The Haunting of Anna McAlister (29 page)

“Well, as you know the crime lab people went through your room last night.”

“Yeah, I kind of noticed. I couldn’t go back into the room until after 4 in the morning.”

“They are thorough.”

“And what did they find?”

Detective Malmann didn’t hesitate. “They found several strands of hair that look like they match the victims.”

Anna thought about her finger nails and of trying to shake them free from being tangled in that hair.”

“We could have inadvertently pickup up some of her hair while we were at the apartment. Finding in the room still doesn’t prove. . .”

“They also found three of her fingers in his coat pocket.”

Anna felt the world start to swirl and close in around her once more. The light in the room dimmed. The now familiar darkness approached again, holding its usual promise of comfort and safety.
 

“No!” Anna sat straight up on the couch and looked at the detective. She could not afford the luxury of being comforted and she knew that no place, and no one could be considered safe.

“I’m afraid it’s true,” Detective Malmann thought Anna was responding to his statement rather than denying her mind its only means of escape.
 

Anna forced herself to focus. “Tom did not kill her.” She clipped each word. “I know he didn’t.”

Detective Malmann sat back in his chair. “Yeah, you keep saying that.”

“He didn’t.”

“Then who did?”

“I don’t know. But, you’ll find the answer in room 531.”

“Ah huh, right. Back to that again.” Detective Malmann smirked and shook his head.

“It’s the truth.”

“I went to that room last night.”

“You did?”

“Yeah. And I don’t mind telling you that it was a bitch to get inside. The lock was rusted tight and the door was painted shut.”

“But you got in.”

“Sure, and when I did I found absolutely nothing in there, zero. It’s just an old room. No ghosts, no murderers, no nothing but dust and covered furniture. It’s empty, and it looks and smells like it’s been empty for a very long time.”
 

“Take me there,” Anna said without emotion or inflection.

Detective Malmann seemed surprised both by her request and her demeanor. “Why?”

“Because that’s where I have to go to end all of his.”

“I said I already looked it over.”

“Maybe you didn’t know where to look, or what to look for. I can find it. It wants me there.”

“Now you’re talking crazy again. I went so far as to check out your cock and bull story about that room.”

“You said that’s where they found the head.”

“In the hallway, yeah. But your friend might have put it there to back up all that crap about ghosts.”

“You’re wrong.”
 

“Do you want to know what I think? I think you need some professional help.”

“Yes I do,” Anna looked up at the detective. “I need
your
professional help to get into that room.”
 

“Do you want my professional opinion, Ms. McAlister?”

“Yes.”

“I think you’re a fucking nut.”

“Really?”
Keep calm girl. Keep cool.
“Do I really sound like a fucking nut to you, Detective Malmann?” Anna said slowly.
Focus. Just stay focused.
 

Detective Malmann was surprised and impressed with her control. “No, I guess not. But . . .”

“Am I acting like fucking nut?”

“No, but what you’re saying is crazy, Ms. McAlister. I don’t believe in killer ghosts. I believe in what I can touch, hear, smell or see.”

“What did you
see
when you came into our room to arrest Tom last night? What was he holding in his hands, Detective Malmann? What did you see?”

Detective Malmann thought of that brief instant when he saw Tom holding the head of Ariel Lapautre.

“I know you saw it,” Anna said. “I could see it in your face. Inspector Cerone saw it too, didn’t he?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Detective Malmann couldn’t get the vision out of his mind.

“Yes you do,” Anna rose to her feet. “Take me to 531.”

Detective Malmann suddenly felt something he hadn’t experience in many years. In fact, at first he didn’t even recognize it. He felt fear.
 

“Take me there now.”

Detective Malmann buried the emotion and ignored the instinct. “What do you think you’ll find there that I couldn’t?’

“The truth,” Anna stated. “That is what you said you were looking for, isn’t it?”

* * *

Detective Malmann led the way off the elevator. Anna saw that the hallway had been sealed as a crime scene with police tape. She felt an odd combination of fear and excitement as they stepped under the tape and walked toward the door to room 531.

Detective Malmann didn’t hesitate at the door, opening it as if he were opening the door to his house. It swung wide, without even a hint of resistance.

“After you.” He pushed the door and stepped aside for Anna to enter first. As soon as he did, a wave of memories and pain struck Anna with such force that she fell back against the opposite wall. It washed through her and then was gone.

“Ms. McAlister?”
 

“You didn’t feel it, did you?” Anna asked.
 

“Feel what?”

Anna just shook her head and walked into the room.

“Like I told you, nothing here.” Detective Malmann stood next to Anna just inside the door. They both looked around the room.
 

To her complete surprise, Anna had to agree with the detective. She felt nothing, and saw only the covered pieces of furniture and faded tapestries on the walls. The air was stale and smelled old. Detective Malmann noticed her sniffing.

“Yeah,” he sniffed along. “It’s like the inside of some Egyptian pyramid in here isn’t it?”

An old tomb,
Anna thought.
That sounds about right.
 

Detective Malmann sniffed the air as well. “It just smells lifeless in here, like a lot of places that have been closed up for a long time.”

No
, Anna thought.
Not lifeless.
It smells dead.
 

Anna waited. She expected something to happen. She didn’t know what. She had thought it wanted her in that room, but now that she was here, whatever ‘it’ was, was silent.
 

For the first time in what seemed like a lifetime Anna allowed herself to relax, just a little. She walked around the room, at first carefully, then gradually more carefreely. The longer nothing happened, the more comfortable she became. “Okay,” Anna finally sighed. “Okay.”

“Just an old room,” Detective Malmann said. “Filled with just a bunch of old furniture.” He yanked off the cloth that had been covering the bed. Dust filled the air. “See?”
 

Anna watched the cover lift up from the bed. To her it moved in slow motion. She saw every ripple in the cloth as it was pulled away from the mattress. The dust appeared to remain stationary in the air for a moment, glittering like millions of tiny stars.

Anna heard the detective say “see,” but the voice sounded like it was on an audio tape being played at a very low speed. Then, in an instant, all time and speed returned to normal. The covering flew off of the bed, and Anna saw the tortured woman withering in pain, and bleeding badly.

The woman was young and beautiful. Her hair was black. She lay naked, face up on the bed. Her arms and legs were tied to the bed posts. Anna saw that her body was punctured with many shallow stab wounds, each deep enough to draw a flow of blood. Her body was crisscrossed with rivers of red that streaked from the wounds and found routes down her body, onto the bed.
 

Anna tried to look away, but couldn’t. She saw semen and blood between the woman’s outstretched and bound legs. Her vagina and anus gaped wide and continued to ooze forth the mixture, which dripped down into a growing pool below. The woman screamed continuously in agony.

“We have to help her!” Anna turned to Detective Malmann, who kept his gaze fixed on the bed. She then looked back at the woman. Their eyes met and locked.

“
Aidez-moi
,” the woman begged and cried out to Anna. “
Aidez-moi
.”

Anna watched as the woman’s eyes darted first to one side, then the other. “No!” the woman shrieked as shadows crossed her face from the left and the right. “No no no!”

Anna saw a cut begin as a thin line on the side of the woman’s neck, perhaps two inches below her ear. It drew red slowly to the other side. The cut was only skin deep, but served as a guide. A larger unseen knife followed it, sawing into and finally through the woman’s throat until her head fell free from her body.

Anna closed her eyes. She heard the sound of people laughing. She closed them even tighter when she felt a hand run through her hair, and something hard very gently trace a line from one side of her neck to the other. Anna didn’t open her eyes until the voices and the feeling of being touched faded away. When she did, she saw only Detective Malmann leaning over the bed. He reached out with his left hand and touched the white sheet, which still covered the mattress.

“You saw her, didn’t you?” Anna asked, both relieved that she wasn’t hallucinating and terrified at the validation of what she had seen.
 

When Detective Malmann pulled his hand away, his finger tips were covered with fresh blood. He stared at them for a moment, before the blood faded away and was gone.

“Yeah,” he said slowly. “I saw her.”

Chapter 28

“I want to hold a séance in 531.” Anna and Detective Malmann had returned to the lobby without saying a word. Anna waited until they had rejoined Stacy and Phillipe before revealing the decision she’d made before she and the detective had even left that room. “I think it’s the only way.”

“You’re kidding, right?” Stacy laughed. “A séance? Come on, Anna. I think you have the wrong century.”

“Then again, why not a séance?” Phillipe said. “Perhaps you should not dismiss the idea so quickly. Something could happen, no?”

“Yeah? Like what?” Stacy asked. “Like levitating tables and rattling chains? Or maybe you can contact Jim Morrison and find out if there are drugs in Heaven.”

“I don’t think a séance is a good idea either,” Detective Malmann said. “Not with the way everything’s been going.”

“But you saw for yourself that there’s something in that room,” Anna said. “And you know it has something to do with all the murders.”

“Whoa, slow down,” Detective Malmann put up his arms. “I’ll admit that there was something. Now, it could just as well have been my imagination as my eyes.”
 

“You know that’s bullshit. And anyway, even if somehow we both imagined seeing the exact same thing at the exact same time in the exact same place, a séance couldn’t do any harm. But, if what I think is true, and you really want to solve these murders, then you’d help me do it. You know I have to do it.”
 

Detective Malmann took a deep breath. He glanced at his fingertips. “Okay. But I have to be there.”

“Fine.”

“What?” Stacy said loudly enough to attract the attention of everyone in the lobby, and a couple of people walking by on the street. She looked around at those looking at her. “Sorry.”

Stacy turned back to the immediate group and whispered, “What?”

“Stacy, it’s got to be done, and I need Detective’s Malmann’s support to get anywhere near that room.”

“Anna, I love you. You know I love you. So forgive me for saying this, but you’re a wreck. I bet you’ve lost twenty pounds, and you look like shit.”
 

“Thanks.”

“Seriously, Anna, the last thing you need to do is put yourself through some hocus pocus séance. You have to let this go, and let it go now.”

“Not until it’s done.”

“You are so fucking stubborn.”

“That’s why you love me.”

“And you,” Stacy turned to Detective Malmann. “You call yourself a cop? What, are séance sessions now admissible as evidence in court or something? How could you go along with this crazy shit?”

“She’s
your
friend.”

“Okay, so you want to have a séance,” Stacy said to Anna. “You don’t know dick about having a séance.”

“I know enough,” Anna said. “We use to have them in high school.”

“Oh wow, high school. Did anything ever happen at one of your high school séances?”

* * *

Anna was momentarily silenced by a string of memories, a series of events she hadn’t thought of since she was 18. In her junior and senior years in high school, she and a group of her friends had started having séances, first as a joke, then more seriously. It got to the point where they were held every weekend and then finally several times a week. They didn’t stop until one particular night, a night when the candle went out.