“The basement?” He smirked, a challenge in his European eyes. “Nobody down there, oui?”
“Nobody,” she said, leaning forward so she could whisper over the jangling strains of “Crimson and Clover.”
He knocked back his wine and stood, holding out his hand. She considered the choice between Phillippe and the unknown or the petty cash in the bar till.
What the hell, the cash will always be there, and Janey could fire Phillippe next week for all I know. This might be my only chance. Sure, he’s only a cook now, but he has a chef’s degree, and that could lead to management.
She was out the door before she’d really made up her mind, and by then it was too late.
Chapter 29
Cody had dropped her at the door to 318 like a perfect gentleman.
Not a kiss on the cheek, not a hint that he’d tuck her in if she wanted, not even a handshake, just a “Get some rest, and I’ll catch you in the morning.”
Kendra was disappointed but also relieved, because she was tired and edgy. At least the room lights worked. After all that weird stuff in 218, she welcomed some down time with her sketch pad. The room had two twin beds, which wasn’t too awkward because she’d traveled a lot with Dad, but Kendra didn’t want any goodnight hugs. With luck, Dad wouldn’t show up until she’d drawn herself to sleep.
She settled on her bed and chose a charcoal pencil. She opened the pad to find the sketch of Dorrie Dough-Face and Rochester the Rat Boy.
I tore that out and left it for Bruce.
Except this picture wasn’t quite the same. Rochester’s eyes had a glint in them and his whiskers lifted in a sneer, while Dorrie grinned as if to say, “I ate the last doughnut and the bitchin’ crumbs, too. Whatcha gonna do about it?”
The little twerp must have sneaked into the room and copied the sketch back into her pad. He obviously had a master key. But his fingers were way to plump to draw at such a level. Kendra was proud of her skill, but she was also realistic about the work involved. Talent meant little until you had logged those endless hours of development and made the shift from art to craft. That was way too refined a concept for a 10-year-old to grasp, and prodigies were in short supply.
“You like my picture?”
Kendra dropped her pencil.
Bruce stepped from the shadowy bathroom, still wearing his too-short trousers and dirty green shirt. “Sorry, didn’t mean to scare ya.”
“That’s exactly what you meant to do, you little creep. What kind of game are you playing, anyway?”
“Hide and seek.”
“It’s way past your bedtime. Your dad is going to kick your butt.”
“He’s busy.”
“What if I’d been changing into my pajamas?”
Bruce grinned uneasily. “Rochester said he saw you in the bathroom.” He giggled. “He saw your noonie.”
“Crap.” She clenched her fists and rose from the bed as he retreated into the bathroom.
“Just wait till I—”
The bathroom was empty. She clicked the light just to make sure. She checked the cabinet under the sink, expecting him to jump out and yell “Boo.” Nothing but spare rolls of toilet paper and the rank, musty smell of moist pipes.
The shower curtain was pulled closed, opaque enough to hide him, but there was no way he could have ducked in without the curtain swaying. He might be lying down, though. She yanked the curtain back with a flourish, anger tightening her jaws.
The giggle came from the bedroom.
Creak creak creak.
The creep was bouncing on the bed. If he stomped her sketch pad, that would be one dead kid. Except it wasn’t just a creak, another sound accented it, as if he were brushing the ceiling with each leap.
Creak flup creak flup creak flup.
His singsong rhyme was syncopated by his bouncing.
“Stay—”
Creak.
“—and play—”
Flup.
“—with Mommy—”
Creak.
“—and me.”
Flup.
She raced into the bedroom, more intent on rescuing her precious sketch pad and its cast of characters than on mashing the little brat’s teeth down his throat.
The creaking had stopped, and Bruce dangled in midair, a piece of fiber-coated electrical wire wrapped around his neck and tied to the light fixture. His black tongue protruded, and his blank eyes bulged, the flesh around them sunken and purple. Flies buzzed around his head and his skin was the color of cottage cheese.
Christ—
Before she could decide whether to touch him or if he was too far gone, the lights went out.
Christ and back again.
She didn’t know whether to retreat or feel her way forward. The afterimage of the light burned orange blobs behind her eyelids, but the image of the dead boy burned just as brightly.
You’re cracking up, kiddo, just like Bradshaw said you would. Too much imagination. Too much fantasy. Too much believing in the monsters you make.
Too much being the Digger’s daughter.
Her cracked laughter sounded too loud in the dark room.
It wasn’t real. She could make it to the light switch, get the room back in working order, and find some way to jam the lock so Bruce wouldn’t bug her anymore. And as soon as Dad came in, she’d make him report the little twerp to the hotel staff. Surely they had some sort of security, even if it was just that old mummy of a manager. One scowl from her wrinkled, witchbag face would scare any kid straight.
Yeah. Logic and reason. Much better than the koo-koo choo-choo to Nutsville.
One hand in front of her, she took brief steps forward across the carpet, mapping the room in her mind. The beds were over there, coffee table and TV cabinet to the left, an open path in the middle, right where Bruce would be hanging--
He’s NOT hanging, damn it.
Still, she slowed a little and waved her hand in front of her. Despite the lamps outside that girded the walkway to the hotel’s front entrance, the room was way darker than it should have been.
She thought of that screwy line the ghost hunters used when they were ushering a restless spirit to peace in the Great Unknown: “Go toward the light.”
Count to three and do it.
Count to three....
Stay and play with Mommy and me.
“Kendra?”
The woman’s voice froze her heart in mid-beat.
She couldn’t quite place it, but she couldn’t quite forget it, either. The familiarity was stored in her cells, at a genetic level, and she’d heard it on a few of Dad’s home videos on those late nights when he wanted a serious dose of melancholy. She’d heard it as a she sat on a warm, loving lap and painted herself into a hundred corners.
“Mom?” Kendra whispered, which was plenty loud enough in the stillness of the room, practically a scream that tore the faded, rose-patterned paper from the walls and sent gypsum snowing from the ceiling.
Kendra wrapped herself in the shadows of the room, waiting for a response, dreading it and wanting it all the same.
If I’m stepping on the koo-koo choo-choo, at least I’m going with a smile on my face. Reunited and it feels so good. Even if it feels so wrong.
In the solitude of her childhood, browsing through her mother’s artifacts and parental love notes and even the last letter penned on the deathbed, Kendra had often considered the many questions she’d never gotten to ask. All that mother-daughter talk, all the advice and wisdom, all the scolding and conflict, all the wonder and mystery of that special bond—all interrupted, all stolen away by some asshole in the Great Unknown, a punitive, sociopathic little Wizard of Oz hiding behind the curtain and pulling strings, giggling all the while.
Digger said she was here. But when can you ever trust Digger?
“Mom?”
No response.
Thirty seconds.
Someone was breathing in the corner of the room.
Which made no sense,
because dead people didn’t breathe.
Games. More goddamned games.
Bruce.
Feeling silly now for thinking her mother would actually come back as a ghost like some trucked-up “Touched By An Angel” episode, she marched across the room, steady, steady, steady. Lunatics likely felt no shame, so her embarrassed rage was proof of her sanity.
The light switch would set things right, make it just another room, just another lonely hour with her sketch pad, painting herself into corners.
Before she could reach it, the door handle clacked and the door swung open, something thumping heavily against jamb. The wedge of light that cleaved into the room lit up the person crouched in the corner. Not Mom, not Bruce, not the Wizard of Oz.
It could only be Rochester, and he was even worse than she’d drawn him.
Then the light flicked on, Rochester was gone, and the real horror began.
Dad staggered in drunk as a senator, mushing out an atonal jumble of song. “...shaw her faysh...muuuh bweever….”
The koo-koo choo-choo had just derailed.
Chapter 30
“I haven’t seen him in a couple of hours,” Burton told Ann Vandooren.
She blinked at him as if waking from a nap. “This is important.”
“He had something come up,” Burton said. “Trust me, Digger wouldn’t bail on a conference without good reason.”
“Do we tell them?” Duncan said.
Burton looked from the woman to her young companion, then at the stack of video gear on their desk. “Tell us what?”
Cody, who had been with Burton in the control room when Duncan burst in, glanced at the computer and the various firewires and cables that protruded from the machine’s ports. “Nice system.”
“What’s the deal?” Burton asked. Ann looked like she’d aged a couple of decades since he’d last seen her, or maybe she’d taken off her make-up. She was hollow-eyed and evasive, a junkie without a fix.
“I’m possessed,” she said.
Drama queen. There was one at every conference, usually more than one, sometimes entire bus loads. Somebody had to be the most sensitive, see the most ghosts, endure the deepest sympathetic link with the dead. He wouldn’t have figured Ann for it, because his money was still riding on that fat loudmouth Amelia G. But she was the first to declare herself possessed, and that counted for something.
All Burton could do was humor her. “Is this a demonic possession or more of a communing with the dead?”
Her eyes narrowed. “What’s the difference?”
Cody, who had moved closer to the computer set-up, said, “Demonic possession is subtle and insidious. It’s not like a boogieman jumping into your skin and yelling, ‘Hey, Lucy, I’m home.’ Demons tend to find the weak, search the brick wall for chinks, and then hitchhike into your soul by way of your worst traits.”
“Hey,” Duncan said. “I understand psychology, but we’re not talking a meltdown here. I tell you, I saw a black halo over her head.”
“I saw it, too, in the mirror,” Ann said. “You can’t convince me we’re both cracking up. We’re scientists, for god’s sake.”
“Science,” Burton said. “The last refuge of the faithless.”
“Look at this,” Cody said, pointing to the split screen on the computer. “You’ve got a camera in the attic.”
He reached for the keyboard as if to click the image to full resolution.
“Get away from there,” Ann said, leaping at him with her fingernails extended.
Burton moved forward to grab her, but Duncan reached her first. She shrugged him away and reached for the computer. Cody turned at the motion and her fingernails clawed his cheek. Ann slammed down the lid of the laptop, mashing Cody’s fingers.
“Jeez, lady,” he said. “I’m trying to help.”
“Ease up, everybody,” Burton said. “Look, it’s the middle of the night. We’re all a little tired. Why don’t we get some sleep and work this out in the morning?”
“And let the demon get even deeper inside me?”
“We’ve got a guy on staff who’s an expert on such things. The Roach will be glad to talk to you, no matter what the problem is.”
Ann put her fingers to her lips as if savoring the tiny bits of flesh she’d raked from Cody’s face. “This place...there’s something wrong with it.”
“Scientifically speaking?” Cody rubbed his cheek.
“Okay,” Duncan said, putting an arm around Ann. “I can take care of her. Sorry I bothered you.”
Burton nodded. To hell with it. Let Digger deal with her. Better get Cody out of here before the kid blows a fuse.
“Come on,” he said to Cody. “Let’s set up the recording gear for overnight.”
Cody left without another word. Ann’s face, already puckered with anger, twisted a little bit more. Burton decided she was putting on an act. He was turning to follow Cody when the black ring materialized over her head.
What the fuh—?
The walkie talkie squawked from his hip and by the time he’d thumbed the receiver, the image was gone. Must be getting combat fatigue.
“Burton,” he said into the walkie talkie.
“Shaw her faysh....”
“Digger?”
“Are you a bweever, Burton?”
“Who is this?”
“The lost and the lurking.” The voice trailed off into giggles.
Out in the hall, he caught up to Cody. “Did you hear that? Some kid screwing around on the channel?”
“No.”
“Sorry about those two,” Burton said. “You get every kind—”
“They were broadcasting. Not just recording.”
“Well, I don’t—”
“I caught video that looked a little suspicious. I thought somebody might be playing around. I figured it was an inside job, maybe you and Digger—”
“Watch it, Cody. You might be the ‘Future of Horror’ and all that happy horseshit, but we’ve been doing this since you were in diapers.”
“You’ve got to admit, Digger’s all about the show. I wouldn’t put it past him to pull a little stunt like that.”
Cody’s anger had shifted targets, and Burton realized the kid was bothered more by phony science than Ann’s talons. Burton prided himself on keeping cool, and now he was seeing things, hearing things, and bitching at his teammate. While Digger’s technical expertise was the weakest of all the team members, the man had a way of holding them together. And Digger was as invisible as the shyest ghost.
“If you don’t want to be part of SSI, you can pack up your toys and go home.”
“I got my own reasons for being here,” Cody said.
As Cody stomped down the hall, giggles leaked from Burton’s walkie talkie.
Chapter 31
“It’s supposed to be locked.”
Violet had wanted to use the basement key she’d swiped from Janey’s office, a small symbol of access and power, a hint of all Phillippe could have with her.
“An invitation,” he said, taking her elbow. Not a great line, but at least his grip was firm and confident. A little tingle of anticipation raced up her spine, just as it had done when she was prowling in Janey’s office. As she’d sat in the chair and rifled the desk drawers, she fantasized herself as Janey’s replacement. Queen of the White Horse, the new Battle Axe. Somebody had to carry on , now that Janey had permanently checked out....
How do you know she’s dead?
Phillippe reached through the basement door and flipped the switch, revealing the dirt floor. “Let there be light,” he said.
Because they said so.
“I don’t see any ghosts,” she said.
“I think we need a closer look.” Phillippe wiggled his eyebrows in a suggestive manner. He pulled her closer to the top landing of the stairs. The basement air was moist and stagnant, and a coppery corruption settled on her skin like mist. Her nipples went taut, but not from arousal.
As Phillippe led her d
own the stairs, she said, “Now I know why the stupid kids go down in the basement in the horror movies, even when they know something bad is down there.”
“Why is that, madamoiselle?”
The French got her going again and reminded her of the goal. “Because they might get lucky.”
Phillippe grinned at her with those plump, exotic lips, and by the time they reached the basement, his face was near enough that she could smell the Chablis. “Worth a little risk, no?”
He pulled her close and she shivered against his body heat. “The door,” she said.
“Stay right here,” he said, as if she might wander off into the cobwebbed corners. He propelled himself up the stairs and she glanced into the shadows, wondering if anyone was hiding among the posts and support walls. She had the distinct sense of being watched.
By the time Phillippe rejoined her, she went into his arms, more for warmth than passion. The basement had gotten colder.
“Where we were?” he whispered.
“Nowhere,” she said.
“Yet everywhere.”
It was a line he’d probably used a hundred times, feeling up Parisian girls in cramped walk-up apartments where art littered the walls. She didn’t care. Once they were married, she’d pick out the art, and it wouldn’t be square purple cats and pastel vomit. And when she became queen of the White Horse, all the drab curtains and reproduction Victorian furniture would be on the curb and Martha Stewart would get a hefty royalty check.
He pulled her closer, and she molded into his body, feeling his erection tenting against her belly. He nuzzled her neck and his breath drifted across the fine hairs at the base of her skull.
“Mmm,” she said, looking over his shoulder to the rusty, hulking boiler in the recesses of the basement. The coal gate was open and something dangled from the dark recess. Phillippe nibbled at her ear and she giggled.
“Ticklish?” he whispered.
More like thinking he was silly, with all his well-oiled moves and suave maneuvers. She was used to the high school boys in their pick-up trucks, whose rough hands would grab and squeeze and push her into compliance. Not that she’d spent much time on that scene. She’d seen enough classmates pregnant at fifteen, with nothing but bruises and food stamps in their futures. She dreamed bigger, and if it meant she had to endure Phillippe’s wine-softened tongue, well, a woman couldn’t count on looks forever.
Speed Dating with the Dead Page 17
