Hello there and welcome back! I meant to post this earlier today, but this week has been full of school, archery, and a new show that may become another obsession, so I didn't have as much time to write! But here we are? How will David and Logan protect the new owners of Room 212, and defeat Michael Graham? Wait and see!
by Claudia Chappel
“We can’t just tell her that there’s a ghost in her room,” I said.
Logan shrugged. “Why not,” he asked, honestly curious. I tilted my head to the side. “Maybe because she won’t believe us?”
Logan sunk deeper into his chair. “I still think it’s the best option. I mean, it’s the easiest.” I rolled my eyes. “Look, I admire the confidence, but we say that she will call the cops, or worse, a mental institution. You want to be put in a straight jacket?”
Logan smirked and showed me his claws. “I don’t think that’d be much of a problem.”
Fair, I thought. I wouldn’t dare admit that he was right though. He’d never let me hear the end of it.
“I don’t know,” Logan said. “I still don’t understand people, and I’ve grown up with them.” I patted his shoulder with a smile. “And I don’t get the supernatural. That’s why we work.” He smiled back at me.
“I didn’t think you’d be so sentimental David,” someone said. I turned sharply to see a ghostly figure on my bed. Once my eyes adjusted, I realized it was a ghost I knew. Alice “ghost nephalem” Jacobson, as Logan insisted on calling her.
Logan stood up first. “Alice! Damn, it’s been a while! How’s it been?” She gave a sarcastic smile and swung her legs off the side of the bed, sitting up. “Peachy. Being dead is the best experience of my life…oh wait.”
Logan put up his hands. “Sorry, sorry,” he said, but he still had a grin on his face. I finally decided to stand and speak. “Alice, about earlier-”
She rolled her eyes. “It’s fine David. Maybe I was a bit over dramatic. According to my old therapist I have ‘anger issues’, so we’re good. I’m over it anyway,” she said, putting air quotes around anger issues. “Still, I’m helping and there’s nothing you can do about it, so you might as well let me in your super secret boy band for now.”
I looked at Logan, who didn’t seem to be bothered with the fact a ghost had just appeared in our room and was asking to defeat some ghost murderer. I nodded slowly. “Alright. But you’re following whatever he says.” I pointed to Logan, who’s smile immediately dropped as my own evil one appeared.
“What,” both Logan and Alice said.
I shrugged. “He knows more about ghosts than I do. Plus, me and Logan here are a partnership, not a leader and sidekick. So, whatever he thinks is the right move, we’re trusting him. Unless that’s a problem?”
Alice lifted her chin. “Of course not.” She looked at Logan and smiled. “He is my favorite ghoul. Come on then, what’s our great plan?” I hadn’t even known she knew about what Logan was, but that wasn’t important as of now.
Logan looked at me, then Alice, then at the door, as if thinking if he could escape. He sighed when he realized he’d never even make 3 steps before I caught him. “Well, hypothetically, Alice could check out the room without them noticing. If we want to find out what’s going on in there, her and her invisibility are our best bet.”
Alice gave a 3 finger salute. “As you wish, boss.” Then she was gone before either of us could say another word. Logan turned to me. “I said hypothetically, I didn’t say it would work.”
I shook my head. “Well, I guess we'll have to see.”
It didn’t take long before we heard a scream.
Me and Logan both cursed. Before we could run out of the room, Alice appeared. “So…the kid saw me. His name’s Joe, nice kid, really into the paranormal stuff. His mom wasn’t as excited to meet a ghost as he was.”
Me and Logan gave each other looks before leaving the room and knocking on the door of Room 212. I could feel Alice behind us, but at this point, these people had already met her. It’d be hard to play that off and hide the truth from these people.
Sydney opened the door. She saw Alice first and screamed again. Me and Logan had no idea what to do, but she was going to draw attention.
So Logan slapped his hand over her mouth and we walked in. I closed the door and Logan tried to calm the woman down.
“Listen…listen! I’m going to take away my hand, you can’t scream. We are here to help but we can’t do that if you scream. Understand?” The woman nodded vigorously, and Logan let her go.
She looked at me and Logan, as if not knowing where to look first. “You-your the people who are living down the hall,” she said.
I nodded. “That’s right.” Sydney pointed behind us at Alice. “What is that thing?” Alice crossed her arms. “She doesn’t like to be called a thing.”
Logan smiled uncertainly. “Why don’t you sit down.” Sydney did as Logan suggested. She still looked like she had no idea what was going on. She looked tired, which I didn’t mean in a rude way, but in a “she just wanted a normal night in this hotel and now things were happening she couldn’t understand or explain” kind of way.
“The ghost is back!” A little boy ran into the room and right up to Alice. I could see Sydney flinch, see how she wanted to drag her son far away from the ghost, but she also seemed paralyzed. Alice crouched down to meet the boy’s eye level and grinned. “Hey Joe. How are you?”
The boy grinned. “Good. You?” Alice looked the boy straight in the eyes, hers a strangely bright green. “Can’t complain.”
I turned back to Sydney. “Look, this is going to sound crazy. Actually, more than crazy. Believe me, I get it, I went through the same thing a few months ago, but you need to believe us.” Sydney seemed to not want to believe us, but I could tell she didn’t have a reasonable explanation for any of this, so she just nodded.
I let Logan do the talking. “Well, basically everything you thought wasn’t real, vampires, ghosts…they’re real. Alice here is a ghost,” he said, motioning to the girl as she talked with the little boy, now known as Joe.
“And I’m a ghoul. I don’t eat living people, don’t worry,” Logan finished. Sydney looked at him as if noticing something she hadn’t before. Then she turned to me. “What are you,” she asked. “Some kind of dragon in human form?”
I shook my head. “I’m just…human.” Sydney looked about to laugh, but she didn’t, seeming to believe me. Instead she just said, “then why are you in all this?”
I didn’t want to tell her the entire story, so I chose the abbreviated version. “I saw Alice die, was framed for her murder by a demon, and then Logan helped me kill said demon and prove my innocence.”
Sydney sat in silence for a full minute. She didn’t ask any further questions about my involvement in “all this.” She just said "that's some way to meet someone," and moved on.
“So you people aren’t normal. What does that have to do with us?” That was the real question. I looked at Logan, and we had a silent conversation about how and what to tell her. Eventually we decided on the truth, but in less gory detail.
“This room, it’s being haunted by a ghost,” Logan explained. “His name is Michael Graham. We also have reason to believe that Michael is dangerous and wants to hurt anyone who comes in here. We had thought we figured it out but then you and your son bought the room. We sent Alice over to try and figure out where Michael was and how we could defeat him without either of you getting hurt or thinking we’re crazy.”
Sydney gave a small awkward laugh. “Yeah, sending a ghost to find a ghost. Completely rational.”
I looked over to Alice, who was twirling a top in the air for Joe, who stared in awe. I hadn’t known she could do that. Was it because she was a ghost, or because she was part demon? Maybe it was her part angel side, but I hadn’t met one, so I didn’t know what they would be able to do. Maybe telekenisis came from all of them. Did that make that ability more powerful? I’d have to ask her.
But I’m getting distracted.
Sydney had finally decided to accept what we’ve said, though she didn’t seem happy about it. She kept grumbling about how this was supposed to be a normal vacation. To be honest it was hard to blame her. I remembered how annoyed I was when everything happened to me. I had just gone out for coffee, and instead watched a woman (who was now a ghost) get murdered. How Marina and Logan dealt with me at that time I still have no idea.
It was a unanimous decision that Sydney and Joe would stay in our room until we were sure Michael was gone. Joe wanted to stay, wanting to see the ghost with his own eyes. It took Alice staying behind and saying she’d tell him everything she knew about ghosts and anything else he wanted to know to get him to agree to stay here.
Me and Logan both knew we had to destroy the painting. Logan said burning it would be easiest, and I agreed, so we both had a lighter. We had other supplies like salt. If anyone asked us to empty our pockets, it would be interesting to try and explain. And hilarious to watch Logan figure it out, because he would’ve been the one to come up with something. I was not good at improvising.
“Ready,” Logan asked. I almost laughed.
“Not at all.”
Logan chuckled. “Good.”
We went back to Room 212. Genuinely, I wished we had just bought this room. It would’ve been easier. Then again, when I walked into that place all I could think was "at least I never have to sleep in here.” It had gotten dark, and shadows were cast every which way like spikes. Any and all furniture looked like creatures from your most horrifying nightmares. Not to mention the thin layer of dust on every flat surface. Maybe I sound like a baby, but I’m not wrong, this place was not somewhere you’d want to stay for the night unless you were looking for ghosts.
Logan pointed to the painting. It was a field of pink flowers shining under the sun. It was a very nice painting, so much so I didn’t really want to destroy it. But we had no choice.
I took it down and Logan lit his lighter. I expected to see something materialize, but nothing did. The flame licked the corner of the painting, and it didn’t take long before the entire thing was covered in fire. I watched as the paper blackened and crumbled until it was nothing but ash and dust.
Nothing happened. No ghost appeared. It was exactly like it had been before.
“Do you think it worked,” I asked Logan. He shrugged.
“No idea,” he admitted. “We should probably stay to make sure, but it should’ve worked.”
I agreed to spend one more night. We would take turns staking out the room.
Sydney and Joe were staying in our room for the night. We had found some extra blankets and pillows in the closet, and, even though they weren’t particularly clean, Sydney said they would be fine.
“So this is what you do for a living,” she asked me when we were done setting up the blankets.
I smiled sympathetically. “We’re new to this, but yeah.” Sydney sat down on the edge of the bed, and I sat next to her. She let out a sigh.
“This is insane. Not just that this is happening, but that all of this is real. I mean, it’s just hard to wrap your head around, isn’t it?” She looked at me, waiting for an answer.
I looked at her. “Genuinely? Yeah. But without it I wouldn’t have met Logan, and if I hadn’t I don’t know what my life would be like.”
She smirked. “Normal,” she suggested.
I chuckled under my breath. “I never wanted normal. Thought it was boring.”
Sydney seemed to understand. “I didn’t want to either. I can’t complain too much though. I got Joe, and while it’s hard sometimes I can’t imagine my life without him. I guess that’s like you and Logan.”
I looked over at my friend, who was drawing with Joe. Joe showed him his picture, which seemed to be of a ghost. Logan smiled. “Wow, that’s amazing,” he said, not an ounce of fakeness in his voice. Joe grinned from ear to ear, cheeks flushing.
The two continued to talk about ghosts and other paranormal things. It occurred to me that Joe seemed to be very interested in this stuff.
“Well he’s certainly good with kids,” Sydney said. I nodded. “Yeah,” I said, still looking at Logan as he made a joke and Joe laughed. “I never thought about it, but I guess so.” Then again, I guess I shouldn't have been surprised. He seemed like the kind of person that would be.
Alice showed up again, making Sydney jump. “I’m never getting used to that, am I?”
I stood up to meet Alice. “I haven’t, so probably not.”
Alice stood up straighter. “I just checked around Room 212. There’s no sign of Michael anywhere,” she said, as if reporting to her superior officer. I rolled my eyes. “Stop that.” She smirked and sluched a little.
“Anything else,” I asked. Her smile dropped. “I still feel his presence there. It could just be a remnant of him though. I’m not sure.”
I crossed my arms and looked over at the others. “Okay. I’ll take the next watch of the room.” Logan walked over, since Sydney had noticed the time and thought Joe needed to go to bed.
“I can do it David. You need sleep, and I know you didn’t get any last night,” he suggested. I shook my head. “Logan, I’ll be fine.”
He didn’t seem to want to take no for an answer though. “David, I got this. Just trust me.”
It wasn’t that I didn’t trust him. I just knew that if something bad happened he wouldn’t call me. If it turned out we had failed, I could be sleeping while he fought the thing by himself.
“I can go with him,” Alice suggested. “The two of us against a ghost, if it’s still there, shouldn't be problem.”
I sighed. “Fine. Alice, if anything goes wrong, you call me, alright,” I said. Logan furrowed his eyebrows. “What, you don’t think I could do that?”
I looked at him. “Nope.” He tilted his head in a way that said he couldn’t argue my logic. Alice gave me a fake salute, and then they were off.
I laid down for about 20 minutes. I tried to sleep, I really did, but I’d never been a deep sleeper. I could hear the soft snores of Sydney and Joe and sat up. I had thought a walk could help me. It had when I was younger. Then again, those walks were usually not in the place I called home.
The hotel lights were dim. It was almost midnight. The shadows danced across the walls, like this was the only time they could do so without being judged.
The place was almost completely silent except for my dull footsteps on the carpet. The rhythm was comforting, until it wasn’t. Until I heard something else. Talking.
That’s not unusual in a hotel. I mean, people talk to each other all the time don’t they? But with the silence it felt completely out of place, like a knife cut through a fabric.
I went towards the noise, the voice becoming more clear as I did. “I distracted them for now. They think they won. But now some of them are in your domain.”
I could tell who’s voice it was. Adeline. I hid behind the wall and looked out. She was talking to someone, but I couldn’t make out who or what it was. It seemed transparent, but the more I looked the clearer he became.
“You know what I need you to do. You must protect your home from invaders, isn’t that right,” Adeline said, thickly sweet.
The other person nodded. Adeline’s smile fell. “Speak.”
“That’s right, Miss Delle,” Michael Graham said. I hid behind the wall, trying to make my breathing as unoticeable as possible, breathing once a minute.
“Good. Come back to me when you’ve finished the job, and only then,” Adeline said. I heard her heels as she walked away. When I was sure the ghost was gone, I cursed.
He was going back to Room 212, and Logan and Alice were there.
I began to run.
What does this mean? Did you expect Adeline to have any ties to what's happening? What do you think is happening? Are you enjoying Alice's return? I'm so glad to be back to writing her. I had this idea that after her death she'd change a lot, going from what seems to be an innocent girl (with potential anger issues) to a fighter. I hope you're enjoying that too!
Last chapter: @gracepro/the-mps-room-212-part-baceff6027619
I love the way you write dialog! Every character is unique and interesting. I wonder what is to become of the team and their new member, Alice!
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