Cemetery Tours (8 page)

“Yes.
  But my brother’s taking some time off, so he’s been here.”

“Well, he must be pretty unobservant if he hasn’t said anything to you.
  This building is cursed.”

“Cursed?
  How so?”

“I have not lived here one day where something hasn’t gone wrong.
  The lights flicker, the thermostat never works, I have problems with my television, and now, I’m getting absolutely no cell phone reception.”  Kate was surprised.  She hadn’t encountered any such problems.  

“Have you reported all of this to management?”
 

“Of course, but every time they come by to inspect, they tell us that there’s nothing wrong.”

Sounds familiar
, Kate mused.  She may not have had the technical difficulties her new neighbor described, but something was definitely not right with Gavin.  Of course, that had been going on since before they’d even discovered the Riverview Apartment Complex.  

“What do you think it could be?”
 

“I told you.
  The building is cursed.  Neighbors across the hall warned us before we moved in and we didn’t listen.  And you know, it’s more than just the technical stuff.”

“What do you mean?”
 

“Strange things happen here,” the woman told her in a hushed voice, almost like she was trying to avoid being overheard.
  “Objects will disappear and turn up days later in spots you’d never think to look.  Just last week I thought I’d misplaced my curling iron.  I found it inside our china cabinet.  Or you’ll hear noises, unexplained things like someone tapping on walls even though you’re alone in the apartment, or footsteps pacing around an empty room.”  As she spoke, Kate felt shivers run down her spine.  “You’ve heard them, haven’t you?”

“I thought I was just imagining them,” Kate confessed.
  “My brother thinks I’m crazy.  We even had a fight about it.”

“My husband has heard them, but he doesn’t want to believe it.
  Men are kind of funny about things that can’t be rationally explained.  It makes their feeble little minds short circuit.”  Kate laughed.    

“I guess that’s why Michael never said anything about the building being cursed.”

“Who?” the woman asked.

“Michael Sinclair.
  He lives across the hall from me in 1723.”  

The woman’s eyes widened with surprise.
  “You actually talked to him?”  

“Yeah.
  He’s a really nice guy.”

“He didn’t seem...
off
to you?” 

Off
? Kate wondered.  Perhaps in the sense that one minute, he acted like he liked her and the next, he was out the door.  But he’d never struck her as strange.  

“No.
  Not at all,” she replied.  “Why do you ask?”  The woman shrugged.  

“I don’t know.
  He’s always sort of kept to himself.  And, well...”

“What?”
 

“Look, I know he’s your friend, but there have been rumors about him.”
  Kate’s mind spun with curiosity.  

“Like what?” she asked.

“Like he may be behind the strange things that happen in this building.”

“Michael?” Kate asked, incredulous.
  “How?  That’s impossible.”

“I don’t know.
  All I know is that according to Mrs. Riggs, out of all the tenants in this building, he’s the only one who never reports anything suspicious.”

“And because of that, she thinks he’s the cause of it?”

“It’s not just that.  The building wasn’t always cursed.  Apparently all of this started about five years ago, right after he moved in.”

“It just doesn’t make sense,” Kate said, glancing upstairs at Michael’s front door.
  “Michael’s just a nice, normal guy.  How could he be responsible for power failures?”  Maybe he had a lot of gaming systems.  She hoped not.  She’d known guys in high school who would spend so much time in front of their video game consoles that they’d forget to bathe.   

“I don’t know.
  All I know is that I am out of here as soon as our lease is up.  And I’d encourage you to do the same, uh...”

“Kate.
” She held out her hand, feeling foolish for not introducing herself sooner.  

“Elise,” her neighbor replied, shaking her hand.
  “I’m sorry we didn’t meet under more positive circumstances.”

“That’s alright.
  It fits right into the theme of how this week is going so far,” Kate replied dryly.  Elise actually grinned.  

“Well, I wish you luck.
  I’m off to gripe at management, yet again.”

“In that case, good luck to you too.”

“And listen, I’m not trying to ruin your friendship or tell you what to do, but be careful around that guy upstairs.  He’s probably nice and normal like you say, but better safe than sorry,” Elise advised.  

“Thanks, I’ll keep that in mind,” Kate answered half-h
eartedly as Elise turned her heel and walked briskly in the direction of the complex offices.  Kate, in turn, began her trek upstairs to her apartment. 

She didn’t want to believe anything negative she heard about Michael.
  Then again, the more she thought about it, the more she realized how little she actually knew about him.  He hadn’t told her anything about his personal life, claiming that there wasn’t much to tell.  But even if he was a little socially awkward, how could he possibly be responsible for all the things Elise had mentioned?  The mysterious footsteps for instance.

It was comforting to know that someone else had heard them too.
  It should have been even more comforting to know that whatever was up in her apartment had come with the building.  

Except it hadn’t.
  Not in their case, anyway.  The building might have been cursed, but whatever was with them in that apartment had followed them there.  And she had a horrible feeling that it intended to stay.  

~*~

“So Kate, listen, I was wondering... Kate, hi.  Your face looks a lot better... Hey, sorry I haven’t called.  It’s been hectic at... the library...”  As lame as the words sounded inside his head, it was nothing compared to how pathetic they all sounded out loud.  Now as Michael climbed the stairs to his and Kate’s apartments, he had no idea what he was supposed to say.  He still wasn’t completely sold on the idea of speaking to her at all, really.

He had spent the whole of the afternoon thinking about what Brink had said and misplacing books on the shelves as a result.
  He’d had to go back and check to make sure they were all catalogued properly at least half a dozen times.  It was true that he had been a little distracted ever since the night of Gavin’s birthday party.  Well technically, ever since Kate and Gavin moved in across the hall, but he wouldn’t say he’d been moping.  The entire situation was more confusing to him than anything.  Why couldn’t he just get Kate Avery out of his mind?

Because
, Brink’s voice answered inside his mind,
you like her
. 
No matter how much you want to deny it.

It was true.
  He’d love to be able to say he didn’t have feelings for Kate, that she was just another neighbor to him, friendly in passing, but not much more.  But he did, and she wasn’t.  She was bright, funny, understanding, and compassionate, if perhaps a little overprotective.  It was hard to imagine anyone not
liking her.  

Maybe that’s why the ghost had been hanging around them so long
, he thought with a wry grin as he crossed the landing to her apartment.  

Still unsure of what he was going to say, he took a deep breath and knocked on the door.
  He stood there for what seemed like a century, tapping his fingers nervously against his leg.  Finally, he heard footsteps approaching the front door.  Seconds later, the latch on the lock clicked and the door creaked open.  

Maybe it was because he was nervous, or because he was finally willing to acknowledge his feelings, but somehow, Kate looked prettier than he remembered, even in spite of the slight bruising that lingered where the volleyball had struck her.
  Her hair was pulled up in a loose bun with a few stray strands falling into her eyes and she was dressed in a white blouse and yellow skirt.  Her eyes, however, seemed more reserved than usual.  Maybe she’d had a long week too.  

“Uh, hey,” Michael offered.
  “How’s it going?”

“Okay,” she replied, sounding like she wondered if he’d really shown up just to make small talk.
  “How’s it going with you?”

“Um, not bad.
  Life at the library is, you know, kind of hectic.” 
Stupid!
he scolded himself.  Kate didn’t seem to notice.  

“Yeah, we’ve been pretty busy too.”
  Her answer was casual enough, but Michael knew he wasn’t imagining the distance in her voice.  Maybe Brink was right.  Maybe he had hurt her feelings.

“Well listen, if you’re not doing anything, and um, if you want to, I was wondering if you wanted to go out tonight?
  Maybe get something to eat?”  God, he
really
needed lessons on how to talk to girls.  

“Oh, Michael, that sounds like fun but I probably need to stay in tonight.
  Val has me perusing the Internet for some fancy antique candelabra for the lady whose house we’re decorating.  Maybe some other time?”  Michael wasn’t sure if she meant it or not.  She sounded sincere, but he had dated enough to know that
maybe some other time
often translated to
thanks, but no thanks.  

“Yeah, absolutely,” Michael told her, trying his best to sound nonchalant.
  “Well uh, good luck tonight.”

“Thanks.
  I’ll need it,” Kate replied with a small smile.  “Bye.”

“Bye,” Michael murmured as Kate shut the door.
  Feeling like a total idiot, he turned and walked back to his own apartment.

~*~

“Who was at the door?” Gavin asked, emerging from his bedroom with tousled hair and dark circles under his eyes.

“Michael,” Kate replied without tearing her eyes away from her laptop.
  It was somewhat true what she’d told him.  She really did plan on spending the rest of the evening doing research on the Internet.  However, it had nothing to do with Valerie or their fickle customer and her stupid antiques.  Meanwhile, Gavin meandered into the kitchen and pulled the milk out of the refrigerator.

“What did he want?” he asked, taking a long swig straight out of the carton.

“How many times have I asked you
not
to do that?  It’s disgusting,” Kate griped.  Gavin ignored her and took another drink.  Kate rolled her eyes and turned her attention back to her computer. 

“So you’re not gonna answer my question?”
 

“What question?”

“What did Michael want?”

“Oh, that.
  He was just wondering how we were doing.”  It was, of course, just her luck that the guy she’d been thinking about all week would ask her out the day she discovers everyone else in the building believes he’s somehow linked to all the creepy things that happen there.  

If it had just been Elise, that would be one thing.
  Kate could easily overlook the suspicions of one person who, to be honest, had seemed a little frazzled.  Even her hair, the same color as the Weasley kids’ in the
Harry Potter
movies, stuck out in odd angles, like she’d run her hands through it one too many times.  Probably out of frustration.

But it wasn’t just Elise.
  Thirty minutes of Googling had disclosed dozens of reports and news articles of the “curse” of the Riverview Apartments’ Building 17.  Most of the reports were the articles only found on local news sites, the kind that were normally read by a grand total of ten people, if that.  But they told her what she needed to know.  Nearly everyone who had lived in the building had, at one point, complained of technical difficulties, unexplained noises, and even some mysterious ailments.  Mrs. Riggs had been quoted in a few, each time disputing claims of a curse.  

“
There is not, nor has there ever been, anything malicious or dangerous about Building 17.  Here at Riverview, we believe in putting our residents first and we’d never rent out an apartment that we believed to be anything less than suitable for comfortable habitation.”  

Reading her words, Kate couldn’t help but recall the enthusiasm with which Mrs. Riggs had presented the apartment.
  She recalled thinking that the old woman had been a little overambitious in her attempt to convince them that apartment #1724 was the home they’d been searching for.  She’d even offered them a discount on rent.  It wasn’t the nicest apartment they’d visited, but it was the best deal they could find.  In the end, that was why they’d chosen Riverview.  Now it all seemed incredibly suspicious.  

“So what, you didn’t invite him in or anything?” Gavin asked.
  “I thought you liked him.”