I called Mary’s phone while still in the parking lot of the sheriff’s office. We agreed to meet an hour later. It was already nearly six o’clock and the street lights were on. I took advantage of the chance to stop by the local convenience store for food. A couple of slices of hamburger pizza and a fountain drink and it was time to drive out to the meeting.
We planned to meet at the apartment building she owned. I parked on the street at that address. It was a small place, just four, one-bedroom apartments, two on each side of a central hallway and stairwell. With the streetlight, I could see that the place was not in good shape. Some of the vertical siding hung out of plumb. The small yard around the building looked muddy like it hadn’t had grass in years.
I made a note about when I arrived and put the notebook in my pocket. A quick check of my flashlight made sure that was working; that’s a very important thing after sundown. As I got out of the van, an older sedan pulled up to park behind me.
Under the street lights, the car looked like a metallic gold color. It would have been expensive at one time. A crumple in the driver-side fender suggested a lack of recent care. The driver switched the lights off, fumbled with things in the passenger seat, and then exited the car.
She was small, about five feet tall and slender. Her clothing style suggested she was in her sixties. Like the car, the clothes would have been expensive when they were new, but they were probably just as recent as the car. With one hand, she locked and closed the car door. It took two tries to get the door to stay closed. With her other hand, she adjusted her dark hair.
I turned and stepped in her direction. “Mrs. Sweigart?” I called out.
“Are you the man from the zombie place?” she asked, walking my way.
“Yes, ma’am,” I answered. “I’m Timmy Hunt. Nice to meet you.”
We shook hands. Now that she was closer, I could see her better in the sodium light of the street lamp. Wearing a bit too much makeup couldn’t hide that she was easily in her sixties, possibly a little older. The dark of her hair obviously came from a bottle, but not at an upscale salon. I wondered about her story, but I always do that.
She started off while still shaking my hand. “I’m so glad you’re here, Mr. Hunt. I just don’t know what to do with all of this. My tenants are threatening to move out and I have a hard enough time getting people to live here. It’s too far from the city, so I have to rent to locals, but everybody is moving away to big cities and the ones that don’t either don’t want to live here or they’re people I don’t want to live here.” She hushed a little to say, “We have druggies and other people like that in this town and I sure don’t want them tearing up my apartments.”
I managed to pull my hand away as politely as I could and used it to retrieve the notebook from my pocket. “Can you show me where the events have taken place?” I asked.
She stopped and seemed to change mental tracks. “Oh, yes, this way, down in the basement.”
As we walked toward the building, I noticed the small windows along the foundation. They were not big enough for a person to crawl through unless they were a really small person. I knew enough about the building codes to know that living areas had to have egress windows so people could get out in case of fire, but I wasn’t sure about non-residential areas.
Mrs. Sweigart rambled on as we walked. “The tenants started complaining last week. They heard things in the basement but couldn’t tell what it was. I sent Johnny Franks, he’s the handyman, out to check. He said the lock on the outside door was broken so he replaced it. Then it all happened again. I had him put another lock on, but that one got busted too. Johnny thinks it was just thieves looking for stuff to steal, but that only explains the first breakin. After that, they should know there isn’t anything to steal down there. It just doesn’t make sense.”
We had walked around one side of the building and were now facing the back. The external basement door looked like the door to an old storm cellar. It was almost horizontal, with cinderblock walls forming the rest of the entrance. The door itself was made of old wood with large, metal strap hinges. Near the bottom, where it could be easily reached, a hasp sat open. The remains of a padlock sat on the ground nearby.
Zombies don’t usually have the presence of mind to remove a lock from a door. It is assumed that they would just break through the old wood. So far, this looked more like humans as the monsters.
Following my usual routine, I asked, “Have you notified law enforcement?”
“Well, no,” she started and then looked at the ground for a moment. “I didn’t, I mean, I didn’t want to bother them. I know they’re busy with things and don’t have time for, you know, things.” She trailed off.
I’m not a master detective but I think it is suspicious when people don’t call the cops over a break-in. It’s even more suspicious when the person has to come up with an explanation for not calling the cops and can’t give a good one. The cops in rural Iowa are rarely too busy to look into a repeatedly busted lock on a basement door.
I just smiled politely to her. “I’ll take a look,” I said.
Using my flashlight, I carefully examined the ground around the door. The mud meant that there were plenty of shoe or foot impressions, but none of them gave enough detail to interpret.
I stooped down to investigate the broken lock. I expected to see either the pinch of bolt cutters on the shackle, the U-shaped part, or a crack in the body from hammer blows. Bolt cutters would be reasonably quiet. Beating a lock with a hammer would not be, and would likely get attention from any people in the area.
Without touching the lock, I could only see the parts facing up. The shackle and body seemed unharmed. The locking mechanism protruded from the bottom of the body about an eighth of an inch. Someone had damaged the locking mechanism and opened the lock. There were no clues as to how they did it. That would be more of a police matter, not a zombie matter.
I stood up to my full height. A quick breeze made its way into my jacket to give me a chill. The flash of headlights suggested a car passing on the street. It was time to go into the basement.
Like many cellar doors, this had a rope attached to each door. The rope led up at an angle to a pole beside the hinge of that door. A counter weight hung from the other end of the rope to help lift the door. In this case, only the door on the right had a counter weight, the left one being long gone.
I lifted the right door, taking advantage of the weight. Propping the door open against its pole, I could shine my flashlight down into the opening. Wood stairs led down into the darkness. Cobwebs hung from every available surface. Stale, damp air wafted out. The light didn’t show much more than the stairs, their wall, and a concrete landing at the bottom.
Seeing that it was probably safe, I placed my right foot on the top stair. Gradually shifting my weight, I made sure that it felt firm. Old wooden stairs were not always reliable all the way through. From that position, I levered the left door open as well.
I’ve always hated stairs built like these. The treads were usually good solid wood. In basements and other utilitarian applications, there were no boards used for risers, those vertical parts between the stairs. That meant that anyone, or anything, could reach out from under the stairs and grab your ankle while you went down. Playing at a friend’s house as a kid, someone did that. It didn’t just scare the crap out of me, but it sent me down the rest of the stairs. I spent the rest of that summer with my arm in a cast.
From the bottom of the stairs, I could see the rest of the basement. It was just one big room that ran beneath the entire apartment building. The flashlight showed furnaces for heating, a coin-operated washing machine and dryer, and stacks of cardboard boxes slowly crumpling under the weight of their contents. Another set of stairs led up to the central hallway of the apartment building. I finally found the important thing, the light switch next to me on the wall.
I turned on the light. It was a single fluorescent fixture with two tubes. The dark bands on the ends of the tubes said both were near the end of their lives. The fixture itself was a cheap thing suspended from the ceiling with simple chains. The wire plugged into an outlet that was screwed into the socket for a regular incandescent bulb.
The state of the basement said that everything was done as cheaply as possible. Plumbing looked haphazardly patched. Various small leaks made puddles on the floor. The door to the fuse box hung awkwardly from the box. One of the fuses looked like it may have been just a penny.
Something moved to my right.
I spun toward the motion and thought I saw something dart under a cardboard box. It was probably a mouse. Still, my investigation needed to be thorough. I moved toward the mouse.
As interesting as it always was to investigate any situation, I was a little disappointed in this one. It was my second call for the day and it was going to be another blatantly non-supernatural situation. I didn’t mind Stan so much; he seemed like a good guy trying to deal with things. This apartment building was a different matter.
My guess was that Mrs. Sweigart didn’t want to call the police because they would cite her for all the things wrong with her building. Who knows, they may even close the place down. That might be sad for the tenants, whoever they were, but it might be in their best interest.
A hole at the bottom of the box showed signs of chewing. Just inside the hole, torn pieces of paper suggested a mouse nest. I knew it was common for mice to build nests in unattended boxes, but they usually needed to be near food. Where would this mouse find food?
I looked up at the ceiling. If the mouse could find food, it was probably finding it in the apartments. My mind filled with the image of a cluttered, filthy apartment covered with half eaten things and wreaking of rot. I did not look forward to investigating that area.
Unfortunately, that was my next stop. I headed up the interior stairs, checking them carefully as I went.
At the top, I found a closed door. The knob turned freely, but the door wouldn’t open. It felt like there was a lock on the other side, somewhere about three-quarters up. No point in going that way, it was time to head back.
I went back down the interior stairs and crossed over to the exterior. At the base of the outside stairs, I took one last look at the basement. Assured that I hadn’t missed anything, I turned off the fluorescent lights and ascended back to the ground level.
Mrs. Sweigart stood waiting, her hands clenched together in front of her. “Did you find anything?”
I shook my head. “No, I’m afraid I didn’t find much of anything. There are signs of mice, so you will want to ask, Johnny was it, ask Johnny to put out some rat poison. Other than that, I didn’t see anything. Can we check the other areas of the apartment building? I would also like to talk to the tenant who got bit.”
We turned to go to the front of the building.
Three young men in long coats ran around the corner of the building. One of them pointed my way and shouted, “There he is! I told you it was him!”
Mrs. Seigart screamed and dunked behind me.
Catching my composure, I took a better look. They were three, white kids in their middle teens. Their long coats all matched and were in good shape. The jeans and t-shirts underneath seemed newer as well. The tallest and middle one had blond hair; the short one had red. They grinned as they ran over.
I put my hand back to steady Mrs. Sweigart as she pressed against my back in terror. I held up my other hand, palm out, toward the approaching teens. “Who are you guys?”
“We’re big fans,” said the tall one.
“Yeah,” said the small one, “we read your website all the time.”
The middle one chimed in, “We were driving by and saw your van. I can’t believe it’s really you.”
My website received occasional fan email. Most messages weren’t positive. This was the first time fans had actually run up to me in person. To say I was off guard, well, I was definitely caught off guard.
It also hit me that my reflexes needed work. If these guys had been hostile, either thugs or the undead, they could have beaten me easily. Maybe chasing the undead was not a good career choice with my self-defense skills, especially if I kept having investigations where the bad guys were probably meth heads. But then, it wasn’t a career, it was a hobby until I could figure out what else to do.
“Well,” I started. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to say. I needed to get rid of these guys so I could continue my investigation, but I didn’t want to alienate fans. “I tell you what, if you guys can wait by my van until I wrap things up here, I’ll be happy to have a chat with you.”
“Cool,” said the tall one.
“No problem,” said the middle one.
“Are you on an investigation?” asked the small one.
That set the others off. “An investigation? Cool!” “Can we help?” “We can help really well.” “We know all about zombies.”
Gesturing with both of my hands, I managed to quiet them. “I appreciate your enthusiasm and your desire to help, but I can’t let that happen right now. You know, client privacy and liabilities and things like that. It won’t take too long, so if you can just go wait a little bit, I’ll be right with you guys.”
That seemed to settle them, at least on the idea of helping. They went back around the corner, excitedly gibbering among themselves as they went.
I turned back to Mrs. Sweigart. “I am terribly sorry about all of that. They’re gone now. Are you olay?”
She was obviously shaken by the event. She held her arms tightly around her chest and stared at the ground. Her whole body shook, probably from fear, though it was getting chilly out.
I put an arm around her shoulder and guided her toward the front of the building. “Let’s get inside where it will be warmer and there will be more light.”
She didn’t say anything as we entered the common hallway. The light was dim, but still brighter than the evening sky.
The hallway showed as much neglect as the rest had shown. Foot traffic had beaten a gray, flat path through the carpet, both on the floor and up the stairs. The wallpaper peeled at the seams and at a few random tears. Scuff marks and worn-off finish showed the age of the mailboxes on the wall. The faint scent of lotion and poor hygiene floated in the air.
Mrs. Seigart continued in and sat on the stairs. She put her head in her hands and shook as though sobbing.
Comforting people wasn’t in my skill set. Growing up in an alcoholic household doesn’t include empathy training. If I planned to stay in the zombie business, I was going to have to bone up on the people skills.
I decided to give her a moment and then ask her if she was alright. “Mrs. Sweigart, are you okay? Do you need anything?”
She slowly raised her head to look at me before shaking her head no. “I’m sorry,” she said, “things have just been a bit, I don’t know.”
I tried to give a sympathetic smile. The intention was there, but again, no skills.
“My Harold, you see, he used to take care of everything. Then he passed on and I didn’t know how to do anything.” She swallowed hard. “All I have left is this place and the house where I live. The rent here pays the basic bills and taxes, but I can’t pay to keep things fixed up. My friend Sheryl was going to help, but…” She trailed off.
Without knowing, I gave a curious expression suggesting that I needed more details about Sheryl.
“Sheryl was going to buy half of the building here so we could be partners. We agreed on a price, but she was just a little short. I was okay with that, but she insisted on getting the rest of it. She lost everything in one of those Internet scams you hear about on T.V. We couldn’t do the deal. It’s her boy, Johnny, he’s the one who comes over to help out some time.”
It was a good thing I wasn’t a cop; a sob story always hit me hard. My first instinct was to try to help, even if there was nothing I could do. This time, an idea popped into my head.
“Mrs. Sweigart, I have a thought,” I said. I turned to the remains of the last page in my notebook. I always wrote small notes, tore them off, and handed them to people this way. It was what the last page was for. I wrote the name Rick Novak, and, consulting my cellphone, a phone number. Carefully tearing around the information, I handed the note to Mrs. Sweigart.
“This is the name and number of my financial advisor. He’s a really great guy and really smart. Tell him I sent you and that you need an evaluation. He will be able to help you figure out how to get your finances in order. He also knows all the legal, ethical tricks to make sure things work out.”
She looked at the paper and then back at me. You would think I just told her that her dog was going to live. She smiled and her eyes widened. The impression was that she had just been left to drift after her husband passed, however long ago that was, and no one ever told her there was help available.
The apartment door to the right opened. An elderly woman, probably in her eighties, popped her head out. “Mary, is that you?”
Mrs. Sweigart answered, “Yes, it’s me. How are you tonight, Edna?”
Edna, was a frail woman, probably. Sweat pants and shirt hid any actual shape. She came out of the door further, propping herself on the frame. “Oh, I’m pretty good. Nothing to complain about. Is this a new tenant?” She nodded toward me when asking.
“No, he’s here to look into those noises in the basement.” Mrs. Sweigart stood up and straightened her pants. “This is Mr. Hunt. He’s already been down to the basement and found mice.”
Edna’s eyebrows rose. “Mice? Well, that’s not good. I never have liked mice.” She paused to think for a moment. “Do you recon that’s what bit me?” She extended her left leg forward, raising her heel off the ground. Reaching down, she tugged up the leg of her sweatpants, revealing a small, red wound.
I looked closer. “It’s about the size of a mouse bite. Have you had a doctor look at it?”
She twisted her leg slightly to get a better viewing angle. “No. Do you think it might have rabies?”
Being prone to crawling around dark spaces, I did know a little about mice and rats. For example, I knew that mice and rats rarely carry rabies. “I don’t think rabies would be an issue, but it might still get infected. They may need to give you some antibiotics or something. Of course, I’m not a doctor, so I don’t know any of that for sure.” I always felt more comfortable if I gave a disclaimer. I could never understand why people assumed that zombie hunters were experts in anything.
Seeing that this wasn’t going any further, and realizing that I wasn’t going to be billing anyone again, I decided to wrap things up.
“Mrs. Sweigart, it looks like my particular services aren’t what you need.”
She deflated a little.
“But not to worry,” I continued. “My recommendation is to add an outside light or an alarm to the outside basement door. If you don’t have the budget for a real alarm, just get the sign that says there’s an alarm. Sometimes, that’s enough. Do that and call the financial advisor and you should be okay.”
That seemed to help.
Again, I’ve always been too soft hearted for business. “And, in the next week or so, I’ll drive by during the night to see if there are any other signs of trouble that I can deal with.”
That brought the smile back.
With that, I was out of the apartment building, leaving Mrs. Sweigart and Edna to chat about whatever they were going to chat about.
That’s when I remembered my waiting fans.