I take in a deep breath and push the door aside. It slowly swings open with a low groan, and I walk blindly into the swirling dark.
“Should I be putting on the night vision?” Dex asks no one in particular. I hear him fiddle with the camera settings but before anything happens, I am blind. Pam has walked in beside me and switched on the lights.
“No sense in scaring ourselves yet,” she chirps, and I can barely make out her round face.
Dex comes in and Pam shuts the door behind him. Once my eyes adjust to the light, I see that we are in a hotel room that probably looks the same as any other hotel room, albeit a large and very pricey one. Aside from a heavy chill that seems to hang in the air, there’s nothing too off-putting about the place. The bed is made, there seems to be a separate room with a living area, divided only by a Japanese-type paper partition, and I can just see a rather opulent looking bathroom jutting out to the right.
“As I said, this is Parker’s room,” she says. “Well, it was his room. I say this because some guests who stay in here say they still see him. But it happens very rarely.”
“And once again,” Dex repeats, sounding bored, “who is Parker?”
Pam walks over to the king-sized bed and sits down on it. It sags a little from her weight; the mattress is not as springy as it was back in the day.
“We have a lot of ghosts in this hotel. Parker isn’t the most well known of them, but he is the most real. Because he was a real person and his story is terribly tragic. Tragic, but all too common.”
I go over to the bed and sit down beside Pam. Suddenly, that slightly see-through partition between the bedroom and the living area is giving me the creeps, like I can sense someone standing behind it.
Dex looks like he picks up on the vibe too. Although he is standing in front of Pam and I, with the camera in our faces, his eyes keep flitting over there and his head is cocked slightly as if he is listening. I stifle the urge to shiver—I don’t want to look like an amateur—and keep my attention on Pam.
“What happened?” I ask, trying to keep my voice light, trying to ignore the goosebumps I can feel rising underneath my jacket.
“Parker, Parker Hayden, was a ship owner in the ‘30s. Back then, Portland was a very different city. The ships were its lively hood. There was a lot of money, a lot of crime, a lot of… well, scandals, I guess. Think Vegas, but on a river. Anyway, Parker was just one of the many wealthy ship owners. He spent half his time here, half somewhere on the east coast. He rented a room, this room, spending an obscene amount of money every night. He was a ladies man too, no surprise there! He was also a bit nuts. But because he was rich, you called him eccentric. There were rumors he was having an affair with a maid or two; sometimes he’d be caught stealing tons of toiletries and hording them in his closet. In this day and age we’d call him a weirdo but back then, he was just rich and powerful and you let him do what he wanted.”
“Doesn’t sound too much different from nowadays,” Dex says softly, keeping the camera focused on Pam. He’s paying less attention now to the other room, which makes me feel a smidge better.
Pam laughs. “You’re right about that. And it was the same kind of outcome. Back in 1934, Portland was hit hard—really hard—with this strike. I think it was called the West Coast Waterfront Strike? Anyway, there was the strike, his ship was basically inoperable, and he lost a lot of money. Really fast. According to the records, he was kicked out of the hotel because he couldn’t pay his bills. Not for this room, not for any room here.”
“And what happened?” I push.
She sighs and rubs her face quickly, looking uneasy for the first time tonight. Lines appear on her youthful face.
“He wouldn’t leave. He was kicked out several times, out on the street even. Publicly humiliated. All unshaven and messy, like a vagrant. He said people were after him, wanting money and that he was afraid for his life. Then the hotel staff found him. Dead. Hanging in the maid’s laundry room, from a noose made out of towels. The strike ended two days later. How is that for irony?”
She smiles at me, but it is forced and I can’t be bothered to return it. The story stirs something in my gut.
I look up at Dex and see that his attention is back on the other room again.
“What is it?” I ask him. I can’t help myself.
Pam’s attention goes to him, and we all look over but see nothing.
“The guests who have seen him,” she puts in, her voice low, her eyes on the partition, “they say they see a man pacing anxiously in the other room there, muttering to himself. Once he notices you, he tries to say something or write something down. But no words come out and as the guests get more scared and confused, the ghost gets frustrated. Sometimes he disappears, sometimes he rushes at the guests and then… poof.”
“Well doesn’t that make for a memorable stay,” Dex comments underneath his breath.
Pam giggles nervously at his lame joke and then gets up. “I’m afraid I will have to leave you two now. Duty calls.”
Dex lowers the camera and touches her arm lightly, causing her to pause mid-bustle. It’s obvious she wants nothing more than to get out of the room. I have half a mind to join her.
“Where is the laundry room?” he asks.
Pam looks down at her feet quickly. “The laundry room? Why?”
“Well, we aren’t ignoring the place where the man hung himself. With towels, mind you. I mean, I can make a swan out of towels, but a noose?”
“I’d show you, but I really must—”
She looks at me for support as he reaches forward and plucks the keys out of her hand.
He holds up the keys in front of her face. “Just tell us which key will get us into the laundry room and we’ll have no problem finding it on our own.”
“Dex,” I begin, not wanting him to step out of bounds. He can be relentless sometimes.
He ignores me and flashes Pam a smile that usually makes me weak at the knees. “Come on, Pammy, you know you want our little show to succeed here. Parker would want us there. Give the man some closure.”
Her mouth twitches while she thinks it over. Dex gives her a quick wink and she blushes slightly. I can’t help but roll my eyes again.
“All right,” Pam mumbles and takes the keys from him. She goes through them in a blur and pops one off the ring and into his outstretched hand. “It’s in the basement. This will open the freight elevator at the end of the hall and take you right there. But I want this back, OK?”
“But of course.” He grins and closes his hand over the key before she has a chance to change her mind.
She looks at me and I give a little shrug.
“We won’t wreck anything or scare the guests,” I say. I want to add, “We promise,” but I know we can’t promise anything. Destruction and fear seem to follow Dex and I wherever we go. That is the nature of the ghost hunting business, even one that’s only on the Internet.
I can see Pam isn’t comfortable with the situation, but she doesn’t say anything else. She just leaves the room and shuts the door behind her. The movement causes the dust to fly off of the nearby lamps.
I slowly let out my breath and look at Dex. He’s watching me carefully.
“What?” I ask.
“Do you want the lights on or off?”
He raises his camera a bit and I get it. Are we going to shoot this in the dark or in the light? I know what I’m going to say, and I know what he’s going to say.
“Leave the lights on,” I tell him.
“I think we should have them off.”
I knew it. “Why do you even bother consulting me if you’re just going to do what you want anyway?”
“I like you to feel like this a partnership,” he says, and sounds strangely sincere. He tucks the key into his cargo pants and gives me a quick smile. “And you know that shooting in the dark adds to the tension.”
“It also adds to my ever-building threat of dying young,” I point out.
“Twenty-two ain’t so young anymore, kiddo. I mean, you’ve almost surpassed James Dean. If you kick it now—”
I raise my hand in the air. “That’s enough. Let’s just get this over with.”
“Perry’s famous last words.”
“Dex. Shut up.”