Matthew Cornachione - Dansk Bay Hotel

…And, realized right away we had a deal breaker: no bathroom. The room was an open square.

Floor could be carpeted, walls painted. Even a dingy place like this could easily look nice. Plumbing, on the other hand, especially through concrete, was expensive. Unfortunately we’d have no choice; high-end customers would not share a hallway bathroom. Even if we got this hotel for free, I wondered if we’d ever recover our investment.

I sighed, but I couldn’t stop yet. Might as well give the rest a quick scan. I picked my way down the hall to the lobby. Yet another disappointment. It was cramped, lacking room for a reception desk or continental breakfast. We’d have to tear down some walls. This place was a far cry from being a suitable hotel.

Indeed, I marveled that this dump had ever housed guests. I’d been through a lot of old hotels in my career, but none had been this sorry. Maybe Alaskans from a few decades back hadn’t known any better. But, really, this was dismal.

As I tried to estimate costs, I felt a chill that had nothing to do with finances. I spun around. Had I heard something? Was someone else here?

My heart started pounding. Damn superstition, now it had me nervous. I crept down hall, toward where I thought I’d heard a noise. I reached the corner and peered around. There was nothing but deep blackness down that way.

Immediately my mind went back to that night with Lena, that tunnel under old city Boston. The last night she’d been able to speak.

I pushed the memory down again. I couldn’t afford to invite that terror in right now.

Still wary, I stood, listening and watching. I thought I made out a glint of metal, maybe a heavy door in the back corner. Before I could get closer, the noise came again. It was a distinct hiss, as if steam was escaping a vent. Was that a little puff of gas?

No, it was a faint cloud hanging in the dark. It drifted closer, carried on some invisible current. As it passed into a beam of light, I swore I made out the faint outline of a wizened face. It was glaring at me.

The withered one.

I stumbled away, took off down the hall, out the back door, and kept running.

“Excellent!” said Regina.

My boss was crazy, but at this point I wondered if I was, too.

“What do you mean ‘excellent?’ This place is… it’s a bust.”

“One man’s problems are my opportunity. Now is hardly the time to give up. You haven’t even talked terms with Nekker.”

“I know, but this is the worst hotel I’ve ever seen. This isn’t just a little face-lift job. We’re talking structural work, plumbing…” Not to mention evil spirits. Of course I couldn’t say that. I didn’t want to sound like a lunatic.

“Look, this isn’t the first time we’ve had to do some serious work.”

Regina was right about that, but, damn it, I wanted her to give me permission to get the hell out of town. All the weird superstition here had me unsettled.

“You haven’t seen the place. You’ve got to trust me on this. The work is major stuff. I don’t know if a few cruise liners are going to keep enough money coming in. It’s not worth the cost.”

“Leave that decision to me. We don’t even know the price. That’s why you’re there—secure the best deal possible. With all those defects we’ll get this place for next to nothing. Guarantee Nekker knows how little the thing is worth. He’s assured me he is quite eager to get rid of the hotel.”

“Okay, okay. I’ll talk him down. But, I’m telling you, even if he gave us this thing for free, which he might, it’s a bad buy. This place is just… weird. Tourists aren’t going to want to stop here.”

“Okay, I get it: You’ve got a bad feeling. Noted. But, finish the job. Talk to Nekker and let me know what he says. And, send a few photos too. If it’s that bad, prove it.”

Damn. She wasn’t going to be swayed. I don’t know why I would have expected differently.

“Fine. I’ll get in touch after the meeting.”

“I’ll look forward to it.” Regina hung up.

I set my phone down on the park bench and looked up to the sky. Regina was all business, as usual. I glared at the phone, but inside I knew the talk had been good for me. It was easy to let my imagination get carried away, isolated as I was. A touch of reality helped. There was nothing amiss in Dansk Bay, only frightened people and a dark hotel.

My own past didn’t help. This wasn’t my first weird encounter. In that tunnel with Lena, oh so many years ago, I’d seen a similar white cloud. I’d pretended otherwise, but deep down I always thought it had been a ghost. Maybe a part of me wanted to see a ghost again, to make it real. To excuse what I had done.

But, I couldn’t afford to dwell on that now. Regina was right; I had a job to do. It wasn’t like me to walk out in the middle of a negotiation. I could get to my meeting, get an offer, then get out of town.

The meeting! I checked my watch. Shit, it was in fifteen minutes; I had to hustle.

I had looked up a map online, but I couldn’t get Wi-Fi on my phone to find it again. Fortunately, Dansk Bay was a small town and I knew that Nekker was on the ocean. He couldn’t be hard to find.

I wound back past Lucy’s, and headed toward the bay. Dark clouds gathered over the ocean. Looked like a storm was about to roll in. I kept up my brisk pace.

Along the bay front, I saw a two-story log cabin with a faded restaurant sign, a pretty cool place. A handful of boarded up shops lined the ocean drive, none of which were built from a mobile home base. This place could be revived for tourists in a heartbeat. That restored some of my hope.

At the end of the road was a warehouse, lights on inside. That had to be the place. Nekker ran the fishing industry in town. It was small as far as commercial fishing was concerned, but it was the only real source of wealth here.

As I neared the warehouse, a young man emerged. Like the rest of this town, he looked grungy, his blond hair almost brown with dirt. The only difference was the energy in his step. His blue eyes met with mine, then he angled away. I almost let him go, but I was done with these people’s avoidance tactics.

“Excuse me,” I called. “Do you know where I might find Mr. Nekker’s office?”

He stopped. Like the waitress, he glanced around before speaking.

“What you want?”

“He and I have business to discuss. The hotel.”

“Whoa, he told me it was all okay.” The man started to back away.

“What was all okay?”

“Um, nothing?”

“Come on, you can tell me.”

He shook his head. “Boss is upstairs. Take it up with him and leave me alone.”

Before I could say anything else he hurried out onto the docks. I watched him run past a worn out old ship to a newer vessel at the end. Yet another person freaking out about the hotel. That man seemed worried about something other than spirits though.

I pushed through the front door into a reception area. A vacant desk greeted me. Off to one side were a couple folding chairs bracketing a ficus on the brink of death. A double-wide door to the left obviously opened into the main warehouse floor. Next to it was a stairwell.

I assumed Nekker’s office was upstairs and climbed the steps. At the top was a narrow corridor with full-height windows overlooking the warehouse. The place was virtually empty. It didn’t look like they were moving many fish through here. Maybe they’d just sent out a shipment. More likely business was going poorly. One guess why Nekker was selling off the hotel.

To the right were three doors. I walked past the first two, which hung open on empty offices. At the third door I found an engraved nameplate. Nigel Nekker.