Speed Dating with the Dead

by Nicholson, Scott

  “It’s just a hallway,” she said. “I’m not finished yet.”

  “Do you always put faces in your pictures?”

  “Another gimmick. I want to do my own comic books when I grow up. I figure since my dad already has a name in the paranormal world, it will be easier to get a publisher. Go out as ‘The Digger’s Daughter.’“

  Bruce leaned closer. Kendra usually didn’t let anyone see her work in progress, but she figured the kid would be good for some ideas. Except the fish smell was overpowering now that he was an arm’s-length away.

  “So, got any ghost stories?” she said, expecting the same urban-legend crap the front desk had dished out. “Anything weird happen to you here?”

  He touched the paper with his fingertip and traced out a shape. Then she saw it, the deeper shading where she had turned her pencil lead sideways and raked out a series of zig-zags. It looked like two small figures standing at the back of the hallway, waiting in the shadows.

  “I don’t believe in ghosts,” he said, with a shudder in his voice.

  “Smart.”

  “Will you draw a picture just for me?” One corner of his mouth lifted in a weak attempt at a smile, and his pale, injured face looked so forlorn and pitiful that Kendra felt ashamed for thinking of him as a twerp. After all, if her mother hadn’t died, she might have had a little brother and–

  She looked away from the hollow eyes and the glistening, bruised flesh around his nose. “Sure thing, Bruce. You want Spiderman or Batman?”

  “I don’t believe in heroes, either. Draw something scary. Like the two kids.”

  Kendra flipped the sketch pad to a clean sheet and began roughing in the end of the break room. “Sure. I’ll have them sitting on that couch like they’re going to bite the legs off whoever comes in the door.”

  Bruce giggled, and the sound gave a flat echo off the walls. The kid had moved a little closer, and the room was too small for such intrusion on her personal space. But probably he just wanted to see her work.

  “I don’t know what they look like, so I’ll make one fat and one skinny,” she said.

  “Dorrie’s the fat one,” he said. “She eats all the cupcake crumbs when everybody’s asleep.”

  The kid’s got a good imagination. He’s probably like me— his dad leaves him to entertain himself so he escapes into his own little world.

  “Is this fat enough?” She squiggled out a peanut shape. “Man, she’s totally breaking the couch in two. Whoever walks in the door is going to lose their legs and their arms.”

  Kendra rounded out the figure and went to the next, glancing up so she could get the perspective right. “There’s Dorrie, fat as a donut hole,” she said. “Now for–”

  Jesus.

  For a split second, Dorrie was sitting there, pouting in a plain brown frock, hair in a terrible page cut that made her face look even rounder. Her fists were clenched on her knees, as if she were going to spring up from the couch and punch somebody. Twelve, maybe, swollen with her first period, confused about the changes of her body, chunky boobs already sagging.

  Kendra blinked and the vision cleared. “Man, I hope Dorrie doesn’t mind being ugly.”

  “I wouldn’t say that if I were you.”

  But Kendra was already adding the details she’d just imagined. When inspiration flowed, you bottled it. “Okay, tell me about the other one.”

  She decided to make them Emily Dee’s mortal enemies. The creepy kids who terrorized an old hotel. It probably couldn’t be an on-going series, because there were only so many storylines you could squeeze out of one location, but maybe it could fill up a graphic novel and catch some Hollywood producer’s eye. Another dumb haunted house story, just the way they liked them.

  “Rochester’s even meaner than Dorrie,” Bruce said. “He’s got a pointy nose and he smells like mice. You know how mice smell, when they die behind the walls? My dad has to put out the poison every winter, because they move in when it gets cold. The poison sure tastes yucky.”

  Kendra chuckled. High-larious, kid.

  She drew a stick figure, giving it a long rodent’s tail. She wanted to get the job finished. Bruce stood there, not blinking, silent, holding his breath. And, worse, now she could smell the mice, like that high school science lab where the hampster cages never shook that odor of death.

  “Rochester the Rat Boy,” she said with cheerful bravado. She realized she was afraid to look up, lest Rochester was sitting there with his red, beady eyes and sharp, yellow incisors. The gaunt rendering horrified her.

  She gave him oversize Mickey Mouse ears and ripped the sheet out of the pad. In her haste, the rip was uneven, dissecting a chunk of Dorrie’s head. “Here you go, Brucie. No charge.”

  Bruce was gone.

  She forced herself to look at the couch, and it was empty. Bruce couldn’t have squeezed past her to the door without nudging her chair. Maybe there were other entrances, ones she couldn’t see. Even if the walls held secret passages, it was hard to imagine someone sneaking away without a revealing creak of wood. But if Bruce had been stuck here playing for years by himself, he’d probably figured out the best hiding places.

  “Dorrie Dough-Face and Rochester the Rat Boy,” she said aloud.

  The company of fictional characters provided no comfort. Her fantasy life, the cherished escape from a world where her mother had abandoned her and her father regretted the inconvenience, had turned on her, and she didn’t like it. Because if that went bad, then what else did she have left?

  The pictures added up to nothing.

  Painted into a corner.

  On the bottom of the sketch, she scribbled “To Bruce, for the forever inn,” before adding the flourish of her initials. One day she’d be as famous as Jack Kirby, Moebius, and Todd McFarlane rolled into one, and her initials would be gold. In the meantime, a girl could always dream.

  Always and forever.

  She left the drawing on the table and headed for her room, clicking on her walkie talkie. Maybe Digger had actually noticed his daughter was gone and was fuming because he needed some help. He would be huffing and puffing like the Big Bad Wolf in a cancer ward, muttering curses under his breath, his blood pressure rising. His impatience and frustration would only be rivaled by his helplessness.

  She wouldn’t miss it for the world.

  Chapter 19

  The group was really getting on Burton’s nerves.

  Ninety percent of paranormal tourism was about keeping the travelers safe while delivering the illusion of danger. That’s why the liability waiver was so loaded with phrases like “inherent risk” and language that implied the hunter might end up being the hunted.

  So Burton wasn’t above the occasional “Look, did that shadow move?”

  The tactic never failed to draw a few gasps, and once in a while a newbie would get so shaken the hunt would be disrupted. Then a twenty-minute debate would ensue as people recounted their versions of what they did or didn’t see, and those with cameras would flip through the thumbnails. Burton would review the evidence and reluctantly validate whatever happened to appear in the images, whether it was an orb, a flash of light, or the Second Coming of Harry Houdini. All in a day’s work, all part of the show.

  But sometimes a group collected at random would yield such an obnoxious array of personalities that Burton felt like he was punching a time clock in a Portajohn business instead of serving as a shamanistic guide to the land of mystery and spirit. When you got right down to it, shit was shit, and you didn’t want to step in it, either here on Planet Earth or in the otherworld.

  And the dude in the Henry Fonda fishing cap was a two-hundred-pound bag of shit that was bursting at the seams.

  “Where’s the Percival Ghost?” whined Cappie. “You promised us the Percival Ghost.”

  “There are no guarantees in ghost-hunting,” Burton said.

  “She may not even be dead,” said an unfortunate woman whose make-up was thick enough to make an undertaker proud. She
was way too old to put Kool-Aid-blue highlights in her hair. Her T-shirt read “Ghosts believe in me,” and Burton figured she was a paranormal slut who’d get in bed with any group or ideology that whispered “boo.”

  “She’d be dead by now, one way or another,” said a woman who looked over the top of her glasses like a librarian. “Even if she didn’t die in 1948, she’d be well over a century old.”

  “Maybe that’s why her ghost isn’t here,” Cappie said.

  “One theory is she was killed at the inn and her body was taken off site,” Burton said. “That could explain the lack of any evidence. She could be an intelligent spirit and moving between the place she died and the place where her body is buried.”

  “True,” said the Kool-Aid woman, as if such things were established fact. “If she were a residual, we probably would have seen her by now.”

  “With all this foot traffic, we’ve probably stirred up enough dust to hide an elephant,” Cappie said.

  “All this talking doesn’t help,” Burton said. The walkie talkie on his hip squeaked and Wayne announced, “Okay, all groups head for their next scheduled stop.”

  Burton ushered the group to Room 318, counting to make sure no one had dropped out, though he wouldn’t mind losing a couple of them.

  “Hey, the light doesn’t work,” someone said.

  Burton retrieved the flashlight from his belt and flicked it on, pointing it into the dark room. Good move, Wayne. Pulling the fuse will keep them guessing every time.

  “Watch your step,” he said. “Let’s see what the FLIR picks up.”

  He passed the instrument to the person closest to him. Even with the door open, the room appeared thick with darkness. The flashlight barely dented it. Burton whacked it on his thigh, though he routinely added fresh batteries before every hunt.

  “I feel a cold spot,” said the Kool-Aid woman.

  Burton was willing to bet she felt hot spots, too. And maybe even purple polka dots.

  “Margaret, are you here?” Cappie bellowed.

  “Easy, now,” Burton said. “No need to provoke yet.”

  “Come out,” the Kool-Aid woman said. “You don’t have to be afraid.”

  That’s a good one. Ghosts afraid of people.

  “Did you hear that?” said someone on the far side of the room.

  “Shhh.”

  “What was it?”

  “Tapping. Up above.”

  Burton found himself squinting in the darkness overhead, though he kept his flashlight trained on the floor. Since Digger was staying in 318, he’d stowed his personal gear in the closet and locked it. That sealed off the attic access, so unless someone had ascended the closeted stairwell off the main hall, then the noise was likely caused by animals.

  Still, opportunity knocked.

  “Tap once if you’re Margaret Percival,” Burton said in a calm voice.

  The room fell silent, and wood creaked in the distance as the inn settled.

  “Tap once if you’re with us,” Burton said.

  Nothing but Cappie’s labored breathing. Burton flicked off the flashlight and closed the door, figuring absolute darkness would inspire reaction.

  The door swung open again.

  Burton turned, knowing he’d been the last to enter. The hallway was empty. “Is that you, Margaret?”

  Burton wished he’d thought of the trick. Fishing line, a hidden spring, even a subtle kick of the heel would have been enough. Was Wayne at work behind the scenes?

  No, for all his boss’s enthusiasm, Wayne was not the type to rig an encounter. And Burton’s few solid paranormal experiences were enough to convince him that there was more to this world than met the eye. Ghosts happen.

  The room was quiet, and Burton could feel all eyes fixed on the doorway. “You’re welcome to close it now.”

  “I’d crap my pants if it did,” somebody said.

  “Shhh.”

  The tension in the room was like a taut, quivering wire. Burton took an easy step toward the lighted rectangle of carpet. If he played it right, the open door could give the guests a weekend’s worth of talking points.

  “Margaret, we’ve—”

  Creee-kuh-BLAM.

  The door swung closed so fast that Burton dropped his flashlight, and the wall shook with the force of its slamming. One woman screamed, and a man who sounded like Cappie issued a breathless curse. Furniture banged as several people fled deeper into the dark room. Burton mentally counted the steps to the door, then moved to it and tried the handle.

  It was stuck.

  “Easy, folks,” Burton said.

  “The door closed by itself,” said one of the faceless hunters.

  “No way,” Cappie said. “This isn’t a poltergeist room.”

  “Yeah, but it could be something that even a poltergeist doesn’t want to mess with,” Burton said, scooping up his flashlight. He swept his flashlight across the room and into the squinting, confused faces.

  “She’s here,” whispered the Kool-Aid woman.

  “What’s the FLIR saying?” Burton asked the man who was looking into the device’s small monitor.

  “Seven of us,” he said. “Warm blooded.”

  Burton passed his flashlight to the woman on the left. “Hold this,” he said. “I want to get some infrared video.”

  Burton backed against the door, pretending to fumble in his pack while he surreptitiously tested the door handle. Still locked.

  The flashlight blinked out and the room was once again nearly dark, with only the dim green lights of cameras and EMF recorders to break the endless expanse of black.

  “Shit, gone dead.” The man banged the flashlight with the palm of his hand.

  “She’s charging up,” the Kool-Aid woman said. “My camera just drained.”

  Burton had once been in a séance where the medium had allegedly dredged up the spirit of a mass murderer, and whether it was the power of suggestion or the real thing, the room had fairly crackled with tension and expectation. This room had the same electricity. Burton wondered if Wayne or Cody was monitoring the remote cams in the control room.

  He reached for the walkie talkie on his hip. He thumbed the “send” button and said, “Wayne, we’ve got phenomena in 318.”

  He released the button and realized there was no wireless signal. The walkie talkie didn’t even hiss. He clicked the button a couple of times. Dead.

  “Your walkie talkie’s broken, too, isn’t it?” said the Kool-Aid woman, with spaced-out satisfaction.

  “Dead spot,” he said.

  “Exactly. Margaret wants her room back, and we’re in it.”

  “She can have it,” said the man with the flashlight. “I’m outta here.”

  The beam jittered as he took a few steps toward the door, throwing the room into a kaleidoscope of images: the Kool-Aid woman’s blissful smile, the FLIR meter tilted toward the center of the room, a couple standing by the bed holding hands, Cappie fiddling with his digital camera.

  Burton blocked the door. “Easy. You’re breaking hunt protocol.”

  In truth, SSI policy was to allow any hunter to break off at any time, for any reason, whether diarrhea, boredom, or fear. But Burton didn’t want to deal with the fallout from a roomful of adults trapped against their wishes. Plus he’d have to come up with a reasonable explanation for the locked door. Even if the door had been locked from the outside, it had a privacy latch that should have released the lock with a turn of the handle.

  The man pointed the light into Burton’s face. Burton forced his facial muscles to relax into a smile. “This is what we paid for, right? The Trophy Room.”

  “Yeah,” the Kool-Aid woman said to the man. “You’re going to scare her off.”

  “Jesus,” said the man with the FLIR. “There’s something here.”

  He turned the small monitor around until it showed the seven other people in the room outlined as orange-red figures. A bluish-green shape flickered in the middle of them. Burton grabbed the fla
shlight and pointed it at the spot, but it was only an open expanse of carpet. The shape solidified on the screen, then began undulating.

  “Margaret,” the Kool-Aid woman gushed, with an air of worship. “I knew you’d come.”

  Burton checked his EMF meter but it had drained as well. Fully charged, it was good for at least six hours, and he’d only been using it for an hour. The only evidence of the phenomenon was the FLIR, which had a digital drive for recording.

  “You guys see this?” said the FLIR operator.

  The man who’d been holding the flashlight pushed past Burton and lunged at the door. “Hey, it’s locked!”

  The bluish-green shape on the FLIR never quite took on a human outline, though many forms were suggested as it shifted. Several of the hunters had moved forward to watch the meter, while two–the couple holding hands–edged closer to the door. Burton kept the flashlight trained on the carpet.

  “It’s moving,” said the FLIR operator, and something brushed Burton’s face like the cool, slimy tentacle of an octopus. The man at the door rattled the handle and then moaned.

  “Get it off me,” he said, and then the door swung open with such force that the man landed on his ass, blinking into the explosion of light from the hallway. The FLIR now showed only the orange forms again, depicting the warm-blooded people in the room. Whatever had caused the anomaly had now evaporated.

  The overhead light flickered, blinked, and then stayed on, leaving the group of hunters looking at each other with a mixture of fear, awe, and disbelief.

  Burton checked his equipment and found it working again. He thumbed the walkie talkie and spoke into it. “Control Room, we’ve had a doozy.”

  Chapter 20

  Noonie.

  The word had taken on a double meaning for Wayne and Beth, in the way long-time companions formed their own language. At first it had been a code word for their lunchtime sexual encounters, when they invariably ended up late returning to work. The word had evolved into a synonym for Beth’s vagina, though Wayne always found it too cutesy for a place that served up such powerful mysteries, mind-blowing pleasures, and the miracle of a child.