by Harper Lin
“If he knew that, maybe he would have thought twice before being so cruel. If he was scared of the Prestwick house, he’d really have something to fear if only he knew what I could do.”
Maybe he already did.
The thought was a lead weight across my shoulders. Could it be he was being so mean because he was scared of me? Didn’t he see that I had gone there to save him? I would never have hurt him or let anything else hurt him, not as long as I had use of my arms and breath in my lungs.
Suddenly Darla’s petty comments didn’t seem so important. Gosh, could I have been so spiteful, so vindictive as to hurt the man I lo…to hurt Blake because my nose had been tweaked?
Taking a deep breath, I looked out into the night. The grounds beneath the balcony looked cool and creepy at the same time. The spots illuminated by the little solar lights glowed in a rainbow of colors, and strategically placed floodlights illuminated thick, tall trees. The wind blew just a little, and I heard the far-off call of an owl.
Hearing an owl meant someone was going to die. Or they already had.
Crime Scene
It wasn’t long after Blake had left my room that the telephone rang. The electronic beeping sent me to the ceiling in surprise. Before I could even say hello, I heard Bea’s voice.
“It’s time. Meet me out back.”
“Got it.”
CLICK.
Quickly I slipped my feet into the rubber-soled footies that Bea had picked up for me and a hoodie that was more white than gray, but it was the only thing that would keep me warm and hide my face.
If I knew Bea, she was getting a little exercise by taking the stairs. I opted for the elevator. No one was up at this hour with the exception of the occupants of one room, the quiet murmur of whose television came pulsing through their door. Even my feet, covered in these soft slip-ons, could be heard making the faintest pat-pat-pat with each step.
I looked behind me. I was still alone in the hallway but was relieved when I got to the elevator bank, pressed the button, and heard the ping of the available elevator almost instantly.
The doors slid open, and I stepped inside. I thought of Aunt Astrid blending into the lovely tapestry and wondered what she had been up to in her early days that she’d had to do the same trick. I looked at my reflection in the doors and then glanced at the number, which had remained on three.
Had I forgotten to punch the G button on the panel? Maybe. I pushed it and heard the sound of cables and motors kicking into gear.
What was I afraid of? I was alone in the elevator.
As if on cue, the lights went out. The elevator continued to move, but I was in the most pitch-black darkness ever.
I instantly reached in front of me, fumbling across the button panel. How long could this take? The place had only three floors. I tried to feel for the button that would alert the front desk in the event of an emergency. Where was it? How many floors was I going down? How long had I been in this box? Panic was seizing my heart, and pretty soon I was convinced that when those doors finally opened, I’d be staring at a river of fire surrounded by jagged-edged cliffs and mountains with deformed creatures holding pitchforks, dancing around the flames and reaching for me.
Where was that panic button? It was as if it had been removed or covered. I slid my hands over the buttons, saying in my head third floor, second floor, ground floor, but no matter how far down my hands went, I found nothing else on that panel.
My pupils stretched, trying to grab some shred of light, but I could see nothing. And that deep pit in the back of my mind, the one that held the images of those hands reaching out from underneath my bed to get my mother, snapped into crystal-clear focus. I was suddenly frozen with fear. Just because I didn’t see anything didn’t mean something wasn’t watching me.
With that thought, I felt a cold, slimy texture slide over my bare ankle.
I had just opened my mouth to scream when the light flickered back on as the doors slid open to reveal the lobby. I ran out of the elevator, not caring what I looked like or who noticed me. I dove out of there, walking quickly backward, keeping my eyes on that open, sinister maw until I was sure nothing was going to come out and drag me back inside. The doors slowly slid shut as if they were waiting for me to change my mind and climb back aboard.
I’d be taking the stairs with Bea from now on. I could use the exercise.
Fumbling and worrying my key-card, the only thing I had in my pocket, I felt good being out in the open. The sky was still black, but a very hazy twilight was fooling with my eyes in the east. The sun would be up in a little while. Normally that made a person feel better, like they had made it through the worst of the terror. I wasn’t so convinced of that at the moment.
Circling around the grounds to the back of the building, I slowed my steps and looked around.
“Bea!” I said in the loudest whisper I could muster.
“Here!” she called back from behind a clump of bushes that I hoped didn’t have thorns on them. Looking around quickly, I dashed for the shrub.
“This reminds me of when we played ghost in the graveyard as kids,” I said, taking her hand in mine and squeezing it tightly.
“I was thinking that exact same thing,” she said. I could hear the smile in her voice.
“Do we know which room your mom is in?”
“I’m pretty sure it’s that one with the curtains parted just a little.”
Scanning the terrain, I realized that this room was located next to the mosaic wall that Olga had talked about.
“You won’t believe what happened to me in the elevator.” My eyes wouldn’t leave the mosaic tiles, but they remained still and beautiful.
“Oh yeah? What happened?”
Curtains rustled, the balcony door slid open, and a hand that looked detached from a body waved in our direction.
“There’s Mom.” We hadn’t let go of each other’s hands and ran like two girls on their way to kindergarten as the bell rang.
The terror I had felt in the elevator gave way to a feeling of exhilaration. As usual, being with my family made me feel more confident, and Blake’s words, although they still stung, started to settle.
Telling Bea what he’d said would have caused unnecessary stress between her and Jake. No cop wants to hear his partner be called a grade-A jerk. Plus, it wasn’t as if Jake could do anything to change his mind. Blake thought I was crazy, and that was all there was to it. Right now I had to focus on my family and whatever we were going to find in that room.
Quietly we pulled ourselves up onto the balcony platform and swung our legs over the railing. Within a matter of seconds, we were inside the room.
“You guys aren’t going to believe this. There is so much going on in this room that I am surprised there hasn’t been an incident every couple of days,” Aunt Astrid said, holding the curtains aside as we snuck in. She slid the door closed, and I heard the lock snap into place. She was still thoroughly blending in with the environment, but if I looked hard enough, I could see her eyes.
“Let the veil be lifted and the flower bloom,” she muttered to herself, and suddenly her lovely, familiar face came into view.
“What if someone comes in?” I asked, pointing to the front door.
“Don’t worry. I’ve slipped the hook into place. They’ll get the door open a crack. Just enough time for you guys to hustle out of here. Then I’ll open it and slip out right under their noses.” Aunt Astrid giggled. “Now, come. Let’s get this started.”
Before I took a seat on the floor between my aunt and cousin, I looked around the room. For a crime scene, it held very little indication that anyone had even been in the room. The beds were still made. The suitcases were there, but they were closed. Perhaps the deceased sisters had left toiletries and bits of clothing in the bathroom; I couldn’t see from here. But nothing looked disturbed at all.
I took a seat, and we all joined hands.
“Mom, it feels weird in here,” Bea whispered, tightening h
er grip on my hand.
“There is a lot of sadness in this room, honey,” Aunt Astrid said as she let go of my hand and pointed. An open space separated the mirror and the desk. Following her finger, I looked at the pretty blue-and-white–patterned wallpaper until a set of pitch-black eyes snapped open.
Shadow Man
Bea must have seen them at the same time since her grip became like a vise on my hand. Stepping out from the wall was a petite woman. Even though she had the flower-and-paisley print of the wallpaper all over her, it was obvious she was from a different era.
Her hair fell in loose finger waves. Her dress looked like a simple thing that a young woman might wear to church. I didn’t see her feet, as they faded into nothingness. But she was wringing her hands nervously.
The woman didn’t smile. She kept looking toward the sliding door as if expecting someone to enter that way.
“We’re here to help you, dear. What is your name?” Aunt Astrid asked. She had a way with the spirits, as her many accurate fortunetelling sessions at the Brew-Ha-Ha would attest.
The lips of the blue and white, paisley and flowered woman moved, but neither Bea nor I could hear a sound. But my aunt listened intently, nodding and clicking her tongue.
“Sadie. Sadie McGill is my name,” Aunt Astrid began. “I’m waiting for my boyfriend, Waldo Ferguson.”
Listening to my aunt and observing the strange apparition was like watching a badly dubbed movie.
“Waldo was a wonderful man,” Sadie/Aunt Astrid said apologetically. “It was just that he was married. Oh yes, I knew it was wrong. But the way he looked at me the first time we met, I knew he was the man for me. Even if my sister had seen him first, had brought him home to meet our parents, and I had been her maid of honor.”
My jaw hit the floor. This couldn’t be the only thing haunting this spa, could it? A brokenhearted dame who managed to have an affair with her sister’s husband? By the looks of Sadie McGill, she didn’t seem all that intimidating.
“Waldo was supposed to meet me here tonight. He was breaking things off with my sister, and we were going to leave. He had a cousin in Chicago who would give him a job. We could start over away from the scandal. No one would judge us there. But…he is late.”
I looked at Bea out of the corner of my eye and squeezed her hand in mine. I didn’t need Sadie to finish her tale of woe. I knew where this was going. Just then she looked nervously toward the balcony door.
“I’m afraid. Every night I hear the laughing and scratching along the walls and the ceiling. Strange people come into this room, and they can’t help me. They won’t help me.”
Bea’s hand tightened around mine.
“And the shadows don’t ever stop.” She looked at the three of us, but her lips didn’t move. Looking toward the balcony again, she began to tremble and cry.
“No. No, Waldo. You don’t mean it. You don’t mean those things.”
A dark shadow as thick as ink wafted into the room as if it bloomed from a corner. It hovered over Sadie, and she looked up at it in love and fear. She began to shake her head, still kneading her hands. Aunt Astrid had stopped interpreting the conversation. We could obviously see what was going on. Waldo wasn’t leaving his wife, Sadie’s sister. But Sadie wasn’t going to make it out of this room.
She turned from the shadow, uttering a scream that only she could hear, her face contorted into a grimace of pain from the heart and from the shadow that all but consumed her. Her hands went to her throat, clawing and pulling at the misty hands that had encircled it.
Unlike the other guests who had seen Sadie run out of the wallpaper, we stayed still and saw the shadow take hold of her.
Within minutes, her body went limp, and she and the shadow disappeared.
“Did you all see that? You saw that, right? It wasn’t just me.” I was always so worried I was hallucinating. No matter how many years I’d been a practicing witch, there were some gifts that I never got used to. Seeing the dead when they still thought they were living was one of them.
“She called that shadow man Waldo,” Bea said. “Is he the one killing people in this room?”
“Waldo is still alive. That is why we can only see his shadow. She is reliving her death because no matter what he has done, she loves him. She’d rather see him as the last thing she sees in life than go on without him in death.” Aunt Astrid wiped a single tear from her eye.
“Is that normal? I mean, is that what love is? Because I’m not so sure that should be what love is.” I had forgotten to keep my voice down and scooted so my back could rest against the bed.
“None of this is normal. And no, Waldo is not what is killing people. Like Sadie said, there are things in this place. We should have known with the astral spiders being so prevalent. No, something else is going on here. Waldo had just succumbed to it.”
Bea stood up and sat down on the bed next to me. I was glad she did. The heebie-jeebies were starting, and even the simple feeling of her leg next to my shoulder made me feel safer. Aunt Astrid scooted along the floor and rested her back against the other bed.
“No. We’ve stumbled upon something much bigger here.”
“Well, whatever it is isn’t just in this room.” My voice was almost mad. I explained what had happened with the knocks on my door and the elevator. I also mentioned the woman I had seen running and Olga’s story.
“Add that on top of the astral spiders, and I hope you guys don’t mind if I don’t let you plan any more vacations for me.” I stood up and stretched, still looking around for anything out of the ordinary and remembering not just one but two women had died here, two young women. Three if you wanted to include Sadie.
“I think Sadie was the first,” Aunt Astrid said. “She triggered something.”
“What makes you say that, Mom?”
“If this place had suspicious deaths on a regular basis, it would have gone out of business. But a death here and there, every couple of years, even decades, no one would pay much attention to. Blake already said he was sure it was a suicide. Maybe it was. But why here and why tonight?”
“Do you think it could be a ritual killing?” I couldn’t believe the words coming out of my mouth, but there they were.
“Some serial killers lie dormant for that long until the need arises.”
“So are we dealing with some paranormal serial killer? Good luck figuring out how to stop that,” I griped.
“No.” Aunt Astrid put up her hand. “I think if we looked into the history, we’d see that the deaths came at certain times. We just need to figure out what those times have in common. And once we know that, I’ll bet they point us in the direction of who is responsible.”
“That is going to take a good bit of digging, and we check out the day after tomorrow,” Bea said.
“Call me crazy, but I don’t want to stay in this place any longer than we have to.” I rubbed my hands together. “I’m tired of knocks on the door, and I don’t think I’ll ever ride an elevator again, plus—”
The door banged open, catching on the metal hook Aunt Astrid had put into place. We all froze.
“What the hell, Baker? Get the door open.”
“I’m trying. The lock is on it.”
“How can that be? That would have to be locked from the inside, and there ain’t nobody inside.”
“Well, I can’t get it.” Baker closed the door and tried it a second time. Again it caught on the safety latch.
Bea and I jumped up and hurried to the balcony door. I pulled the curtains aside and just as quickly pulled them shut again.
“Jake is out there!” I hissed.
Bea rolled her eyes and tossed her head back in disbelief.
“Of all the rotten luck.” She looked at her mom. “What do we do?”
“There isn’t time. Get under the beds.”
“They’ll check under there,” I argued.
“They probably already have. Now hurry.”
We had no choice. The wolve
s were at the door.
It was a tight squeeze for both of us, but we managed to get underneath the beds. Aunt Astrid, still blending in almost seamlessly with her surroundings, made her way toward the door. I heard the squeak of the latch being unhooked and hoped she had enough sense to step out of the way, because Baker and his partner were probably going to use a good bit of force.
I was right.
The door banged open with such force that it shook the floor. Part of me wanted to reach out and pull up the dust ruffle just enough to peek out, but the other part of me didn’t want to get caught, so I just listened.
What if these guys were going to be in here for hours? How were we going to get out of this mess? Why didn’t we leave and discuss the facts outside?
“There, see. It was just stuck a little,” Baker said to his partner.
“Well, snap on the light. I’m not going in there when it is pitch black.”
“What’s the matter, Kowalski, scared?”
“Hey, I don’t know about you, but I’ve heard stories about this place. I’m not taking any chances.”
“Yeah, I heard the stories, too. A suicide here, a homicide there. People getting lost, drowning in the hot springs. It’s just a coincidence. Who knows what kind of recreational ‘herbs’ some of these people are on. I’ll bet if we did a drug sweep, we’d make a pretty good bust,” Baker said, sitting down on my side of the bed, pushing the box spring into my head. I cringed. Where was Aunt Astrid?
“Are you really that much of an ignoramus?” Kowalski said. “This is one of those all-natural places. I don’t even think they cook meat in this place.”
They don’t, I screamed in my head.
Suddenly a loud crash could be heard coming from the lobby. Both officers jumped.
“What the hell?”
“It has got to be a full moon tonight. Let’s go.”
They took off running out of the room. The pressure was off my head, and I scrambled out from under the bed in time to help Bea to her feet.