DISCLAIMER: So I was kind of excited about the upcoming Fantastic Four movie, but then I started hearing about the reshoots and changing the release date and yada yada yada. But let's face it, I'm powerless to resist the chiseled cheekbones of Ioan Gruffudd. Powerless, I tells ya'. But my excitement about the upcoming Sin City and Batman Begins remain undiminished, if not increased.
The Shaun of the Dead characters belong to Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright. I don't own them andnever will...
Emma had woken Shaun up bright and early to go explore the Cumbria countryside. Their first stop was in the city of Penrith. Shaun was quite happy with window shopping, but Emma preferred the more traditional form of shopping that involved exchanging currency for goods. Then they made a stop at the Dalemain House and Gardens, inquiring about other nearby National Trust properties. Shaun didn't mind looking at old buildings (even if it did make him feel a bit like Liz's ill-fated flatmate David), he just hoped to make it through the weekend without having to row a boat on the River Eden and recite poetry.
Meanwhile, Julian sat down to have a conversation with Evelyn, the innkeeper, in the dining room that was making the transition from breakfast to lunch with the help of scurrying employees.
"Thank you for taking the time to speak with me, Misses—"
"It's Miss Fairfax. I'm recently divorced."
"I'm sorry to hear that."
"Not as sorry as my ex-husband will be when he gets the alimony bill."
"Right. Well, we're trying to find out more about some disappearances in this area. What can you tell me about Tara Farrell?"
"Young woman, worked here for a couple of months. She disappeared Friday morning."
"Was she a reliable employee? Did she have a history of lateness or unexplained absences?"
"No more than anyone else here," she answered casually. "You know, there was a time when people were actually dedicated to their work. They appreciated the opportunity, and they fulfilled their obligations gladly."
"I'm sure that's true," he sighed, not in the mood for a lecture. "But did you have any reason to suspect that Tara would leave without an explanation?"
"I suspect she might have ditched work early to go on a long vacation. It happens all the time."
"Neither her family nor her friends have heard from her. Her parents have filed a missing persons report with the police, and this is the last place that she was seen alive."
"If you're trying to suggest I had something to do with her disappearance, you're not being very subtle about it."
Julian leaned in closer and focused his already intent gaze. "Miss Fairfax, the police just found the body of one of your former guests dumped in the woods nearby, and it seems highly likely that Tara is headed for the same fate. Which won't look very good on your hotel brochures and might open you up to a few civil suits. So I assure you, it would be in your best interest to cooperate with my inquiries."
Meanwhile, Sara was starting her survey of the inn with the attic and working her way downward. She felt a constant unease, as if she were being watched, and she suddenly wished Will had never told her that this was one of the most haunted hotels in the country. Vampires, demons, she was fine with those. But how did you fight a ghost?
She moved from the attic onto the third floor and slowly walked down the narrow hallway. One of the rooms nearest to her was open, and she could faintly hear water dripping from somewhere inside. She peeked inside the doorway but saw no one, guest or staff. This was a larger room than hers, some kind of high-dollar suite perhaps. To her left, she located the source of the dripping water sound.
The spacious bathroom looked immaculate. The marble flooring and counters gleamed. There was a mirror above a sunken bath. Water was dripping from the bathtub's tap, and the tub was full of murky water. She hesitantly leaned over to turn off the water. Every part of her body told her to walk away.
If there's some Japanese kid under this water, I'm so out of here, she thought. But she summoned her courage and tentatively reached toward the water to try to find the stopper somewhere in its depths. She gulped hard as her fingers touched the surface of the icy cold water.
"What you doing?"
"Aaiigghh!" Sara let out a sharp exclamation as a form appeared in the bathroom doorway. She looked up to see a young woman in uniform, waiting patiently for an explanation with crossed arms. Sara stood up to face her, somewhat embarrassedly, and adopted her best Scotland Yard accent. "Um, hi, yes, I'm with the police. D.S. Wellesley. We're investigating a series of disappearances in the area."
"I haven't seen any uniforms about."
"No, no. We're trying to keep our inquiries very discreet. Don't want to alarm the guests, do we?" she offered, with a forced laugh.
The woman regarded her with uncertainty but gradually seemed to accept the explanation. "Have you found Tara yet?"
"You know Tara Farrell?"
"Yeah. I got her the job here."
"When was the last time you saw her?"
"We went out for a drink Thursday night after work. But she went home early because she had to work the morning shift. When I came in at lunch, I didn't see her. Just figured she'd gone home early, sick or something."
"Was Tara someone likely to take off without telling anyone?"
"No. I didn't think anything of it till Miss Fairfax told me she'd disappeared during brunch and that she needed me to work a double shift. Tara would have asked me to cover her shift if she were planning to leave."
"I see. Well, thanks for your help…"
"Michelle."
"Michelle," Sara repeated. "Can I ask you something else?"
"What's that?"
"We've heard some rumors of…well, for lack of a better word, ghosts on the premises. Have you had any personal experiences?"
"Try everyday."
"Really?"
"Yeah. It was freaky at first, but you get used to it. No one's ever been hurt. Sometimes you just see or hear things that aren't there. Or the bathtub fills itself up," she groaned, matter-of-factly reaching into the water and releasing the stopper to let the water recede. "This is getting really annoying," she said to no one in particular.
A few hours later, Julian was in the midst of laying out masses of floorplans on a desk when Sara entered the war room.
"Find anything?" he asked.
"Not much, other than bad plumbing. How was Lady Fairfax?"
"Uncooperative. I've just been studying the hotel's structural drawings. This place has been renovated so many times, it's hard to tell where one part of the building ends and another begins."
"Why is that important?"
"Ghosts often appear at boundaries of time and space—walls, doors, anniversaries, midnight. It might help narrow down our search."
"But we still don't know what we're looking for."
"Which is why I put a call in to the Council Archives. Nicola's been researching the house. She's supposed to call as soon as she's got something."
As if on cue, the phone rang and Julian picked up the receiver.
"This is West," he answered formally. "Right, I'm here with Helen. Let me put you on speakerphone."
"Hiya, Nicster!" Sara greeted. Nicola had been recently transferred from the Paris branch when former librarian Lex had decided to retire. Sara viewed her as a friend and confidante, even if Nic didn't actually know her real name. Since the run-in with the Russian assassins, Sara had been restricted to the most remote field assignments and any contact with Council employees other than Julian or Michael was done under the name of Helen Wellesley. She was still having a difficult time answering to that name, though.
"Wellesley! What up?"
"I've been better."
"What's the problem?"
"Oh, I've just been bitch-slapped by life. As per usual."
"Don't mind her, Nic," Julian interrupted. "She's just upset that her former boyfriend moved on without her express written consent."
"I told you, I'm not upset," Sara insisted. "Oh, and please thank Michael for telling Shaun that I died."
"Wait, wait, is this THE Shaun?"
"The one and only."
"You've seen him!"
"Yep, he's shacked up here with his new girlfriend."
"You're kidding me!"
"Wish I were."
"Cheeky bastard! No respect for the dead…"
"I know!"
"I mean, who does this girl think she is? You saw him first."
"Unfortunately, that argument doesn't work after the age of five, Nic."
"Is he still dishy as ever?"
"I'm afraid so."
"Don't you hate that?"
"Very much."
"Ladies, could we please get back to the matter at hand?" Julian protested.
"I'll tell you later, Nic," Sara agreed.
"You better, you slag."
"What have you been able to find on the inn?"
"Run of the mill paranormal stuff really. Built in the 1600s, the house was originally a parsonage for the priests at the local church. It saw its share of brutal murders back in the day since it was near a crossroads frequented by several highwaymen. The ownership's changed hands quite a few times, lots of sections have been torn down or added on, and none of the proprietors tend to stick around for very long."
"Any identifiable entities?"
"We have three most frequently seen ghosts on the premises. One is an elderly woman in Victorian or Edwardian dress, hangs out in the attic. Next up is a man in a suit, he's been seen in the bar quite a few times by staff in the hotel's off-hours. Last, but most intriguing, is the woman in white. She seems to be confined to Room 34."
"I was in that room earlier today," Sara noted. "Very creepy vibe."
"I don't doubt it. A number of guests have said that a white apparition of a woman comes out of the mirror while they're in the bath. Sometimes they've woken up to find her sitting at the bottom of the bed, just watching them."
"But no history of violence?"
"Other than some harmless mischief of moving around objects, I don't see anything in the archives that raises a red flag."
"So we're back to square one," Julian sighed.
"On a completely different board," Sara remarked.
"The Council traced a major psychic disturbance to this hotel," he explained.
"Which could have been anything. And could be completely unrelated to these disappearances."
"I still think that it's a lead worth following up."
"And I still think it's not a ghost," Sara said. "While you look at your maps, I'm gonna' go chat up some more guests."
"As long as you find time to chat up Shaun," Nicola added.
"Don't encourage her, Nic," Julian groaned.