The same desk clerk I’d met earlier stood behind his counter. Today he looked even paler than he had after the explosion.
“Good afternoon,” Regge began politely. “We’re hoping to find the owners of the hotel. Perhaps there’s a manager we could speak to?”
The guy blinked as if suddenly noticing us.
“Hello! Welcome to the Fulbright. How may I be of service?”
Regge and I exchanged looks.
“The owners? Or the manager?” I repeated Regge’s question. I noticed the newspaper on the counter was yellowed and smudged, as though it had been read repeatedly.
“They’re not here.”
“So you know the owners?”
“No. But they’re not here.” The guy sounded vividly disappointed that we weren’t customers. He was skinny and his uniform was as ill-fitting as it was old. The clerk’s watery eyes were deep set into a sallow face, the color undefined. His bow tie bobbed on his skinny neck as he talked. “Guests have moved out. Everyone has moved out.” His head dipped toward the wood countertop. “I’m losing everything.”
I felt a wave of pity for him. “No. I’m sure the hotel will be open soon. The owners will renovate and—”
“I am lost.” The clerk’s fists clenched in front of him, and suddenly he wavered. Not his speech but his body. The man in front of us became translucent for a few seconds before returning to his sad but tangible form.
Regge breathed in sharply, his hand coming across my forearm as though to pull me away from danger.
“What are you?” he asked the clerk, his voice tense.
“I am the night clerk,” he said. “That is me. Night clerk.” He seemed to work really hard on focusing. I decided he was pretty harmless, whatever he was, and tried a different tack.
“Uh, hi. I’m Hunter, this is Regge. What is your name?”
The clerk’s wrinkled brow furrowed all the way up into his thinning hairline. “I’m the night clerk.”
“I think a better question, HB, is not who but what. Whatareyou?”
“The night clerk!” With that declarative statement, the man vanished—literally blipped out of existence, leaving us staring at an empty counter.
Regge turned to me. “Too hard a question?”
I shrugged. “Let’s go have a look around.” We moved across the lobby to the decrepit elevator. I pressed the button, and we listened to the creak and grumble of the mechanism behind the door.
“A ghost? Have you seen such things before?” Regge asked.
“Not specifically like that. But I’ve seen enough to not be too freaked out. He’s obviously in distress but not because of us. I don’t think he’s dangerous. Wait. Are you freaked out?”
The narrow elevator door opened with a screech, revealing a dimly lit box barely big enough for two grown men. Simultaneously we both took a step back.
“Should we take the stairs? And no, I am not ‘freaked out’ as you say. Okay, a bit, by this obviously unsafe mode of going upstairs not by—”
I grabbed Regge’s sleeve and pulled him inside the elevator. I pressed the button for the third floor. We stilled as the door creaked closed. Too narrow to fit side by side and leave space between us, I turned to face Regge as the box lurched upward. Neither of us spoke, but there was an audible sigh of relief as the doors opened onto the floor.
“See?” I said. “Nothing to worry about.” I stepped out into a dusty hall. A crack sounded overhead. Regge yanked me back into the open elevator. A portion of twisted tin, mortar board, and insulation collapsed on the floor where I had been standing.
We both looked out and up before stepping around the debris and treading down the hallway clouded with plaster dust. Regge coughed behind me. “I have seen places in a ruinous state before, but this is very run-down.”
I turned to see him frowning at a sign centered over a decorative archway. The sign readClearance 8’6”. To the side someone had scribbled,this means you, Barry.
“The damage is limited to this floor, fortunately.”
Turning away, I focused on our task. But as usual, my mind had a mind of its own. My feet stuttered in the middle of the hallway. The dust cloud thickened and darkened. Theblackness lasted no more than a second, and I was immersed in a vision.
