Queer Ghost Stories Volume Five

Chapter Four

Chapter Four

STEVEN FELT HOT AGAIN, as he attempted to put that terrible voice out of his head. He’d been dreaming. That’s all. Just a dream. He’d felt unwell. He’d had a bad dream. If he were parenting a small child, that’s what he’d tell them. It was just a dream. It wasn’t real. There’s nothing to worry about.

But he couldn’t seem to convince himself that was true.

Steven rinsed the suds from his skin. His hair was wet, but he didn’t wash it. He’d had enough of this shower. It wasn’t making him feel any better.

He turned off the water and stood there in the tub while drips fell from the showerhead. This wasn’t one of those fancy high-end places with modern shower enclosures. Just a tub with a shower curtain, like you’d have at home. Somehow, not being able to see beyond the opaque layer got his pulse racing.

Why? There was nothing in the room with him. He knew that for sure. He’d entered alone. He was alone.

So why did he feel as though someone else were there, on the other side of the shower curtain?

Waiting for him...

This was ridiculous. He pulled back the curtain.

No one was there.

Of course no one was there. Why would anyone be there? Unless Omar had returned to the room, or a very insistent hotel employee decided to play the gay valet and wrap him up in a towel.

Speak of the devil, just as Steven was thinking of Omar the main door to their room opened and closed. Had to be Omar returning with their luggage.

“Am I ever glad you’re back!” Steven said through the bathroom door. He didn’t want to open it just yet, and let cool air rush in to ruin the bathroom’s misty atmosphere. “I had the strangest dream. I don’t really remember it, but it freaked me out. All I remember is a voice telling me to get out or I was going to die.”

Omar didn’t say anything, though Steven could hear him shuffling about the room. Maybe this bathroom door was thicker than it looked. Maybe Omar couldn’t hear him.

But that made no sense, because he could hear Omar. He could hear his husband... doing what, out there? Sounded like tossing things on the floor, from what he could make out.

Steven dried his skin as thoroughly as he could, and then braced for cool air as he opened the bathroom door. “Omar?”

There was nobody out there.

“Omar?”

Steven poked his head out of the temperate bathroom, but he saw no one. Unless his husband was hiding in the closet, there was only one little nook he couldn’t see from the doorway. He ventured in that direction. There, he found their luggage, but no Omar.

The door opened behind him, and Steven’s heart jumped into his throat. “Jesus! There you are!”

“Here I am,” Omar said, removing snow-covered boots before entering the room. “I think I’m going to leave these in the hallway. No one’s going to steal them in a place like this. I just don’t want to track snow all over our nice clean room.”

“Stash them in the closet,” Steven suggested, his heart still pounding in his chest.

“Oh yeah. Good idea.”

When Omar had entered and hung up his coat, he said, “It sure is coming down out there. What a mess the roads are going to be.”

Steven didn’t care about that. He didn’t care about the snow or the roads. “Were you just in here, just a second ago?”

Omar looked at him, really looked at him, for the first time since entering the room. “No. I brought up the luggage, but that was a good forty-five minutes ago. You were sound asleep, so I let you be and took a stroll around the grounds. They’ve got snowshoes here. Did you know that? I thought it would be a great thing to try tomorrow before we leave.”

“Yeah,” Steven said, utterly distracted by... by what? He didn’t know what. “No! What time is it? Let’s go now!”

“Now?” Omar asked, approaching Steven cautiously. “There’s not enough snow yet. And, anyway, the mystery dinner’s coming up soon. We’ll have to get dressed for that.”

“I can dress fast,” Steven said. “I know you say I can’t, that I take too long, but I can dress fast if I try. I can do it. Let’s just go now, get out of this room, get some air.”

“What’s got into you?” Omar asked, running his hand through Steven’s wet hair. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“No. I just... I just would like some fresh air, that’s all. Is that really too much to ask?”

Omar took a step back, almost as if Steven were blasting out some kind of force field that kept people who cared about him at bay.

The truth was that he didn’t want to tell his husband what he felt. Because he didn’t understand it himself. He felt unsettled, uncomfortable, but he didn’t know why. Ever since they’d arrived at the inn, Steven felt as though he were navigating some kind of funhouse. Except it wasn’t fun. Not at all.

And he couldn’t explain any of this to his husband.

“Well, get dressed,” Omar said, “if you want to check out the grounds. And dry your hair real quick. We don’t want you catching your death.”

“Catching my death.” Steven repeated the words out loud, and then again in his mind. Over and over again in his mind. “Don’t want me catching my death...”