Shadows Fall (4 page)

“Anyway, the shop… when my mother’s parents passed away, they left me a small inheritance. It was nothing life-changing, but it just barely allowed me to buy the shop that I worked at. And here we are,” I said, spreading my hands out to indicate my building.

Charlie whistled low through his teeth, his expression bleeding pity that Titus wasn’t interested in. “Wow. That’s quite a story, Titus. Why did your parents kick you out?”

Seriously, I’d been flirting with the guy for a couple of weeks now, and he couldn’t guess that? I pinned him with a direct stare to let him know that this was
not
something I kept a secret, from my parents or anyone else. “They found out I was gay.”

Charlie froze for a fraction of a second before nodding. “Ah.”

“So yeah, who needs parents like that anyway?” I said, shrugging it off.

“Where are you from?” Charlie asked to change the subject.

“Everywhere and nowhere.”

“Well, that makes a lot of sense,” was Charlie’s sarcastic reply. “Can you be more specific?”

“It’s in my family’s nature to move around a lot—it’s a cultural thing. The earliest place I can remember living was an RV park in Port Royal, South Carolina. I’ve been in Charlotte for several years now, but there have been many places in between, always in the South though.”

“Huh. You said it’s a cultural thing. What culture is that?”

I had no idea why I was giving this man—this
cop
—so much information about myself. I usually said very little about my background. I didn’t trust anyone. I’d seen too much tragedy surrounding me every day of my life to do so, but somehow, I couldn’t shut my damn fool mouth.

“Romany.” I laughed when he gave me a quizzical look. “Gypsies.”

His eyebrows rose. “I didn’t realize that was a thing. I mean, maybe in Europe or wherever…”

“Well, like every other ethnic group in this glorious melting pot, we have immigrated. The word ‘gypsy’ is kind of a blanket term. There are the Romany like me, English Romanichal, or Roma, German Roma, Irish Travellers, Melungeons, just different family groups depending on where each originated. My lineage is made up of almost pure Romany, with some Irish Traveller infused somewhere along the way—though my family doesn’t claim that branch of the family tree.”

“Wow,” he said again. He was staring at me in a new way; still like I was a puzzle, but maybe one he wanted to try and solve.

I was getting a little hot under the collar. The man was the quintessential sexy, down home country boy. I’d have bet money that if he wasn’t a cop, he would’ve been a fireman or a cowboy. It wasn’t the type I usually went for—too ambiguous at best, straight at worst. But his calm mannerisms and friendly conversations were slowly winning me over, and allowing my brain to catch up with my dick.

“What about you, Detective. What’s your story?”

“Oh, not much of a story to tell. Born here, grew up here, applied to the academy after getting an Associate degree, and the rest is history…”

I rested my chin in my hand and stared up at him—I
may
have batted my eyelashes a little. Shameful, I know, but I loved that it got him all flustered. He cleared his throat and blushed furiously. At this point, I was pretty sure he was gay or at least curious but, what with being a cop, he was probably closeted. I decided that if he pursued me, I’d give him a ride for sure, but Titus McGinty wasn’t a closet chaser.

Charlie glanced around the room, then leaned in slightly. “Hey Titus, you wanna maybe go for a walk or something? Get some air? I’d love to hear more about the Rom… Romi—”

“Romany,” I supplied.

“Yes, that. I could use a work break.” He smiled. “I like talking to you.”

My heart sank. I couldn’t go outside with this man or anyone else unless I had my headphones on, and that certainly wouldn’t make for good conversation. But I wasn’t ready to pull the plug on this little flirtation we had going on. I liked Charlie. I found his quiet presence oddly soothing. I had to think of a way to redirect his attention.

“I’d love to, Charlie. But I’ve got this thing. It’s… I don’t know, kind of like agoraphobia I guess. I only feel comfortable in places that I’m familiar with, like my shop or my house. Anywhere else, I have to put on headphones and tune everything out. Not exactly a good way to have a chat.”

Charlie’s face fell, but then he smiled sympathetically. I knew he was too nice of a guy to get mad over something like that. I felt bad for lying to him, but it wasn’t like the truth was an option. Besides, I had another idea.

“You could come to my place, it’s just a couple of blocks away,” I said hopefully. I wasn’t even thinking of sex—much. I just wanted to get him somewhere that I could act like a normal human being. But I saw immediately that it was a miscalculation. Apparently the universal code for ‘fuck me’ was ‘go back to my place,’ at least according to Charlie’s reaction.

His face drained of all color and he scooted back his chair. Stammering, he packed up his things and stood up quickly. “Actually… uh, I really should get back to work. I’ve been here longer than I thought. Rain check, maybe?” he asked, but it was just a formality. He had one foot out the door already.

I sighed sadly and waved. “Sure, next time. Bye, Charlie.” By the end of my sentence, I was talking to empty space.

I folded my arms on the table and thumped my forehead onto them. Lie to a guy, I scare him away; tell the guy the truth, I scare him away. It was the catch-twenty-two that was the ever-present plight of the Freak.

As I wondered if I’d ever hear from the strong, silent Detective Hale again, I heard Riot smother a cough that was actually the word ‘loser.’ Well, I guess murdering my best friend was one way to get the attention of a homicide detective.

Chapter Three

Having borrowed Riot’s charger at the shop, I was blissfully jamming away to a fully juiced iPod on my walk home. I mostly kept my eyes on the sidewalk because I didn’t want to see their faces. If I couldn’t see their faces, it made it easier not to care. I’d almost made it to Poplar Street without incident, when a voice suddenly cut right through the blasting noise of my music. It stopped me dead in my tracks.

The voice said
Look!
I raised my eyes to the entity standing before me. She was almost fully formed, unlike some of the others who couldn’t manifest their entire bodies. And though it was faded, I could get a sense of her coloring. I guessed she was probably in her twenties and looked to be possibly of African or African-American descent, but that was hard to confirm with her washed-out looking skin. She had closely cropped blonde hair, either naturally or from a bottle, and she was very beautiful.

The most unusual thing about her was that she had one brown eye and one blue eye, and I absently wondered what kind of genes had to come together to make that happen. In the span of a blink, I looked again and that one blue eye had morphed into a gaping, bloody hole.

I yelled and jumped back, even though I knew I’d look like a crazy person because no one else could see her. She stayed where she was, her mouth moving as they always did, trying to talk to me. But when I heard her voice, it didn’t come from her mouth—it came from inside my head.
See!

She turned her head, baring the side of her swanlike neck, and I saw some markings carved into the flesh along the line of her jugular. I wasn’t sure what I was seeing, some creepy cluster of scratch marks and elongated rings. It was truly horrific, and I felt sorry knowing that this beautiful young woman had most likely been murdered, struck down in her prime. But there was nothing I could do for her.

I opened my mouth to try and communicate that somehow, but someone interrupted me. “Hey buddy, you wanna maybe get out of the way?”

I turned around to see a delivery man with a hand trolley full of packages, and I was blocking his way down the sidewalk as I’d been standing there staring at the woman. He was not amused.

“Yeah, sorry,” I mumbled, stepping aside as I turned back around to face her. But she was gone. The angry man brushed past me and I kept walking. I turned right on Poplar Street; almost home. I should have known it wouldn’t be that easy.

There was another girl standing on the walkway in front of our townhouse, she seemed to be waiting for me. Damn, they were escalating.

This girl was likely in her late teens when she died. She had platinum blonde hair that reached her elbows and thick blunt bangs so long that I could barely see her eyes. Her baby doll T-shirt was torn and I could see a huge, bloody gash high on her right side. She raised her left hand and swept her thick hair away from her neck, and I saw that she had gouged cuts in it similar to the other woman’s, except she had a lot more. Just like the other one, she was speaking, but no words came out.

“I know, I know. ‘See.’ I see it, I just don’t know what you expect me to do about it,” I said, knowing she probably couldn’t understand me.

Feeling restless and unsettled, I crept past the girl and let myself inside the townhouse. It was quiet, but I could hear muted music coming through the walls. Riot had left the shop before me and was now firmly ensconced in his studio, working on his next issue.

That was fine with me, because I wasn’t up for company. I was wondering why these spirits of people who’d obviously been brutally killed were suddenly chasing me. Yes, the dead were always there, but these seemed more intent, more aggressive. I had the menacing feeling that something bad was happening.

There had only been a couple of times in my life where I wished I could clearly hear what the ghosts were saying and really know what they wanted from me. Most of the time I’d rather just be left alone. As I walked down the hall to my bedroom, I thought about what they could be trying to tell me. Did they need help? Closure? Or were they trying to warn me of impending doom? That was an ominous thought.

Once in my room, I flopped down on my queen-sized bed and stared up at the ceiling fan. I knew there was a way that I could communicate with these revenants—it’s something I certainly didn’t want to do, but it was almost like I had an obligation to try.

Hopping off the bed, I opened my closet and dug through a couple of boxes in the back. There, I found what I needed. The device was a simple plank onto which a medium-sized battery was attached. There was a heavy iron nail driven into the wood and copper wire connected it to the battery. Also attached to the nail was a length of insulated wire with one end free.

I pulled the whole device out and set it on my bed. Next, I lit a few candles around the room, and laid out a flat slab of petrified wood as an altar. On the wood, I set out some of my grandmother’s crystals of azeztulite, feldspar, morganite, jasper, and tourmaline—all of which are used in the communication with spirits and clairaudience. I didn’t often practice the shamanism that had been passed down to me by my grandmother Hester before I was kicked out, but I needed all the help I could get to find out what these people wanted from me.

Finally, I sat down in front of the altar and the device. I connected the insulated wire to the other electrode on the battery, completing the circuit. The device was now producing a low-level electromagnetic field. Ghosts were pure energy; they fed on it and emitted it. There were several parapsychologists in the field who believed that the spirits could pull energy from a simulated electromagnetic field and it could help them manifest. It was worth a shot, especially since my half-assed warding spell on the apartment was still in place.

I reached over and flicked the light switch so that the only light in the room was from the flickering candles. I had to admit the whole thing was a little spooky, but I guess that was to be expected when one tried to talk to ghosts.

I scooted backwards until my back was against the headboard and my pile of pillows. My eyes darted around the room, jumping back and forth to each shadow, as I settled in to wait.

* * * *

I didn’t mean to fall asleep. I must have been more tired than I realized. When I blinked awake, it was full dark and I was lying on my back with my head turned to the side facing the alarm clock. The red digital readout said it was just after three a.m.

I wiggled my legs, feeling weight on them. I must have shifted in my sleep and ended up with the electromagnetic device and my deadwood altar partway over my legs. Blinking some sleep crud out of my eyes, I turned my head and groaned, because I’d gotten a massive crick in my neck.

When I opened my eyes, I was staring in to the spectral face of the little girl who’d been following me. Startled, I let out a girlish yelp that I’d probably be embarrassed about later, but I was too terrified at the moment. She was leaning over me with her arms on either side of my neck, and her face was inches from mine.

She hovered above me in a prone position. She was laid out in such a way that, had she been fully corporeal, her body would have been pressed lengthwise against mine. However, I felt nothing but a cold, vaporous breeze slithering over my skin

My body was shivering; I could feel the tremors deep down in my muscles, but I couldn’t seem to move. It was as if she held me temporarily paralyzed. This had never happened before in all of my interactions with the dead. They’d never been able to physically manipulate me. Had I done this? Had I given her extra strength by generating the EMF?