been the ghost….”
I leaned back on the mattress to grab the ghost diary I’d tossed there earlier. “Good point. Let’s see if anyone in the past reported a disembodied spirit with a penchant for boxer briefs.”
Calvin sighed at that and thanked both Helga and Blondie—the latter offering us a different room, which Calvin declined, comped breakfast for the rest of our visit, which Calvin reluctantly accepted at Blondie’s unrelenting insistence, then promised further investigation into the matter before wishing us a good night.
Calvin shut and locked the door. He glanced at me.
“Delayed sexual gratification is not a kink I’m into,” I stated. I put the half-empty cup on the nightstand. “Can I have my way with you now or what?”
“You’re really not concerned, are you?”
“I’m concerned my blue balls might have lasting health consequences.” I tossed the ghost diary aside again. “Now please get naked so I can fuck you. Before my liquid courage is metabolized.”
I awoke with a start but wasn’t sure why. Calvin had one leg between mine, his head on my chest, his arm wrapped around my waist. His breathing sounded even and low—sex-coma sleep. I thought he must have shifted and that’s what woke me, but I had the strangest impression that the sense of touch hadn’t been responsible.
It was something I heard.
A rustle of—clothing, maybe.
Which made no sense, because we were both naked under the blankets.
I cracked open one eye and took in the room. Greatly out-of-focus it might have been without glasses, but the only functioning cells in my eyes—rods—performed specifically in low-light situations, so I was able to pretty quickly take in the outline of the windows, the low shape of the dresser and attached mirror, the massive armoire with its open door—
The hell?
Then a deadbolt turned, its quiet click like an avalanche in the Swiss Alps to my hyper-attuned hearing. I jerked my head on the pillow and watched the front door silently swing open and a whitish shape drift into the hallway. The door was carefully closed behind the… thing.
I thought of Mick and his mustache. “Folks usually hear things up there.”
A ghost?
No.
I was still a little drunk, could feel the disorientation as I pushed Calvin off and sat up, but I was not stupid enough to think a long-dead housekeeper from the turn of the century was just checking in at midnight to see if we needed mints on the pillows. Plus, what sort of ghost had to unlock a door to leave? Wasn’t the whole spooky aspect the fact that they could walk through walls and shit?
I struggled free from the blankets and clumsily got to my feet. Calvin didn’t wake, which was surprising, but I guess a cross-country flight, seven-hour drive, liquor, and some… um… amazing hotel sex was what it took to knock him out for the better part of the night. I took a step forward, got tangled in Calvin’s jeans on the floor, and nearly face-planted.
“Dammit,” I hissed. I’d somehow managed to slide my foot right into the back pocket—wait a minute. I crouched, thoroughly checked, but no… Calvin’s wallet was gone. And considering how’d I’d been groping him, let me just assure that it’d been there when he was being undressed.
That spectral thing hadn’t been a ghost. I mean, duh. It’d been an intruder. And the rustling sound I’d heard was this motherfucker stealing Calvin’s cash, credit card, license—hell, he kept his shield in that wallet when he was off duty. I sobered considerably as I grabbed my glasses off the nightstand, found my underwear, and yanked them on before checking the door’s peephole. The benefit to always forgetting to remove my red-tinted contacts was that I wasn’t immediately blinded by the light from the third-floor hallway.
I didn’t see anyone, so I yanked open the door and ran out. I belatedly realized, with the exception of my boxer briefs, I was very naked. I reached the banister around the stairwell in the middle of the layout, set my hands on the worn and polished wood, then leaned over. It didn’t appear there was anyone attempting The Great Escape via this route. I looked to the right—dead-end nook with some closed doors, mirroring the same setup on my left, where our room was. I tiptoed backward a few steps to look down the long hallway opposite of Main Avenue.
And there he—she—er—Wannabe Casper was, wearing a long, shapeless, white or maybe gray dress. Something akin to the cheap, mass-produced “historical” attires the staff in the saloon