The Tooth Collector (and Other Tales of Terror) (11 page)

I should also mention there was no sign of
the haunting images I had seen. The footage does, indeed, show a
malfunctioning ice machine and a baffled clerk, but not the
floating figure in the niqab with emptiness where the face should
be, or the battered woman crawling down the hall into the trunk.
The camera even blinked out right at the moment when the ice bucket
hurled itself across the room, finding a target on the back of my
skull. Rather frustrating, I’ll admit, but I digress, because more
disturbing than any of that was the footage of Sameer Ahmed
checking out of the hotel.

On the grainy TV screen, I watched as he
grunted and steered a luggage cart himself. He shooed a bellboy
aside who attempted to offer assistance and barked an order to his
assistant, Tahir, who held open a set of double doors as Sameer
maneuvered the cart onto the sidewalk.

His so-called wife brought up the rear of the
group as Tahir held the door for her, too. And that was the last I
saw of the leather-bound trunk with its straps fastened tight and
middle latch securely locked as it thumped along with the other
baggage, hiding the Pakistani millionaire’s dirty laundry. I’m
certain the person in the niqab on this last piece of footage is
not the real Mrs. Ahmed, but I am alone in this knowledge. To be
honest, I don’t expect anyone to believe me.

Unless you see her... the woman in the niqab
who floats in her robes with no body and no face. A cold and beaten
corpse who crawls the hallway and plays with electricity and throws
metal buckets. But I wonder: Is it just me? Am I the only one she
haunts because I am the only one who noticed her existence and
therefore her disappearance? Is she the ghost of a ghost? The
memory of someone who was but really was not?

You’ll have to answer that question. Can you
do that? Can you write back to me please? I just… I need to know,
one way or the other. Whether I’m crazy or sane, I need to know if
I bear this cross alone.

So please… If you hear the clatter of ice
cubes echoing through the empty lobby, if you catch a glimpse of
her black robe around the corner or see her broken body writhing on
the carpet, be on guard but, please, do not run. Stand your ground
and face the darkness for me. Because Eleanor is not going to
believe you. No one is going to believe you. But I will. Nights at
the Ladford Inn are lonely, and I know what it feels like to pace
the floors, to watch the halls, to wonder…. if she’s standing right
behind you.

The Blue
Girl

Frederick winced as he tightened the young
girl's restraints. “Please don't do it,” she begged. “I'm
frightened!”

Her slender face, framed with a mess of
tangled blonde curls, pressed tightly against the leather strap
around her forehead. She arched her back. The flesh of her wrists
and ankles turned white as she fought futilely against the
restraints. A mere girl of nineteen years old, the sight of her
struggling on the floor of the wooden box caused Frederick's heart
to swell with remorse. Too much white showed in her panicked blue
eyes. He wanted to soothe her, tell her it would be all right.

“Let me out! Let me out!” she screamed.

Frederick felt the doctor's presence at his
back. A large hand touched his shoulder. “Silence her.”

The girl sobbed inconsolably as a rivulet of
snot formed a thin, slimy trail down her cheek.
Even still, she
is beautiful
, he thought. Frederick gulped. This part of his
job brought him no joy. The task at hand was just that—a task.
Something that had to be done.

She made no effort to bite his fingers as he
popped the ball gag into her mouth. She merely whimpered, closing
her eyes and trembling on the rough wooden plank. His sympathy only
deepened as he eyed the scars on his hands where countless other
patients had sunk their teeth in a last-ditch effort to escape the
gag. This one was different: docile, full of woe. Perhaps water
shock treatment was too extreme.

Frederick looked at Dr. Walters in his crisp,
white physician's coat, always starched and ironed to perfection.
Three decades his senior, the man bristled with energy. He paced
the floor, eyes alight with anticipation, salt and pepper hair
cropped close to his scalp.

“What did she do?” Fredrick's question caught
the pacing doctor off guard. He stopped moving and blinked his eyes
slowly, his train of thought derailed. He glared at his assistant,
who gazed compassionately at the face of patient 5572 as she
whimpered through the ball gag.

“Don't be fooled by her pretty face, my dear
boy. She attacked two of our guards last night.”

Frederick gulped. He ran a hand through his
wild, red hair and double-checked the leather restraints. “It's
okay,” he said, attempting to calm her. “The gag will prevent too
much water from entering your lungs. You'll be fine... good as new
when this is over.” His words had no effect on her rattled nerves.
She continued to shiver, weeping with her eyelids shut against the
horror.

His gaze lingered one last time on her plump
lips and rosy cheeks, her long eyelashes slick with tears. Then he
stood, shook off the effects of her beauty, and closed the lid of
the coffin-like box. He flipped two copper latches, one at each
side of the box, locking the lid into place. A myriad of holes had
been drilled through the planks. He detected a flurry of movement
from inside as she gyrated against the straps, to no avail.

Candlelight reflected on the glistening
surface of the water as Frederick turned his attention to the pool.
It was more of a tank, really, dug into the ground level of the
asylum at Dr. Walter's request.
The water must be so cold. I am
cold just standing here above the ground.

He shook the thought from his head. Never
mind such trivial things as the temperature of the water, the
girl's fear. This would be over soon, and she would thank them.
She'd be fixed.

Dr. Walter's methods had been successful in
the past: bringing a patient to the brink of death and then
reviving them before they passed away. This process, though
frightening for the persons involved, provided a brand new start
for the mentally ill. It was akin to wiping their slate clean,
giving a second chance at life. As if the water itself washed their
insanity away.

“We must lower it.” The doctor's booming
voice echoed through the room. The girl in the box screamed a
guttural protest from deep within her chest, the sound muffled as
it tried to leave her lips.

Thick ropes attached to the sides of the box
began to tighten as a device overhead slowly moved. Nothing more
than a heavy pole affixed to a Y-shaped base, the device resembled
a well-sweep, the kind used for raising and lowering buckets of
water from a well, only it was much larger, stronger, and capable
of dragging a human trapped inside a coffin-like tomb.

The box plummeted into the tank with a
resounding splash. Frederick cringed as water poured through the
holes, filling the wooden box, sinking it.

“Don't look so glum, my faithful assistant.
We need only stop her heart for a minute. Then we will bring her
back.” He watched air bubbles rising to the surface of the water,
waiting for the young girl to drown. “Her mind will be reborn.
Fresh and new. She'll feel better than ever. You will see.”

........Several decades later...........

The atmosphere inside the old asylum on
Harper Hill could only be described with adjectives best suited for
Poe: ghastly and somber, beguiling Mark into walking its decrepit
halls and exploring its long-abandoned rooms. Sam didn't share
Mark's enthusiasm. He'd been jumpy since they arrived, looking over
his shoulder, arguing with Mark as they ventured further into the
belly of Harper Hospital. He didn't like this. Any of it. As film
projects go, he was certain they could have selected a topic of
equal mystery and intrigue, and fewer—

Ghosts.

There. Sam finally admitted it to himself. He
was terrified of encountering a ghost in these morbid rooms. Full
of bad memories and the heartache of a thousand abused patients,
this place permeated an aura of sadness. The air was thick with it,
pressing in on him, making it hard to breathe. Or maybe that was
his fear.

None of it seemed to faze Mark. He strolled
through the asylum in a state of awe, giddy at times because he
knew this film was going to earn him some respect. He hadn't
stopped moving since the moment they arrived. He would gesture for
Sam to “come here” or “look at this”, all the while narrating for
the camera. This was his final year of college, and it was time to
make things happen. Time to shit or get off the pot, as his father
used to say. For years, Mark had dreamed of landing a position in
the world of TV broadcasting. All he needed was for others to take
notice. So many graduates let their dreams fall by the wayside,
their majors all but useless in the real world. But Mark was going
to make something of himself. With his best friend at his side, he
couldn't fail.

Sam paused to catch his breath as they
rounded a corner. The two-hundred-thousand square foot grounds of
Harper Hospital was starting to take its toll on his body. A dull
ache burned its way up his calf muscles. Reluctantly, he leaned
against the moldy cement wall for support, resting as Mark poked
his head into the nearest room.

Sam felt as if he had walked the college
campus three times. This place was huge, and he was out of shape.
His weight gain hadn't stopped at The Freshman Fifteen. Its
successors, The Sophomore Twenty and the Junior Twenty-five had
followed in its wake, leaving behind extra baggage. A steady diet
of junk food and energy drinks was to blame. Parking his ass in a
chair several hours a day didn't help. But he had to study. He was
determined to graduate with honors.

“Right here,” Mark said. “This is where we'll
shoot the highlight piece.”

Mark's eyes were alight with a new-found
energy. He smiled, and Sam didn't like the look of that grin. It
was too wide, too full of mischief. He said, “Come on, buddy.
You've got to see this! Oh man, there is some creepy shit in
here!”

As invitations go, this was a pretty lousy
one. It didn't make Sam want to enter the room. This was their last
project together at Griffin Film University, and it meant a lot to
both of them. Sooner or later he would have to humor his friend,
explore the “creepy shit” and capture it on film. But first he was
resting his legs.

“Yeah, yeah, I'll be there in a minute.” He
waved a hand in the air to dismiss Mark, who shrugged and
disappeared into the shadows of the room.

Sam fiddled with the hand-held camcorder. He
was worried about the darkness of the old hospital building. Barred
windows, set high into the walls, were the only source of light. He
wished he had a better camera, but this one was lightweight and
easy to tote around. He sighed and shrugged to himself, still
resting against the wall. With enough editing, he would make the
footage work.

Something stirred at the end of the hall. Sam
looked up. A portion of the hallway was illuminated by sunlight
that filtered in through the bars of a narrow window. Everything
else was cloaked in darkness. It was hard to make out anything in
those shadows, especially from where he stood halfway down the long
hall. He focused. His vision was drawn to the darkest patch of
shadows, where the hallway turned down an adjacent corridor.

His heart froze. There in the inky blackness
glowed a thin, pale face. A rush of both terror and sadness washed
over him as he gazed upon her face, full of melancholy, framed by a
mess of unruly blonde hair that looked as if it hadn't seen a brush
in many years. She was half-hidden by the wall. One gleaming,
silver-blue eye peered at him from where she stood at the bend in
the hallway. He ran his eyes down the length of her body, noticing
the rags she wore that resembled a tattered burlap sack. He gasped.
She wasn't touching the floor, but hovering there in the
darkness.

She floated sideways from her hiding place,
coming into full view. Every hair on his body stood erect. “Mark!”
he screamed.

Mark's reply from the other room seemed to
come from miles away. “What?”

“Mark! Come here! Quick!”

The girl drifted toward him in a fluid
motion, her feet still inches from the ground. Her skin was an
eerie shade of pale blue, glowing faintly in the dimness of the
hall. Her face was young and slender, and even though he was
afraid, he recognized a natural beauty there. Yet the sickly blue
color of her down-turned lips caused him to step backwards, away
from the ghastly sight as it approached.

She was only a few yards away as she reached
out to him. “He's here,” she whispered in his mind. She didn't
speak the words aloud. Her lifeless blue lips never moved. Sam
heard her voice like a gust of wind through his skull, a sense of
urgency in the words. He shivered. The girl's unwelcome entry into
his thoughts frightened him more than anything else.

“Who's here?” he stammered. The girl's foggy,
white eyes flicked to the doorway.

Mark appeared in the opening, eyeing Sam with
confusion. “What did you say?”

Sam gulped, eyes wide. “The girl,” he said,
pointing. But she was gone. Whipping around to check the other
direction, he nearly lost his balance.