by J L Bryan
“Hello?” His voice was full of static.
“We stopped for a second. Your sister was feeling sick.”
“...sister...?” His voice crackled. I've picked up recordings of whispering ghosts that were clearer.
“Scenic overlook,” I said. “We stopped. For just a minute. Hello?”
Static replied.
I sighed and stepped out of the van.
“Melissa, we have to hurry. I couldn't get in touch with...hello?” I looked around.
An elderly couple stood at the railing, the man in a checkered golf cap, the woman in a Christmas sweater featuring a reindeer with a light-up nose. They were close to each other, seeming to support each other, making me think of some half-remembered Greek myth about a couple who get transformed into a pair of intertwined trees.
My parents will never be like this, I thought as I approached them. They'll never grow old together. Then, like an inevitable echo: I'll probably grow old alone, too.
I felt something sharp and cold at that—even colder than the icy blast of wind roaring across the scenic overlook, dusting my hair and jacket with snow.
“Excuse me,” I said. “Did you see a girl run past here a second ago?”
“I'm sorry?” The old man looked at me and adjusted his hearing aid. When I repeated my question, he shook his head. “Sorry, young lady.”
“Did you see anything?” I asked the woman beside him.
She squinted at me, seeming very confused. “Are you Dottie? From LaGrange?”
“Um, no,” I said. “Sorry.”
“We were about to get going,” the old man said. “You should, too. It's coming down pretty hard.”
He led his wife, slowly, toward their car.
“Melissa!” I shouted, looking around. The overlook was just a small break in a thick mountainside forest. There were a million places she could have gone.
I looked over the railing, into fog and snow so thick I couldn't see the ground below. It was like a white abyss. Surely she hadn't flung herself over the side; and if she had, surely the old couple would have noticed it.
“Melissa!” I turned slowly, calling her name.
The old man helped his wife into the car, then drove away, vanishing like ghosts in the snow before they were even around the next bend. I was alone at the overlook now. Visibility was getting worse, and we still had a long drive ahead. We needed to get moving again. “Melissa!”
A pair of headlights cut through the snow, coming towards me. It was Michael's old truck. He took the parking spot beside the van.
“What's happening?” Michael asked. “I couldn't hear you on the phone, but I saw you weren't behind me anymore—”
“I can't find Melissa.” The roaring wind had picked up stronger than ever, so I had to repeat myself louder. “I can't find Melissa!”
“What?” He glanced at the van. “How could you lose her?”
“She wanted to stop for some air, then she ran off, I guess, while I wasn't looking...” My heart pounded faster. Maybe this was some strange trick of Melissa's, a prank where she pretended to be friendly and then caused me a lot of trouble.
It seemed like a badly planned prank, though—Melissa only wore a light jacket, and it was freezing out here.
“That doesn't sound like her,” Michael said.
“I think she was feeling sick, and maybe didn't want to get into details. Which is understandable.”
We started calling for her again. Terrible scenarios formed in my mind. She'd slipped down the mountainside somehow, or someone had grabbed her and covered her mouth, dragging her away, the howling wind muffling her attempts to cry out...
“What are you freaks doing?” Melissa emerged from the woods, grinning now, looking refreshed and cheerful.
“Where did you go?” Michael snapped.
“Uh, private business in the woods,” Melissa said, wiping her nose and mouth on her sleeve.
“We've been yelling for you,” he told her.
“Really? All I heard was that loud wind.” She opened the passenger door to the van. “Come on, people. We don't want to get stranded out here in the snow.” She slammed the door.
I gave Michael a questioning look, and he shrugged.
“Told you she was acting weird,” Michael said. “Sorry. Maybe this trip was a mistake.”
“I wouldn't jump to that conclusion just yet.” I looked at Melissa through the van window, and she tapped at her wrist with a big, exaggerated smile, as if to remind me that time was short. “She's probably just messing with us. We can talk about it after we get there.”
“Don't let her mess with you too much,” Michael said. “Maybe she should ride with me.”
“It'll be fine.” I felt like it would be some kind of defeat to kick Melissa out and make her ride with him. For all I knew, she might shut me out after that, end this unexpected friendliness for good.
We got going again, through heavy snow, Melissa acting a bit more upbeat as we began the last leg of our winding journey into Tennessee, toward the small, touristy mountain town where the new client lived.
I'd barely had time to think about the ghosts that lay ahead.
Chapter Nine
The snow kept coming down steadily, like rain, and I felt increasingly nervous as it started to accumulate on either side of the road—in trees, on boulders and steep cliffs, on the guardrail itself.
Between the steep roads, the drop-offs, the poor visibility, and the ever-thickening snow, my palms grew so sweaty I was surprised I could still grip the steering wheel at all. I was determined not to stop again; it seemed pretty clear that wherever we stopped, we'd be stuck for a while.
“There it is!” Melissa pointed as we rounded yet another bend...and I slowed, gaping.
I'd thought Savannah was heavily decorated for Christmas, but now I saw how wrong and naive I'd been. My own city had been gently decorated with serene white lights, red bows, and green wreaths—nothing compared to what Foxboro had to offer.
Foxboro looked like it had been hit with a giant exploding toy store. Life-sized nutcracker soldiers, giant plastic teddy bears, and brightly lit inflatable snow globes full of elves and reindeer lined the streets. Colorful flashing lights seemed to hang everywhere, along with neon candy canes and glowing ornaments the size of beach balls hanging from trees and streetlamps. A herd of animatronic reindeer repeatedly moved their heads back and forth alongside the road into town, while a nearby family of mechanical snowmen waved at anyone who drove past.
Tucked into a narrow, tree-ringed valley, the town was a glowing, pulsing tourist magnet, crowded with billboards and oversized characters. The town square was made up like Santa's village at the North Pole, with cutesy little buildings hung with glittering icicle-style lights.
There were thousands of blinking lights, thousands of decorations of all kinds, a riot of color and activity trying to draw my eyes in every direction.
“Where do we go first?” Melissa asked. “Santa's Village? The candy shop? Or do you like ice skating?”
“I'm thinking we find our hotel first. Then I'll go meet my client while you and Michael do whatever you want.”
“And what if that happens to be sticking with you?” Melissa smiled. “Learning about ghosts?”
“No way,” I said.
She scowled. “I thought you liked me.”
“I do!” I said, not wanting to lose whatever progress we'd made. “That's why I don't want you to get hurt.”
“There must be some easy, safe stuff I can do, though. Right?”
“I don't think so.”
“Ugh. I want to do this ghost stuff!” She shifted in her seat, one foot tapping as if she was agitated. “And I'm so ready to get out of the van.”
“Me, too. Hey, looks like that's our hotel.” I slowed as Michael pulled into a parking lot.
Since Michael had actually been to this town a couple of times before, he'd picked our lodgings. I gaped up at the hotel as I parked.
&n
bsp; EL GRANDE CHALET, blinked the glowing letters of the four-story building, adorned with a neon cactus. Balconies jutted out on all sides, their Swiss-style dark wooden railings and roofs clashing fairly horribly with the hotel's adobe walls.
“Yep, this is it,” Melissa said.
“I feel like it's going to give me a headache if I look at it too long. I guess this was the only hotel available at the last minute, though.”
“I wanted to come here,” she said. “It's the one I remember from when my mom brought us.”
“I'm sure it's great, though. It looks...cozy.” I gave her my best attempt at a smile, embarrassed by my stumble there.
“You already said you hated it.”
“I didn't say that,” I began, but she opened the door and hopped out into the parking lot.
I followed her out.
“This place looks fun,” I told Michael, looking it over. “It's very...multicultural?”
“Ellie hates it,” Melissa grumbled, rolling her suitcase toward the glass front door of the hotel like she couldn't get away from us fast enough. The door slid aside, unleashing brassy mariachi music from within.
“My mom took us here,” Michael said.
“Yeah,” I said. “Melissa mentioned that just after I made fun of the place. But it seems like it wants to be made fun of, you know? Like it was designed for that, and it's part of the charm. Right?”
“It's a work of art,” Michael said. “Like that guy with the soup cans.”
“Pop art?” I looked at the blinking neon cactus, the Swiss-style brackets and weatherboards trimming the entrances to the adobe-alpine monstrosity. “Maybe.”
“We'd better go catch up with Melissa before she disappears again,” Michael said.
“She's definitely moody.”
“Did she give you a hard time on the rest of the drive? I'll talk to her about it.”
“Nope, no, don't do that. She was fine most of the time, really. Except when she wasn't. Like everyone else in the world, pretty much.”
In the lobby, a live mariachi band played over the lounge/restaurant area, on a stage made of heavy dark timbers, matching the chalet-style crossbeams high overhead. Colorful Aztec-style art hung on all the walls.
“They walk a delicate balance between Helvetic and Mesoamerican influences,” I said.
“You call this delicate?” Michael shook his head at the interior, loud in every sense of the word.
It was fairly crowded, too, both the lounge and the front desk area, where Melissa had claimed a place in line, and waited impatiently behind two other guests checking in. Apparently they had a lot of business for the holidays, keeping the hotel staff running around so fast in their lederhosen that they could barely hold onto their sombreros.
We checked in and headed to our rooms on the third floor.
Our connecting pair of rooms was mostly alpine-lodge fashion, with lots of dark wood. A balcony overlooked the glowing, pulsing kaleidoscope of the little town below.
My room had two double beds, which was one and a half more than I figured I'd be needing, but I wasn't going to complain about room to stretch out. I even debated shoving them together into a quadruple bed, but I didn't need to grow accustomed to such luxury.
I called my client to let him know I was in town and would be over shortly. He seemed relieved to hear it.
Then I cleaned up as quickly as I could, feeling grungy from six hours in the car. I could have used a long, hot bath, but with the snow accumulating outside, it seemed wise to get to the client's as quickly as possible. If I was going to get snowed in somewhere, I'd rather it be a place where I could earn a paycheck instead of sitting around uselessly. I put on a fresh, professional-looking outfit with black slacks and such for meeting with the client.
Michael knocked on the connecting door. “Are you decent?”
“Depends who you ask.” I opened the door.
“Want to get some lunch? Apparently the restaurant downstairs has quesadillas with Swiss cheese and Swiss chard.”
“I'm...not totally sure that sounds appealing. I need to go see my client, anyway. Maybe later. You two have fun Christmasing around out there.” I nodded at Melissa, who was unpacking all her clothes into the room's dresser. “Are you feeling better now?”
“I feel great. I just wish you were coming with us. Or we were coming with you.”
“Stay warm,” Michael said. “Wear a scarf. The day's going to get colder. Maybe you shouldn't drive alone.”
“No, it'll be fine. The museum's right outside town. I could probably walk there from here. But I won't. See you later.”
The drive out of town was slow going, with a number of tourists walking distractedly through the downtown area, their eyes shining as they took in the lights and snow.
The museum lay just a couple of miles outside of town, up a steeper and less traveled road, past occasional driveways that led, presumably, toward houses screened from the road by forests.
My palms sweated again, and a bundle of nerves twitched in my stomach. The snow was encroaching on the road in a way it hadn't back on the busier highway.
A faded billboard with an arrow pointed to the turn-off for the museum. The weathered image on the billboard featured a man in a stove pipe hat, surrounded by odd creatures—a shaggy ape-man like Bigfoot, a dragon-like serpent in a pond, the skull of a saber-toothed cat. A mummy dressed in jewels staggered out of a pyramid in the background.
YOU'VE ARRIVED!! the sign announced. THIS WAY TO DR. WEIRDMAN'S MOUNTAIN MUSEUM OF MONSTERS, CURIOSITIES, AND ANCIENT MYSTERIES. IT'S A “CAN'T-MISS” EXPERIENCE THAT YOU “WON'T FORGET”!
“Interesting use of quotation marks,” I murmured to myself, wondering whether the sign was being ironic or quoting a source.
A new sign had been hung on the front of the billboard: CLOSED FOR THE SEASON. WE APOLOGIZE FOR THE INCONVENIENCE.
I took the turn-off, and the driving instantly became worse; the museum's driveway was bumpy and potholed. It widened, after a time, into a bumpy, potholed parking lot.
“Wow,” I said, looking at the sprawling building in front of me, to which I was the only current visitor.
The only thing I could think of was some kind of medieval keep, built against a steep, rocky cliff. Squat round tower-shapes of rock and concrete jutted out at either end of the central brick building, which was three stories high. Moss grew all over the building's outer walls, giving it the appearance of old ruins.
I approached the arched entrance. The massive wooden front doors were closed, as well as locked, as I soon discovered. A sign hung on them reiterated that the place was CLOSED.
I raised the knocker, a heavy old-fashioned hoop gripped in the jaws of a steel boar head mounted on the door. I dropped it and let it thud into place. Once, twice, three times. The boar knocker stared at me with its steel eyes. Didn't Scrooge have a weird haunted door knocker that talked to him?
I waited, and the snow continued to drift down from the sky, slowly burying the parking lot under a frozen blanket.
Chapter Ten
After waiting a bit longer, I called the client on the phone. My signal was poor up here in the mountains, and the weather probably wasn't helping. I wondered whether the phone would work at all inside the museum.
“—lo?” Ryan's voice crackled.
“Mr. Aberdeen, I'm at your front door,” I said. “It's closed and locked. As I'm sure you're aware. Where should I meet you?”
“—vice entran—”
“What's that?”
“—just come—you—”
“Hello?”
I lost the signal, or maybe he hung up. A minute later, he pulled around in an old Honda Odyssey minivan that looked like it had seen better days, happier days long before the dents and the slightly mismatched replacement door, before the miles had worn it down to the wheezing beast that chugged its way toward me.
The driver's-side window dropped, and I was startled to see a guy who looked about my age, h
is dark hair mostly hidden under the hood of his sweatshirt, his face rough with a few days of scruff. His eyes were a blue that made me think of high heat, of blowtorches and steel mills. He was startlingly good looking, which shouldn't have mattered, but instead made me feel stupid for a second.
Fortunately, he spoke first.
“Are you Ellie?” he asked, looking me over.
“Yeah,” I said. “Ryan?”
“Sorry about the cell reception,” he said. “Did you find the place okay?”
“I just followed the billboards from town.”
“Come on around. There's a service entrance, which leads to the residence, too.”
“There's a residence?”
“We live on the third floor,” Ryan said. “My great-uncle's old apartment. This place was his dream. His life's work. No wife, no kids, no other interests. Just the museum.” He looked at the museum and frowned, as if he couldn't quite puzzle out why a man would devote his life to such a thing. “Follow me around to the VIP parking.”
“Sounds fancy.”
“It's right between the loading dock and the dumpster.”
“Excellent.” I returned to the van and drove around the building, which was less impressive once you got past the facade. The three stories became wood instead of brick and stone, and the siding and window frames looked badly deteriorated. The roof was marred with cracked and missing shingles. The castle-like stuff was just for the face of the museum.
We parked around back, or as far back as the pavement went.
“Is it built right against the mountainside?” I asked as I stepped out. “The back of the house?”
“Yeah, hence the crazy gutter and gargoyle system.” He gestured at a gorilla-like creature made of weathered copper squatting at a nearby roof corner, tilted forward with its mouth wide open, ready to spew excess rain water down to the sloped ground.
“They're popular in Savannah, too,” I said. “Usually something a little cuter, though. Like a fish at the bottom of the downspout.”
“Yeah, I don't think Uncle Leydan was going for 'cute' with this place.” He walked past the loading dock, its rollup door currently padlocked, and up a short brick staircase to a door marked PRIVATE – NO ENTRY. He hesitated, looking at the door.