Sirens in the Night Read online

  Feeling her panic subside, Samantha inhaled deeply. “Don’t change the subject. Were you or were you not at a night club called Pulsar this evening?”

  “Well, detective, I really can’t say. It’s been a very busy evening, and I just can’t recall what I did or where I’ve been,” the woman replied with deep condescending undertones.

  “Don’t give me this bullshit! Where were you tonight?”

  “Detective . . . such anger. If you must know, I had a man for . . . over for dinner this evening. He was such wonderful company. But I don’t see why I need to divulge any details about my private life to the likes of you.”

  “Fine. If that’s how you want to play it, fine,” stated Samantha. “Calithea Panagakos, I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to come with me to the station for further questioning.” Samantha paused, and then decided to clarify the point. “When I say ask, I mean you have no choice.”

  The Greek woman smiled. “Oh, detective. You have no idea who you’re dealing with, do you?”

  Samantha stepped back to the front door, and leaned out. Peter was still standing by the elevator, holding the door open. When he saw her looking his way, he frowned.

  “Go downstairs and ask Faulkner and Anderson to come up. I’d like them to escort Ms. Panagakos to the station for further questioning,” Samantha ordered.

  Samantha watched the elevator doors close before she stepped back into the apartment. Calithea Panagakos, who hadn’t moved from the sofa, was glaring at Samantha with her crystal blue eyes, which seemed as cold as glacial ice. Although the sense of rising terror had subsided, Samantha still couldn’t free herself from the feeling that some unseen evil was lurking in the apartment. She had never felt so alone and vulnerable before in her life. It was as if an unseen force was stalking her, circling around her like an animal waiting to attack its unsuspecting prey. She was relieved when she heard the bell on the elevator signal its return to the nineteenth floor.

  Moments later, Peter, with two uniformed police officers close behind, entered the apartment. The two officers, Faulkner and Anderson, halted just inside the apartment threshold and gazed in at Calithea Panagakos. Peter moved into the apartment next to Samantha.

  “Ms. Panagakos, it’s a pleasure to see you again. You’re looking even lovelier than I remember,” he said.

  Samantha threw him an angry look, and then gestured to the two police officers, “Please take Ms. Panagakos to the station. We’ll be interviewing her there. Detective Thornton and I will follow you in just a moment.”

  Officer Faulkner stepped forward and smiled, “Of course. It’d be our pleasure.”

  Calithea rose from the sofa with a slow and deliberate manner, and then smiled at Samantha. “It seems that I’ll not be going to bed after all. I do hope you know what you’re about to get into, Detective Ballard.”

  Samantha stepped forward until her face was inches from the Calithea’s. “Your threats don’t scare me, Ms. Panagakos. And, unlike my counterparts, I don’t get gobsmacked by a set of nice legs and big tits. If you had anything to do with these murders, I’m going to find out. And when I do, I’m going to make sure they lock you away in the darkest cell they can find. You should feel right at home.”

  As Samantha stepped aside, Calithea smiled and said, “Hmm, I like a woman with balls. They’re so much more fun to spar with. But be careful you don’t get kicked in them.”

  Calithea brushed past Samantha as she exited the apartment. Faulkner and Anderson followed along behind her. Samantha and Peter stepped to the apartment door and watched as the woman entered the waiting elevator with the two police officers. Calithea turned and faced the two detectives, smiling as the elevator doors closed.

  “You won’t forget to lock up for me, will you?” the woman said just as the gap between the doors vanished.

  Once they were alone in the hallway, Samantha turned on her partner with a rage-filled glare and exclaimed, “What the hell is wrong with you?”

  “Huh? What?” replied Peter.

  Samantha never had the chance to respond. Two muffled screams resonated through the closed elevator doors. They were bloodcurdling sounds of utter agony that shattered the early morning peace and quiet on every floor of the apartment building. Each scream was a long, drawn-out cry that faded away in a manner that left no doubt that the end result was death.

  The piercing screams shot through Samantha like two precisely fired bullets, exploding in her mind. She instantly knew what the screams meant, and shuddered at the thought. Two more, she thought. Please, not two more!

  Peter rushed forward, and repeatedly pounded on the elevator button, as Samantha dashed toward a small door marked by a red sign that read, “Exit”.

  “Come on!” she shouted as she flung the door open and launched herself down the stairs beyond.

  Their feet clattered loudly on the concrete stairs as they bounded as fast as they could downward. The sound of their footsteps echoed through the stairwell shaft as they passed the doorway for the eighteenth floor, and then the seventeenth. By the tenth floor, her heart was racing and Samantha gasped for each breath. Peter clamored downward only a few steps behind her. If she had stopped suddenly he would have bowled her over. As they passed the fifth floor, Samantha’s shins were burning and sweat was dripping from her forehead into her eyes. Peter had fallen behind her by half a floor.

  When the two detectives burst from the door on the first floor, they found themselves in the dimly lit lobby and the doors of the elevator stood open. The security guard was on his knees in front of the door, trying to lift himself up by leaning against a nearby wall. A loud bell was ringing in the elevator, signaling that the emergency stop switch had been activated. The two detectives didn’t hesitate as they dashed across the lobby to the elevator. Sprawled on the floor of the small chamber were two bodies, each wearing a Philadelphia Police uniform. Faulkner and Anderson’s corpses had both been reduced to dried husks. There was no sign of Calithea Panagakos.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Jack Allyn’s return to his night shift at WPLX seemed anticlimactic when compared to the events of the previous week. He felt a certain level of relief to have his life return to some degree of normalcy. Ever since Jason Spinacker’s death, Jack felt like he had fallen into some other dimension where the rules of sanity no longer existed. Dried up corpses and life sucking mythological creatures had been outside of the realm of his life experience, but they both had seemed to converge on him all at once over the past week. As much as he didn’t want to admit it, Jack had begun to seriously consider Bryan Salisbury’s theory about the beautiful creatures from Greek mythology that lured and killed men. He would have laughed in the face of anyone that had suggested it before his encounter on Thursday evening, but now he was beginning to wonder if there might be some truth to the idea after all.

  The more he ran the events of the attack over in his mind, the more he was convinced that he had not dreamt or hallucinated the fiery eyes and frighteningly dagger-like teeth. His recollection of those moments was too vivid for him to doubt their veracity. He had already convinced himself that his attacker had, in fact, been the redhead who had left Pulsar with Jason. As much as his sense of machismo didn’t want to admit it, Jack felt certain that she would have been more than capable of killing him with her bare hands, and there would have been nothing that he could have done about it. The more he thought about it, the luckier he felt he had been. He may be bruised and battered, but at least he was alive.

  After Saturday morning’s lengthy discussion with Detectives Ballard and Thornton, Jack had decided it might be safer to spend the rest of the weekend in his apartment. Even after the exhausting events of the past few days, sleep eluded him on Saturday and Sunday. Because the events of the past week had unraveled his nerves, Jack would drift off to sleep only to be awakened an hour later by any little sound. He tried watching television, onl
y to find his biased opinions on the fatuousness of the medium to be reinforced. He tried working his way up and down the dial of his stereo, tuning in each FM station in Philadelphia, but they all failed to bring relief to his anxious demeanor. He had even resorted to listening to WPLX for a while, hoping it might put him to sleep. It hadn’t helped. Eventually, Jack resigned himself to having a restless weekend. The only thing that seemed to ease his mind was the photo from his wallet—Emma’s photo.

  _______________

  Rain came with the arrival of Sunday evening, and Jack returned to his usual routine, starting with dinner at Geno’s Pizza. As he sat in the small restaurant, he gazed out at a wet South Street and watched as people passed by, some carrying umbrellas, and other simply getting wet from the rain. Jack had always been amazed by the fact that even the heaviest of rain wouldn’t stop the crowds of beatniks, punk rockers, and hip-hoppers from roaming South Street. They seemed oblivious to the rain as they drifted past the pane of glass that separated them from Jack.

  As Jack’s mind began to wander he felt a faint whiff of warm air across his neck, as if someone was gently blowing on it. He turned his head, but found no one near him. There were three other patrons in the restaurant, all sitting at a table along the opposite wall. They were deeply engrossed in their conversation and were paying Jack no mind. Shrugging his shoulders, he decided it had been his imagination. He gazed out the window again and, moments later, he felt the warmth on his neck again, causing him to shiver. His eyes darted from side to side, sending fleeting looks around the restaurant; once again, he found no one. Rubbing the back of his neck, he tried to convince himself that it must have been air from a nearby heating vent. His eyes returned to the window and his fingers began to tap on the table.

  The third time that he felt the warm air on his neck, it was accompanied by a faint whisper calling his name. Jerking his head around, he again found the space around him to be empty. However, his sudden movement had caught the eye of the three patrons at the far end of the restaurant. When Jack looked up, they were all staring at him. He gave them a half-smile, and returned to gazing out the window.

  “Jack,” came the whisper again.

  This time, Jack tried to ignore it. The whisper was very faint, almost inaudible. But it sounded as if the speaker’s lips were inches from his ear. His fingers tapped on the table in a random rhythm. Then, it came again.

  “Jack.”

  Closing his eyes, he rubbed his forehead and once again ignored the soft voice calling his name.

  “Jack.”

  Sighing, he continued to gaze out of the window, trying in vain to focus his mind on anything but the whisper. Jack scanned the faces passing the restaurant, hoping to find someone or something that would take his mind off his rising fear. He caught a glimpse of red hair among the crowd, but when he looked again it was gone.

  “Jack.”

  He spun around and loudly said, “What?”

  Geno, in his stained white apron, was standing beside the table with his mouth open in surprise at Jack’s outburst. The heavyset man timidly lowered a plate with a steaming chicken cheesesteak with peppers and onions onto the table. Slowly stepping away from the table, he said, “Your meal’s ready.”

  Shaking his head, Jack replied, “I’m sorry, Geno. My mind was a million miles away. I lost track of where I was.”

  Still unsure, Geno waved his hand and said, “Enjoy.”

  _______________

  When he had parked his motorcycle in the parking garage, Jack sat on the seat for a moment to allow the rain to drip off of his coat before going into the building. Normally, he would never notice the deafening silence in the garage, but that night he was keenly aware of the lack of sound. There were no tire squeals. No running engines. No car doors slamming. Not a sound to be heard. He had never realized before how eerie it was until that moment. And, it was at that moment that he heard it again.

  “Jack.”

  Glancing around, he shouted, “Scott? Is that you?”

  The only response was a faint whisper. “Jack Allyn.”

  Jack shouted, “Scott? I’ll kick your ass if I find out that’s you!”

  He dismounted the motorcycle and walked toward the elevator, trying not to run, but moving faster than normal. The elevator doors opened moments later, and he rode it up to the twentieth floor. Once in the offices of WPLX, Jack furtively approached the studio door, checking over his shoulder with every few steps. Pushing the door open slowly, Jack gazed in through the narrow gap. Scott Anderson, who was seated in front of the control board, looked up from the newspaper he was reading.

  “Hello, Jack. Welcome back,” said Scott.

  Jack looked at Scott, and then back down the hallway behind him. “Yeah, you thought you were funny, huh?”

  Puzzled, Scott stared at Jack. “What?”

  Smiling, Jack replied, “The voices. Real funny.”

  Still puzzled, Scott said, “What’re you talking about?”

  “The voices, out in the parking . . .” Jack’s comments trailed off as he began to realize that Scott knew nothing about the whispering voice. “Uh, nothing. Never mind.”

  _______________

  At three in the morning, Jack hit the top of the hour station I.D., and went straight into his third hour on the air. Things had been quiet since Scott left an hour ago. The young man seemed to feel compelled to stick around and talk to Jack about the recent killings in the city. It was a topic Jack had tried to steer the college student away from, but Scott had continued to bring the conversation back around to the killings again and again. Curiosity had gotten the better of Scott Anderson, and he had asked Jack repeatedly to talk about the crime scene at Jason Spinacker’s apartment. He had also made a point of frequently commenting on the bruises on Jack’s face, a fact that had finally driven Jack to sharply tell Scott to drop the subject. After that, Scott took the hint and had departed, leaving Jack on his own in the WPLX studio.

  Preferring the solitude of the night, Jack placed the request lines on hold, and leaned back in his chair. From the speakers hanging from the ceiling came the first few lines of Don McLean’s song, “American Pie”. It was one of the few songs from the WPLX music rotation that Jack didn’t mind hearing. To lessen the distractions around him, he closed his eyes, allowing his ears the freedom to absorb the cryptic lyrics and haunting rhythms.

  Two and a half minutes into the song, Jack’s head was bobbing to the rhythm of the song and, knowing every word by heart, his lips moved silently with the lyrics. For Jack, a night that contained “American Pie” wasn’t a half bad night at WPLX. The other songs were almost tolerable once he got his eight minute and thirty-two second fix of “American Pie”. But suddenly, his eyes shot open, and he sat bolt upright in the chair. He had heard something that he knew shouldn’t be in the song. Without needing to look around the studio, he knew he was alone. But he was certain he heard it.

  “Jack,” came the whisper again.

  Leaning over the board, Jack turned up the volume for the studio speakers, and tried to return to enjoying the song. The increased amplification, however, didn’t help.

  “Jack Allyn.”

  Jumping from his chair, Jack rushed to the door and pulled it open, hoping to find Scott Anderson standing behind it to tell him it was all a joke, but there was no one there. Returning to his chair, Jack slid his headphones over his head, and tried again to listen as the chorus burst forth from the speakers overhead.

  “Can Jack come out to play?” came the faint whisper in his ears.

  Ripping the headphones from his head, he began to anxiously pace around the studio. It had to be a prank, he kept telling himself. His co-workers must be playing a prank on him. It hadn’t taken long for news to spread around the radio station that Jack had some connection to one of the victims of the mysterious deaths in the city. He wouldn’t put it past t
hem to plan some kind of gag for his return. But then he remembered what had happened at Geno’s. There was no way that his co-workers could have known he would go to Geno’s for dinner. If there was one thing that Jack was good at, it was keeping his private life private. His co-workers knew very little about his habits, hobbies, and life outside of WPLX.

  The whisper interrupted his train of thought again. “Jack.”

  Figuring that the prankster, whoever it was, must be somewhere in the radio station offices, he stormed out of the studio and began a systematic search of each room. He checked the production studio first and, finding no one, moved on to the small lunchroom. No one was there either. Down the hall, he pushed open the door to the radio station sales office and stepped inside. The room, furnished with an open floor plan rather than cubicles, contained twelve desks aligned in three rows of four. File cabinets lined each sidewall and a floor to ceiling window, which looked out over the city, spanned the opposite side of the room. As he walked down one of the rows, he glanced under each desk, wishing that he would find someone under one of them. He found no one. When he reached the far wall, he peered out the window and that’s when he saw her.

  Knowing that he was on the twentieth floor, Jack had not been expecting to find someone staring back at him from outside the window. She was floating a few feet from the window, without any visible means of support. Her fiery red hair fluttered gently in an unseen breeze, and Adonia’s face shone with an absolute beauty he could not turn from. The supple curves of her naked body were utterly without blemish, wrinkle, or deformity. Her breasts were firm and round and, like the rest of her body, seemed to be the epitome of perfection. Her long, smooth legs hung below her, ending with ruby red nail polish on her toes. Her arms were outstretched from her body in an inviting manner. Her blood red lips parted, and she spoke. Yet, her words didn’t seem to come from outside. To Jack, it sounded as if she was standing right next to him.