by Katie Berry
“Thank you, but you know I’m a liberated woman. And besides, it’s supposed to be age before beauty, Big Brother,” Minerva stayed where she was and held her arm out to show him the way, instead.
Lively smiled and nodded, deferring to her advice. “I’m only older by two minutes, remember.”
“Well, you certainly don’t look it.”
“Gee, thanks.”
Cloudy overhead globes lining the lengthy corridor bathed everything in a sickly hue. The paisley-patterned carpet beneath their feet looked muted, coated like everything else in the hotel with a thick layer of dust that had collected over the years.
“It doesn’t seem like this renewal, or whatever you want to call it, has stretched to this part of the hotel, yet,” Minerva observed. She tapped one of her toes on the dusty carpet for emphasis, stirring up a small cloud of dust.
“I noticed that.”
“Maybe it just takes a little longer. Sort of working its way from the inside out?”
“Perhaps,” Lively replied, his gaze fixed on the corridor’s wall. The wallpaper, having the advantage of its vertical orientation, was relatively dust-free compared to the carpeting. The paper had an engaging style that Lively knew he just had to stop and inspect. Colourful red and green foil leaves and vines were layered over top of each other, intertwining amongst themselves in various patterns. As he looked closer, it became apparent that some of the vines weren’t actually vines after all, but something else entirely. “My, this is amazingly unpleasant.” He made a sour expression.
Minerva moved next to him and scrutinised the wallpaper as well. Hidden fauna blended tastefully and unobtrusively with the flora in the paper’s pattern. Twisted in amongst the colourful foliage were dozens of snakes, coiling and writhing, their mouths open and fangs piercing outward. To the casual eye, it was not readily apparent. But to those that chose to peer more closely at the world around them, it stood out quite clearly. Wrinkling her nose in distaste, Minerva said, “Who picked this paper out? Medusa?”
“I was thinking maybe Snake Pliskin,” Lively suggested.
“Snake who?”
“Pliskin!”
With a small sigh, Minerva asked, “Which one is it this time?”
“It’s ‘Escape From New York’, of course. It’s a classic! You know... Kurt Russell? Donald Pleasence? With Adrienne Barbeau? Directed by her husband, John Carpenter?”
“Of course,” Minerva nodded.
“Can’t beat the classics, Sis,” Lively said over his shoulder, moving down the corridor.
“Maybe with a big enough stick, you can,” Minerva retorted with a smile. Her three and a half-inch boot heels clicked mutedly on the dust-thickened carpet as she trailed behind Lively. They passed entrances to two other ballrooms along the way without a second glance. “How do you know it’s the last one?”
“I think it’s pretty obvious,” Lively replied, looking further along the corridor. At its end, a set of dual doors sported a thick chain running through both handles with a heavy, hardened brass padlock in the centre securing them. Stretching across the doorway, as if for good measure, a spiderweb of yellow police tape proclaimed, ‘Police Line, Do Not Cross!’
Minerva said, “Well, okay, apart from that obvious clue.” As they moved closer, she added, “Wow, was that meant to keep someone out, or something in?”
“Maybe a little of both,” Lively said, lifting the heavy padlock to examine it. He hoped half-heartedly the key might still be in it but shook his head when he saw that his optimism had not proven prophetic. “Uh-oh, it looks like we’re locked out.”
“And of course, it’s the one time I forgot to bring my bolt cutters,” Minerva said, shaking her head in mock-disappointment.
“You would think this would be a problem, wouldn’t you?” Lively asked.
“I would, and I do,” Minerva said, nodding. “Since I’m hardly able to unscrew a jar of gherkins at home, I don’t think I can do much to help here. And I think it’s highly unlikely that you can tear this chain in two or break the lock off with your bare hands. So, what now?”
“This is all too true. But fortunately, I brought along another little friend,” Lively said, reaching toward his belt.
Noting the direction of Lively’s hands, Minerva asked, “Oh, no, another friend? Is this the one I need to cover my eyes for?”
“Only if you’re afraid of progress,” Lively replied. With great care and deliberation (for Lively, there was no other way), he slowly removed his answer to their dilemma from a black leather pouch attached to his belt — it looked like a glue gun.
“Are we going to do some crafting now?” Minerva enquired brightly.
“Yes, I’m going to craft us an open door.” Holding up the device in front of Minerva’s face, Lively said, “Sis, I’d like you to meet my little friend, the Snap Gun.”
“Nice to meet you, Mr. Gun,” Minerva said, nodding solemnly toward the device.
“Do not mock the Snap Gun.”
“I wasn’t! I was only being polite. Now make it snappy!” Minerva flashed him a broad smile.
Lively grinned in amusement for a moment, then his expression became serious. He attached a thin steel rod to the end of the gun and inserted it into the lock’s key path. Next, he took a metal tension wrench from the pouch and also stuffed it into the lock, twisting as he did. After several quick snaps of the gun’s trigger, with a metallic clunk, the heavy brass lock suddenly dropped open and Lively said, “Et, voila!”
“Very impressive.” Minerva clapped her hands softly together. “With skills like that, you could get on full time with the Canadian Automobile Association.”
Lively twisted the lock and let it drop to the floor with a resounding thud. “I agree. And it’s so much faster than my old-fashioned manual lockpicks.”
“Your little friend has a very appropriate name.” Minerva observed with a smile.
“Because of the noise it makes?”
“No, because it makes breaking and entering a snap, silly.”
“I should have seen that coming,” Lively said as he began removing strand after strand of the yellow police web from the doorframe. Disturbing years of accumulated dust and cobwebs, he sneezed while he worked.
“Bless your little heart!” Minerva said.
“Thanks,” Lively said with a sniff. His voice straining from anticipation, he slowly reached for the door handle, saying, “What do we have behind door number one, Monty.” The handle turned freely, and the dual oak doors creaked open a small crack, revealing only blackness.
Standing next to Lively, Minerva said in a hushed voice, “Let the games begin.” She grasped the other knob and began pulling the left side door slowly open, with Lively following suit on the right.
He could hardly contain his excitement, his childhood fantasies finally coming true as the heavy doors squealed open in front of him. An immense, dark, and quiet room was revealed beyond. Being careful not to step across the threshold, he felt as if there were a yawning abyss before his feet. Lively pulled out his mini-LED flashlight and shone it around the inside of the darkened room.
“Good idea,” Minerva said. Reaching into her small, royal purple backpack purse, she pulled out her own torch and clicked it on. The shaft of light sliced through the blackness to the other side of the vast room like a brilliant lighthouse beacon on a dark and stormy night.
“Good lord! What are you packing in that thing, a light sabre?”
“Yes, young padawan,” Minerva said, looking over at her brother with a slight smile. She then gave a very good impression of a particular, green-skinned alien, adding, “Use the light side, I do!”
Lively and Minerva shone their lights into the room, neither daring to step through the open doorway for a moment. They looked into the darkness in silence, giving the room a moment of peace, allowing it to slowly waken, and be reintroduced to the world after its four-decade nap.
Their beams picked out dozens of chairs set around tables,
with cutlery and glasses still spread across their surface. A long banner on the other side of the room had come loose and drooped down at the far end, now only reading ‘HAPPY NEW’. Light from the outside world was kept at bay by heavy, red velvet draperies pulled tightly closed.
“Can you feel that, Lively?” Minerva asked quietly, the usual musical hint of mirth no longer present in her voice. The temperature in the Grand Ballroom of the Sinclair Hotel Resort was frigid, and she could see her breath spiralling up into the darkness that lay outside of her flashlight’s beam.
“Yeah, Sis, I can.” Lively felt his own voice grow to a whisper, vapour poured from his mouth as if exhaling a cigar. He shone his light along the wall to his right and spotted a row of light switches. Running the edge of his hand along the bottom of the switches, he went down the row, flipping them up into the on position four at a time, and the darkened room sprung to light. They stood in the doorway and marvelled, their mouths agape, silenced by the sight that lay before them.
The room seemed to stretch into the distance due to its size, but it had to be an optical illusion, Then he recalled what Minerva had told him of her lobby adventure and wondered if perhaps there was a slight LIMEE at play in this room as well. Overhead, hammered copper ceiling tiles glowed warmly in the reflected light of dozens of dusty crystal chandeliers that hung row upon row from one end of the room to the other.
“My God,” Minerva said. “This is nuts. It looks bigger than the Empress Ballroom in Blackpool!”
“I know. And that ballroom is over twenty-thousand square feet. But this has to be almost thirty-thousand.”
“You’re the one that said you wanted to go big or go home, remember?” Minerva asked.
“This is true. Well, let’s see what we shall see.” Putting his flashlight back into his jacket pocket, Lively rubbed his hands together with glee, looking for all the world like a little kid at Christmas. He slowly walked into the room, an expression of awe on his face. Just being here after so many years of wondering was, for him at least, a very powerful thing. He removed a Canon Digital SLR from his courier bag and draped the attached strap over his head, then began walking about the large room snapping picture after picture in a series of short burst shots. Seemingly satisfied, he let the Canon hang from its strap and proceeded to pull an ancient Polaroid Instant Land Camera from his bag’s depths.
“Where on earth did you get that?” Minerva asked, looking at the Polaroid.
“Off the internet, just like everything else these days.” Turns out you can buy them refurbished, and they even have third parties making film packs for them again.” He lined up Minerva in the viewfinder and snapped a shot of her. The camera flash went off, and with a mechanical whirring noise, it spit out its print, and Lively handed it to her. With another flash and a whir, he took another picture of her and moved toward the bar.
Blinking from the flash, Minerva asked, “Why do you use a digital as well as an analogue camera?”
“Well, you never know what you’ll pick up on film, I like to cover both bases, analogue and digital. Over the years, I’ve seen examples of both formats displaying paranormal phenomena.”
“Fair enough,” Minerva said, looking at the still-developing print for a moment. Inside the white-framed border, her face began to resolve out of the grey nothingness currently there. Her body developed next, followed by the background. She began to place the print in her pocket when she did a sudden double-take and said, “Oh, my.”
“Minerva, what is it?” Lively asked, concerned, moving back toward his sister.
“You were right.”
“About what?”
“Your film. I think it worked.” She handed the print to Lively as he arrived.
Dotted about the room in the picture’s background, dozens of orbs of light floated in the air, faintly, but clearly visible, as if someone had inflated transparent balloons and placed them behind Minerva. “Wow! I mean, holy crap!”
“What?”
“It looks like they’re all still here! Those faint light orbs all around you. I think it’s them.”
“The missing people? Are you sure it isn’t an issue with the lens?”
“Well, there is a photographic term called ‘backscatter’ which explains the light orbs away as being things such as dust, insects, pollen, etcetera. But there are many people out there who say otherwise and believe that they are the souls of departed individuals.”
“So, you think they’re all dead?”
“I’m not saying that. I don’t know. And that’s why we’re here. But at least this is something to start on. We’re going to need to do a reading here this evening.” Lively handed the print back to his sister.
“I agree.” Minerva placed the print in her pocket and pulled a microcassette audio recorder from her small backpack. “Look at this, it’s even analogue old school, just like you.”
“Nice! There is no school like the old school. So, are you going to make some notes about this?”
“No, I’m going to try recording some EVP. You know, Electronic Voice Phenomena? Like you said, you never know what you’re going to pick up.”
“That’s a great idea!” Lively pulled out an elongated piece of grey plastic from his courier bag. It had an analogue needle readout on the front and a row of coloured lights running from green to red along the top, currently unilluminated. “I brought my EMF reader with me as well. You never know when an unexpected field of electromagnetic radiation might pop out of nowhere and need to be measured.”
Minerva nodded, saying, “Fabulous! And if we want, later, we can go around checking all the old Amana microwaves in the suites for leaks.”
Lively smiled slightly. That girl seemed to have a comeback for everything he said, and he loved her for it. He began snapping more shots about the room with his cameras. Every time he took a Polaroid, he would shake the picture back and forth for several seconds, holding it with the tips of his fingers, then place it in his jacket pocket to finish developing. With that done, he would alternate to the digital SLR hanging around his neck and take a few more shots with that. His EMF reader came next. After a quick scan, he would switch back to the Land camera, then rinse and repeat.
Leaving Lively to his photographic endeavours, Minerva explored the room, holding her recorder out in front of herself. Every once in a while, she would stop and ask one of several questions. “Are there any spirits here that wish to communicate? We mean you no harm and only want to help. Speak to us, spirits.” She would then stop the recorder and play it back, checking if she’d received any response to her queries.
The bandstand was in the far corner of the room. A grand piano sat nearby with its bench pulled out just a little bit. It was perfectly positioned, looking as if someone were still sitting there, playing silently and invisibly, decade after decade, inside this darkened room. Minerva approached it, making her recordings as she went. She stood at one end of the piano and tinkled the keys slightly, noting the discordant sound they made. After so many years of sitting, it was now badly out of tune.
Minerva asked another question, “Will you play me some memories?” After ten seconds or so, she stopped recording, rewound the tape and played it back. Her melodic voice repeated her recent question, followed by a faint hiss of dead air. She was getting ready to press stop when an almost imperceptible but audible tinkle of piano keys came from the recorder’s small speaker. It was as if someone had been sitting there all along, then, at the last moment, playfully plinked away at the topmost keys for her just a few times to tease her.
“My God, I think it worked!”
“What worked?”
“I picked up a faint sound of music on here.”
“Are you using an old tape? Maybe that was already on there?”
“No, it’s brand new.”
“Make sure you keep that safe, then.”
“Already on top of things, thanks.” Moving toward the centre of the room, Minerva clicked a button on her reco
rder, marking the spot on her tape to ensure she didn’t record over it by mistake in the future.
Near the room’s middle, the hardwood floor was bare of tables and chairs, and Minerva found herself in the dance area. Something in the very middle of all this emptiness caught her attention; various shades of red, green, and gold all coiled together in a heap on the dusty hardwood floor. As she got closer to the mound, she sighed, relieved. Hundreds of balloons lay deflated and wrinkled amongst the streamers and confetti, like shed skin from dozens and dozens of colourful snakes. “Thank goodness. If it had been snakes, I’d have been out of here.”
“What was that?” Lively called out from the other side of the room.
“Balloons and streamers. The floor here in the middle of the room is covered with them.” She looked to the ceiling and saw some fine netting that must have contained them at one time.