sight on a wing-backed armchair. The other ghost? He could feel her, faintly, but she was hiding from him—hiding from all three of them, living and dead. He’d have to draw her out into the open to dispel her, and there was no way Hamilton would be patient—or quiet or calm—enough for that process. “I can do that.”

  “Good.” Hamilton clapped him on the shoulder. He sat on the sofa, inadvertently facing the aunt’s ghost like they were about to have a tête-à-tête.

  Harlan closed his eyes, concentrating. At the Centre, he’d been asked to describe every aspect of his ability over and over. The closest analogy he could come up with was a room, divided in the middle by a one-way mirror. On one side, the living. On the other, the dead. Most living people couldn’t see through it, never mind cross it. Many ghosts didn’t realize they couldn’t be seen by or interact with people on the other side. Some gifted people, like Harlan, saw through it as easily as an ordinary window.

  Most ghosts were easily convinced to cross that barrier. They knew they weren’t where they were supposed to be and they wanted to leave, only they’d gotten lost. Others took some…persuasion. Harlan suspected the aunt would fall into the latter category. Forcing a ghost to move on meant that Harlan had to cross the ‘mirror,’ however briefly, and open a doorway.

  Concentrating, Harlan could see the barrier clearly, all the places its edges touched and overlapped with the world of the living. Goosebumps prickled up and down his forearms. He hated this part, straddling the void between the two worlds. It felt like pins and needles on his whole body, but even worse was the whispering, like being in a dark theatre and trying to pay attention to what was happening on stage while everyone in the audience made comments he couldn’t quite hear, only this audience included every human being who’d ever died.

  He asked for a name. The other side answered.

  Harlan drew back just a little, returning his attention to the aunt. “Violet Beaudry, please listen to me. You have passed away, and you no longer belong in this place—”

  “Are you trying to tell me I’m dead?”

  “Y-yes.” Harlan had always thought the Centre’s script for informing spirits what had happened to them was too wishy-washy and euphemistic, but her question had still thrown him off balance. “I—”

  She snorted. “I know that! I’m dead, not an idiot.”

  “I thought you might—know you’re dead, I mean, not know you are an idiot! You’re not. Sorry. I have to— Look… You know you can’t stay here, right?” Mentally throwing out the script, he decided a straightforward approach might work best with her.

  She snorted again, shaking her head. “Of course I belong here! It’s my apartment.”

  “Not anymore. It belongs to your niece now.” He had to keep reminding himself that he didn’t have to raise his voice so she could hear him. Any hearing loss she might have had in life wouldn’t affect her ghost.

  “Tch. That girl… The way she’s spending my money, she’ll have to sell this place within six months.” She grinned, showing several gaps in her teeth. Apparently her dentures hadn’t made the transition to the afterlife with her. “I’m just…speeding up the inevitable.”

  “It’s not your money,” Harlan told her, gen
tly but firmly, “not anymore.”

  She flashed, glowing brighter for an instant. He wished his eyelids could protect him from spectral glare, but he knew from experience that closing his eyes wouldn’t help. She wasn’t glowing with something as mundane as light.

  Tired of her, of this apartment, of his embarrassment when Moxie hadn’t found anything, Harlan felt around for an opening to the other side and yanked it open. Still sitting on the couch, idly tapping his phone, Hamilton looked up and shivered. Interesting.

  “I’m not going!” Violet insisted.

  “I’m sorry. This isn’t a choice. This is happening.”

  “That-that girl gets to stay and I don’t?”

  He wasn’t sure which girl she meant—her niece or the other ghost—but it didn’t matter. Harlan suspected Violet hadn’t been told ‘no’ or that life wasn’t fair very often in her long and wealthy life, and he had no reason to believe it would be a convincing argument now.

  “It’s time to go.”

  Violet stood, going over to Hamilton and slapping at his shoulder. “Help! You’re the police, aren’t you? Why aren’t you helping me? I’m being thrown out of my own apartment!”

  Hamilton didn’t so much as twitch. Violet hadn’t been a ghost long enough, exerted herself enough, to affect someone who wasn’t connected to her by blood.

  “He can’t hear you,” Harlan said, hoping she couldn’t hear the quiet glee in his voice. He was beyond tired of her. “Come on.” He reached out, doing a sort of mental blink that let him actually touch ghosts, and grabbed her wrist. Her spectral skin was so thin as it slid over tiny, delicate bones. Harlan didn’t like touching ghosts. It took a lot of energy and concentration to line up his physical body with their phantom ones, and it left his skin numb and tingly, often for days. He had nerve damage in several places on his hands and arms, places that had lost sensation when a ghost had touched them and never gotten it back. So far, all of them were from the practice ghosts at the Centre, but he had a feeling that might change.

  “Let go of me!” Violet tried to pull free, but Harlan was prepared for her struggle and held on, grimly. “Help!” She flailed at him with her free hand, leaving an icy prickling sensation everywhere she touched.

  “No one but me can hear you,” Harlan said through gritted teeth. He started pulling her toward the opening he’d created.

  She opened her mouth impossibly wide and screamed, showing a gaping black void that reeked of rot and decay.

  Harlan wasn’t intimidated by her display. He used her moment of distraction to shove her through the hole. He felt her bony fingers close on his hand, perfectly manicured nails digging in as she tried to reverse their positions and drag him in after her. He threw himself backward, slamming the portal shut just in front of her grasping talons.

  “Holy fuck.”

  Flat on his back, Harlan blinked up at Hamilton.

  “That was… Are you okay? You’re bleeding.”

  “Where?” Harlan’s voice was hoarse, and it hurt coming out. He coughed. His mouth tasted stale and bitter.

  “Your hand.” Hamilton knelt beside him.

  Harlan couldn’t feel his left hand at all, but there was a jagged row of gouges just above his knuckles, sluggishly trickling blood.

  “At least it’s my left hand.”

  “What?”

  “I’m right-handed.”

  “Did you hit your head or something when you fell?” Hamilton frowned, scrutinizing Harlan more closely.

  Harlan shook his head, trying to clear it.

  “That wasn’t normal, was it? I could see you pulling against something, but there was nothing there. Scared the shit outta me. I was about to grab you when you—” He mimed falling backwards.

  Harlan shook his head again. “I had to stick my hand through so I could push her. Living things…aren’t meant to go there. I’ve got nerve damage in a few places, but mostly my left hand.” He flexed his fingers. His hand was still completely numb, but he knew from experience that feeling would return—to most of it—in a few hours or days. Hopefully. Until it finally didn’t and the numbness became permanent.

  “So I always use my left hand. Better to just fuck one of them up.”

  Hamilton looked genuinely concerned. “You don’t… It’s not always like that, is it?”

  Harlan shook his head. “She fought.”

  “Fuck.” Standing, Hamilton offered Harlan a hand up. “She’s gone?”

  Harlan reached up with his right hand, the one he could feel. Rising unsteadily, even with Hamilton’s support, he nodded. “She’s gone.”

  “Just let me call her niece and I’ll take you home. You’re done for the day.” It wasn’t a question.

  Harlan nodded meekly. Something occurred to him, and when he looked up, he could tell Hamilton had thought the same thing.

  “We won’t tell her about the other ghost.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  “This is getting really fucking old,” Hamilton said, actually putting a hand over his eyes for a moment.

  I know that, Harlan replied, silently. Don’t you think I know that? Matching Hamilton’s frustration with his own, he said out loud, “I’m not doing this just to piss you off!” He immediately looked down and away, his cheeks heating with shame at his outburst.

  Hamilton opened his mouth, closed it and gave Harlan a long, steady look that wasn’t quite a glare. He briefly closed his eyes, moving his lips silently, as though counting down from ten in his head. “All right. I know that. There’s no other explanation?”

  Harlan shook his head. Not counting Violet’s ‘companion’, this was the third tagalong ghost he’d found at a scene that was only supposed to have one. None of the secondary ghosts’ bodies had been found, and they all wore recent, modern clothing. Harlan knew ghosts didn’t always appear the way they had in life, so he supposed it wasn’t impossible at least some of the ghosts were even a few decades old and had updated their look, but…he didn’t think so. He didn’t feel so. These were recent deaths, and each new ghost dropped another lead weight into a pit of dread gathering in his stomach. No one else seemed to share—or even understand—his apprehension, not even Hamilton.

  Maybe seeing some of the tension on Harlan’s face, Hamilton sighed. “Give me evidence. Give me proof, something I can work with! The higher-ups aren’t going to let me start an investigation based on a few unidentified ghosts—whose numbers are building, I know,” he continued, before Harlan could interject.

  Shaking his head, Hamilton pulled out his notebook and flipped to a blank page. “Describe the ghost for me.”

  Harlan grinned, nodding his thanks at Hamilton before turning his attention back to the ghost that didn’t belong. Well, even more than ghosts usually didn’t belong.

  Giving a description of this one wouldn’t be easy. He kept winking in and out of his sight, his features distorted in pain and fear.

  “About…five-nine,” he began, tentatively. “Dark skin and eyes. Wavy black hair, medium long.” He held up a hand to his own head to mime the ghost’s hairline. “Glasses. Late thirties, maybe? Heavy-set.” These ghosts had made him better at describing people, if nothing else. “Wearing a red polo shirt and black pants. Maybe East Indian or Pakistani, but I’m not sure.”

  Hamilton finished his notes, read over them aloud. “Any scars, tattoos or other identifying marks?”

  Harlan shook his head. “Not that I can see.”

  “I’ll run this guy by the morgue and missing persons, but I’m not holding my breath.”

  “I know.” None of Harlan’s descriptions had matched any unidentified bodies or anyone reported missing in Toronto or all of Ontario. “Thanks. For…believing me.”

  “It’s my job,” Hamilton said gruffly, but he gave Harlan a brief clap on the shoulder. “Get rid of the ghost we came here for—and the other one if you can—and let’s get the fuck out of here.”

  Hamilton shivered, making Harlan wonder again if he might be at
least a little sensitive to ghosts. The unknown spirit sent out such powerful waves of grief that Harlan had broken out into goosebumps as soon as they’d arrived at the scene, and they hadn’t gone away since.

  The ‘original’ ghost was easy enough to persuade to leave, once Harlan explained that she was dead and when and how she’d died. The interloper disappeared as soon as Harlan approached. Under Hamilton’s watchful eye, he stayed for another half hour. The ghost didn’t reappear, so they left.

  Harlan felt restless and unsettled when he got home. He considered going for a walk, but now that he was safely behind his warded walls again, he was reluctant to leave until he absolutely had to. He dreaded seeing yet another unexplained—inexplicable—ghost, especially without Hamilton beside him.

  None of them had spoken to him, barely acknowledged him except to flee, but he couldn’t shake the certainty that they wanted something from him, for him to find their bodies—their killer. None of them showed any marks, any signs of violent death, but Harlan knew, in some way he couldn’t explain, that they’d all been murdered—by the same person or people.

  He opened Tumblr, half with the thought of distracting himself, half-hoping to get some kind of insight from one of the other mediums’ blogs he followed.

  Neither happened. A gif caught his attention as he scrolled past, and he stopped. It looked like it was from one of the many police procedural shows he’d never watched—even before he’d become a part of police procedure.

  It showed a woman placing pins in a map.

  Harlan almost dropped his phone in his haste to call Hamilton.

  Hamilton picked up on the third ring, sounding bored as usual when he said his usual greeting. “Hamilton.”

  “A map, pins!”

  “What? Who is this? Harlan?”

  “Yes, yes, it’s me. This is huge!”

  Hamilton chuckled. “It must be, to get you so fired up.”

  “Listen. Do you have a map nearby?”

  “On my phone…”

  Harlan shook his head, frustrated. “No, a real map. A big, physical one that you can put pins in…or at least mark.”