About halfway through the film Jack felt a tap on his shoulder.
‘Do you feel heavy?’ Charlotte made no attempt to modify her speaking voice, talking at full volume.
Someone behind shushed her.
‘Excuse me?’ Jack whispered back.
‘Do you feel heavy?’ She slowly raised her palm, hovering it in small circles near his forehead, reading his energy. ‘You’re a contradiction. A lost soul…’
‘Shhhh!’ repeated the annoyed patron behind. Acute embarrassment seeped out of every pour of Jack’s being. Embarrassment at Charlotte’s talking and more so at the idea people might think the two of them were together. ‘I’m not here by choice!’ he wanted to explain.
Charlotte continued, her voice still loud. ‘You are a wanderer, so weighted down with anger and resentment and baggage you can’t wander. Such…’ She stared right through him, striving to understand. ‘Such guilt.’
Guilt? What on earth was she babbling about? There was no guilt, only annoyance.
‘Jack? … Jack?’
The mutterings and shushings around them grew louder. Crouching down in his seat, as though that might help, Jack attempted to keep his voice as low as possible, hoping she would follow suit. ‘I just don’t like being ripped off.’
Charlotte nodded sympathetically. ‘Oh… Did someone rip you off?’
Jack scoffed. ‘You’re kidding me, right?’
It took a moment or two for Charlotte to pick up on his implication. ‘Are you suggesting we ripped off? Jack?’
Jack turned about, trying to convey an apologetic look to those around.
‘How?’ Charlotte’s voice was kind but still loud. ‘Your hotel simply isn’t haunted. How is that our fault? … Jack?’
A torchlight shone directly into their faces.
‘You two are going to have to leave,’ said the pimply usher attached to the torch.
29
Heroin
Charlotte took Jack by the hand and led him towards the exit. If Nicolette and Merch even noticed Jack and Charlotte being kicked out of the movie they made no effort to join them. Charlotte marched Jack to near the Candy Bar and turned to face him head on. She stood that little bit too close. Behind them, masses of popcorn popped and spilled over into the machine.
‘So, explain it to me.’
Brooding and holding a grudge was much more Jack’s style than direct confrontation, but here he had little choice. At least Charlotte seemed calm. She wasn’t yelling or screaming at him, which would have been painfully embarrassing.
‘You ripped me off.’
‘How?’
‘You didn’t do anything.’
Charlotte’s patronising smile became a laugh. ‘What, you think it was a scam?’ She laughed loudly right in Jack’s face, burning him up. ‘Walk me through this scam. How would it work exactly?’
He looked at her incredulously. ‘You come to my hotel, demand 100 bucks, wander about a bit, then say "Oh, nothing here" and leave.’
‘Wow, that’s some scam. And all it took was a couple of hours work for three of us to take you for a whole hundred dollars? A couple more big scores like that and we’ll be able to retire to the Bahamas.’
Was there a specific moment where everyone had decided to talk to him like a lost four-year-old?
‘That would make us about the worst scammers in history. I think you know less about scams that you do about paranormal investigations.’
Jack could feel his cheeks burning. He tried to fight it but that only made it worse.
‘Tell me - how would I get you addicted to heroin?’ Charlotte asked.
‘Why would you want to get me addicted to heroin?’
‘I wouldn’t, silly. It’s an analogy. For argument’s sake, let’s say I did want to get you addicted to heroin. How would I do it?’
‘You’d… inject it into my arm?’ Jack replied, with a distinct uncertainty.
‘I would give it to you for free.’
‘Okay.’
‘I’d give it to you for free. Then once you were addicted, I would jack up the price. If we were scamming you at the hotel, we would have done the same thing.’
‘You’d give me free heroin?’
‘We would have charged you nothing.’
‘How would —’
‘— But told you the hotel was full of ghosts. And you would have been absolutely chomping for us to come back. And that next time we would have charged you a bit more, and the time after that we would have charged you even more. We would have kept jacking up the price and slowly have taken you for all you have.’ She looked him up and down. ‘Not that you look like you have much to take. But a good deal more than one hundred dollars.’ She smiled at him. ‘And you would have eaten it up, wouldn’t you?
‘Why? Because I’m stupid?’
‘Because you are so desperate to believe.’
Jack searched for a snappy comeback. Nothing came to mind. ‘You walked in there, your minds already made up. Maybe not you, but your Mum and your sister.’
‘Our Mother has been doing this for a long time. Of course she has a pretty good sense of what to expect before she enters a building.’
‘Maybe, but if you go in convinced you are not gonna find anything.’
‘There wasn’t anything to find.’
‘You barely even looked.’
They settled awkwardly on the couch near the door, waiting for the movie to finish. Charlotte continued to stare hard at Jack which wasn’t getting any less unnerving. She seemed to have the ability to look straight through him. Into his soul.
‘Why are you the lucky one?’
He didn’t respond.
‘Ghosts don’t tend to be exclusive. Black Hotel has been there 108 years…’
‘How do you know that?’
‘We do our research, Jack. We didn’t simply show up. 108 years and there hasn’t been a single ghost sighting, until now. Why you?’
Jack shook his head. Charlotte waited patiently.
‘I… Is… I…’ he spluttered, attempting to deflect her question. ‘Anybody could do what you do…’
‘No, they couldn’t.’
‘Anybody could claim to be a sceptical ghost hunter —’
‘You’re very fixated on the sceptical aspect of our business.’
‘It seems awfully convenient.’
‘You know why we’re sceptical?’ Charlotte continued kindly. ‘Idiots. Buildings making noises, especially old ones. But any time a house groans or squeaks or creeks or croaks people scream "Ghost!! Ghost!!" Actual hauntings are extremely rare. We work hard and we take what we do very seriously.’
They sat in silence for a moment. Jack looking at the cinema door. ‘Maybe we should have gone back in.’
‘She’s right.’ Merch said, unconcerned about talking with a mouth full of burger and fries. ‘You can’t have it both ways.’
‘Whatever.’ A feeling of being browbeaten and deflated washed over Jack.
After the movie the foursome adjourned to Bobby Rockets, a 50s inspired diner. As with The Comet, mid-afternoon was apparently not the peak time for Bobby Rockets. The group occupied a large round booth.
‘Every day you have a new theory. Last week it was all conspiracy. The hotel staff were against you. This week it’s these lovely ladies that are incompetent.’
Merch and Nicolette held hands. Nicolette seemed intrigued by the booth’s small personal jukebox, obsessively flicking through the lists of songs.
‘Not incompetent,’ Jack responded, fighting a losing battle. ‘It’s… an attitude.’
‘You’re right,’ chuckled Nicolette meanly. ‘There are no ghosts at your hotel because of our bad attitude.’
‘What’s more likely, buddy?’ Merch interjected. ‘Everyone is against you or —’
‘Fine,’ snapped Jack. ‘I’m crazy.’
‘No one thinks you’re crazy,’ offered Charlotte.
‘No, I think he’s crazy,’ said N
icolette.
Merch nodded. ‘I have been saying it for awhile.’
‘What crazy?’ said Charlotte. ‘Everyone’s crazy.’
‘Yeah, but you don’t believe me either.’ Jack looked directly at Charlotte.
‘No,’ she agreed. ‘It’s all in your head.’
‘Why would I make it up?!’ Jack’s face flushed. He was getting heated.
‘That’s not what I said.’ Charlotte took his hand. Once again trying to get a read on his aura. She hovered her hand in small circles above his upturned palm, her gaze searched deeply into his eyes.
‘You’re clearly an intelligent, creative person, stuck in a menial, soul-destroying job.’
‘I love working at the hotel…’
‘It’s not stimulating. Neither was your previous employment. Or the one before that. The mind doesn’t like being caged. It’s reacting.’
Jack had had enough. He ripped his hand away. ‘I don’t care. You are all wrong.’ He stood. ‘There are ghosts at Black Hotel and I’m going to figure out why.’
‘He said that before,’ Merch informed to the ladies.
Nicolette found all of this highly amusing, but Charlotte appeared more intrigued, watching Jack closely as he stomped away.
Jack took a deep breath of cool evening air. It wasn’t Charlotte’s attitude he found most annoying any more. It was much harder to come up with witty effective comebacks when the person you’re arguing with is probably right.
30
Don’t Scare Daddy
That night Black Hotel was its usual dark, quiet self, imposing against the night sky. Jack perched at his desk, alert. Ready. Waiting. Determined to do… something. He wasn’t clear on the specifics; it was just time to act. Sort these ghosts or delusions or whatever they were, sort them out, once and for all. And so he waited. It was as though the silence was mocking him. He couldn’t sort anything out if they didn’t appear.
Finally, he heard the familiar squeaking. Jack jumped to his feet.
Amanda played at the top of the stairs. Jack launched up the staircase, two at a time. He would probably scare her, but she always bolted off at this point anyway, so what did it matter? The familiar pattern ingrained in him. Sure enough, Amanda saw him approach and ran. Identical to the way it always was.
Room 8 was open as he suspected it would be. Jack strode inside. A bit short of breath. Perhaps he shouldn’t have attacked the stairs quite so vigorously. He was hardly in the best shape.
Amanda was sitting on the floor, playing with her car. Jack sat in front of her. Not too close, but close. He watched her play for a bit while his breathing and heart rate returned to normal.
‘What’s going on, Amanda? Am I crazy?’
The little girl smiled at him and continued to play.
‘Who is the man in the tuxedo? Was he a magician?’ He spat the words out faster and faster. ‘Is he something to do with you? Was there a fire here? In the hotel?’
If the 10-year-old knew the answers to the barrage of questions, she wasn’t letting on.
Jack took a breath and studied the little girl. Her shoulder-length brown hair complimented the sparkle in her eyes. From all appearances, Amanda seemed to be a happy, healthy young kid. It was those eyes though. Fiery. Full of life. Full of mischief. She reminded Jack of Millie.
For a time there was a little girl who lived a couple of apartments down from Jack and Merch. Millie. Millie was the type of girl you couldn’t ignore. She would march right up to you and start talking. It didn’t matter who you were or what you were doing if Millie wanted to talk, you talked. About anything. And everything. Whatever was on her mind. Whatever she was thinking. Whatever she wanted to know. Once Millie asked Jack why he was so fat. Why he didn’t just exercise more, casually informing him that her father had "no time" for fat people. That brutal honesty of children. Jack and Millie hadn’t talked that much but Jack learnt far more about her and her family than he imagined her parents would have been comfortable with. Jack always enjoyed the conversations. They were stilted and slightly awkward, but weren’t all social interactions? As an adult male he was never entirely comfortable talking to a female child. You could never be sure. Someone might see it, get the wrong idea. It wouldn’t matter that Millie had initiated the interaction. Then again, maybe with Millie it wasn’t an issue. Nobody residing in the apartment block would have harboured any concerns about Jack chatting with Millie because every one of them would have been in the exact same situation at some point - accosted by Millie and forced into conversation. Regardless of his slight discomfort Jack found Millie cheeky and irreverent and refreshing. And then one day she was gone. Her family just up and moved away. The apartment block was much worse for it.
Maybe because she was dead or a spirit or whatever, Amanda didn’t have nearly as much to say as Millie, yet it wasn’t hard to see that same vitality and aliveness in her.
Horror oozed through Jack. What had happened to Amanda? This little girl, full of life and excitement. Something terrible enough occurred that she was reaching out to Jack, reaching out from beyond the grave. Or was her soul trapped in this life somehow? Unable to pass on? He wasn’t sure exactly how it worked. Jack didn’t know this little girl at all and yet they shared a connection. Connected through the hotel. Through Room 8. And he didn’t want anything awful to have happened to her.
A realisation washed over Jack. He had been so busy, concerned about himself and what the implications of Black Hotel meant for him, he hadn’t even considered her. Maybe he needed a different approach to elicit some answers.
‘Amanda?’
The little girl stopped her car, turning her head slowly towards him.
‘Why are you here?’
Amanda turned back to her car. ‘Daddy wants to hurt Mummy.’
An icy chill crept over Jack. Whatever answer Jack expected, it wasn’t that. Jack glanced up involuntarily. The armchair behind was empty.
‘Your Dad wants to hurt your Mum?’
Amanda nodded. ‘Daddy wants to hurt Mummy.’ She turned her head back towards Jack, staring straight at him. ‘So he hurts me.’
The words dug into him like sharp fingernails. So he hurts me?
‘Amanda.’
Jack almost jumped out of his skin. The voice was soft and weak yet still gave Jack a hell of a fright. He turned. Amanda’s Dad had appeared in the doorway to the bathroom, his sorrowful, evil eyes staring back at the little girl sitting on the floor. He beckoned to her, a mobile phone pressed up against his ear.
Amanda stood. She turned on Jack, an unexpected fury in her eyes. ‘Don’t scare Daddy!’ the little girl screamed at Jack, right in his face. ‘You mustn’t scare Daddy!!’
Jack nodded haplessly, taken aback.
BANG! BANG! BANG!
‘Amanda!’ The familiar male voice from the corridor rang out again.
BANG! BANG! BANG!
Amanda disappeared. So had her father. But loud noises tumbled from the en suite. Sounds of a struggle. Jack jumped up.
In the en suite Amanda’s Dad forced the little girl into the bath. Knife raised high in one hand, shoving her down with the other. They struggled. The little girl fought valiantly, no match for a grown man.
‘Hey!!’ screamed Jack, lurching forward. He had to stop this. He had to —
Amanda’s Dad swung his head in Jack’s direction and vanished.
Jack halted.
What replaced Amanda’s Dad was truly horrific. A trail of splattered blood led up to and all over the white porcelain bathtub. Jack crept closer to look. He recoiled. Horrified. He fought the urge to vomit.
Amanda lay there in the bath. Her throat slit. Blood everywhere. The little girl’s eyes, seemingly so alive only seconds ago, stared lifelessly upwards.
Jack staggered out, struggling against what he saw.
Backing away from the horrors of the en suite and into the main part of Room 8 Jack froze. Amanda’s Dad was here, but not in the chair. He was lying on the flo
or. Very still. In a horribly contorted position.
Disgust coursed through the shaken Jack. He desperately wanted to do something, but what could he do? The scene was a dim echo of something long gone. Jack crept for the door. His heart smashed against his ribcage as though attempting to escape.
In the quiet of the corridor, Jack breathed heavily. The image of the little girl torn up by her monster father seemed seared on his vision.
The horror. The blood.
Jack froze. Suddenly aware he wasn’t alone. There was another body out here. In the corridor.
‘Well, that’s new,’ Jack commented out loud, his shaky voice trying to inject a bit of levity that he wasn’t feeling. The body lay up the other end of the corridor, very still. Things were fast becoming too much for Jack. He gazed at the stairs them back at the body. It’s okay. It’s not real, he told himself. Was it real? Did it matter if it was all in his head? He eyed the body with trepidation.
‘Hello?’ His voice emerged limp.
Jack crept over slowly. Closer… Closer…
It was the demented magician. In his tuxedo. Dead. Blood trickled down his face. Jack gazed down at him, mystified. He seemed kind of peaceful. Still.
Without warning the old man’s eyes shot open. His head snapped about, turning straight at Jack. He opened his mouth. A guttural sound rang out. Defying gravity the old man drew upwards, swiftly shifting from supine to standing upright without moving a limb.
The demented magician launched himself towards Jack, who slipped and sprawled on the floor. They wrestled. For something that wasn’t real, this attack was all too real. The old man punched Jack hard in the head.
Jack managed to extract himself. He scurried backwards.
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