Roland took a slow, deep inhale and balled his fists before stepping in next to Jake who was gesturing straight up the concrete shaft. Eight feet off the ground, placed on the wall in what appeared to be simple black paint, was a cross-section of five, perfectly circular spots.
“Fantastic!” Roland stepped out of the narrow space.
“Is it?” Jake looked straight up once more, “It doesn’t look like much to me. I’ve seen better graffiti in a public bathroom”
“It’s a Quincunx. A five-spot symbol used in Hoodoo for many purposes but, I would bet money in this building, it was used to bind the spell that is blocking my abilities.”
“So, what do we do about it?”
“If I boost you up, will you scratch one of the circles off the wall? That should break the spell.” Roland offered up a pocket knife.
“Why do I have to do it?”
“You’re smaller and lighter than me so you’ll be easier to lift.”
“I will do it because you tried and not because that was a sincere statement.” Jake accepted the knife and chuckled as he was, at most, two inches shorter and ten pounds lighter than Roland.
“Thank you.”
Cupping his hands together, Roland lowered his body to boost Jake up. Once the blonde had braced himself against the wall, he flipped open the blade and looked down to his companion.
“Does it matter which one?”
“No. Just cut a line or two through four of them and remove whichever one you can reach the easiest completely.”
“I’m on it.”
Jake deftly went about his task as Roland tried to watch without getting paint chips in his eyes. After a minute passed, his biceps were starting to burn from over-exertion. Taking a deep breath, Roland reminded himself that he had the easier part of this job.
“Alright, I’m coming down.” Jake carefully dropped the blade to the floor and braced himself against the wall before sliding off of Roland’s hands, “Shouldn’t we be able to feel if something changed?”
“We? Not necessarily.” Roland shook some of the tension out of his arms, “I can tell something has shifted, but this kind of thing isn’t normally as dramatic as movies make it out to be.”
“Bummer.” Jake handed the blade back to its owner, “Are we going to do anything else tonight?”
“I think this is a good stopping point. Do you want to get the hell out of here and call it a night?”
“Sure.”
Roland led the way back into the narrow hallway that would take the duo back to the abandoned break-room. The trip in this direction was somehow much less ominous to him than the previous one had been, even though further opening his abilities could potentially put him in more danger than he had been in before.
“So, if I’m correct,” Jake ducked to avoid a spider web that hung across the entrance to the break-room, “we bumped into two different spirits tonight?”
“Yes.” Roland let Jake into the storage room before making sure the door to the not-so hidden room locked behind him, “I intend to spend this evening looking at news reports on the internet to see if I can figure out how many people have died in this building.”
“That sounds enthralling.” Jake glanced down to his watch, “I was considering ordering in. Do you want to wind down with some Thai food and totally-not-stolen Patron before you start your research?”
“You seriously want to spend more time with me after all that?”
“We just pissed off a seriously cranky ghost. I’m being completely selfish in choosing to not be alone until I am certain it didn’t follow us.” Jake paused outside of the elevator as Roland kept walking, “Where are you going?”
“Do you want to risk an elevator after,” Roland air quoted, “pissing off a seriously cranky ghost?”
“You are really making me question the balance between my laziness and self preservation.”
“If you take the stairs with me, I’ll pay for the food.”
“Fine.” Jake rolled his eyes, “We need to stop by my room for the booze and the number to the restaurant though.”
“Okay.”
Twenty minutes later, Roland was unlocking the door to his room wile Jake followed behind with a bag that contained six boxes of assorted Thai dishes and the bottle of Patron. Pushing in, Roland flicked on the lights and sighed as he noticed that his room had been ransacked.
“Every time!” He tossed his keys onto the bedside table before turning back to Jake, “Just get the food ready while I tidy up a bit, okay?”
“Would you mind explaining what’s going on?” Jake tossed Roland a t-shirt that was on the table.
“I didn’t make this mess.” Roland stated while haphazardly shoving his clothing back into the dresser, “This was most likely the work of whoever we pissed off tonight.”
“Ah.” Jake was pulling the boxes apart to flatten them into plates in an attempt to make a faux buffet, “It could be worse.”
“It could.” Roland noticed the book he had rented from the library earlier that day. Quickly shoving it under his duvet, he turned back to Jake who was busy unwrapping the chopsticks, “Will you pour me a shot to get the night started?”
“Definitely.” Jake quickly unwrapped the two paper cups that came with the room and poured some tequila in each. Handing one to Roland, he lifted the other and smiled, “Cheers!”
“Cheers.” Roland knocked back his shot before moving to sit down, “You sure set up a nice spread.”
Jake chuckled, “It’s not hard to impress you, is it?”
“You didn’t freak out and kill me for dragging you into harm’s way. I find you to be an incredibly impressive human.” Roland sank into his seat, “And no, it’s really not that hard to impress me when food is involved.”
“Ah, but, you see, if I killed you, you would apparently just turn into yet another spirit trapped in this hotel and I feel like you would haunt me for revenge.”
“Probably.” Roland took a bite of food and chewed thoughtfully for a few moments, “Did you actually believed in all of this before tonight?”
“Yes.” Jake slurped a noodle before continuing, “I never had any real proof, but a few odd enough things have happened to me over the course of my life to keep me from being too skeptical.”
“Like what?” Roland looked up excitedly, “I mean, if that isn’t too personal.”
“When I was six, I apparently kept playing with my dog Snuffy for a full year after he died.”
Roland chuckled, “How scared were your parents that you were crazy?”
“Quite!” Jake chuckled, “Though just because ghosts are real, don’t assume I am sane.”
“Noted.” Roland was starting to feel incredibly comfortable around the blonde, “Anything else?”
“Yeah,” Jake casually flicked a mushroom over to Roland’s side of the dish, “a few, but I feel like telling you what happened to me in this building would be the most beneficial to your cause.”
“Go on.” Roland refilled both of the cups with tequila as he leaned back to listen to Jake’s story.
“It was shortly after I moved into this place. I was having a shit night for writing so I decided to wander down to the billiards room for some new scenery and a drink or six.” Jake paused to take another bite, “It was empty which is pretty normal on a week night in this place, so I opened my own tab and started shooting pool against myself. I can’t have been in there for more than ten minutes when I thought I heard the door open, but no one was there.
I wasn’t too bothered by it as I’m well aware that old buildings make a lot of unusual noises, but it did make me notice that my drink was empty. Moving back to the bar, I reached over and grabbed the bottle and, when I looked up, I saw a man standing just behind me via the mirror.
Now, this startled the hell out of me so badly that I dropped my glass and turned around to confront him for sneaking up behind me but, lo and behold, no one was there.” Jake took the shot Roland had poured for him, “W
hat was behind me, however, was the billiards table I had left mid play; now sitting cleaned and set up for the next player to use.”
“A ghost racked your balls up mid game in the time it took you to pour a drink?”
“Yep.” Jake nodded, “Not only that but when I turned back to the bar to deal with my broken glass, all the shards were gone and the bottle I had been using was back up on the shelf.”
“Jeeeez.” Roland was amazed by how powerful some of the spirits in this hotel apparently were, “What did you do then?”
“I obviously ran the hell away.” Jake stated simply, “Now I only go in there in short bursts as you’ve witnessed with your own two eyes.”
“That does explain a lot of questions I had about that awkward interaction.” Roland set his chopsticks down and moved to get a soda from his mini-fridge, “Do you want one?”
“Sure.” Jake accepted the drink as Roland sat back down.
“You don’t remember what the spirit looked like, do you?”
“I didn’t get a good look, but I do remember assuming in the moment that it was a grown man.”
Roland nodded and grabbed the notepad from his pocket, “I should definitely take some notes if we’re going to keep drinking.”
“Now, now.” Jake waggled his finger at Roland, “Don’t you need to stay up tonight and do some research?”
“Meh.” Roland waved a hand, “I do most of my research during the day. Spirits seem to be more active at night so that time is set aside for investigating which we have done more than plenty of tonight.”
“If that’s true, when do you sleep?”
“Usually between five a.m. and two p.m., give or take.”
Jake chuckled, “Sounds like an author’s schedule.”
“I’ve always found night owls to be better company anyhow.” Roland took yet another shot and chased it with some soda, “You’re seriously not upset that I dragged you into all this?”
“Roland,” Jake took a hit straight out of the Patron bottle, “if this turns out well, you might very well be my next book. Tis I that is using you.”
“Oh.” Roland scratched at his stubble and mulled the idea over as the tequila had managed to significantly slow down his ability to think, “At least dedicate it to me, okay?”
“Sure.” Jake poured one more shot into each cup before lifting his up to toast Roland’s, “To both of us hopefully being in the midst of a successful career move right now!”
“Here, here!”
3
Roland was scrolling through a multitude of articles in a stupor as nothing of particular interest had cropped up in his investigation on the deaths that had happened in the Moorsfield Hotel. He had found a few names here and there but the manner and cause of the deaths had been left just vague enough to make them useless as evidence.
Just as he was considering leaving the hotel to find some lunch, Roland heard a knock at his door. Glancing to his watch as he moved to look through the peephole, he noted that it was just past five in the evening. Peeking out, he saw a familiar set of blonde tipped dreadlocks. Swinging the door open, Roland’s brow furrowed as he noticed Devon’s expression was one of concern.
“What did you do?!” Devon’s voice was accusatory, yet somehow still friendly.
“What do you mean? What happened?” Roland moved and waved Devon into his room.
“Since midnight last night, we’ve had three rooms check out unexpectedly; demanding refunds for being harassed by some sort of ‘evil force’.”
“Oops.” Roland rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly, “Yeah, well, we sort of stumbled upon a binding sigil that was blocking out a great deal of my natural abilities and broke it. It may very well have un-dampened some paranormal powers too.”
“We?”
“Oh, I couldn’t find you and didn’t want to get stuck in a hidden room alone so I persuaded Jake to come with me.”
“Ah.” Devon’s expression flashed to one of uncertainty before snapping back to his normal, chipper demeanor, “I must have been on a job. I’m sorry.”
“It’s fine.” Roland readjusted his messy-bun, “Did any of them tell their stories before leaving?”
“Nah, they were all pretty panicked, but, if you have some spare time, there are some interesting CCTV clips.”
“Oh, hell yeah!” Roland grabbed his keys and gestured to the door as he was excited to finally have some real proof in this case, “Lead the way!”
Once down in the little office behind the main desk, Devon gestured to one of the two swivel-chairs, “Get comfortable. I’m not fantastic at working this equipment so it might take awhile.”
“That’s fine.”
Roland sat down and let his gaze wander around the cold, cramped room. Before him sat a wall that had six small TV screens built into it. Each screen was glowing in shades of green, giving the room an eerie tint as they changed every thirty or so seconds between different cameras on each floor. Turning back, Roland saw that Devon was holding a notepad and laptop.
“Alright, I think I’ll start small and save the really great one for the end.”
“That sounds good to me.” Roland leaned back in his chair and got comfortable.
“Alright first…” Devon awkwardly typed a command into the program as he sat in the chair next to Roland, “It’s not a huge deal, but we did catch some definitive activity on the second floor.”
Roland waited patiently as the screen simply showed an abandoned hallway. The time-stamp in the corner stated that it was four-thirty-two a.m. and was absolutely the only proof Roland had that he wasn’t simply looking at a photograph. Long second ticked by; leaving Roland unsure if Devon had opened the clip correctly. He was just about to say something when a flickering light bulb caught his eye.
Leaning forward, Roland couldn’t help but smile in excitement as a maid’s cart slowly but surely rolled itself down the hallway. Each time it passed under a light, said light would flicker out of life for a few second before coming back on as if nothing had happened.
“So there IS a deceased maid here!”
Devon looked startled, “Yeah, though, that definitely wasn’t the reaction I expected.”
“Sorry, that footage is incredible and, if it’s alright with you, I’d like to rip a copy to my personal computer later.” Roland was having trouble forming coherent sentences around his excitement, “Last night I momentarily saw the spirit of what I thought was a maid in a mirror but I couldn’t make audible communication so I wasn’t certain I had seen her correctly.”
“Oh.” Devon nodded understandingly as he pulled up the next video file, “Her name was Lucille Porter and she had a heart attack on the job just over a decade ago.”
Roland typed a note into his phone, “Does she ever interact with the living?”
“Not really.” Devon paused the next video, “She just quietly goes about her work. I think the most interaction I’ve ever heard relating to her specifically is that some guests have reported coming back to their rooms to find their clothing taken out of the suitcases, folded neatly, and put in the dressers.”
“That is very kind of her, but it’s also a really depressing way to spend the afterlife.” Roland gestured to the laptop, “Roll on.”
Devon pressed play without speaking and leaned back as a light smirk played across is face. Roland was now looking at a video of the severely outdated vending machine that was hidden half way down the hallway on the first floor. The time stamp in the corner stated that it was just past two in the morning. Leaning in, Roland noticed that the buttons were pressing themselves in one by one as if someone was trying to retrieve their treat.
After nearly a minute of button pressing, Roland jumped back as the machine began to violently shake back and forth. The force of the movement was enough that the little light inside the machine was blinking in and out of life as the metal flap over the retrieval slot swung violently open and closed. Slowly, some of the food items started to detach and fall
into the slot below.
“Does it ever get what it wants?” Roland spared a glance to Devon.
“No.” The man pointed back to the screen where an older man in an outfit similar to Devon’s rounded the corner just in time for the machine to stop, “Poor Sal didn’t know what to think about the whole ordeal.”
Nodding as he typed a few new notes into his phone, Roland was absolutely elated at the incredible footage Devon had snagged for him. Making a mental note to go check out the machine around two the next morning, Roland made eye contact with his companion once more.
“That one seriously wasn’t the ‘good one’.” Roland air quoted.
“Nope!” Devon was beaming, “You’re going to have a conniption!”
“Bring it on!”
Roland leaned forward and rested his elbows against his knees. This time, instead of one screen, Devon had opened all six screens in a pattern that matched the overhead wall.
“Okay, these are all six of the above-ground floors. The top left screen is one and they go in order until six on the bottom right. Pay attention to camera one first...”
Roland looked to the time stamp and noted that it was ten-fifty-two. Tensing up, the medium noted that he and Jake would have still been in the smoking room when this video was recorded.
Before he could think too far on the subject, Roland’s eyes were drawn back into focus as a massive black shadow appeared to shoot directly through the floor and then up into the ceiling. Catching on to what was about to happen, Roland’s eyes panned to the second floor camera where the black mass continued its flight upward. In mere seconds, the spirit had hit the sixth floor where, Roland was horrified to realize, it fazed through the door to the room he was currently residing in instead of moving up and out like it had done on every previous floor.
No longer smiling, Roland leaned back in his chair as he tried to get his pulse under control, “At least the cameras caught the bastard that tore up my room last night.”
“Did it really?!” Devon looked slightly concerned.
“It just threw my stuff around. It was a tantrum at best.”
The Moorsfield Hotel Page 3
