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“Oh yeah?” She grins.
“Yeah. No one makes me pee a little and gets away with it.”
She squeezes her eyes tightly closed and doubles over laughing, causing several people to turn and look at us.
As she continues to laugh uncontrollably, I tell our confused audience, “She’s one of those people who laughs at inappropriate times. Like at funerals and… during stories of a bunch of people dying and haunting a hotel.” I shrug. “But we still love her.”
At this, Erin’s laughter fades and she looks up at me, surprise etched into her face, I assume at my use of the L-word. Again, acting casual, I tell Ronnie, “Sorry, bro. Keep on going, please.” I gesture for him to resume his story.
He shakes his head, a smile twinkling in his eyes. “No need to apologize. It’s very nice to see my friend enjoying herself and laughing so much.”
By his tone, I pick up that maybe that’s not a regular occurrence, but not wanting to embarrass her in front of all the people now with their attention riveted on us, I deflect. “So they still report hearing ghost kids at this place?”
Ronnie nods. “Yes. Not so long ago, back when we had to get our camera film developed before we got to see the pictures we took, several people wrote to the hotel once they got back home, complaining someone had snuck into their room while they were sleeping and took photos of them. But upon closer examination, the photos seemed to have been taken from above.” His voice takes on his favorite creepy tone. “As if they were floating above their bed.”
Another collective shiver.
“Also, lots of people say the TVs like to flip through channels on their own.”
Our next stop is pretty crowded. Across the street is another tour group, the guide gesturing to our side of the road, so I put two and two together, discovering we’re right outside the door of a haunted hotel. Furthermore, from what I overhear Ronnie telling a couple at the front of the group, this is where our bathroom break will be. There’s a bar inside on the first floor that we’ll be able to get a drink refill if we choose to. Once the other tour leaves and the area quiets down a bit, Ronnie starts the story.
“A few hundred years ago, the building that stood in the place of this one—the lovely and extremely haunted Le Richelieu Hotel—was a Spanish barracks during the war. Not too far away, where the jazz museum is, was the French barracks. It was called Fort St. Charles. Some of you might’ve guessed that the reason the architecture went from French colonial to Spanish is because we were taken over. The French and Spanish obviously didn’t like each other.
“The first governor that was sent here by Spain wasn’t very effective and we ran him out of town. But unfortunately, the next one they sent, they sent with an army. Even though he was Spanish, his name was O’Reilly. As soon as he got here, he came over to Fort St. Charles and put to death twenty-four of their highest-ranking officers. And then he proceeded to make a jail out of the barracks for the rest of the soldiers. If you’re here, you probably love legends and ghost stories. So most of you probably know who Vlad the Impaler is. Much like the ruler who inspired Dracula and how he’d line the streets with heads on stakes, O’Reilly would periodically hang soldiers from the flagpoles right in front of their families, thinking it would deter anyone from trying to start a revolution. The Spanish ended up ruling us for forty years and when the French won us back, we only stayed on top for twenty days. But in that twenty days, we certainly didn’t forget about what Riley did to our men.
“We immediately marched down here to this block, which used to be the Spanish barracks, gathered up all their officers, and returned the favor out in what is now the parking lot.
“There have been several ghost sightings here. Most of them are of soldiers, for apparent reasons, out in the courtyard. And like a lot of places especially around here, whenever someone renovates a room upstairs, there is a lot of paranormal activity.”
And with that creepy revelation, he gestures for us to enter the haunted building.
Chapter 9
Erin
INSIDE LE RICHELIEU Hotel, I take a seat on one of the barstools to wait for Curtis to return from the restroom.
I try to gather my rampant thoughts while I’m out of his presence. The longer I’m with him, the more time I want to spend with him. And that is not good. Normally, after holding a conversation with a man I meet, whatever happens that night, it’s no big deal just to either go home alone or kick them out soon after getting to know them in a physical way. But Curtis…
