THE FIRST GUEST
936 Words
The phone’s dead ring hung in the air. Maya’s hand felt numb. The key in her palm buzzed with a cold, persistent energy.
“Who was that?” she breathed.
“A reminder we are not alone,” Silas said, his voice low and urgent. “Time is a luxury we no longer have. The door, Miss Reed. Now.”
He didn’t wait. He turned and moved soundlessly down the dark corridor toward Room 7. Left in the lobby’s eerie silence, Maya felt the choice evaporate. There was only follow, or be consumed by the quiet.
She followed. The corridor stretched, doors numbered with tarnished brass on either side. The air grew colder. A sour smell of spilled beer and old sweat leaked from the cracked door of Room 7.
Silas stopped before it. “The key,” he said, not looking at her.
Maya’s clumsy fingers scraped the silver key against the lock before it slid in. The lock turned with a heavy clunk. She glanced at Silas. He gave a single, grim nod.
She pushed the door open.
The room was a snapshot of a cheap 1988 motel—faded geometric wallpaper, a boxy television. But it was translucent, layered over another scene: a rain-slicked highway at night, blurry headlights. The two images flickered.
In the center, a young man in a ripped band t-shirt paced. Or tried to. His form glitched, flickering between the motel room and the driver’s seat of a car, hands gripping a steering wheel that wasn’t there. A silent scream frozen on his face.
“Jimmy,” Silas said, commanding yet calm.
The ghost’s head snapped toward them. The temperature plummeted. The lamp flared and died. “Get out!” The voice came from everywhere, layered with static and tearing metal. “This is my room! My gig!”
Maya flinched back into Silas’s solid presence in the doorway.
“This is Maya,” Silas said, as if at a party. “She’s here to listen.”
“I don’t want to listen! I want to play!” Jimmy flickered violently. The highway scene brightened, the sound of pounding rain filling the room. Maya smelled ozone and gasoline.
Her heart was trapped in her throat. Ask about the music.
“Wh-what were you playing?” Her voice was broken.
The flickering slowed. Jimmy’s form solidified slightly. “What?”
“Your music. The last song. What was it?”
A long silence. The phantom rain softened. “‘Redline Runner’,” he muttered, eyes distant. “Our demo. It was good.”
“Where is it?”
“He took it!” Anger flashed back. “My manager. Said he’d get it to the label. He said meet him at the studio after the gig, but…” Jimmy looked at his flickering hands. “There was the rain. And the semi… lights going the wrong way…”
He was fading.
“The tape,” Maya pressed, taking a small step forward. “What did it look like?”
“Gray. Maxell XLII. Had our name… ‘Crimson Fury’… in marker.” Jimmy stabilized, sitting on the bed’s edge. The highway was gone. He just looked young and lost. “I never made it to the studio.”
Maya knew. It was her researcher’s instinct. “It might still be here.”
Jimmy’s head lifted. “Here?”
“This place holds things. Important things.” She looked at Silas. He gave a slight nod.
“Where?”
Maya looked at the room itself. Her eyes landed on the old vent cover near the floor. “There.”
She knelt, ignoring the floor’s shocking cold, and used the key’s pointed end to turn the rusty screws. Her hands only shook a little.
Silas watched, silent.
The vent cover came away. Inside the dark duct, something glinted. Maya pulled out a dust-covered cassette tape. A gray Maxell. Scrawled on the label in faded marker: CRIMSON FURY - Redline Runner (Demo).
She held it up.
Jimmy’s breath hitched, a sound like wind through a canyon. He reached a shimmering hand. As his fingers passed through the tape, his form began to glow with a soft, gold light. The fear and anger melted into wonder.
“It was good,” he said, his voice clear, full of pride. “We were good.”
The light intensified. Jimmy smiled, a real, bright smile. He looked at Maya. “Thanks. For listening.”
He was gone. The room was still and quiet. The crushing cold lifted, replaced by gentle warmth.
Maya knelt, the dusty tape in one hand, the tarnished key in the other. A profound silence echoed.
Silas spoke from the doorway, his voice softer. “You did it, Miss Reed.”
She looked up, tears hot on her cheeks—not of fear, but of stunned, fragile awe. “He’s gone?”
“He’s moved on. You gave him the thread, and he followed it home.” Silas extended a hand to help her up. After a hesitation, she took it. His grip was firm, cool, but not unfeeling. “The first one is always the hardest.”
The lobby phone began to ring again, that same shrill, demanding sound.
They both froze. Silas’s grip tightened almost imperceptibly.
“It’s not morning yet,” he said quietly, eyes fixed on the corridor. “The next guest shouldn’t call so soon.”
The ringing persisted, insistent.
“Unless,” he said, turning his grey eyes back to hers, all warmth gone, replaced by a new chill, “it’s not a guest at all.”
- Writer
