Dead Endings: Chapter 1

It was dusk by the time they reached the Bronx; the last ambient light of the day crept behind the buildings and left a sullen glow in its wake. The front of 416 Belmore Apartments looked like it had in the picture, only more lively now that lights twinkled from every floor of the brownstone.

Cailen studied the massive, blunt walls and shrugged deeper into her coat. She wished she’d brought her scarf.

“This is it,” Everett supplied unnecessarily.

“Do you have the code to get in?” she asked, motioning at the gated entryway.

He grinned. “I was buzzed through the first time by management, but I saw a few people going in, too. Easy enough to just copy what they put in.”

He strolled up to the front like he belonged there and tapped in a four-digit code. The door hummed grudgingly and opened.

She glanced at the security cameras as they passed the gate, wondering if anyone noticed or could place the two as non-residents. But the lights on the units were dead, and they went through unchallenged.

As they mounted the stairs–no one in their right mind would trust the rusted elevator–Cailen began to feel queasy. She’d spent most of the ride over throwing her thoughts in any direction that didn’t include their destination, but now that they had arrived, she felt dread mounting like a great shadow behind her. She tried to focus on Everett’s tailored pea coat as he gripped the rail.

“Unless we scale the fire escape, I don’t think we’ll be able to get any closer…but maybe you’ll feel something.”

Oh, I feel something, she thought. Lunch trying to escape. She wondered briefly how mad he would be if she puked on the backs of his nice shoes.

They emerged onto the third floor a bit furtively, like two thieves casing a joint. They hesitated in the dark safety under the landing. Everett poked his head out, gave the empty hallway a searching look, and then waved her to follow as he mounted the last step.

She felt both incredibly stupid and extremely nervous.

“This is beginning to seem a tad…unlawful,” she remarked as she skulked alongside him.

“We’re not doing anything bad,” he hissed back at her. “We entered without breaking!”

“Then why are you whispering? Criminals whisper.”

He grumbled something that sounded suspiciously like a dirty word.

As they walked–crept–Cailen eyed the peeling walls. She mused briefly that she was sharing a view that Jacob Warner had probably seen every day.

The victim, a 24-year-old who worked multiple jobs and was apparently a decent drum player, had been found by his friends, stabbed to death in his apartment. He had died slowly of exsanguination in his own kitchen, propped up by cabinets, but too weak to even reach the phone just above him. There were no defensive wounds or overt clues. Neighbors had heard no screams. According to the friends who discovered him, he hadn’t even looked that upset.

Cailen wouldn’t take such an injury that well, but who could guess what had been going through Warner’s mind? She supposed she might find out.

She shivered in the dark.

“3C,” Everett said suddenly as she bumped into his still figure. She backed away a foot or two and silently confirmed the apartment number without joy. “I can smell them,” he added.

Her face must’ve betrayed her dismay, because he frowned at her.

“I’m right here. It’s not like anything’s going to reach through the door and grab you. They…can’t do that, right?” he added, a bit unsure.

She didn’t get a chance to answer him, because the door next to 3C suddenly opened a crack. Too surprised to say anything, they both just stood there and blinked stupidly at the blinding light that now filled the hall. A small, wrinkled face peered at them.

“Who’s that?” the tiny raisin of a woman called out.

Intruders, Cailen supplied mentally.

“You’re…you’re that reporter boy,” the woman crowed. “Aaron? Aaron!”

Cailen had to squelch nervous laughter from bubbling out. Everett smiled awkwardly.

“Er, yes,” he confirmed. “It’s me…Aaron.”

“You forget something?”

“Ah…yes. Yes! I came back to get more statements for the article.”

The ancient woman’s head swung back and forth, and she sucked on her front teeth. “Damn shame about that young boy. He used to carry my bags for me. He was a good boy. Terrible taste in women, though.”

Everett nodded noncommittally and flashed Cailen a somewhat manic smile. I’m doing my best, that smile said. So keep your mouth shut.

But Cailen was too distracted to care. She stared at the door to 3C.

She could feel something in there.

“Well, I already told you what I know,” the old woman said. “Not sure what else I can give you, young man.”

“Oh, it’s really all right! I have everything I need now!” Everett glanced at the door; the old woman seemed to notice.

“Management finally went in and cleaned the place,” she explained. “Still cartin’ out all his stuff, but they’re gonna change the locks soon, I imagine.” She looked thoughtful, then added slyly, “But not yet. I still have a key, you know. Knew the boy’s mother. I used to watch their dog when they were away.”

Everett was suddenly more alert.

“You must have…” He rummaged in his back pocket. “…known them pretty well, ma’am.”

“Well enough,” the woman said. “In fact, I’ll bet that key still works. Be a shame when they change those locks. A real shame.”

The two gauged each other.

“I wouldn’t mind a glance inside…For the article, you see.”

“Gotta get all the facts right,” the old woman agreed.

Everett’s hand emerged with his wallet casually limp in his fingers. He fiddled with it. The old woman sucked noisily on her front teeth and disappeared. She reappeared a moment later with a brassy key on her lined palm.

“I suppose I wouldn’t miss it for a bit. The police are done in there, anyway. Won’t harm no one.”

“Exactly.” Everett fished out a twenty and raised an eyebrow.

He got a sniff in return.

Grimacing, he fished in his wallet again.

Cailen gave up on the bribe debacle and focused on the door. She edged nearer, almost close enough to touch. A slight thrumming tingled in her fingertips and raised goose bumps on the backs of her arms. There was something in 3C. Something that prickled at her senses and made her want to open the door.

The feeling sucked at her like the tide going out to sea. She took a step forward, then stopped herself. Her mouth twisted in a vicious grin.

Oh, no. Not this time.

Her hands balled into fists.

“Delaney?” a voice asked beside her.

She started and looked up. Everett had a key in his hand and a question mark on his face.

“I got us a way in,” he said.

3C thrummed at her.

“Are you all right?”

She shuddered, a full body shrug to shake off the electricity she felt on the other side of the door.

“Fine,” she lied. Then added, “It sounds weird, coming from you.”

“What does?”

“‘Delaney.’ Only Gabriella calls me that.”

“That’s how she first mentioned you. ‘Cailen’ just feels weird now.”

Their utterly mundane conversation seemed to give her the grounding she needed.

“Say something stupid,” she prompted.

“What?”

“Thanks.”

“Wait, what?”

“Forget it. Are we going in or not?” she announced with more bravado than she felt.

She wasn’t looking forward to seeing Jacob Warner on the other side of that door, but it didn’t feel as bad as she’d feared. She still had full control of her faculties and no blood had dribbled under the door…yet. So, better than usual.

Everett swallowed and put the key in the lock. Turned it. The door opened with a push.

An entirely normal entryway awaited them.

Old sneakers and new Converse trainers crowded the welcome mat just inside. Cailen could see a hint of a living room through the gloom and the dull shine of linoleum floors just beyond a passageway. She reached up and caught the beaded fixture overhead. Light bloomed when she pulled the cord.

Everett wrinkled his nose. “It’s stronger now.”

“Batteries, or cinnamon?”

“Both…but the batteries scent is stronger.”

Cailen surveyed the hallway. “I don’t see anything yet. I’m guessing the show starts in the kitchen.”

He grimaced. “Creepy.”

“You’re just now thinking this?”

“It seems…more personal inside, I guess. You think it’ll be pissed?”

“A little late for that, isn’t it? And aren’t you supposed to be giving me moral support or something?”

He took a deep breath.

“You’re right,” he declared. “Fuck it!” He stormed into the apartment.

“Jesus, Everett…!”

She started in after him, not sure if she was scared for him, or scared of being alone. As she turned to enter the kitchen area, she caught a hint of…something to her back-left side, where she presumed the bedroom to be. She stopped short and peered down the darkened hallway to the back rooms.

There was a hand by the light panel.

“Crap,” she breathed.

The hand retreated. Her stomach dropped miles below her feet.

Everett’s voice called from the kitchen, high and slightly cracked.

“Get in here! It’s stronger over here! Shit… Am I standing in a dead guy? Tell me if I’m standing in a dead guy!”

Keeping one eye locked on the dark hallway, she joined Everett in the kitchen. Sloppily-painted, white cabinets and a peeling countertop dominated the small area, and warped, diamond-patterned linoleum curled up at every corner of the floor. She found Everett backed up against a humming fridge, as though trying to avoid a mouse.

“Can you see him?” he hissed.

While the sense of something had increased, she knew the kitchen would be empty. The disembodied hand in the hallway assured her of that. She still looked around, just in case.

A faded, dark stain in the corner where the sink met the cabinets caught her eye. It had obviously been cleaned pretty vigorously, but the outline was still visible here and there. No body–ghostly or otherwise–occupied the space now, but she felt sad seeing it. Twenty-four was way too young to die.

“Not here,” she assured him. “He’s in the bedroom.”

Everett looked at her sharply. “You saw him?”

“Just a hand, but someone’s definitely back there.”

“Anything else? The batteries smell is stronger here than when we were outside, but the cinnamon’s here, too. Faint, but still here.”

Cailen peered into every corner, not exactly sure what she was looking for. They were alone in that kitchen. She swallowed back the fear that crept up her spine again and shook her head.

“The bedroom, then.”

Neither of them made a move.

“Ladies first,” he said with a hopeful air.

“I wouldn’t dream of depriving you of first dibs on the dead guy.”

He opened his mouth as if to retort, then conceded. “That’s fair. Just back me up.”

“Oh, yeah,” she said without any conviction. He gave her a sickly sort of smile.

They slowly exited the kitchen, Everett creeping along despite his earlier bravado. Cailen scanned every corner; the last thing she wanted was to be surprised. In her experience, ghosts had a perverse sense of propriety and liked to appear behind her when she wasn’t expecting it. She knew they were unaware of the effect they had on people–the dead were single-minded that way–but the result was still horrifying. Ghosts were shit communicators. The entire “ghost story” genre was built around them, and it was well-deserved, in her opinion. She tried to brace herself for the inevitable freak-out.

Just outside the bedroom door, Everett paused and visibly steeled himself. “Excuse us,” he announced to the air.

The bedroom, like everything else in the modest apartment, was a small affair. She saw a low bed, a pair of medium-sized dressers, and a drum set pushed into one corner before she dropped her eyes to the backs of Everett’s knees

As she stepped inside the room, the pressure dropped slightly. Cailen stared even more intently at the dark creases of his jeans and the way his wallet chain refracted the light, like a child trying to avoid something she didn’t want to see.

“Anything?” he asked, his voice breaking slightly.

She lifted her eyes, prepared for the worst.

“Dead guy,” she confirmed. “Two o’clock.”

A young man occupied the far corner by the bed, his bowed face obscured by the angle. He didn’t move, and appeared either unaware or uninterested. But judging by a sharp rise of what she could only describe as wanting, Cailen seriously doubted he was either. Though she was grateful that blood didn’t paint the walls, the creep factor was still painfully high.

“Describe him for me,” Everett said.

“Y-young. Bluish. He’s wearing jeans and a RUSH t-shirt. He’s just standing there.”

“That’s it?” Everett quavered. “He’s just…there? He’s not doing anything?”

“What were you expecting?” she snapped back. “Sometimes that’s all they do. Thank God.”

“Well…the cinnamon smell’s stronger here for sure. Do you see anything weird? Anything else?”

Cailen forced herself to look at the ghost again. To her skin-crawling horror, Jacob Warner was looking at them now. His mouth moved in silent entreaty. She took a step back instinctively; the pressure began to drop again.

Everett glanced back. He retreated a step with her and gripped her wrist, keeping her anchored to the spot.

“What is it?!” he hissed.

“He’s…trying to say something.”

“Say what?”

“Like I know! I told you–I can’t hear them!”

“Read his lips or something!”

The dead man continued to stare at them, his mouth working soundlessly, but Cailen gradually realized that he was looking through them. She turned to follow the spirit’s line of sight.

Behind her, at the edge of the entrance to the hallway, was another bluish smear of light. She squinted. The blue smear refused to focus and just hung in the air, shapeless and indistinct.

She opened her mouth to tell Everett, but it was suddenly full of ice. Her heart stopped…then hammered back to life. Blackness seeped into the edges of her vision.

Cailen turned and began walking back through the hallway. Everett, hand still locked on her arm, stumbled on his feet.

“Delaney! What are you–” He released his grip to keep from colliding into the wall.

“Where the hell are you going?!” he called from behind her.

She didn’t know.

As she walked back into the kitchen, her boots clomping on the rubbery floor, she became aware that her vision seemed higher, somehow. When she blinked, it was lower again, her own line of sight…but then, again, it became higher. The double nature of it made her nauseous.

She stopped by the sink and turned the knobs, ran her hands under the faucet.

Everett had charged up beside her and was saying something, but she’d forgotten how to make her mouth work. She turned and dried her hands on a towel that didn’t exist. The stringy cloth under her fingers felt soft and entirely real.

The surprise when something sharp slid into her back also felt real.

Breath caught in her throat; she looked down. The jacket obscured her view, so she unzipped it and saw that the “H” in the RUSH logo of the black shirt was tented ever so slightly. She ran a hand over the spot. A small bit of something hard and pointy pricked her finger. Whatever it was didn’t belong there, and she knew this, but she couldn’t process the object. It was mystifying.

Wetness began to creep down her side.

She was still puzzling over it when there was a terrible, powerful pull and the object was yanked from her body. Agony flowed in its wake and her knees buckled.

Shins cracking against the floor, Cailen tried to cry out, but there was a sucking in her chest and nothing would come. A white heat radiated from her back to her front, throwing bright sparks of light into her vision.

Everett was shaking her. He twisted her and she slid down into a sitting position. Even that slight movement was jarring, and she squeezed her eyes shut against the flare of pain.

“What’s wrong with you?!” he cried. His voice was laced with confusion, his jet-black eyes flashing in his panic.

She touched the front of her shirt and frowned. The red, V-neck sweater was unmarred.

“I…”

The world reverberated again, as something sharp and unyielding slid into her chest a second time.

She gasped, spasmed, and her head cracked back against the cheap wood of the cabinet door. Tendrils of pure, honest pain from her own body pulsed through her skull.

But the pain didn’t faze her. Instead, she felt her eyes refocus. She took back control of her body and gave a mental push.

Everett was kneeling on the floor, phone in hand, fingers poised over the keys. Cailen reached out and grabbed his wrist.

“Wait,” she croaked.

“I’m calling an ambulance!”

“Just…wait!”

He hesitated, but she didn’t let go of his wrist.

“It’s happening,” she wheezed.

“What is?!”

“He’s dying. Just wait.”

She saw several questions pile up on his lips, but she waved her free hand weakly. Then she ignored him and concentrated.

Pain, though distant now, pulsated in her chest. She breathed deeply and willed it farther away, but didn’t shut it out completely.

The kitchen looked subtly different when she viewed it through Jacob Warner’s eyes. There were bags piled up on the counter, and a six-pack of beer resting by the microwave. A green-striped towel lay on the floor next to him, where he’d dropped it. She saw discarded pizza boxes and recyclables stacked neatly by the garbage. She saw Jacob Warner’s blood creep across the floor as it leaked out of him.

Something whispered in her face. Perhaps it was a tickling of breath, or a sigh from Warner himself.

She strained to hear anything, but she’d never been able to and didn’t expect any results. But what did happen next was almost as strange as being stabbed by an insubstantial knife.

The colors of the kitchen smeared briefly, and there was the oddest feeling of…happiness? Joy? Cailen tried to place it, but then a heaviness settled over her like a blanket. It wasn’t painful, and it wasn’t menacing, but the sense of weight grew and grew.

Salt and copper filled her mouth, but it was a distant thing. The world drifted.

Everett slapped her face so hard that her teeth cracked together as loud as a gunshot.

“Hey!” she cried and held a hand to her jaw. “What the hell?!”

He looked as shocked as she felt.

“If you don’t snap out of it,” he shouted, “I WILL call that ambulance! This is insane!”

“I told you to just wait a sec–” And then she saw the blood on his hand. It was slick and dark against his reddened palm.

Fear gripped her again and her hands flew to her chest, fully expecting to find gaping wounds there. She tore at her shirt, but her fingers found nothing except whole, if clammy, skin. A few drops of red did decorate the front, however.

She became aware of the wetness on her face. Wonderingly, she touched her nose, but the blood was real. Her own.

She looked at him.

“I want to leave.”

“Way ahead of you,” he replied, as he lifted her to her feet.

He tried to carry her at first, but she batted his hands away. They shakily made for the exit. Unable to help herself, Cailen glanced back one last time–and saw the fading spirit of Jacob Warner sitting on the floor in a pool of blood, his eyes scared and very human.

Continued in Chapter 2.

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