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Haunting Me (Part 2)

Part 2

By Michael BauchPublished 6 years ago 8 min read
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When you travel for a living, especially in a state as big as Texas, you spend a lot of time eating out of paper, cardboard and parchment. You also spend a lot of time drinking out of to-go cups. For the second time in my life the cop handed me a cup, this time filled with hot coffee. I held it in both hands, sitting on the edge of my bed, staring a blank TV. He sat in the room’s obligatory chair and watched me. I could tell he was used to dealing with sudden trouble and wasn’t about to let me catch him off guard. I held the cup, letting the warmth seep into my hands. I had almost touched Mia, and the cold still lingered, like how your hands feel after you dig through a bin of ice.

“Lucky you came along when you did…” I opened up. “Thank you.”

“How are you feeling?” he asked. I shook my head in response.

“I don’t know, really. What… what did you see?”

He shrugged. “You were walking towards the edge, arms outstretched, talking about how sorry you were. You repeated the name “Mia” a few times. You were almost over the edge when I got to you.”

I shook my head again. “You didn’t see her, then.”

“No, no I didn’t see her. You want to talk about her?”

I let out a ragged sigh, “Not particularly. What brings you by? I can’t imagine you hang out at random hotels in the event someone tries to fall to their death.”

He pulled out a folded stack of papers from his back pocket. “Heard you were asking about the Larson house, specifically how Clive Larson was nearly killed by a female intruder.” He handed me the papers. “That’s the full report, supplements included, before CID redacted some of the odder elements.”

I unfolded the papers. It included statements from Joyce Larson, the daughter, Donley Larson, the victim, and Elda and Joe Bell, supposed witnesses. I gave it a once over. “You got these from records?” I asked.

“No, even if you waited their week, you would have only gotten a basic outline of what happened. That’s the actual reports from the files. The case is closed though.”

I closed them up again. “You shot at her.”

He stared straight ahead “Yep. I put five rounds into her back as she ran across the yard.”

“You hit her.”

“I sure did.”

“What happened?”

He gave me a look. “We arrived at the house, based on the call the girl, Joyce, placed to police. A dark haired woman answered the door, kept her head low, and wouldn’t make eye contact, which I initially thought was weird. But she assured us it was all a misunderstanding and we only had an outside call to go off of. We started to clear when the daughter shows up, nearly killing herself running out of the car. That’s when it all kind of clicked…” He trailed off, looking away. Swallowing a lump in his throat he continued, “I realized we’d been duped so I made entry and the suspect fled out the back door. I pursued and opened fire.”

Gone now was the cop, now came the man as he looked at me. “I’ve been shooting since I was six. I hit what I aim at and I know those bullets right into her back. She ran and went straight through the fence. Didn’t break any boards, didn’t open a gate, just straight through the fence.”

“Have you seen her since?” I asked.

He quietly nodded “Every so often I glance up and she’s there, glaring at me. I blink and she’s gone.”

“You ever go to therapy for it, maybe PTSD or something?”

He nodded “I thought about that, but no, she’s not my first ghost.”

Now it was my turn to nod. “I remember.” I reached into my shirt and pulled out a small woman’s ring and held it for a moment. I know he saw me, but frankly I was so frazzled I didn’t care. He got up and went to the door.

“You going to be alright by yourself?”

I nodded.

“I have the day off tomorrow. Want to go pound some pavement, see if we can’t scare up some answers?”

That sounded like a monumental waste of time.

“Yes, I do. 9 AM?” I said. He left and I drank my coffee and stayed up reading police reports for another hour.

The initial contact report played out exactly as Simmons told me, but then the follow up from the crime scene investigator brought something new to light. The gash in Donley’s neck was caused by a knife, found on the kitchen floor, with his fingerprints on it. Simmons specifically told me, and put in his report, that the suspect was on top of the victim when they got there.

The next morning was overcast and cold, meaning I had to bundle up. He was waiting by the lobby of the hotel and we got in his car and went to the Whataburger for breakfast. I was never one to beat around the bush. “Tell me about the knife.” I said, figuring that if Simmons was trying to cover up something he wasn’t going to try and kill me in the most popular fast food joint in town.

“I didn’t collect it for evidence when I got there, I only cleared the scene. That’s what crime scene is for. I heard later that they found Donley’s prints on it, and that they think the wound was self-inflicted. I don’t really know. I reported what I saw.”

I nodded as I munched on my breakfast biscuit. “This whole thing is getting weird,” I complained.

“It got weird a long time ago,” Simmons offered. I didn’t argue.

“So, what’s our next move because outside of talking to the girl, I don’t know where to go from here?”

“The kid we pulled out of that cell, he’s a mechanic here in town. I steer clear of him on the regular, don’t want to drag up bad memories. He’s been staying clean all this time.”

“The ultimate ‘scared-straight’. I can dig that. So you want to go ruin his life first?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know about ruin, but at least ask a few questions, maybe give him a month of flashback nightmares…”

“Sweet, let’s go.”

My life as a paranormal activity reporter has let me to the doorstep of many a business, and Crockett Auto Repair was my first mechanic’s shop. All of these places look oddly familiar. This one had two large bays for repairs, a small office and lobby off to the side where you went in, handed over your keys and insurance and told them what horrifying noise your car was making and they quoted you what horrifying price you’d have to pay to make the noises stop. This one had a slate gray with red trim décor and the smell of old oil as you went in the lobby. Simmons approached the desk and we saw the kid, Tyler Sutton, in the repair bay. He asked the receptionist and she turned in her chair and banged on the window. Tyler looked up, saw Simmons, and took off out the back of the building as fast as he could. Simmons went through the door before the receptionist could protest, and I was hot behind him, figuring it was better for me to stick close to the cop rather than be left holding the bag in the lobby.

Tyler ran through some overgrowth behind the building and just past that was a small scale car graveyard. It wasn’t a full on junkyard, but it was where they purchased busted down vehicles and used them for parts. There wasn’t any rhyme or reason to the placement of the cars, just wherever the tow truck driver deemed a good place to dump them, so the yard took on the feel of a big metal maze. The deeper he went into the maze, the higher the cars got. They were on scaffolding where mechanics could get underneath them and pull parts from the undercarriage without having to waste space in a repair bay. Tyler began ducking and diving through the towering walls of cars, and I could hear him screaming. The wrecked metal surroundings were starting to blot out what light there was, only letting in shafts of illumination where windows and glass were still intact.

He found himself cornered with a large truck perched above him on some of that same scaffolding. The side of the truck had been bashed in by impact and they had apparently already scavenged what they need from the bottom of its corpse. He turned and looked at us, tears streaming down his dirty face. He was trembling, and the look in his eyes was so pained that I recoiled. Behind him stood the spectral prisoner.

“Do you see her?” Simmons asked, backing up next to me. I didn’t at first but soon a shadowy figure started to emerge from nothing. It took on a feminine silhouette. She was vague, ill-defined except for her pale complexion and dark hair, the spitting image of Elda’s drawing.

I heard a voice call my name and turned. There was Mia beckoning me. I shut my eyes, and shook my head. As much as I wanted it to be her, I knew better. I turned back and looked at the kid. He was sobbing as he backed up under the scaffolding supporting the truck.

“Tyler!” Simmons yelled, but it was too late. The kid grabbed a bar and smashed a supporting joint to the scaffolding. The metal groaned and he looked at his hands. He dropped the bar and looked up at the truck. All three of us, Tyler, Simmons and myself all yelled, “No!” at the same time but the truck descended with a thunderous crash. Tyler disappeared under the metal construct, with only a pool of red forming from under the front bumper.

End Part 2

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About the Creator

Michael Bauch

I am a writer with a wide range of interests. Don't see anything that sparks your fancy? Check back again later, you might be surprised by what's up my sleeve.

You can follow me on Twitter @MichaelBauch7

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