She’s in the dining room waving a herb bouquet in the exact area where I found the skunk pig. If it was almost anyone else, I would be suspicious. She lights a smudge stick and tells me to sit.
“Blue calcite for energy balance. You leave in room. Hoja santa, sacred herb.” She shakes a small bottle, puts a drop on her finger, and holds it out. It tastes like root beer. “Put drop on tongue, morning, night. No forget.”
She takes mezcal into her mouth from another bottle and spits it in my face before brushing a raw egg over me and blowing smoke from my head to my feet. Then she kisses some prayer beads and puts them around my neck.
“What did Maybelle tell you about this job?” I ask, when she’s finally done.
She doesn’t answer, but pulls a doll from the bottom of her bag. I nearly jump out of my chair. It’s made out of what looks like rodent skin. It has a little body with a giant head and the eyes are positioned nearly on the sides. Its mouth is stitched with X’s and it’s draped in black.
“What is that for?” I shake my head as she hands it to me.
“Bruja. Leave in room. Then you keep here when you return.”
“Bruja? You got this from a witch? Why? Is it made out of a rat? I don’t want it.” I’m up and backing away from the thing.
“Rat dead. No can harm you. Harm others. Made special for you. It protect you on job and no more skunk pigs.” This last one she thinks is really funny. She’s got a weird sense of humor.
“I don’t want a rat doll. It looks possessed. Take it with you and use it to pray for me.”
“No. You take. Then you keep here.” She puts the doll in the bag and hands it to me then pushes me to the front door and all the way to the jeep.
She puts her hand on my forehead and mumbles a prayer in Spanish. “You ask for answer. You do not hear it. Answer gets louder. How much louder you need?” She doesn’t wait for me to respond. The dust flies as she drives down the dirt road.
“Loud enough to get a rat doll,” I tell myself. Mojo is sniffing the bag. I’m tempted to give it to him and let him do what he wants with the thing, but I’m afraid of the bruja’s power. I don’t want him to turn into a toad or worse.
I hope the bruja who made the doll was using her good witch powers, but I think the rat is a clue that she wasn’t.
I’m tempted to call Maybelle and ask her what she told Agustina that prompted her to contact a bruja, then I figure I’m better off not knowing. I’ve also lost nearly an hour of travel time, and I’m anxious to get on the road.
I toss the bag in a plastic storage box and put it in the back of the jeep. I hope that doesn’t make the thing angry.
I take I-20 all the way to Forney. All the while I’m driving, I think I can hear mumbling in the back of the jeep. Mojo has sat up a few times to look over the seat. Not only is the doll possessed, it’s alive.
I get a room at the Super 8 and carry in our things. The hotel is small and several all-night businesses are very close by. I’m wide awake and feel unbalanced, so I walk to a shopping area and get a bunch of It’s a Forney Thing tee-shirts and some Mexican food.
When I get back to the hotel parking lot, I’m sure the jeep is rocking– just a little but it’s definitely moving. I stop in the middle of the lot and stare. A horn blasts behind me, and I wave before getting out of the driver’s way.
I’m watching the jeep when I hear the crash. The driver who honked at me pulled onto the road and got hit by a semi-truck. I start in the direction of the accident and the driver gets out. He looks just fine until he looks at me. I back away. When I turn around the jeep rocks a few times. Mojo is watching it then me.
As soon as I get in the room, I grab a beer from the mini-bar and watch the jeep from the peep hole while I drink it. What happened wasn’t good or normal, but at least the jeep isn’t rocking now. I should probably bring the rat doll inside. I just don’t want it near me, especially while I’m asleep.
After dinner and another beer, I feel the road trip dissolve from my muscles and mind. I check for messages and have one from Levi telling me the security system will be installed tomorrow. Since he hasn’t asked for any money, I text back thanks. I also have a message from Boshears wanting to know my arrival time. I text back tomorrow.
I barely have the lights out and my head on the pillow when I hear it. Since I’ve been here, I’ve been listening to a steady stream of semi-trucks on the side road that goes to the diesel station. I’ve also heard the traffic on the highway and the happy drinkers and their music from the tavern next to the shopping center.
Now all I hear is the jeep’s horn blasting in the parking lot.
Chapter Nine
§
The next morning, I’m moving slowly because I woke to every little snap, pop, and bang, which were constant last night.
For reasons I don’t want to know, I couldn’t find my boots when the jeep’s horn was blasting last night. Actually, it was only blasting until I opened the jeep’s door. Tricky little rat doll. The doll was another reason I didn’t sleep last night. I had no choice but to bring it into the room. It stayed in its plastic box in the closet.
After I load our things, me and Mojo walk to the Dairy Queen for breakfast. The town is unusually quiet this morning. I pray my rat doll hasn’t done any damage to the locals.
We have another nine hours on the road today, across Arkansas with a stopover in Memphis to get Georgia an Elvis keepsake. That’s going to add at least another hour to my road trip.
We walk back to the hotel, and I wait at the roadside while the wolfdog goes to explore the bushes. A semi-truck pulls up next to me. The driver rolls down the passenger window and asks if I want a ride. I tell him I don’t, and he tells me I should. He’s a friendly looking guy, probably in his fifties with greased down hair and a poor start at a new beard. I glance over at the jeep that’s a few hundred feet away. I’m checking for movement.
“What’s your name?” he shouts from his cab.
It suddenly occurs to me that he’s thinking I’m something I’m not. I’m standing on the side of the road next to a diesel truck station, doing nothing but walking a few feet in one direction and a few feet in the other.
“Raven,” I shout back.
He whistles long and slow. Then he leans across his cab and opens the passenger door. I glance at the jeep. He’s pushed the door open and he’s leaning out with a twenty dollar bill between two fingers. Twenty bucks in this economy?
He’s waving it at me and grinning when his truck lurches forward a foot or three. The passenger door slams shut on his arm, and I hear a thud that I think involves him and the dashboard. Based on his yelp, it had to hurt.
Mojo’s come out of the bushes and we head to the hotel parking lot. I let him in the jeep and open the back. Then I open the plastic box. “Listen,” I say, as I look inside the bag and freeze. The rat is sitting up, looking at me. The last time I saw the thing, it was lying down. I’ve got to stop calling it the rat doll.
“Listen… Rita…. I appreciate what you’ve been empowered to do, but I’m capable of taking care of myself. There’s no reason to hurt any more people. Just relax, enjoy the trip, and we’ll figure out your future when we get back home. My home. You’re going to need one of your own, but we’ll deal with that later.”
I swear the stitched mouth twitches. I slam the cover back on the box. Then I remember Agustina’s words: “You ask for answer.”
She’s been talking to Maybelle about my conversations with the Great Spirit. I admit the woman’s a little hard to follow at times, but now I’m thinking this protection rat is an imposture, and Maybelle’s handiwork. That the old lady would harm others to put an end to my wanderlust career is a stretch, but not a long one.
It’s early afternoon when I turn onto I-40 and head to Graceland. When I get there, I find out it isn’t a place you visit on a whim. I end up buying a bunch of tee-shirts at an outlet store called Everything Elvis.
Three hours later, I’m
sitting in the jeep in front of the Herman Hotel.
Taw Ridge is quiet and has a small town vibe. It hardly seems the place for a thriving hotel business, but some thirty miles out of Nashville, it probably gets a fair share of visitors who don’t want to stay in the big city. I sure don’t see any signs of those visitors. Seems a little ghost publicity might bring them to town.
We get out and walk around the building. It’s even uglier than the photo I found online. As I always do, I’d asked Boshears to send me photos of the inside of the hotel and especially the thirteenth floor so I could get a sense of the energy before I arrived. She told me she would and didn’t.
I’d sent a reminder email and she replied that she had to go to Franklin. For what, she didn’t say. She did say that she wouldn’t return to the hotel before I arrived, but that her assistant, Aubrey Marks, would be at the hotel to assist me with anything I needed. Seems she could have had Aubrey snap a few photos.
It’s a sticky ninety degrees out and if there is anything malicious in the old bricks of the Herman Hotel, it’s too hot to tell. I go inside and nearly fall over, first from the cool air and then the opulence that the website photos didn’t quite capture. It has some kind of Renaissance thing going on in the lobby with intimidating arches and near pornographic paintings. Everything is cream and peach and dripping of pretty. One would think they could have spent a few more bucks on the outside.
A very serious young woman carrying a clipboard is headed my way. She looks at Mojo and looks horrified. I may have failed to mention that he’s part of the deal.
“I’m sorry Miss, we don’t allow… animals in the hotel. I can give you the address of the nearest motel.” She’s checking her clipboard.
“No need. I’m an investigator hired by Ellen Boshears. I was told to ask for Aubrey.”
“I’m Aubrey Marks. You’re Jack Raven?” The woman’s eyes are buggy behind her big black glasses.
“Yes.”
She looks at me, Mojo, and back at me. “I’m sorry. I was expecting a man. Ms. Boshears only gave me your name.” She turns to the front desk and back again to look at her clipboard.
I’m used to the confusion my name causes, but she’s nearing panic mode. Lies of the living, I hear Maybelle whisper in my ear.
“Very well. And….” she’s staring at the wolfdog.
“And Mojo, certified ghost tracker.” I know that was cruel, but the woman needs help snapping out of her befuddled state. By her reaction, I assume the assistant who did the research to find Boshears’ ghost girl didn’t pass on the information to the woman.
Aubrey takes a deep breath and one step back. “I’ll show you to your room.”
I follow her to the elevator. We step in and she pushes the button to the twelfth floor. She’s pressed up against the wall and watching the wolfdog with a sideways glance. Like a brat, he’s doing the same thing.
“Ms. Boshears said I would be staying on the thirteenth floor.”
“Yes.” Aubrey looks at me and away. “We discovered an electrical problem this morning. The workers…. The repairs should be completed by tomorrow.”
“I’d like access as soon as possible. I’ll need keys to all the rooms on that floor. When will the workers be gone today?”
I don’t really need access right away. I need a shower and something to eat. The woman is nervous beyond her fear of the ghost tracker, and what I really want is to know why. Her self-assured orange aura that I first saw in the lobby has taken on a muddy brown haze.
She takes another deep breath and gives me a fake smile. “Why don’t you get settled in today, and you can talk to Ms. Boshears about that in the morning. She will be in at nine to meet with you.”
We step off the elevator and I follow her to my room. I can see why they don’t allow animals. I select my own hotel accommodations based on whatever is cheapest. Everything in the place looks like it shouldn’t be touched. Aubrey is eager to leave, but she is acting the part of a very proper hotel concierge. Almost.
“You should probably order room service for your meals.” She looks at me and away before telling me they adhere to a casual elegant dress code.
“I prefer the room or fast food,” I say. I’m not sure, but I think she shuddered on those last words. “I asked Ms. Boshears for the hotel’s prior log books. Would you have those available? I’d like to start reviewing them as soon as possible.”
Aubrey denies knowing anything about them. She rushes to the door with some bogus excuse about another matter she has to attend to urgently.
I wait a few minutes then check the hallway. The place is eerily silent. Mojo looks confused. We take the elevator to the thirteenth floor. It stops and I wait for the door to open. It doesn’t, so I go back down and up again. It still won’t open. If the electricians are up there, why isn’t the elevator working? Maybe they left needing parts and the front desk disabled the floor. Maybe Aubrey lied to me.
I go to the jeep to get the rest of our things, including Rita who I still plan on keeping in the closet. Whatever her purpose, she’s still a dead rat with a freaky looking face.
When I pass the check-in counter on the way back to the elevator, I hear two voices that I recognize.
“Make sure the floor stays bolted. I don’t want her up there snooping around.”
“I’ll make certain of that,” Aubrey says.
The two women step into the lobby, and I watch Ellen Boshears as she leaves the hotel.
Chapter Ten
§
Snooping around? Bolted shut? Boshears denied the floor could be bolted, so why is she using the term? Seems my client has another agenda in bringing me here.
I take the elevator to the twelfth floor. Mojo is stretched out on the bed. He’s not a floor sleeper and despite the upscale accommodations, he won’t be open to negotiations on that fact. I put Rita in the closet and pace from one end of the room to the other as I replay my conversations with Boshears.
I’d paid little attention to her comments about her reopening publicity. I agreed to sign a certificate and smile for the cameras. She’s not getting more from me. If she’s thinking otherwise because this job is just a set up for some big media stunt, the joke’s on her. How I don’t know, but I’ve got Rita as backup.
After a shower, I drive to the nearest deli to pick up dinner. It’s still unbearably hot and uncomfortably humid. We find a park with a creek, and I swat mosquitoes as I eat while Mojo wades in the water.
It’s after seven when we return to the hotel. I twist my long hair and pin it to the top of my head, slip on sunglasses, and send Mojo in the elevator to the twelfth floor. “Wait for me at the room,” I tell him.
I march to the front desk where a skinny guy is acting like he’s working at something or other.
“Hi, Jim Parks sent me to pick up tools the electricians left here earlier today. They were working on the top floor. Jim said I’d need to ask to have the elevator unlocked.”
The clerk looks nervous. He looks at a monitor and back at me.
“Thirteenth floor,” I say, drumming my fingers on the counter. “Can you give me access? It will only take a few minutes. One of the workers thinks he left a multimeter on by mistake. Jim doesn’t want the thing to catch fire and burn down the hotel.”
Now the clerk is really nervous. “Who did you say you are?”
“Parks Electric. Wiring problems,” I say. “Ellen Boshears called. I spoke to Aubrey Marks about it. She knew I planned on stopping by.”
“Are you sure they were here today because—
“I’m positive. I was here with them. We had to request access so I’m pretty sure you need to flip a switch. Like I said, it will only take a few minutes. That’s better than the place burning down.” Now I’m drumming the counter with both hands.
“Right. Okay. Yes, the elevator is locked. A few minutes?” he asks.
“That’s all it will take. See you in a few.”
I head to the elevator, stop for Mojo
who’s passed out in the hall, and we ride to the thirteenth floor. When we get there, the door slides open and we step out. It looks nothing like the twelfth floor and is a good ten degrees cooler.
I check the walls for surveillance cameras and don’t see any. I’d asked Boshears when we last spoke if the hotel had them. She said she intends to have them installed at a later date. I believed her then but not now. Still, I don’t see any evidence that I’m being watched.
I go to one room then the next. All the doors are locked. I close my eyes and walk from one end of the floor to the other while trailing my fingers over each door. Definitely colder and I don’t feel or hear an air conditioner running. I also don’t see any tell-tale signs that electricians were on the floor today.
“Is there a spirit here that would like to communicate? I’m here to help you. You can speak to me and I’ll hear you.” After ten minutes, I don’t hear a sound and fearing the clerk will shut off the elevator, I head back to the room.
I don’t know what Boshears is hiding up there, but I have no intention of playing her games. I get on my laptop and search for some local news about the hotel. Boshears said she was fielding calls from reporters, so I should be able to find a few new mentions about the place.
All I find are two brief news reports of the hotel’s new ownership and the renovations. Both are dated over four months ago. There’s nothing at all about terrorized guests or unexplained noises. Then I find the one about the haunted hotel that Boshears had complained about. It’s nothing but satire poking fun at ghosts. This job is nothing but a publicity scam. A very expensive scam on Boshears’ part, but still a scam.
I’m even more angry then I’m impressed by Boshears’ innovative yet tasteless publicity stunt. If you want publicity, a haunted hotel will do the trick. Now I’m sure the caller who wanted ghosts for his hotel was really Boshears’ assistant. She probably fired him when the haunted hotel plan failed, and came up with this new scheme.
The Taw Ridge Haunting Page 5
