Nightmare (12 page)

She stopped. "What?"

I laughed. "There's nothing that says you're required to investigate at night. A lot of investigators don't. There are lots of reasons
to do it this way, though. Primarily it's a logistical issue, especially
for populated locations. It's just easier to gain wide access to the
most haunted locations at night, when there are fewer people
around-or none. The absence of the human element makes it
easier to record EVPs and capture imagery that's authentically
paranormal. In a field where it's almost impossible to investigate
under controlled circumstances, investigating at night increases
what little control you do have over the environment."

"Remind me what EVP stands for again?" Jordin asked.

"Electronic Voice Phenomenon. Disembodied voices that the
human auditory range can't hear, but recording devices can."

It was unnerving to be in the big, unfriendly room, but where
most would have been timid about entering, I was surprised to
see Jordin stride right out into the open space without a care. I
could only imagine what was going on in her head, considering
how sullen she'd been earlier. I felt like she was making an effort
to rein in the exuberant rookie I'd investigated with at Waverly
Hills.

She made a beeline for the piano, which sat silent across the
room.

"Cold spot," she reported. "It's very cold over here."

I joined her by the piano, confirming that it was indeed colder
than the rest of the room.

Cold spots were a common phenomenon when paranormal
activity was present. No one really knew why, but apparitions
almost always drained the warmth out of the air.

"You should be recording," I whispered.

"Ah!" Jordin exclaimed. She dropped her pack softly on
the ground and pulled out her video camera. To her credit, it
was ready to go and all she had to do was turn it on and press
Record.

Jordin held the camera while spinning slowly in place for a
few minutes, shooting video, mostly of the piano and eventually
moving to the bench, where she sat down.

"Why do electronic devices pick up sounds the human ear
can't?" she whispered.

I wasn't sure if Jordin really expected me to provide a sure
answer, but I replied anyway. "I don't know. Maybe they have a
better auditory range than the human ear."

Jordin suddenly turned the camera to face the floor and began
inspecting it. "Oh man..."

I glanced her way, half expecting this. "Battery?"

Jordin looked up in surprise, her long blond locks giving off
a dull gleam in the dark. "It was fully charged, I know it was! I
checked it before I left my room!"

"Sudden battery drain," I explained. "It's pretty common
during investigations. There are theories as to why."

Jordin was all ears. "Like what?" she whispered eagerly.

"The most popular thought is that when a spirit wants to
make itself known to human senses, it'll draw on any energy
source around it to manifest. Including electrical batteries, if
they're handy."

Jordin screwed up her eyebrows. "I'm not sure that makes
any sense."

"Neither am I, to be honest, but it's just one theory. You
brought some spares, right?"

She blinked. "These cameras all take special batteries that
are supposed to last for hours! You didn't say anything about
bringing extras!"

I picked up her digital voice recorder and spoke into it. "Note
to self. always bring extra batteries to an investigation."

Jordin scowled at me, placing her recorder back on top of
the piano.

We stayed in the ballroom for another twenty minutes, but
all was quiet.

"So why is the Stanley so haunted?" asked Jordin as we were
packing up to leave.

I frowned, not in frustration but from searching for the
words. The truth was, I didn't know. No one had ever been able to determine why the Stanley was so haunted, aside from the fact
that it was built on very old land that had passed down through
many generations. Before the Stanley was built, Native Americans lived all throughout the region for unknown numbers of
years. Most of the sightings seemed to indicate the presence of
immigrants from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

F. 0. Stanley, who built the hotel, and his wife, Flora, were
believed to be behind most of the sightings. History records that
the two of them dearly loved the area for its beauty. Mr. Stanley
was all but healed of tuberculosis thanks to the clean mountain
air and how much his morale improved just by being there. Maybe
he just never wanted to leave.

Hours later, we had hit several known hot spots throughout
the hotel with little success. But I wasn't ready to give up yet.

We were returning to our rooms so Jordin could plug in her
batteries to recharge when we got our first hit of the night.

It was past three a.m., so the lights had been dimmed in
the brightly colored guest corridors, the walls adorned with
ornate wallpaper and dotted with large antique black-and-white
photographs. We were walking quietly to keep from disturbing
the other guests when Jordin stumbled and dropped all of her
equipment.

"Shhh!" I whispered over the enormous clatter. I thought of
my phone conversation with the owners a few weeks prior when I
promised them we would be discreet during our investigation.

Jordin collected her things and stood with shaky legs beneath
her. She stood next to a floor-length mirror, and her eyes were
huge as she looked into it. She glanced over her own shoulder, as if she expected to see someone there, and then she turned back
to stare into the mirror again.

"What is it?" I asked.

"I saw a man!" she whispered back, her voice fragile and frantic. "In the mirror! I saw him in the mirror!"

I eyed her suspiciously.

"It was a man. An older man, and he was wearing ... like, an
old-fashioned suit."

The smallest of chills brought goose bumps to my arms.
Despite all my experience, I still did not like mirrors. Something
about looking into them with the chance of seeing something
other than yourself looking back unnerved me and I tried, as a
rule, to avoid them.

"Where did you see him?" I whispered, joining her to stare
at the mirror.

"In the mirror!" Jordin replied with over-the-top obviousness, pointing to the spot we were both staring at. "I glanced at
it as I passed by, and he was standing right there looking back at
me!" She pointed at a small alcove that housed one of the hotel
room doors.

"He was only in the mirror!" she said, and her whole body
jerked suddenly. She rubbed her arms, which had turned pale.
"But as soon as I looked, he disappeared. He was just gone."

"What else did you notice about him?" I asked uneasily, as I
tried to look deeper into the mirror.

"I don't know.... He was bald, but with, like, a comb-over. And
one of those old-timey mustaches that curl up on the ends?"

"A handlebar," I said slowly, realization dawning in my
mind.

"Yeah. And he had real beady eyes, and he was wearing a
pinstripe suit. With a vest."

I took a deep breath and let it out slowly, the hairs on my
arms standing on end.

"You just described the earl ofDunraven," I said softly. "Lord
Dunraven was the original owner of this entire area, back in the
1800s, and he's been rumored to haunt not just the Stanley, but
most of Estes Park."

Jordin's eyes grew even wider, and the two of us stood in
stunned silence for a long moment.

I broke the silence first. "You just laid eyes on your very first
full-bodied apparition."

Jordin offered a trembling smile, and I recognized the thrill
of adrenaline that had to be coursing through her right now. It
was giving her a noticeable buzz.

"So why does this guy haunt the town?" she asked.

I picked through my memory to relate Dunraven's story in
concise words. "He wanted to use his land as a private game
reserve, so he's probably unhappy with what's become of it."

"Huh," said Jordin dully, and I noticed a new expression on
her face I hadn't observed before. "I forget that ghosts were people
like me and you, with the same emotions and wants."

I watched her. "Does that mean you've made up your mind
about the existence of ghosts? Is that what this is about for
you?"

She didn't answer at first. I was sure she knew that I was
trying to get her to concede that there was no further need for
these adventures of ours. "I'm not here to prove the existence of
ghosts, Maia. Even if I were, I know I wasn't imagining what I
saw in that mirror. So what else is on the agenda?"

I sighed. "Next we make sure we have plenty of batteries for
our flashlights, 'cause we're going to need them."

"Shh," I whispered. "Did you hear that?"

In the silence, I realized with slight alarm that my heart was
pounding hard in my chest. I wasn't frightened, I was sure of it. I
didn't usually get scared during investigations. Excited, thrilled,
even emotional sometimes, sure. But you just couldn't do this
job if you let the fear in.

Yet here we were on a fairly routine investigation, my heart
hammering and sweat beginning to rise on my face and head
despite the chill of our location.

Jordin shook her head, then stood in silence, waiting. I was
glad to see her flick on her voice recorder without my needing
to remind her this time.

The sound came again.

"I heard that," she said, and I could see that her breathing
had also increased.

We heard it a third time.

Somewhere in the distance, maybe right down the hall from
where we now stood, a child's voice was giggling.

We were nowhere near the guest rooms anymore. We had
descended down to the basement tunnels-a special allowance
I'd been granted by the hotel's owners, thanks to my credentials.
Besides, it was the middle of the night. This area was locked off,
and I was the only person besides the owners with a key to get in,
so no one could have possibly been down there but us.

It giggled again.

"It sounds like a little girl," Jordin whispered.

I nodded in agreement, listening, standing perfectly still.
After a moment, I motioned for Jordin to follow, and the two
of us moved slowly down the dark corridor, which had actual
mountain rock exposed right up against the foundational walls.
I tried to track the sound to its source.

"Hello?" I called, and Jordin jumped at the sound, though
she tried to cover it.

"Hell-o," came a muffled, singsong response, from one very
happy-sounding little girl. Her voice was stifled, like she was
behind a wall, or maybe inside it. It was like she was playing
somewhere nearby, unconcerned with where she was or what
time it was and just wrapped up in her own little world.

"Hello?" called Jordin, following my lead. I didn't mind. Initiative was good, when it was properly placed.

"Hell-oooo-oooh," called out the playful little voice.

"Who are you?" I asked.

No answer.

"Where are you?" asked Jordin.

"Right here, silly! " the girl happily replied. She giggled again
and began humming a lullaby.

Jordin and I exchanged a stunned look.

Jordin almost smiled as she whispered, "That is the craziest
thing ever."

The two of us spent the next hour searching through the
tunnel for any sign of a little girl-alive or otherwise. It made
so much more sense to assume that a girl staying at the hotel
had wandered down here alone in the middle of the night and
was calling out to us from the other end of a ventilation duct
or something.

But we found no evidence to support that. The basement was utterly bare, aside from pipes and wires and the hotel's hot-water
heaters, and there were no ventilation ducts to carry the sound
from another room. It was like an ancient cave down there, and
we made absolutely certain that it was completely sealed off,
making our way through the darkness into every last square
inch of the place.