Spookshow 4: Bringing up the bodies Read online

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  title

  the weird sisters

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  S P O O K S H O W

  Bringing up the bodies

  Book Four

  Tim McGregor

  By the pricking of my thumbs,

  Something wicked this way comes.

  the weird sisters

  Chapter 1

  KAITLIN LOOKED DEAD.

  Lying unconscious in a hospital bed, she looked small and frail like some orphan child about to give up the ghost. Her skin had the colour of ash and her breathing was shallow. As still as a stone, not even her eyes moved under the lids in their dreamless state. A pulse monitor was clasped over her index finger, an intravenous drip plugged into her veins. Her ribs swathed in gauze over the stab wound to her abdomen.

  The three women in the room had barely spoken a word in the last hour, each one sullen in her own thoughts. Jen and Tammy and Billie. A sigh was heard or the creak of a chair as the trio sat vigil at the bedside of their injured friend.

  “This is silly,” Tammy declared, breaking the silence.

  Billie and Jen flinched, breaking from their mesmerized gaze at the woman in the bed.

  “What’s silly?” asked Jen.

  “All of us in here.” Tammy sat up straight, stretching her back. “Like there’s something we can do.”

  Billie craned her neck. “We don’t want her to wake up to an empty room.”

  “We could take turns sitting with her,” Jen suggested. “We’ll work in shifts so someone’s always here. The other two can get some sleep.”

  “Makes sense,” Billie agreed.

  Tammy nodded. “No sense all of us looking like zombies.”

  All agreed but no one moved, none willing to leave the side of their gravely wounded friend. All three afraid of the same thing; that if they left now they might never see Kaitlin again.

  So they stayed where they were until the nurse came and chased them out.

  ~

  The crisp lighting of the waiting room was harsh after the dim glow in Kaitlin’s room. The three of them stood stupefied, yawning and rubbing their eyes.

  Tammy looked at the other two. “Do I look as haggard as you two?”

  “Worse,” replied Jen.

  Billie fussed with the bandage over her left hand. Three stitches over a slice to her knuckles that Kaitlin had put there herself. “Does anyone remember what the doctor said?”

  The doctor had rambled a lot of mumbo-jumbo at them, most of it unintelligible to the three sleep-deprived women. A rupture to the peritoneal cavity, internal bleeding and so on.

  “She was stabbed,” said Tammy, cutting to the chase. “She might die.”

  The other two startled at the bluntness. Candour was one of Tammy’s charms. Not today perhaps. They were still in shock, thought Billie. They didn’t need anymore.

  A custodian ambled by pushing a cart past the three silent women. Jen started crying again. All had endured their bouts of tears and when Jen suffered another round, the other two said little to console her. They were all sick of hearing each other say that it would be okay and that they couldn’t jump to any conclusions and not to lose hope. Repeating these platitudes again would sound not only hollow but cruel.

  Jen dried her eyes and stuffed the wadded tissue back into her sleeve. She looked up at Billie. “I still don’t understand what happened. What was she doing there?”

  Billie felt Tammy’s gaze fall on her alongside Jen’s. She had deflected this question twice in the last three hours but didn’t have the strength to do it again. “I don’t know.”

  “What was she doing with a knife?” Jen said, unsatisfied. “And these cult people you saw. Who were they?”

  Billie kept her eyes on the dull patina of the floor and held her tongue. Jen was simply venting. She didn’t really want to know that Kaitlin had become possessed by something evil in a rotting mansion known colloquially as the Murder House. She also didn’t want to know of the hooded cult figures Billie had found Kaitlin with, nor the bizarre ritual they were performing at the time. Nor did she really want to know that the entire incident had been orchestrated by a woman named Evelyn Bourdain, who had been dead for almost eighty years. Jen did not believe in such things.

  “Why don’t we get some coffee,” Tammy suggested, desperate for something to break the monotony of waiting.

  “I can’t drink anymore coffee,” Jen dismissed.

  “Then let’s just stretch our legs. Come on.”

  Jen pursed her lips like she hated the idea but she stood up all the same. “Do you want anything?” she said to Billie.

  “No.”

  Jen turned and joined Tammy, the two of them ambling slowly down the hospital corridor.

  Billie leaned back in the chair and closed her eyes, wishing she could shut her brain off. The incident at the Murder House and Kaitlin’s injury were not the only things scrambling her mind. Mockler, the homicide detective who had become a significant part of her life over the last few months, had dropped a bomb on Billie about the mummified remains found at the derelict mansion on the hill. The body in the pit was once a man named Franklin Riddel. Her absentee father. The man suspected of killing her mother.

  ~

  Detective Ray Mockler stood in the centre of the cavernous basement of the abandoned property dubbed the “Murder House” by generations of kids dating back to the fifties. The darkness of the cellar was pushed away by banks of floodlights that the tech crew had set up. He couldn’t take a step without tripping over all the cables on the floor.

  “Christ Almighty,” said Detective Odinbeck, standing on the far side of the dungeon-like chamber. “Weren’t we just here bailing out your friend?”

  The friend the older detective referred to was Billie Culpepper. Earlier in the week she had, for reasons still unclear, broken through a patch of concrete floor to find human remains hidden in a pit. The night before, he and Billie had returned to the house to find her missing friend, one Kaitlin Grainger. What they found was a handful of people in dark robes engaged in some sort of ritual. Kaitlin had attacked Billie with a large dagger. Again, the reasons why were unclear. Both women had tumbled into the pit but the blade had ended up in Kaitlin’s abdomen. Her condition remained critical.

  “Yep.” Mockler replied. Casual as can be, like this sort of thing happened all the time.

  The two detectives looked down at the broken crust of concrete and within that, a shallow pit where the remains had been found. Surrounding the hidden tomb was an enormous pentacle scrawled onto the gritty floor in white paint. All five points of the star were tipped with candles that had cooled into puddles of wax. Kaitlin Grainger’s blood was still speckled across the concrete in droplets like some kind of deranged game of connect-the-dots.

  “Do you feel that?” Odinbeck asked. “The vibe in here? It’s oppressive.”

  Mockler raised an eyebrow. His partner wasn’t prone to such musings. “Vibe? Are you kidding me?”

  “It’s something, man.” The olde
r officer surveyed the cellar around them, shaking his head in dismay. “I’ve stood knee-deep in more crime scenes that I care to remember. But this place? This hell-hole gives me the creeps. It’s like someone died in here.”

  “Someone did die in here. A lot of people died in here.”

  “Oh,” Odinbeck grumbled. Gallows humour, not uncommon to working detectives. “Then I guess we better get to work, huh?”

  For all his flaws, Odinbeck knew how to lighten a mood and for that Mockler was grateful. He didn’t let on to his partner but the truth was he was afraid to be in this godforsaken place. He had witnessed something that put a chill into his bones like nothing he’d ever experienced before. Something had attacked Billie in this very cellar four days ago. It had pushed her down and dragged her clear across the floor toward that awful pit inside the painted circle. Clutching her arm he had felt the unseen thing on the other end tug harder, using the young woman like a rope in a game of tug-of-war. Working homicide, Mockler had seen more than his share of terrible things. People shot or stabbed or simply bludgeoned to death but that awful tug had turned his world upside down. It was like suddenly realizing that everything he knew was wrong. The world really was flat. Two plus two equalled seven. Monsters really did hide under the bed.

  Worst of all was the fact that whatever unholy thing that had snatched Billie away was still here. It fouled the air and plunged the temperature all around him. Even Odinbeck, who was as sensitive as a brick, could feel it.

  Mockler knelt down at the lip of the broken floor and trained his flashlight into the pit. A little loose dirt and broken shards of concrete lay at the bottom, nothing more. Its awful secret had been extracted by the forensic unit days earlier.

  Odinbeck remained outside the perimeter of the painted circle. “Did you talk to your friend yet? About what she found in that hole?”

  “I did,” Mockler replied. A bomb he had dropped on Billie hours before at the hospital. It had left her with a dazed expression, like her guts had been kicked in.

  “Hard to believe,” Odinbeck huffed. He looked down at the cavity in the floor. “Nothing good is gonna come of that news. Some secrets ought to stay buried, you ask me.”

  Mockler stood up and brushed the dust from his knees. “We should go over the place one more time.”

  “How about we get some fresh air first? It stinks down here.”

  The younger detective agreed wholeheartedly and the two of them marched briskly for the stairs.

  Chapter 2

  NO ONE COULD REACH Kaitlin’s parents. Twice a year they flew to a retreat in Panama where they left their phones at the door, completely disconnecting from the outside world. None of the ladies knew the name of the resort so they had no way of contacting them. Billie felt sick at the shock Kaitlin’s parents were in for. Coming out of their retreat, feeling refreshed and relaxed, to be told their only daughter had been stabbed and was on death’s door.

  “Kyle must know how to reach her parents,” Tammy said. She sat cross-legged on the floor.

  “If we ever find him.” Jen stood looking out the window. “We should ask at the front desk again. Maybe he turned up.”

  Kyle had been assaulted when Kaitlin disappeared, left unconscious in the condo they shared together. Billie and Tammy had called an ambulance for him before leaving to find Kaitlin. That was the last they had seen of him.

  “He’ll turn up,” Billie said. “He’s probably sitting in Emergency waiting to be seen.”

  “We don’t know that,” Jen snapped, her tone sharp.

  The exhaustion was rattling everyone’s nerves. Billie let it go.

  “Maybe he ended up at that awful Murder House too.” Jen’s tone was even flintier this time.

  “What does that mean?”

  Jen’s gaze was sharp on Billie. “You never should have gone there in the first place. None of this would have happened.”

  That, Billie knew, was more than just exhaustion talking. It was an accusation. “You’re blaming me for this?”

  Jen stiffened. “You should have known better. That’s all.” Her eyes shot to Tammy as well, spreading the blame evenly. “All of you.”

  Billie studied Jen, staring out the window, her back to the room. They had been friends since high school. A lot of water under the bridge but something had changed between them in the last few months. A distance creeping in since that night in June when Billie had confessed her terrible secret. The ladies, meaning Jen and Tammy and Kaitlin, had confronted Billie about her odd behaviour since the incident where she had almost drowned. They had wanted to know what was wrong and Billie told them. About the ghosts that haunted her every move. About her new-found ability to see the dead that surrounded all of them. Each of them had reacted differently. Where Tammy was sceptical, Kaitlin had believed immediately. Jen, the person she trusted the most, had flat-out rejected the idea as nonsense. End of story.

  Nothing had been the same ever since. It was like they were strangers now, she and Jen. Polite but reserved. It was unfair and it irked Billie to no end but she had neither the energy nor the mental power to bring it up now.

  Tammy stretched her legs out on the cold floor and crossed one ankle over the other. She looked up at Billie. “What did the cop say to you last night?”

  “Which cop?”

  “Your friend, Mockler. You two went outside to talk. When you came back you were white as a ghost.”

  Ghost. The word lingered in the air for a moment. Billie turned her eyes to the window, remembering the conversation but she said nothing. It still hadn’t sunk in yet, too unbelievable to comprehend.

  “Bee?” Tammy growled, her impatience streaming through. “Out with it.”

  Billie exhaled. “It was about the body. The one we found in the pit.”

  “The one you found,” Jen corrected her. “The one you smashed the floor to find. Isn’t that what happened?”

  A wild urge to smack her friend in the face boiled up in Billie. Why was Jen being such a bitch? Was it just the stress? And where was this violence inside her coming from? Three weeks ago she had punched a man named Aaron Napier right in the nose. He had deserved it and she felt no qualms over the violence but before that moment, she had never hit anyone in her life. And now here she was wanting to smack her best friend across the cheek. It was disturbing.

  “Easy, Jen,” Tammy cautioned. She turned her attention back to Billie. “What about the body? Did they identify it?”

  Billie nodded. “Yes.”

  Tammy leaned in. Even Jen had torn her eyes from the window to look at Billie. “Well? Who is it?”

  “Frank Riddel.”

  Tammy exchanged a look with Jen, followed by a shrug. “Who’s he?”

  “My father,” said Billie.

  Tammy’s eyes widened. Jen took a step back, already shaking her head. “That’s insane.”

  “What?” Tammy sputtered. “How can that be?”

  “They’re not one hundred percent sure yet. But the wallet found with the remains belonged to Franklin Riddel.”

  Tammy grew still. “You never mentioned your dad before.”

  “I barely knew him.”

  “Bullshit,” Jen interrupted. “How could it be him? He left when you were a kid and then, bingo, you just stumble across his corpse?”

  Billie said nothing.

  Jen continued to shake her head at the idea. “This cop is messing with you. That’s just too crazy.”

  “If it was Gantry,” Billie replied, “I’d say yes. But not Mockler.”

  “I need to go home.” Jen rubbed her temple as if hit with a sudden migraine.

  “Go,” Tammy said, rising up from the floor. “Get some sleep. You too, Billie. I’ll stay with Kaitlin for a while.”

  Neither of them argued this time. Jen looked ready to run. All Billie could think about was shutting her eyes.

  Before anyone could make a move, the door swung open and Kaitlin’s boyfriend entered the room.

  “Kyle?�
�� Tammy sputtered. “Where have you been?”

  His left eye was swollen purple. A bad cut on his eyebrow had been stitched. He charged to the bedside and clutched Kaitlin’s cold hand.

  His back was turned to the three women in the room but they could tell by the shudder in his shoulders that he was already crying. Jen took a step toward him. “Kyle, Kaitlin’s been hurt. She’s stabilized for now but the doctors say it’s serious.”

  He wasn’t listening. He kept his back to them and muttered soft and low to the woman in the bed, stroking her hand again and again.

  The sight of it was hard to bear and it triggered tears anew in the women.

  Billie inched closer and put her hand on Kyle’s back. “She’s gonna be okay, Kyle. Kaitlin’s strong.”

  He snapped around on her so fast she thought he was going to bite her.

  “Get out!” His teeth flashed in his snarl. The look in his eyes was pure venom. “Get the fuck away from her!”

  Billie startled back. “Easy, Kyle—”

  He charged at Billie, teeth snapping. “This is your fault, you fucking witch! You and your voodoo bullshit!”

  “Kyle,” Tammy said, stepping in like a referee. “That’s not true.”

  “Yes it is!” He pointed at Billie. “She got Kaitlin mixed up in this shit! The Ouija boards and the spooky ghost bullshit! It’s all her fault!”

  The words stung, cutting deep like thorns into her flesh. Billie tried to wave it off, knowing it was just grief and shock that was rippling through Kyle, but it did nothing to mediate the sting.

  Kyle flung his arms, spittle flying from his bared teeth. “Get out, Billie! And don’t ever come back!” Then he turned on Tammy and Jen. “You two should stay away from her. She’s dangerous!”

  “Let’s get out of here,” Jen said, trying to pull Tammy away. “We’re leaving, Kyle.”

  The heat of his rage burned off and he flung his hand at them, shooing them away before returning to the woman in the bed.

  Tugging Tammy to the door, Jen turned to shoo Billie away too. “Let’s go, Billie—”