When The Tik-Tik Sings - Doug Lamoreux

Supernatural Horror Novel Inspired By Filipino Folklore & The Aswang

When The Tik-Tik Sings by Doug Lamoreux

Book excerpt

Sirens woke Ben the next morning. Sirens and the buzz of a helicopter. While neither were alien, they were not usual morning sounds for a quiet Iowa tourist town. With apologies to Dickens, he peeled his eyes open experiencing the best of times and the worst of times. The best because of memories of Erin the night before. The worst because her place beside him in bed was empty. The best because, though it was a 'B' Shift day and the sirens were those of his gang, he'd taken the day off and could hear them from bed. The worst because Erin's place beside him was empty. Come to think, now he was awake and thinking, why was her place empty?

Atop the coffee maker, Ben found a note from Erin. Seeing it recalled the warm memory. Reading it ruined his morning. She'd forgotten to tell him, owing to the explosion, the body, and the evidence of arson he'd discovered, her day off had been canceled. Meaning, she'd had to sneak out to her own apartment without waking him. His vacation day had been Erin's suggestion, now he'd spend it alone.

Hope you have a quiet day, she'd written. Then added beneath, Come to think, hope I do too.

Ben grumbled as he picked up broken glass in his bedroom, dirty glasses in the living room. His mood grew darker as he recalled yesterday's events and Erin's comments about Nestor the night before. Strange things were happening. More, he paused at the window to stare in daylight at the port and, in particular, at the old dredger in the distance. He tried to envision the figure he'd seen but couldn't. Had it been his imagination?

One of the sirens that morning belonged to Erin. She killed it, but left her light bar flashing, and stepped from her squad to stare up at the historic Grand Opera House. She covered her eyes against the sun, heard the whoop whoop whoop above, and finally spotted the Duncan-by-Air helicopter hovering over the roof. The pilot and owner of the airborne tour company had called it in. It being a report of a woman's body lying on the opera house roof.

Engine 2 roared past Erin and pulled to the curb. The air brakes hissed and its growl eased to a purr. Ben's co-workers stepped down from the rig; the massive muscled Tucker, his gold front tooth glinting in the sun; Arbuckle, his Caucasian twin without the fabulous dental work; and their morose lieutenant, Maximo Pontius, looking put-upon as usual. The ambulance pulled up behind the engine's tailboard. Nestor and Pierce, Ben's replacement for the day, hopped out.

The Fire Department personnel, from bugles to rookie, were still pulling on their gear. The opera house lived downtown, at the juncture of West Eighth and East Eighth streets, between Main and Iowa, putting this 'Unknown Medical' call a half block away from Fire Station 2 around the corner. It would have been faster to walk and there'd been no time to don their accoutrement. Erin was grateful cops carried all their toys on one belt.

“Hey guys.” Erin considered adding a casual, ‘Where's Ben?’. She wasn't supposed to know, and wouldn't she wonder? She vetoed the notion, feeling silly. The relationship was wonderful, but the secret part of it was becoming a drag. Maybe they ought to knock it off and be a couple.

Tucker, in bunker pants, suspenders, and a uniform T-shirt, tried the front doors and reported from the top step with a shout, “Nobody home. Locked tighter than a nun's box.” He did a take in Erin's direction and grinned. “Sorry.”

“No worries,” she replied. “I'm a Baptist.”

Nestor eyeballed the hovering helicopter. “What have we got?”

“Not exactly sure. Tourist flight called it in. There's supposedly a woman lying on the roof. Hasn't moved a muscle since he first spotted her and looks 10-79.”

“Easy,” Arbuckle muttered. “Poor dumb firemen here. Ten – who?”

“Dead,” Erin said. “Of course, the pilot can't be certain. I've called for the key holder. That puts the decision of whether or not we wait on your shoulders.”

Tucker aimed his gaze at Nestor. “What say you, Doctor Kildare? We gonna wait for the key?”

The New Mexican twisted his lips. “No. I don't know why she's there. But if she's alive she needs help.” He turned to Pontius. “Your call, lieutenant. Break a lock? Break a window? Call in a ladder?”

Pontius considered the question in silence. Or maybe he was thinking of his retirement? Either way, he stared at the sidewalk without a word.

Tuck sighed. “We could just go back and pretend she ain't up there.”

The lieutenant looked up. “I guess… We don't really have a choice. Better force the door. But do it carefully.” Tuck smiled and headed back up. Arbuckle followed, raising the daddy of all pry bars like a magician about to do a trick.

“Don't, please!” The high-pitched squeak interrupted the assault. “Please, please! Don't!”

Elliott Manwaring, the opera house manager, was a pale skeleton in a shabby bathrobe. Hairless white stick-legs, black socks, and black Florsheims completed the ensemble. He was ancient, but spurred by panic, took the steps two at a time. “My God,” he said, ogling Arbuckle's wrecking bar. “My God! This is a historic building. You can't… just…”

“Do you have the key?” Erin asked.

Despite having the truckies as stretcher bearers, it was no small feat getting the cot and equipment to the top. The handicapped elevator in front went only to the second floor; the freight elevator in the rear only to third-floor storage behind the Ballet Academy rehearsal hall. That meant four floors of stairs with tight turns on every level. But the gang, even without Ben, were goers. Led by the manager, they soon arrived above the empty 700 seat auditorium, the offices, dressing rooms, rehearsal spaces, fly spaces; above the ghosts of one hundred and thirty years of operas, silent movies, vaudeville shows, sound movies, stage plays, and live wrestling matches. The group crammed up the final set of rarely used stairs, the Grand Opera about to debut its first corpse.

Five firefighters and a cot, a cop, and a key holder, pinched like beef in a tamale, found the dusty door to the roof chained and padlocked. Manwaring, gasping from the climb, searched his ring, realized the key was not there, and breathlessly asked to run to his basement office to look for it.

“Forget it,” Nestor said, easing him out of the way. Manwaring squawked, but the paramedic growled him down. “What is it? A historic padlock or something?” He nodded at the truckies.

Arbuckle put his bar through the lock like a hot knife through butter. Tuck shoved the door. Dust danced in daylight as the morning breeze bathed the rescuers in the stairwell. They stared out, first to the helicopter beating the air above, then to the rag doll on the tar and gravel twenty feet away.

“Oh my,” Manwaring groaned.

“Hold it.” Erin slipped through the group. She stepped onto the roof and drew her weapon making sure the area was secure. “All right. Come up and out, but stay by the door.”

The gang followed instructions, maneuvering the equipment-heavy cot onto the roof.

“Nestor,” Erin said. “Just you. Disturb as little as you have to.”

The patient, a dyed redhead, wore a red skirt and matching blouse, the blouse ripped down the middle, white lace bra beneath yanked aside exposing her left breast. Her left sleeve hung by threads above the elbow. Neither nylons nor socks were evident. Her left shoe was a red leather pump. Her right shoe was missing. Nestor approached and crouched. Her face, neck, left arm, and stomach were covered in contusions, scratches, and several deep lacerations. Her pale skin gleamed beneath the dried blood. No doubt she'd put up a fight. Nestor paused and took in air as he noted what looked to be a gunshot five inches above her navel. He laid gloved fingertips to her carotid artery. An EMT cannot legally pronounce death, but they can decide whether or not to treat. Nestor had no trouble deciding. She wasn't a patient; she was a corpse.

Erin made a survey of the roof, with special attention to the blind spots behind the air conditioning unit, several old brick chimneys, beyond the short wall running the building's width, and of the eave. They were alone, the sergeant was satisfied. She was mystified as well. With no fire escape, no second access from inside, and no connection to another building, how had the woman and her attacker gotten there? How had her attacker flown the coop?

From the door, Pierce called out, “What do you need, Nestor?”

The paramedic peeled off his gloves. “She can't use a thing.”

Erin radioed for backup, the homicide detectives, and the coroner, and told Manwaring to return to the lobby and escort them up when they arrived. She asked the firefighters if they wanted to wait there and wasn't displeased when Nestor replied they were stuck until the coroner took over.

Giving the body a wide birth, Erin crossed the roof. Gaining speed, she jumped the short wall and disappeared beyond the painted ironwork supporting the air conditioner. There, in a corner behind an old brick chimney, with all the privacy afforded an open rooftop by a hovering helicopter, Erin threw up. It wasn't much. She'd skipped breakfast, tip-toeing from Ben's apartment, and grabbed a coffee on the way to the station. There was little in her belly. But she violently surrendered all she had to the dirty tar and gravel of the roof. So much for historic. Panting and pale, she stared over the edge, four stories down to the rear door of the Style Store across the alley. Yeah, Erin thought, catching her breath, I've got style, all right. She drew a handkerchief, dabbed her eyes, and wiped her lips.

“Erin? You all right?”

She spun around, covering her mouth with the handkerchief, startling Nestor almost as much as he'd startled her. “I'm fine.”

“Sorry. Wasn't spying. Saw you head this way and thought you might need help. God knows I can't help the corpse.” Erin nodded. Nestor fidgeted. “It's okay,” he said. “Not going to tattle. Dead bodies aren't for everyone; much less murder victims. My first got to me.”

“This isn't my first,” Erin said, spitting the taste out. “I've seen homicides. And shootings, and stabbings, and assaults. It isn't the body at all.”

“Oh. Okay. Didn't think you had a weak… I mean… Just saw you puking there and I—”

“Nestor, please, shut up.”

Across the rooftop, Manwaring escorted the newly-arrived detectives onto the roof. Peter Chandler was all a fiction writer could put into a heroic cop, forty, handsome, calm and collected. He nodded hellos to the civil servants then turned his steel gray gaze on the scene. Hugging the wall behind, with no eagerness to venture further, was Chandler's new junior partner, Horatio Shane. He was African-American so he could hardly be described as pale, still three steps made it plain the young man hated heights.

“You broke the chain to get up here?” Chandler asked the lieutenant.

Pontius thought about it longer than need be. “Had to. No other way up from the inside.”

“Fire escape?”

“No. Not for years. We didn't know the condition of the patient, so we couldn't wait for a ladder.”

“No criticism intended,” Chandler said. “Just getting the lay of the land.” He started for the body. Halfway there, he turned back to see Shane still at the wall. Chandler lifted a questioning brow. Shane took a deep breath, and walking a tightrope, joined his senior.

Chandler greeted Nestor, then Erin, by the body. The paramedic was a formality but Erin was clearly a favorite. Chandler made no attempt to hide it as he asked what she had.

“No signs of a perpetrator,” Erin replied. “No indication of a struggle. No identification. Who she is, how she got here, how she died; it's a locked door mystery.”

Shane whistled. Erin and the lead detective turned to find him over the body. “The wound on the stomach,” Shane called out. “That's just like the one on the crispy critter, ain't it?”

Chandler asked Nestor to excuse them. When the New Mexican joined his gang by the door, the detective glowered at his junior. “I applaud your initiative and deplore your thinking out loud.”

“No. It's just that this wound is—”

“Forget the wound, Horatio.”

“Huh?”

“Stop talking, Detective.” Shane scowled. Chandler didn't care. “As my tight-assed British father would say, damn blast it to hell, what do you think you're playing at? You do not refer to fire fatalities as ‘crispy critters’ in public. That's a term left in the squad room. As to the wound, you are not qualified to determine what it is. That's what the coroner is for. You are correct in noting its appearance. But that is what you do, note it, quietly, for possible future use. Point it out, quietly, to the coroner. When and if he establishes a medical fact, it becomes our secret to cherish. You don't blab it from a rooftop.”

“I thought we were all on the same team,” Shane said.

“Homicide isn't a game.”

“Right. I got that, but these guys are the Fire Department.”

“Which is not the Police Department.”

“No. I was just explaining. You chewed me out—”

“Detective Shane.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Stop talking. You are in training, learn something. While you work for me, you are never to have a conversation with anyone for any reason wherein you divulge more than you learn. Now, observe the scene, write copious notes, and be quiet.”

Two simultaneous events ended the lesson. First, Stanley Pickles, the jovial coroner arrived. Second, an odd report came over Erin's portable radio. Pickles was a 'kind of' sort of guy; kind of middle-aged, kind of overweight, kind of disheveled, and kind of goofy. He had a cherubic face, a Saint Nick laugh, and an unsettling habit while shaking hands of stretching two fingers to feel your pulse. He whistled a hello to the firefighters and made a splayfooted beeline for the body. Meanwhile, over Erin's portable, Officer Traer's tinny voice reported. “There's signs of a struggle down here.”

Book Details

AUTHOR NAME: Doug Lamoreux

BOOK TITLE: When The Tik-Tik Sings

GENRE: Horror

SUBGENRE: Supernatural Horror

PAGE COUNT: 273