Arc II, Chapter 15: I have no arm but I must wave…

“I’m sorry I didn’t do more to scare you away,” the Stranger said, his shame evident by the light of the moon. “I feared you would end up here. I was going to ramp up the crazy to prevent you from staying here. I was. Honest. Then I realized that if I rattled you too much you would tell the hotel staff and everything would be ruined. I barely managed to get the previous guests to leave. I thought the suite would be empty tonight.”

“Why did you need the room?” Dina asked. She could summon an intense curiosity when she wanted to. It was almost an excitement. I could tell she wasn’t just playing her character. This game involved speaking to the dead, a preoccupation of hers.

“I assume you saw the board game on the coffee table,” he said.

“Yes,” Antoine said. “And the instructions from the trash.”

“Oh,” The Stranger said. “You saw those.” He paused, his eyes staring into the distance. “So you know what I’ve done then. I initiated the ritual. The Ten Second Game as the kids call it. I know how ridiculous it sounds. I would never have believed it myself if not for… the proof.”

“You’re saying that you can talk to ghosts using a board game?” Antoine asked.

The Stranger didn’t answer at first.

The tension in the room was high. We were all afraid. So often we had to hide our fears of what was to come because our characters should have been clueless. Not this time. Not this storyline. Our characters would be very afraid because our characters were all based on us.

“Not the board game, that’s not what’s important. The bell,” he said. “That device calls to spirits. They are drawn to it because it gives them a way to interact with the living world. That’s what my daughter told me. The spirits just wanted to talk. Now I’m convinced it’s something far more sinister than that. I believe they want to join us and some are willing to do so by any means necessary.”

“This is insane,” Antoine said. “I’m calling the cops.”

“Won’t help,” The Stranger said. “The call will go out, but they won’t be able to help until the game is over. The first time I played the game, my neighbor called the police in because of the screams. Cops said no one was home. But I was. I was playing the game.

“My daughter, Sidney… she heard about the game and played it with her friends. The first time you play it, you won’t even know anything happened for sure. You’ll stare out the window and wind the bell and you will think that there is something outside, but you won’t be sure. But they are there. The more you do it in one place, the surer you’ll be.”

“How many times have you done it?” Kimberly asked, clinging to Antoine’s side.

“Five times,” he answered, “Three of them here. Last night I managed to get rid of the guests–sent them to another hotel. The nights before there were no guests here so I booked the suite and had the place to myself. But this place has been the host to the Ten Second Game many times before I got here. Last week, my daughter and her friends came here. They wanted to try to contact Jedediah Geist. This used to be his place. It’s a Carousel tradition. Low square footage for a Geist residence, sure, but he was always the black sheep in that family.”

“Where’s your daughter now?” Kimberly asked.

“I don’t know exactly,” he said, “But she called me. Left me a strange voicemail. I could barely make it out, but she said the ritual was real. When she didn’t come home, I tried it myself. The hotel said she and her friends skipped out on paying the bill, but I’m not sure they ever left.”

“We need to leave,” Antoine said. “We’ll go, okay? I don’t want any part of this.”

“It’s too late.”

Antoine looked at him incredulously. He slowly left the storage room and went to the living room, pulling Kimberly behind him.

The rest of us followed, the Stranger included.

“Don’t open that door. You need to have a barrier between our world and the spirit world. They can pass right through open doors and mirrors,” the Stranger said.

Antione defied his warning and walked right toward the door, placing his hand on the doorknob.

“Don’t do this,” the Stranger said. “Please.” He threw himself at the door and begged, “Let me prove it to you first. Just let me show you.”

“How?” Dina asked with intense interest.

“By playing the game. We have no choice, really, I invited the spirits. If we do not speak to them, they will get angry. We don’t want that to happen. The spirits are half asleep, unsure of their state in existence. When we anger them, that will change. I just need to find out what happened to my daughter. The last couple of nights I think I got somewhere. I’m almost there. Please.”

“What were the rules again?” Dina asked. She seemed eager to play.

“Only two people at a time. We go into one of the rooms and stare out the window,” The Stranger said. “Figures will appear. They will answer our questions using the bell. Do not look away until they have gone. They always forget what they are doing and wander off.”

“I’ll go first,” Dina volunteered.

I went to the bottom shelf of the coffee table in the living room and grabbed the game board and bell from where I had stowed it. I walked it over to Dina. She reached out for it but I didn’t let go. I stared her in the eye.

“You’re hoping he’ll be there?” I asked.

Dina’s expression changed. She blinked away a tear. “I have to try,” she said.

We were talking about her son. It was clear Carousel was going to bring him in. I thought I would help spur that along. Dina’s Encouragement from Beyond trope could be very useful in this story. Giving it a little bit more narrative foundation was the right move. That trope could give us an edge.

This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

I let go of the board.

“Let’s go,” Dina said.

The Stranger nodded his head.

They left and went to one of the bedrooms alone.

I never went Off-Screen. Carousel wasn’t showing the audience what was happening in the room with Dina and the Stranger. It was showing me and my friends’ reactions to it.

Our reaction to the ticking.

It wasn’t long before one of them gave a twist to the bell. Then it ticked down for ten seconds. We had no idea if it would ring or not.

Tick.

Tick.

Tick.

Nothing.

I stood and watched the others’ faces. Cassie was terror-stricken. Isaac was lost in his head avoiding reality. Kimberly was wrapped up in Antoine’s arms. Bobby was petrified. He had been the closest to the room they went to. He slowly stepped toward me.

Tick.

Tick.

Tick.

Nothing.

The dread was palpable. Ten seconds. That was long enough for my blood to chill. It felt like an eternity, but it also ended too soon.

Tick.

Tick.

Tick.

Nothing.

I noticed I had started holding my breath as I waited for the timer to tick down. The little bell was loud and it echoed throughout the dark suite. I started to see shadows dancing in the moonlight.

Tick.

Tick.

Tick.

Briiinnnggg!

My skin squirmed at the sound. My heart felt like it was going to explode. There wasn’t any more ticking after that. Only silence and breathing. I didn’t even hear what question they asked.

Dina and the Stranger walked silently out of the room.

Dina was aghast.

“Did you see anything?” Antoine asked through a lump in his throat.

Dina looked at him and nodded, unable to form words.

“We have to keep doing it until morning,” the Stranger said. “I propose we do it in shifts if you like. Otherwise, I can take care of it myself, but I am not certain the spirits will like being ignored. They may not have come here to speak to just me.”

No one volunteered.

“My grandmother always said spirits existed,” I said. “Said she could sense them. Guess what I’m saying is… I’ll go next. I have to see it for myself.”

I also knew that it was too early in the Party for anything bad to happen. If I was going to be alone in a room with a ghost, I would want it to be then.