Speed Dating with the Dead

by Nicholson, Scott

  Amelia closed her eyes and allowed the planchette a visible tremor. Then it slid toward the “O,” hesitated a moment, and settled on the “N.” “N,” Donald called out, scribbling it down

  “Nancy,” whispered one of the bystanders, a pinch-faced man with an oily strand of hair plastered across his bald spot.

  The planchette rolled again, locking on the “O.”

  “N-O,” Donald said. “ ‘No’ the slow way.”

  “Not Nancy,” whispered Baldy.

  Amelia’s face was calm but her eyelashes fluttered as she concentrated. Burton noted her breathing was deep and steady again. Whatever spell she had suffered, she appeared fine now.

  The planchette eased back and settled on the “O” again. Donald called out the letter as he wrote it.

  The bystanders gathered closer around the table, straining forward to see which letter the planchette would select next. The metallic tang of tension hung in the air, mixing with the air freshener that the maid had used to cover the room’s must.

  The plastic squeak of the planchette was brittle in the room’s silence.

  Donald announced the next stop: “N.”

  Burton smiled. Amelia had read the same books he and everyone else in the field had read. She was serving up the identity of “No one.” It was the perfect riddle, used by Ulysses to trick the Cyclops in “Odysseus” and used in a variation by Captain Kirk in “Star Trek” to outsmart an evil computer. Of course, in the paranormal world, “no one” could be anyone, even the Prince of Lies himself, or Prince Albert.

  “Noon?” Baldy said.

  “Shh,” said a red-haired woman. “She’s not finished.”

  Wayne’s expression had shifted from curious mirth to one of concern, his brow furrowed. Burton figured he was putting on a show.

  Amelia pushed the planchette to the “I.”

  “I,” Donald asked. “Are you sure?”

  Amelia, whose eyes were closed, gave a slight nod. A pendant on her bosom caught the faint golden glow of the lamplight.

  Wayne’s face was nearly white, a shade of pallor that Burton didn’t think could be faked.

  The planchette moved again, skidding across the slick cardboard.

  “E,” Wayne said, flatly.

  As if obeying his command, the planchette rested on the letter. Amelia took her hands from the device and opened her eyes.

  “Noonie?” Donald said.

  “Wayne?” Burton asked. His boss looked as if he had swallowed a live snake.

  “Is that all?” Baldy said. “What does ‘Noonie’ mean?”

  “I don’t know.” Amelia said. “I saw an angel.”

  Several of the bystanders nodded as if that was a perfectly obvious explanation.

  “Let’s keep going,” Donald said. “Maybe we can flush it out. Might be a poltergeist at play.”

  “You sure you want to mess with a poltergeist?” Baldy said.

  “That’s why we’re here,” Burton said, checking his EMF meter. The baseline reading hadn’t changed, suggesting no spirit had visited the room and nobody’s cell phone was close to the meter.

  Wayne turned away, and Burton saw his face in the mirror. Wayne was pale, as if he was going to throw up, and he staggered to the door. The group of necromancers didn’t notice, too intent on Amelia’s wielding of the planchette. Burton clicked off his EMF meter and left the room.

  Wayne was slumped against the wall, eyes staring straight ahead.

  “Did you feel something, Digger?” Burton asked, annoyed because his FLIR thermal imaging system might have recorded any temperature fluctuations in the room if Wayne had actually spoken while the trail was still warm. Or cold, in this case.

  “Noonie,” he whispered.

  “Yeah, keep them guessing, right?”

  “No guess. It’s her.”

  Burton tried to square the nonsense word with the known historical hauntings but came up empty. “Which ‘her’? Margaret?”

  “My wife.”

  Burton inhaled sharply. It always came to this. Most people became interested in the paranormal to deal with a personal loss. Maybe the Digger was human, after all.

  “She’s dead, Wayne.”

  “She promised.”

  “I don’t—”

  “She promised to meet me here.”

  Chapter 11

  Janey Mays walked through the kitchen, past pots and pans dangling from hooks, a wooden rack of overpriced wine, stainless-steel tables covered with cabbages and yellow squash, a cart loaded with dirty cookware, and a large sink where Irish potatoes were soaking. The music from the bar was piped into the kitchen, and at the moment a growly hard-rock tune was blaring loudly enough to shake the utensils by the grill.

  One of the legends Janey had concocted was that a cook had died of a heart attack in the kitchen and, since that fateful day, cutlery rattled whenever his spirit returned. No one had ever challenged her for a name in order to check the story’s historical accuracy, but after the rumor had taken root, it spread throughout the staff. In five years, seven reports of rattling cutlery and the specter of a funny little man in a chef’s hat had been written down in the ghost register, one by Janey herself but the rest by people who were unwitting accomplices in her deception.

  Now, with the place on the verge of closing, the effort seemed silly. It was already a museum despite the activity. Soon enough, it would be rubble fit only for the landfill. So much for forty years of dedication and faith.

  A sullen teen, whose name she hadn’t bothered to learn, was chopping barbecue, wielding a heavy cleaver and sending bits of baked pig flesh flying in the air.

  “Nice stroke,” she said, but the remark passed unnoticed.

  Dinner was still two hours away, but with 50 or more people expected for the conference, the kitchen was clanging. Vincent, the head chef, worked the gas grill as if he were forging mystical swords for the Roman fire god Vulcan. Phillippe, the new guy who actually wore a silly, poofy chef’s hat and had a culinary degree, browsed the spice rack as if filling a life-saving prescription.

  Janey resisted an urge to dip a spoon in a bubbling cauldron of something that looked like pumpkin stew. Much like a captain going down with the ship, she wanted her guests to enjoy their last meal. Despite her impulse to poison it.

  “Smells yummy, Phillippe,” she shouted over the clangor.

  “Mal appetit, mademoiselle,” he said.

  “And a Chucky Cheese to you.”

  She made her way to the laundry area that was appended to the back of the hotel. The narrow cinder-block alley that was so plain and familiar now took on a surreal quality, as if it were already becoming dust and air. The squeaking hum of the washing machines reverberated along the walls, growing louder as she entered the wash room.

  Rosalita, whose brown, leathery face was unreadable at all times, was folding table linens. Rosalita had started working in the laundry room at the same time as Janey, but she had the disadvantage of being Hispanic in a conservative rural area. In four decades, she’d missed only three days of work, each of them to bear a child. Janey had reported her once because Rosalita was running her cloth diapers through each load of sheets, a snitch that had moved Janey another rung up the laundry-room ladder. Janey had learned early on that by ratting out the hired help to the pinch-pennies and bean-counters who kept hoteliers around the world rich, she’d soon be management material herself. The trick was not in being moral and scrupulous, it was in not getting caught.

  But Rosalita had never shown any antagonism toward Janey. She’d also never shown any deference or friendliness. She might have been a carved Mayan idol for all the emotion she projected.

  “Good evening, Miss Mays,” the laundress said in her mild Spanish accent, not pausing in her routine of folding. Her spidery hands creased the fabric with geometric precision as she stacked the linen in a basket. The wash room had bare, gray walls and a concrete floor, with no heat besides that generated by the machinery. Janey still carr
ied those long, late hours in her bones.

  “Are all the rooms ready?” Janey said, not bothering with a return greeting.

  “Yes, and we’ll have the dining room set in an hour.”

  “Have you noticed anything funny?” Janey asked.

  “Funny, ma’am?”

  “Unusual. You know. Have your people said anything?”

  Rosalita was so wary that she even hid her wariness. “Nothing. Steady business.”

  “The guests are looking for ghosts, and we wouldn’t want to disappoint them.”

  “We show them ghosts?”

  Janey gave a cracked laugh. “We don’t have to do any showing. Just let them see what they want to see.”

  “Ah. Even if they can see through them.”

  “Right. So please instruct the staff to play along. Let them share stories and the hotel history. All those deep, dark secrets you guys talk about behind my back.”

  Rosalita’s stony facade didn’t yield a crack. “Yes, ma’am.”

  Janey took one of the folded linens, flapped it open, and flung it over her head. She let it settle about her shoulders and feigned a ghostly moan. “Whooooo.”

  She yanked the tablecloth off her head and tossed it down for Rosalita to fold again. Rosalita’s black eyes were as cold as the room.

  “And make sure nobody walks off with any towels,” Janey said, heading for the cluttered service alley that led to the dining hall.

  “Or diapers,” Rosalita said.

  Janey turned, but the face was impassive. Janey had enjoyed the gradual oppression of Rosalita, a slow grinding under the heel that had stretched for delightful decades. Come Monday, Rosalita would be out of a job but Janey would lose much more—the joy of domination and manipulation.

  “I don’t think there will be any babies at the conference,” Janey said. “I’ve seen a couple of teenagers running around, but it’s not the sort of event for child’s play.”

  “Except for those dead ones that run and laugh on the second floor?”

  “That’s the spirit,” Janey said with an exaggerated wink.

  As she navigated the mop buckets, broken chairs, and filthy rolls of carpet in the service alley, she met one of the black-uniformed members of Digger’s crew. He was young and handsome, projecting an air of cockiness. He had some type of electronic gizmo in his hand that looked like a cross between a laser gun and a flashlight.

  “Excuse me,” Janey said. “This area is off limits to the public. As you can see, it’s unsafe.”

  If Chad and Stevie get sued in the final hour, that might cut into the severance package.

  “Digger said we had an all-access pass,” said the young man, whose sea-green eyes twinkled as if they could get him into any door he wanted. “I’m just grabbing some baseline readings.”

  He kept on with his instrument, waving it around and studying the digital information on its screen. Janey fought an urge to grab him by the ear and drag his insolent ass out of there. She looked at the name stitched above the SSI logo on the breast of his jump suit.

  “Cody,” she said. “I’m sure Mr. Wilson impressed upon you the importance of following rules.”

  Cody clicked off the instrument. “Ghosts don’t follow the rules, so why should I?”

  Janey gave a brief, dry burst of applause, and the sound was swallowed by the confined space. “Bravo. I’m sure you’re Digger’s star pupil.”

  “Look,” he said, thrusting the meter toward her. “You’ve got EMF fluctuations all along here. I’m thinking it’s the wiring behind the walls, or maybe water going through old copper pipes.”

  He pressed a trigger on the meter and a row of LED lights flashed red across the screen. He waved the meter in an arc so she could see it, and the line of LED’s surged and disappeared.

  “And what’s that supposed to mean?” she asked.

  “Maybe nothing,” Cody said. “Get the readings now, before all hell breaks loose. Then get readings later, and you can measure hell.”

  “Ghosts come from hell?” She’d always thought of them as trapped spirits killing time, watching as she went about her business. More like deadbeat tenants than anything.

  “There are different types. You have your residual haunts, sort of like a film projector stuck in a loop. Then you got your actives, what some call the ‘intelligent’ haunts because they interact with the real world. They might talk or touch you, and sometimes express confusion about why things have changed.”

  “That doesn’t sound so scary,” Janey said, though she shivered at the thought of a ghost touching her. They could watch all they wanted, and whisper things, and move objects around, but they could damn well keep their hands to themselves in her hotel.

  “Poltergeists tend to play little pranks, rap on the walls, and toss things around. They’re usually associated with adolescent girls getting their first period, psychokinetic powers, that kind of thing.”

  “No wonder. Turning into a woman would make anybody unstable. If you had PMS, you’d throw things around, too.”

  “Then you got your demons,” Cody said, with a mischievous grin.

  Klonggg.

  Janey jumped at the metallic, grinding noise behind her that might have been the snapping jaws of some flesh-eating spawn of Satan.

  Then a buzzer sounded, and Janey realized one of the ancient, commercial-sized dryers had ended its cycle. She pictured Rosalita waiting patiently for the next load, alone with whatever spirits of cotton and dust lay gathered around her.

  “Demons constitute less than 1 percent of all activity,” Cody said. “But it’s the kind of activity that can mess you up.”

  “Mess you up?”

  “I’ve had them throw me across the room. But the real risk is to your noggin. They can plant ideas and make you see things that aren’t exactly family-friendly viewing. And if you get possessed, well, the party really gets out of hand.”

  “And you believe this stuff? What are you, some kind of Bible thumper?”

  Cody moved past her to take another set of readings. “God versus the Devil would be a clean fight. But demons aren’t really interested in either. A boss is a boss, right? They tend to do their own thing.”

  Janey had images of red, pointy-eared creatures fluttering around in caves of fire.

  “You’re looking pretty clean so far,” he said. “We’ll do a complete sweep and get a better idea. But you can never tell what’s going to come out and play in the dead of night.”

  “When things get quiet,” she said. “I wouldn’t–”

  “Whoa.” The row of LED lights on the meter filled and faded in the rhythm of a slow heartbeat. “This is freaky.”

  He moved the meter close to an old cherry wardrobe. The piece wasn’t classy enough to be an antique and wasn’t rustic enough to pass off as primitive handicraft. One splintered door sagged from its hinges while the other door was warped and buckled from dampness. The base of the wardrobe was nicked and scarred, and a strip of trim was missing from the crown. The LED bar continued its steady blinking.

  “What does that mean?” she asked.

  Cody eased the meter through the gap between the doors and Janey cringed, half expecting something to grab his wrist and drag him into the darkness.

  “What’s the story on this?” he asked.

  Janey couldn’t remember where the piece had come from, but she’d been walking past it for many years, cursing its obstruction of the hallway. She wasn’t even sure why she’d never had the wardrobe hauled away. Perhaps she thought it might be restored, so she could concoct a receipt for a new wardrobe, dump the furniture in one of the larger suites, and stick the cost difference in her pocket.

  “Just a pile of junk,” she said.

  “Here, hold this,” Cody said, thrusting the meter into her hands. She gripped it gingerly, as if it were a loaded gun. Cody parted the doors and the dim light of the service alley spilled into the interior. The wardrobe was empty.

  The meter stopped puls
ing and the LED’s went dead.

  “It stopped,” Janey said.

  “I think we’ve got us an anomaly.” Cody made notes in his pocket-sized composition book.

  “Haunted furniture?”

  “You need a lot more than an energy fluctuation to make that conclusion. But it’s a data point. I need to check for electrical outlets or pipes behind it.”

  While Janey studied the meter’s display, Cody put his shoulder against the wardrobe and scooted it sideways. Despite her cynicism, Janey found herself craning to see the hidden section of cinder block wall. A frayed sheet of plywood was propped against the wall and cool air oozed from the dark gaps around it.

  Cody plucked the plywood away, revealing a hole about the size of four cinder blocks. A rank, earthy odor oozed from the opening, and the blackness inside was almost palpable, a solid mass that threatened to spill out like stuffing from a torn sofa.

  “I don’t remember that hole being there,” Janey said, relishing a last scolding of Wally Reams.

  Cody squatted, fished a penlight from his pocket, and speared the thin shaft of light into the darkness. He stuck his head into the opening. “Sweet.”

  “What is it?” Janey asked, shuddering at the thought of rats and other vermin having a free run to the kitchen.

  “Looks like some kind of repair access. For pipes and heating ducts.”

  As Janey leaned to peer over Cody’s shoulder, the EMF meter began blinking again, this time in a staccato frenzy. She almost dropped it.

  “Whatever it is, it’s in here,” Cody said, taking the meter from her.

  “Great. An evil spirit is just what we need.”

  Cody shook his head. “I doubt we’d get that lucky. I meant that the source of the fluctuation is down there. Wires, pipes, maybe some kind of heat or water pump. The first job in this line of work is to eliminate all the possible solutions until you get to the impossible.”

  He turned and looked up at her, his cheek smudged with a cobweb. “People think ghosts are everywhere, but the truth is they’re pretty damned rare. You have to cut through a lot of noise to get to the real deal.”