Haunting the Jerome Hotel

5/ Hide and Seek: George versus ghost

George laughed at himself.  He didn't believe in ghosts, couldn't believe he'd asked such a dumb question. She was as alive as he was, and a moment later she proved it.

She stood, dusted off her dress. Muttered over the torn nylons. Standing next to him, she again dropped her hand on his arm, and he covered it with his own. Her skin was hot, gritty. Moving so the sun was at his back, he stared into her face. Flushed cheeks, eyes fever-bright.

Unfazed by her fall, the nurse (ghost?) squeezed his shoulder. "You've had enough fresh air this morning, Mr. Marsh. Come inside and I'll get you a cool cloth for your head. Your wife will be here this afternoon to take you home."

"I think you're sick," George said. "Worse off than me."

Her grasp was strong and George didn't feel like resisting. She looked fragile enough without being bullied.

Still, he had to make her listen to reason. "The mines are closed," meaning long ago and in a time far in the past.

"Just for today," she answered. "It's Sunday."

Pulling the balcony doors open, she ushered him inside. "Why don't you lie down for a bit?" she suggested, pointing at the unmade bed.

The ghost-nurse walked over to where the television set hugged a narrow corner. He wondered what she'd make of it, thinking such a modern object would betray whatever game she was playing. She kept her back to him, but he could see her hands move. Snatching up yesterday's undershirt, she dropped it in a pan of water that wasn't there, and wrung it dry. The pantomime was obvious, she'd be a winner at Charades. He almost laughed at her cleverness, almost asked what she was playing at, what kind of fool did she take him for, when she swung around. She carried the shirt high and away from her uniform, as if the hem was dripping wet.

George backpedaled. Pressed against the door, he wondered how to stop her. She was delusional, that much was clear. And while a cold, wet cloth might feel good across his tired eyes and sore neck, he wasn't about to play into this sick fantasy.

"Hey," he said loudly, raising his hands. "I think you need to get out of here, right now."

She smiled, her front teeth slightly crooked, eyes avid in a too-pale face. Two steps closer and she flung the shirt at George. He ducked, but not before it smacked him across the face. Wet and cold burned his eyes, seeped inside his mouth. He yelped, flung the shirt aside, dropped to his knees.

Jesus, my face is on fire!

Bare-chested, wearing only his boxer shorts, George scrabbled blindly for the bathroom. He couldn't find it. Instead, he smacked his head on the foot of the bed, grazing his scalp. 

Cursing, he rubbed his eyes against the blanket. Yelling, louder now, he called the nurse every foul name he could think of, plus invented a few more. After that he screamed for Room Service, the maid, the cops.

No one came.

George shuffled on his knees, one hand pressed against his head, the other shielding his eyes. Blood flowed. Sticky, warm. He was blinded, confused, and the hotel room, nothing more than a perfect square, defeated him. After several zigzagged attempts to find the door (he never came close,) he collapsed against the foot of his bed. Patted the floor until he found his shirt. Sniffed it, trying to figure out what she'd dunked it in, what had burned his eyes so badly.

The shirt was barely damp, maybe only sweat-stained from the night before. It certainly smelled like him: stale body odor pressing through spent deodorant. None of that made sense, not one bit. He took another whiff, and set it aside, more baffled than ever.

 Cracked one eye open, then the other. He was fine, no sting, no burn, no blindness. A slight blur around the edges of his vision, otherwise fine. He twined fingers through his hair. Blood, but head wounds always came off worse than they really were.

He'd live.

George squinted at four walls, the floor. The nurse was gone, the room quiet and still. 

This time he closed his eyes against the bright sunlight permeating the room. Draping the shirt over his face, he braced against the bed. A different kind of black, the kind he hoped would help him think.

The ghost-nurse was here, then gone. She threw his shirt at him, then fled. But he never heard the door open or close. 

Perhaps, being a ghost, she'd vanished into thin air. "Nonsense," George spoke out loud. "She's still here. Hiding."

That, or she'd magically slipped under the floor boards, into a secret passageway. That last idea was the heart of silliness, but it nagged George, wouldn't let go.

George lifted the hem of his shirt. Leaned forward. Glared at the spot where she'd last stood. Listened. Nothing, not even an echo of her ragged breath.

"Has to be a trap door...a tunnel for easy access. This was a mining town. Big money, high stakes. Mobsters, gangsters, probably stayed in this room. I bet there's lots of secrets."

Why a hospital would need an escape hatch eluded logic, but George knew what he'd seen. She was there and she was gone, dropped clean out of sight. There was no other explanation...because there was no such thing as ghosts. 

Even less so, now that he'd seen one.

Confused relief, combined with the over-spill of Adrenalin, left him depleted. Overtaken by a deep stupor, George fell asleep, awkwardly propped against the foot of the bed.