I first walked to the dresser and began to pull out drawers and felt around the inside of them, but only came back with a thick layer of dust. I hugged myself as the chill in the room seemed to intensify, and I froze when I heard the sound of laughter coming from the far side of the room.
“Wh-what is th-that?” Eleanor asked with a shaky voice.
“You heard that, too?”
“Did you hear that too, Caroline?” I asked, but she was nowhere to be seen. “It appears that Caroline has left,” I said.
“And I’m not far behind her,” Eleanor said as she darted for the door.
“Come back here, you chicken heart. Don’t you dare leave me alone in here.”
Eleanor tried to open the door, but it only rattled. “We’re locked in,” she screamed.
“Shhhh. We’re gonna get caught.”
“As long as we get out of this room, I’m game.”
“Fine, turn on the light switch, then.”
Eleanor flipped the light switch on, but it only made a clicking noise. Oh, great. Now we were stuck inside and in the dark. I made my way across the room. I figured I might as well check out the bed since we were stuck in there anyway. The truth was, I heard a voice beckon me closer. “Don’t be afraid,” it said, while inside my head it screamed for me to stay away. My curiosity won over, and when I reached the bed, a new voice told me to run. Instead, I reached down and felt the top of the bed since the flashlight didn’t offer enough light. Instead of merely encountering the dusty mattress, I felt something quite lumpy. At the head of the bed was a globed form and I jerked back when I felt the bumpy surface with hair attached to it. That’s when the screaming started. I raced over to where Eleanor stood, trying with all her might to open the door. “Let me try,” I said as I pushed her aside. I turned the doorknob and did a silent prayer for it to open, and when it did, I raced out, pulling Eleanor into the hallway with me and slammed the door closed behind us.
Eleanor and I had our bodies pressed against the wall with heaving bosoms until the door to my room flew open and Andrew raced into the hallway. “What on earth, Aggie?”
“Bad choice of words,” I said. “W-We went to check out Room 109 and there’s a corpse in there.”
“No wonder that room is closed,” Eleanor said, trying to remain calm. “What should we do?”
“Call down to the desk, I suspect.”
Andrew escorted us into our room and I let Andrew make the call from the landline phone on the nightstand. While we waited for someone to check out Room 109, Andrew asked, “Why on earth did you girls go in that room? Redd told us that room was closed.”
“I-I’m sorry. I just had to check out that room.” I then filled Andrew in about my dream in detail.”
“I still don’t understand. Why did you go in that room?”
“Because I had hoped to find Rebecca, and I might very well have,” I panted.
Andrew scratched his head. “So, let me get this straight. You actually think the remains of the little girl from your dream, Rebecca, are in Room 109?”
I nodded my head. “I know how crazy it seems, but perhaps my dream was trying to tell me something.”
He sighed. “I’m not sure what to say here. Not long ago you told me you could see ghosts, and now you actually think your dreams mean something more than REM sleep?”
“It seemed so real that I just have to stop by to see the sheriff, and soon.”
Eleanor sat on the bed. “And what for, exactly?”
“To see if he’s the sheriff from my dream.”
I stared from Andrew to Eleanor, knowing they both thought I was a brick shy of a full load. I whirled when I heard the squeaky wheels from Mr. Wilson’s rolling walker behind me. “What’s all the excitement about?”
I smiled. “Oh, nothing much, Mr. Wilson. Go on back to bed.”
“How am I supposed to do that with all the racket going on? I don’t know who’s in the attic, but it seems odd that someone would be walking around up there at this hour.”
I strutted over to Eleanor’s room that she shared with Wilson and tiptoed into the room to see if I could hear any noise that sounded like footsteps above the ceiling. Was it Caroline up there? She sure as heck disappeared back in Room 109.
Eleanor squinted her eyes, staring at the ceiling intently, and sure enough, it sounded like someone ran across the ceiling, or above it. By this point, Eleanor had her arms practically wrapped around my neck. “Make it go away, Agnes,” she said.
I elbowed Eleanor off me. “Stop, you’re choking me,” I said.
She pouted. “I didn’t mean to, but this place is haunted for sure and you know I don’t much care for ghosts.”
“I wonder where Caroline went.” Just then, Caroline flew through the wall, unsettling several paintings hanging there. “Really, Caroline? Where did you disappear to this time?”
“I’m afraid of the dark. Did you find anything in that room?”
Eleanor laughed. “Some partner you are. A ghost that is afraid of the dark, indeed. I told Agnes that you’re not of much use.”
Caroline made a motion of trying to kick Eleanor. “Not much use? I most certainly opened the door for you.”
“Sure you did, and then we were trapped in there.”
“Are you sure we were really locked in, Eleanor? Or were you so scared that you just thought the door was locked? It’s happened before with you.”
“Don’t you dare start questioning me when yonder ghost was nowhere to be found.”
Caroline trembled, and offered, “I swear, next time I’ll stay put. Just tell me what you want me to do and it’s done.”
“How about going up there,” Eleanor said, pointing to the ceiling. “And find out what’s making that noise.”
I stared at Caroline. “Seems fair to me.”
Caroline bit her finger and then darted through the ceiling. Within a few minutes, she fell back down, landing on the bed with a creak of springs. She sat up and said, “Thanks, a lot. That’s not a very friendly ghost up there.”
I stared up at the ceiling and again heard the footsteps. “What happened? You weren’t even up there for more than a few minutes.”
Caroline flew off the bed, landing on her feet. “Nope, but the woman up there wasn’t in the mood to talk and threw me back down here.”
“A ghost?”
“Yes, who else would be up there?”
Okay, so now there’s the ghost of a woman in the attic. “Did she say who she was?”
“She didn’t exactly give me time to get acquainted with her.”
“How old was she?”
“It’s not so easy to know when someone’s a ghost. It all depends on how and when they died, but the ghost looked like a big, black monster with a horrific face.”
That didn’t sound like any ghost that I’d seen from my dream, but at this point, I was positive that my dream meant something. If only I could figure out what.
When I heard a noise outside and led the pack out there, I faced down Lois. “What seems to be the problem up here?”
I hated to admit that I was poking around in Room 109 since it was closed and all, but how else would I be able to tell them what I found, or thought I had found? “In Room 109, I found what I think might be the remains of some poor soul.”
“Why in tarnation did you do that when that room has been closed?”
“How long are we talking here? How many years?”
Her hands went to her hips. “I’m not sure how you handle yourself back home, but here in Silver we don’t go poking around where we’re not wanted. How did you get into that room, anyway?”
Eleanor shuffled her feet, and then said, “The door was open?”
“Yes, it was open,” I winked only for Eleanor to see.
“I highly doubt that.”
I arched a brow. “Oh, no?”
Lois walked into Room 109, flicking on the lights, and I followed her into the room that was just as I had experienced,
but in the dark. There was a dresser and plenty of cobwebs. I led the way to the bed and, sure enough, there was a decomposed body lying in the bed under a torn sheet.
At my discovery, I swallowed back bile. The body was devoid of skin or tissue and although I was hardly an expert, I believed this body had been here for a century at least. The body was in the fetal position and it was hard to tell if it was an adult or child.
Andrew entered the room. “You’d better get the sheriff over here.”
Lois didn’t say a word, only nodded as she left the room. We waited back in our room, mulling over what might have happened to the victim in Room 109.
“Well,” Mr. Wilson began. “The poor soul might have just died of natural causes.”
“True, but since the remains were found in a closed off room, it makes me wonder how the owners of this hotel wouldn’t know that a body was in here. I mean, didn’t they at least check?”
“Why would they check a room if it was closed?” Eleanor asked. “Seems to me that they all but ignored the third floor.”
“True, but our room was quite neat and tidy, with none of the cobwebs that you saw in Room 109. It does seem that they never went into that room, but it makes me wonder how long this hotel was owned and by whom.”
Andrew pulled out a bottle of wine from his suitcase and opened it. “I was saving this bottle, but I, for one, could use a drink.”
I searched for glasses, but since there were none, we took turns and drank straight from the bottle. Mr. Wilson wiped his mouth after taking a drink. “This sure is a good bottle of wine. Let me guess—1952 Port?”
When I took my drink, I about hacked it back up since it was plenty strong. “Wow,” was all I could muster.
Eleanor smiled after her drink. “This is stronger than a shot of whiskey.”
“If you drank too much of this, you’d start seeing double,” I said with grimace, rubbing my stomach thoughtfully.
“Or more ghosts,” Eleanor added.
Andrew cocked a brow. “Please, not any more mention of ghosts from either of you. Can’t we enjoy our vacation without staying at a haunted hotel?”
“Sure you can, but this is a ghost town, after all.”
“Meaning that it’s not as populated, not that it’s haunted.”
I wanted to remind him that any place that dated back in time had the potential to be haunted, but seeing as how he wasn’t of like mind as Eleanor and I were about the supernatural, I just smiled and said, “Yes, dear. Whatever you say, dear.”
Eleanor fanned her face. “Oh, great. Quick! We need an exorcist. If Agnes is saying ‘yes dear’, she must be possessed.”
“And why is that? Can’t I simply agree with the man I love every once in a while?”
“Sure you can, but it’s not like you.”
Before I was in the position to say anything, there was a knock at the door. Andrew opened it and Lois was there with a young man who pulled a notepad from the pocket of his shirt, clicking his ballpoint pen open. “I’m Sheriff Bradley. Which one of you found the remains?”
Eleanor stepped forward. “Sheriff?” she asked. “You hardly look eighteen.”
He rubbed the back of his short hair and smiled. “Twenty-one to be exact. Let’s just say that not too many people wanted to be the sheriff in this one-horse town,” he said as he clicked his tongue.
“Is that an attempt at humor, young man?” Eleanor asked with a straight face. “It’s hardly the time.” She then pointed at me. “Agnes found the remains.”
“What a way to throw an old friend under the bus, Eleanor,” I said.
“What? I was there, but you were the one who realized it was a body.”
The sheriff scratched his head now with his pen. “Are you some sort of an expert on finding remains?”
“Oh, no. I must admit that I’ve found one on occasion, but not under circumstances quite like this. Why did you book us in rooms on the third floor when a room is closed up here?” I asked Lois.
“I told you already, it’s quieter up here.”
“Not with the sounds coming from the attic,” Mr. Wilson said. “It sounds like someone is walking up there.”
“Probably varmints of some sort,” the sheriff said. “We have plenty of them hereabouts.”
I had the sneaking suspicion that the sheriff was acting out the part of a sheriff, instead of actually being one. “How long have you been a sheriff here?”
“Two years yesterday. I assure you, I’m quite capable of handling any case that might come my way.”
“Ever handle a murder investigation?” Eleanor asked.
“Well, no.”
“So what type of crimes do you usually handle here in Silver?”
“I don’t, really, except for the occasional drunk that needs to sleep it off.”
“You should probably call someone else to handle the investigation, then,” I suggested.
Lois folded her arms across her chest. “What in tarnation for? From the looks of the body, it must have been here for a century.”
“Oh, and do you have any forensics background that led you to that assumption?” I grilled her.
“Well, no.”
“You need to radio in for extra help,” I insisted.
“Why?” the sheriff asked, showing obvious irritation by the narrowing of his eyes.
“There are procedures that must be followed. An autopsy needs to be done and possibly an anthropologist called in to determine just how old the remains are.”
“The most we can do for now is to retrieve the remains and put them in cold storage. We could use the ice locker at the Maverick. It’s one of the local clothing stores,” he went on to explain. “At one time, it was a local diner, but the new owner converted the business to carry western apparel,” he said.
I forced a smile on my face because I was too horrified to do anything else and I didn’t want them to know what I really thought—that putting human remains into a meat locker that one time housed food seemed so … Ewww … to me.
Lois suggested we check out the remains and we followed the sheriff whom Eleanor was now ogling. The remains seemed even more eerie with the lights on. I reminded myself to remember to wash my hands.
Sheriff Bradley leaned down and lifted a piece of fabric. “Appears to be a dress. I think this is a woman.”
“I gathered that much myself. It’s so hard to tell much of anything since the body is in the fetal position,” I said.
“True. I’ll try to get ahold of someone on the landline in the morning.”
“You talking about telephone?”
“Yeah, don’t you have a computer?” Eleanor asked.
“Not with the mountains all around us. We live a simple life here.”
“So, remind me again, how long has it been since anyone’s been in this room?” I asked Lois.
“I’ve been here twenty years, and from all accounts, Room 109 has been closed up for much longer, or so the owner says.”
“So what do you know about the room?”
“In particular, two people have reportedly lost their lives in that room. I suppose it must have made sense to the people who owned this hotel at one time to keep it closed up tight.”
“I’m confused. I thought you said the room has been closed up for a long time?”
“Yes, but there are plenty of rumors about this hotel.”
“So, how long have you been at this hotel, exactly?”
“Twenty years. Francine Pullman owns the place. She lives east of town.”
That sure had me interested now, since Francine was a name I recognized from my dream. “Thanks.” I didn’t bother to say that would be the first place we’d be heading to ask a few questions. “Do you have any more questions for us, Sheriff?”
“Ask them how they got in this room when the door was locked.” Lois said. “I don’t even have a key to this room.”
“I thought you weren’t supposed to go into Room 109?”
“I w
asn’t, but I couldn’t help but notice how there isn’t a key to this room.” I opened a closet and stared into the empty space.
“What are you doing?” Lois asked.
“I just wondered if there were any possessions left in here, is all.”
“I insist that you all vacate this room, now.”
“Not so hasty. I could use a hand moving the body into a body bag. If someone would like to help, that is,” the sheriff said.
When Andrew nodded, the sheriff darted off, returning with a body bag. Andrew and the sheriff carefully pulled the bottom sheet off the bed and placed it and the remains into the plastic body bag, zipping it closed. Once they’d pulled it off the bed and onto the floor a large, dark stain showed on the mattress.
I bit my lip. “Oh, my. I wonder if that’s blood.”
Eleanor moseyed nearer to me, gripping my arm tightly as the room began to cool considerably. She motioned to a picture frame on the dresser and when I went over there, the ghostly figure of a woman smiled sadly as she adjusted the hat she wore. I wished I had my iPhone handy so I could take a picture. I decided not to tell anyone what I had seen since Andrew didn’t even want to hear the mention of a ghost, or haunted hotel.
“We should get going now, if we’re done being questioned,” I said.
The sheriff nodded. “I sure hope you won’t leave town now. I swear this isn’t a reflection of how our town is. Silver has much to offer in the way of sightseeing.”
“Don’t worry, Sheriff. I don’t plan to go anywhere soon.”
Lois followed us to our room. “I’ll send Redd up to move you to a room on the second floor.”
“Not on your life. I mean, we’re already settled in now. It’s not your fault that remains were in Room 109 without your knowledge. I’m sure it will be figured out soon and you can go back to keeping that room locked up.”
Lois smiled, and I had the suspicion that she wasn’t all that convinced that I meant what I said, but she left all the same.
Chapter Five
Even after Eleanor and Mr. Wilson took their leave and I drank more of the aged port wine, sleep eluded me. All I could think about was that the poor woman I’d found the remains of had met a violent end in Room 109, and how it might be related to my dream. If it wasn’t Rebecca, who could it be? Even if it wasn’t related to the little girl from my dream, I couldn’t let go of the idea that Rebecca was out there somewhere, lost.
Madison Johns - Agnes Barton Paranormal 02 - Ghostly Hijinks Page 4
