Room 9 and Other Ghost Stories Page 16

  He stared in horror at the sight before him.

  Rose was standing in the hallway, wearing the same torn clothes he'd stuffed into the grave when he buried her. Her hair was soaking wet from the rain, and her skin was discolored and – in places – completely missing, while several of the injuries he'd inflicted on her five years ago were still visible: the missing teeth; the burns to her neck; the split fingers with their nails torn off. Most striking, however, was her face, where her nose was completely missing, revealing part of her skull. Her eyes, having partially rotted, were staring straight at him, while a section of her lips had fallen away to reveal part of her lower jaw.

  Michael opened his mouth to say something, but no words came out.

  “I waited,” Rose said after a moment, taking a step toward him. “For five years, in that muddy pit where you buried me, I waited for someone to do the right thing. Finally I realized I couldn't leave it any longer. The twins are getting to the age where you're going to start taking an interest in them, and I can't let that happen.”

  “Rose...” Gorman whispered, trying to roll onto his side.

  Raising the gun, Michael fired straight at his daughter, hitting her in the shoulder but not even causing her to flinch. He pulled the trigger again, but this time the gun merely clicked. Stepping back, he stared in horror as she edged ever closer.

  “I loved you!” he shouted. “That's all! I loved you too much, Rose!”

  “You couldn't keep your hands off me,” she replied calmly.

  “Is it a crime for a man to love his daughter?” he continued, wincing as he clutched his left arm. “Is the...” Gasping, he leaned back against the wall. Sweat was pouring down his face now and he was clearly struggling to breathe. “I loved you too much,” he whimpered. “I wanted to love you in all the ways a man can love his daughter, I wanted to protect you from the rest of the world!”

  “Is that why you tortured me for four hours?”

  “You liked it!” he shouted, before letting out a grunt of pain and dropping to the floor.

  “You taught me to like a lot of things,” Rose replied, staring down at him.

  “Rose...” He tried to get to his feet, but the pain was too much and he simply collapsed back against the wall while taking several deep, desperate breaths.

  “Goodbye, Daddy,” Rose said finally. “I know where you're going, and it's not going to be very nice for you.”

  For the next few minutes, she simply watched as Michael gasped for air. As the heart attack overwhelmed him completely, he tried to crawl away, only to collapse and fall still. Rose waited, able to sense his heart still struggling until finally she turned to look over at Sheriff Gorman.

  “It's done,” she said after a moment. “He's dead.”

  Gorman tried to sit up, but he'd lost too much blood and he couldn't even get a word out. Rolling onto his back, he stared up at her.

  “Sometimes,” Rose continued, staring at her dead father, “when something truly evil happens, and when no-one does anything to correct it, other ways are found to put things right. It's almost as if the natural world broke its own rules, just to make sure that something was able to come and deliver justice. Rats chased and killed cats, beetles rose up from the chests of men, and even the trees themselves tried to grow back underground out of shame. I waited and waited for someone to do the right thing, but finally the laws of nature were broken just a little further and allowed me to come back and do it myself. That's how evil this man was, and how much the world wanted to put things right.”

  “I...” Gorman tried to say. “I'm... I'm sorry...”

  “Don't worry,” Rose continued, walking over to him and looking down at the wounds in his chest. “I need you to do one more thing for me, Sheriff. I think you owe me that much.”

  ***

  Two weeks later, Sheriff Ben Gorman stood in the forest and watched as two of his deputies began to lift Rose Hillard's corpse from the shallow grave where she'd been buried five years ago.

  “This is going to destroy the town,” Karyn said after a moment, standing next to him. “People still had hope that she might be alive.”

  “It won't destroy the town,” Gorman muttered. “People will be shocked, they'll mourn... But that's no reason to hide the truth.”

  He paused as he saw Rose's dead face emerging from the mud. She looked exactly as he remembered her from a few weeks earlier, although there was still a part of him that wondered if the whole experience had really happened. Having always been the kind of man who dismissed the idea of ghosts, he was struggling to accept that she could have returned and sought vengeance on the man responsible for her death. Still, she'd told him where to find her body, and he was pretty sure she must have been the anonymous person who called an ambulance. According to the doctor, it was a miracle that he'd survived the shooting, and he felt Rose might have played a part in that too. After all, she needed him alive so he could deliver the truth to the people of Vantage.

  “I can't look,” Karyn said, staring in shock at the body as it was laid on a white sheet, “but I can't look away either.”

  “You and Rose were friends,” Gorman replied.

  Karyn nodded, with tears running down her face.

  “I used to think the people of this town needed to be protected from the truth about lots of things,” Gorman continued. “I was wrong. This should have...” He paused again. “Well, it'll all be in my report, whether people believe it or not.”

  “There's something in her shoulder,” Joe called out as he leaned closer to the body. Using a pair of tweezers, he pulled a bullet from Rose's body. “Boss, this looks like one of ours, but it can't be. We changed suppliers recently, so how the hell did it end up in her if she'd been buried for five years?”

  “That'll be in my report as well.”

  “But -”

  “Bag her up,” he added, staring at Rose's dead face. “She'll need to undergo an autopsy before we can release the body to the family.”

  “I can't help thinking about poor Carey,” Joe replied. “First Michael's heart attack, then this... Do you think maybe we should, you know, keep things under wraps a little? Depending on what the autopsy finds, there's still no need to let people know what really happened, is there? For her mother's sake, and for the sake of -”

  “No more secrets,” Gorman said firmly. “It's people trying to protect other people that caused half this mess in the first place. Anyway, I'm pretty sure Carey had her suspicions. I guess she just couldn't bring herself to recognize what was happening right in front of her.” Turning, he began to limp toward his car.

  “Do you really think the people of Vantage can deal with this?” Karyn called after him.

  “It's not our job to hide the truth from people,” he replied. “Our job is to help them deal with it. Besides, the truth always finds a way to get out eventually, even if the laws of nature end up getting broken in the process. The truth breaks through in the end. It's unstoppable. The world will only stand so much evil.”

  Glancing at the nearby trees, he saw that although some were still bent down toward the ground, most were now starting to curl back up toward the sky again, as if the horror had truly passed.

  Half an hour later, as he reached his office and sat at the desk, he switched on the computer and began to gather his notes, ready to write up a comprehensive report that would cover every aspect of the disappearance of Rose Hillard. He knew it would make for difficult reading, and he knew that parts of it would make people doubt his sanity, but he no longer felt like picking and choosing which parts of the truth to let people hear. He was simply going to record what happened and let the world judge. If that meant he had to retire early, then so be it. Besides, he wanted to rescue the concept of the 'truth' from gutter journalists like Deborah Culstone and their tabloids.

  Spotting something under a nearby pile of papers, he pulled out a small envelope and found that it contained the missing disc. With a heavy heart, he slipped it into a
bag labeled 'Evidence' and placed it next to the computer, ready to submit it once his report was ready.

  He paused.

  The room was silent.

  With a heavy heart, he began to type a full report about the disappearance of Rose Hillard, so that the truth could finally be known.

  ***

  Outside, the curled and twisted parts of the trees began to die away, and beneath the ground new growth was already coming to life.

  The Fan

  I

  “Eddie! Look at me! Eddie, I'm over here! Eddie, please!”

  “EDDIE! EDDIE!”

  “Eddie! Catherine Middlecombe for V-MAJOR TV! Eddie, how does it feel to be back in London?”

  Before he can answer, one of the other journalists shoves a camera right in his face and ignites the flash, sending Eddie stumbling back a few steps.

  “Eddie!” shouts someone else from the crowd that has gathered outside the hotel. “Eddie! Over here! I love you, oh my God! Sign my face! Eddie!”

  “Are you leaving the band, Eddie? Are you going to break up Never Turn Back?”

  “Mr. Donohue will be appearing at a press conference tomorrow afternoon,” his publicist Ellen shouts at the crowd, as she grabs Eddie's arm and ushers him along the red carpet that leads up to the entrance. “Until then, let's give him some privacy, okay?”

  “Eddie, are you going to go solo? Have you already started recording a new album?”

  “Eddie, I love you! I'm your biggest fan!”

  “Eddie, I'm your biggest fan!”

  “Eddie! Does coming back here make you think about Miranda Clarke?”

  As soon as he hears the name, Eddie turns and looks over at the journalist with a slightly shocked, deer-in-the-headlights look on his face.

  “Are you going to visit her family while you're here?” the journalist adds. “Are you going to speak to the police?”

  “Uh, no,” Eddie mutters. “I -”

  “No more questions!” Ellen shouts, leading Eddie by the hand and taking him into the hotel. “Jesus,” she mutters under her breath as they go through the revolving door, “what do they want, another Princess Diana on their hands?”

  ***

  “Under no circumstances will anyone from the hotel go to Mr. Donohue's door,” Ellen explains a few minutes later as she, Eddie and the hotel's manager stand in the slowly ascending elevator chamber. “Any interactions will go through me and me alone. This includes room service. Mr. Donohue doesn't like strangers knocking on his door.”

  “Absolutely,” the manager replies, keeping his eyes fixed firmly on Eddie, who remains on the other side of the chamber with a pair of sunglasses masking his eyes,”and will there be -”

  “Everything goes through me,” Ellen adds, clearly unimpressed, before reaching out and gently nudging the manager's face toward her, “including this conversation. Do we have an understanding?”

  “Of course,” the manager says with an obsequious smile, “it's just -”

  “We came back to your hotel because we were assured that things have changed around here since the last unfortunate visit,” Ellen continues. “I do hope we weren't misinformed.”

  “Absolutely not.”

  “And this elevator is private? We don't want Eddie getting accosted by a fan.” She says that last word with a hint of disgust in her voice, as if it's the most horrific things she can imagine. “Eddie's interactions with fans are strictly controlled. He's at his best when he has time to prepare. Unexpected fan interactions are prohibited.”

  “I understand entirely,” the manager replies, glancing at Eddie. “I can assure you that this is one of the world's most experienced hotels when it comes to handling guests of Mr. Donohue's stature. We're just very grateful that he has chosen to grace us with his presence again after all these years, and we hope that this visit will mark the beginning of a happy and fruitful relationship.”

  Ellen lets out a very clear sign of relief as the chamber comes to a halt and the door slides open to reveal the suite at the top of the hotel.

  “I do hope everything is as you expect,” the manager continues as Eddie steps out. “We have provided a hamper with some of the finest produce in the city.”

  “I'll be in touch if Mr. Donohue needs anything,” Ellen tells him.

  “Just one small thing,” the manager adds, lowering his voice to a conspiratorial hush. “I don't want to bother Mr. Donohue right now, but at some point during his stay, do you think I could possibly get a selfie with him?”

  Ellen raises a skeptical eyebrow.

  “It's just -”

  “For your daughter?”

  “My niece, actually. She's a huge fan of his band, and I would be the coolest uncle in the world.”

  “I'm sorry,” Ellen replies, stepping out of the chamber and hitting the button to send the elevator back down to the ground floor, “but that will be completely impossible. I'm grateful for your understanding on this matter, and for the fact that you're not going to ask any more questions.”

  The manager opens his mouth to reply, but the doors slide shut before he can get another word out, leaving Ellen to turn and look over at Eddie. She pauses for a moment, clearly worried about him.

  “You okay?” she asks.

  Standing in the middle of the suite, still wearing his sunglasses, he seems lost for a few seconds before turning to her.

  “I don't mind fans,” he says finally.

  “You know what I mean,” she replies.

  “I like my fans.”

  “But some of them are a bit... full-on.”

  “Yeah, but I don't need to be hidden away like I'm some kind of... delicate... vase.”

  “Trust me,” she replies, “I know what's best.”

  “Are you sure this is a good idea?” he asks. “This place, I mean.”

  “You wanted to face it head on,” she reminds him. “It was your decision to rent out the same suite you had here before.” She waits for a reply, but he still seems a little spaced out. “If you've changed your mind, I can rebook and have you out of here in minutes, there's -”

  “No,” he says suddenly, “it's fine, I just...” He turns and looks over toward the patio windows. “I was right earlier, it is good to face it like this, to come back to the same hotel and the same room. I mean, I'm not superstitious or any of that stuff, and I didn't do anything wrong the last time, so I've got nothing to hide.”

  “Of course not.”

  “And no-one blames me.”

  “No-one.”

  “And it's not even like anything actually happened. They never found the girl, which means there was nothing to find, which means...”

  His voice trails off for a moment.

  “You're absolutely right,” Ellen continues, heading over to check the champagne hamper on the table. “That fucking girl is probably hiding away somewhere, laughing her ass off about the whole thing. You know what I've always said, there was something fishy about the whole thing from the start.” She sniffs as she inspects the card on the hamper, left by the hotel's staff. “I think the family was in on it,” she continues, turning to him again. “You know what I reckon? I reckon they were going to try blackmailing you and -”

  She stops as Eddie raises a hand in the air.

  “Sorry,” she adds. “It just burns me up inside.”

  “Can we not talk about it?” he asks. “It brings the mood down.”

  “Of course.” Pausing, she glances around the suite for a moment, as if she's not sure what to do next. “So tomorrow morning you have a press event at the -”

  “I know,” he replies. “You wrote it all down for me.”

  “The rest of the band will be there too. There could be some awkward questions, I just want you to be ready.”

  “I'm always ready. When have I ever not been ready? Just...” He reaches up to his sunglasses as if he's about to take them off, before clearly thinking better of it. “I'd kinda like to be alone right now, just chill for the e
vening. Do you think that's okay?”

  “Of course. Your dinner with the Lord Mayor isn't until seven, so -”

  “Cancel it.”

  “But -”

  “Cancel it,” he says again. “I'm not feeling the energy for something like that. I'll call room service and get them to send something up when I get hungry.”

  “Just let me know what you want and I'll -”

  “I can do it myself,” he tells her. “I'm not so far removed from reality that I can't pick up a phone and tip some guy who comes to the door.”

  “Are you sure? It's no bother for me to -”

  “I don't want the fuss. Please, Ellen, let me have one evening the way I want it.”

  “Of course,” she replies with a hesitant smile. “I... guess I'll be in my room, then. Just don't hesitate to -”

  “I know, I know,” he tells her, “I'll call you if I need anything.”

  “And... People are going to ask the obvious question tomorrow, Eddie. You might need to have an answer this time. If you really want to quit the band -”

  “I'll think about it tonight.”

  “But -”

  “I'll think about it,” he says firmly. “I'll know by the morning. I'll tell you then.”

  “Okay. That's fair. Goodnight. Try to sleep.”

  As Ellen heads to the elevator, Eddie stays in the middle of the room, as if he's waiting for her to leave. Finally the doors slide open and she steps into the chamber, and she and Eddie share a nervous wave before the doors close again and the chamber begins to descend. Finally, left alone, Eddie slips his sunglasses off and heads over to the table, setting them down before switching on the TV and grabbing the remote.

  “- star Eddie Donohue arrived in London for the launch party to promote the latest album by pop band Never Turn Back,” the reporter was saying as he switched to the entertainment channel. “His girlfriend Alessandra Moravio was not with him this time, since she's busy filming in Malta, but she's expected to fly in to join him at the weekend. The return to London will be -”