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Oh.
Grant wasblushing, and there was a shy little smile curling his lips.
Huck was instantly charmed, and he wished he could feel the warmth of those flushed cheeks. He smiled, reaching out to touch Grant’s face. His hand went through like it always did, but he was pleased to see Grant moving to feel his cheek as if he’d sensed Huck there.
Precipitation was practically preening. “See? Now aren’t you glad I did it? He knows he has a little admirer. He might try to make contact soon!”
“Yeah, until you start pinching everybody else’s asses.”
“I don’t really see anyone else worth pinching.” Precipitation huffed, turning to glance over the cast and crew milling around. “Then again…” He walked over to admire the two hosts. “There is always potential with enough imagination.”
Huck rolled his eyes.
The tour concluded after a quick visit to the old morgue, and the living scattered. Some got busy setting up cameras and wires, others brought in luggage, and they were all talking back and forth on walkie-talkies. Grant helped with the setup, chatted with the hosts, and he seemed to be very well-liked by everyone.
Well, except that one mean lady.
Huck really needed to learn how to touch the living so, if nothing else, he could flick her right in her stupid mean face.
Hours ticked by and once the sun went down, the lights were shut off. The two hosts went first to explore the darkness with the camera crew and some fancy gadgets while the others stayed back in the hotel office, where a command center of sorts had been established. There were laptops and several big monitors stacked together so they could watch live feeds from the many cameras.
Having watched ghost hunting shows when he was alive, Huck had a pretty good idea of what the different equipment was for. Huck tried to explain what EMF and thermal imaging were to Precipitation, but Precipitation was much more interested in doing what he did best:
Haunting the living.
Precipitation had a natural talent for interacting with the living world. He’d been able to do it from the moment he died, having regaled Huck with many tales of how he terrorized his sister’s wedding. He had been pretty sore about being murdered and more so when his family decided to go on with the ceremony as scheduled instead of waiting to hold his funeral first.
He’d smashed plates, shaken chairs, turned off lights, and slapped his sister at every given opportunity.
Precipitation was much more well-behaved now, plus he said it took more energy to do physical things than it used to. He could drain extra energy from certain objects to power his manifestations, but it didn’t always work for some reason.
Being a ghost was complicated.
Huck was glad he had Precipitation to help him navigate it at least. He probably would have gone nuts without his friendship, not to mention the century plus experience with being dead. It was how Huck had learned about the different kinds of spirits here, who was who, what was what, and which ones to avoid.
Shades were relatively weak and appeared to the living as shadows. They had once been active spirits like Huck and Precipitation, but they’d lost their memories and faded into almost nothing. Though they weren’t dangerous, they could be annoying, as they did so enjoy grabbing onto other spirits and trying to drag them away into the darkness with them.
It was easy enough to get away, and they rarely attacked because they had so little energy, but it was still best to avoid them to be safe. In large enough numbers, they could be trouble. Precipitation said the darkness that held shades was inside the hotel, and it was where the spirits ended up when they forgot who they were.
That was part of why Precipitation told the same stories over and over. He didn’t want to forget who he was and end up as a shade.
The next type of spirits were clock punchers. It was their one and only mission in death to follow the exact same routine over and over again for the rest of time. Some of them weren’t that much different than the shades, mere echoes of a person’s life that couldn’t communicate or be reasoned with. Others, like Mrs. Charles, were spirits who were very much their own person, but they were stuck in an endless loop.
If that loop was disrupted for this kind of ghost, it could be upsetting for them as many don’t actually know they’re dead.
For Mrs. Charles specifically, it was downright dangerous.
At nine o’clock every evening, Mrs. Charles would sit down in the Sapphire Dining Room and ring her bell for a private meal service. That was a gazillion years ago, and there was no longer a bell to ring. She still came down for dinner, however, and the bell was vital to her routine. It was up to Huck and Precipitation to make sure one of them was there to make a louddingingsound so she would go on with her meal.
If there was no ding, Mrs. Charles would get upset.
The last time she got upset was two years ago, and she’d gone on a rampage that collapsed the ceiling in the northern part of the hotel and took out one of the turrets.
Precipitation stressed that whatever magic held them here was directly linked with the hotel. If the hotel went away, they would too. So, it was in everyone’s best interest that Mrs. Charles got herdingevery evening at nine o’clock.
As much as Huck wanted to hang out with Grant in the command center, it was his turn to go ding. He left Precipitation to play with the hosts and headed to the dining room. He didn’t bother trying tomeltover there, opting just to walk instead.
Melting was what Precipitation called the weird floaty method of transportation that spirits had at their disposal. While the exterior walls of the hotel kept them trapped here, the interior walls, floors, and ceiling could easily be passed through. Precipitation could melt from one side of the hotel to the other in a blink. Huck had tried it, but it reminded him way too much of the shivery grossness of pulling a lump of wet hair out of a shower drain.
