Haunted Hotel

I read about a new trend in travel.  It sounded fun, so I told my wife.  “Did you know there are haunted hotels?  They’re popular.  We should go.”

She said, “No.”

I said, “People go and stay there, on purpose, to see ghosts.  What do you think?”

She repeated, “No.”

I looked it up online.  “Look, they’re everywhere. Boston, New Orleans, everywhere.”

My wife said, “You go.  It’s a scam.”

I asked, “What if it’s not?  What if it’s real?”

She said, “If it’s real, you’d have to be crazy to go.  So you go.”

I checked into The Grand, a Victorian mansion in the French Quarter.  In 1918, three children died there in a flu pandemic.  It was said you could hear them playing in the gardens by day, or see them looking out of windows at night.  I chose a small top-floor bedroom where one child reportedly died.  It overlooked the garden. 

I asked the proprietor, “What should I do when I see a ghost?  Talk to them?  Shake their hand?”

He said, “You may or may not see them.  You may just feel a cold wisp of air cut through you, or see something smoky out of the corner of your eye.  There are no guarantees.”

I asked, “Are they shy?”

He said, “The dead are unpredictable.  Sometimes they’re antisocial.”

I said, “Oh.  But it’s not a hoax, is it?”

“No.  But you may wish it were.” he said.

I went to bed early, wide awake and well prepared.  I had a flashlight, a camera, a small black-light, and a pint of vodka.  I sat, propped up on pillows, reading The Ghosts of New Orleans in paperback.  At two or three in the morning, I felt drowsy.  I tried to walk to the bathroom, but my legs were weak and my chest heavy.  The closet door clicked and opened.  A milky figure stood in the doorway, not a child but an adult, a woman.

I asked, “Hello, are you really here?  Are you friendly?”

A voice, clearly a woman’s, asked, “What are you doing here?”

I said, “I’m just renting a room for the night.”

She said, “I have bad news for you.”

I said, “Okay, I can take it.  I’m ready.”

She said, “I’m dead.”

I said, “I hope so.  How did you die?”

She said, “I died after you left.”

I said, “We just met.  You’re confusing me with someone else.”

She said, “You know who I am.  You were supposed to call.”

She sounded familiar.  I called home.  A man answered.  He was with Fire & Rescue, and he had bad news.