The Haunting of Anna McAlister (17 page)

Anna never liked being alone after sex. It made her feel like crying. Tom always promised to stay awake, but while his spirit was on occasion willing, his flesh almost always fell asleep.
 

“I mean it this time,” Anna said. “I want you up after I’m out of the shower.”

“Haven’t you had enough?” Tom yawned. “I’m not a machine you know.”

“Please, Tom,” Anna reached the bathroom and didn’t close the door until she saw him sit up.

“I promise,” he said.

“I really, really mean it,” she called from inside the bathroom.

“I’m up. I’m up.”

“Well stay that way.”

Anna stepped into the shower. It was quite different than the showers Anna was accustomed to back home. Instead of a permanent shower head fixed in one position, this shower consisted of a circular nozzle attached to the wall by a flexible metal tube, perhaps three feet long. She could remove the nozzle from a ceramic hook in order to give direct contact to the body part of her choosing. Under current circumstances, this was a feature that Anna appreciated very much. She held the nozzle between her legs. The cool water sprayed up, hitting her, tickling her, stimulating her. She pressed it closer and sighed.

Anna felt herself responding to the water. “Not again,” she said while slowly moving the nozzle in a small circular motion. “Stop it.” She didn’t.

Anna was surprised by her own body’s reaction. She had read about women who boasted about multiple orgasms, but she just assumed that was like men bragging about their many imaginary conquests. For Anna, one orgasm a night was just fine, thank you. Now she was well on her way to her second, perhaps the second of many.
 

Anna’s eyes were closed when the shower curtain opened. “Tom?”
 

Anna felt his strong hands stroking her back. They moved down to her buttocks and between her cheeks.

“Tom,” Anna pressed the nozzle even harder in place. She reached behind her and did the same with his hand.

Anna arched her back, her wet hair falling over his shoulder and chest. She felt his other hand move around and force itself between the nozzle and her flesh. Anna continued to hold the nozzle steady as his fingers moved in time to her body. She felt one of them penetrate her from behind. Anna dropped the nozzle to the floor of the tub.

She fell back against him, and felt him holding her up. He moved her hair and kissed the back of her neck.
 

“I love you, Tom.” She turned around to return his affection. When she did, Anna saw that she was alone. The water filling the bottom of the tub was suddenly as cold as ice.
 

“Tom?” Anna called out while searching the empty tub and then the bathroom. At first Anna had liked the effect the glow stick had on the small room. Now it seemed sinister, as if not just filling the room, but possessing it.
 

The stopper had somehow plugged the tub’s drain and it was quickly filling with the frigid water. It was so cold that it was starting to burn her feet. Anna had to get out, fast. She quickly put one leg over the high tub wall and onto the now wet floor. Before she could pull the other over, the first leg slipped out from under her and Anna fell straight down.

With a leg on either side of the tub, Anna landed hard, with the porcelain hitting directly between her legs. It felt as if her vagina had slammed into rock-solid ice.
 

For a moment Anna straddled the tub, unable to move. Using all of her strength she forced herself to roll out onto the bathroom floor. The pain was excruciating, the fear was much worse.

“Tom,” Anna stumbled to her feet, grabbed the glow stick from the sink and scrambled to the door. At first her wet fingers slipped from the icy knob. Then, they stuck to it as Anna yanked open the door. She felt small pieces of skin ripping away from her hand as she tore it free.
 

Anna prayed that Tom would be awake. That he had somehow managed to leave the bathroom when she was preoccupied with her own unusually intense physical explosion. That he would be laying on the bed holding his erect penis and requesting a bit of
quid pro quo
.

When the green light filled the bedroom, she found Tom curled up on his side, sound asleep.
 

Anna’s bruised vagina started to ache. She heard the water still splashing into, and now over the tub onto the floor. She moved back toward the bathroom to turn it off. When she did, the shower stopped.
 

Anna backed away from the bathroom door. She tripped over a suitcase and fell hard to the floor.
 

“Stop it!” Anna shouted. “Stop it!”
 

Anna stumbled to her feet and moved to the bed. Something, a shadow, swirled through the room. “Tom, wake up!”

Tom moaned and managed to stay asleep.
 

“Tom! Tom!”
 

There was another knocking at the door and the swirling stopped. Whatever shadows there were in that room disappeared.
 

“Thank God,” Anna jumped up from the bed. Now she was the one to grab the blanket and wrap it around her body.
Whether he likes it or not this bellhop is gonna get one hell of a hug . . . at least
, she thought and tightened the blanket just a bit.

Anna ran to the door and quickly opened it. She felt the joy of someone being rescued. “I am so glad to see. . .”

Anna stopped talking because there was no one there to talk to. She looked in both directions, praying to see someone, someone real, walking away. The dull emergency lights in the hall were spaced about 25 feet apart. They gave more than enough illumination for Anna to know that the hallway was empty. She could only hope that she was alone.
 

Anna stepped back inside the room. Without closing the door she quickly shed the blanket and put on her panties and one of Tom’s T shirts. She grabbed a glow stick and walked back into the hallway. After making sure it was not locked, Anna closed the door behind her.
 

Anna held the glow stick out first to her left, then to her right. “Hello.
Bonjour
. Is anybody there?”

Anna listened. She heard a rustling sound and several creaking noises. “Hello?”

There was no answer to her call, at first. Then Anna heard the footsteps. They started right next to her and faded off down the hallway. Anna felt her heart flutter.
Old building, old sounds
, she thought.
Just noises. That’s all
.

Anna followed those noises down the hall. She wanted to run back into the room but chided herself. “You didn’t come all this way to hide, chicken girl.”

Anna clucked with each step she took away from what she viewed as the relative safety of her room.
Chicken noises,
she thought.
Can’t be scared if you’re making chicken noises
. Before she knew it, Anna found herself standing in the small corridor where she and Tom had walked earlier. She saw the familiar swinging door leading to the spiral stairway. It stood wide open, as if waiting for her to arrive.

“Oh shit,” Anna said as she approached. “Shit, shit, shit.” Anna gave up clucking in favor of her old habit and crutch.

Once inside the stairwell, Anna started to climb. The small lights at the curves were out. Now, the only light came from the green glow stick. It gave off grotesque shadows that were there one moment and vanished the next.
 

Anna climbed past the third floor, she felt something furry scurry over her bare feet. She almost fell, but caught herself on the old metal railing that wound along on the inside of the stairway. It pulled away from its rusted mooring, but Anna managed to hang on and regain her balance. She kept climbing past the 4th floor and stopped only when the stairway ended at the fifth.
 

Anna pushed open the door and stepped into the fifth floor hallway. She was surprised to find that the air was fresh and that a summer breeze blew from right to left. Someone had opened the windows at each end of the long hall. The touch of the wind gave her the courage to complete her journey.

* * *

The fifth floor of the Hotel Baronette had always been reserved for residents and visiting celebrities only. It had been the home of artists, writers and the social and political elite of Paris since the hotel was built. The hotel’s architect, Monsieur Durant had lived in one of the fifth floor suites, until he committed suicide on his 62nd birthday. At times in the past, wealthy and influential families had occupied the entire fifth floor, where they were free to pursue rumored passions and perverse pleasures in complete privacy and seclusion.
 

* * *

Hours earlier, Anna had followed Louie back into the bar. She ignored his suggestion that the past was better left buried. After some shameless flirting she was able to coax him into telling her that there was currently only one occupied apartment on the fifth floor. It housed an old woman Louie described as quite mad. No one, he said, ever stayed in room 531.

Louie poured himself a Grand Marnier and drank it quickly. “Things happen on the fifth floor,” Louie finished his drink. “Evil things.”

At that point, the hotel manager had returned and Anna had begun the argument with him that almost ended in her and Tom being asked to leave.
 

* * *

Anna was shaking as she started walking down the fifth floor hallway. She kept hearing Louie’s words;
Things happen on the fifth floor. Evil things
. She somehow knew where she was going. She passed three rooms without even looking at the numbers. There was no need. She stopped in front of the fourth and stared up at the old tarnished numbers reading 531.

Anna nodded her head. She had been certain of her destination. Now, looking at this door, Anna realized that she had stopped shaking and suddenly felt relaxed, comfortable. It was almost like standing in front of the door to her parents’ house when she was little. She again felt like she was home.
 

Anna grasped the doorknob in her hand. It turned easily. All she had to do was push open the door. Countless voices shrieked in her mind. Ordering her, demanding that she push.
 

“No!” Anna suddenly pulled away. She didn’t recognize the voices.

This is so stupid,
she thought while stepping back from the door.
I’m wandering around in the middle of the night, in the middle of a blackout, in the middle of a strange hotel in a foreign city.
 

“You idiot. Tom is going to kill me.” Anna started to leave. She was more angry at herself than scared by her circumstances until she heard a sound that she never expected to hear again. She listened closely. Yes, it was there. The sound came from inside room 531. Anna stepped back and put her ear to the door. “No, it can’t be.”

From the other side of the door she heard a single music box playing a perfect waltz. It was joined by another, and then another. Before a second passed, the chiming of a dozen music boxes could be heard from inside the room.
 

The breeze stopped and the air became stale and old. Anna turned and tried to escape. When she did, she ran into a man standing next to her. Her head hit his chest and he started to laugh. Anna dodged around him, but he was no longer there.

Anna ran down the hall. Something grabbed her ankle, causing her to tumble to the floor. She rolled back up to her feet barely missing a step.
 

“Come inside, Anna”
 

“Open the door, Anna.”

“Help me, Anna.”

The words floated through the air and reverberated in her head. Each voice was different. Each voice was the same. They were many and they were one.
 

The door to a room several feet ahead opened. A terribly thin, ancient woman in a gray stained nightshirt stepped into her path. The woman’s white hair was straight and stringy. There were many places on her head where her blistered scalp showed through. The woman smiled up from her stooped position. Her teeth were broken. Her breath was vile. She reached out for Anna and in a witch-like voice cackled, “Welcome to Paris.”
 

Anna raced by, hitting shoulders with the woman. She thought she felt the woman’s bones crack when they hit, but then she heard only laughter behind her.
 

It took just a few seconds for Anna to reach the door to the spiral staircase. She crashed through and started down. Around the first corner she saw two German soldiers in Black SS uniforms pushing a naked girl up the stairs. Anna thought she was going to smash right into them, but instead passed right through their images.
 

Losing her balance, Anna fell several steps to the fourth floor landing. She looked up. The soldiers and the girl were still there. The men had pushed her down on her stomach on the stairs. One held her hands while the other unzipped his pants.
 

Anna heard screams from above and below. She closed her eyes and jumped up to her feet.

Holding tightly to the railing, Anna continued down. Soon she felt the flat space of the third floor landing. She kept her eyes closed until she reached the second.