The Greeting Committee

Rob and Virginia walk through the wall into the old lobby, with little Annie trailing behind. No one notices them – not the porters, nor the desk clerk, nor any of the hotel patrons passing through. Not even the two children playing on their phones while they wait for their parents to finish checking in. Thunder rumbles in the distance.

Virginia looks around wistfully. Her midriff is bare between the rope belt of her baggie white clam diggers and the patchwork-patterned shirt with its tails tied. Her hair is pulled back into a ponytail and the only makeup she seems to sport is bright red lipstick.

“I heard that new manager saying they might do away with this entire building, if they get that preservation grant.”

“They won’t, Virginia,” says Rob. He’s a clean-shaven man in formal dinner attire as worn at the turn of the century – the turn that went into the twentieth, that is. His posture is erect and his manner as formal as his clothing. “They may stop using it for a hotel, but it’s a preservation grant, to preserve the history.”

“Good,” declares Annie, a pre-pubescent girl with slip-on sneakers, cutoffs, and a T-shirt with a picture of the old Stormcove on it. “I don’t like it at The Suites.”

“Of course not, Dear, not with that man there, even if he is contained.” Virginia shivers.

Annie shrugs and drifts over to the living children. Rob and Virginia are unperturbed when a bellhop rolls a luggage cart through her. Annie doesn’t seem to notice at all.

“I never would have advertised the Stormcove on undergarments – and people wear them without a proper shirt as cover!” Rob hadn’t been in charge of the hotel for more than a century. A chicken bone finished him off at the New Year’s Eve banquet, 1900, when he stepped outside to gag in private rather than disturb the guests.

Virginia looks around the lobby. “We were late. You don’t suppose they wandered off?”

“No. There are four of them, Virginia, swept off the rocks by a rogue wave early this morning.” Rob scolds her impatience with his most formal tone. “You know how long Intake takes these days.”

“Lucky for us the others survived.” She looks at the still-empty doorway. “I’m not sure how much longer I’m going to stay, Rob. He should have been here by now. It may be time for me to start a new life.”

Rob sighs. “You’ve been a good friend and I will miss you, but you need to do whatever is best for you.”

Annie is still by the children, trying to get them to become aware of her presence. She blows on the boy’s ear and he doesn’t notice. She blows again, hard enough to move his hair and he absently brushes at it, as if at a fly, never taking his eyes off the game he is playing on his phone. She tries similar ploys with the girl and finally gives up. She returns to Rob and Virginia.

“I couldn’t get them to sense me, not one little bit!” she complains. “I hate those things they play with all the time. My dad didn’t like how much time I spent watching television, but at least I didn’t carry one around with me, if that’s what they are.”

Before either adult can respond, two of the new residents enter the hotel, through the open doorway, awkward and uncertain of their new form – a man with silvered temples holding the elbow of a distracted young woman whose bearing and grace assert her elevated class.

Virginia leads the way to them and takes the woman’s hand. “I’m Virginia and this is Rob and Annie. We’re the Greeting Committee. Welcome.”

The older man stiffens. “They’ve put us in the old building?”

“This is where we greet people,” says Rob. “You’re welcome in both buildings, though most choose one or the other as their primary location for the duration of their stay.”

“Oh!” the young woman yelps as a new family walks through them on their way to the hotel desk. Her eyes are wide. “Is that what he was talking about?”

“Who, Dear?” asks Virginia. “Your intake worker?”

“Yes. I didn’t understand anything he said.” The young woman composes herself with a breath. “I’m so sorry, I’ve been rude. I’m Sarah Van Kirk. It wasn’t his fault, I wasn’t expecting to die today and I’m still a bit stunned.”

“That may be, but that idiot didn’t make any sense at all.” The older man holds his hand out to Rob. “George Hastings.”

Rob shakes his hand, “Rob Wilson. Who was your intake worker?”

George looks at his hand, puzzled by the ambiguous nature of the contact. “That will take some getting used to…” He shrugs it off. “It was Jeremy something.”

“Oh.” Virginia shakes her head. “No wonder.”

“We’ve reported other complaints,” says Rob. “It hasn’t done any good.”

“It’s really simple,” explains Annie. “You come here first, to get used to not being alive anymore. You know, like people don’t see you and can walk through you without it hurting, and you can walk through walls, that sort of thing. And how touch doesn’t feel the same.”

“There’s no heaven or hell, then?” demands George.

“Oh, yes, definitely, both,” says Virginia. “Those bound for hell go straight to it, or their personal version of it.”

“What about us?” asks Sarah.

Virginia continues the explanation. “Some move on as soon as they come to terms with their change of state – either to another life or their vision of heaven. Some choose to stay where they are, where they passed.”

“Why on earth would anyone do that!” huffs George.

With the utmost dignity, Rob explains, “I worked at the Stormcove from the time I was a boy and was manager for two decades. There’s nowhere I would rather be. Virginia, well, this may be her heaven.”

“I’m not quite sure yet,” interjects Virginia with a sad smile.

“I sure don’t want to have a return life!” declares Annie. “My last one was rotten, and look at them!” She waves at the children still sitting absorbed by their screens. “They don’t have any real life, just their private fantasies. I’d rather stay here, like this.”

Rob nods and sighs. “It used to be that children were usually sensitive to us.”

A loud crash of thunder doesn’t stir the living children at all.

At that moment, another new resident arrives. He looks like a young beach bum with his scruffy hair and plastic sandals. “Hi,” he says.

“I’ve seen you before!” says Annie. “You’re one of the free guests.”

“Yup. I’ve been living here for several months,” he says with a charming smile. “It’s okay for me to mingle now?”

As Rob nods assent, George barks “What?” and curls his lip as he takes in the young man’s cutoffs and ragged Stormcove Tee.

Holding himself formally erect, Rob informs the older man, “Stormcove has always offered free lodging to select needy people.”

“I worked for every penny that makes it possible for me to stay in places like this, and I don’t appreciate knowing tramps are given the same for free!”

“I’m not a tramp.” The young man lifts his chin. “I’m James Galt, writer.”

Sarah introduces herself. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Galt. The Van Kirks have always been patrons of the arts. You’ll have to forgive Mr. Hastings. His ignorance comes from being nouveau riche.” She shoots a withering glance at Hastings, then returns her gracious gaze to James. “What have you been working on during your stay here?”

“I’ve been researching and writing a creative non-fiction book, about a young girl who died here on July 4, 1970.”

“That’s me!” cries Annie. “Annie Smythe!”

“You’re Annie?” James bounds up to her and takes her hands. The lack of substance in the contact doesn’t dampen his excitement. “I should have recognized you! Your sister gave me photos when she asked me to find out the truth. She never believed it was a simple drowning.”

“She knew! We went for a walk when we got here and she saw how frightened I was by the waves. I wouldn’t climb on the rocks with her. She knew I’d never have gone near the water by myself. But no one listened to her. She was only seven.”

“And you were ten.” James squeezes her hands gently. “We were right, then? It was murder?”

The others are drawn in, listening to this conversation – even George, though he leans back as if to deny the pull of interest.

“Yes,” says Annie. “He tossed my body off the dock, long after everyone was asleep.”

“Mary suspected a man who had asked to take your photograph earlier.”

“Yes, yes! She was right!”

“I was hitting a wall, trying to discover who that might have been. There was no professional photographer here at the time. Then there were two other girls who drowned late at night, both about ten years old, but the deaths were a few years apart. We were suspicious, but there was no way to link one man to all of them.”

“Oh, it was him. And there were more than that. But his last victim got away. The other girls and I had managed to make her uneasy enough, she was more alert than we’d been.” Annie pauses for effect. “The girl ran and told her father. He took care of it personally.”

“Good!” cries James. “I was afraid the killer had moved on and continued.”

“The only bad part is, that man has been here ever since, but he’s kept contained, over in the Suites.” Annie sighs. “I usually don’t go over there, but if you’d like, I’ll show you where he is. I won’t be afraid with you.”

“We still have another resident coming,” Virginia reminds her.

“It could be a while,” says James. “He’s eighty-four. He was stuck up on the rock wall – that’s where I met him. He told me he should have known better at his age. I was helping him down when that wave came and washed us both out to sea. He’s still pretty shaken up and moving slow. We’d have time to go over to the new building and get back before he gets here.”

“Be that as it may, we’ll all wait,” says Rob. “That’s how it’s done.”

“And there’s no hurry to see that man,” adds Virginia. “He’s part of the lobby wall. Literally.”

Sara looks confused. “Shouldn’t he have gone to hell?”

“That is his hell,” explains Rob. “He sees children come through every day and cannot make any movement toward them at all. And several of his victims from other places found their way here and tormented him before they moved on. It was part of their process.”

“So he’s here forever?” asks James. “Isn’t that torturous for Annie? That’s not fair.”

“He’s stuck in the wall until I move on, then he’d go to the fire and brimstone hell,” says Annie. “But I’d rather stay here.”

James and Sarah look at Virginia with doubt in their faces.

Virginia shrugs. “I’ve tried. Believe me, I’ve tried.”

“You’ve been here longer than me,” Annie tells her.

“But I had a long life before that,” says Virginia. “There are so many things you never experienced.”

“Virginia looks younger than me, Annie. Trust me, you would like growing up,” says Sarah.

Annie giggles. “Are you going to tell her?”

“Tell me what?” Sarah asks, looking at Virginia. “What were you when you passed? Twenty? Twenty-one?”

“Seventy,” smiles Virginia. “This is my heaven, where I spent the best summer of my life. I passed in a hospice in Tucson thirteen years ago.”

“And you went back to the age you were that summer?” Silver-haired George is enthused by this revelation. “I can go back to my younger self?”

Virginia smiles broadly. “Yes, if that’s what you decide to do.”

“Why can’t I just be younger now?” George demands.

“You’re still in transition,” explains Rob. “You have to choose your heaven first, then once you’re there, the change will come. You’ll go back to your best age in that place. I’ve seen it happen a few times. This was a happy place for many people, not just Virginia.”

Virginia’s smile fades. Her eyes are sad. “But choose wisely. The place will have changed and you may not find the people you wanted to see. And you only get to choose your heaven once. I’ve been thinking of returning for a new life, myself.”

A brilliant flash of light fills the lobby, followed by thunder that shakes the building. The skies open and rain pours down as the last new resident totters in. His eyes meet Virginia’s and he smiles. As he crosses the room toward them, his step springs, his body straightens, and his face smooths to its youthful state. He stops in front of Virginia, then they embrace, both tearful.

Sarah is first to break her gaze from the reunited couple. “Shall we move on then?”

Rob turns to Sarah and nods stiffly. “Yes.” He turns to the others. “Come along, let’s give them some privacy.”

They head to the other building, leaving Virginia and her long-lost love alone together, oblivious to the people coming and going around and through them.

“I was afraid you would never come,” says Virginia. “Or that you’d gotten here first and given up on me, like you did before.”

“Leaving you here was the worst mistake of my life,” he answers. “I came back and you’d left, and I didn’t know how to find you. I want to stay with you here forever.”

Virginia smiles.

Annie looks back at them, then up at Sarah. “Maybe it would be nice to have a life where I grow up. . .” 

© Sheri McGuinn

Audio version at

https://sherimcguinn.substack.com/p/rainn-day-speculative-fiction-review

Death & Evil in Ponderosa Pines

Karen was the last to leave. She pulled on her fleece-lined jacket, hat, and gloves. As she said goodbye, she yawned.

“Are you sure you don’t want to stay over until morning?” Mary offered.

“I have a lot to do tomorrow.”

“It may be April, but you could still run into snow up on the rez.”

“There was a little on my way over this afternoon, but the sun was melting it off as it landed.”

The road passed through the edge of the Apache reservation. For thirty-some miles there would be no house in sight, just high plains on either side, broken by stretches of Ponderosa Pine and Aspen groves. In the summer, driving across it in a thunderstorm was humbling and exalting at the same time. Tonight it would be dark and peaceful; a good ending to a full day.

Mary was skeptical. “Well, watch for elk; they’re always on that stretch.”

“I will. I haven’t hit an animal in thirty years.” Karen gave her friend a hug. “I’ll see you next weekend.”

Mary watched her walk to her car. “Call me when you get home.”

“No, I won’t. It’s an hour drive and you’ll be asleep by then.”

Karen started her car. As she drove out of town, the bank’s marquee flashed the time and temperature – twelve o’clock, twenty-seven degrees. She had to turn down the heater, though. The car might be old, but everything worked except the air conditioning, which she didn’t really need living up here in the mountains.

She continuously scanned ahead to the edges of her headlights’ beams. It was habit, ever since she’d killed two deer six months apart, long ago, before she moved to Arizona. Elk were much larger than deer, and harder to see from her little car because when they were close, their eyes were above the range of her headlights, and their dark coats blended in with the night shades of shoulder and roadside brush.

She spotted a group of large dark shadows off to the left and automatically slowed in case one should suddenly decide to cross the road. They were far enough away that her headlights flashed off a pair of eyes; the other animals continued feeding. She decided to stay well below the speed limit, to be on the safe side.

She passed only one car, going the other direction. There would be no sign of civilization until she reached McNary, a little town on the reservation. While her eyes continued watching for elk as she drove, Karen slipped into a meditative sense of peace. Clouds blocked whatever light the sky might have offered as she drove the deserted miles on top of the world, but she knew when the road dipped she was moving from the vast open fields into a stretch of forest.

Suddenly, anxiety hit, jerking her out of her reverie.

There was no good reason for it. She turned off the radio; maybe the car was making a noise that disturbed her subconsciously. But the car was okay, knocking a little, but that was normal at this altitude.

A cold shawl of prickles dragged up and across her shoulders and her breathing became so shallow she was almost holding it. She forced herself to inhale deeply. She lived alone; she didn’t jump at shadows. She tried to chide away the unwelcome sensation of fear.

But the chill was palpable inside her winter jacket. She cranked up the heat and still felt icy. Goosebumps were lifting her shirt off her arms.

She hadn’t checked the back seat when she got into the car; hadn’t done that since she moved up here out of the city. She resisted the urge to look back or even in the mirror, as if not knowing would make it not real. And if she didn’t see anything, she still wouldn’t be sure.

The pines rose high on either side of the road.

Suddenly, something dark poured into her and constricted her breath. A triangle of lights off to the right came and went so quickly she wasn’t sure she’d really seen it. Silently she recited the 23rd Psalm, as well as she could remember it.

“The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want; He maketh me lie down in green pastures, He leadeth me beside still waters, He restoreth my soul.” There was something else she wasn’t remembering, then “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil.”

Death and evil, that’s what she felt pouring at her from the Ponderosa Pines. It wasn’t someone in the car. It was something out there. She drove a little faster, but not so fast she wouldn’t be able to stop for an elk. She definitely didn’t want to have an accident here, not tonight.

At last she saw the sign announcing the edge of McNary. The feeling eased away from her as she drove through the little town. She passed someone walking along the other side of the road in dark clothes. She was almost home.

By the time she got to her cabin, she no longer felt the presence of evil, in fact she felt a little silly about it. She fixed herself some warm milk. Once it was gone, she was barely awake enough to slip under the covers of her bed.

Karen’s life went on. She forgot all about that unpleasant feeling and there was nothing to remind her. The Apache girl’s disappearance never made the newspaper Karen read.

The first assumption was that the teen had taken off with her boyfriend, but then he came back from visiting relatives out of state and asked for her. He’d been in Oregon when she last left her mother’s house, and he could prove it. In Karen’s world this was still not newsworthy.

It was fall when a hiker’s dog happened upon the girl’s shallow grave – not far from the road, where the Ponderosa Pines stand guard.

Audio version at sherimcguinn.substack.com

Copyright Sheri McGuinn

Warped Tales: The Development

Warped Tales – be warned. As a child I read piles of books filled with short stories – the complete works of Poe, stories from the Twilight Zone, collections from Hitchcock, etc. This is that kind of story. The original version first appeared in The Maverick Magazine several years ago – I’ve revamped it a bit.

The Development

It was Clyde’s last day working on the farm. The truck would pick up the last of the cows after lunch; the wrecking crew would be there the next day. Streets and skeletal houses already filled the lower meadow.

God, that stinks. Clyde was staring at the brown stream of unprocessed manure in the trough behind the cows as he thought this.

You think yours smells sweet? A female voice reverberated in his brain.

Clyde swung his head around, looking for the source of the words, but he was alone. The only other life in the barn was the last three cows and Bootsie, his cat. Clyde had been on edge for the last two days, now he was imagining things. Bootsie rubbed against his leg and he picked her up. As he rubbed her behind the ears he sighed, remembering how he’d had to kill the other cats.

Ralph shouldn’t have made you do that.

“Who is that?” he shouted. He moved toward the door, expecting to find a prankster lurking outside. He swung his head back and forth, but there was no one in sight, only the work crews half a mile away.

The voice came again. Why did he care about the cats, anyway?

It was inside his head, but somehow seemed to be sourced behind him, in the barn. How could that be?

Yes, I’m right here, Clyde.

Where? This time Clyde just thought the question.

Right over here, dummy. The cow he called Betsy turned to face him and flicked her tail, but she didn’t make a sound.

Why am I hearing you? he asked. Am I going crazy?

I don’t know. I’ve always been able to hear you.

Clyde panicked a moment, trying to remember everything he’d ever thought about in the barn. Then he relaxed. What does it matter what a cow knows? Do the other cows hear me, too?

Don’t think so. I can’t even communicate with them. They’re just dumb animals. Betsy quit looking at him and flicked her tail again. We’re going to be picked up this afternoon?

“Yep. You’re going to another dairy farm,” he said as he walked between cows to face Betsy, rather than talk to her rear end.

Can you please repeat that without the sound? She blinked her eyes at him, as if to confirm it was her thoughts he was hearing. When you talk out loud like that, I can’t understand you. It gets all garbled.

Clyde obliged. That dairy farmer who came by last week is picking you up this afternoon.

Good. The rats are terrible with the cats gone.

“That’s what I tried to tell Ralph.” Clyde forgot and spoke the words out loud. He went back to thinking. The rats will move into those new houses, too. I told him. But the realtors said the barn cats were a health hazard … You can’t understand me when I talk out loud?

No, something gets garbled in the process. It makes about as much sense as the sound of a metal box being dragged across the floor.

Clyde stopped breathing. She knows.

Of course I know. I was here. Betsy raised her tail.

It was an accident! Clyde’s response was automatic.

Right. You picked up that iron bar and bashed in Ralph’s skull by accident. Betsy’s bowels emptied, gushing into the trough behind her.

Clyde started babbling out loud so the cow couldn’t hear him. “What am I going to do now? The police have already been to the house looking for him. What if she can talk with someone else like this? I killed him with a witness!”

I can’t understand you when you do that. Betsy complained. Think clearly, please.

“I didn’t mean to do it!” Clyde shouted. Then he went back to thinking. I was mad from having to kill the cats. Then, when I told him I was going to take Bootsie with me, he grabbed for her. He would’ve wrung her neck. I couldn’t let him do that.

I know. You were just looking out for Bootsie. You should have done it long ago.

You think it was the right thing to do? You could tell them he came at me first, that it was self-defense.

I’m a cow, dummy. They’re not going to interview me. Besides, Clyde, think about it. What happened after you hit him?

He fell.

Where did he fall, Clyde? Betsy blinked and looked over her shoulder.

Right behind you, in that muck. You kicked him.

Exactly. I kicked him right in the head. Massive trauma. Very unlikely they’d notice he got hit by a bar first. I did it on purpose, to cover for you. You’re the one who always looked after us.

Clyde stiffened and stared at the cow. He swallowed. But I put the body in the box and dragged it out to the truck.

Well, that’s not my fault. I was trying to tell you to leave him where he was, but you weren’t hearing me yet.

Clyde pictured the place he’d dumped the box.

Betsy snorted and shook her head. So they’re going to find his body in a metal box at the bottom of the river by a bridge. She chided him for his stupidity. Good luck convincing anyone he got there accidentally.

Clyde carried Bootsie out to the truck, leaving the voice behind. He’d move back to Texas. No one would track him down there, even if they did find Ralph. He settled Bootsie into the cab and got his rifle off the rack.

Just to be safe, he went back to take care of Betsy.

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