by Amy Cross
I blink again.
Yes, this time I did blink.
And again.
How does that work? I don't even have eyes, so why would I blink? Is it just a habit left over from the days when I was alive? After a moment, I realize that I breathe as well. I'm dead, but I breathe in and out, as if I'm just so accustomed to that sensation. For a few seconds, I start to think of all the other weird and pointless things that I do now that I'm a ghost. I don't sleep, and I don't eat or go to the toilet, but in other ways I act as if I'm alive.
And then, suddenly, I see him.
The boy in the red sweater is stepping out of room 203. He looks sad; I can tell that just from the way that he's walking. Sure enough, the door swing shut behind him, and I can hear his parents having an argument that I think they're trying to keep quiet. The boy, meanwhile, stops in the middle of the corridor, standing with his head bowed.
I watch him for a moment, and then I take a step toward him.
I feel as if I've been drifting forever, but this boy was here before so I suppose I wasn't gone for that long. Very few guests stay for longer than a week, so as I reach the boy I realize that maybe I've spent just a few days wandering the hotel's corridors. How long, then, has it been since I died? A few weeks? Months? I've lost track, but I suppose time doesn't matter very much anymore. Not to me. It's all the same.
The boy turns his head slightly, looking away from me.
I can't see his face, but I can sense his sadness.
“Hey,” I say finally, even though I know he can't hear me. “It'll get better. My parents used to argue sometimes. Not quite this loud, but it was still... uncomfortable. They used to try to do it without me hearing, but they were never very good at that. I pretty much always heard.”
I wait.
He's still looking away.
Is there some possibility, no matter how minuscule, that he can sense me? That my words might make him feel better?
“You just have to stick with it,” I continue, “and wait until you're an adult, and then...”
My voice trails off.
And then what?
Then die, and end up as a ghost?
“Well,” I say with a shrug, “you might do better than I did. I mean, look at me, I ended up dead.”
I pause, before reaching out and putting a hand on the boy's shoulder. Not that I can feel his shoulder, of course, but at least I'm close.
“The thing is,” I continue, “there's no -”
Suddenly the boy turns and looks this way, and I'm shocked to see that there's no skin on his face. Instead, as I take a step back, I see only a skull with two empty sockets where there should be eyes. It's hard to tell whether he's looking straight at me, but after a moment I realize that he seems to be staring at one of the other doors.
“Are you...”
For a few seconds, I have no idea what to say. The boy's graying skull seems a little hazy, as if his real face might flicker through at any moment, but then he tilts his head slightly as if he's listening to something.
Suddenly the door opens behind him, and his parents step out into the corridor. I look at them and immediately see that their faces are normal, and then the boy's mother looks down at her son and she smiles as she touches his shoulder.
“Hey, darling,” she says, as if nothing's wrong, “are you hungry?”
He looks up at her and nods.
She smiles.
It's as if she can't see the skull.
“Wait, how did you get dirty?” she asks, and then she crouches down in front of him, licks one of her fingers, and starts wiping a spot on the side of his bony face. “You can't go down to dinner with a chocolate stain on your cheek. Oh Oliver, I do wish you'd pay a little more attention to this sort of thing. Do you want me to have to clean you up forever, even when you're a grown-up?”
“Sorry,” he murmurs.
“That's all good now,” she says, before leaning close and kissing the top of his head, and then she gets to her feet. “To be honest with you, I'm starving. I feel like I haven't eaten in a million years.” She turns to her husband as he shuts the door, and then she looks back down at her son. “Are you ready?”
I let out a shocked gasp as I see that the mother's face is now a skull as well, as if somehow the condition passed to her from her son. I look down at him and see that his face is still a skull, and then I watch as he takes his mother's hand and walks with his parents toward the staircase.
“This isn't really happening,” I whisper, before hurrying after them and then stopping to look down at them as they make their way down. “It can't be.”
In that moment, however, I see to my horror that the father's face is now a skull as well. As the three of them disappear from view, I realize that something must be terribly wrong.
Chapter Thirty-Four
It's not just one family.
It's all of them.
It's everyone in the hotel.
As soon as I reach reception, I see Manfred helping a customer over at the main desk. I start making my way over, but then I stop as I see that Manfred's face is withered and dry, as if the skin is clinging tighter than ever to his skull. Then, as he turns to grab one of the notebooks, I realize that his eye sockets are empty and that his entire face has begun to shrivel. He looks dead and – when the customer turns too – I see that her features are the same.
“Don't worry about a thing,” Manfred says with a smile, apparently unaware of what's happening to him. “It's no trouble at all. I'll be only too happy to see to it personally.”
Horrified by what I'm seeing, I make my way over to the desk. I'm now standing right in front of Manfred, although obviously he can't see me. A moment later, however, he smiles at the guest and I see that he barely has any skin left on his face at all. He looks completely skeletal, and there's a strong smell of death and decay in the air.
Suddenly a loud bang rings out from above.
“Sorry about that, M'am,” Manfred continues. “Just the pipes.”
Turning, I head through to the dining room, where dinner is in full swing. Most of the tables are occupied, but once again I see nothing but twisted dead faces. At the nearest table, there's a family with two children, but even the children look sick and withdrawn. Nobody seems to care about what's happening to them, however; as I step past the table, the children are giggling while their parents tell them to behave themselves. Then, turning, I see another child running to a table near the window. The smell of death is even stronger here, as if I'm surrounded by scores of rotting corpses.
I turn, but at that moment my left hand brushes against a plate on one of the tables, sending it falling to the floor. As the plate smashes, a man at the next table gasps.
“It wasn't me!” a voice protests.
Turning, I see that it's the little boy in the red sweater. He and his parents all have skeletal faces, and it's almost as if the condition is slowly spreading out from them, creeping across the room and infecting everyone in the hotel.
“Then who was it, Oliver?” the father replies. “I told you to stop fidgeting!”
“I didn't touch it!” the boy protests. “It just fell off by itself.”
“It's fine,” says Maggie, the new girl – my replacement – as she hurries over with a dustpan and brush. “Accidents happen. I'll clean it up and then it'll be as if it never happened at all.”
“It's not fine,” the father says. “My son needs to learn that he can't just flail around like that. It's a matter of comportment.”
“I didn't do anything!” Oliver says firmly, and now he sound as if he's on the verge of tears. “Why do I always get the blame for things?”
“He didn't do it,” I stammer, before taking a step back as Maggie continues to clean up the mess.
Looking down at her, I see that Maggie's face is just like the others. Even her hands are skeletal, and after a moment I notice that her uniform seems to be damaged. There are rips and tears running all the way down once
side, exposing bloodied flesh beneath. I instinctively open my mouth to ask whether she's okay, but at the last second I remember – of course – that there's no point. Nobody can see or hear me and, despite the occasional brush with a plate, I can't interact with anything or anyone here at the hotel. I can only turn and look all around, and stare at the dead faces of all the guests. Whatever's happening, it seems to be some kind of infection.
High above, one of the pipes lets out another brief, loud banging sound.
“They really should fix that,” one of the other guests says nearby. “The bloody things woke me up in the night. And to think, this place claims to be four stars. I'd say it'd be lucky to get three.”
Stepping back, I'm momentarily horrified by the overwhelming impression of death. All these skeletal-faced figures are tucking into their food, acting as if nothing's wrong, ignoring the stench of death that's all around. After a few seconds, however, I realize that this whole situation feels strangely familiar. I remember that day at the zoo, all those years ago, when I got lost and saw dead animals. Those creatures were like ghosts, but the people around me right now can't all be ghosts, not so suddenly.
There's another feeling, too.
Dread.
Pure, unbridled dread.
As I continue to look around at all the dead faces, I realize that I've felt this way before. Back in the loop, when I was stuck on the same day over and over again, I felt this dread every time I tried to approach room 119. It's as if some invisible flood is rising all around me, reaching first my ankle and now my knees, threatening to drown me completely in a sense of absolute panic. And as this sense grows, I realize that it seems to be telling me not about the past, but about the future.
Something terrible is going to happen.
High above, the pipes creak and groan once more.
“You all need to get out of here,” I whisper, as I look around at the faces of the nearly dead. “Something's going to happen. You all have to get out of the hotel.”
Nobody reacts.
They still can't hear me.
“You have to run!” I shout, hoping that maybe I'll finally be able to get through to them. “You have to leave right now!”
Realizing that this isn't working, I rush over to the nearest table and try to push all the plates and cutlery to the floor, but now my hands simply pass harmlessly through everything.
“Listen to me,” I say, leaning straight into the dead face of a woman who's eating steak and chips, “you have to move. I know you'll be able to hear me, if you just focus. You have to get everyone out of here and -”
“This steak's a bit too well done,” she says suddenly, speaking with her mouth full and sending fragments of half-chewed meat against my face. “I usually like it bloodier.”
“Listen!” I scream. “There isn't much time! It's getting closer, you have to leave!”
I wait, hoping against hope that she'll show some hint of recognition, but instead she simply murmurs something as she slips another piece of steak into her mouth. How can I scream at her and still not break through?
Stepping back, I realize that I need to come up with another plan. The sense of dread is getting stronger and stronger, and I'm certain that – at most – death is only a few hours away. Even as I look around at the faces at the various tables, I swear some of them seem to be deteriorating right in front of my eyes, and the terrible stench of death is becoming unbearable. If I don't find some way to warn everyone, there's going to be some kind of disaster.
“Do you have to carry that through the dining room?” a voice asks suddenly.
Turning, I see that Martin is carrying a box of tools past one of the tables.
“Quickest way to the basement, mate,” he says with a grin, apparently enjoying the look of consternation on the waiter's face. “Won't be a moment.”
He heads across the room, looking somewhat incongruous in his dirty work overalls, and then he goes out into reception. As he disappears from view, however, I suddenly realize that something was different about him. I hesitate, before hurrying over to the door and looking through just in time to see Martin heading down the stairs toward the basement, and I catch a quick glimpse of him before he disappears from view.
Out of all the people in the hotel right now, he's the only one with a normal face.
Chapter Thirty-Five
“Oh, calm down, you panicky old thing,” Martin says as I reach the doorway that leads into the hot, gloomy boiler room. “Don't get your knickers in a twist.”
The huge boiler bumps and gurgles again, as if it's responding to him.
“Do you have to carry that through the dining room?” Martin continues in a mocking tone, clearly mimicking the comment by the waiter a few minutes ago. “Snob. As if the sight of me would put those assholes off their dinner. Most of them probably didn't even notice me.”
He sets his box of tools on a nearby table and opens the lid, and then he starts muttering to himself as he sorts through the various items. He seems so calm, as if he has no idea that anything bad is about to happen. Or, alternatively, as if he just doesn't care.
Stepping further into the room, I can't help noticing that this place is really hot. I mean, it's hot most of the time, but right now it's almost like a sauna, and the boiler is making some very strange sounds. I'm no expert on these things, but I'm pretty sure that a boiler isn't supposed to be acting this way.
“Now then,” Martin says, heading over to a panel next to the boiler and reaching up to unfasten one side, “let's have a look at you.”
He pulls the panel open, and to my surprise I see that the interior is filled with dirty, oily rags.
“Looking good,” Martin says, before grabbing another rag from his pocket and stuffing it into the last remaining gap. “Just need one more and...”
His voice trails off, and then he mumbles under his breath as he struggles to force the panel shut.
“What are you doing?” I ask as I step closer. “Why are you filling part of the boiler with rags?”
He puts a clip into place, and then he heads back over to the main control unit and adjusts a few dials as he slowly looks up toward the ceiling.
“Enjoy your final meals,” he says with a faint smile, as the glow from the boiler catches the side of his face. “You're going to be having a long sleep tonight. Plenty of time for sweet dreams.”
“What are you planning?” I ask, stepping past him and heading over to the panel, where there's already a more urgent-sounding noise coming from some of the pipes. On the side of the panel, there's a sticker with a warning in large letters:
DANGER OF DEATH
ENSURE FULL VENTILATION AT ALL TIMES
Below that, there's more text, warning about the dangers of letting the pipes get backed up with gas from the boiler system. As I read the warning, I slowly start to realize that the rags are going to block the entire vent, which means...
“Martin, what are you doing?” I whisper, with a growing sense of fear in my chest as I turn and see that he's heading out of the room, carrying his bag of tools. “Martin!” I yell. “You can't do this! You'll kill everyone in the hotel!”
He stops in the doorway and turns to look back this way, and for a moment I begin to wonder whether he might have heard me. I quickly realize, however, that he's actually looking at the boiler, and that he's smiling as he contemplates his actions. Finally he turns and walks away, and I hear his footsteps going back up to the reception area.
Looking at the panel again, I realize that I need to stop this from happening. I reach out and try to open the panel, but my fingers slip harmlessly through the metal. I managed to knock a plate from a table earlier, so why can't I open a panel when the lives of all these people are in the balance? I try again and again, hoping desperately that I'll somehow figure out how to touch solid objects, but finally I step back as I realize that I need to try something else.
I have to find a way to warn everyone.
Filled wit
h a sense of panic, I turn and rush out of the room, and then I race up into reception.
“Manfred!” I shout, hurrying over to him and trying to grab his shoulder. “It's me! It's Stephanie! You have to evacuate the hotel!”
Completely oblivious to the fact that I'm here, he mutters something to himself as he writes some more notes in one of the books. His face is still skeletal, and the smell of death seems stronger than before.
“Manfred, it's me,” I say again, hoping that he might remember all the times we talked. “If anyone in this hotel is going to be able to hear me,” I continue, “it's you. You're the one who hired me, remember? I walked in that door, it had been raining and I was soaked, and I was so nervous. And you decided to take a chance on me, and I worked so hard to make sure that you never regretted it. I always looked up to you so much, and now I need you to realize that I'm here. Please, Manfred.”
I pause, before reaching out and trying once again to touch his shoulder. I fail, but this time I leave my hand in place, hoping that somehow he will sense my presence.
“Manfred,” I say firmly, “it's -”
Suddenly he sneezes.
“Bless me,” he mutters under his breath, and then he makes some more notes in the book.
“This isn't working,” I say, as the pipes briefly bang high above us. “Why isn't anyone worrying about that?” I continue. “Can't you all hear that something's wrong? Why are you all ignoring this?”
Manfred sniffs and then scratches the side of his nose.
In the dining room, people are talking and laughing.
The pipes are silent for now, but I know those rags are still down in the ventilation system.
Finally, not knowing what else to do, I turn and hurry up the stairs. I know Mr. Harper always works late, and my only hope now is to find some way to get through to him. I thought maybe that would work on Manfred, due to our friendship, but now I figure the reverse might be true; perhaps a personal connection makes it harder for me to appear, in which case I have to try someone I didn't know very well while I was alive.