The Ninth Floor, Part One

I lugged my suitcase and Rachel’s through the door of the hotel, set them both down, and looked around the vast, formerly luxurious lobby.

Bookcases lined one side of the lobby, filled with dusty thick hardbacks that had probably been purchased by the yard years ago. Upholstered chairs and a sofa sat all around, most of it ripped or else eaten by bugs. A bar—stocked with empty bottles and cobwebs—stood next to the empty check-in counter.

A clock hung on the wall behind the counter. 6:30 p.m.

Rain fell outside. I brushed water off my scalp. I’d left my hat in the car.

“Perfect.” Duane Catman, the producer, clicked his smartphone from behind the counter. “Let me just . . .”

He focused on me for a moment, then swung his phone to zoom in on Rachel for longer. I couldn’t blame him. Rachel’s got red hair and hazelnut eyes, and in her denim jacket, jeans, and tight boots, she looked hot—even soaked with rain.

A tall woman emerged from a door next to the check-in desk. “Hi.” She held out a hand. “Kristen DeWolfe. Nice to meet you.”

“Hi.” Rachel shook. “I loved you on season one. I’m Rachel.”

DeWolfe was in her fifties, and she wore a black sweater over a white turtleneck blouse. She was one of the “survivors” of the first season on “Haunted Hotel,” a reality TV show that challenged would-be ghost hunters to spend three nights at an allegedly haunted hotel for the chance to win millions.

I hate reality TV. So what were Rachel and I doing here?

* * *

I’d gotten a call from Duane Catman and his partner Jeremy Spears two weeks ago. “Mr. Jurgen? We’d like to invite you to the chance to split 5 million dollars for appearing on ‘Haunted Hotel.’” Catman sounded like an overexcited auctioneer.

I’d already deleted an email from Cat-Spears Productions, but they were persistent. And the thought of winning a significant portion of 5 million dollars was sort of persuasive. Cable bills, internet, groceries—even though my girlfriend Rachel and I were living together now, any extra cash would help.

I sighed. “Okay. So let’s talk.”

“The second season never aired.” Spears was calmer, more steady. “There were—problems, and the network canceled it. But now—”

“Season two was all amateurs. This year we’re looking for experts again.” Catman was excited. “We’re bringing back Kristen DeWolfe, the ghost hunter, and Martin Peppers, the author of Naked Spirits, both from season one. You have a reputation—”

            “Yeah, I know.” I’m a private detective, and the supernatural somehow seems to pop up in most of my cases. “What’s the deal again?”

            “Three nights at the Carrington Hotel in Kanab, Utah. You and five other guests. You’ll be free to leave at any time, but the remaining survivors will share in—”

            “A bunch of money.” I was annoyed. At myself for considering it, and at Rachel—working behind a partition behind me in the office we shared, because when I told her about the original email she’d confessed that she watched the show.

“It was so stupid!” She laughed. “That guy Peppers? In the first season, he just wandered around the halls, pretending to listen to moans from the underworld when all the sound was just wind through the ducts!” She pointed at the “Haunted Hotel” website on my monitor, featuring images of show’s guests. “And Kristen DeWolfe? She runs around with a microphone that isn’t attached to anything. I always wondered what happened in season two. That never aired.”

            “You watch this kind of stuff?” I was a little shocked. She’d admitted to cheating on me a few months ago, and fortunately we’d gotten past that, but this was—different.

            “I watch a lot of stuff when you’re not around.” She punched my shoulder. “I never got into the Kardashians, or the Real Housewives of Orland Park, or whatever, but all those hot bodies in the jungle on ‘Survivor’? Totally there.” She sighed.

            “So you want to do this?”

            She shrugged. “We’ve taken on way more ghosts and demons than these posers. Plus, You’re a better detective than any of them.” She kissed my cheek. “And, you know, 5 million dollars?”

            So I called back and told them yes—as long as I could bring Rachel.

            “Of course!” Catman chuckled. “The more the merrier, right?”

Spears was again the voice of reason. ““Well, if you make it to the end, you’ll share your winnings with her. But that’s fine. We’ll send you the paperwork.”

* * *

So here we were.

            Spears handed me a room key. A real metal key, not a plastic key card. “Welcome to the Carrington. All our rooms are on the second floor.” He pointed to a wide staircase. “The elevators don’t work. Dinner’s in half an hour.”

            “Good.” Catman was shooting again. “Can I get a few minutes of you guys unpacking?”

            I hefted our bags. “I guess.”

            Heavy linen curtains drooped across the window, letting in a slice of light from the sunset outside. The room had two chairs, a large dresser and a king-sized bed that took up more than half of the floor space.

I dropped the suitcases and looked at Rachel. “Anything?”

            Rachel looked up at the ceiling. Chunks of plaster were missing, but they weren’t on the floor or the bed. Had someone cleaned up?

            She gazed down. A faded oriental rug covered most of the hardwood floor. “There’s something here. I can’t . . . I don’t know.” She shrugged. “Maybe later.

            “Great.” Catman shut off his phone. “See you at dinner.”

            I locked the door behind him. “Was that for real?”

            “Kind of.” Rachel pulled off her jacket and unzipped her suitcase. “I was playing it up a little, but yeah—there’s something here. I can’t tell what it is.” She shivered, pulling at her T-shirt. “I’m going to change. At least they’re not recording that.”

            “Wait a minute.” I looked up and around—and spotted a small camera mounted at the corner of the ceiling,

            I grabbed my phone from my jacket. “Catman? You do not get to record me or my girlfriend changing clothes! We’ll leave right now!”

            Catman sputtered in my ear. “Those are part of the show! We need this—”

            “Screw you!” I pulled a chair over. “You wanted me here! That doesn’t mean I agreed to us being porn stars!”

Staggering unsteadily on top of the chair, I reached up and yanked at the small camera—a black orb, almost invisible in the corner of the room.

            The camera eventually fell free, and I managed to pull the cords out and drop it on the floor.

            I dropped back down and grabbed my phone. “I never agreed to this!”

            “Actually, you did.” It was Spears again. “It’s in your contract. Page 17. But you know what? That last bit? It was perfect. It’s staying in. See you at dinner.”

            I looked at Rachel. “They do surveillance? Naked videos?”

            She tucked her T-shirt back down under her jeans. “In the first season, two of the, uh, investigators? They hooked up. Everything was blurred, but that was the first big episode. They broke up. There was a lawsuit.” She looked down at the broken camera. “Not that I want to end up on the internet like them.”

            “We can leave right now.” Our rented car was still outside.

            “Nah.” She pulled on the bathroom door. “I’m hungry.”

           

Dinner was sandwiches—turkey, ham, roast beef, several different kinds of cheese, along with tomatoes, lettuce, avocado slices, and more. And salad. We sat in the center of the vast dining room, surrounded by empty tables covered with dust. A wi-fi router sat on a nearby table, lights blinking.

Rachel’s a vegetarian. She managed a sandwich of tomatoes, lettuce, mozzarella, and avocado. I heaped my bread with mayo, roast beef, swiss cheese, and more roast beef. She kicked my ankle under the table as I ate.

            Catman shot the whole thing as Spears helped us introduce ourselves. Kristen DeWolfe, ghost hunter, had a show on the SyFy channel. Martin Peppers, a portly man with a gray goatee and a tweed jacket, had written books on haunted houses, and he’d also been on season one with DeWolfe.  Alan Miller, in his thirties, had thick black hair and multiple piercings in his ears. He claimed to stalk vampires.

And Jaime Kinsman, also in her thirties. She had blond hair, slender shoulders and a short blunt nose, and she wore jeans and a turquoise necklace over a tight red sweater. She was smoking Salems. Her memoir, Raised By Ghosts, had hit The New York Times bestseller list at number 23 for two weeks. Plus, she’d appeared on Oprah.

“I’ve heard of you, Jurgen.” Martin Peppers swigged some red wine. “You have quite a reputation in Chicago.”

            Rachel jabbed some salad with her fork. “I saw you on the first season. I read one of your books. It was very . . . entertaining.”

            He smiled, curious, apparently the only one at the table who didn’t catch the hint of sarcasm in her voice. “And you are . . .?”

            “Rachel.” She glanced at me. “Tom’s associate. I’m psychic.”

            “Really.” Kristen DeWolfe smirked. “What can you tell us about this place?”

            Rachel tilted her head. “Something’s going on here, for sure. What it is?” She blinked. “I don’t know yet.”

            Alan Miller gazed at her. “I’d like to hear some of your stories.”

            I kicked Rachel’s foot. She giggled. 

            Catman brought in ice cream and coffee. Then Spears pulled his smartphone back to take a view of the whole room.

            “Okay.” Catman smiled. “Some of you know this already, but just to be clear, this hotel is definitely haunted. The nearest law enforcement is 50 miles away. That means we’re on our own out here. You’ve each been invited because of your expertise in supernatural phenomena.”

            Kristen DeWolfe nodded. Martin Peppers smiled.

            “We’re going to explore the hotel.” Spears looked grim. “All nine floors, every room, top to bottom. In groups of three.”

“Or four, since we have an extra person.” Catman winked at Rachel. “We’ll follow you. Anything you find, we’ll get it on camera. Every night.”

            “Stay three nights,” Spears said, “and you’ll share in the prize. But the first season everyone ran. You might be surprised and terrified by what you find here.”

So of course the lights on the upper floors were mostly dark. The rain outside had turned into a thunderstorm.

            “That door.” Spears pointed with a flashlight, holding his smartphone up.

            “We checked that room out last year.” Peppers glared. “We checked the whole 5^th floor out. Nothing.”

            Jaime Kinsman held a mini-flashlight. “I wasn’t here last year. Let’s take a look.”

            I glanced at Rachel. She shook her head, Nothing.

            “Fine.” Peppers opened the door. “Let’s see.”

            The room was dark. The light switch did nothing. Jamie flicked her flashlight back and forth.       

            A bare mattress sat on a bed, stained with—blood? Or rusty water dripping from a crack in the ceiling? Drip, drip, drip . . .

Cold air pushed in through a crack in the window. A pile of dirty sheets lay in the corner.

I shook my head. “There’s nothing here.”

“Wait.” Peppers pointed a finger at the tangled sheets. “Right there.”

The sheets rustled. Jaime aimed her flashlight.

Spears crouched down, holding his smartphone.

I clutched Rachel’s hand.

The pile of sheets exploded—and a raccoon darted forward, snarling and whipping its tail.

Peppers jumped back. Jaime dropped her light. Rachel pulled me to one side.

The raccoon charged across the floor and out into the hallway.

“Oh, that’s good.” Spears’ voice echoed in the dark. “Perfect.”

“Does that count as a jump scare?” My heart was pounding.

Jaime found her flashlight on the floor and pointed it at the door. “Where did it go?”

“Probably hiding in another room now.” Rachel let go of my hand. “It’s scared.”

Peppers sneered. “Do your psychic powers tell you that? It might be possessed.”

“It’s a small animal hiding in sheets during a thunderstorm.” She pulled on my hand. “Come on, Tom.”

I followed her. Rachel knew something about being possessed, but I wasn’t going to say anything about that while Spears’ smartphone was on.

The next room was empty too. But the bed was made up as if the maid had been there that morning. The pictures on the walls were straight. The window was intact, rain beating against the solid panes.

“Is this the way it went during your year?” I followed Peppers toward the next door, while Spears whispered with Kinsman. “One room after another? How far did you get?”

“All the way to the top. Ninth floor.” He pointed at the ceiling. “Then everyone freaked out. Except Kristen and me. But we couldn’t go on by ourselves.”

“What made them freak out? Racoons?”

He snorted. “Not quite.”

After the raccoon I waited for a real scare—the way in a horror movie a cat jumping through a window makes you think everything’s fine, and then a minute later the monster attacks from another angle.

But nothing happened. Other rooms were trashed, some half flooded. Others were immaculate, as if ghosts or angels had tended to them over the years.

            Rachel kept shaking her head. Nothing supernatural in any of the rooms.

            At 2 a.m. we met up with DeWolfe, Miller, and Catman on the 6th floor. Catman shot the group shaking hands. DeWolfe and Peppers stepped away, whispering to each other. Miller tried to stroke Jaime’s Kinsman’s arm. She backed away and leaned against a strip of peeling wallpaper, rubbing her eyes as if exhausted. Or as if she just didn’t want to deal with Miller.

            “What did you find?” Catman pointed his smartphone at Peppers.

            “Raccoons.” Peppers shook his head. “Spiders. But many of the rooms have been made up. They weren’t that way before, two seasons ago.”

            “You can recognize each room from 18 months ago?” I couldn’t help myself—I was tired and cranky. “I can’t remember what I had for dinner last Thursday night.”

            “Pizza.” Rachel kicked my leg. “Because you didn’t feel like cooking.”

            “Oh. Right.” I leaned my face into Spears’ smartphone lens. “In other words, nothing—”

            A door broke open.

            I grabbed Rachel—or maybe she grabbed me—as something scuttled across the floor through our feet. Another racoon?

            “Ow!” Martin Peppers shouted. “Goddamn it—”

Lightning flashed through the window, blinding my eyes.

            Spears plunged into the room, waving a flashlight as he tried to steady his smartphone camera. I managed to balance my feet and follow him, Rachel right behind me.

            The window was broken. Rain streamed in on the faded carpet. Like the first room we’d visited, this was torn up, the mattress shredded, ripped sheets and blankets strewn over the floor. A hole had been torn through one wall, the faded wallpaper half covering the gash.

            Thunder shook the house.

            Definitely the jump scare.