'Your application has been received'

“This is my hotel. Beautiful, isn’t it?” said the voice on the phone.

The man in the car looked at the building in front of him. All squat two stories of its L shape. The beige paint, with faded red and teal trim harkened back to days gone past. The metal railing, rusted in spots, showed decades of use.

“Well, it was. I really should have it painted.”

“Who was this again?”, the man in the car asked.

“The owner of the hotel, Jimmy my boy. Didn’t I just say this was my hotel?” The voice on the phone laughed. “Why don’t you come to my office and we will have a talk.” There was an obvious smile in her voice. “You’ll be glad you did. I have a deal for you.”

Jimmy looked through the windshield, focusing on the door to the office directly in front of the car. “What’s the deal?”

The voice on the phone laughed. “Oh, nothing bad. It’s a good thing. Come on in. My door is right beside the counter.” The voice paused for a few seconds before it took on a serious tenor. “It’s not exaggeration to say that it is the deal of your lifetime.” Again, a few seconds passed with Jimmy listening to the mysterious voice breathing. Then came the sound of a lighter, and the sound of something smoldering before a long deliberate inhale. “You know I’m not lying. That’s why you haven’t hung up.”

Jimmy looked at the lighted office window and again asked, “What’s the deal?”

The voice on the phone simply said, “I’ll see you in a few seconds. You’ll see my door.” Then the line clicked.

Jimmy sat in his car for a few more confused seconds before looking at the screen on the phone to see that the call had, in fact, ended. He got out of the car, looked up at the bright desert sky and saw the birds circling high in the air. The heat was like an oppressive weight as he walked slowly to the door and pulled it open, feeling the blast of cold air as he went inside. Looking around, he saw a balding man sitting at the counter watching gameshows on TV, while a lady sat at one of the two video poker machines feeding it a nickel every few seconds from a bag she held on her lap.

“In here, Jimmy”, called the voice from the phone. “Over this way.”

He turned to see a darkened office and a glowing cigar tip brightening up as the holder drew from it. He looked back at the two in the lobby and saw that they continued as they were. The video poker machine making joyful sounds before dispensing a handful of nickels, drowning out the TV for a moment. He walked into the office. “What’s going on here?”

“Have a seat, we have some things to talk about”, said the figure in the dark.

As Jimmy stepped forward; the lights came on. The office was smallish. In the center was a metal desk with a top that the veneer was peeling off of in places to reveal the pressboard under it. Someone had tried to cover it up with a black marker, but that was fading too. The walls were lined with fake wood paneling, and a few cheap generic pictures. The kind of pictures you see in thrift shops any more after places like this were torn down or refurbished. Behind the desk sat a very thin woman with straight black hair to her shoulders. There were lines of purple mixed into it like tongues of electricity flowing out of her. She took another puff off the cigar clamped between her teeth before pulling it out with a smile. In a billow of smoke, she breathed, “Sit. Relax.” The words were said with a smile, but issued as commands.

Jimmy did as she said, taking a seat in a cracking fake leather chair. “How…” he started, but she stopped him.

“My, you do look the part, don’t you?” She looked him over and tapped the cigar into the ashtray. “I hear you are a proficient ghost hunter and exorcist.” She sat back into her newer than the rest of the décor chair. “At least they say you get rid of haunting problems. Is that exorcism? Technically I mean? Isn’t it a person that you exorcise, and banishing for materials?”

Jimmy looked around the room some, still a bit confused. “Yeah, something like that.”

“Well,” she clamped the cigar in her mouth again and spoke past it. “Consider dis a try out. For every ghost you get ow a my hotel, I pay $500. After that, then we well talk about da real job.”

Jimmy looked at her again, focused now that money was involved. “How many do you have then?”

She puffed the cigar for a moment and then pointed it at Jimmy like a wand. “That we know of? 12. We think. Some of the staff think that a couple may be the same one and so that’s less. Could be more if you count the couple of cats and dogs too.”

Jimmy did the math quickly. “$6000 is a tryout? Here in the middle of nowhere?”

“The real job is much bigger, and much more important.” She sat up quickly and set the cigar on the edge of the ashtray. “What am I thinking. I haven’t even told you my name. That’s what you meant earlier.” Jimmy just looked at her, confused again. “When you asked who I was. My name is Abigail. Most that know me just call me Abby… or other names that are rather impolite.” She stood and extended a hand. “What do you say? Want to accept the trial?”

He took his time standing up, and taking her hand. “Sure. But, how did…” was all he got out before she interrupted him again.

“Great. Don’t count on those two out there; they just take care of the counter.” Abby opened a drawer and began fishing for something. “Where did they go? I just had them. Ah!” She produced a large ring of keys and walked around the desk to hand them to Jimmy. “Everything to get you anywhere you need to go. No one will bother you while you do your job.” She took him by the shoulders and started him toward the door. “There’s no real guests for right now anyway. Have fun, and report back.”

The door closed and left Jimmy standing in the lobby. The sound of applause erupted from the TV as a contestant won a prize. “Great,” he muttered and started shuffling to the front door, and off to his new found duties.

Jimmy searched through the hotel, one room at a time. In every room, he did the same ritual. There was an incantation. He didn’t know exactly what it translated to, or even what language it was really. He just knew it was taught to him long ago, and when combined with other phrases in likely the same language, it did the job. When people asked, he told them the first one orders any spirits to show up, and pay attention. The second asked them to get their bags packed. The third was the eviction notice. The fourth was a demand if they didn’t listen to the third. The fifth, well, it is the verbal equivalent to acid that melts them if they don’t listen. He didn’t use the last two often, but he kept them on the tip of his tongue, as it were, at all times.

Out of the 23 rooms, Jimmy found eight occupied, mostly on the second floor. They always seem to go for higher places. The first floor was mostly animals, and they just left when asked with no special stuff needed. On the second floor there were quite a few people that had lost all their money at the casinos and then ended their own lives. There were always other options, but people don’t see it in the moment. The last room, that was where the real trouble was though. He heard things happening as he made his way down the line of rooms, but it’s like that terrible casserole your aunt makes for Thanksgiving. No one wants to eat it, but it’s a requirement in the end, and usually gets put off as much as possible.

As Jimmy walked out of the next to last room, having cleared it of a pair of cheating lovers that were shot after being found out, a crash came from the next room. A glass had flown out of what was left of the window. He looked at it for a second.

“This one is going to really suck”, he muttered as he pushed a bit of the window off the edge with the toe of his shoe. He took a deep breath and said, “Here goes.”

He walked to the door, and opened it. The door wasn’t locked. It seemed that the lock was broken already, just like everything else in the room. The beds were slashed, the chairs had broken legs, the one token framed bad painting was shattered and lay against the front wall. He didn’t even need to say anything, the spirt here was what everyone thinks of when someone says the word poltergeist.

A glowing face came through the wall separating the bathroom from the rest of the hotel room. Then came a part of a vase from the floor, flying at Jimmy directly with the sound, “Get out!”

He dodged it, and replied, “I can’t do that. You’re being evicted, sorry.” He recited the first set of words, but this spirit resisted. It moved away, so he said the words again. Still nothing. “Damnit.”

What was left of the core of a lamp flew at Jimmy as the spirit called, “It doesn’t work on me. You types have tried before.” The lamp parts hit Jimmy and sent him to the ground as it hit him in the ribs and knocked the wind out of him for a second.

Jimmy recovered as quickly as he could and just moved on to the second incantation, and the third quickly. He stood back up, and kept looking around for more flying objects as the spirit floated around the room as just a face, laughing at him. He went through the second and third incantations dodging objects as he saw them, but getting hit and cut more often.

“I was a god myself in life. People worshiped me. I was my own church. Ancient words are not going to cut it.” The face was growing a body now.

“Then we need to skip ahead.” Jimmy began the fifth incitation.

“Oh! I’m melting!” screamed the ghostly face. “What a world, what a world.” Things stopped flying at Jimmy as the spirit said this, and things in the air fell to the floor again.

“Finally,” sighed Jimmy.

“Sike!” the glowing face laughed at itself. “You really think I would be quoting the witch from The Wizard of Oz if you actually did something? No one says stuff like that.” All the debris around the room lifted up from the floor and hovered around Jimmy in a ball. “This was fun. Most fun I have had in twenty years. I’m getting bored now. Say goodbye.”

Jimmy was a calm guy. He also didn’t like bad language, but it was at this moment that he found that the word “shit” was the exact thing to say. As the glowing hand that the spirit had grown came up, and began to mockingly wave, Jimmy reached into his pocket and pulled out a stone. On it was etched a group of symbols that is found nowhere else, and the stone was a rare type of opal. He held it up like a weapon and began a chant that he never mentioned to anyone. It was the ace up his sleeve in case he came across a spirit like this.

The spirit froze and fixated on the stone in Jimmy’s hand. Things started falling to the ground one by one. “What’s happening to me?” begged the spirit.

“This is a source stone.” Jimmy intoned with the same reverence and calmness of the chant in an ancient forgotten language he was just using. “I have been told that this magic was around before the Earth even. Before what people call God, or Yahweh, or Allah, or any of the myriad of names humanity has tried to embody to a concept they can deal with to answer the unknown questions. To make them sleep better and think that there is some grand reason and plan they are a part of. To make themselves important.” He watched as the spirit came back to being just a face. Not menacing, arrogant, or threatening in any way anymore. Just placated, and drifting. “This may have existed since before the Big Bang made any of this possible to exist. This is the source of all, and you are returning to that source background radiation where we all must go someday.”

All that remained were eyes and a mouth, and they whispered, “Thank you” into the silence pressing from all around where there was once cacophony and chaos.

Jimmy sighed as the last speck sparked from view. “Done.”

Jimmy slumped down the stairs, bleeding from a few places, freshly bruised in others. He turned to his car, and opened the back. Jimmy’s version of a first aid kit was a bit bigger than most. It was a small duffle bag, like most used to carry a change of clothes and such to the gym. He leaned on the hood patching up the worst of it, and seeing if there was anything he missed. Just taking a bit of a breath after the events of the day. Well, the last few hours of the day anyway. He looked over the building again, just taking in the cracking and faded paint.

Eventually, he decided it was time to go report in. He walked slowly to the office door again, looking to the mirrored glass on one side of the door, and the open desert to the other side. Opening the door, he took a moment to revel in the cool air coming from inside before walking in. The lady at the slot machine was just wrapping up it looked like. The bag of coins smaller than when he had left. The man behind the counter was now watching the local news, for all it was worth. It was up to the sports part of the broadcast it looked like. Turning, he saw the office door open once again, and once again, no lights on.

“It stays cooler, and I get enough light from the boob tube out there anyway”, said Abby as she ignited a torch lighter.

Jimmy watched for a moment as the end of the cigar began to glow as it began to burn. “What’s that?” he asked as he stepped in, and the lights came on.

Abby blew out a billow of smoke. “You were wondering why I don’t have the lights on. They are incandescent, so they put off a touch of heat. Also, that TV is bright enough.”

“Got it,” Jimmy sighed as he slumped down in to the chair. This time, it was more comfortable. That tends to happen after being beaten around for a bit by random junk that a poltergeist is throwing.

Abby leaned forward and rested her chin on her hand with the cigar leaving a wisp of smoke trailing near her ear. “How was it?”

“Twenty-three.”

“That counting the dogs and cats?”

“Nope. Only the human souls,” he paused for a moment and winced as he leaned to far to one side and hit what might be a broken rib to the arm. “And one nasty poltergeist”, he said pulling away and rubbing the area a little.

“Impressive.” Abby put her cigar in her mouth and chomped down on it smiling with it between her teeth. “I didn’t thin’ anywoun woul’ get Daryll there.”

“I’ve seen worse. Not much though.” Jimmy sat straighter in the chair with a squeak and possibly a tearing sound from inside the cushion somewhere. “About the actual job…”

Abby sprung to standing, grabbed the cigar and put it to rest on the edge of the ashtray. “You are right!” she said emphatically as she pointed at him with a flourish while coming around the desk. “Come with me.”

Abby grabbed Jimmy on the way by as she led to the front door and outside. There she held her arms out at the side of the office. Jimmy stepped forward and looked around. There was a whole lot of desert, sand, and a few cacti. Nothing to be making a ‘tadah’ motion at like she was.

Jimmy turned to her genuinely confused. “I don’t get it.”

“Whereee… is my… office?”

He looked again, and it slowly dawned on him. The door to the hotel lobby was on the very right edge of the front of the building. There was a turn to the left. That lead to the desk itself. Turn right, and there was Abby’s office. Only, there was no office on the outside. After some time and looking around wildly, Jimmy mustered a “Wha?...”

Abby came up and draped her arm over his shoulder, and chomped down on her cigar again, puffing a few times. “You’re getting there, dear.”

“You left that in your office.” He pointed at the cigar.

“Uh-huh.” Puff, puff.

“Your office doesn’t exist.” He pointed to the area of dry scorched desert.

“Uh-huh.” Puff

“So,” he swallowed on a dry mouth coming to a question he didn’t want to ask. “When did I die?”

“Binbo!” She started back to the hotel lobby door.

“I thought you said you owned this hotel,” Jimmy called out.

“I did.” She opened the door. “When I was alive. Then I got promoted to ‘Galactic HR.’” The door closed with a clatter behind her.

Jimmy stood for a moment. He felt his knees get weak, and the world got cold. The sun was still beating down on him, but he had the cold that you feel when the blood just flows out of you from a big shock. He looked at his hands and watched the cuts that he hadn’t bothered to cover with bandages heal over, and go back to unblemished skin. He looked at one of the bigger cuts, tearing away the bandage to find nothing. No sign that he had ever been bleeding. After another moment, he marched to the door and walked in.

“Damnit!” exclaimed the balding man at the counter. “Need to get that door fixed some time” he mumbled to himself before going back to leaning on the counter and watching TV. Next to where he had his elbow was Abby. Sitting on the counter.

“He can’t see or hear us,” she said with a smile, and blowing smoke at the man. “You didn’t think it strange that he didn’t ask you about getting a room when you came in?”

Jimmy walked over and waved his hand in front of the man’s eyes. “What happened?” he asked turning to Abby. “I don’t remember dying.”

“You wouldn’t.” She hopped off the counter. “You were shot in the back of the head. Remember that last deal you took to work off your debt?”

“With Frankie? She wouldn’t do that to me.”

Abby smiled and took his hands. “She did. Sorry.” She took a breath and sighed in pity. “You finished the job, but she didn’t want you passing on the secrets you learned from those murder victims. So, she followed you, and shot you in the back of the head as soon as you called her to say you were done.”

“What do I do now? Why did I end up here?”

Abby started walking back to her office. “Same way I have an office here. I put you here. As for the first question, that’s the real job.” She opened a coat closet and rummaged around inside for a few seconds as Jimmy slowly walked to follow. “Where the hell did…,” something fell over making a crashing sound. “Whoops! … did I put that… Ah! There it is.” She reemerged saying, “The last person that took this job did their hundred years, and so it’s time to hire a new person.” In her hands was a great scythe. It was rather plain, wood handle and a blade that likely should have been cleaned of rust a few years back. “How about it? Up for being the Harvester? Death? The Grim Reaper? Humans have such fanciful names for you lot.”

Jimmy looked over the tool.

“What do you say?”

Jimmy reached out and took his new job.