by JL Bryan
The three other pods rose from the floor, spinning and flashing.
“Out out out!” I yelled at Stacey, and we shoved the luggage rack with our remaining gear through the jib door in the wall. We slammed it shut behind us, and three loud bangs sounded on the other side, as the other pods smashed against the door.
“That's going to make a dent in the tech budget,” Stacey whispered. She was still pale, catching her breath, but she pounded the closed door with one fist. “Hey, you'd better leave my cameras alone!”
The freight elevator took its time coming up to fetch us. Distant sounds, like low voices and footsteps, echoed from the dark rooms nearby.
Downstairs, the big, bright windows filled the third-floor hallway with sunlight. It was a jarring sight after the shadowy fourth floor, like emerging from a dark horror movie at the theater into a sunny Saturday afternoon.
Chapter Seven
We spent the afternoon in the hotel room, Stacey sifting through audio and video footage. As far as we could tell, the ghosts hadn't damaged any of the other gear in the temple room upstairs.
I checked the internet for any more information about the Lathrop Grand hotel, especially any ghost-enthusiast footage I could find. One tourist had caught a suggestion of a reflection in the mirror of Room 208, a glimpse of a woman in white, her facial features blurred. Another YouTube video showed a hallway on the second or third floor. The sounds of boots were captured, along with a shadowy figure that blinked across the hall. Any of these could have been easily faked, but my experiences in the hotel so far didn't exactly lead me to doubt them.
Little information was available about the fourth floor, though. Nobody was ever allowed up there, not even the ghost shows from television. A few ghost-lore websites mentioned Ithaca Galloway's séances and occult interests, describing how she bought the hotel in 1895 because it was already so haunted.
There was much more information about Dr. and Mrs. Lathrop, who'd founded the hotel back in 1851. Dr. Uriah Lathrop had died during the yellow fever epidemic of 1876, while working night and day to treat patients. His wife Mabel lived until 1885, and then the hotel was closed for a decade until Ithaca Galloway's purchase and renovation. Ithaca herself died in 1921, and the hotel passed through a succession of owners over the following century, often sitting vacant for years.
Unable to find much new information, I soon found myself looking up Paranormal Solutions, Inc. yet again. This was the organization attempting to buy our detective agency from my boss, Calvin Eckhart, who was looking to retire and move to Florida to be close to his newborn grandchild. My future felt pretty shaky.
Paranormal Solutions seemed to have its strongest presence in New England, including Boston, a city that I'm sure has its own large ghost population. They investigated and removed unwanted entities, just like we did, and also manufactured high-end ghost-hunting gear for investigators and hobbyists with lots of money to burn. Their “Higher Self Metaphysical Centers” offered everything from psychic tests and ESP classes to relatively traditional activities like yoga and meditation.
They had offices in Baltimore, but no locations south of Maryland. It was obvious why they wanted to move into our market, with heavily haunted cities like Savannah and Charleston.
Calvin had made it clear that we really had only two options—sell out to the bigger company, or refuse and lose lots of business when they inevitably set up a competing shop in our town. I couldn't say either possibility really appealed to me. I liked being an independent scrapper and didn't want to get absorbed into a larger corporate situation, assuming they chose not to fire me and replace me with their own people. Stacey could get fired just as easily.
I hoped to find some dirt, something that would make Calvin reject their offer, but I couldn't come up with much. I slammed my laptop in frustration.
“What's wrong?” Stacey asked from the video editing station she'd rigged up with a laptop and two tablets. “Did you find out they're going to remake and totally ruin another one of your favorite childhood movies?”
“Something like that.” I stood up from the armchair and stretched. “I should probably get ready to go meet Javier.”
“Hey, check this out.” Stacey removed her headphones and turned up the volume on her speakers. “It's from that weird temple room.”
I listened.
“Who's there?” my voice asked on the recording.
“We are.”
“Always.”
“He's coming.”
“Who's coming?” I asked, and Stacey shrugged.
On the recording, my voice asked whether someone present had killed a man. The response was a loud, overlapping chorus of voices, but Stacey couldn't sharpen them enough for us to hear the actual words.
“I wonder if he refers to the entity that threw the REM pods at us,” I said. “Maybe that bearded Rasputin-y guy. We need to find out more about the individuals who lived up there. Grant emailed and said we could meet tomorrow.”
“Aw, email,” Stacey said. “He's so old-fashioned.”
“I'd be ready for Jacob's walk-through after that. Do you think he's available tomorrow night?”
“He'd better not have any major nighttime plans I don't know about.” Stacey narrowed her eyes and glowered, then broke character and laughed.
“You know, there's truth in humor,” I said. “If you're joking about being insanely suspicious and jealous, then at some level, maybe you really are.”
“At some level, we're all just fish wondering how the heck we stumbled onto dry land. That's science.”
“Sure it is,” I said. “You make arrangements with Jacob. I'll go talk to that construction guy at the Mexican restaurant. Want me to bring you anything for supper?”
Stacey nodded. “Yeah, bring me anything for supper. You sure you don't want me to come?”
“I'd really prefer if you could, but I probably won't be back until after dark. Someone has to monitor the monitors.” I gestured toward the array of little TV screens we'd transplanted from the van, and I indicated the video feeds from the second floor. “Keep a special eye around Room 208. I feel like that family doesn't get how much danger they're in, or they would have moved out by now.”
“Should we approach the family ourselves?” Stacey asked.
I took a deep breath. “I'm pretty sure Madeline would fire us if we tried that—she doesn't want us interacting with guests, much less telling them their lives could be in danger.”
“I'm liking Madeline less and less as we go,” Stacey said. “She should've made them leave the room. She shouldn't let anyone stay there until we're done.”
“I agree. But if she fires us, there will be nobody looking out for that family, and nobody to stop Abigail from cutting anyone else. Nobody to get rid of whatever's on the fourth floor, either.”
“Maybe they could call Paranormal Solutions, Inc. instead.”
“Not funny, Stacey.”
I changed into fresh jeans and a black blouse, which is about as colorful as my wardrobe gets. I wore short sleeves for a change, since I doubted I'd get jumped by a vicious spirit over at La Comarca. I still wore my leather jacket just in case. You never know in this town.
La Comarca turned out to be an unexpectedly authentic place tucked into a low brick building with a flea market and a granite-supply yard for neighbors. Definitely not one of those faux-Spanish-mission places with a cartoon donkey on the sign. Inside, the staff and crowd spoke Spanish, and the air was rich with spices and beans.
I glanced from the menu to the crowded tables. I had no idea what Javier looked like. Fortunately, he found me pretty quickly. I don't know if he'd stalked me on Facebook or what, but probably I just didn't fit in with the crowd.
He was a man in his forties, balding, handlebar mustache, broad-shouldered and muscular at the arms, quite a bit softer at the belly. He wore a pressed white shirt, tie, and jeans over polished leather boots.
“Are you Ms. Jordan?” he asked.
“Ellie. Are you Mr. Morales?”
“Javier,” he said. “Madeline Colt told me to speak to you. I want to be honest—I don't like the idea of talking about it at all. But she said you're some kind of expert on these things?”
“I have some experience with...these things,” I said.
“You aren't a priest, it's obvious.” He led me toward a table in one corner, already occupied by three other young men. “Are you a nun?”
I laughed. “Nothing so exalted.”
“A curandera?”
“Just a regular, workaday ghost hunter.” I gave an uncertain smile as I sat with Javier and the three younger men. “Are you sure you don't want to speak privately?”
“These men all worked on the Lathrop Grand job with me,” he said. “Hector, Mateo, Luis.”
The young men nodded, and I shook their hands. They all had strong grips and thickly calloused fingers. They smiled but didn't speak.
At Javier's insistence, I tried some of the food from the buffet, and it put my allegedly five-star breakfast to shame, even though all I had was simple tamales and some rice and beans.
“I want to hear all about your experiences,” I told them, when Javier was finally satisfied that I was eating. “Everything unusual you saw while working in that hotel.”
They spoke among themselves in hushed Spanish, and whatever they said drew curious looks from nearby tables. Finally, Javier said, “First, there were voices. Like whispering. Like the building wanted to tell you something, or...” He shook his head. “More like the hotel was whispering to itself. Like a crazy person. Then, on day two or three, the footsteps, the slamming doors. You'd go to look and there would be nobody. We started to lose guys right away.”
“They must have been scared.”
He nodded. “I promised these guys extra pay if they stay and finish the job. They agreed, and Valentino agreed, too.” He fell silent for a moment, and so did the others, as if to momentarily honor the dead. I realized I hadn't heard the dead man's name before. Madeline certainly hadn't mentioned it.
I waited, sympathizing with the loss of their friend. I've lost people close to me, too.
“It got worse,” Javier finally said. “Crashing sounds. Screaming. Our tools moved around when we were out of the room. Destruction. Then Valentino's death.”
“Can you tell me about that?”
“He was up on the ladder. And he just squashed against it, like some giant had pushed him. The ladder folded up like that.” Javier clapped his hands. “It was over before any of us could move. He landed the wrong way, broke his neck.”
“Did you see any specific apparition before or after that happened? Hear any specific voices?”
They spoke among themselves again, and then Javier nodded. “Luis saw a thing like a white shadow. I saw something like this myself, the day before that.”
“Where was it?”
“The jib door leading to the elevator was propped open,” Javier said. “I saw it pass by there. When I went to look, nobody was in the hall. And Luis saw it in that doorway just before Valentino's ladder fell.”
“A white shadow?” I asked, just to make sure I had that right.
Javier glanced at his workers, then back at me. “It cut me.”
“Cut you?”
He nodded, then unbuttoned his shirt cuff and rolled up his sleeve. A long, thin scar was visible across his bicep, very reminiscent of the injury on my back.
“Ouch,” I said.
“It cut us all.” He spoke in rapid Spanish to the other men. One of them pulled his shirt collar out to show me a mark across his shoulder, and another lifted his shirt to show a long, narrow mark across his abdominal muscles. “Luis was cut on his thigh,” Javier added. “But if you want him to take off his pants—”
“No, that's okay, I get it,” I said. “When did these happen?”
“It's hard to say,” Javier replied. “We all noticed them later. We were so busy with Valentino's accident, trying to help him, calling for the ambulance. I didn't feel it right when it happened, but sometime later I looked down and saw red on my shirt.”
That was just how it had happened for me, too.
“Can you remember anything else unusual from that day?” I asked.
They spoke among themselves yet again, then Javier shook his head. “Some footsteps, some voices, the usual. Valentino's death was my fault. We should have quit as soon as we saw the fourth floor was haunted. I convinced these men to stay and work, I saw only the money...I will never make that mistake again.”
“You would never work in the Lathrop Grand again?”
“Never. Nowhere like that, I don't care what it pays.”
The group fell silent, and I wasn't sure what else to say. They didn't seem to have much more to tell me.
Then something that the head custodian had mentioned clicked, and I thought of one more question.
“Is there a female on your crew?” I asked. “Or was there, when you started at the hotel, before the workers started quitting?”
“No, there never was.”
“Then I wonder who Earl was talking about. He mentioned a lady in the 'last group' that went up to the fourth floor. He said he warned her not to go up there.”
“Who is Earl?” Javier asked.
“The head custodian at the Lathrop. Kind of an older, skinny guy.”
“Oh, I know who you're talking about. He never said a thing to us. Definitely no warning. I did not really believe in ghosts before this, so I probably would not have listened. I thought the ghost was supposed to be on the second floor, anyway. Nobody warned us.”
“Huh.” I had to wonder who Earl was talking about, then. A previous contractor? I wasn't filled with joy at the idea of going down to see him in the basement again. “You don't have any idea who he might have been talking about?”
“Sorry.”
I passed out business cards to all of them. “I really appreciate your help. If you think of anything else, please let me know.”
“Call me if you need any work done at your house,” Javier said. “As long as it's not haunted.”
I doubted that would happen, since I'm a renter, but I just nodded and smiled. “Thanks again.”
Driving back to the hotel, I sifted through what I'd learned. I felt like the family in 208 was definitely in danger now, but there was no clear way to deal with that except to keep an eye on them. I'd already informed the hotel's management, and that was all I was allowed to do. If things grew too dangerous, though, I would have to act to save the kid, even at the risk of losing the client and getting sued over the nondisclosure nonsense.
I stepped on the gas, wondering whether Stacey had discovered anything new while I was away.
Chapter Eight
I arrived at the hotel around sundown, and Stacey did have some things to show me. She'd edited them away from the massive amount of raw footage, creating a kind of video summary for me.
Her instruments had detected cold spots all over the second and third floors, shadowy figures in the guest stairwell, and the usual array of craziness on the fourth floor. The camera had picked up something from outside 208 just before the previous occupants ran out screaming. It was a pale partial apparition, only visible for a second, suggesting the outline of a female. Given the location and the events, it looked like we'd caught a glimpse of Stabby Abby on her way to terrorize the guests in her room.
The live night and thermal feeds from inside the temple room abruptly turned black on the monitors. I pointed it out to Stacey.
“They're not broadcasting,” she said, after checking her laptop. “Could be a shutdown, battery drainage, destruction of the cameras....You're not going to say we should go up there.”
“It seems too dangerous at night. Though after what Javier and his workers told me, it's easily as dangerous during the day.”
“So let's just avoid it altogether.”
“I wish we could. Let's wait and see before heading up there aga
in. Make sure they're not going to get even more active and destructive tonight.”
“I like the wait and see part,” Stacey said. “What's in the box?”
“Empanadas.” I handed her the takeout box from the restaurant. “I'll eat the leftovers if you have any.”
“That's a pretty big endorsement. Better than three thumbs up.” She began picking open the deep-fried yellow shell with her plastic fork.
The early night hours were relatively calm. I paid extra attention to the hot room that we suspected to be Mr. Rasputin's bedroom, with its secret connection to the widow Galloway's private quarters. The temperature rose and fell in slow pulses lasting several minutes each, as if some enormous presence, big enough to fill the room, were breathing very, very slowly.
I was surprised by the complete lack of activity in Ithaca Galloway's bedroom. Stacey said she hadn't noticed anything while I was gone, either, though she still needed to review the footage.
“It's like the ghosts are hiding from us,” Stacey said.
“They might be. Maybe they're just lying low, hoping we'll leave. Or lying in ambush, hoping we'll come back.” I looked at the hallway outside 208. The aging metalhead couple and their daughter were returning to their room. I sighed.
Ghost hunting might sound glamorous, what with the poltergeists throwing you down the stairs and such, but sometimes it moves slowly, like a police stakeout. Watching and waiting. Listening. Lulling you into face state of calm just before something grabs you from the shadows.
Around midnight, I left our room and took a walk around the third floor. I found a few cold spots and elevated EMF readings that were uncomfortably close to our rooms, located right on the same hall.
Down on the second floor, I found spikes just where I expected them, clustered around the door to 208 like invisible electrical arrows pointed right at the famously haunted room. I loitered there for a minute, listening for any activity within, but I didn't hear much.
“Stacey, I'm heading down to the first floor,” I told her through my headset. “The place is dead quiet. Madeline shouldn't mind me poking around this late, if she finds out.”