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“Well, here are your keys.” Rebecca said, handing Ted a huge ring of keys, “They’re all labelled so you shouldn’t have too much trouble with them.” Rebecca had just finished giving Ted a tour of the hotel, making sure he knew everything about the building he’d be running, “Any questions?”
“All good here, I’m just peachy.” Ted replied with a huge smile.
“There’s one more thing I should warn you about.” As she spoke she led Ted into what was now his office, “We have a bit of a ghost problem.” Ted sat behind his desk whilst Rebecca took one of the free seats on the other side of it.
“When you say problem…” Ted prompted.
“This is an old building on old land, it’s seen its fair share of history and as a result its fair share of tragedy, it’s led to us having multiple ghostly residents. If you’re respectful they shouldn’t cause you too much trouble, in all honesty they’re more mischievous than anything else but should you do anything to upset them they’ll make sure you know about it.”
“That’s understandable, this is their house, we’re just stopping by.” Ted nodded, not a single doubt in his mind about all this ghost business, “Anything in particular I should know about them?”
“You’ll often get calls from room 108 complaining of problems with their lights, flickering and the like, that’s just Moe messing about when he’s bored. It is marked as a haunted room when they book as we do let our guests know, so just remind them of that as there’s nothing we can do about it.”
“Gotcha.”
“We get a lot of faint eighties pop playing in the basement, that’s Jamie, we think he died with a walkman on his person. And if anyone rings down to reception but doesn't say anything that’ll be Thierry, we don’t really know what he wants, only that he makes semi-frequent phone calls. And there are often wet footprints, just alert housekeeping and they’ll mop it up as that’s also one of our ghosts, Sam. Of course we have the textbook hauntings as well, cold spots, whispered voices, footsteps, all of that lovely stuff. And a few of them are poltergeists so you’ll often have objects move about, they mainly just want to mess about but they’re also the ones you want to worry about upsetting if you don’t want doors slamming loudly or things being flung about.”
“Any idea who those are?”
“One of them is a chap called Colin but we think there’s a second, we just don’t know who.”
“And what upsets him?”
“We can’t take the Welsh flag in reception down, we put it up for Saint David's Day some years back and as soon as we took it down Colin freaked out, began throwing things. He’s Welsh you see and had spent years fighting against the English’s conquest of Wales so he’s very patriotic.”
“That explains his problem with the flag coming down.”
“Exactly, our poltergeists are the most troublesome so we’d rather leave that flag up so we can avoid anything being broken.” Rebecca chuckled, Ted joining in. “We also have a ban on Metallica as one of our poltergeists hates it.”
“That’s oddly specific.”
“Well these ghosts seem to have oddly specific taste. Anyway I’ll leave you to it,” Rebecca stood, “I’m sure you’d like time to settle into your new space.”
“Thanks boss.”
With a quick goodbye Rebecca headed out, unbeknownst to her walking past two ghosts, one in a cloak and tunic, a long trailing point making up the hood, sword on his hip, the other in full World War One military uniform.
“Time to fuck with the new boss?” Colin asked, his hand resting on the hilt of his sword.
“You took the words right out of my mouth.” Isaac replied, a wicked smirk on his face.
The two of them walked into the office, Colin immediately nudging the chair Rebecca had been sitting on with his foot, causing it to scrape along the floor just a smidge. Ted’s head snapped up, looking at the chair before looking around the room.
Isaac went over to the window and lightly fluttered the curtain, starting small. The curtain caught Ted’s attention just like Isaac had hoped.
The boys didn’t move anything else for the next fifteen minutes, lulling Ted into a false sense of security. Once they were certain the new boss had relaxed Isaac moved the telephone that sat on the desk an inch. As soon as Colin saw the fear on Ted’s face he burst into laughter, a sound that Ted could faintly hear, causing him to look even more scared.
“Come on boys,” He said to the room, “you’ve had your fun, I’d really appreciate it if y’all could go easy on me.”
Colin and Isaac looked at each other before letting out a ‘nah’ in unison.
Isaac knocked a photo of The Nelson Hotel off of the wall, the glass of the frame cracked and Ted let out a rather undignified yelp, this would be the seventh frame the pair had broken whilst going through this routine.
“Welcome to the team, Gaffer.” Colin greeted the new manager before he and Isaac left the room, laughing at the scared look on the living man’s face.
“You already terrified the new guy?” Jamie asked when Colin and Isaac returned to the basement the group had claimed as their communal hangout spot.
“Sure did boyo.” Colin preened, high-fiving Isaac.
“Please tell us you didn’t go too far.” Sam begged.
“He’ll be fine, he’s an adult, he can handle a small haunting.” As he spoke Colin drew his sword and used the hilt to bang on one of the old metal pipes that supplied water to the hotel, making a deep clanging sound that would no doubt be heard by at least one living being. He paused for a second before tapping out ‘help me’ in morse code, something Isaac had taught him back in the fifties.
“He seems nice, we should not scare him off.” Dani said.
“We’re not scaring him off, we’re welcoming him.” Isaac replied as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.
“Yeah, a proper ghostly hello.” Colin added.
“I don’t think scaring the life out of him can be considered a greeting.” Jan huffed.
“Boo.” Jamie heckled, “Stop making puns.”
“I did not make a pun, I was merely stating a point.”
“Nah, that was so a pun.” Thierry added, backing up Jamie.
One of Keeley’s jobs at the hotel was running Ghost Tours where she’d take guests around the building and tell them all about their ghostly residents. She loved it, it was her favourite part of the job.
At nine pm sharp she began her spiel, welcoming the guests who were braving the tour that night.
“The building we are currently in was built in 1524, Henry the Eighth sat on the throne and was married to Catherine of Aragon at this time. But even before this exact building this land has housed many noblemen, a wealth of historical celebrities have frequented the land our hotel now sits on. As a result of our rich history we’ve accumulated a wide variety of ghostly residents, many of whom love to steal the limelight and show off.
“Now, if you look behind the reception desk you’ll see our Welsh flag, this flag became a permanent fixture back in 2015 after we decorated for Saint David’s Day. We originally planned to take it down once the holiday was done, unfortunately one of our spectral friends had other ideas.
“For two hundred years the English and the Welsh fought for ownership of Wales only for the English to come out victorious in 1283, something many Welsh people weren’t happy about, one such man was Colin Hughes. Hughes was a farmer turned revolutionary who was hell bent on stopping the English from winning, so in 1281 he travelled to Richmond so he could kill King Edward the First and stop the war. Unfortunately he wasn’t able to get to the king, instead having a run in with his guards who ultimately killed him.
“Hughes is one of our poltergeists so when we tried to take the flag down he made it known that he wasn’t happy about it and began throwing whatever he could get his hands on, only stopping once we put the flag back up. Since then the flag has become a permanent fixture, although we did replace it with a much better quality one a few years back. They say that on a full moon you can hear his cries of anguish as he relives the stab wound that killed him, bleeding out all over again.” That last part was bullshit but it always freaked out the guests, especially if they were there during a full moon, like these ones were.
Keeley then led them down a corridor that was lined with photos from the hotel’s history. She stopped in front of one that showed the hotel as a hospital, “During World War One the hotel was closed to visitors and repurposed as a hospital for injured soldiers who’d been brought back from the trenches of Ypres in Belgium. The hospital didn’t see too many deaths as the majority of soldiers were stable when they returned but there were a few occasions where people took a turn for the worse. One such man was Lieutenant Isaac McAdoo who’d come here to recover from a rather severe bullet wound he’d acquired whilst in No Man's Land, he was believed to be stable but his condition deteriorated on the boat journey home and in the end he died from an infection. He’d hardly made it over the threshold when he passed, still in full uniform and all.”
“But wouldn’t he have known something was wrong? Why didn’t he try get help sooner?” One of the guests asked.
“It’s hard to say,” Keeley replied, “unfortunately there isn’t much information about it, or him for that matter. But we do know he’s one of our ghosts, people are constantly seeing a soldier in uniform wandering the corridors, perhaps looking for the help he never received in life.
“That being said we do have a second soldier on site but he was killed in World War Two.” Keeley then indicated the next photo on the wall, a group of soldiers stood together looking serious for the photo that had immortalised them, “This soldier however was an RAF pilot, we believe him to be this man here, Jan Maas.” She pointed at a tall man standing at the back of the group, “He was a Dutch man who’d immigrated to England three years before war broke out and then joined the RAF so he could do his bit. Unfortunately one night during a bombing raid his plane was badly damaged. It limped back to base but in the end it wasn’t enough and he crashed down before he could land. Many people have reported seeing a charred officer in blue wandering the grounds at night and keeping an eye on the sky, perhaps watching to see if another air raid is coming.”
Keeley then led them down to the basement, stopping just before they entered, “Now, to get to the basement we’ve got to go through a bit of a tunnel which is the home of our next ghost and if we’re lucky we might get our first paranormal experience of the night.” Keeley opened the door but didn’t turn the lights on, “Listen closely for me, do you hear anything?” Everyone shook their heads, “Let’s head in and see if that changes.” She led the group halfway down the dark tunnel before stopping, “Hear anything now?” Yet again no one heard anything so they continued on until they popped out the other end, “This tunnel is the home of Jamie Tartt, a teenager from Manchester who was visiting London with some friends in the nineties.” Suddenly she stopped “Listen again. Do you hear it now?” Everyone listened hard.
Suddenly the faint sound of ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ by Nirvana could be heard drifting out of the tunnel. Jamie had heard the tour coming so went to join them, switching his walkman on to freak out the tour group.
“Holy shit.” A member of the group breathed out.
“That’s got to be fake, there’s got to be a speaker or something.” Another said, clearly trying to hide fear behind logic.
“It’s not fake, that’s one hundred percent real. The source is Jamie’s walkman, it’s believed that talking about him summons him. You see, one night he and his mates were messing about and some of them dared him to sneak into the tunnel. He went in there, only he never came back out. No one knew it at the time but there was a carbon monoxide leak in the tunnel and it’d killed him. When they found his body all he had with him was his walkman, no jacket, no jumper, just a short sleeve t-shirt and jeans in a cold and damp tunnel with leaky pipes and rats. They say that before they found his body the rats began to feast on his face leaving his ghost mutilated and incomplete.” Keeley had gotten really intense, pushing the drama of it all. The part about the rats eating his face was a lie, something to scare the group even further so she really doubled down on it, acting as scary as possible in the dim light, all of it had Jamie in hysterics. “We can only assume for his last minutes on this earth he was cold and terrified. But to this day we can still hear his music playing down here, a reminder of the lost nineteen year old who’s soul can never leave this dank and dark existence.” Suddenly Keeley cheered up, “Moving on.” She chirped, practically skipping off, a terrified group behind her.
As the group moved on Jamie jogged ahead of them yelling, “Tour’s coming!” So the others knew they were about to have company.
“What’s the vibe?” Zoreaux asked.
“Pussy’s the lot of ‘em.” Jamie informed the team.
“Jamie, that term is misogynistic, you should not use it.” Sam scolded, as the most modern of the ghosts he was the most socially aware. Many of the other ghosts still made comments that were perfectly normal for their day and age but outdated now.
“I ain’t wrong though, they’re wet willies lad, nothing else to it.”
Before the conversation could continue Keeley’s voice could be heard growing near, “-he’s a proper trouble maker.” She laughed, before stopping in the middle of the room, her group and the ghosts gathered around, “Now, although this basement doesn’t have any deaths associated with it outside of Jamie just down the way, this is often a location linked to a lot of going ons and the place people choose to try and commune with the dead, although we don’t usually get the kind of results we’d like, it’s hit or miss whether we get a clear answer.”
Some of the boys chuckled at that whilst Colin just looked unimpressed, he and Sam operated the planchette on Ouija boards together as Colin was able to move it but unable to read and write. Sam would do the spelling bit for him by holding Colin’s hands allowing him to decide where they moved the planchette to. But often the other boys would try and get in on it too, wresting control off of Sam and making an absolute pig’s ear of it, leading to garbled messages.
“It has been made clear though that these ghosts mean no harm, so as long as you respect them, they’ll respect you.” Suddenly a mischievous grin spread across Keeley’s face, “How about we see if there are any ghosts with us right now?” She looked around the group before speaking to the room itself, “If there is anybody with us give us a sign.”
Colin drew his sword again and used the hilt to knock the pipes, making one solid clang. The group of living souls jumped, spooked by the sudden sounds.
“Can you give us a clue about who you are?”
Colin tapped his name out in morse code, one of the words Isaac had taught him in morse, he’d learnt the patterns for ‘help’, ‘run’, ‘save me’ and other things like that that might spook anyone who knew morse code.
Although Keeley didn’t know morse code she knew that the pipe tapping noise was Colin, it was something employees had sussed out years ago.
“Colin Hughes is with us.” She told the people in front of her, all colour having drained from their faces.
Even if you joined the staff at The Nelson as a non-believer without fail you would be converted, everyone who worked there believed in ghosts as there was nothing else that could justify what happened there on the daily.
Staff very quickly stopped being scared of the ghosts, their friendly presence enough to calm anyone’s nerves given enough time. So Keeley wasn’t scared by the tapping, she’d heard it so many times that it was like talking to an old friend.
“If you are alone, tap twice, if you have company, tap three times.” There were three metallic clangs, “How many people are with you?” There were eight more knocks, thankfully Colin had learnt to count to ten in preparation for moments like this. “It sounds like we’ve got a full house tonight.” Keeley chuckled, something akin to a laugh rattled the pipes as Colin joined in with Keeley. “Colin’s a very friendly ghost… When he’s not angry about the removal of the Welsh flag.” A second metallic laugh echoed in agreement followed by a series of knocks on the pipe.
“You’re really going for it tonight.” Richard commented.
“It’s a full moon,” Colin shrugged, a cheeky grin on his face, “Keeley loves to push the magic of a full moon so I’m going to help back up her claims of spookiness.”
“Does that mean we’re going to be treated to some of your wailing?” Jan huffed but there was a fondness behind it.
“Oh yeah, obviously.”
Suddenly Keeley let out an over dramatic gasp, “One of the other ghosts in this room with us is Sam Obisanya, Sam only died in 2019 so he’s our newest resident. When he was seventeen he drowned after he slipped into the lake but he prefers spending time inside, although he does tend to leave wet footprints.” She pointed out the aforementioned footprints, Sam then took a few steps forward, some more footprints appearing as he moved, the whole group shrieking in terror. Once the ruckus calmed down Keeley lowered her voice, amping up the tension, ready to make up more lies about the ghost's appearance, “Those who have seen his ghost say that his skin and lips are blue, pond weed wrapped around his neck, choking him, water dribbling out of his mouth, stuck in a constant state of drowning. He hasn’t been able to clear his lungs in five years, instead they just slosh with never ending water, leaving him drowning for all eternity.”
In actuality Sam looked fine, other than being rather soggy, and sure he occasionally coughed up some water but it wasn’t anything horrific or painful, he wasn’t a scary looking ghost. In all honesty most of them looked fine, Colin’s tunic was soaked with blood from where he’d been stabbed, Jamie’s lips had a slight blue hue to them, Dani’s skull was split but it wasn’t graphic, none of them looked scary or particularly fucked up. The worst of the lot was Jan, and even he wasn’t that bad, there were a couple patches of burnt skin that had happened before he passed and some small bits of metal from the plane's fuselage buried in his skin but even he looked fairly normal. They weren’t a scary looking bunch, but it made for a better story.
They also weren’t in pain, sensations like that didn’t follow you into death so even when Sam brought up some water or Jan moved in a way that should aggravate a burn or a shard of metal they didn’t feel a thing. But yet again the pain made for a scarier story.
The tour spent some more time in the basement before heading back up to the surface.
Their next stop was the first floor, where they stopped outside one of the rooms, “Unfortunately I can’t take you in here as it’s occupied by guests but this is room 108, which is home to the eccentric explorer Moe Bumbercatch, a genius of the late victorian era and early 1900s. Whilst staying here he was working on a contraption but ended up electrocuting himself and dying.
“It was a great loss to the adventuring community as he was a part of the first expedition to Everest and had plans to summit the following year. If he hadn’t died there was a good chance the mountain would’ve been successfully summited in 1929 rather than 1953.
“Nowadays he enjoys mucking about with the lights in his room leading to many guests reporting all of the lights turning on all at once during the early hours of the morning, waking them up.”
Their next stop was on the fourth floor where they were shown room 482 where Thierry had died in 2004 from an underlying heart condition whilst ordering room service. He still really wanted that chicken club and had never given up on it, still trying to get through to room service at least once a week.
They then saw the staircase Dani had fallen down back in the sixties and the room in which Richard succumbed to the poison a cook had put in his food back in 1556.
Each story Keeley told was full of gore and pain, striking fear in the hearts of the guests, making sure they wouldn’t sleep a wink that night.
Some of the boys followed the tour around, listening to the tall tales Keeley was weaving, because in all honesty apart from a handful of them they weren’t overly interesting ghosts.
Colin was killed in battle.
Richard was assassinated.
Jan crashed a plane.
And Moe electrocuted himself on his own invention.
Those were interesting. The others were just an accident or natural causes (granted Isaac’s infection came from a war injury but it was such a common story from back then that it didn’t feel all that exciting).
But the way Keeley described them all made them sound all scary and gross, it was actually pretty entertaining to watch people squirm and tremble at it all.
As the tour wrapped up Colin and Isaac decided to treat the guests, they’d been the most on edge group they’d had in a while so it’d be fun to mess with them. Plus the weather was horrible, a full blown thunderstorm raging outside, the perfect conditions for a haunting.
“You ready?” Colin asked as he wrapped his hand around a door handle.
“You know it.” Was Isaac’s response as he grabbed the window.
“On three,” Colin said, “One… Two… Three.” On three he threw the door open whilst Isaac slid the window up letting in the wind and rain.
Every single person on the tour, Keeley included, screamed. It wasn’t the first time the pair had done the routine and not the first time Keeley had been part of it but it still scared her (even if she knew it was the boys playing along).
Colin slammed the door shut before going over to a set of draws that sat with a vase of flowers on top. He knocked the vase off, causing more screaming. He then proceeded to open and close different draws.
Colin cackled, the faint sound of his laughter could be heard by the group.
Keeley ran over and slid the window shut, locking it. Now that they had no window Colin wrapped up his draw ballet by pulling one all the way out and chucking it across the room, the content scattering across the floor.
“Well I think we should end the tour there.” Keeley squeaked before speed walking out of the room, her group hot on her heels.
Colin and Isaac high-fived.
“Did you perhaps go too far?” Jan asked, he’d watched the whole thing go down, leaning up against the door frame.
“Nah, I think we’re good.” Isaac shrugged.
“They’re the ones who went on a ghost tour, we gave them the full experience, they should be thanking us if anything.” Colin added.
“And sending you the cleaning bill, as I’m pretty sure one of them pissed themself.”
“Shut the fuck up Jan Maas.” Jamie hollered. The Mancunian had also been watching Colin and Isaac’s fuckery, but unlike Jan he’d actually really enjoyed it (he was eternally nineteen and stuck at that level of maturity for the rest of his afterlife so obviously he’d enjoy those kinds of shenanigans. Jan Maas on the other hand was more mature at twenty nine and didn’t have time for the younger ghosts bullshit.)
“Yeah Jan Maas, shut the fuck up.” Colin parroted, although he and Isaac were more mature they were still only twenty one and twenty two respectively so it was only marginally meaning they were siding with Jamie (alongside the fact that they’d been the ones fucking about).
“You’re going to get us exorcised if you’re not careful.” Jan warned them.
“The fact this place is haunted is a major selling point, no way they’re getting rid of us when we make them so much money.”
“Jamie’s right, they’d be shooting themselves in the foot.”
“Thank you Colin, I’m glad someone’s got some common sense.”
“Well I am the oldest ghost, ergo I’m the wisest.”
“Nope, that is not what I said, there is no way you’re the wisest.”
“That would be me.” Jan was kinda right, he was pretty wise, but there wasn’t a definitive winner amongst their little group.
“You are the most powerful though.” Isaac pointed out.
“I’ve just had the most practice is all.”
“Yeah you got mad years on all of us old man.” Jamie laughed, “You’re what? 761 years old?”
“764.” Jan corrected. After all these years you’d think Colin would have learnt to count and read but alas he hadn’t, meaning he never actually knew how old he was, unaware of the words for all the big numbers, he had learnt English though which in all honesty was far more useful for him, once you hit three hundred age doesn’t matter much any more. But again, even though he was 764 years old he still had the maturity of a twenty one year old and that was never gonna change.
“Give me a couple of hundred years and I’ll be just as good as you.” Jamie told him, “Then a few more and I’ll be even better.”
Colin let out a humourless laugh, “What? Are you gonna learn songs that aren’t on your mix tape and play those for everyone?” Colin had only strengthened his ghostly abilities as opposed to gaining new ones and he was sure the same would go for Jamie, didn’t mean he couldn’t joke about.
“Yeah, I’ll get some of Keeley’s favourite stuff and play that, I’m sure she’ll love it, proper woo her I will with that.” Jamie had developed a bit of a crush on Keeley since she joined the staff in 2013. Well ‘a bit’ was an understatement, he was head over heels for her, but it’d never happen, he was dead and nineteen, she was alive and thirty two, and she had a husband, a bloke who also worked at the hotel called Roy. But he could dream. Well he would if ghosts could sleep. He meant it more as a turn of phrase.
“I feel like I never got to do anything cool with my life.” Jamie lamented one night, flopping down on one of the sofas in reception.
“I’m sure you got to do plenty of cool things.” Thierry said, hoping to comfort the other man.
“No I didn’t, I just went to school and partied. Moe went to Everest and travelled through the Amazon rainforest. Colin literally died in a sword fight. Isaac and Jan both went to war, Jan literally got to fly planes and shit. Richard was fucking assasinated by his cook and got to have dinner with Henry the eighth and met the Pope. I didn’t get to do none of that.”
“War is not all it’s cracked up to be.” Jan told him, sitting down in one of the arm chairs, “Count yourself lucky you didn’t have to go through it.”
“Henry was a disgusting man, he was not worth it.” Richard added.
“But he’s, like, one of the most famous monarchs in British history.” Jamie huffed.
“I wish I’d never met him.” Richard turned his nose up at the memory of the man.
“But think of it me way, I studied him in school and shit, he’s like a rockstar of the history world.”
“He shouldn’t be. He was an awful man and he stunk. And do not even get me started on the Church of England!” Richard began to rant, like a true 16th Century Catholic French Nobleman he was outraged by Henry forming his own denomination of Christianity.
“You just don’t appreciate him.” Jamie jabbed back.
“Nah I’m with Richard on this.” Colin said, backing up the other man, “Monarchies are awful, especially the British Monarchy.”
“Thank you!” Richard was glad someone agreed with him.
“Isaac, bet you love the royals.” Jamie dragged the other man into the conversation.
“Look, I died for King and Country but I ain’t getting dragged into this argument, you ain’t convincing them, the Monarchy is literally how they ended up dead.”
“Wait, Jamie, you like the Monarchy?” Moe asked, inserting himself into the dispute.
“I mean, no, I’m just jealous he got to meet a king.”
“Then why are we fighting?” Colin asked.
“Because he won’t admit that it was cool that he met a king.” Jamie pointed at Richard.
“So you don’t like the Monarchy?” Colin was getting confused.
“No. Well, I really like Princess Diana, she’s fucking mint, and the Princes are cool too. But all the others can fuck off.”
“You like Diana?” Thierry asked.
“Yeah lad, I fucking love Diana, me mum and me watched her wedding and all, made a day out of it, it were sick.”
“Can we rewind for a second?” Colin asked, “Who’s Diana?”
“The People's Princess.” Jamie let out a wistful sigh, “She married Prince Charles, well King Charles now but he was a Prince then. And she were just like super normal, broke a whole bunch of Royal rules which were stupid so she could connect with her people. Everyone loved Diana.”
“Important question! Murder or accident?” Thierry asked.
“Murder.” Jamie replied, not hesitating for a second.
“Right! The Queen totally did it.”
“Nah I think it were Charlie, Queenie wouldn’t do that, she’d just make Di disappear.”
“What the fuck are they talking about?” Colin asked, leaning over to Sam.
“Diana married into the Royal family but her husband had an affair so they got divorced and then she and her new boyfriend died in a car crash whilst being chased by paparazzi.” Sam said, giving an extremely condensed breakdown, “Loads of people think the crash was actually murder so the royals could get rid of her.”
Colin nodded in understanding, “Oh, right, so just the usual Royal drama.”
“Yes, the usual Royal drama.”
“Do you ever think about moving on?” Jamie asked. He and Colin were alone, sat on the roof, watching the hotel’s grounds.
“Not really, given up hope of it ever happening if I’m honest.” Colin had been around the longest, he'd been dead for 743 years which was 275 years longer than Richard, he’d seen more ghosts come and go than he could count (well he couldn’t count above ten but that’s beside the point) and he’d given up all hope of moving on.
None of them really understood how it all worked, they assumed it was due to unfinished business but even then they couldn’t all figure out what that business was. But Colin knew what his was, and he was pretty sure it was never going to happen. He’d died fighting for a free Wales, he’d failed, so logically he’d only pass on when his country separated itself from England. He’d held out hope for hundreds of years but at this point he was destined to stay on this patch of land for the rest of eternity.
“It could still happen.”
“Jamie, you’ve not been dead long, Moe said it was only forty one years, if you’re here as long as I am you’ll lose hope too. I hope for your sake you’re not though.”
“Maybe I enjoy being a ghost.” Jamie rebutted, a petulant look on his face.
“The novelty wears off, trust me.” Colin kicked a loose shingle, causing it to fall off of the roof, shattering on impact with the ground below.
“What do you think’s on the other side?”
Colin shrugged, “Sweet oblivion?”
“Don’t be so pessimistic.” Jamie scolded.
“Alright, what do you think’s waiting for you?”
“Paradise. Me Mum, me Stepdad, me friends from when I was alive. I think it’ll be everything I could ever want.”
Colin let out a wistful sigh, “That’d be the dream. I’d love that.” Suddenly a thought hit Colin, “Wait, aren’t your family and friends all still alive?”
“I think so, but they won’t be forever, so I’ll eventually see them in the afterlife.” They fell into silence, comfortably enjoying each other's presence. “Do you like being here?”
“Eh.” Colin wobbled his hand back and forth.
“Elaborate please.”
Colin let out a deep sigh, “I like some things about being here, not others.”
“Liiiiike…” Jamie prompted.
“I like the people I’m with, we’re in a nice building, got lots of land to roam, it’s nice. But I’m in England, and I speak English now, and I’ve been stuck here for hundreds of years. And I’ve seen so many ghosts pass on before me, but I’m still here.”
“For what it’s worth, I like that you’re still here.” Jamie said, trying to give a genuine compliment.
Colin huffed, “No offence boyo but it’s not worth anything, not with how long I’ve been here. I think you’re really great Jamie but inevitably in a few hundred years time you’ll pass on and become just one of the faces I knew, you all will.”
“So what, you think you’re the only one who can’t pass on? Someone else is bound to get stuck.”
Colin managed a small chuckle, “Sod’s law says it’ll be you and I’ll have to deal with you for all eternity.”
Jamie laughed loudly, “Oh come on, admit it, we’d have a great time together.”
“Beard!” Rebecca hollered as she barged into reception.
“Hey Boss.” He greeted, not looking up from his book.
“Uh oh, Rebecca’s pissed.” Colin said, leaning against the reception desk, Isaac's head snapped up from where he’d been reading over Beard’s shoulder.
“I just had a look at the guests checking in tomorrow.”
Beard slowly looked up at her, “Yeah?”
“Why is Rupert Mannion on the list?” Beard was an expert at reading people but it still didn’t take a genius to tell that she was fuming.
“He must’ve booked online at some point. I’ll be honest boss, I haven’t checked it as Nate is supposed to be on check-in tomorrow.”
“Well tell him to cancel the booking, Rupert is NOT staying here under any circumstance.”
“Yeah Beard, you might want to listen to her otherwise she will murder you.” Colin told him.
“I’ll give him a call.” Beard remained calm.
“Than-”
“-Or” Beard powered on, “I could keep the booking but make his life a living hell.”
Rebecca began to have a face journey as she thought the option through, “I’d like examples please.” She eventually said.
“Downgrade him to the worst room, fuck up anything he orders, worst table in the restaurant, I could even get Will to leave crumbs in the bed.” He offered, face deadpan.
Rebecca nodded, listening and considering, “I wouldn’t be mad at that.” She began to walk away, “Let’s consider keeping the booking.” Beard knew exactly what she meant.
“So who is Rupert Mannion?” Beard asked as soon as Rebecca had left.
“That’s Rebecca’s ex-husband.” Colin told him.
“She got the hotel in the divorce.” Isaac added.
“Once a year he books a room.”
“He’s a piece of shit.”
“Right, good to know.” Beard nodded, “You think you and the boys could make his stay hell?”
“It would be our pleasure.” Isaac patted Beard on the shoulder.
“Yeah, you weren’t here when he ran the place, it was not fun.”
“He tried to have us all exorcized just before the divorce.” Coin cringed a little at Isaac’s comment.
“We all just went into a different room as the exorcist was a bit shit but I could feel it in my stab wound.” His hand instinctively went to his abdomen where the aforementioned wound was located, “It throbbed for like a week after.”
“It was Rebecca who got all ghost positive, now death is great.”
“Well… I wouldn’t say great, but it’s definitely much better.” Colin corrected.
“That settles it, you’re going to scare the living daylights out of him and I’m going to inconvenience him as much as possible.” Beard reached out and grabbed the phone, picking it up and dialling housekeeping, “Will? It’s Beard. Do you fancy some toast?”
When Rupert arrived the following day Colin was waiting for him in reception, perched on the desk, trying not to kick his legs back and forth so he didn’t make a noise and spook Nate who was on reception that day. Beard was the only person at the hotel who could properly see ghosts so with everyone else Colin had to be careful about doing poltergeisty things by accident.
As soon as Rupert walked in Colin was ready to jump into action.
Once the man got to the desk Colin pulled his wallet from his back pocket and dumped it on the floor a short way away.
“Good afternoon Nathan.” He greeted.
Nate let out a strained “Mr Mannion.”
“How are you doing?” He was all false politeness, as per usual.
“Yeah, good.” Nate stuttered out, “Checking in?”
“Obviously.”
Nate got Rupert checked in but as the man went to grab his wallet so he could put his key card away he found it missing. He checked all of his pockets, getting all tangled. It took him a good thirty seconds to spot it on the floor, he huffed as he picked it up before putting his key away and heading off to his room.
Colin followed him, keeping close enough that he knew Rupert could sense it, but to really up it he blew air on to the back of the other man's neck, making a chill run down his spine.
Isaac was just up ahead, so Colin gave him a thumbs up. Isaac nudged a vase just a smidge, Rupert might not have even consciously noticed it, but there was a good chance it’d help put him on edge.
Moe was already in the room when Rupert opened the door, he smirked as Rupert went to turn on the lights, stopping them from lighting up for a few seconds before causing them to flicker into life. Isaac nodded in approval as Rupert looked around the room in disgust.
He’d been put in one of the smaller rooms, and although it was tidy and well taken care of it wasn’t an extravagant suite like he was used to. He immediately went over to the phone and rang reception, the ghosts couldn’t hear what was being said on the other end but they could hear Rupert who was demanding a better room. Or he was, until Moe disrupted the electric flow and cut power to the phone.
Rupert swore before storming out of the room. The trio followed close behind as Rupert made his way to reception.
“Nathan, I want to talk to Rebecca.” He demanded.
“Uh, she’s not here right now.” Nate shrunk into himself under his old boss’s glare.
“I don’t care, get her here.”
“I can’t.” He obviously didn’t want to tell him that as his life would be easier if Rebecca could join him but unfortunately it wasn’t possible.
“And why not?”
“Because she’s not here today?” It wasn’t a question but in his fear he made it sound like one.
“I don-”
“Is there something I can help y’all with?” Ted’s calm voice cut through Rupert's outrage.
Rupert turned to Ted, anger thinly veiled by an overly wide smile, “Well it depends…”
“Ted, Hotel manager.” He held his hand out to shake, Rupert gripped it hard with one hand and gripped Ted’s elbow with the other as a power play, shaking it.
Ted seemed unphased by the attempt at asserting dominance, “That is a mighty unusual handshake.” Ted chuckled, “Where I’m from we only use one hand,” Rupert released his hand and elbow, “It’s neat and all, but real bizarre if you ask me.” Ted had taken Rupert's power play and thrown it right back in his face, letting the energy bounce right off and back to the other man. “So, what can I do for you?”
Rupert’s tight lipped smile returned, “Yes, I believe there’s been a mix up with my room, I usually get the king suite but I appear to have been put in quite the opposite.”
“Well I am mighty sorry about that, hows about I take a look at the system.” Ted walked around the desk so he could get a look at the computer screen. Nate pushed back on his chair and rolled away, creating space for Ted to bend down and pull up all the information. “What’s your name?”
“Rupert Mannion. I used to own the hotel.” He slipped the information in in the hopes of it prompting Ted to fix everything.
Ted’s eyes skimmed over the screen as he read all of the information displayed, “Would you look at that, looks like we had a glitch in the system, I am so sorry about that. We’ve had this issue a few times, what it’s doing is it’s misfiling bookings so the guests get put in the wrong rooms.” It was a blatant lie but Ted knew exactly who this was, Beard had briefed him because the two of them had done this routine more than once at the hotel in Kansas they used to work at.
“So you can swap us around and fix this fuck up.”
“Ah,” Ted cringed slightly, “Here’s the problem you see, the system ain’t done a direct switch, it ain’t just you and another room, it flat out booked you into the room you currently have leaving the suite available that was then booked by another guest.” Another flat out lie, what had actually happened was that Beard had downgraded Mannion’s booking and then upgraded another guest.
“So just change my room then.” Rupert demanded.
“No can do I’m afraid, we’re fully booked with the run up to Christmas. It’ll have to be that room or find some place else. Not to quote the bible but I think most places ain’t got no room left at the inn.”
“I guess this will have to do but I doubt Rebecca will be very happy when she hears about this.” Rupert hissed before turning to head back to his room, the ghosts scurrying after him.
“Ya know, I think he might be wrong about this one, I’d put good money on the boss being over the moon.”
Nate chuckled, “She is going to be buzzing.”
All the ghosts gathered around Rupert who was asleep in bed. Colin and Isaac had spent the night subtly scooching things around the room, trying to make the man as uneasy as possible. But now that he was asleep it was Sam’s turn to wreak havoc.
Sam leant over him and did his best to bring up as much water out of his lungs as possible, spitting it onto Rupert.
“Oh that is minging!” Jamie whined.
“It is supposed to be.” Sam told him before he began wringing water out of his hair. “Isaac, Moe, would you like to help?”
The two other ghosts prepared themselves for the fuckery that was about to go down.
Isaac slapped Mannion around the face as Moe forced all of the lights on. He sat up in shock, the lights going wild, practically strobing. Isaac yanked the covers off of him, throwing them at the opposite wall. Colin threw the window open, letting in freezing air and a light dusting of snow.
At that point Jamie thought ‘fuck it’ and whacked his walkman on, Relax by Frankie Goes To Hollywood playing.
Rupert was freaking the fuck out, screaming his head off as Colin chucked a chair across the room.
Look, usually these guys wouldn’t do anything like this, there were the odd occasion where they’d get pissed and act out but it was never this bad. Well there was the flag incident but Colin had already been in a bad mood and was only throwing things like staplers around.
Rupert Mannion had a habit of bringing the worst out of people dead or alive, hence the boys acting out big time. But the man had tried to have them exorcised for pete sake, even though he hadn’t succeeded; it was the thought that counts. Besides they’d all felt queasy in some capacity for a week afterwards, somehow it’d aggravated the sensations from their deaths, not terribly but enough that they were uncomfortable. Jamie and Sam had both felt breathless even if they didn’t actually breath, Jan’s burns were tender, Richard felt physically sick, Dani’s head hurt, whilst Thierry had a pain in his chest, Moe got the occasional zapping sensation, Isaac’s bullet hole burned and, as previously mentioned, Colin’s stab wound throbbed. They’d all been down right miserable.
So yeah, Rupert deserved this.
Plus, he’d hurt Rebecca and they all really liked Rebecca, she didn’t have a problem with them, in fact she was really nice to them, always talking to them when she was on her own in the hotel even if she couldn’t hear their response.
“End on three,” Sam declared over the chaos , “One, two, three.”
Everyone stopped what they were doing, the light going out completely, the music stopping, and all physical objects becoming still again.
“Well, I think that worked pretty well.” Jamie declared, watching Rupert who was still sat up in bed with no duvet, looking petrified.
“Permission to do one more thing.” Isaac asked, the whole room gave him the go ahead.
Isaac walked over to the complimentary notepad and pen that were on the bedside table, he lifted the pen and began to write.
Leave this place and never return
We won’t be so nice next time
Isaac then chucked the notepad at Rupert who read it as the boys all headed out, laughing.
“We fucked Rupert up good and propper.” Jamie told Beard, “Looked like he were gonna piss himself from fear.”
“Or shit himself.” Isaac offered up.
“Maybe even vomit.” Colin added.
“Quite likely all of the above.” Sam tacked on.
Beard had a smug little smile on his face, the plan had worked perfectly and Mannion had checked-out after the first night, five nights before his stay was meant to end.
“Good work boys.” Beard praised, the whole group celebrating with him in the staff room.
“He deserves it.” Isaac grunted.
“Yeah, didn’t much appreciate him trying to get us exorcised.” Jamie jabbed.
“And we do not like how he treated Rebecca.” Jan added.
“Oh, we also got to go wild on the whole ‘ghost powers’ thing,” Sam said, beaming, “Some of us do not get the opportunity to do that enough.”
“Lucky for some,” Richard grumbled, “Some of us were not blessed with abilities when we died.”
“That you know of.” Dani tried to keep it positive, especially considering he was one of the other ghosts without abilities.
Jan, ever the realist, spoke up, “I think he would’ve figured it out by now, considering how long he has been dead for. I think all three of us would have.” Jan, Richard and Dani were the only members of the group who didn’t have any way of affecting the material plane, granted some of the boys had more naff powers than others but at least they could still do stuff.
“Well, powers or no, it was still fun to watch Rupert be so scared.” Dani kept smiling, yet again finding a positive to focus on.
“I coulda sworn I left it here.” Ted mumbled to himself as he rummaged through the draws in his desk.
“What’s he looking for?” Colin asked, walking into the office to find Jamie watching the manager.
“Lost one of the little green soldier men Henry sent him, he’s visiting next week so… being a good Dad or some shit.” Jamie shrugged. It was no secret that Jamie hadn’t had the best relationship with his Father so he often found it weird seeing blokes being good Dads.
“Ah, right. You seen it?”
Jamie shrugged, “Maybe.” He mumbled.
“Jamie…”
“It’s under the filing cabinet.” Jamie could often get a bit weird around stuff like this, unresolved issues and all that (he was also pretty sure this was why Jamie couldn’t move on).
“Thanks.” Colin walked over to the filing cabinet and phased through it so he was looking at the floor underneath, “Gotcha.” He nudged it out from under the cabinet and then picked it up, plopping it down on the desk.
Ted watched the little army man move through the air and be placed down gently, “Thanks Colin.” Ted had been at the hotel for six months now and had gotten used to the ghostly residents and the help they’d offer when they could.
Colin knocked on the desk three times in place of a ‘you’re welcome’ causing a bright smile to overtake Ted’s face.
“Henry’s arriving tomorrow,” Ted explained, “He sent me all these little army men when I first moved here, to protect me you see, losing one woulda been a disaster.” Colin already knew the story, they all did, but Ted didn’t know that. Besides, the ghosts really liked him and they liked listening to him chat, even if they couldn’t respond.
Or maybe they could respond…
Colin remembered that Ted had once told them about how he’d been a boy scout, something the more modern boys explained to him, and based on what he knew it wasn’t far fetched to assume he may know morse code.
So now Colin had a plan, he unfortunately couldn’t execute it himself as he didn’t know enough morse, and even if he did know the alphabet he couldn’t spell so he’d need Isaac.
“Jamie, can you go get Isaac for me please.”
Jamie looked sceptical, “Why?”
“I’ve had an idea.”
“I dunno lad, whenever you say that some wack shit happens…”
“Nah, if this works we could open up a whole new world for ourselves.”
Jamie let out a loud groan and walked off, dragging his feet, but as much as he played up not wanting to get Isaac he was going to do it anyway.
Five minutes later the Mancunian returned with the soldier in question, “Alright bruv, Jamie said you had an idea.”
“Ted was a scout, right?”
“Yeah.”
“So there’s a chance he knows morse code.”
“Yeah.”
“Which means we can talk to him.”
Suddenly realisation dawned on Isaac’s face, “Fuck, you’re right.” He swiftly moved over to the desk and knocked out a ‘hello’.
Ted’s head snapped up and Isaac tapped out another ‘hello’.
“Well howdy Colin.”
It made sense he’d assume it was Colin as he was the only confirmed poltergeist but Isaac was still going to correct him, he didn’t want to let his mate have all the glory.
‘This is Isaac actually but hello’ He took it slow as Ted scribbled down each letter so he could translate it.
“Well I am mighty sorry for the confusion Isaac.”
For the next half an hour Ted and Isaac chatted away, Jamie and Colin occasionally asking Isaac to communicate something for them.
Unfortunately Ted had to head back to work eventually, Beard calling him to come and deal with a tricky guest that wanted to speak to the manager, so he left the boys with a goodbye and a promise to chat again soon.
Well, it looked like they had another window to the land of the living.