by Tasha Black
In a way, it made Dru a little jealous, but it mostly just made her relieved. The last thing she wanted was any kind of romantic attention right now. Her last relationship hadn’t ended well, and part of the reason she had come to the old hotel was just to get away from all that nonsense and concentrate on her writing in a place without so many distractions.
And when it came to deflecting unwanted attention, being in a room with Hailey was like wearing some kind of Harry Potter invisibility cloak.
“Come on, let’s get it over with,” Hailey suggested.
They each took one end of one of the smaller trunks.
“Dear God,” Dru said as they heaved in unison.
It felt like trying to lift a trunk of wet cement.
“Man, I wish this place had an elevator,” Hailey sighed.
After a lot of grunting and few close calls, they managed to get the trunk up the big foyer staircase, and down the hall to the Sapphire Suite.
“Here,” Hailey said, in front of the door to the Onyx Room.
“I thought he was in Sapphire,” Dru said.
The rooms in the hotel were all named after gem stones.
Back in her grandmother’s time, there had allegedly been a jewel thief who hid his plunder in the hotel before disappearing.
And as if that wasn’t enough, it had all happened on the same night that a multiple homicide at the hotel shook the little mountain town below.
Hemlock House had become a bit of a sensation after that.
And whether the rumors about the jewels he left behind were true or not, it was definitely good publicity for a hotel trying to make everyone forget it was the site of more than one murder.
For a couple of years, the place had been hopping with treasure hunters. But no one had ever found anything.
At this point, the world had moved on. And it was the general consensus that there probably had never been any hidden jewels in the first place.
But the cute room names stuck.
Which was good, because before that, they had very unsurprisingly been named after trees.
“The two smaller trunks go in Onyx,” Hailey explained. “He booked both rooms.”
That tracked. With all this stuff, their mystery guest would need the extra space.
Hailey used the skeleton key to open the Onyx Room and they half-dragged the trunk inside.
Dru moved to throw open the curtains in the darkened room, but Hailey put a hand on her arm.
“No, he wants it like this,” she said. “Specifically requested that the curtains be drawn at all times.”
“Weird,” Dru said. Maybe her guess about photography had been correct after all. If he were developing film, he would want darkness.
They carried up the second trunk in silence, both of them panting lightly by the time they finished. Dru could feel the beads of sweat forming on her cheeks as she pushed her disobedient hair out of her face for the tenth time. Hailey didn’t have a hair out of place, and the exertion seemed to have no effect on her, except to give her already radiant skin an extra glow.
Of course.
The third, and largest trunk was so heavy Dru nearly dropped her end.
“Holy crap,” Hailey said.
“What’s in this, a body?” Dru laughed.
“Too heavy to be a body,” Hailey noted, rolling her eyes. “Why does this stuff have to come on my shift? Zander should be here. He’s always trying to show off those muscles, especially when you’re around.”
Hailey shot her a wink and Dru furrowed her brow. That wasn’t true, was it? Dru was notoriously bad about picking up on that kind of thing, but still, she would have noticed if Zander was into her.
Probably.
She decided that her friend was most likely just messing with her, and turned her attention back to the task at hand.
“In fairness, he’s going to have to get it all back down,” Dru pointed out.
Zander had the morning shift at the front desk, so all check-outs were on his time slot. Hardly anyone came or went on Dru’s overnight shift. It was a small benefit.
After a short rest, and a mutual assurance that they were both empowered goddesses who could never be thwarted by something so mundane as luggage, Dru and Hailey wrangled the massive trunk up the stairs and deposited it in the center of the Sapphire Suite’s huge bedroom.
The curtains were drawn here too, hiding the incredible view of the snowy mountains.
“This room is wasted on him,” Hailey declared, eyeing the curtains.
“Can’t argue with that logic,” Dru said. “But more importantly, I believe snacks were promised upon completion of our little task?”
Hailey laughed. “Come on, I’ll get your snacks.”
They headed back down the stairs, and Dru settled in behind the desk in the foyer while Hailey headed for the hallway, and the vending machine.
Dru glanced over at the massive grandfather clock before remembering the time didn’t really matter. Being up all night had its perks. One of which was that she could indulge in all the caffeine she wanted.
Hailey returned, arms laden with cans and crinkly bags.
“Nice,” Dru said, grabbing a Diet Dr. Pepper and a bag of salt & vinegar chips as Hailey dumped the rest of the feast on the desk. She knew all of Dru’s favorites. Just like Dru knew that Hailey would much prefer an iced soy peppermint mocha with a double shot of espresso, but that wasn’t exactly the kind of thing you could get from a vending machine at the top of a mountain.
Dru made a mental note to pick one up for her next time she went down into Willow Ridge for supplies.
“How was the beginning of your shift?” Dru asked, opening the soda and taking a sip.
“Boring,” Hailey said. “Except for Agate.”
“Who’s in Agate?” Dru asked.
“Gorgeous guy,” Hailey said, her eyes shining at the memory. “Tall, Asian, amazing hair, tight jeans. And his name, get this, is Tyler Park. Sounds like a movie star, right?”
“Nice,” Dru said. “Who was he with?”
“He was alone,” Hailey said, waggling her eyebrows. “Hey, if he calls down for anything tonight on your shift, let me get it?”
“Wow, he must be hot,” Dru laughed. “Until what time?”
“Until one,” Hailey decided. “A girl needs her beauty sleep.”
Dru smiled. Hailey did not need beauty sleep. Hailey would be downright dangerous if she were any more beautiful.
“Noted,” Dru said.
The front door flew open, letting in a draft of unwelcome cold air, followed by an even less welcome Howie Pembroke.
“Hey girls,” Howie said in his nasally voice, wiping the snow from his smooth dark hair and smiling a little too widely at Hailey.
“Good evening, Mr. Pembroke,” Dru and Hailey replied in unison, like they were addressing a substitute teacher. He always insisted that they call him Howie, which was precisely why they didn’t.
Howie Pembroke wasn’t much older than Dru, but he managed the hotel. It had been in his family for generations, since before the jewel-thief murders. His grandfather’s old army uniform, complete with medals and an antique revolver that looked older than just about anything in the hotel, hung in the sitting room beneath the giant, taxidermized moose head that was known affectionately as Mr. Moosehead.
People around here really were terrible at naming things once they ran out of trees.
“Are we prepared for our guests?” he asked, with the usual manufactured enthusiasm.
“Sure are,” Hailey replied brightly. “We just lugged all the trunks up to Sapphire and Onyx.”
“Nice work,” Howie said with another slick smile, as if he hadn’t been watching from out front and waiting for them to finish before coming in so he wouldn’t have to help.
Classic Howie.
“Well, I just wanted to check in,” he said. “I thought we talked about that black nail polish before, Hailey.”
Dru glanced down at Hailey�
�s nails. They were so dark and glossy that it defied logic. Souls could be lost in them.
“These are navy blue,” Hailey said, blinking innocently at him.
“Let’s go with clear or pink polish from here on in, shall we?” Howie suggested with a smug smile.
“Sure thing, Mr. Pembroke,” Hailey said so smoothly that Dru felt certain it was actually a murder threat.
“You’re still on, right?” Howie asked Hailey.
“Yes,” Hailey agreed.
“Okay, well there’s a dead rabbit,” Howie said. “On the north side of the hotel. Let’s get that cleaned up.”
Jesus. He obviously hadn’t forgotten Hailey turned him down when he asked her out all those months ago. It was before Dru had come onboard, but Hailey had told her all about it.
Hailey’s face went slack. Despite her embrace of the darker side of fashion, Dru knew that Hailey was pretty squeamish when it came to actual dead things. Dru once had to come all the way downstairs to remove a fly that had keeled over too close to the computer for Hailey to use it. She said she knew the dead fly was looking at her.
“I’ll get it,” Dru volunteered.
“Thank you, Dru,” Hailey said, sounding relieved.
“Anytime,” Dru said. “I’ll probably head back up for a bit after, so I’ll see you at shift change.”
Hailey gave her that look that clearly said, you’re not really leaving me down here with Howie, are you? And Dru returned the look with one of her own that said, that’s what you get for making me clean up dead stuff. Plus, I really need to get some work done on my book.
At least she hoped that’s what it said. It was a lot to fit into one look.
Dru grabbed a black trash bag from under the front desk, and her coat from the hooks by the main doors, and headed out with a final wave over her shoulder, but Howie was already busy explaining to Hailey how she would have to really bring her “A” game for the busy weekend ahead.
The door closed behind her, cutting off the sound, and Dru stopped for a moment to take a deep breath of the crisp air and let her eyes adjust to the relative dark. There were outside lights, that cast overlapping yellow circles around the building itself. But beyond that, the woods were just an inky black void. After a few years in the city, she’d almost forgotten what real darkness was.
Crunching through the inch of fresh snow in the shadow of the famous hemlock, Dru passed the abandoned wing of the hotel to the north side. She glanced up at the old turret with the arched windows and the horror writer in her half-expected to spot a shadowy figure staring back. As usual, she was disappointed to find only a single black crow, who took flight with a scolding squawk as she passed by.
There were tall tales that the thief’s ghost haunted that wing. But it didn’t take a detective to figure out that it was really shut down because of deferred maintenance. A few of the windows were boarded up, and the roof sloped at the center like a sway-backed pony. Paint curled off the shutters, as if it were trying to get away.
An ounce of maintenance saves a fortune in repairs. Dru’s step-dad had announced this motto cheerfully on so many otherwise pleasant Saturdays when Dru found herself helping him clean the gutters or paint the porch deck instead of chilling out like a normal teenager. Back then, she hadn’t appreciated the merits of being raised to be handy.
It was clear the Pembroke family could have used a couple of Saturdays with Stan Holloway.
She followed Howie’s footprints through the new snow, and thought again about how easy it was to ruin something beautiful just by leaving your mark on it.
It was early for this much snow, but at least they wouldn’t get pounded anytime soon. The blizzards in this part of Pennsylvania mainly came after the new year.
She sighed, and even that small sound seemed loud in the empty space.
Compared to her sublet in Philly, this place was silent, except for the birds and the sound of the wind in the trees. It wasn’t so far away, but sometimes it seemed like it was on a different planet. The air even tasted cleaner here.
She turned the corner, and sure enough there was the tiny body of a rabbit laid out in the snow.
Howie’s footsteps ended about where hers were now, so the poor animal was alone on a blanket of undisturbed white. The soft gray fur and long tender ears were sprayed with blood, which painted the snow around it in a Jackson Pollack-style splatter.
Dru wasn’t the squeamish type, but something about the bright contrast of garish scarlet against the alabaster snow made her feel momentarily dizzy.
She took a deep breath and walked over, using the trash bag to quickly grab the unfortunate creature before she could get too skeeved out, and then turning the trash bag inside out around it.
The rabbit was so light it almost didn’t seem possible. It must have been all fur and bones before meeting its untimely death.
She wondered vaguely how much a soul weighed as she carried the bag around to the back of the hotel. She had held the class rabbit in elementary school and was pretty sure it weighed more than this. Though she had been smaller then.
It was a mercy that it wasn’t heavy. But it was also odd that it wasn’t eaten. It wasn’t terribly unusual to find a few feathers or bones, indicating a small predator had been enjoying a meal. There were plenty of hawks in the area, as well as foxes, and even the occasional bear. But what kind of animal killed a rabbit and then just left it?
She headed around to the back of the building and used her skeleton key to open the hatch to the basement.
Hemlock House sat atop a warren of underground tunnels. The local history held that the place had been part of the Underground Railroad, and then used again by the mob during Prohibition.
Howie had told them that a lot of them had been sealed off before he was born, and no one even knew where all the tunnels were anymore.
Now, the ones they still used were mainly just for storage. It seemed a little anticlimactic, after such a storied history, but Dru supposed it was for the best that they weren’t really needed for anything important anymore.
She made it down the wooden steps and pulled the chain for the bare bulb that hung overhead. It flickered to life like it was angry that she disturbed it. Once she was sure it was going to stay on, she rounded the corner to the tunnel where they kept the trash. The bears and raccoons would get into anything that wasn’t nailed down, so the tunnels came in handy for that, at least.
Her boots rang out on the hard-packed floor, and the air tasted stale and faintly musty.
She hurried through her task, tossing the bag with what used to be a rabbit into a large bin, and then jogging back to the stairs leading outside.
There was a way to get back to the lobby from the tunnels, but it was narrow, and Dru had always been a little claustrophobic. The idea of getting lost in the catacombs was unbearable.
She turned off the light and stepped outside, where the wind had begun to blow in earnest. She closed and locked the door to the basement, then headed across the back of the hotel to the servants’ wing.
Lights were on in the solarium, making the glassy walls and roof look almost like a UFO with the yellow glow coming through a dusting of snow.
She walked across the sweeping brick patio and past the old Smoking Lounge for Gentlemen, now used as a Sitting Room for everyone.
At last, she reached the back door to the servants’ wing and unlocked it. She jogged up the stairs and down the hall to her room. Hopefully, she could get a few words in before it was time to report for duty.
As the door closed behind her, she remembered that she had left her soda back in the lobby.
She grabbed another out of her mini-fridge. The one downstairs would keep until her shift. She cracked it open and took a long sip, letting the bubbles and fake sugar dance on her tongue for a moment before she swallowed, then sat down to face off with the typewriter.
All right. I don’t like you, and you don’t like me…
As long as she could reme
mber, Dru had wanted to be a writer like Nana Jane. Or, maybe more accurately, like Edgar Allan Poe.
Now that college was over, and it was all in her grasp, she found herself struggling with writer’s block for the first time in her life.
This spooky hotel was supposed to fix all that. It was isolated and creepy, and she would be up all night every night. What better conditions could there be for writing the Great American Horror Novel?
Dru noticed some flecks on the blank page. She must have splashed some of her drink on it when she’d popped the top. That wouldn’t do. She opened the lower desk drawer to grab some fresh paper.
Just as she bent to reach it, something crashed against her window from outside and she jumped, knocking over the rest of her Diet Dr. Pepper, and slamming her shin into the open desk drawer in the process.
Carmel-colored bubbles spread across the desk.
She had just enough time to grab the typewriter and move it to the bed before the low-calorie mess covered the surface.
Cursing quietly, she grabbed a t-shirt and used it to mop up the dark pool. At least diet soda wasn’t sticky.
She strode to the bathroom and dumped the shirt in the sink. Sighing, she grabbed a towel and wet it a little, then headed back to the desk to wipe it down.
Thankfully, it didn’t seem like she’d done any damage. She dried everything off with the part of the towel that wasn’t wet and threw that in the bathroom sink, too.
“Laundry day soon,” she mumbled to herself as she grabbed a sheet of paper for the typewriter and pushed the drawer shut again.
Only it wouldn’t close all the way.
“Great,” she said to herself, setting down the paper and trying to close the drawer with both hands.
It still wouldn’t close the last inch. It was almost like something was stuck back there.
She had probably knocked something loose from the drawer above when she banged into it. Though she was pretty sure that drawer was empty.
Dru knew she should just ignore it and get back to her writing, or she would end up getting nothing done before her shift started.
Write now, fix the drawer later, that was undeniably the best course of action.
