I couldn’t touch the journal. The red-stained leather had scuffs along the spine and corners—scars from past indignities. Initials were branded into the leather, GTH. Not my mother’s initials. Maybe a grandmother or great grandmother. A strap and buckle kept the contents of the journal hidden.
It probably would have been smart to open and read it. There was nothing my mother could do to me anymore. She was dead, but I still could feel the willow branch on my inner arms after she caught me snooping. I had only ever caught a glimpse of baroque handwriting on heavy rag paper.
But I also feared what was in the journal. Whatever I knew of my mother, there was so much more in those pages.
I figured this case would be a typical spectral infestation. Tim was the owner of a hulking old building east of downtown. He wanted to renovate it into luxury lofts. Tim was convinced there were ghosts because the building had been built over an old cemetery.
I arranged to meet Tim at 2:00 am. A dark blue Mercedes stopped on the gravel driveway, and Tim stepped out, clutching his coffee.
“Can’t you do this during the day?” he asked.
“No. The most active time for spectral episodes is between 2:00 and 4:00 am,” I explained, channeling my mother’s condescending tone.
“Fine. Let’s get this done,” he replied as he twisted the key in the padlock that chained the front gate.
We pushed through the rusted and dented front door. The September night was mild, but inside the building was icy and damp. There were no signs of squatters. I often avoided old buildings because of the addicts and homeless setting up housekeeping. There were no old mattresses, syringes, or piles of garbage here.
“Have you had problems with squatters?” I asked Tim.
“No, the fence keeps them out,” he replied complacently.
I rolled my eyes in the dark. A chain-link fence won’t keep out squatters. Addicts are determined when they are looking for a place to get high. A few ghosts won’t deter them either.
I couldn’t feel a spectral presence in the building. Tim and I continued touring as he nursed his silver travel mug. We started up the stairs to the second floor when I heard a knocking from one of the upper floors. I stopped on the stairs to listen. I put my finger to my lips as Tim started to ask me a question.
The sound came again, but it wasn’t a knocking. It was more of a tapping. A tapping as if from a giant finger impatiently drumming on the concrete floor. I started up the stairs again with Tim in tow. I still wasn’t feeling anything that I would consider a spectral manifestation. As we hit the second floor, the cold air began to chill my bones. I felt as if I had heavy weights strapped to my arms and legs. Then Tim took a few steps away from me and brought up the coffee and bile from his stomach. I sat on the grimy floor to rest while he heaved. The tapping came again and sent slivers of ice under my skin.
I had never felt anything like this before. Usually, I could feel an entity, the remnants of a person left on this plane. But here, there was nothing to bond with.
I left Tim nauseous and lying on the dirty floor as I pulled against the invisible weights to climb the stairs. I could tell I was approaching the source of the tapping as it became faster and shook the stair beneath me. Or I was dizzy. I continued to climb on my hands and knees.
I heard Tim’s voice below, “I’ve got to get out of here.” Hoarse and distant from the burning bile.
I had no reason to be there without Tim, so I turned around and headed down the stairs. With each step, the weights on my limbs eased. But the walk drained me; even the final push to open the front door took several attempts before the rusty metal scrapped its way open.
Tim was waiting for me in the driver’s seat of his Mercedes with the door open. “Can you relock the chain to the gate? I don’t want people going in there.”
I pulled the chain around the iron bars that joined when the gate closed. The padlock clicked as it joined the ends of the heavy chain.
“I don’t know what’s going on in that building,” I told Tim, not sure if he was paying attention. “I’ll have to research it. I haven’t encountered anything like this before.”
“People cannot live in that building,” was Tim’s only comment.
To be continued…