“If they did, it would be in the back.” Jake was already squeezing through a small footpath that led down the center of the room, “I recognize this crap up here and it’s definitely been broken in the last year.”
Roland took a deep breath before following his companion, “Do you really think we’re going to find stuff that is a century old back there?”
“There is only one way to know for sure,” Jake ducked under a twisted floor lamp that had been stuck in between two stacks of broken bed frames, “and stop worrying, if one of us does die, it’ll make this investigation much simpler as whoever could just ghost to the back.”
“You have an incredibly casual outlook on death.” Roland stated as he nearly tripped over a moldy shower curtain, “Should I be worried about you?”
Jake looked back over his shoulder, “You are the only person that has ever proven to me that there is something beyond the physical death of the body and you’re concerned about my well-being as an inhabited corpse?”
Roland chuckled, “Inhabited corpse, I like that.” He bumped his shoulder into Jake’s as the man paused to nudge an open dresser drawer shut so he could shuffle by, “To answer your question, though, yes I am. There are a lot of things you can do in life that you can’t as a spirit.”
“Like what?”
Clicking on his flashlight and handing it forward to Jake, Roland continued, “When you’re dead, you can’t taste or feel any physical sensation. This means you can’t feel warm or comfortable or… um… anything sexy.” Roland coughed, “You will be able to see, hear, and smell, but those senses will only act as a tease for some goal you will never be able to achieve. Most spirits I talk to that know they are dead are hanging around longing for something they wished they had done while they still inhabited their future corpse. You also wouldn’t be able to speak to most humans.”
“Well, the eating thing would be a problem, but I’m not really getting any right now anyhow.”
“Sex or conversations?”
“Now that you and I are talking, sex, but before you came along, it was both.” Jake paused and moved his flashlight beam around the room, “Ah-hah!”
“What is it?!”
“There is a busted up desk back here.” Jake was trying to wiggle through a space that got even tighter as they neared the back wall, “It’s all smashed up and looks like someone maybe tried to set it on fire or something. It’s kind of scorched up and rough.”
“Why does this excite you?!” Roland was baffled as they had already passed at least three desks already.
“One of the drawers is opened a little bit and I can see one of those big ugly yellow envelopes sticking out.”
“Oh, shit!” Roland was trying to see around Jake and failing miserably, “Do you think you can fit back there?”
“I’m going to try, but I need you to stay here and hold the flashlight so that I can see where I’m going while still having both of my hands free.”
Doing as he was told, Roland was surprised at how much his stomach was churning in this moment. Taking a deep breath, he tried to convince himself that it was only because he was incredibly claustrophobic and this room was not conducive to his comfort level but, as he watched Jake nearly trip over a broken table leg, he realized that his anxiety was immeasurably worse when he thought about the possibility that the wall of broken furniture could turn into a death trap at any given moment, should it decide to bend to gravity’s will and end his companion’s life.
“Be careful, ok?” Roland was trying to will Jake through safely with his mind, “Nothing in this basement is worth you dying in an avalanche of dusty, broken, knockoff furniture.”
Chuckling, Jake looked over his shoulder, “You’re sweet, but I’m already here.”
“Yeah? Can you tell what any of it is?”
“Kind of.” Jake was trying to carefully pull something large out of the bottom drawer, “There are a buttload of these rubber-banded together in this drawer. They’ve been wedged in forcefully and I… don’t have a good… angle.”
Roland heard Jake make a few frustrated noises as he yanked at the bundle. After what felt like eons of the blonde struggling, Roland watched, as if in slow motion, as the envelopes released suddenly, causing Jake’s elbow to shoot straight back and hit the side of a pile of stacked chairs. One by one each of the chairs started to shift and wobble as the integrity of the stack was compromised.
Reaching forward as pure adrenaline took over his system; Roland wrapped his hand around Jake’s thin wrist and forcefully yanked him backward. As the chairs started to crash to the floor, more objects began to slide around as a domino effect turned the room into a hellish nightmare of cascading projectiles.
No longer paying attention to what he was bumping into, Roland focused on the light of the door ahead that looked to be the size of a postage stamp form his perspective down the rapidly shrinking alley he was in. Running forward, Roland used his left shoulder to plow past the smaller objects that were falling off the top of the pile, while his right hand remained virtually welded around Jake’s wrist.
Breathing heavily, Roland’s shirt snagged on something that nearly sent him flying to the ground, the motion only stopped as Jake paused to counterbalance the fall. The blonde was swearing up a storm behind Roland as the volume of the collapsing heap became deafeningly loud.
The last thought Roland had before finally ducking through the doorframe that led to his safety was that he knew he was going to be in serious trouble for this racket if he and Jake didn’t get out of the basement quickly enough.
As his body slammed into the wall on the other side of the hallway, Roland immediately turned to see how Jake had fared. The blonde’s face was streaked with dust and trails of sweat, but he otherwise looked physically unharmed. Looking down, Roland found himself proud as he saw that, through the utter hell the duo had just gone through, Jake had managed to cling tight to the bundle that had nearly cost the two their lives.
Reaching out silently as he was still trying desperately to catch his breath, Roland opened one of the many folders and glanced inside. Looking back up to Jake, a wide grin split across his face.
“Jackpot!”
4
Roland was hanging the ‘do not disturb’ tag on his door and locking up as Jake dramatically collapsed to the floor. The duo had run up the stairs at an alarming speed as they didn’t want to get pegged with the punishment for the immense noise disturbance they had created when the room full of junk had collapsed in on itself. Moving to sit on the end of his bed, Roland looked down to Jake who appeared to be about three quarters of the way into a coma.
“Are you okay?”
Jake nodded.
“Are you glad they don’t have CCTV in the basement?”
Jake wheezed out a noise that sounded vaguely like ‘yes’.
“Do you want to get some sleep before you find out what you almost died for?” Roland’s tone had a teasing quality to it now.
Finally sitting up, Jake leaned his back against the foot of Roland’s bed, “How are you not having trouble breathing?”
“I always take the stairs.” Roland shrugged, “I’m in pretty good shape.” He lifted up the bottom of his shirt to expose the lower half of his rock solid abs.
“Jeeeeeeez!” Jake shook his head before burying his face in his hands, “Warn a guy before you just whip something like that out.”
Roland chuckled as he started sliding the rubber band off of the pack of envelopes, “My bad.”
“You don’t sound like you regret that at all but, whatever.” Jake gestured to the envelopes, “What’s in them?”
Roland was rifling through the stack, “Each one of them is labeled from one to sixty-three and then there is one in the back with no number.” Roland pulled out envelope number one and then the unmarked one, “Choose wisely, my apprentice.”
Jake plucked the blank envelope out of Roland’s hand and started bending the wire that held it shut. Doing the
same, Roland focused on the single page that was housed within the folder. The page in his hands had clearly been written out on a typewriter and looked strangely official for something that had simply been hoarded in the basement of a rundown hotel. Reading it over quickly, Roland’s eyes widened as he absorbed the story of the first recorded death in the Moorsfield Hotel.
“It is a deeply detailed death report.” Roland spoke aloud as he carefully slid the document back into the folder, “But it…” Roland made a face as Jake didn’t look up right away, “It was a murder.”
“Yeah,” Jake’s face had paled excessively, “they were doing a ritual.”
Instantly regretting bringing an innocent into this case, Roland grabbed the hand written pages from Jake. Running his eyes over them as quickly as possible, Roland scanned each step of the ritual and felt a knot form in his stomach as he read through the final steps.
“Jake, I don’t want to ruin your day, but you might want to consider moving out. Immediately.”
“I read the instructions and the person never managed to complete it.” Jake scooted up to sit next to Roland, “Don’t you think someone would have noticed if there was a demon running loose in this place?”
“Not necessarily.” Roland ran a shaking hand over his hair, “The first murder was to summon the demon to this building.” Roland held up the folder labeled ‘one’, “They murdered a hooker and used her blood to get the abomination’s attention.”
Jake’s face scrunched up, “Don’t you have to use the blood of a virgin or whatever?”
“Demons don’t really give a shit.” Roland shook his head, “The only thing the person has to have, in this case, is a soul.”
“Ok.” Jake nodded and stood to pace as he could no longer handle sitting still while Roland fidgeted, “When did that take place?”
“Nineteen-fifty.” Roland was shocked at how well Jake was handling this.
“And you said the first murder summoned the demon here?”
“Yes.”
“Do the other sixty-two folders contain more detailed death reports?”
“Most likely, yes.”
“Why?” Jake had stopped pacing and was now leaning casually against Roland’s dresser.
“Whoever wrote these was trying to acquire a powerful demon without selling his or her own soul. To prove they were worthy of this demon’s time, they offered up sixty-six souls in return.”
“But they fell short?”
Roland was one step ahead of his companion and already opening the folder labeled sixty-three, “The most recent death was just last year.” Roland was nervously chewing on his thumbnail, “Did you ever hear about this?”
Roland held up a printed computer document that detailed the death of a forty-two year old man who had apparently been found drunk by the mastermind of this scheme and pushed down the stairs which lead to his death by way of a broken neck.
Shaking his head, Jake’s eyes looked sad as he sat down on the edge of the bed next to Roland again, “I was unaware of anything bad happening here. Hell, I’ve not even heard anyone mention having bad service.” He crossed his arms over his chest, “Well, I’ve had bad service, but I assumed that was because I’m a surly jackass and they didn’t want to deal with me.”
“Ah.” Roland patted Jake on the shoulder, “If it makes you feel any better, the service here is crap for me as well.” He stood up from the bed, “Now that this has gone from a haunting to a demonic case, I need to do a few things to better ward my room.” Roland was digging through a duffel bag he had stashed in the bottom drawer of the dresser, “You are more than welcome to stay for as long as you want.”
“If whoever started this is still killing people, don’t you think we should be trying to empty the hotel?”
“We don’t have that kind of power.” Roland shook his head and pulled a massive iron cross form the bag, “We would only draw negative attention to ourselves and, at most, paint metaphorical targets on our backs.” He stuck the cross to the only door into the room, “If you want, we can ward your room after mine.” Roland was now holding a bottle of rose oil and another of holy water.
“If it’s not too much trouble, can I stay here tonight?” Jake was suddenly refusing to make eye contact, “I loathe being a burden but my specialty is fantasy, not horror.”
Roland chuckled, “I don’t know, that scene where the group of army dudes is trying to kill your Minotaur is terrifying.” Roland was splashing the holy water in cross shapes over the doors, windows, and walls, “I can’t even imagine being cornered by a metal-clad mob of drunken assholes who wanted me dead because my head was different than theirs.”
A slight blush came up on Jake’s cheeks, “You seriously like my writing?”
“Mm-hmm.” Roland looked over his shoulder to the blonde, “I might be your biggest fan.”
“You might be my only fan.”
“Which, by default, makes me the biggest!” Roland turned back to Jake with a grin across his face, “Now pardon me while I bless the room, yeah?”
“Okay.”
Jake watched silently as Roland walked around the room reciting something in Latin that sounded almost melodic to his ears. As he finished each round of the chant, Roland would put a small cross of rose oil on a door frame, a window, or a mirror. Once finished rounding the room, Roland stood up on one of the chairs and repeated his actions on the ceiling and then once again on the carpet under the bed.
Standing upright again, Roland smiled warmly, “That might have been overkill, but it’s better to be safe than sorry.”
“Yeah…” Jake was distracted by the smell of the rose oil and a strange sense of peace that had hit him somewhere in the middle of Roland’s warding.
“Are you okay?” Roland leaned forward in an attempt to get Jake’s glazed eyes to focus on him, “You’re not going into shock are you?”
“No.” The blonde stated simply, “I just haven’t felt this good in as long as I can remember.”
An incredible wave of empathy washed over Roland as a realization struck him about his companion. Reaching up around his neck, Roland unhooked a silver necklace that was hanging under his shirt and pulled it out. Reaching forward, he clipped it around Jake’s neck and let the heavy charm shaped like a cross drop against his chest.
“I think you’ve been oppressed by the demon’s presence.” Roland held his hand up as he watched Jake’s eyes widen in fear, “It’s nothing like being possessed. It’s more like a veil of depression that clouds the general vicinity of the bastard. You should start feeling better the longer you stay around this room.”
“Doesn’t giving me this leave you up shit creek without a paddle?” Jake held up the necklace.
“Nope.”
Roland rolled the sleeves of his black pullover up to reveal the entirety of the incredibly intricate sleeve tattoos he had. Interwoven in a pattern that almost made Jake’s eyes cross were lines of script that, upon closer inspection, were definitely not in English. Mixed into the words were various symbols of faith and protection. Tilting his head to the side, Jake lifted Roland’s arms to see the part of the tattoos that went around the back.
“This is incredible! Did you really manage to cover all the protective symbols from every religion known to mankind?”
“Hopefully.” Roland replied casually, “Also, the words are a mix of spells and prayers that, hopefully, make me virtually untouchable.”
“Now when you say hopefully…” Jake looked suspicious.
“I’ve never personally gone head to head with one of the scaly bastards, but I did work with a series of professionals on the tattoo designs. I’m sort of a prototype.”
“It’s better than nothing, I suppose.” Jake circled back around to stand in front of Roland, “Either way they look really cool.”
Roland smirked and reached into his mini fridge, “Do you want something to drink?”
“Booze. Strong booze.”
Roland handed Jake the re
mains of the Patron they hadn’t finished consuming the night before and grabbed himself a soda. Cracking open the can, Roland took a drink before meeting Jake’s baffled stare.
“I can’t drink until this is solved.”
Jake’s eyes widened as his lips were already wrapped around the neck of the bottle, “You’re joking, right?”
“I’m afraid not.” Roland moved to sit in one of the two chairs by the window, “I shouldn’t have on duty at all but I slipped up.”
“Was it the demonic oppression?”
Tilting his head to the side, Roland shrugged, “It could have been. I was pretty bummed out about the whole case and that normally doesn’t happen to me, even when it’s going poorly.”
“Now that you know it’s happening, is there a way to fight the oppression?”
“Keep that iron cross on you at all times, avoid going anywhere inside the building alone, and tell me immediately if you, at any point, have a thought or feeling that doesn’t seem to belong to you.” Roland took another long drink, “Seriously though, I wasn’t joking when I recommended you moved out.”
“Oh, I fucking intend to.” Jake took another long hit from the bottle, “After we get through this.” He held up a hand to stop Roland before the arguing could even start, “Look, you read my book, right?”
“Yes.” Roland wasn’t sure what a misunderstood Minotaur had to do with this conversation
“Well, if you were to read all the rest of them, you would learn many small lessons, but there is only one overlying theme in all nineteen of them.” Jake sent Roland an even stare, “Friends don’t abandon friends just because a situation gets a little deadly. I do actually believe that to the very core so, you can argue all you want, but I’m staying here until this is settled.”
Unable to stop the slightest of grins from crossing his face, Roland leaned forward to his notably tipsy companion, “We’re friends now?”
The Moorsfield Hotel Page 5
