~~~~
Such a grand piece of decay. Brimming with ghosts!
From across the street, Twila and I stared at the once-magnificent hotel and released twin sighs of yearning to explore the decrepit structure. It rose above us U-shaped, multistoried, and numerous broken windows shattered any sense that the façade sheltered anything other than wrack and ruin. Atop, a bell tower crowned the edifice, rising alone into the early morning, cloud-spotted April sky. A wide veranda graced the front, where in times gone by natty gentlemen and flapper ladies — or non-ladies — strolled when not partaking of the mineral baths or hidden-room gambling.
Though I’d been here once before, experience taught me that in Twila’s company even more fantastic weird happenings would transpire. Her psychic powers far surpassed the fledgling abilities I possessed, since she’d been chasing ghosts years longer than me. The possibility of encountering past residents in her company, more than the building’s wonderful history, fired my anticipation for another one of our shared adventures.
Oh, yeah, that and the fact that Patrick had already intrigued us with tales of his life in the hotel’s heyday. Former life, really, since he now abided in the afterlife.
Twila raised her camera and snapped several pictures to begin the record of this adventure, and beside her, Patrick materialized briefly. Could a ghost cry, I’m sure tears would have rolled down Patrick’s cheeks at the sight before him, even though in his time men characteristically hid their emotions. Come to think of it, so did men today, like my ex-husband, Jack, except when he was pis...angry at me.
Damn...darn! Now I even censored my thoughts so I wouldn’t have to pay into Granny’s trip kitty!
Patrick stoically gazed at the building he had called home-away when he lived, then faded back into his own realm.
“Gosh damn,” Twila mused, since she wasn’t part of the trip-kitty pact. “I wish that ghost would put some clothes on when he visualizes. He’s so hot, he even makes a long-married woman pant and remember those days when sex took precedence over sanity.”
I giggled. “He forgets sometimes.”
“Or maybe he knows how much you like to ogle that fantastic body.” She nudged me and winked.
I grinned in remembrance. “That day in the men’s dressing room, over there in the hotel basement? The first time I met Patrick? Jeez Louise. He’d just stepped out of the shower. Had a white towel thrown around his neck. All that naked muscle and dribbles of water crawling down that tanned skin.…”
“You’ve mentioned that several times. If I didn’t know better, Alice, I’d swear you were half in love with a ghost.”
“Infatuated, maybe,” I admitted. “Not in love, but a definite possibility...infatuation. I’ve seen your eyes bug out when our friend appears, Twila. Ten seconds after you met Patrick at my house yesterday, you forgot he couldn’t consume and offered him a Jack and Coke.”
“Well . . .” she mused. “Maybe fifteen seconds. After I got my breathing under control and could think.”
Miss Molly and Trucker accompanied us today. Those two animals from my menagerie see ghosts as well as Granny, Twila, and I do, and are always part of any trip Twila and I undertake. Granny Chisholm pet-sat my other cats, an occupation that pads her small pension. Miss Molly hates her leash, so I held her in my arms even though she wore that irritating encumbrance. Trucker sat obediently at Twila’s feet, his leash loosely wrapped around her fingers.
“This place does look a lot like that hotel where that thing crawled in bed with you,” Twila said. “Same architect, you said.”
“Me? You were in that bed, too. But all you did was snore while that — that — that...whatever it was. Invisible entity, I guess. While it crawled straight up the bed between us. You didn’t even feel the mattress sinking under its weight. Or hear the claws dragging across the bedspread. You just snored!”
“Until you slithered across the bed screaming to the high universe and woke me up.”
“I’d like to see you not scream if something huge and hairy laid down against your back.”
She muffled a giggle. “I’ll give you this. I am glad it wasn’t me.” She snapped another picture. “Beautiful. Sometimes I do wish we could go back in time and experience these places.”
It was so much grander in its prime, Patrick mentally thrust into my mind.
Twila’s mind, also, I assumed, since she nodded and replied aloud, “Even in all its deterioration, I can see how glorious it once was. Now, are you finally going to tell us why you insisted we come here?”
In good time, Patrick said evasively. First you both need to get a sense of the place. As it is now...and as it was.
Stubborn ghost. I’m not sure what gives certain ghosts the ability to intrigue Twila and me into these investigations concerning their long-ago deaths. Whatever, Patrick had that ability.
An older woman stepped through a door on the hotel’s veranda, peering around as though looking for someone. Us, I assumed, since thanks to Katy’s reporter friend, we had an exclusive on the building premises for a twenty-four-hour period, seven a.m. to seven a.m. I shifted Miss Molly and grabbed my satchel of snacks, drinks, and other ghosthunting paraphernalia from the sidewalk while Twila stuffed her camera back and zipped the case. Ready, we started across the street.
The stupid siren split the air and we jumped back onto the curb so fast I nearly lost my hold on Miss Molly, not to mention my bladder. Trucker hates sirens. He set up a howl that raised the hairs on the back of my neck worse than the precursory chill prior to an apparition’s appearance, and Twila squatted beside him.
“Shush, Trucker. It’s that nasty old deputy Katy’s friend told us about.”
It was. The SUV pulled over to the curb, and one of those typical cigar-chomping, beer-bellied good old boys emerged in full regalia. Tan trousers above spit-shined lizard boots, followed by a belly that would have defied gravity even more, had it not been for a wide black braided belt and a Western buckle with a longhorn steer holding it up. An extremely long-horned longhorn steer. The shirt ruined the effect, though. Dirty brown and covered in flashy red roses, white mother-of-pearl snaps, it looked like something that would draw scorn even in a backcountry icehouse where beer, pretzels, and microwave pizzas were the fare of the day.
I gaped in awe of the fact that even with the seat pushed all the way back, that mountain of flesh could fit behind the steering wheel. He even kept his Stetson in place while he drove, and right now he tilted the brim down even closer to his warty, red-veined nose.
“You little ladies headin’ for the hotel?”
Trucker, raised with love rather than harsh discipline, and normally a mild-mannered Rottweiler, growled low. It amazed me at times that the dog sensed my dislike of certain people, even though I tried to remember my manners.
The cop zeroed in on my dog. “He had his shots? We got an ordinance 'bout that.”
Twila bristled and laid a hand on Trucker’s shining black head. “We little ladies always keep up our shots. Do you?”
The cop licked the side of his mouth as though searching for a missing cigar, but backed up a step. “Heard there was someone comin’ here to the hotel today. You know we got proceedings in the works to condemn that place. You get hurt over there, the city ain’t responsible.”
“The hotel is privately owned,” I said. “We understand the risks and are old enough to make our own decisions.”
He glanced across the street, then back at us. “Just so’s you know. Frankly, I can’t see why anybody’d want to go in there. Place’s been abandoned for thirty, forty years. Should’ve been tore down back then.”
“With that sort of rationale,” Twila said with a stern glare, “I suppose you think the Alamo has outlived its tenure. It’s a lot older than this hotel.”
“ ’Course not!” he huffed. “The Alamo’s a gen-yoo-wine piece of Texas history!”
Given the awe in his voice, I expected him to doff his Stetson and lay it across his chest.
I suppressed a giggle and turned my back on him before I lost control. Mistake. Behind Twila, Patrick materialized in all his full, naked glory and thumbed his nose at the cop.
Twila sensed the ghost, too. Her brown eyes crinkled and I’d have been willing to bet that the wild imagination we shared was forming identical pictures in our minds: the cop, astonished and determined to catch a streaker who dared violate his quiet town. A chase. Patrick deliberately slowing down until the cop reached out to grab him, then vanishing into thin air.
I examined Twila’s face, trying to detect whether the cop behind me could see Patrick, but I couldn’t glean a clue. She just caught her lower lip between her teeth and stifled the laughter always so near the surface beneath her quiet demeanor — the demeanor she showed people besides close friends, anyway. Miss Molly took that moment of laxity in my hold to crawl up my shoulder and try to escape down my back, claws working seriously on her behalf. I yelped and dragged her free, capturing her front paws in a stern hold as I nestled her back in place.
“We’re running late,” I said, teeth clenched against the stings of pain on my shoulder.
“Yes,” Twila agreed. She tightened her hold on Trucker’s leash, nodded a curt dismissal at the cop, and started across the street. Patrick glided up beside her, offering a gentlemanly arm, which she accepted. She and the ghost strolled unhurriedly, Twila in her long paisley skirt and peasant blouse, white sandals, red hair shining in the warm sun; Patrick a solid six foot of tanned, blond male, his backside one of those yummy rumps I loved to gaze at when outlined in a pair of football jersey pants or faded, tight jeans.
I hadn’t decided yet if Patrick looked better naked or in the tailored blue-and-white pinstriped suit he deigned to show himself in at times. I didn’t mind one iota examining the ghost over and over again while I tried to make up my mind.
I could see Twila’s grip on Patrick’s forearm, anyway. The cop probably just saw Twila’s arm in the air. Whatever. His entire attitude irked me, and I didn’t give a diddly damn whether he saw Patrick or not. I headed after Twila, but halted when he said, “You could’ve had a nice welcome to town, you’d’ve let us know you were coming.”
“Oh?” I asked. I hadn’t told the town officials I was part of the last group, either, since I pretty much kept my ghosthunting separate from my writing life.
“You’re that writer, ain’t you? Alice Carpenter? Seen your picture on them book jackets.”
“Yes,” I admitted. “But I’m not here promoting one of my books.”
“Too bad. Mayor would’ve made sure you had a better time than what you’re in for over there. Hope you ain’t afraid of ghosts. Been lots of stories regardin’ strange happenings inside there since they closed down that there Springs Hotel.”
“Ghosts?” I said with a straight face. “How fascinating!” Afraid of ghosts? If he only knew. “From what I’ve heard and read, there were also a lot of real-life strange happenings at that hotel when it was in operation.”
“Now don’t you go dredgin’ up all them old half-truths and writin’ about them,” he insisted with a frown that pulled his warty nose down near his top lip. “Lots of folks are still alive here in town who wouldn’t be too happy about that.”
“Some of the original population from the stories are still around then, are they?”
He jammed his Stetson tighter onto his head. “Good day. I’d say y’all come back again, but I got a feelin’ the sooner the two of you have your tour and get out of here, the sooner the mayor will breathe a sigh of relief.”
A glimmer of consternation flickered in his eyes, as though he regretted his words. But before I could question him further, he slid his mountain of flesh back into the SUV. He’d left the motor running, and he dropped the vehicle in gear and swerved around the corner beside me with a squeal of tires.
“At least you didn’t childishly fire off that stupid siren again,” I called after the disappearing vehicle. In retaliation, as though he’d read my lips in his rearview mirror, he popped off the siren in a series of short bursts. Across the street, Trucker howled, and I snuggled Miss Molly close and headed for the hotel.
Discover Other Electronic Books
by T. M. Simmons
Writing as T. M. Simmons
https://www.iseeghosts.com
Dead Man Mysteries:
Dead Man Talking
Dead Man Haunt
Dead Man Hand
Dead Man Ohio
Next Dead Man: 2017
Paranormal Suspense:
Winter Prey
Silent Prey
True Ghost Stories:
Ghost Hunting Diary Volume I
Ghost Hunting Diary Volume II
Ghost Hunting Diary Volume III
Ghost Hunting Diary Volume IV
Ghost Hunting Diary Volume V
Ghost Hunting Diary Volume VI (2016)
Living With Dead Folks, Volume One
Living With Dead Folks, Volume Two
Living With Dead Folks, Volume Three
Living With Dead Folks, Volume Four (2016)
Short Story Fiction:
Grave Yarns, a Collection of Short Stories
Dragon's Dishonor, a Short Story
To All a Good Night, a Short Story
Monsters Among Us, a Novella
Upon a Midnight Clear, a Short Story
Deliver Us From Evil, a Short Story
Thrall Bound, a Novella, only
available for Newsletter subscribers
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Writing as
Trana Mae Simmons
https://www.tranamaesimmons.com
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