Out of the Mist by EvergreenWritersGroup Page B

day,
Harry, the manager, accosted Sally in the laundry room. “Sally, did
you finish with room 428?”
    “ Yes,
sir.”
    His eyes narrowed and
his tone of voice held rebuke. “I sent a guest up there earlier. He
came back in a huff, said it was a mess.”
    “ It was spotless when
I left it, sir. What’s the problem?”
    “ It’s a mess, I told
you. I just went up there myself. Get back in there and clean it
up.”
    Sally glared at her
boss. “But it was neat as a pin when I left.” She couldn’t help but
notice Harry’s face suddenly pale, just before he turned
away.
    “ Get it straightened
up. Now!”
    Sally climbed the
staircase, shaking her head and muttering. She didn't know what was
happening, but she didn't like being accused of not doing her job.
By the time she reached the fourth floor, she gasped for breath and
rested for a few seconds. She hesitated again before the locked
door to room 428. The last thing she wanted to do was open the
door, but she’d lose her job if she didn’t.
    She fiddled with the
key before the door opened. She stared in disbelief when she saw
the disarray. It would take her hours to put it back to order. What
on earth had happened?
    Dirt had been
trampled on the carpet, leaving large footprints. Empty dresser
drawers lay toppled in a heap. Pillows had been ripped apart, and a
few straggled feathers floated in the breeze from the open balcony
door. Dirty towels and linens lay strewn about the room. She
gritted her teeth and sighed. “This is what I’ve heard before. The
ghosts in the beds. The unexplained disorder. Harry knows this mess
isn’t normal. It’s the apparitions that have come. Yes, siree, them
ghosts have come.”
    Then her practical
side took over. “I’ll show them,” she muttered. “This room will be
back to normal in no time.”
     
    1950
     
    Clyde MacDonald
stared at the deceptively calm water. The ocean fascinated him—how
it spewed its guts one day and rolled in as soft as a baby’s breath
the next. Ocean’s End Hotel was similar, its usual serenity
disturbed by periodic machinations of strange apparitions that
haunted the place.
    Business had been
slow for years, and word of sightings and unnatural happenings
hadn’t helped. Fewer and fewer people wanted to stay at Ocean's End
Hotel. Over the years, he’d lost workers, as well as guests. Once
the number of guests slackened off, it was necessary to fire staff.
He couldn’t afford to pay the help when money wasn’t coming in.
Even his trusty manager, Simon, left.
    Cape Chignecto was
situated about half-way between Eatonville and Advocate Harbour,
both 20 kilometres away. Why his ancestors had built such an
establishment at that locale never ceased to puzzle him, though the
nearby residents must have been elated. The MacDonalds originally
settled in Eatonville, established by the Eaton family in 1864, and
several years later Freeman MacDonald built Ocean’s End Hotel high
up on Cape Chignecto. Eatonville’s population at its peak, when his
grandparents resided there, would have been about 350 souls, but
the village had been almost abandoned by the 1930s, with the last
year-round resident leaving in 1943. Advocate Harbour still
thrived—somewhat—and boasted residents who fished for a living.
Those folks, however, didn’t frequent his hotel.
    Why had he remained?
Why had he listened to his father and taken over the place? Running
a hotel had never been an aspiration. Still, he tried to make a go
of it, marketing the area as a tourist attraction to the bigger
cities like Halifax, approximately 250 kilometres away. City folk
liked to get away from hustle and bustle, and nothing existed on
Cape Chignecto except the hotel as a final destination—nothing but
the vast wilderness and the endless horizon, a prime location for
relaxation.
    Stories of shipwrecks
lured a few people, as did lurid renditions of ever-present ghost
stories. The excitement of exploring caves and tunnels at the base
of the