Ghosts, Part III
Final part. You don't have to be dead to be a ghost.
Note: This story is part of an anthology about the 9 Hotel. Wild place. Althea is one of the saner residents. Visit the 9. Where everyone gets what they need.
I run into Balthazar in the hallway of the ninth floor. I’m eleven twelve thirteen, gangly limbs and awkward edges. Hair in pigtails, clothes mismatched and grubby. I’m sitting on the floor of the hallway, legs crossed and hands in my lap.
Balthazar pauses when he sees me. He’s a tall, wiry man who stays at the hotel. One of the residents, like me. He has very dark hair and eyes like bullet wounds. He likes to wear a brown hat and a long brown coat. I don’t see him too much. The Proprietor says he’s very busy and important, that I’m not to bother him.
Sometimes I think the Proprietor is afraid of him.
The other guests talk about Balthazar. They call him the Prospector. They call him killer. They speak in hushed whispers and look over their shoulders to see who might be listening in. These are people who are thugs, criminals, killers. I’ve seen sex traffickers avoid his eyes in the hallways. They cringe away from him and cower and pretend to be anywhere else.
They don’t see me. I’m another ghost in the walls. A specter. I fade in and out of existence as needed. I’ve learned in the hotel that I can walk through walls and touch time. I can find secret floors filled with secret rooms. I talk to the dead that roam the hallways.
The hotel sees me for what I am. Loves me with a terrible, brutal affection.
I don’t tell the adults this. It’s safer to be a ghost. Stay small stay quiet stay hidden. I sneak into hotel rooms and change the clocks. I rearrange suitcases without taking anything. I steal weapons I find. I’ve got a box of knives under my bed.
Sometimes Balthazar stares at me across the room, cigarillo in one hand and drink in the other. His face like thunderclouds and a downpour. Something sad and angry and hateful.
Now he smiles at me, dark brown mustache the same color as his eyes. He’s carrying a big burlap bag over his shoulder. It looks heavy, but he holds it with apparent ease.
‘Hello, Althea,’ he says.His voice is like whiskey and gravel. He drops the burlap bag. It groans. He kicks it once with his worn shoe and there’s no more groaning.
‘Hello, Mr. Balthazar,’ I say. Polite. That’s what Mr. Malick says. Be polite to the guests. Mr. Balthazar is a very important guest. He puts his hands on his hips and looks down at me. His face isn’t like thunderclouds. He’s smiling but his eyes look sad. Like they’re seeing me but not me. Seeing someone else in me. Or maybe they really are seeing me. I don’t like it.
‘Staying out of trouble?’ he asks, like he always does when I see him. I nod. He follows the routine to the letter. ‘They keeping an eye on you?’ he asks. I nod again. ‘They’ refers to any number of residents in the hotel that decide to boss me around. I used to call them ‘mommy’ when I was little. Cooing women with blood on their teeth and guns in thigh holsters. Men with big guns and drugs and weapons were my uncles. Told me to keep my nose clean. Gave me a couple of bucks to get them cigarettes, take a note to the front desk.
But they come and go. Mostly go. Now I don’t mind them so much. I mind the ones that matter. The Proprietor. Mr. Pinch. Mr. Valentine. Mr. Malick. The Mademoiselle. They’re the ones that stay.
‘Yes, Mr. Balthazar,’ I say. It seems like the less complicated answer.
‘What are you doing down there?’ Mr. Balthazar asks. I hesitate. ‘Well?’
‘Talking to ghosts,’ I say. Balthazar makes a show of looking around. Turns his head to the left and the right in an elaborate pantomime.
‘I don’t see anyone,’ he says. I shake my head. Adults do this to me a lot. They think they have it figured out. They think they know what’s going on. I know there’s nothing to understand. Nothing to question. The Nine is what the Nine is. I can tell them and tell them and tell them, but people don’t want to listen. I think they’re afraid of what’s really around them.
I think they’re the same people who don’t want to look out the windows. The ones who say there’s nothing bad out there. Mr. Balthazar comes and goes. He’s one of the ones who comes back when he leaves. I decide to tell him the truth.
‘There’s a lady who hung herself from the chandelier,’ I say. ‘Her neck went snap. Snip snap paddywhack. She says a man got her in a complicated way. And half a man in the elevator who screams. He doesn’t know what happened to him, so he screams about it. He screams for help a lot.’ I frown. ‘Not too many kids to play with.’ There’s a few, but they’re faded and sad things, more blobs in old-fashioned clothing. They don’t like to do much.
The bag moans again. Whatever is inside moves around. Balthazar slams his heel against it. There’s a crunching noise. Red starts to soak into the fabric.
‘Where do you see these ghosts?’ asks Balthazar. He has that smile adults wear when they think you’re full of shit.
‘I’m not full of shit,’ I say. ‘They’re all over. And other stuff.’ Balthazar crouches down so we’re face to face. One arm resting on his knee. Our faces are close enough that I can see the dark stubble on his jaw and chin.
‘What sort of stuff?’ he asks. He’s not smiling anymore. No downpour yet, but thunderclouds on his brow. I’m not afraid, but I am very, very careful.
‘Just stuff,’ I say. Bodiless voices singing me bedtime stories. Endless hallways that lead back to the beginning. The floor is shifting and moving beneath our feet. It moves like a snake or a wave. I’ve been bobbing up and down gently this whole time. Balthazar walking on water. Balthazar moves with the floor. I know if I tell him he won’t understand. I don’t want him to look at me that way.
‘Nobody bothers you, do they?’ he asks abruptly. I shake my head. When I was younger this question would confuse me, but I know better now.
‘No,’ I say. ‘This one man smiled at me too much for a bit. Kept asking me to go to his room to do errands, but Mademoiselle heard and she took care of him. Now nobody looks at me like that.’ I’m glad, glad that the man is gone into the vats and that he won’t get to look at anyone like that. I could see the red in his eyes and I knew to stay away.
Not everyone can see the red, can see the danger in big bright letters over someone’s head. Bed fed med lead. I see people go off in twos and threes, predators and prey, hunters and hunted. I don’t tell them. I don’t question the Nine. People who question the Nine end up ghosts, or worse.
I almost tell him Balthazar I’m a ghost too. That I’m not really here. He’s talking to himself alone in a hallway with a gently bleeding bag at his feet. There never is, was, will be, an Althea Parker. There’s a hole where a little girl should be, a vacuum, an emptiness with blue eyes and blonde hair.
‘Good.’ He says it like he means it. Like he’s glad the man with the red won’t be bothering anyone anymore. Like he wishes he’d been the one to take care of it. ‘Anybody tries to fuck with you, you tell me, OK?’ I nod, although I won’t. Sometimes I’m a ghost to Balthazar. His eyes slide right past me, his mouth tight and almost angry. He’ll storm past me in the lobby, coat swishing and head bowed. Step over me with his long legs while I lay reading in the hallway.
I don’t like it when he ignores me. I don’t like it when he pays attention to me. I don’t know how to feel about Mr. Balthazar.
I wonder if he knows I’m already dead. I wonder who he sees when he looks at me. I wonder what happened to them.
‘Your bag is leaking,’ I say. I point out the growing stain. He chuckles and rises back to his feet.
‘So it is,’ he says. He stuffs his hands in his pockets and studies me for a second like I’m someone he might recognize. ‘What does she say? The lady who hung herself?’
I turn to look at her. Her neck is bent at a ninety degree angle. You can see the delicate vertebrate under her ombre skin. Her hair hangs in a thick black cascade down her shoulder. There’s blood mixed in, like a murder in an oil slick. There are deep purple lines staining the skin around her throat. A blossom of violence. Her eyes are bloody where she’s clawed them out.
‘She tells me the things she sees,’ I say. ‘The things I need to know. She warns me about stuff.’ Like the man and the woman who dressed in all black and smiled with too many teeth. Like the Lost Man in the basement. Like the time the seventh floor went away. The Nine tells me what I need to know. I trust it to keep me safe.
Sometimes she tells me stories about what’s coming. About fire and steel and melting bones and the rancid stench of burning flesh. About a wasteland desert with no beginning and no end. About what becomes of those left behind. What will become of me.
I don’t like those stories.
‘Have you seen any ghosts around my room?’ Balthazar asks with a smile.
‘Yes,’ I say. I don’t smile back. ‘You have a lot of ghosts.’ Like the lady with the bullet between her blue eyes and blood all down her back and negligee. Like the man full of holes. They change all the time, crowd around outside his door like he’s a big star and they want his autograph. I think they’re waiting for him. Balthazar’s expression twists into something strange and ugly and raw.
‘Kid,’ he says. ‘You have no idea.’
After he leaves I go back to my room. Nobody bothers me in my room, except the cleaning staff. They bring me fresh sheets, clean my clothes. Tell me how to get bloodstains out, how to fix a knife wound in a t-shirt. I get food sent to my room or I go into the kitchen and make food for myself. My room is safe. It’s simple and cozy with a desk for my experiments, and old TV that only works sometimes, and a big sagging bookshelf. I lock and deadbolt the door behind me and go to the window. It’s a big window that lets me see to the edge of the world where the horizon turns bright and burning and merciless.
It’s night outside. It was morning a minute ago. You blink and a day is gone a week a lifetime. Jump down turn around pick a bail of cotton. I know it was morning.
But the moon hangs fat and engorged in the sky. I can see the city in the distance through the smog and the darkness. The hotel bustles around me. I can feel people in their rooms. Fighting fucking dying scheming dreaming cutting slicing burning praying bargaining crying dying dying dying. I can feel it all, hear it all. I’m a part of it and it’s a part of me.
I go to the window. Outside I can hear muffled screams. Explosions. Lights flare and lives end. Skeletons burst into flames. There are people walking the desert. They’re coming. They’re always coming.
Pressing the tip of my nose against the cool glass, I sit and wait for the world to end.
Althea waited until the screams had faded into weak moans. She knew that Godfrey hated to be interrupted when he was working. Peering around the cold cement corner, she watched as Godfrey bent over a man in a dentist's chair, pliers in hand. Godfrey was tall, with skin like midnight and a smile like a knife between the ribs.
‘If you keep struggling, Mr. Dorsey, it’s only going to make this worse,’ he chided. Althea leaned against the doorway and watched. She loved seeing Godfrey at work. The screaming started up again, then ended abruptly. The man in the chair lay unconscious while Godfrey rooted around in his mouth. Blood and saliva spilled from his slack lips.
‘Don’t hover,’ he said without looking at Althea. ‘You know it distracts me.’ Althea walked into the room. It reminded her of a prison, with the cement and the bars and the organic stains on the floor. Besides the dentist chair there was a surgeon’s table, currently jammed in the corner with an assortment of other medical gear. The air smelled like blood and chemicals and mothballs. Whiskey and decay.
‘Didn’t want to interrupt,’ she said. She nodded at the man, even though Godfrey’s back was to her. ‘He dead?’
‘Hardly,’ said Godfrey. ‘Spineless fuck fainted.’ He stood up and held up a blackened tooth to Althea. There was a proud smile behind the thick stubble on his face.
‘Lovely,’ she said. ‘Congratulations.’ Godfrey pouted.
‘You’re no fun,’ he said. ‘What are you doing here? I thought you were working.’
‘I am working,’ said Althea. ‘Taking a breather. Need to use your phone.’
‘There are many phones in the hotel, you know,’ said Godfrey. Althea shrugged one shoulder. His eyes tracked the movement.
‘I know,’ she said. ‘I like using your phone. It’s the safe one. Can’t trust the others after all. People whisper on them all the time.’ Godfrey shook his head.
‘Your paranoia takes fascinating forms,’ he said. He threw the tooth in a trashcan. Mr. Dorsey continued to drool on himself.
‘Was this a voluntary procedure?’ asked Althea, side-eyeing him. Godfrey chuckled.
‘Mostly,’ he said. ‘Come into my office, you can use the phone in there.’
Godfrey’s office was piled high with medical textbooks, books on dentistry, and assorted surgical gear. An ancient phone sat on a desk crowded with paperwork and drug paraphernalia.
Godfrey came up behind her and put his hands on her slender hips. He pressed his nose into the crook of her neck and breathed deeply.
‘You smell like her,’ he murmured. Lips brushing and the soft skin. A hint of teeth.
‘So do you,’ said Althea, pushing her body back against his slightly. ‘I like it. She’s marked us.’
‘So have you,’ Godfrey murmured. She felt his teeth at the side of her neck and gripped his upper arm. ‘Did you two miss me?’ Althea arched her neck to give him better access.
‘Not at all,’ she said in a low voice, smiling. Godfrey huffed out a small laugh.
‘Liar,’ he said. His hands started to travel up her sides, pressing into the soft skin, but she pushed them away and twisted out of his grip.
‘I do need to use your phone,’ she said. Shot of a smile across her face. Godfrey stepped back, fell into an overstuffed armchair, and gestured to the phone.
‘Have at it, then.’ Althea sat at his desk and put her feet up. Ignoring Godfrey’s dirty look, she lit a cigarette and dialed the number. She didn’t have to check it. She knew it by heart. The other end of the line picked up.
‘It’s me,’ said Althea.
‘Have you found him?’ The voice on the other end sounded posh. It was the sort of voice with money and breeding behind it.
‘Yes,’ said Althea.
‘Has it finished?’ the voice asked? Althea blew out a thick plume of smoke.
No,’ she said. The voice hummed noncommittally.
‘Good,’ the voice said. ‘Don’t let it end until you have to.’ Althea nodded.
‘I won’t,’ she said.
‘Any problems?’ asked the voice.
‘No,’ said Althea. ‘He’s a fucking asshole, but that’s to be expected.’ The voice laughed.
‘Yes, I rather imagine he is,’ the voice said. ‘Call me when it’s settled.’
‘I will.’ Althea’s eyes strayed back to Godfrey. He had taken out a syringe and was in the process of injecting his muscular forearm, sleeve rolled up to his elbow. She watched the vein bulge, saw ecstasy bloom across his face. It was a look she knew well, one she wanted to curl up in and glut herself on.
Godfrey slumped back in his seat and gave Althea a glassy-eyed grin. She flipped him off, squinting through the cigarette smoke in her eyes.
‘You’re doing us a great service, Miss Parker,’ said the voice. ‘Once your task is completed, you’ll find us to be more than generous.’
‘I know,’ said Althea with a smile. She heard the click on the other end of the line and placed the phone down. She looked up.
‘There’s a man in the corner,’ she said to Godfrey. He looked in the direction of her outstretched finger.
‘There’s no one there,’ he groaned. ‘Don’t start this now. I thought you were busy.’
‘I’m always busy,’ said Althea, not taking her eyes off the corner of the room. ‘So much to do while we still can. Do it all. All at once. He’s still there.’ The man watched her with sorrowful eyes.
‘I don’t see anyone,’ said Godfrey patiently.
‘What does that have to do with anything?’ asked Althea. ‘You see what you want to see. What you think you should see. She took her feet off the desk slowly, her eyes never straying from the man in the corner. Watching with a mix of curiosity and trepidation.
‘Have you been spending time looking out the windows again?’ asked Godfrey.
‘There was someone in the hallway earlier,’ said Althea, ignoring him. ‘I don’t know who.’
‘It’s a hotel,’ said Godfrey tiredly. ‘You can’t expect to know everyone who comes and goes.’
‘I know everyone who goes,’ said Althea. Godfrey looked in the corner. It remained stubbornly empty. He knew it was empty. But Althea watched it with calm certainty, and his eyes kept straying despite himself.
‘What does he look like, then?’ asked Godfrey. ‘This man of yours?’ Althea stubbed her cigarette out in an overflowing ashtray. Studied the man. He looked back, seeing and unseeing.
‘Ash gray,’ she said. ‘Scratchy. Smells like turpentine. Sad. Been here a while. He knows what’s coming and he can’t tell me.’
‘I think that’s actually turpentine, Althea,’ Godfrey said in a dreamy voice. Althea picked up a crumpled piece of paper and smoothed it out. Started folding it into an airplane.
‘There was blood in the elevator,’ she said. The lights are flickering. I can’t find Moxie.’
‘You were with Moxie last night,’ said Godfrey. He smiled, lewd and knowing. ‘And this morning.’ Althea nods, moves a hand to the hollow of her throat, remembering Moxie’s hand there just a few hours ago.
‘Maybe Moxie is a dream,’ she said. ‘Shared hallucination. Folie a deux. Maybe you’re the only real one left. Dream a little dream of me. Of Moxie.’ Godfrey laughed.
‘Moxie is very real,’ said Godfrey. ‘We both have the scars to prove it.’ He scratched his neck in thought. ‘You worry. She can take care of herself.’ Althea made no comment. There was silence except for the sound of her folding the paper.
‘How’s it outside?’ Godfrey asked with forced casualness. Althea finished her paper airplane and surveyed it critically. There were brown streaks on the paper. The nose of the plane bent at an awkward angle.
‘Outside?’ she echoed. Picking the plane up in one hand, she threw it in Godfrey’s direction. The plane did a small loop-de-loop before crashing at Godfrey’s feet. ‘No survivors,’ she observed. ‘Dead on impact. Crash and burn.’
‘I know you’ve been looking out the windows,’ said Godfrey. ‘Watching what’s going on.’ Althea picked at her nails.
‘Are you pissed?’ she asked. Godfrey shook his head.
‘Tell me what it’s like and I won’t be,’ he said. Althea fingered her battered pack of cigarettes, debated lighting another. She should have set fire to the plane before letting it go. That was what had really happened. Even now if she squinted, she could see curling strands of gray smoke rising from the wreckage. Tiny explosions as the fuselage burned and spoiled. If she listened, she could hear distant screaming.
‘Althea.’
‘The same,’ she said. ‘Outside is the same. Same ghosts. Same skies. Still burning.’ Godfrey sighed. ‘What did you expect?’ Althea asked, a touch irritated. ‘Daisies and sunshine? Unicorns and rainbows?’
‘I don’t know,’ admitted Godfrey. ‘I never know what to expect with you.’
Althea looked back at the ghost. His sorrowful gray face had melted off, revealing a blackened and shrieking skull head. His tongue was still there, flapping uselessly against ruined teeth burned to ask.
‘Pay attention, then,’ she said. ‘What you see is what you get. There’s only one of me. One and done. A perfect circle. Time is a flat circle. You can’t outrun. Run. One. Fun. One is the loneliest number.’
‘You’re not alone,’ said Godfrey. His hand moved through the air with slow, deliberate motions. ‘Don’t be so melodramatic. You have Moxie. You have me.’ He gave her a small smile. ‘We have you.’
‘A half pound of flesh and a Saturday morning fuck,’ Althea spat out. Godfrey tilted his head, watching her. White blonde hair and arresting blue eyes. Pretty in a plain, small town way. Applebees beautiful, the sort of girl you could imagine balling in the back alley, apron hiked up around her toned thighs.
Of course if you believed that, odds are that you were already dead.
‘Did you come down here to pick a fight with me?’ he asked in a calm tone. Althea got up and moved around the room, restless. The skeleton was gone. Or he was still there and she was somewhere else. Or he was there and she was gone. Invisible. Dead. It was getting harder and harder to tell.
‘Maybe,’ admitted Althea. She paced, touching the walls, touching the floor, the desk. Something was wrong. She could feel it under her skin, peeling back her fingernails and cutting into her bones. She knew it the way she knew every scar on her body. There was a pricking of her goddamn thumbs and the taste of bile in the back of her throat. Something was coming. She just didn’t know what.
‘Althea,’ said Godfrey, snapping her out of her reverie.
‘What if they got in?’ she asked.
‘Who?’ Godfrey looked around, bewildered and high and on the edge of annoyance. Althea gave him an exasperated look.
‘Anyone,’ she said. ‘We should secure the perimeter. Protect the hotel.’ Althea checked her watch again.
‘That piece of shit doesn’t even work,’ said Godfrey. He sounded annoyed, eyes flicking up and down her body. ‘Come here.’ Althea folded her arms across her chest and frowned.
‘I’m not going to fuck you,’ she said. ‘I’m working. And it’s not time. We don’t do that now.’ Godfrey rolled his eyes.
‘Fucking you won’t make that shitty watch of yours work,’ he said. ‘Give it here. I’ll see if I can figure out what’s wrong with it. Probably just needs to be wound.’ Althea turned her wrist to show him the face of the watch. Stayed just beyond his reach. Watched his dark, dexterous hand hanging in the air.
‘It works perfectly,’ she said. She tapped at the glass, noting with satisfaction that the hands remained unmoving. ‘You just don’t understand how it works.’ How it doesn’t work. How things won’t work. How things work but we don’t have a fucking clue how.
‘Come here anyway,’ said Godfrey, arm still outstretched. He seemed content to wait.
‘Still not going to fuck you,’ she warned him. Godfrey shrugged. Althea got up and sauntered over to Godfrey. She braced her hands on the chair and leaned over him. Godfrey slid his hand through her sleek blonde hair and pulled her down for a deep, slow kiss. She made a soft, pleased noise, fingers tightening in the cheap fabric. But when his hands started moving down her body, Althea pulled back.
‘Don’t tease,’ said Godfrey. Althea took his big hand in two of hers and traced the lines of his palm.
‘Will I see you tonight?’ she asked. Godfrey raised an eyebrow. Curled his fingers loosely around hers as she explored the texture of his skin.
‘Do you even know what time it is?’ he asked. Eyes still on her, hungry. Althea shook her head. Debated dropping to her knees before Godfrey. Debated taking one of the syringes she kept and pushing it into him, feeling the give of his skin and flesh and watching his eyes roll back in his head, white and shocked and finally, finally seeing.
‘It doesn’t matter,’ Althea said, fingertips cool and dry against his skin. She bit her full lower lip, lost in thought. Godfrey watched the movement like a hawk. Lips parting slightly, his tongue touches his top lip.
‘What are you on?’ he asked. Althea laughed. She kissed him hard on the mouth, tongue slick and sinuous and hands on his face holding him close. He slung an arm around her waist, fingers dipping under the band of her pants. Althea allowed the touching for a moment before stepping away from him again. Godfrey let out a shaky breath.
‘Sunshine and cyanide,’ she said. Godfrey reached towards her without making any effort to get out of the chair, as if he could compel her to return within his reach. Althea weaved forward but didn’t move.
‘Chemical smile,’ he said. ‘I should have guessed.’
‘Who’s smiling?’ she asked. ‘The dead have their own rooms. Turndown service at dawn, all the amenities you could hope for.’ Althea paused. ‘I think you should stay down here. Or at the bar. You could stay at the bar. Get drunk with Bishop. Trade war stories.’
‘You don’t like Bishop,’ said Godfrey with a raised eyebrow.
‘Bishop is the dregs at the bottom of your coffee cup,’ said Althea. ‘Grit between your teeth. Skin on the surface of warm milk. Scum in the pool upstairs.’ She looked up at the ceiling, as if she could see Bishop through the stained, ugly ceiling. ‘The bar public. Witnesses. That’s where you need to be. Don’t go up to the rooms. It’s not safe.’
‘What about your room?’ Godfrey asked. ‘I should be safe there.’ He smirked. Althea wonders which syringe would wipe that smile off his face. A knife could slice it off. There were so many ways to ruin someone.
‘Especially my room,’ she said. ‘No one’s safe in there. Not even me. That’s why I live there.’ He threw back his head and laughed. Althea took a step towards him and stopped herself. ‘I’m serious. Go hang out with Bishop when you’re done. I’ll meet you at the bar later.’
‘You’re being more circumspect than usual,’ said Godfrey. ‘Have I done something to make you angry?’ he asked almost plaintively. Althea stuck her thumbs in the waistband of her pants, slung low on her hips. There was a thin, vulnerable patch of skin visible, the sharp edge of a hip bone.
‘Probably,’ she said. ‘You usually do. I’ll find out later. Let you know when I know.’ Godfrey’s eyes roved over body, distracted. He picked at the stuffing poking out from the armchair, twisting it around his fingers. Althea saw herself walk to him, mouth on his skin and body twisting with hers. Blood pounding in her ears and his breath hot against her mouth. Oh, it would be so easy.
‘What are you going to do now?’ Godfrey asked. Althea looked up at the ceiling again. Somewhere up there, Mr. Bueler sat in a puddle of his own piss, waiting for her judgment. Her divine intervention. Althea scraped her nails lightly against the cement wall. Never enough sacrifices. The hotel needed more. And she would pour down like sulfur and acid rain and cleanse the whole fucking mess.
‘I’m going to finish my work,’ Althea said to Godfrey with a twisted smile. She turned to walk away. ‘This time, I think I’ll take the stairs.’
I smell burning flesh before I open my eyes. It hangs in the air, thick as cheap cologne. It permeates my clothes, clings to my skin. I can taste it on my tongue.
I feel movement behind me in the bed. I roll towards it, seeking warmth. Heat. Moxie. Still asleep on her stomach, she murmurs to herself. Dark hair falling over her face like a bird’s wing. Lips parted, face open and unguarded in a way that feels sacrilege.
I plaster myself along her back. Burrow my face into her hair. Moxie smells sweet and clean, like honeysuckle and fresh grass. I can glut myself on her scent if I’m not careful.
I’m rarely careful.
Instead I twine my legs with hers. Hips against her firm, supple ass. She smells like moonlight and arsenic. I hear her chuckle, low in her throat. She threads her fingers through mine.I press her into the mattress, a wild possessive rush rising in my blood.
Rattlesnake quick I’m on my back and Moxie is above me, hair a riot around her face. Her cheekbones like bruises. Hands pinning my wrists, straddling me. We’re both naked, and I revel in the feel of her skin against mine.
‘You’re up early,’ she says with a magnum .357 smile. I smile back.
‘There were spiders in the ceiling,’ I explain. ‘It smells. Can’t you smell it?’ Moxie releases one of my wrists to trace her thumb over my lower lip.
‘You could just say ‘good morning,’’ says Moxie with a fond smile. I bite with exquisite care at the tip of her thumb for a moment, holding it between my teeth like a grape before letting her go.
‘Good morning,’ I say. ‘They’re still burning. They’re still out there. The sky is dead.’ Moxie lets out an exhausted sigh and flops down on the bed beside me. She lays next to me on her side, head propped in her hand, brow furrowed in concentration.
‘One of those days, then?’ she asks. Eyes boring into me like she somehow understands what I’m saying, what’s going on in my head. There’s no pity in her voice, although there’s a note of sympathy if you know where to look. I nod.
‘There’s a bloodstain on the ceiling,’ I say. ‘Where the paint is peeling. Just can’t fight this feeling. Wheeling and dealing. What are we stealing.’ I stop the flow of words with an effort. Swallow down the thoughts. Be here now. Focus on this reality. What can you see what can you smell what do you feel.
Not that any of that helps much.
The stain is a shocking splash of red against the white, scabby paint of the ceiling. I don’t think it was there last night. I don’t think. Try not to get caught in the disorder of time. It’s hard to tell what comes after and what comes before.
‘I won’t look out the window today,’ I say to the stain on the ceiling. It’s moist, like an organic living thing itself. Moxie doesn’t even glance up. Keeps those startling eyes focused on me. Moxie. Monoxide. Mono. One Moxie.
Moxie makes a noncommittal sound next to me. Her hand is creeping towards me under the sheets. I feel her fingers crawl up my arm. A centipede a cockroach a wolf spider.
‘I’ll only look in the mirror once,’ I promise. I keep my eyes on the stain. It grows, slowly but surely. The colors get darker, richer. The stain expands, growing its territory. Manifest destiny. Go west young man. ‘Just when I brush my teeth. Just to make sure I exist.’
‘You exist, sweetheart,’ says Moxie. Her fingers trace my collarbone. ‘I wouldn’t lie to you.’
I don’t think Moxie would lie to me. I think Moxie does lie to me. I know she tells a version of the truth, like I’m a version of the truth. I think Moxie says what she wants and does what she pleases, and if the truth is woven through all the little lies, so be it.
‘Do you think we could replace the windows with mirrors?’ I ask. ‘And the walls with mirrors. Surrounding us. Our images reflected back and forth into eternity. And we’d be trapped inside together forever. Pressed in from all sides. Like scorpions caught in amber.’ Moxie smiles.
‘That’s so romantic,’ she says. Her hand ghosts over my breast, featherlight. My breath hitches slightly. Her fingers trace along the edges of my ribs. Part of me wants to roll over, press her into the bed and forget everything for a few precious hours. Wrap myself around Moxie like a serpent and suck the marrow from her bones.
‘Do you know whose room is above mine?’ I ask. ‘Sometimes it’s Bosch. Sometimes it’s a room full of knives and rancid meat. A few times it belonged to Evangeline.’
‘I’m sure you can ask Arthur,’ says Moxie with a ghost of a smile on her lips. ‘He’s always so helpful.’ She’s closer now, hovering over me, face sharp and beautiful and terrible and perfect. I want to tattoo her inside my eyelids. I want her to be the last thing I see before I die. I want her to be the cause of death. Moxie makes me a creature of wants. I reach a hand to touch her face, to pull her down, twine my fingers in the artificial hair she wears like armor and let the Nine rot and corrode around us.
The blood stain above us is fully saturated. I watch a bead of blood emerge and fatten like a tick. It hangs for a moment an instant a decade it hangs the way we all hang in the end. Then it falls from the ceiling.
The blood hits my forehead with a splatter.
Time to get up, then.
Althea was on a new floor. Or rather, a different floor. It might be new, or it might simply be one that she hadn’t yet discovered. It didn’t matter either way.
She’d gone up the poorly lit, damp stairwell that reeked of cigarettes and shit until she reached a sign that said the fifth floor. But the door didn’t open up onto the floor Althea normally associated with that number. The hallway looked abandoned. There were roots and plants and overgrowth bursting from some of the doors, and the floor was covered in dirt and debris. Althea could hear crickets chirping. Everything was lush and green. The air smelled like a cemetery.
Althea looked behind her, but the door was gone. She sighed. Mr. Bueler would have to wait a little bit longer. As she walked down the hallway, careful to step over roots and branches, she peered into the open rooms. They too were filled with vegetation. Beds had been overturned by giant roots, walls blown out by branches. The windows were completely covered with leaves, and only a few streaks of sunlight lit Althea’s path.
She knew there was someone watching her before she arrived at the door. That was nothing new. People watched Althea. They always had, ever since she was a little girl. People liked to watch her. Sometimes things that weren’t people watched her. Sometimes she watched back.
Althea paused at the closed door. Unlike the others which appeared to have been blown open by the force of the plants within or some great and mighty wind, this one remained securely shut. Number 77. Althea pressed her palm and cheek against the door. It felt warm against her skin, pulsing with a beat all its own. She let out a soft gasp, relishing the steady thudding.
The doorknob turned under her hand.
A little old lady sat at a table in an otherwise empty kitchen. The air was redolent with antiseptics and cleaners. The counters were bare, and the cabinets hung open and empty. The little old lady wore a simple green gingham dress. Strands of gnarled black hair hung helplessly from her bare scalp. The woman was smiling. Her eyes were fixed on something very far away.
On the table was a teapot, with two teacups and saucers. Althea approached the woman and sat down at the table across from her. The old woman didn’t look at her, or even acknowledge her presence. She continued to smile beatifically at something only she could see.
Althea took the delicate china teapot and poured each of them a cup. The liquid didn’t smell like tea, but it was a warm amber that made Althea smile. She took the teapot and held it aloft. It was a fine, delicate thing, smooth and cool in her hands. Althea smashed it down against the floor as hard as she could. The beautiful teapot lay in lovely shards all over the floor. Althea picked up the sharpest one and smiled at the old woman, pleased with her work. The old woman didn’t react at all.
‘I like your apartment,’ said Althea. She picked up her teacup with both hands and sniffed. ‘And I love ayahuasca.’ She drank deeply. A trickle ran down her chin and a drop fell onto the table. The old woman’s eyes were finally on Althea.
‘Have you done what needs to be done?’ she asked in a pleasant, friendly voice. Althea shook her head.
‘It’s not time. I can’t hear it yet. I can feel it, though.’ The old woman lapped at her tea like a cat.
‘You’ve been getting lost,’ she said. Althea’s smile dropped from her face.
‘Everyone gets lost here. Even the Proprietor, I’ve heard.’ The expression on the old lady’s face never changed.
‘It’s different, though. It’s always been different for you.’ Althea nodded, once. She drank from her cup. Her fingers twirled the shard of teapot absently.
‘What can I do?’ asked Althea.
‘Nothing,’ said the old woman. Althea let out a breath she hadn’t known she was holding. ‘You’re a tool, nothing more. A lovely weapon. You exist to destroy.’ Althea looked into her teacup, swirling the dregs.
‘I don’t know if someone came, or someone left,’ she said. ‘I don’t know what was done. But something is wrong. They’re getting closer.’
‘Yes, they are. And there’s nothing you can do.’
‘What do I need to do?’ asked Althea. The woman’s smile grew to an alarming extent, until her face was twisted and contorted. Althea smiled tenderly.
‘Now you’re asking the right questions,’ the old woman said. ‘You listen. You listen and you feel. And you hunt. Pay attention. You need to bear witness.’
‘Why?’ asked Althea.
‘For the same reason Cassandra screamed, knowing no one would believe her.’
Althea took the piece of teapot and jammed the tip into the top of the wooden table. Tongue sticking out of the corner of her mouth, she began carving. The old woman finished her tea. She watched Althea work, one arm hiding the table as if Althea expected the old woman to copy her homework.
When Althea was done and satisfied with the results, she reached over and took the old woman’s hand. Gently, carefully, she slid the shard clean through the woman’s paper-thin skin, through flesh and bone until it protruded from the other side. There was no blood.
‘Was I born here?’ asked Althea.
‘Sometimes,’ said the old woman. ‘Depends on where here is. You know that.’
‘Will they get inside?’ She didn’t have to say who. The only ones left outside were burning, screaming, lumbering towards them one slow, inexorable step forward at a time.
The old woman looked at her hand indulgently.
‘Oh, my dear. They already are.’
17 18 19 and I’m running down the hallway of the fourth floor. I leave bloody footprints in my wake. I dive into the elevator and crouch in the corner, shivering. Mr. Valentine isn’t there. That’s how I know I’m in a different time. The wrong time. I’ve never known the hotel without him there. Like waking up with a missing limb or with your house on fire.
My makeup is smeared. My hair in disarray. I’m wearing a slinky black dress. You have to touch it to realize it’s soaked in blood.
The walls of the elevator shift and morph, closing in on me. I scream and hold my arms out as if I can stop it from crushing me. I’m trapped in here. I’m going to die in here. But no I gave the hotel what it wanted what it whispered for. I gave it blood. I took that charming man with the green eyes and wedding ring and wandering hands and I made him a ghost. Not like me, but close enough.
The walls stop moving. The elevator dings. I’m in the lobby and it’s my lobby, the real lobby. I fall to my knees, sobbing. The relief is so intense that I shudder with it. I feel a hand on my shoulder, but I know no one is there. There’s no one here. Or they’re here but I can’t see them. But I can see everything. Why can’t I see what isn’t there?
The hand on my shoulder tightens into a cruel grip. I twist around and see Arthur. He’s grinning. He’s always grinning. His nails sink into my skin. I look around the lobby. There are a few people milling about as always. Now they’re all staring at me, this bloodstained tragedy screaming and weeping on the grimy, dirty floor. I press my hands against it and listen to the hotel.
Arthur drags me to my feet. His eyes aren’t grinning. With hands tight on my shoulders, he steers me over to the front desk.
‘You’re making a scene,’ he says in a pleasant voice. ‘Very unprofessional.’ He looks me up and down with evident distaste. ‘You’ve made a mess, I see,’ I cover my mouth with bloodstained hands to hold in the peals of laughter.
‘Checking out,’ I giggle when I have some control over myself. ‘Mr. Waverly on the fourth floor has checked out.’ Arthur’s hand slides to my forearm. He has a steel grip. The pain is grounding.
‘We have rules,’ he says in that same pleasant voice. His eyes are like a shark’s. I’ve never been to the ocean.
‘I know,’ I say, because I do. The rules of this place are carved into my bones, tattooed on the underside of my skin. I wear this place like a scar. I know the fucking rules.
Arthur watches my face for a moment. He’s not human. He can’t be. He’s part of the hotel too, in his way. I raise my bloody, tacky hand to his face and touch his cheek.
‘I took care of it,’ I say. When I pull my hand back there are bloody fingerprints on his skin. He doesn’t seem to notice.
‘Will you be needing any help?’ he asks in a crisp, professional voice. I put on my poshest tones. Like I’m some glamorous lady at a fancy hotel instead of a teenager with blood on her feet and a knife in her dress.
‘If you could send up housekeeping, I’d be ever so grateful.’ I write the room number on a piece of stationary and push it to him, tack with blood. Arthur takes it with a small bow of his head.
‘I’ll be sure to alert them.’
I turn around, and he’s there. The charming man with the green eyes and the wedding ring and the wandering hands. He staggers to me, clutching at his own gaping throat. Blood pours down from the wound, staining his cheap suit. The wallet in his pocket with a picture of his kids. His green eyes are hurt, confused. He doesn’t understand. He doesn’t need to understand. The sacrifice doesn’t need to know its purpose. The weapon doesn’t have to understand the execution.
The wound at his throat is curved and perfect and pure and clean and everything righteous I have been raised to do.I can keep him here with me forever and ever. Just like the rest of them. I raise my arms above my head and reach out to him for an embrace.
‘Welcome home,’ I say.
The hallway was back to what Althea counted as normal by the time she left the old woman’s apartment. Gone were the monstrous roots and ancient trees. Instead she saw the familiar rust brown carpet and fading striped wallpaper. Althea pressed her body against the wall in relief. She could feel the energy vibrating through her.
Someone was behind her.
Althea whipped around with a knife in her hand. Arthur stood before her, practically nose to nose. The knife was at the side of his throat. He smiled beatifically at her. Althea immediately stepped away. Dropped the knife from his neck, eyes averted.
‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘Didn’t know it was you.’ Arthur’s smile didn’t flicker.
‘Who did you think it was?’ Althea looked up and down the hall. They were empty.
‘Someone’s in the hotel,’ she said in a low voice. Arthur nodded. The smile faded from his face.
‘You’ve been looking out the windows again.’ Althea shook her head.
‘They got in they got in OK-’ Arthur held up one black-gloved hand. The grin was back. Althea fell silent.
‘They aren’t the ones getting in,’ said Arthur. They were here in the beginning. They’ll be here in the end.’ Althea shook her head.
‘Something’s changed,’ she insisted. ‘Something’s happening.’ Arthur nodded.
‘The circle is closing,’ she said. ‘Time is eating itself. Ouroboros on acid.’
‘If I were you, Miss Althea, I’d keep my mind on the task at hand,’ said Arthur. Althea laughed.
‘Why?’ she asked. ‘What’s the point?’
‘To welcome them home,’ he said. ‘To bear witness to it all.’ His smile somehow grew wider. Althea took a step back.
‘We always treat our guests with the utmost care here,’ said Arthur. ‘You know that.’ Althea nodded. She looked up. Somewhere up there, Moxie was waiting for her. Somewhere, Mr. Bueler needed her.
‘It’s not an attack,’ Althea said. She turned her head at the sound of the elevator’s clunk and groan. ‘It’s a homecoming.’ Althea looked around. The hallway was empty again. Save for the ghosts.
Althea rubbed her eyes until she saw spots.
‘Do what needs to be done,’ she said. ‘Welcome them in.’
With a new purpose in her step, Althea walked towards the elevator.
Mr. Bueler had pissed himself while Althea was away. She wondered how long she’d been gone. Could have been minutes. Could have been days. She has a murky memory of Godfrey’s hands on her and blood in her mouth and a knife in her hand. An old lady who told her the truth. Arthur. Maybe.
Or maybe she’d never left this room at all. She bolted the door like she had a million times before and would a million times still. Until there were no more times.
Maybe she’d been here from the start, trapped in this endless room where the hallways were all in her head and the ghosts weren’t real. All alone. Althea shook her head and smacked herself in the face until her ears rang. Until pink bloomed on her pale cheeks. She shuddered, straightened her shoulders, and stepped towards Mr. Bueler.
‘I told you I’d be back,’ she said. ‘I do like to keep my promises.’ Althea wrinkled her nose at the scent of piss but made no comment. It would have been gauche.
Mr. Bueler jerked his head wildly back and forth. He garbled and drooled. With a weary sigh, Althea pulled the fabric from his mouth.
‘What?’ she asked.
‘You don’t have to do this,’ he said. Althea laughed.
‘Of course I do,’ she said. ‘I always do what needs to be done. It’s one of the rules. And you, Mr. Bueler, are a very special case. Very special.’ Althea picked up a knife from her desk and looked at it. She picked up a syringe from the table.
‘Please,’ he said. ‘I have children.’ Althea’s face curled into a snarl.
‘Oh, I know,’ she said. She lifted the syringe. ‘And I have an extremely powerful acid. Shall we see what you’re really made of, Max?’
‘Why are you doing this?’ Althea glanced out the window, but just for a second.
‘There are different ways to make ghosts,’ she said. ‘We have that in common. Ghostmakers, you and I. But what you do. What you’ve done.’ Althea shook her head in disgust. ‘Compared to that, the things I’m going to do are practically a kindness.’
‘It’s not true, whatever you heard it’s bullshit!’ He writhed against the chair, desperate and exposed as a nerve. Althea felt something like love and lust and pride and that first exquisite chemical punch to the sternum. Her skin crackled with energy. He cowered and cried before her and she was justice and a vicious sort of kindness.
She put the tip of the knife under his chin and forced Max to raise his face. His red-rimmed eyes were frantic.
‘They told me,’ said Althea. ‘The ghosts. They called and called. Not all the phones. Special lines for special calls. They sat by my bed at night and told me what you did. Men. Women. But the children. Oh you have children. I know all about your children.’ She pulled the knife away and studied his face. Clocked every pockmark and wrinkle, every blemish and hair. Wanted to remember the exquisite moment before it all began.
‘Who hired you? What are they paying? I’ll double it, whatever they’re paying you,’ Max said desperately, his eyes spasming between the knife in one hand and the needle in the other. ‘Triple it. Anything you want.’
‘Oh no,’ said Althea with a smile. ‘This one is on the house.’
The screaming ends, as it always does. Sooner or later. I know the neighbors won’t complain. I watch Mr. Bueler go quiet and peaceful. I watch his eyes fade as they look somewhere else. Somewhere I can only see from a distance. His body starts to smolder in the chair. Soon he is engulfed in flames. Burning in effigy. The fire should spread. To the floor to the walls to the ugly fucking curtains. Burn it all.
It doesn’t spread.
I watch the flames for a while. I use the end of one burning blistering finger to light a cigarette, hair held back to avoid the flames. I blow a smoke ring at Mr. Bueler. He doesn’t notice.
After watching him for a while, I take a pill from my pocket and slip it under my tongue. As it dissolves I walk to the window. Outside is still the same. Everything is still the same. This is the way it’s always been. And only I, blind all-seeing fucking fool that I am, was stupid enough to think that anything I did could possibly matter.
I was here at the beginning. I’ll be here at the end.
I crouch down by the window, splaying my fingers across the glass. The figures outside are getting closer. And we will greet them when they arrive with great ceremony and terrible bloodshed. Cigarette hanging out the side of my mouth, I watch the way the world ends.