A haunted hotel in a ghost town, what could be more...cliché?
How about a hotel that doesn't have a ghost, but wants to score one?
After all, ghosts put hotels ON THE MAP, especially when this hotel was once a hospital for miners.
And we all know...
The next time he awoke, George was on his left side, head pillowed on his arms.
He didn't remember getting off the floor, climbing into bed. He stared at the dried blood crusted on his hands, winced when he found the corresponding knot above his left eyebrow. He couldn't remember hitting his head, either, but this new hurt, on top of his hangover, left him reeling.
George was shaken; his boozy stomach doing slow rolls. His head hurt, his ears rang. Paranoia danced at the edges of his brain, pinwheels of light. This was a strange feeling, new, and very un-George-like: he believed if he whispered "nurse" she'd reappear, springing out of the floor like some demented, ax-wielding jack-in-the-box.
Oh ha-ha, George tried to tease his mood into lighter waters. "Nurses don't carry axes, not when a hypodermic fits in the pocket of an apron!"
He swallowed over a lump in his throat. Humor wasn't working. Thinking back to her jangling set of keys he suppressed another wave of eerie paranoia: "She looked like a goddamn jail warden."
The urge to stand up, check the door, make sure he wasn't locked in from the outside, was overpowering. Except he was too tired to move. Instead he fretted, gripping the bones of his knees hard enough to leave marks, long enough to break into a heaving, anxious sweat.
Part of him refused to believe he was alone in the room. She was hiding under the floorboards, he was sure of it. It was a game, a strange jest, all part of the hotel's publicity campaign.
Not funny, no, not funny at all.
He nearly yelled for her, so he could yell at her, shame her for joining this silly gig. But his fear of her using his shirt as a compress stilled his tongue. Besides, he wasn't Marsh, and suddenly knew he didn't want to be.
Eyes wild, mistrustful, he scanned the room. He was flushed, red-eyed, cheeks grizzled and wanting a shave.
Wait, what was that?
George pointed a shaking hand at a spot on the floor, a tight sound pushing past clenched teeth. There was a sheen, a slight dampness (all right: a puddle) right below where the water basin stood atop the television set. Except no basin was there, only a Room Service card.
George fought the urge to hide under the blankets. Instead, he struggled to his knees and tried to see the room for what it was, not the addled fantasy crazy ghost-nurse had carried in like bad air.
His clothes, scattered in a messy trail, from where he'd carelessly, drunkenly, stripped down the night before. His jeans wadded by the television, soaking up water. He could almost see where the faded denim had gone dark blue. His socks, they'd be wet, too.
George's skin crawled at the thought of putting on ghost-dampened jeans, but maybe they weren't really wet, wouldn't be, when he touched them. He could check, he would, but no: George was suddenly, irrationally afraid to set bare feet on the floor.
He slithered to the foot of the bed, tried to grab his clothes. Too far, and if he kept at it, he'd fall on his face, bust a lip, a tooth. His nose.
"You jackass," trying for bravado. "Quit jumping at nothing. It's all some kind of crazy prank, get you thinking this hotel is haunted. Because, you know, you laughed at the clerk yesterday. And you're the first guest. They're trying to see if this game will work."
Such logic calmed him, and George reached for the water he'd poured last night. Drank deeply. Almost spit it out because it was warm and tasted like bad breath. Nothing like Portland's pristine Bull Run.
"Jerome sucks." Eyeing the water, he wished he'd stocked up on the bottled kind. Nothing for it now, he needed to hydrate and clear his head, he still had a bitch of a hangover, felt too queasy to move. Water and coffee and a cold shower was his best cure. In that order.
After that, he'd pull up the floorboards.
The nurse would be gone, but certainly not the tunnel. Solving that mystery would give George the last laugh, break the eerie hold the room had on him. He'd head out that afternoon, continue exploring Jerome. He'd choose a different place for dinner, switch to whiskey instead of beer. The hard stuff always made a better hair of the dog. Plus he'd sleep better, that much was certain.
A slightly cheered George propped himself against the headboard and watched a badly edited docudrama about a cave-in, the ensuing riot that marked the beginning of the end for Jerome. He'd almost settled down for another nap when he saw the bedpan on a low stand next to his bed.
He poked at it, amusement fading into alarm. A bedpan? That hadn't been there before. What about the bathroom? His eyes skittered around the room and he sat up in bed, slowly, disbelief gnawing his gut.
The bathroom was gone, the door leading to it gone as well, nothing but a featureless wall in its place. Even the picture, some English kid with a watering can, missing.
George scratched his chin, thought hard. Even pinched himself.
Am I dreaming? Hallucinating?
His gaze dropped to the floor. Paranoia came roaring back and George bit his tongue, afraid the ghost-nurse would return if he uttered so much as a sound. But if she did, he had a question for her: Where the hell is the carpet? Wall-to-wall and plush, it couldn't have disappeared the same way she had.
It was here! his mind yammered.
In place of carpet, a whitewashed concrete floor. Smooth and unmarred, what he'd expected to see when he checked in last night.
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A/N: Bedpan, circa the days when the Jerome Hotel was first a hospital. Yeah, I think I'd rather use the bathroom, too.
