What kind of monsters?

24Oct

My dress shoes click-clacked on the courthouse floor as I walked to the stairs and up to the third floor. I exited the open stairwell and fought the urge to wipe the lipstick off my face with the back of my hand.

I turned a corner and stopped in the middle of the hall. Sitting alone on a bench across from Conference 5C was none other Granny Tuesday, as if she were a witness for the prosecution. She was sitting by herself—scrawny legs, arthritic hands in her lap. She didn’t notice me, or if she did, she didn’t show it. She was too busy looking doe-eyed and innocent at a uniformed officer, an African-American woman who cooed over her like she was a child.

“Oh, yes, dearie,” Granny said. “I’m fine. I’m just resting these old legs before heading home.”

The officer smiled warmly and leaned to grasp Granny’s hand in friendly parting. I passed her in the hall and sat on the other side of Granny’s bench.

“A warrant,” Granny cackled quietly to herself.

“You say something?”

“A warrant,” she jeered me, louder. “You been walkin’ between worlds so long, I think you’re all kinds a’ turned around. You’re lucky you was only thrown out. Next time you’re liable to have an accident on the way over and wind up in a coma.”

“Like all those people who live with you at the John D?”

She looked me up and down. Her eyes lingered on the lipstick. “What you all dressed up fer? Looks like you came from a funeral.”

“Not from,” I said. “You don’t know?”

She shook her head.

“Then how’d you know I’d be here?”

“Oh, a little birdie told me. You paid me such a nice visit the other day, I thought I’d return the favor, see if you’d found John Blymire yet.”

“That’s very sweet of you, Granny, but I’m a little busy.” I looked at my watch. Ten minutes to 1:00.

“I et him,” she said.

I paused.

“Your little bird. I roasted him on a spit and et him up.”

As a pair of officers passed consoling a grieving family. I didn’t recognize anyone. Down the hall, court was just getting out. Lawyers, plaintiffs, defendants, and all their hangers-on walked out in a bustle and headed for the stairs. One side was very unhappy. I couldn’t tell which.

“That was a nice trick with the totem,” she added, her voice near a whisper.

“You didn’t think I’d actually give you back something that powerful, did you?”

“The thought crossed my mind, both ways. But don’t you worry. I’m gonna get you back fer it. Today, in fact.”

“Eating my friend wasn’t enough?”

“You have no idea,” she said, smiling at me.

“You gonna fight me, Granny? Right here in the courthouse?”

“Not at all. In fact, I’m gonna give you exactly what you want.”

“And what’s that?”

“The truth.”

“That what the oracles told you to do?”

She nodded.

“You always do what the oracles say?”

“Yup. Lucky for you, too. I told you before there was a fella come to see me. Lotsa letters after his name. You find him?”

I shook my head. “Seems the good doctor’s gone missing. Left his wife and kid earlier this year. After his mother died.”

“So why aren’t folks out looking for him? If he disappeared?”

“Seems he was acting strange,” I said. “Quit his job. Told everyone he was leaving. I gathered things had been tough with the wife. And he didn’t have any other family. Brother died young. Father died in prison.”

“So a man completely disappears and no one says a word. Why do you think that is?”

“I wouldn’t know.”

“Yes, you do,” she said. “Tell me. What would you do if you had a terrible secret to keep and someone in your organization got too close to the truth?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean would it make more sense to kill them? Or discredit them instead? Make it look like they were crazy.

“I heard tell of a Chinese girl,” she said, “this past summer. An artifact came to her. An artifact he wanted. But it weren’t something he could just take. No, sir. Not without consequences. It had to be given to him. Freely. Which that young girl did. Ran to him, in fact, as if he was the safest man on the planet, and handed what he wanted right over to her like it was her own idea to do it. But that weren’t the end. Then she turned right around and let him stab her in the heart with it.”

“What?” I turned.

Granny nodded. “It’s true. Consult the spirits if you don’t believe me. Although something tells me you may not know the right ones, seeing as how you’re talking to birds.”

“Why would anyone let someone else stab them in the heart?”

“Why would a man quit his job, leave his wife and child, and then just disappear? Why are you sittin’ here about to have your life turned upside down for no good reason?” Granny waggled her hand in front of the door across the hall. “Just days after you showed up at the Lord of Shadows’ door, warrant in hand. You think all that’s a coincidence?”

“This conference was scheduled over a week ago,” I objected.

“So it was,” she said flatly. “So it was.”

There was a noise and Granny looked across the hall at the door to Conference Room 5C, which opened. A well-dressed Lt. Shawna Miller greeted me with a nod of her head.

“They’re ready for you,” she said.

I stood and stepped toward the door, which the lieutenant held open.

“There’s another way in,” Granny said. “If you know the magic word.”

Miller looked confusedly at the old woman. Then to me as the door shut. “Friend of yours?”

“Just some crazy old bitty,” I said.

I looked around the room. There were five in all, counting Miller. I didn’t recognize all of the others. Most were standing and talking, as if they’d just broke for a short recess.

I was directed to sit at a table facing the committee members. Lt. Miller retrieved her files from one of the other tables and sat down next to me, presumably for support. I got the sense she didn’t have to do that. I’m not sure if it was a good sign or not.

Captain Morrison checked his watch before calling everyone to order. “We should probably get started.”

Caleb Morrison was a black man in his late 60s and the only one in formal uniform. He adjusted the pair of bifocals that hung from the end of his nose and poked at the stack of papers in front of him. In the far corner behind me was a TV on a rolling stand. I wouldn’t have noticed it except for the fact that it was attached to a VCR. How often do you see those anymore?

I crossed my hands neatly on the table and waited for them to come to order.

The door opened behind me. I turned to see Dr. More returning with a cup of vending machine coffee. He was wearing his wire-frame glasses. He didn’t look at me. He took the last open spot and stirred his coffee with the plastic straw bobbing in it.

“For the record,” Capt. Morrison began, speaking to me, “Dr. Caldwell has been filling in for Dr. More, who is on sabbatical. Indonesia, is it?”

“I believe so,” the doc said with a nod.

I stared.

I looked around the room. I looked to Lt. Miller.

“What is it?” she whispered.

I looked at the doc again. He was reading a report from his stack of files and sipping the coffee. He was definitely the man I knew as Dr. More. I’d been seeing him every other week for months. But everyone around the table seemed completely convinced that the captain was right and the man’s name was Caldwell.

For a moment I thought Shawna was in on it—whatever it was—but then I remembered she had never actually met the man. She’d only read his reports. She’d have no idea.

I looked to her again. Was I supposed to object? Was I supposed to stand up and proclaim like a crazy person this this was all wrong, that the person before me was not someone named Caldwell but in fact the errant Dr. More?

If so, he didn’t seem to expect it. He wasn’t even looking at me. For the moment, no one was.

“Harriet?” Lt. Miller whispered.

“Detective Chase,” Capt. Morrison addressed me formally, “I see you elected not to bring counsel. Is that correct?”

I was still staring at Dr. Caldwell—or whoever he was.

“Yes, sir.”

Caldwell looked up then. His eyes were blank, devoid of recognition. But there was something menacing about them all the same.

The captain went on. “In that case, do you have any opening remarks before the committee discusses its findings with you?”

“No, sir.”

Morrison nodded to one of the people I didn’t know, a bureaucrat-librarian type in a well-ironed skirt and two-inch pumps. She was sitting on the end near the TV. She got up and rolled it to the center of the room. Not everyone could see, but I could.

Lt. Miller explained. “Harriet, Forensics was able to reconstitute the crumpled tape that was mailed to you.”

I sat up. I pulled my hands from the table and put them in my lap.

“They were also able to get a match on the pinprick blood splatter.”

“Is it Alexa’s?” I asked.

“No.” She seemed hesitant to say. “It’s yours.”

“Mine?” I asked, wide-eyed.

I looked to Dr. More—or Caldwell or whoever he was. He was judging my reaction, same as everyone else in the room.

“Are we sure? How would my blood get on a VHS tape?”

Capt. Morrison nodded again, and the librarian hit play.

The screen jumped with repeated bouts of lined static like you get from magnetic tapes. Then an image appeared—an off-white hospital room. There was a male doctor in a tie and several nurses, both male and female, in scrubs. Sitting on a chair in the middle of all of them, wearing nothing but a flower-print hospital gown, was me. Only I was young. Thirteen or so from the looks of it. My sandy hair was a longer than I remembered wearing it. It hung just past my jaw. It was wavier then.

“What is this?” I asked.

But I knew what it was. Footage from the year I spent in the care of the white coats.

“Are you still having the visions?” the doctor on the tape asked calmly. He looked Filipino.

I nodded. My bare toes squirmed on the floor and climbed over each other.

“What do you see?” he asked.

I shrugged.

“The wolf with three eyes?”

“Sometimes,” I said.

God, I sounded so young!

“What else?” he asked.

“Just stuff.”

“What kind of stuff?”

“Monsters.”

“What kind of monsters? What do they look like?”

“Big.”

“How big? Like a bear?”

I shook my head.

“Bigger?” he asked. “Like a truck?”

I shook my head again.

“Big like a dinosaur?”

“Bigger,” I said.

“Bigger than a dinosaur?”

“Bigger than mountains,” I said softly.

“And what do these monsters do?”

“Eat people,” I said, eyes on the floor. “Chew them up. And make them do bad things.”

“And how many monsters are there?”

I glanced up at him. “Six.”

“Six monsters,” he repeated. “Bigger than mountains.”

I nodded.

“And what about the wolf? What does he do?”

“She wants me to follow.”

“Follow? Follow where?”

I shrugged. “Far away.”

“To escape the monsters?”

“No.” I shook my head vigorously and looked up again. “To fight them.” My child-self held his gaze this time.

“The wolf wants you to go fight the monsters?”

I nodded.

“And how will you do that if they’re bigger than mountains?”

I shrugged and looked down again, apparently disappointed by the response.

“I have to learn.”

“And that’s where the wolf wants to take you? To learn?”

I nodded. “I think so.”

“Harriet . . .” He paused. “Do you think the monsters are real?”

I looked up again, confused. “What do you mean?”

“Do you think they’re real? The way I’m real and you’re real and nurse Bethan is real?”

I stared at him with such an odd look. Anger. Doubt. Fear. Resentment. All in a jumble.

“No,” I said.

“Is that the truth?”

I didn’t answer.

He unfolded a paper. There was some writing in pencil, but it was messy and I couldn’t tell what it was. I had no recollection of it. I had no recollection of any of it.

“What about this?” he asked.

“That’s mine,” I stood from my chair.

So did two of the nurses.

“You can’t just go into my room!” I yelled. “That’s not fair. That’s mine. You can’t just take my things.”

“Why was it hidden in a book?” he asked calmly.

I was still on my feet. I took a step forward and the nurses seemed to brace themselves.

“You can’t do that,” I said. “You can’t just take my things. That’s not right!”

“Harriet, calm down.”

“No!” I took another step. My fists clenched. “It’s not right. It’s not. You can’t just steal things all the time. I’m not lying. I’m telling the truth.”

“I believe you’re—”

“No! You think I made it all up. But I didn’t. It’s real. The wolf is real. The monsters are real. They’re coming!” I was getting louder. And my face was turning red. “They’re coming. We have to stop them. You can’t keep me here. It’s not right.”

I was clenching my fists so hard that my fingernails, which were trimmed, cut into the skin of my hand. I looked down at my hands. Not on the video. I looked down at my adult hands. There were a couple tiny slit scars on the palms. I had no recollection of how I got them.

“It’s not right! Let me go.” My younger self started toward the doctor, fists raised, and the nurses came and grabbed me. There was an awkward struggle. To their credit, they were trying not to hurt me, but I wasn’t making it easy. I kicked and flailed and yelled “Let me go!” over and over.

Almost instantly, I started convulsing.

“Seizure!” one of the male nurses yelled. He ran to a medicine cart off to the side.

My fists clenched on and off as the nurses lifted my head and tried to lay me straight on the ground. My hand went up and scratched the face of one of the women. She let go and turned away. I had drawn blood. Three tiny cuts near the corner of her right eye.

My entire body was locked in spasms. My eyes rolled back into my head.

Then I started screaming gibberish. Not like baby sounds. It sounded organized, like words, but in no language I recognized.

The needle hit and I shut down instantly, like they’d flipped the switch on my brain.

“What did you do?” the doctor yelled at the nurse. He ran over to me in a panic. “What did you do? Jesus, how much did you—”

The tape stopped in another burst of static.

And that was it.

Captain Morrison cleared his throat. “Detective Chase, you should know that after reviewing this tape, which Lt. Miller tells us was mailed anonymously, it’s Dr. Caldwell’s opinion that you may have been given an obscenely high dose of anti-psychotic medicine as a child, and that that may explain a number of aspects of your mental health history. We’ll be handing this over to the Department of Health, who have the appropriate resources to conduct an investigation and bring any charges, should you wish them to do so. Do you understand?”

“Yes, sir.”

“However, the question before us today is, what impact does this have on your ability to enforce the law? Unfortunately . . .” He took off his glasses. “The reality is not very good. The District Attorney’s office should have no difficulty securing convictions on your arrests where there’s ample physical evidence, but as you well know, Detective, police officers are often called to give testimony at trial, and that puts us in a pickle. When this gets around—and it will get around—any defense counsel worth his salt will have no trouble . . . Well, I think you know where I’m going. If these episodes had stayed in your past, we’d be having a different conversation today. But they haven’t. It seems they’ve returned, quite seriously, in fact.”

That’s why they yanked the search warrant. It wasn’t that the search was invalid. It was that I was. The department wanted to leave itself the option of executing the warrant with “competent” staff un tainted staff, at some point in the future.

Not that it would ever come to that.

“So,” Morrison went on, “it is my duty to inform you that it is the decision of this committee to place you on immediate suspension of duty pending a full review by the promotions board. I must emphasize that this is not a permanent decision, and that you will be given full opportunity to defend yourself at formal proceedings.”

He sighed. He seemed genuinely saddened.

“I realize this is something no officer wants to hear. And I take no pleasure in saying it. However, I must ask you to surrender your badge before leaving these chambers today.”

 

I’m posting the chapters of my forthcoming urban paranormal mystery, FEAST OF SHADOWS, in order until the book is released. A blend of hard-boiled whodunit and contemporary urban fantasy, it’s been described as “Tolkien meets Dashiell Hammett for dinner in the present day.”

You can sign up here to be notified when the book is released.

You can start reading in order here: The old ones are patient.

The next chapter is: (not yet posted)

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