by Katie Berry
“I saw it written on the register in front of you, of course, Vincent,” Mr. Bowler Hat explained.
He looked down at the register. The man was not lying. He would have been able to see Vincent’s name from where he stood, scribbled in under the section that read ‘shift supervisor’. But the fact that this man could read it upside down and decipher Vincent’s left-handed chicken scrawl simultaneously said something for the man’s eyes. They were apparently as sharp as his nose. He wondered what else was sharp about this man. Glancing back up, he said, “Of course, sir. How can I help you?”
Bowler Hat replied, “As I said, I am here to do something for you,” and after a pause, he added, “and to give something to you.”
“And what would that be, sir?”
“Why, give you some business, of course!”
“The Sinclair is always open for business, sir.”
“Yes, indeed it is.” The man smiled crookedly. “However, I have a proposal for you, my young friend.”
Okay, here it comes. What’s this guy all about? The thin man looked vaguely familiar, but Vincent couldn’t quite place where he’d seen his face. He steeled himself and asked, “And what would that be, sir?”
“Well, I have a half dozen business associates meeting me here this evening. They’re from overseas, however, and don’t speak any English. They would have arrived earlier this afternoon.”
Vincent nodded and thought it strange that the man didn’t seem to notice or chose to ignore the fact that the group of men he was referring to appeared to be sitting across the lobby from him, still sipping their glasses of vodka, neat. And Mr. Bowler Hat couldn’t have failed to notice them sitting there if he’d entered the hotel from the outside. Strange, again.
Disrupting Vincent’s line of thought, the man continued, “I have reserved the royal suite for the night to use as a conference room while my associates and I tend to our business. However, I have no doubt we’ll all be feeling quite peckish just around midnight, and we would certainly appreciate a late-night bite delivered up to us at that time. Do you foresee any problem in accommodating this request, Vincent?”
DaCosta opened his mouth to tell the man that due to it being Christmas Eve, the kitchen closed early at 9:00 P.M. But then, Bowler Hat slid a hundred-dollar bill across the desk, and Vincent’s jaw snapped shut with a crack. Reaching his right hand across the counter, Vincent discretely palmed the money, and said, “Absolutely not, sir! There won’t be any problem at all with your requests!” He would have whatever this guy wanted for a snack left on ice for a few hours and then have it delivered at midnight. Problem solved.
“Fabulous!” The man clapped his hands together in apparent glee. “I will look forward to your service at midnight!” He produced a small off-white envelope from an inner pocket with a flourish and slid it across the desk toward DaCosta. On top of it, another hundred-dollar bill sat destined for Vincent’s pants pocket. The man said, “Here is a list of delicacies for our midnight repast, please see that the kitchen follows these directions to the letter.”
“Absolutely sir, no problem.” He turned the desk register around to face the man, saying, “I will need you to fill your name and address here in the book, please.”
“Of course!” Bowler hat took the ballpoint pen from the imitation inkwell on the desk and scribbled away for a moment in the register.
While this happened, Vincent turned to consult the reservation book that sat on the counter beneath the key rack. He wanted to verify that the man was indeed booked in like he said. The reservation must have come through sometime during the day today when he was off duty. He’d neglected to look at the reservation book since starting his shift, and he did so now, opening it and flipping to the current day. Sure enough, there was a name filled in the reservation book for the royal suite. He took the key from the top pigeonhole of the rack then turned back to the man. As he handed the key to Bowler hat, the man said, “Oh, one other thing, Vincent. Could you please ensure that you deliver our midnight buffet yourself?”
“Absolutely, sir!” DaCosta said with a broad smile. “I’ll be there at the stroke of twelve with your food.”
“Splendid! We’ll look forward to your joining us at midnight then!” He crossed the lobby toward the elevator and pressed the call button when he arrived. The car began to descend from the third floor, and Bowler Hat turned and clapped his hands together loudly several times as if trying to catch the attention of some errant dogs or small children.
At the sound of the handclapping, Vincent watched the vodka drinking businessmen rise as one and depart the lounge. They filed silently toward the elevator in a single line. When the door opened with a ping, still wholly ignoring the group of men, Bowler Hat stepped aside, let the group file inside, and then walked on board last. As the elevator doors slid shut, the man turned and faced outward, gazing toward the front desk. He looked directly into Vincent DaCosta’s eyes and gave another broad, toothy smile.
A chill slowly rolled its way up DaCosta’s spine, ending at his shoulder blades, which spasmed uncontrollably together for a moment. When he’d looked at the reservations book, he’d only verified there was a name and hadn’t double-checked what it was, until now. Stuffing the crumpled money into his pants pocket, Vincent turned the register back around to see what name the man had used, and his breath caught in his throat.
‘Max Schreck’ had been written in the book with a flourish like the man had been writing it for years. However, that couldn’t be the man’s real name, Vincent thought, shaking his head in confusion. And yet, for some reason, he felt sure the name the man had used was, in fact, correct. While he realised that another man could share this same name, there was a problem with that. Apart from Bowler Hat’s diamond stickpin and dated hat, the most striking thing about him had been his mouthful of distinctive, misshapen teeth.
Growing up, one of Vincent’s favourite movies, and one which still creeped him out to this very day, had been ‘Nosferatu’. In addition to a bald head and fingernails like Fu Manchu, the actor in that film had sported a gobful of dreadful dentistry, making it a focal point of the iconic makeup he wore in his portrayal of ancient Transylvanian evil.
Vincent would have sworn on a stack of bibles that the man here tonight and the actor Max Schreck were, in fact, one and the same. But that brought him back to his problem. First of all, Schreck, the actor, would be over one hundred years old now, and not in his fifties as Bowler Hat appeared to be. And then there was the other small problem: film actor Max Schreck had died of a heart attack in 1936.
DaCosta knew the Sinclair Hotel was creepy at the best of times. But now that people who had been dead for a quarter-century were checking into the place, it felt even more so. Christmas Eve had just gotten interesting for him, but not quite in the way he’d anticipated.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
January 02, 1982, 0755 hours
Harder scanned the lobby for any immediate sign of Corporal Jansen, but she was nowhere in sight. It felt cold in here now, and not just because one of the main doors still stood open at his back. Since all of the heating in this hotel was electric, and since the power was still on, it should have been a balmy seventy-two degrees in the lobby. He noted this new frigid atmosphere with concern; it seemed almost as extreme as what he’d encountered in the ballroom.
He moved to the middle of the lobby, his footfalls echoing off the polished marble floors and thick stone walls, sounding as if a small army of John Harders were following along behind him in pursuit. Trying the radio again, he said, “Corporal Jansen! Please respond!” but received only silence in response.
After waiting a beat, he strode toward the corridor leading to the ballrooms, then turned and called out in a thunderous baritone, “Corporal Jansen, report!”
John took in the lobby, listening intently as he did. His breath steamed around him in a cloud of vapour. Thanks to his sharp eyes, he had been a signalman in the Royal Canadian Navy during the war. A sudd
en flash of movement near the front desk caught his attention. For the briefest moment, he was sure he’d caught sight of someone standing at the top of the staircase, watching him from the shadows.
“Halt! RCMP!” Harder shouted. Unfortunately, this ‘person of interest’ chose to ignore John, turned, and fled down the basement stairs.
Now, John was angry, and he didn’t like getting angry. Whoever they were, they weren’t stopping, and he was going to have to give chase. Not a man easily stirred to movement, Harder was a sight to behold once he was in motion. His powerful legs pounded down the stairs two at a time. Halfway to the bottom of the staircase, it dog-legged to the left. John hit the small landing at full speed and rebounded off the wall slightly from the force of his momentum. He corrected course and then flew down the final flight of stairs to the double service door.
John burst into the corridor, trying to look both directions at the same time. There was no one in sight. To his left, just across the hallway, a door latch was snicking shut. John lunged toward the doorknob and cranked it open, pushing through a door labelled ‘Mechanical/Electrical/Pump Room’.
A maze of cables, pipes and wiring stood before him. This immediate area seemed to be the main mechanical room. No one was directly in view, but that was to be expected. The room branched off into several different directions, each seeming to serve one of the hotel’s critical needs. Cables, conduits, and pipes crisscrossed the ceiling of the room. A series of switches, gauges, knobs and dials projected from one wall.
John called out, his deep voice resonating off of the numerous hard surfaces in the room, “This is Inspector John Harder of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. You are trespassing in an open crime scene. Surrender yourself now!”
There was no response. John was forced to choose a direction, and he favoured his right, a long, damp corridor, sloping slightly downward lay before him. John did not draw his service revolver; instead, he extracted his heavy-duty flashlight from its holster on his belt. At the very least, he could use it on the suspect to disable him if he proved violent. John was not a fan of using any more force than necessary to subdue someone. And this someone, whoever they were, hadn’t shown any indication of having a weapon. So, unless the individual had a knife, John knew he had the advantage.
The further along that John moved, the damper it became until he could almost feel the heavy moisture in the air beading on his skin. A cloying musty smell filled the corridor. At its end, a door labelled ‘Pump Room’ stood open halfway. He entered cautiously, scanning the room as he moved, but saw no immediate threat. Several man-sized, heavy-duty pumps lined one wall, their feeder pipes and outflows intertwining like snakes. He followed the pipes and was led down another shorter corridor toward a secondary room, its door standing ajar. John approached slowly, ready for anything.
In the centre of the room was a wellhead. It was capped by an immensely heavy-looking, domed, steel cap. The feeder pipes ended in this room, snaking down into the floor next to the well cap. A steady drip of condensation from overhead pipes dribbled rhythmically onto the grey concrete beneath, giving the floor a glossy sheen. It was very cold in here, and though John’s breath wasn’t quite steaming at the moment, he felt it was on the verge. Any colder, and this room would be a skating rink. He was glad of the well cap. Without it, he could imagine slipping on unseen ice, sliding across the floor, and then plummeting into the gaping, black throat of the well. It had been covered to keep people from accidentally falling into the well while servicing the pipes in this room.
Something lay next to the wellhead, shining starkly in the white light of the overhead fluorescents. It looked familiar. John knelt next to the well cap to examine the item, his knees popping. It was a cap badge from the hat of an RCMP police officer. With two members already missing, it could belong to either one of them. Sometimes, members had their officer numbers engraved on the back of their badges. John flipped it over and saw he was in luck, there was a number.
His heart stopped beating in his chest for a moment, and he double-checked the number — he had to because what he saw in front of him was impossible. It couldn’t be there in his hand right now, but it was. A piece of cold, hard metal, with an officer number engraved into it which he would never forget. It was that of his late son, Danny. But how did it get here? His mind felt on overload and about to blow. This did not compute.
Thoroughly shaken, John placed the badge carefully in his pocket. The wound caused by his recent loss was still fresh in his heart. And seeing that cap badge here right now had felt like a knife had just been jammed into it again and twisted, hard.
A feeling of nausea threatened to overwhelm him, and he remained kneeling, and examined the steel cap over the wellhead instead.
Disappearances and accidents were almost the norm during the hotel’s construction, as John had come to understand it. And much of that had been blamed on drugs and alcohol. Since the development of the resort had begun immediately after the Second World War, many of the construction workers had been soldiers returning home, looking for peace in their lives, and a steady job.
Unfortunately, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder was an issue for many of them. They’d simply called it shell shock when John had been in the service, but no matter which way you sliced it, it was still horrible what war could do to a man and how its after-effects could destroy their lives.
A large number of these returning soldiers dealt with their condition through drugs and alcohol, and there were several instances of men injuring themselves on the job due to inebriation. If a worker was discovered under the influence, they were usually fired immediately, but the problem was still rampant at the site.
Johnny Dillon had been the man in charge of the pump’s final installation before it was turned on. He’d been left alone down in the well room at the end of the day, running through his final checklist, and testing all of the assorted nuts, bolts, and pipe fittings. And that was the last anyone had ever seen of him.
Many presumed Johnny was another broken man from the war who had drifted to another job in another town — just one more vet with a substance abuse problem that had flown the coop in the middle of the night and little had been thought of it.
The pump was turned on for the first time the next day without Johnny in attendance, or so they thought. Everything went swimmingly for the first little while, until the water pressure dropped.
Dillon’s water-logged body had been found stuck in the pump’s main intake pipe. After he’d been removed and everything cleaned up, the Sinclair had fresh, spring water flowing through its gleaming new pipes once more.
However, there was one small thing they neglected to mention — the water still contained a hint of Johnny Dillon, just a small piece that they couldn’t locate when they retrieved his body.
And that had been his head. It had never been found despite several volunteers being lowered into the two-hundred-foot deep well to search for it afterwards.
Harder stood, feeling his knees pop a second time in complaint. He turned and moved toward the exit.
At his back, the faintest of noises.
Tap-tap-tap.
He paused and turned back to the well cap. After a moment, the sound came again, a little louder this time.
Tap-tap-tap.
It was coming from beneath the steel well cap, like somebody was on the other side, knocking to be let in, or out.
The cap had to weigh several hundred pounds. It would be almost impossible for one person to lift it by themselves to gain entry. Plus, it looked as if it were never meant to be opened again. The dome-like lid had been welded shut all the way around its circumference, including the hinges. He leaned down to look closer. The welds on the steel were old, not recent.
Tap-tap-tap.
The sound grew fainter and fainter, like the person’s energy was running out. As if, after somehow climbing up all this way in the dark, grasping onto the slippery, slimy stones that lined the shaft and finally making it
all the way to the top, they’d found the lid closed and were now only able to weakly tap at the cold steel instead.
There was just the faintest of taps now. Whoever, or whatever was on the other side, seemed to have given up. Maybe it was just pressure in the pipes, after all, John reasoned. Putting his ear within a couple of inches of the lid, he strained to hear anything more.
From the other side of the cap came a pounding blow. Harder was lifted off the lid by several inches from the concussive force, and he was neither a light nor a small man. His heart felt like it did a somersault in his chest, which was a rare thing. He was not an easily frightened man either, perhaps due to his size and training, and he had rarely experienced any real fear, not since WW2. That was, until now.
He sat on the cold concrete floor, leaning back on his palms, and looking at the steel lid in shock. Perspiration dripped from his forehead as his mind tried to think of a logical explanation for this, but it didn’t come.
In a shaken voice, he asked, “Is anyone down there?” even though he knew for a fact that there couldn’t be. According to the staff he’d questioned previously, it was a closed system at the bottom and did not extend to any other areas of the hotel. Instead, it connected to an aquifer far beneath the ground, extending eventually to the river beyond. There was no possible way anybody could have come in from anywhere else. So, whatever had crawled out of the bowels of the earth from below, and was now tapping behind the domed steel lid, was nothing human.