The Haunted Halls (7 page)

Chapter Three

“Do you like what you see?”

Kurt tried to open his eyes to match the face with the sultry voice, but was greeted with blinding light and black dots. It felt like he was lying on a sheet of cool metal. His head weighed a thousand pounds and he couldn’t stop shivering. “I-I…I can’t see anything,” he said. “W-w-where am I?” An icy cold hand clasped his bare shoulder.

“Don’t worry that pretty little head of yours,” she said.

He could feel the cool touch move through his body as the fingers ran through his hair. “What…what are you doing? W-wh-what’s happening to me?”

She gripped her fingers into his hair, pulling so hard he was sure she would rip the follicles out. He cried out then tried to move his arms to protect himself, and couldn’t. The woman continued to pull on his hair. His scalp was threatening to rip. He tried lifting his arms once more, straining with all the force he could muster in his weakened state, and was met with intense white heat where his right arm ripped free. His screams filled the small room. “What are you d-d-doing to m-m-me?”

“I’m going to let you in on a secret,” she said. Her cold breath spread over his mouth like a second skin. “You’re dead.”

…..

Rhiannon drove her Ford Escort into the parking lot of the Hollis Oaks General Hospital. She didn’t like hospitals; they reminded her of sickness, of death. Her Grammy Lilly had passed from cancer last fall in this very building. Rhiannon had gone to see her three times a week until the very end. Even now, looking at the large building, she could sense the ghost of the monster with no cure hanging around, waiting for its next victim. She hoped Kurt was all right.

She had taken a liking to Kurt their first day at the hotel. Two people had quit at the start of the busy summer season–something about a guest drowning in the pool. Some of the employees were convinced the death had been somehow
supernatural
. Rhiannon figured that the middle-aged quitters had seen one too many “reality” ghost shows. She, for one, did not cater to such nonsense, and as it turned out, neither did Kurt. He was shy and nervous around her, but also very funny, very charming in his own way. If he had asked her out that very first day, she would have said yes. She hadn’t felt this way about a guy since junior high. Back then, it had been a stupid thirteen-year-old’s ill-conceived idea of love that sent her jumping from one boy to the next. Any boy who showed interest in her. Once she got into high school, things changed. She discovered women who were loud and in your face. Her idols became Brody Dahl from the Distillers and Kim Gordon of Sonic Youth. She established a truer sense of self-worth and developed a natural edginess, slipping into a skin that fit like a record needle to a groove.

She considered herself tough, callous and cool, but sitting in her car, taking the last drag off her third straight cigarette, Rhiannon wondered if there was more than a little of that desperate and sappy seventh grader left in her than she liked to admit. She tossed the filter out of her window and stepped out into the cool evening.

At the emergency room entrance, she pushed the door open, and approached the receptionist’s desk. A frazzled looking woman with dark hair and black-rimmed glasses, whose name tag read Marci, looked up at her.

“May I help you?” 

“Yes, I’m looking for a friend of mine that was brought in from the Bruton Inn, Kurt Costello,” Rhiannon said

“Are you family?”

“Well, no. I’m his girlfriend,” she said, chewing her nails as she watched the receptionist tap the keys before her.

“It looks like he was brought up to the third floor. They want to keep him overnight for observation.”

“Can I see him?”

Marci looked back over her shoulder at the clock on the wall. “Visiting hours go until 9 pm. You have about an hour.”

“Thank you.” Rhiannon turned and headed straight for the elevators.

The silver doors opened, releasing an elderly gentleman with his arm in a sling. The man paused to look at her, watching her with a cataract eye. Rhiannon diverted her attention from the milky, glazed-over orb as she stepped past him. She was turning to select the third floor when the man spun around and placed his good arm on the elevator doors, preventing them from closing.

“She’s got him, you know,” he said.

Rhiannon took a step back. “Excuse me?”

“You’re too late, you little bitch.”

Rhiannon watched in stunned horror as the glossed-over eye cleared, like a frosted windshield in a warming vehicle. A gray-blue eye stared back at her, looking more lost and confused than sinister. The bewildered man pulled his arm back and turned around without another word.

What the fuck?

The doors slid closed. The elevator began its ascent to the third floor.

…..

Kurt Costello could feel the girl,
the thing
, whatever she was, and her breath against the flesh of his ear. A river of terror flooded his dizzying mind; all of his thoughts becoming a jumble of memories, unfulfilled dreams, and regrets. The thing behind the sultry voice placed a frozen palm flat upon on his chest. A deep, penetrating sensation beyond the most frigid Maine morning seeped from the deathly hand. All he could manage from his shivering body was a whimper as the cold encompassed his slowing heart. Frost formed on the hairs of his nostrils. His blue lips drained of any sense of their former life. The black dots that reappeared behind his closed lids began to pool together and spread until there was nothing but a perfect blackness.

“Shh, shh, shh. You have a higher purpose. I promise,” she said.

Kurt’s last fragment of life wheezed from his open mouth and into the white sterile room in a cloud of vapor.

…..

Rhiannon walked into Kurt’s icebox of a hospital room, and screamed.

Chapter Four

Christmas Eve, 1983

On Christmas Eve, sitting in a darkened movie theater with her psychotic roommate lost in Tony Montana’s drug-crazed bloodbath in
Scarface
, Christina was mentally preparing to do what had to be done.  If she was going to get away from this wicked girl, she was going to have to lower herself to the bitch’s level.

After the three-hour movie came to its ultimately depressing climax, they walked arm in arm to the little powder-blue Volkswagen Bug that Sarah had acquired. As they drove the 40 minutes back to the hotel, the local rock station played an array of new songs that she normally would have enjoyed. But under the circumstances, Def Leppard could just as well be the Carpenters.

As far as she knew, Sarah didn’t have a clue about her true feelings. Since the night of Jason’s death, Christina had shoved the burning rage and complete hatred for her down deep. She had tried her best to appear as the desperate friend she’d been when they met. She knew she’d have to catch Sarah off guard.

They pulled into the near-empty lot of the Bruton Inn and headed in through the back entrance.

“I think I’m gonna go for a swim.”

“Cool,” Sarah said.

Christina was certain Sarah would find her way down once she got bored with the TV. Sarah Ford may have had a tough and confident exterior, but it was one predicated on having to project it upon someone.

Minutes later, Christina entered the large pool room. It was empty, as it should be–pool hours were posted stating a firm ten o’clock closing time. Christina and Sarah had yet to adhere to this rule, even after being caught by the old pervert at the desk that ran the night shift. He could care less. They let him watch them swim, which made Christina’s skin crawl, but it afforded the girls the freedom to do whatever they wanted within the hotel walls.  

She didn’t bother using the changing room, deciding to drop her clothes in a pile at her feet, baring her naked body to the empty room that smelled of chlorine. At the moment, the odor also represented the smell of something else–her impending freedom. Slipping into the navy blue one-piece that Sarah had picked out for her, she stepped to the pool’s edge and dove in. She slid through the water, skimming mere inches above the pool’s concrete floor, before heading back up toward the light and air above. She broke the surface, bringing her hands up to clear the water from her eyes, and nearly jumped out of her gooseflesh skin under Sarah’s heavy sparkling gaze.

Chapter Five

Timothy’s new shadow tailed him. Whether the big guy with the fucked up grin was actually following him or just had the same plans for the evening was still up in the air. Paranoia had always been a Timothy-staple.

He made his way down the first floor hall feeling eyes upon him the whole way, but he wasn’t about to let the weaknesses of his past ruin the promise of this night. He reached the pool room, grabbed the door handle and turned–the big guy was no longer there.

Where the hell did he go?

He stepped into the pool area, his dress shoes slapping against the granite tile, and was reminded of a study he read about how confined spaces with high humidity were perfect breeding grounds for bacteria and disease. This thought evaporated as Timothy took in the primal scene set out before him. Beautiful young ladies jiggled about everywhere. They filled the pool, they relaxed or texted in lounge chairs. They drank, they giggled, and at least a few of them were looking in his direction.

Two scantily clad blondes in matching red and white-striped bikinis approached him. They smiled and offered him a Bud Light. He accepted the ice cold beverage–despite the fact that he thought the stuff tasted like Alka Seltzer–and smiled back at them.

“Cheers,” he said.

The one on the right replied, “You’re welcome, handsome.”

He tipped the beer bottle in response and continued forward.  A few feet past the edge of the pool, a couple of steps led up to a second tier. He had never seen anything like it in another hotel. Two hot tubs bookended a row of very modern-looking pool furniture. He found a free seat, and planted himself between the two Jacuzzis.

“Hi.”

A cute redhead in a plaid bikini top leaned over the edge of the hot tub to his left.

“My name’s Janey,” she said. “What’s yours?”

“Tim.”

“Hello, Tim.” Janey rested her chin on her folded arms. “Are you going swimming or did you just come down here to stare at all the pretty girls.”

“A little of both, actually,” he said.

“You should come have a seat in here with me.”

He looked down at his pants, then back at her. “In these?”

“I bet you have some cute boxers on under there,” she said, grinning from ear to ear.

He looked out over the crowd of wet, young bodies, “I think I need to finish my drink and get a good feel for the atmosphere before I join in on any of the activities.”

“Whatever.” She rolled her eyes, sat up, and turned her back to him.

He assumed they were playing “the game.” Oh well, he had already decided he wasn’t chasing anyone this weekend. There were plenty of cute little fish in this sea. If this girl was playing hard to get, she was going to be waiting a while.

He lifted the cold bottle of crappy beer to his lips when someone in the pool caught his attention. It was
her
–the girl from the backseat of his car, or at least a damn near perfect look-a-like.

…..

The Ice Queen stared at the object of her desire. This time, she would show him all the dirty things he thought he had buried deep down where no one would find them. But first, she wanted to have a little fun.

…..

It had been over an hour since Rhiannon left for the hospital. Jeff was gnawing through his fingernails at an alarming rate waiting to hear about Kurt’s condition. It didn’t help his anxiety that the enigmatic and thus far elusive Meghan Murphy had called down and renewed his hope of getting to spend a few good hours in her company. She was fucking up his head. One night they hit it off, the next she acts like he’s invisible, then they kiss, and then she disappears. He could not figure her out. With the whole situation around Kurt today, he was grateful to have something to keep his mind from giving itself over to the girl of empty promises.

Jeff decided he would just call Rhiannon’s cell. He found her number on the emergency call list by the phone at the desk, and dialed–it went straight to voicemail.

“Hey, this is Rhiannon. Leave me a message and–” Rhiannon’s voice was interrupted by another girl’s: “You’ll be lucky if you ever see this little bitch again.” Jeff’s neck hairs were standing on end as Rhiannon’s voice came back through “–maybe I’ll get back to you.”

Beep. Beep. Click.

Unsure what he had just heard, he tried the number again. Nothing–not even the voicemail. He Googled the number of the Hollis Oaks General Hospital, found it, and dialed.

“Hollis Oaks General. Marci speaking, how may I direct your call?”

“Hi, I’m looking for a friend of mine that was brought in earlier from the Bruton Inn. His name is Kurt, Kurt Costello.”

The sound of Marci’s keyboard clicking chattered in the receiver.

“Are you any relation to Mr. Costello?”

“Yes, I’m his brother.”

“He’s in the ICU. I’m not supposed to transfer calls up there after nine pm…”

“Please, ma’am, I just have to know that he’s okay.”

“Okay, sir. Since you are family,” she said. “But I’m only transferring you one time. If the call comes back–”

“Thank you, Marci,”

“Okay, I’m putting you through.”

The phone rang twice before someone picked up. It was the other voice from Rhiannon’s voicemail.

“Hello, Jeffrey. Looking for your friend?”

Jeff’s blood froze.

“You shouldn’t worry about him. He’s going to be quite all right. You might even get to see him again.”

“Who is this?”

“Why don’t you go check on the girls in the pool?”

Jeff pictured her on the other end, smiling behind the eyes of some famous serial killer–
Dahmer, or Bundy
. The temperature in the lobby dropped; goose bumps, like boiling water, bubbled up to the surface of his skin. Before he could respond, the line went dead.

“What. The. Fuck?” he said a lot louder than he should have. The preppy couple at the coffee station shot him a set of matching dirty looks.

“Sorry,” he said.

Jeff grabbed the “Be right back” sign from under the desk, placed it up for guests to see, and started down the hall, heading toward the pool. The fucked up voice reverberating in his head, followed him down.