47. Aspen #3
I keep going until I reach a staircase. I’m not entirely sure I’ve got my bearings, but I’m trying to reach the room that looks onto the front of the property, the same room I saw someone standing at the window.
But this place is huge. I reach the top of the stairs and turn left.
When I reach an approximate distance, I start trying the doors.
It’s a similar layout to the west wing, with a long corridor lined with hotel room doors.
Other corridors come off that main one, leading deeper into the building, but I know I need to be at the front of the hotel.
The doors aren’t locked, and I try them, one by one, frantic with my need to know the truth.
They open into bedrooms, all a little musty and stale, but still with their furniture, some pieces covered in white dustcloths to protect them.
I have the crazy feeling that I’m going to disturb the ghosts of old, the prior residents of the hotel as it was in its heyday.
I’ll catch them standing at their full-length mirrors in 1920s style flapper dresses, with their hair perfectly styled, touching up their makeup.
The suited husband sitting on the edge of the bed, waiting for his wife to be ready so they can make their way downstairs to the ballroom for a night of music and dancing.
How they’d both turn their heads as this stranger bursts into their room—except I’m the one who’s not real.
To them, I’m the ghost.
The thought gives me the shivers, and as I close the door again and head to the next room, I’m sure I walk through another of those strange pockets of cold that seem to haunt the building.
I reach the next room, swing open the door, and catch my breath.
This room isn’t like the others. With my skin tingling all over, I take a couple of steps into the room.
Where the others were old-fashioned and dusty, this room is completely modern.
The flooring is light hardwood with a geometric area rug covering part of it.
The bed is a platform frame in black wood and is dressed in crisp white sheets.
Two matching floating nightstands, each holding a minimalist lamp, flank it.
But it’s the desk in the window that draws my attention.
What the fuck?
On top of the desk is a computer set up with multiple screens.
It takes me a moment to figure out what I’m looking at.
I recognize the monochrome images, but I’m not sure where from.
Then it dawns on me that I’m looking at various parts of the hotel and the grounds.
The outside screens are in night vision, with everything in black and white.
Right now, there isn’t much to see, as fresh snowfall obscures the cameras.
But whoever this setup belongs to has been watching me while I wander the grounds, while I’ve been drawing.
I check out the other screens, and my heart stops.
I hold my breath and curl my fingers into fists.
I want to believe I’m looking at something different and my eyes are playing tricks on me.
There could easily be another room in this place that looks exactly like mine.
But I spot the way my bedcovers are ruffled.
The paperback on the nightstand, next to the glass of water I always keep beside my bed.
And my art file propped up against the dresser.
It’s my bedroom.
This fucker has a camera in my room.
My brain immediately starts turning over all the private moments this stranger has seen. Did they see me and Levi together? Oh, my God, they must have watched when I’d masturbated beside Blake. Have they gotten off on watching me?
Something else catches my eye on the surface of the desk, and I reach for it. It’s one of the little stick dolls—the same one that’s been left on my pillow and that I’ve been finding around the place. My breath catches, and I stare down at it.
Is it for me?
Did whoever this room belongs to here leave this one specifically for me? Did they know I’d come here?
Is this a trap?
I spin around, sucking in a breath, my eyes wide, expecting to find the man standing behind me, but the space is empty.
I clutch the tiny doll tighter, somehow taking comfort in its presence.
Would whoever have made this want to hurt me?
That they’ve been left around like little gifts makes me wonder if they’ve been a way of this person trying to make a connection rather than mean me harm.
This whole thing is fucked up, though.
My nighttime visitor is definitely real. All the times I’ve thought I might have been dreaming, I hadn’t been.
I experience a flicker of excitement at the thought. I shouldn’t. I’m seriously screwed in the head.
If someone has been slipping into my room at night, touching me while I sleep, I should be freaking out. But instead, all I can think is ‘he’s real.’ The intense, dark, massive stranger in my dreams, the one I’ve been so irresistibly drawn to, isn’t just a figment of my imagination.
He’s flesh and blood.
“I’m not afraid of you,” I call out into the dark. “Are you afraid of me?”
It’s seems a crazy thing to say, but it’s the only reason I can think of as to why he’s keeping himself hidden.
Why have Blake and Levi kept the presence of this man a secret? What are they trying to hide?