Dark Siren (5 page)

Alice considered him, then leaned forward in her chair, resting her elbows on the desk. “Speaking as a former cop, you’d be surprised how much they actually know. But you’ve come here for a reason, so I take it you understand what I do?”

He nodded.

“Then you know missing people cases aren’t exactly what I’m usually hired for.”

“I don’t know who else to turn to.”

“Do you know who or what took her?”

“I’m not sure,” he said, “I think I know, but I was knocked out.”

“Knocked out?”

“One moment I’m shutting the projector down, after Emily left the room, and the next moment I’m out cold.”

“So you didn’t see what took her?”

“It was a man. I don’t really know what he looked like, but it was definitely a man, and I know what he sounded like; what his breathing sounded like.”

“A man… how do you know it was a man?”

“Because I… I think he came out of the projector.”

Alice cocked an eyebrow.

“You don’t have to believe me,” Nate said.

“Sure I do. I’m just trying to get the facts.”

“My friend is gone. Something not human took her, and you’re the only person who can help. Those are the only real facts.”

Alice nodded and leaned back in her chair again. “You sound pretty sure about that,” Alice said, “But I’m going to need to hear more. This friend of yours… she disappears, and then what happens?”

“When I came to,” he said “I looked for her. The place had gone dark, all the power had gone out, so I went into the auditorium to look for her, called for her. Things got weird in there. I thought I could hear her, like she was far away but also present at the same time. After a couple of seconds, I stopped being able to hear her. I tried her cell, went back to the place where she’d disappeared, went to her house.

“Did you ever hear her again?”

“No, but I thought… it’s crazy, but I thought I heard someone singing inside the auditorium.”

“Someone singing…”

“It’s like it was in my head, and also all around at the same time. And the static, there was like this static sound. It was everywhere, like a badly tuned TV.”

Singing,
she thought. Alice didn’t say anything, but she watched him, and listened.

“I know it probably sounds stupid,” Nate said, “But that’s what I heard.”

Alice wasn’t sure what had happened to Emily, all she had was Nate’s story to go on, but she couldn’t deny the story was starting to sound almost familiar. Was it possible that Emily, Nate’s friend, could have been taken by a supernatural
thing
for some reason known only to it? Totally. People went missing in Ashwood all the time. Lately such cases seemed to be occurring more frequently, and the folks who paid attention to the minutia of such matters knew how to tell the difference between a mundane kidnapping and the
other thing
that happens to people who are taken in the dead of night.

“Alright,” she said. “Let’s say I take the case; can you pay? You can’t buy food with gratitude.”

“How… how much?”

“Depends on the case. Bounty Hunters tend to be warmed up on who and what their targets are. Sounds to me like I’m going to have to do a lot of heavy lifting. Five thousand.”

“Bounty hunter?” Nate asked, “I was told you were a paranormal investigator.”

Alice smiled. “Of sorts. I’ve investigated the paranormal before, looked for lost people and things, but I really found my calling hunting for bounties to collect. You were told I was a paranormal investigator because that’s how word of my services gets around.”

“I guess.” Nate dried the palms of his hands on his jeans.

“Out of curiosity, who told you about me?”

“A girl called… Jinx.”

“Yeah, I know Jinx. She’s responsible for a whole lot of my clientele, has a special talent for finding people in trouble and offering solutions. Let me guess—she found you?”

“You’re right, she did find me.”

“Figured as much. Anyway, do you have the cash or not?”

“Some, but I don’t have five thousand.”

“Then we have a problem.”

“I was told you would help.”

“And I will, but I need to eat and pay bills too. Just like you. And if I had a day job, I wouldn’t be able to devote all of my time and talents to the task at hand, so… five thousand.”

Nate’s eyes darted around the room again, then settled on Alice with a look of conflict brewing like a lightning storm in them. “I need to find Emily,” he said, “She’s gone somewhere and she’s been gone for almost two days. What if she’s dead already?”

Alice’s lips pressed into a thin line. She returned Nate’s gaze and frowned. “When someone goes missing under these circumstances, prospects don’t look great. I’m not saying this to frighten you, but you came to me because what happened to your friend wasn’t normal. I can help you, and I can help your friend, but you must have known you’d need to pay up if you wanted my services.”

“I did,” he said, “I just didn’t expect it would be five thousand dollars. It’s more than I have.”

She was beginning to understand that Nate wasn’t like most of her other clients. Alice was only ever hired by a very specific sort of person—the kind with a supernatural affinity, money to spare and, oftentimes, questionable morals. Nate, however, seemed like the reverse; he had morals to spare, no discernable supernatural affinities, and a questionable bank account. Taking his case was akin to charity, but then there was the feeling she had gotten moments ago, that cold sensation in the pit of her stomach. Was that guilt? Intrigue?

Dread of something terribly familiar?

“Tell you what,” she said, “I’ll take your case, but I still want to get paid.”

“Yes, absolutely.” Nate said, his face brightening.

“How much did you bring with you?”

He fished in his pocket for a small stack of hundred dollar bills and placed them on the table. She took them, counted, and nodded. “A thousand,” she said.

“It’s all I could gather.”

Alice put the money in her pocket. “Fine, one thousand now, the rest when we’re finished. Deal?”

“I don’t have a choice, but I’ll find the money somehow.”

She stood, extended her hand, and waited for Nate to take it. His skin was cold and clammy, like the hand of a dead man, only this one had a pulse—and sweat. He wasn’t good at hiding his own shot-to-shit nerves. How he had gotten the courage to come and find her was impossible to know, but she commended him for it.

“So, what happens now?” Nate asked.

“Now you give me directions to the place where you last saw Emily, and I go find her.”

“Just like that?”

“We can only hope.”

Alice grabbed her backpack from off the floor, and straightened herself out. She also plucked a pad and pen from off the table and handed it to Nate. When he filled in the address for the Cinema Royale, her eyebrows went up in stark surprise.

“Get out of town,” she said, “This place?”

“You know it?” Nate asked.

“I spent most of my teenage years skipping school to watch movie marathons at the Cinema Royale. Been meaning to go again.”

“You won’t get a chance. Place is closed.”

“That’s a shame. It didn’t close because of
this
, did it?”

“No. This happened after. Or, at least, it happened on closing night.”

“Closing night…” Alice said, trailing of.

“Is… that important?” Nate asked.

“I don’t know. It could be. Do you have a key for me?”

“Key? No, I’m meeting you there.”

“Like hell you are,” she said, calm authority in her voice. “If what you’ve told me is even half true then that place is too dangerous for you to go back to. Besides, not to be a cliché or anything, but you’ll just get in my way and I’m used to working alone.”

Nate’s eyebrows pressed together. “I’m not going to sit back and wait for you to finish this. Emily was—is—important to me. I’m going to be there whether you like it or not.”

“Considering you just underpaid me, I don’t think you’re in a position to make demands.”

“I need to be there, okay?” he said, his voice breaking. “I need to.”

He felt responsible for Emily’s disappearance. Alice didn’t need to probe or ask, didn’t need to analyze his body language to come to this conclusion. It was instinct. Nate’s soul, his aura, was laid bare to her like all others were, allowing her to see right through him. This was one of her many talents, but it was the one she most wished she could occasionally turn off.

“Fine,” she said, “But if you get hurt, it’s your own fault.”

“I’ve spent hours in that place on my own since Emily disappeared. I’ll be fine.”

Alice approached the door to the office, opened it, and gestured with a nod of her head. “I need to go do a couple of things first, but I’ll meet you at the cinema in an hour.”

Nate disappeared into the street without saying another word. She guessed he had spoken enough, anyway. As she watched him leave, she decided he wasn’t responsible for Emily’s disappearance, nor was he complicit. One of the first rules of police work was to always suspect the person who
calls it in
. She wasn’t on the force anymore, but her training helped now just as much as it had then.

Not having to worry about Nate, or worrying she was being lured into a trap, was a relief. Nate was being genuine about what he had experienced at the cinema. Unfortunately, he was also being genuine about his financial situation. She doubted she would see the rest of the payment she had asked for, but the particulars surrounding this case made it an interesting one; one she may have tackled for free if she had been the one to witness Emily’s disappearance instead of Nate.

With her backpack slung over her shoulder, Alice stepped out of her office, locked up, and headed for her apartment a couple of buildings down the road. Tonight there would be a new hunt, but before that, she had a cat to feed and a poltergeist to put away.

CHAPTER THREE

Chest of Haunts

Alice lived in a loft a few floors up from a burger joint, which offered her apartment the perpetual aroma of cooked meat, cheese, and French fries day and night. Her stomach grumbled as she let herself in and she went to flick the lights on, but then she caught something in her periphery which turned her insides to ice. Someone was there, standing by the window overlooking the street, the silhouette of a person clearly visible against the lights of the city.

Her back stiffened. No one had the key to her apartment, she didn’t have roommates, and God knew she didn’t have a boyfriend. The landlord? He wouldn’t have just let himself in, and even if he had, why the hell would he have been standing in the dark like a weirdo? All of these thoughts raced through her mind the instant she realized the figure was there, but then… she had just unlocked the door, hadn’t she? If someone had broken in, the door wouldn’t have been locked.

Alice took a breath, pressed her finger to the light switch, and flicked it on. The loft filled with light, and whoever was standing in front of the window disappeared in the blink of an eye. She let the breath slip out of her mouth and closed the door to her apartment, crossing the length of the room and heading for the space where she had seen the figure. The air was cool and seemed to be vibrating as she ran her arm through it.

Immediately her gaze landed on the closet door with the padlock on it. The door was closed, padlock in place. She let her backpack slip to the floor, rummaged around inside it, and produced the envelope with the moving image of the poltergeist she had earlier trapped. Alice tapped the envelope against her forehead and approached the store room door.

“I’m hungry,” she said to the door. “I’m hungry and I’m hallucinating. That’s what’s going on. Because there’s no way one of you got out.”

Alice took a series of breaths. She then fished a key out of her back pocket and undid the padlock, sliding it off the hook and setting it down on the nearby kitchen counter. She felt cold fingers touch her skin as she opened the door.

On the inside of the door there were etchings which vaguely resembled a circle made up of small, stick-like symbols surrounding three larger symbols. Inside the closet there was little else but a couple of shelves covered in old tools, a flashlight, and a record player. The only other item in here, and the only thing of note, was the big brown chest covered in etchings and markings similar to those on the closet door. With a second key from the same ring, she undid the padlock keeping the old brown chest closed and waited… then she opened it.

The chest was empty save for a number of black envelopes and white Polaroids with their backs turned. The envelopes, which were turned the right way up, had been written on in simple silver type. Each was given a name; ‘Crooked Finger’, ‘Berkley Butcher’, ‘South-Side Demon’. Alice grabbed a pen from off the shelf inside the closet and wrote on the front of the envelope she was holding ‘Mack’s Poltergeist’.