by Amy Cross
Reaching the first floor, I'm about to go up the next set of stairs when I spot a figure nearby. I stop in my tracks as soon as I see that it's Humphrey Monkhouse, the ghost who met me when I first went into room 119. As we make eye contact, he begins to turn away.
“Help me!” I shout.
He stops and glances back at me.
“You've been a ghost here for a long time,” I continue, hurrying over to him. “You must know how it works.”
His lips part slightly, as if he's about to say something, but then he once again turns to walk away, this time heading toward room 119.
“Hey!” I say firmly, reaching out to grab his arm but – of course – finding that I can't touch him. “Please, Mr. Monkhouse, something terrible's about to happen and I need your help. I need to speak to someone who's alive, but I can't make them notice me! Tell me how it's done!”
He stops with his back to me.
“It is possible, isn't it?” I continue, starting to worry that I might be wrong. “I knocked a plate off a table earlier, so that proves I can interact with the living. I just need to know how to do it.”
I wait.
He still has his back to me.
“Just tell me,” I add. “In all this time here, haunting the hotel, you must have figured a few things out. There has to be a way to communicate with the living. If I don't, everyone in the hotel is going to die. You don't want that, do you? So tell me how to warn them.”
I wait.
Still nothing.
And then, just as I'm about to ask again, he reaches out with his right hand and places his fingertips against the wallpaper, and then he slowly scrapes them down.
“What are you doing?” I ask. “What does that mean?”
He moves his hand away, and then he turns and steps straight through the wall, disappearing into the next room.
“That doesn't help!” I shout, but it's clear that I'm wasting my time here. “Fine,” I add, as I turn and hurry back to the staircase, “I'll figure it out myself.”
By the time I get to the top floor, my mind is racing but I know that I'm running out of time. Mr. Harper's office is at the far end of the corridor, so I head toward the door and step straight through.
“Mr. Harper,” I say firmly, “you have to -”
And then I freeze, as I see that Mr. Harper is dead on the floor with a bloodied wound in his back. Martin, holding a knife in his left hand, is standing over him with a smile.
Chapter Thirty-Six
“How does it feel, Dad?” Martin asks, staring down at Mr. Harper's corpse. “I guess your illegitimate son wasn't worth saving after all. I mean, you could have given me more of a chance. Maybe a job as a waiter, or on the reception desk, but no... You wanted to hide me away in the maintenance department. Like I was too ugly to ever see the light of day.”
“You're insane,” I whisper, as I see blood dripping from the knife's blade. “Are you seriously going to kill all the people here, just because you've got a few Daddy issues?”
“I should have let you die the way the rest of them are going to die,” Martin continues, tilting his head slightly as he continues to watch the dead man's body. “It's just... You made me angry, and now look what's happened. It's all your fault, you know. If you'd just treated me right, if you'd treated me the way a father's supposed to treat his son, none of this would have been necessary.” He pauses, before kicking Mr. Harper's shoulder. “All you cared about was this hotel. And now looks what's about to happen.”
He kicks him again.
“Hey, stop that!” I hiss, stepping toward him. “You have to -”
“No, he's right,” a voice says suddenly, and I'm shocked to see Mr. Harper sitting calmly behind his desk.
I stare, and it takes a few seconds before I realize what's happening.
“Did I really have to die before I saw the cruelty of my own actions?” Mr. Harper's ghost continues, and he's watching now as his son kicks his corpse again. “I was Martin's father, but I never truly acknowledged him. I gave him a job, but not one he could be proud of. I made him scurry around in the shadows, when I could have tried to help him properly. He wanted to work behind the bar, but I refused. Do you know why?” He pauses, and now there are tears in his eyes. “Because of his accent. I thought he sounded too rough. Too common. Too working class.”
He pauses again, before pushing his chair back and getting to his feet.
Startled, Martin turns, and it's clear that somehow Mr. Harper actually managed to move the chair.
“How did you do that?” I ask, hurrying to the desk. “How did you make the chair pull back?”
“I feel a weakness coming on,” Mr. Harper replies sadly. “There is no need to haunt, not if one is prepared to go to the other side. So I think I would rather go there, and pray that my sorrow is lessened.”
“How did you move the chair?” I shout, but he's already fading before my eyes, and within a matter of seconds he's completely gone.
I rush forward.
“Wait!”
Too late.
For a moment, I'm too shocked to know what to do next. Staring at the empty chair, I know for certain that Mr. Harper managed to make it move, but I don't know how he did it. Finally I make my way around and sit in the chair, and I quickly find that I can't move it at all. I try several times, in several different ways, with no luck at all.
“I'm sorry,” Martin says after a few seconds, and then suddenly he reaches down and pushes all the books and other items off Mr. Harper's desk in a fit of unbridled anger. “Why are you making me do this?” he screams, before turning and running out of the room.
“You still have time to stop this!” I call after him. “Martin! You don't have to hurt anyone else!”
I wait, but of course he doesn't reply. How could he? As far as he's concerned, I'm not even here. I remain where I am for a moment, still in Mr. Harper's chair, and then I get to my feet.
“Hannah?” I whisper, suddenly realizing that maybe – just maybe – she'll show up and save everyone. “Hannah, where are you?”
Rushing out of the room, I hurry along the corridor and down the stairs. In my mind's eye, I keep imagining the rags still blocking the vent downstairs, and by the time I get back down to the reception area I'm convinced that Hannah's my only hope.
“Hannah!” I scream, stopping in the middle of the hall and looking all around. “Hannah, I need you! You have to come and save everyone!”
I wait, but there's no sign of her. Still, wherever she is, she might somehow be able to hear me. She might even be on her way right now to help. Suddenly I'm filled with the belief that only Hannah can save the day, that she'll swoop in at any moment and make everything okay again. Cupping my hands around my mouth, I decide that I have to contact her somehow.
“Hannah!” I yell at the top of my voice. “Help!”
But she doesn't come.
I spend several more minutes calling for her, but finally I stop next to the reception desk and I realize that she's not going to turn up and magically fix everything.
“Quiet evening?” a voice says nearby, and I turn to see that George has come out from the kitchen.
“Nothing much going on,” Manfred replies. “Almost done with dinner?”
“The last table's got their desserts now,” George says with a sigh, leaning against the desk. “There's not much hot water, though. I know that Martin idiot says he's working on it, but don't you think old Harper should fine someone who actually knows what he's doing?”
“I've been saying that for years,” Manfred mutters. “Harper seems to like the guy, for some reason. Maybe he thinks he's helping some useless moron get a job. If you ask me, a trained monkey would do just as well. I suppose Harper just doesn't want to flash the cash to get it all done properly. That's gonna come back and bite him in the bum some day.”
I open my mouth to scream at them, but at the last moment I realize that I've tried that so many times before and I haven't had a
ny success. Then, slowly, I think back to that moment with Humphrey Monkhouse in the corridor, and I realize that – when he scraped his fingertips against the wallpaper – he might have been trying to tell me something.
“Is it me, or is it a little warm in here?” George asks.
“This whole building's a wreck,” Manfred replies with a sigh of his own. “The boss should've had it properly refitted years ago.”
Stepping closer to them, I hesitate for a moment before reaching out and placing the tips of my fingers against the top of the desk. I know this is crazy, but right now it's the only idea I can come up with, so I hesitate for a moment before slowly dragging my fingers across the wood.
“If I got put in charge,” Manfred continues, glancing up at the pipes as they creak again, “I'd shut the whole hotel for a couple of months and have its innards completely re-done.”
“Harper'd never do that,” George says. “Not in a million years.”
I try running my fingertips against the wood again.
“It's called investment for the future,” Manfred mutters. “Of course, if old Harper actually had any children, maybe he'd be more concerned with that sort of thing. As it is, I sometimes wonder what'll happen to this place when he eventually falls of his perch. I think it all goes to his nephew, something like that.”
I place my fingertips on the wood for a third time, but then I hesitate as I notice a sheet of paper nearby. Finally, I reach over and place my fingertips there instead, and then I very slowly start trying to draw the paper across the desk.
“Come on,” I whisper under my breath, “you can do it. You just have to stay calm. Control your mind.”
It's almost working.
I can feel the paper starting to move.
“The nephew'll probably just sell it,” George grumbles. “There's no family interest there, not really. The hotel'll either get sold off for flats, or it'll become part of some big chain.”
“Look at that,” Manfred says suddenly, staring at the piece of paper. “Did you see it start to twitch?”
George glances down.
“Probably just a vibration,” he mutters. “Probably that bloody boiler.”
“It's not a vibration,” I tell him firmly, fixing him with a stern gaze as I try to move the paper a little further across the desk. “This is taking too long. Why can't you understand what's happening here?”
“That's quite a vibration, alright,” George suggests, sounding a little more curious. “I can't feel it anywhere else.”
“I'm not dead!” I say loudly, determined to make them notice me. “Not really. I mean, I died, but I'm right here, I'm in front of you. I need your help.”
As I say those words, however, my grip on the piece of paper seems to fade, and I find I can no longer make it move.
I try again, but it's harder this time.
“See?” Manfred says. “I told you it was a vibration.”
“I haven't got time for this,” I say, stepping back as I try to think of another approach. “I have to do something.”
Finally, desperate but determined, I turn and race back down to the boiler room. By the time I get to the door, I still haven't come up with much of a plan, but I guess my only option right now is to try to brute-force the situation.
The first thing I notice is that it's much hotter down here. And the second thing I notice, as I hurry over to the panel next to the boiler, is that the pipes are starting to really creak and groan now.
“You can do this,” I tell myself as I reach up to open the panel. “You died, but you're not really dead. You can't be, you're here. You can do this.”
I try to open the panel, so that I can pull the rags out and save everyone in the hotel, but my fingers slip harmlessly through the metal.
“Come on,” I whisper, trying again, but the result is the same.
I take a moment to gather my thoughts, and then I try to really focus on getting the panel open. Nearby, the boiler is starting to rumble, and I can't help worrying that the whole thing might explode. If that were to happen, the entire building might collapse.
For a fraction of a second, I actually start to think that the panel is about to move, but that hope quickly evaporates as my hand slips through effortlessly.
“I'm not just a ghost,” I say firmly, regathering my composure for yet another attempt, even as the heat becomes more and more unbearable. “I can make myself real. I can touch things. I know I can, I just have to actually do it.”
It's not working, though.
Nothing's working.
As I try again and again, I think back to the moment when Humphrey Monkhouse scratched the wallpaper, and to the sight of Mr. Harper moving his chair back from the desk. If they could both do those things, why can't I? Mr. Harper, in particular, seemed to do it without even thinking, just as he was accepting his fate and preparing to fade away forever. He didn't have to fight and keep trying, so why do I? And Humphrey was the same, he seemed so laid back about the whole thing, but -
And then I realize.
I hesitate, with my hand still next to the panel, and now I think I understand. I've been so busy forcing myself to pretend that I still have a physical body, I never considered the possibility that I need to do the opposite. I need to accept that I'm really dead, that I'm never coming back to life, and I need to allow myself to truly and fully become a ghost. Maybe there's a part of me that's holding everything back by clinging to the hope of life.
“I'm a ghost,” I say out loud, with tears in my eyes. “I'm haunting this hotel. I'm never going to be alive again. I'm a ghost and nothing more.” I pause for a moment. “And nothing less.”
Finally, I try one more time to open the panel. To my surprise, I find that the edge immediately starts to lift away, although it's still not easy and I have to stay supremely focused as I pull inch by inch. Nearby, the boiler is roaring now, threatening to either explode or send its noxious fumes flooding into the hotel, but I hold my nerve and continue to open the panel, and finally it swings to one side and I reach inside to grab the rags.
But the rags are gone.
I stare at the empty space for a moment, and then I hear a faint sobbing sound.
Turning, I'm started to see Martin sitting on the floor, over on the far side of the boiler room. He's weeping, and he has the rags all around him, and after a moment I realize that he's staring straight at me.
“You were right,” he whimpers. “I couldn't do it.”
“I was...”
I step toward him.
“You can see me?” I ask.
“This is the first time I've actually seen you,” he replies, “but I heard your voice upstairs, just as I was leaving my father's office. You called after me. I was so scared, I didn't dare turn and look, but deep down I knew you were right.” He looks down at all the rags. “I can't believe I was going to do it. All those people upstairs would have died in their sleep, but I just wanted to be noticed. I wanted my father to look at me, instead of treating me like some kind of...”
His voice trails off.
I take another step closer, and then I crouch down in front of him.
“You didn't do it, though,” I point out. “You stopped it. You didn't kill all those people.”
“You saw what else I did, though,” he replies, as more tears run down his face. “I just let the anger build up and build up, until it came bursting out. I killed my own father.”
I open my mouth to reply, but then I hear voices, and I turn just in time to see George and Manfred hurrying into the room.
“It sounded like it was about to blow,” George says. “It's so hot in here. Why -”
Suddenly he stops and looks down at Martin.
“Martin, is that you?” he asks. “What's going on?”
“I need you to call the police,” Martin replies, and now his voice is trembling harder than ever. “Tell them... Tell them to look in my father's office.”
“Your father?”
; “Mr. Harper,” he continues. “I'll explain later, just... Tell them to come, and that I'll confess to everything. And tell everyone else that I'm sorry. I'm so sorry.”
“I don't know what's going on here,” George replies, “but I'll call them right now. Manfred, wait here and keep an eye on him.”
With that, he turns and hurries back up to reception, while Manfred comes over to join us.
“I'm so sorry,” Martin sobs. “I should never have let it get to me like that. I should have been stronger. I should have been better.”
“Whatever you've done,” Manfred says cautiously, “I'm sure it can be worked out. It's just...”
He pauses, and for a moment he almost looks straight at me, before turning back to Martin.
“I thought I saw...” Manfred's voice trails off. “Never mind. Let's just wait until the police get here, and then you can tell them everything.” He looks around again. “You're going to think I'm losing my mind, but for a few seconds there I thought I saw Stephanie. Remember her, huh?”
Stepping back, I realize that Manfred can no longer see me. And maybe that's fine. After all, I am a ghost now.
Epilogue
Two years later
“Okay, here we go,” Nathaniel Harper says as he holds the scissors up. “Welcome, everyone, to the new and improved Harper's Hotel!”
He cuts the tape, and everyone starts clapping. Manfred and George are here, in their new uniforms, and people start filing into the reception area and taking glasses of champagne that are being handed out. There's a lot of excited chatter, and soon the entire hall is filled up and guests are having to be shuffled through into the refurbished dining room. After two years of relative quiet, punctuated only by renovation work, the hotel feels as if it's alive again.
Standing in the corner, near the fireplace, I can't help but smile.
While the workmen were here, I mostly kept to myself. There were times when I thought I might fade away, but that didn't happen. Maybe ghosts can only fade in the immediate aftermath of their death, or maybe there's simply too much holding me here. Either way, as the reopening grew closer I began to feel increasingly content with the idea of the hotel opening again, and now I love the sight and sound of so many people coming through the door.