As the girl played with a car, Jack wondered if she was ignoring his presence. Or maybe she couldn’t see him. He wasn’t sure how it all worked. What should he call her? A ghost? An entity? A presence?
After watching her play for a while longer, he decided it might be an idea to attempt to interact with her. Was that safe to do? Who knew? He tried to prepare himself for any eventuality, even if he didn’t have the first clue what that eventuality may be. About all he could think of was that she might turn into some kind of demon thing and launch herself at him, so he tried to mentally prepare himself for that.
‘Hello?’
The little girl didn’t turn into a demon. She merely froze, a terrified look on her face. Then she ran.
15
Door Open
Questions flooded Jack’s mind as he hurried up the stairs after the little girl. What was she doing here? Where was she going? Had he scared her? Did that mean she could see him?
Arriving at the upstairs corridor, he looked about. Empty. No sign of the little girl. His eyes darted here and there, searching for some clue as to where she may have gone.
Jack stopped cold, his heart skipping a beat.
Room 8… The door was open.
Not wide open. Just ajar. But definitely unlocked and open. How could that be? He had only been here a second ago. He was certain the door had been closed when he was scurrying about as ninja Jack. Is that where the girl went? Room 8? Did she have her own key? Why would a ghost need a key?
Jack’s insides tumbled about crazily. For some reason, the open door was more nerve-racking than the sight of the little girl.
‘Get a grip,’ he mumbled softly.
From his limited viewpoint about all he could tell was the room was dark inside. But in the darkness something moved. A shadowy presence. Her? Or something else?
‘Hey. Who’s there?’
No response.
‘Little girl?’
Jack hesitated, aware he had to do something but unsure exactly what. He edged his way towards the entrance. No noises from within.
Very cautiously he lent forward, easing the door open more.
‘Hello.’
Still no response. Jack crept inside to find…
Nothing. The room was empty again. As was the en suite. Same as it had been the night before.
Probably a good thing, Jack quickly decided. He had little idea what he would have said or done if Room 8 had contained people, real or otherwise. Most likely something awkward. He saw no reason why his social awkwardness wouldn’t spread to entities from a different dimension.
So caught up in his own thoughts was he that Jack almost didn’t notice the little girl’s toy car abandoned on the floor in the middle of the room. No sign of the girl though. Was the car there yesterday when he had been in the room? He didn’t think so. There was a chance he hadn’t noticed it, although that seemed highly unlikely. Should he pick the car up? Was it safe to touch? He reached down to grab it —
BANG! BANG! BANG!
Someone pounded door, scaring the crap out of Jack. His head snapped around. The door was shut again. Somehow. He hadn’t closed it.
BANG! BANG! BANG!
‘Amanda!!’
The male voice screaming out sounded angry, whoever he was. Amanda? Was that the little girl’s name? There was something slightly familiar about the voice although precisely what, Jack couldn’t process at that moment.
Jack glanced about. She wasn’t in here. Heart pounding, he dithered.
CRASH!
Something collided heavily with the door, as though whoever was out there was trying to break the door down.
Jack did his best to swallow. He could taste the fear burning the back of his dry throat. Was it better to go out and confront whoever was there? Or hide and hope they didn’t get in?
CRASH!
Another savage blow rocked the door, followed by voices.
‘Who’s … who’s out there?’
The voices stopped. Jack waited a few moments. Nothing eventuated. He couldn’t hide in here all night. Jack edged back towards the door. He forced his hand to move the handle.
Jack pulled open the door to reveal… no-one. He took a few paces out the door into the corridor. Definitely no-one there.
He returned to Room 8 and glanced about. The little girl’s the car had disappeared.
As his heart calmed and his breath returned to normal Jack conducted a quick explore of the hotel. Top to bottom. Everything seemed to be in order. Exactly as it should be. No more open doors. No sign of intruders. No little girl. No-one bashing down any doors.
Shuffling back to the reception booth, Jack tried to piece together what had transpired. See if he could make any sense of it. He definitely wasn’t tired, ruling out sleepiness. There was no way in or out of the hotel. And he felt confident whoever it was, they weren’t hiding in the hotel. Only one logical conclusion came to mind. There had been someone or several people upstairs, and now they weren’t there now.
Therefore, they had to be ghosts.
Jack settled back into the reception booth to ponder this when he heard the squeaking. The little girl was up there again, her actions exactly the same as last time. She played with the car upstairs, running it along the floor and up the banister. Jack studied her, deciding her name was Amanda. That was who the voice banging on the door had called. Amanda.
‘Amanda?’
The little girl turned, looking at Jack at the bottom of the stairs. Then she ran again. This time Jack made the decision not to follow her.
Early morning sun bathed the hotel as the day shift staff began to arrive. Unusually Hector wasn’t first there, showing up after a couple of the maids and some kitchen hands. What did the day staff do there all day? It would be very different from the night, Jack supposed. Different not being on your own too.
Hector entered, chatting and laughing with a Chef. Were they laughing at Jack? He couldn’t be sure and ignored the thought as sleepless paranoia.
‘How’d you go? Stay awake?’ A slight smirk on Hector’s face.
What did he mean by that? Jack’s mind struggled, brain simultaneously overtired and wired from the energy drinks.
‘Good, good…’ he responded a touch too briskly. ‘Listen, there are no guests at the hotel at the moment, are there?’
‘Wouldn’t you know if there were guests? Don’t you think I would have said something?’
‘So, no little girl…’
Hector studied Jack as if he were nuts. He slapped his forehead. ‘Oh, that’s right. Silly me. There is actually a little girl. We thought we would let her stay here by herself…’ He grinned at the Chef. ‘Like… umm… umm… Home Alone.’
‘Home Alone?’ the Chef replied. ‘I don’t think so. The whole point of that movie was that the little kid was home alone…’
‘Wasn’t Home Alone set in a hotel?’
Jack interrupted impatiently. ‘The hotel was Home Alone 2 - Lost in New York. Home Alone was the house. So was Home Alone 3, but that was a different little kid and different burglars. Three also had Scarlett Johansson in it. ‘
‘Scarlett Johansson was home alone?’ the Chef asked. ‘Man, I’d watch that movie.’
‘No, Scarlett Johansson was in Home Alone 3, but she wasn’t home alone. She was like ten. She was the kid’s older sister.’
‘Why am I not surprised you know all this?’ Hector asked amused. ‘Was she the one who owned the tarantula?’
Jack could sense Hector was having fun with him now. ‘That was the brother in the first movie, and I think you know that.’
‘That wasn’t the little girl you saw, was it? A ten-year-old Scarlett Johansson?’ Hector’s eyes twinkled. ‘I don’t know what to tell you, Jack. There is no little girl at Black Hotel. There are no guests, certainly no little girl.’ He examined Jack like he was sport. ‘Not unless you checked her in. Did she have a credit card?’
The Chef giggled away. Jack wasn’t sure how
to respond.
‘A bit too much caffeine, ’ey?’
16
Cricket
Jack waited at the end of the driveway, with a cricket bat in hand. A rubbish bin stood between him and the garage door. Merch wandered up the end of the driveway, and turned, clutching a tennis ball. He sprinted in Jack’s direction, letting go of the ball about halfway down the drive. His usual fast overarm pace bowling. Merch took his driveway cricket very seriously.
Jack swung the bat at Merch’s wild delivery and missed. The ball crashed loudly into the garage door.
Driveway cricket was one of the great joys of Jack’s life. It was the only sport he engaged in these days and was the one constant since childhood. The rock his and Merch’s friendship had been built upon. In his younger days, Jack had very much liked regular cricket. As he got older, the idea of playing a sport that could last several days lost its appeal, as did standing in a field in the baking hot sun for several hours waiting about for the odd occasion a batsman might hit a ball in your direction. Driveway cricket had several advantages over the longer form of the game. For one it didn’t require a team. In fact, it was at its best with only two players. Secondly, the matches lasted as long or as short as you liked, although generally came to an end the same way, with the tennis ball getting lost amongst the bushes.
A driveway also provided a relatively confined enclosure. The fences on three sides meant you never had to venture too far to retrieve the ball no matter where you hit it. The garbage bin acted as the stumps directly behind the batter. The garage door was automatic wiki (automatic wicket keeper), so any edges onto the garage were out, as was hitting the ball over any of the fences. Having played a great deal of driveway cricket, backyard cricket, indoor cricket, French cricket and regular cricket, Jack felt driveway cricket to be easily the most superior format.
He retrieved the ball and tossed it back to Merch.
‘So, I’m pretty sure the hotel is haunted.’
That got Merch’s attention. ‘Haunted how? ‘
‘You know. Haunted.’
The little girl on the stairs, Amanda, and the various noises had evidently just been the beginning. The more nights Jack spent at the hotel, the more he was able to see and hear. He decided what he was seeing was paranormal. Had these things been there all along? It was quite possible he was seeing more as he became more attuned to it. Like a skill, he was developing. This skill was taking some getting used to though.
The other night Jack had been on his way to the kitchen to fetch another energy drink when he stopped cold.
A person lay on the floor of the dining room. Completely still in the semi-darkness. Lying there, in the middle of the polished parquetry floor.
Jack stared, utterly transfixed. The room was dark and at first he thought his mind might be playing tricks on him. Nothing but shadows. That way you sometimes think you see something out of the corner of your eye only for it not to be there on closer examination. However, the person definitely appeared to be there. A woman. His mind blazed into action and despite his recent experiences at the hotel immediately searched for a logical explanation. Had this woman been there his entire shift? Nobody had come or gone. Hector would have mentioned something if he’d known. ‘By the way, we left a woman on the floor in the dining room.’ Nope that made no sense. Hector must not have known. Had the kitchen staff?
‘Excuse me.’ No response.
The woman remained utterly still. Lifeless. A sense of concern disarmed Jack. Was there a chance he was being set up? Had someone had killed this woman and he was being positioned to take the fall? He made a mental note not to touch anything in or around the dining room or kitchen. He had no intention of leaving fingerprints on a potential murder weapon if there was one about. Jack studied the surrounding area. No sign of blood, thankfully. A pool of blood would have been very bad.
He was being ridiculous. Nobody was trying to frame him for murder. Maybe she wasn’t dead. Hard to tell. Light spilling from the lobby was the only source of illumination. He needed a better look.
Jack shuffled forward, reaching for the light. His eyes flickered away from the woman momentarily as he sought out the switch. When he looked back, the woman had vanished. Jack blinked several times. She didn’t return. He waited for a long time, staring at the spot on the kitchen tiles. There was no way she had got up and moved in the millisecond he glanced away. It simply wasn’t physically possible. Disappearing was the only answer. Only then did Jack make the connection with Amanda.
‘Wow,’ Merch said. The story managing to momentarily distract him from the driveway cricket, somewhat of a rarity.
‘I know, right? And that wasn’t all.’
The woman hadn’t reappeared, so after some loitering about, Jack turned to leave and came face-to-face with a menacing looking dude. The guy was in his 60s or 70s, face like an old leather glove. Jack sucked in a sharp breath. They were almost nose-to-nose. The guy had a beaten up old fedora on his head and wore a crumpled tuxedo. He gave Jack the impression of some kind of demented magician.
‘Hiya, Sport.’ He flashed a manic smile. ‘Jennings, checking in.’
Jack nodded. About all he could manage. This guy was intimidating. The type of guy who could break you in half with his bare hands, and no matter what his age.
He said checking in. Was he real? Had he let himself into the hotel somehow? Or had he materialised out of thin air like the little girl and the woman on the floor? The hotel’s front entrance remained locked and Jack hadn’t heard the night bell. He was still trying to formulate a response when the old guy unexpectedly swung his arm back and rifled a punch straight at Jack’s nose.
Jack’s head snapped back. When he opened his eyes there was no sign of the old guy or his fist. Jack glanced about the empty dining room in confusion.
‘A demented magician?’
‘Yep. That’s what he looked like.’
‘Was he doing tricks?’
‘No. Well, he disappeared I guess.’
‘So did the little girl. And the woman on the floor.’
‘Yeah. No, it was the vibe. He just had that old magician kind of feel to him. I can only presume it wasn’t personal. The punch. Old people generally like me.’
Jack and Merch stood in the driveway. Jack still held the bat and Merch the ball, the cricket on hold for the moment.
‘Wasn’t it scary?
‘Little bit. The little girl and the woman on the floor not so much, but the old guy…’
Merch shook his head, barely able to believe what Jack was telling him. He wandered back down the driveway, getting ready to bowl. ‘Amigo. You gotta get the fuck out of there!’
Jack’s frowned, not convinced. ‘You reckon?’
‘Name one happy ghost story.’
‘What about that Indian film, Uncle Whatever, who can see dead people? The one that won Cannes a few years ago.’
‘Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives? That was a Thai film, not Indian.’
‘Yeah, but it was a happy ghost story.’
Merch shook his head. ‘That doesn’t count.’
‘Why not?’
‘Well, they said that was a ghost story but it was impossible to tell what the heck was going on with that film.’
Merch came into bowl again off the long run. Jack went for a slog, inadvertently skying the tennis ball. As the ball shot way up into the air Merch positioned himself underneath and took the easy catch. Jack swapped the bat for the ball.
By contrast to Merch’s pace deliveries, Jack bowled slow overarms. Merch smashed the first one into the fence. ‘Oh, that’s four.’
Jack waited for Merch to retrieve the ball. ‘Yeah, I dunno. Hauntings aren’t too bad.’
Merch stared at his crazy friend. ‘Aren’t too bad? ‘
‘In the scheme of things. Comparatively.’
‘Comparatively?’
‘Well, blood could be oozing from the walls… still be better than most of the jobs
I’ve had.’
‘That’s true. You have had some pretty awful jobs. As long as you’re aware it’s going to get worse, though. Nowhere ever gets less haunted.’
Jack bowled again for the same result. The ball collided heavily with the fence.
‘So, what do you think is going on?’
‘I don’t really know, but it’s kinda cool though,’ Jack answered. ‘Something happened at his hotel. Something awful. Or some things. With a little girl and a demented magician. But definitely something bad. So bad it may be like … trapped them there. Their souls. They are trapped and now they are reaching out.’
‘Better get a lawyer, son, better get a real good one better.’ Jack furrowed his brow. ‘Sue ‘em.’
‘Sue the ghosts?’
‘The hotel.’
‘Why would I sue the hotel?’
‘Basic disclosure. Hostile workplace. Failure to mention the role required integration with and being terrorised by paranormal entities.’
‘They’d probably have even more difficulty filling the position if they mentioned that,’ mused Jack.
‘They’ve had trouble filling your position?’
‘That’s what Hector said.’
‘Gee, I wonder why.’
Jack bowled again. Merch smacked the ball past Jack and into the dreaded Agapanthus bush - notoriously tricky for finding lost tennis balls.
‘What happened to the people who worked there before you?’
‘Dunno. Hector was vague about it. Said something about them all disappearing.’
Jack and Merch searched the bush for the missing ball. ‘I’m not surprised.’ The ball seemed to have vanished. ‘Well, you have to do something.’
‘Yeah, you’re probably right.’
‘I usually am.’
‘I’ll have a chat to Hector about it tomorrow. Definitely.’
Black Hotel Page 6
