Following breakfast, I decided to head back up to the second floor.
Part of my mind believed that there may have been something inside of Room 217 where I had seen the strange unknown man knocking on the door, calling out for 'James'. That man may have been the spirit of Dr. Bose - a doctor who may have known about Amy's death. At least, it seemed like Amy knew of him, though they had never met when they were alive.
The lift came to halt on the second floor, doors opening with a soft click.
As before, the colored streamers and balloons were there - littering the ground and hanging on the walls. Lamps, still covered in dust and cobwebs, flickered on and off - making me feel as if there may have been another presence nearby. I stepped onto the floor, the boards under the scarlet carpeting creaking with my weight.
I turned toward the way I had last seen the strange specter. The hallways were a bit brighter than before, the lights on the ceiling and on the wall glowing off of the red patterned wallpaper. I listened, hoping to hear something that would help guide to where I needed to be.
Nothing.
I sighed, "Then there's something I might need to find..."
I headed down the now brightly lit hallway toward the two doors where I had seen the spirit the day before.
Not to my surprise, both doors were still locked and tightly. I was glad that I had the decency to put my hair up with bobby pins and a hair tie before leaving my room for the day. I pulled one of them out of my thick locks, fiddling with it in my fingers before crouching down and sticking the end into the lock.
I had only done this once before. When I first started at university in my early-twenties, my best friend needed my help to get a few of her belongings back from an abusive boyfriend and was too afraid to go to the police - scared about what he might do to her if she called. Luckily, I had been playing around with the idea of lock-picking and - though illegal - we snuck into the arsehole's place while he was out. We did manage to get most of her personal belongings, but some items were missing - I figured he must've sold them after taking them from her in order to keep up his chav appearances.
I didn't typically care for him.
As for what I was doing, I knew that in order to help the other spirits like Amy Bell, I would have to uncover the secrets of the Sea View Hotel. I had no doubt that there was something going on with Jimmy Hall's mind - there was something keeping him from being completely honest with himself - and that part of him had done several immoral things in his lifetime thus far, wearing his skin like a disguise in order to hide.
I twisted and turned the hair pin a few times before the door let out a soft 'click.'
'We're in!' my mind was still pleased I knew how to jimmy a lock. I stood and turned the knob - opening up the room.
The room was dark and smelt of must and decay, dust hung in the air as if the room hadn't been entered in for some time. The light from the hallways bounced onto cobwebs that hung from everywhere - the carved bed, lamp shades, the wardrobe... even the remaining coat hangers inside the wardrobe.
I had to move quickly, just in case Jimmy had come up to clear out the main lobby of the second floor. I opened every door, looked in every nook - anywhere I could see in the darkness with the open room door leading into the brightly lit corridor as my source of light - looking for something, anything that would tie to the next spirit that needed to have their story told.
I started in the bathroom, opening the cabinets under the sink and around the backend of the toilet. Finding nothing, I turned to the main room. The wardrobe was empty, save for a few dust bunnies and mothballs. The trunk at the end of the bed had nothing in it either. I crouched onto the floor next, patting the ground under the bed with hope of feeling something. I only found a gum wrapper, caked in dust.
The final place to look was the bedside table. Surely, if it was something for the doctor, he had to have used it at some point?
I pulled open the drawers slowly, but both were empty. The top of the side table was filthy - covered in more dust and a few webs that had been abandoned by spiders as the years had passed. There was nothing on the shelving beneath the drawers, nor was there anything underneath the entire piece.
I stood and scratched my head, "Maybe the other room?"
'No, there's something in here,' my mind supplied, 'I can feel it.'
The sensation was unlike anything I had ever felt before. The air in the room felt heavy, as if it was holding its breath, and the strange sensation of being watched made my hand reach for the drawers again.
Maybe it's somewhere that I can't see...
I pressed my hand into one of the drawers, fingers grazing the wood. I pushed into the wood - and heard a soft 'click.' I withdrew my hand, surprised to see there was a secret panel hidden in the drawer. The base had lifted up, revealing a secret compartment in the lower part in the drawer. I reached in and felt something long and worn.
I pulled out what looked like a lanyard, a hospital badge in the plastic casing that hung the end.
The man I had seen in the hallway, knocking on the very door to this room, had his photograph on the badge. He had the same thinning grey hair and a light stubble - and was wearing a white doctor's coat with a deep blue dress shirt. The badge indicated that the man had once worked for the National Health Service - the government's funded health and wellness services for families - as a psychologist. But his name, written on the badge along with his signature, was one that was undeniably familiar.
Oliver T. Bose, Phd
***
I snuck into one of the bathrooms that were open on the second floor, with the intention of cleaning the badge off to get a better look at it.
After finding it and pocketing it, I went about returning everything to normal in the room - closing doors and cabinets, returning objects to where they had been originally. Then, quickly and quietly, I snuck out of the room and locked the door behind me. The lights around me had dimmed considerably, leaving me to wonder if someone - dead or living - had lowered them to throw me for a loop. With badge in my pocket, I rushed to the bathrooms that stood next to the entrance of the stairway, only a few more steps away to the elevator.
I sealed myself in, placing one chair in front of the door. A part of me was afraid that I had found something that could trigger the other side of Jimmy - which was something I didn't want to do at all - and I felt a quick need to protect myself and if I had to place a chair in front of the bathroom door in order to do so, then so be it.
Unlike most of the rooms that I had been in thus far, the bathroom had sort of an unsettling feeling about it.
The bathroom was nearly green in color and not a pleasant spring green - more of puke green. Parts of the room were dark due to the lack of the already dimmed fluorescent lighting, making the room even creepier. Cracks ran along the dirted floor tiling, walls, and two of the four mirrors by the sinks were destroyed, lines spreading across the reflective surfaces and creaking spider web-like patterns. One of the sinks had dirty water laying dormant - a smell of something foul emanating from that area.
I covered my mouth, willing myself not to throw up. I didn't want to lose my breakfast - especially now that I had found the badge.
Luckily, the furthest of the sinks was mostly clean - with a few grease spots here and there on the ceramic - and allowed fresh clean water to flow like a little spring in the forest. The warm rushing water easily peeled the grime and dust off of the badge after I had removed it from it's plastic holder on the lanyard. I could see Dr. Bose's picture a bit more clearly - he looked more like a middle aged man than what I had initially thought and his blue shirt was actually a deep purple. I wiped off the droplets of water and shut the water off before turning it over in my hands, looking for any other clues.
However, the faucet turned back on.
I shut it off again and stared at it. My eyes widened as I watched the knobs twist, pouring water into the sink again.
'We need to see something,' my mind spoke.
I backed away, dropping the lanyard to the ground but still clutching the ID card. Lights flickered - then, Dr. Bose was there.
He was still dressed in the dark purple shirt - though it looked black under the green fluorescent lighting - and dark dress pants and shoes. He was gripping the sink as he leaned over it, coughing harshly. From the mirror in front of him, I could see his lips were outlined in red, the same colored liquid dripping from one corner of his mouth - as well as on a handkerchief that was clutched tightly in one of his hands. I heard soft tinkling noises along with the sound of Dr. Bose spitting into the sink.
Did he swallow something?
He turned his head to the side, looking out toward the door, his face furrowed in anger, "James Alexander!"
When no answer came, he shouted again, "JIMMY!!"
Then he was gone, his rage echoing off the walls as I slumped to the floor.
First of all, I had no idea that I would hear Jimmy's real full name coming out of a doctor in a bathroom while he was coughing up something. Second of all, what was it that Jimmy did this time? From the sound of the noises coming from the sink and the red liquid around the doctor's mouth, I wouldn't have been surprised if Jimmy's other side had tricked him into eating sharp pebbles or mirror shards.
Regardless, I knew what I had to do now. I snatched up the lanyard and tucked it in my pocket along with the badge before moving the chair aside and opening the door slowly.
I peered out into the hallways, listening carefully. The entrance way was still empty, so I took the opportunity and moved toward the lift, heading back to floor one. I decided I would put the badge on my bedside table and take a short nap with the hopes of encountering Dr. Bose in my dreams. I exited the lift and began to head to my room, only to stop when I heard something.
Footsteps.
I turned around, wondering if I was going to meet Dr. Bose right there and then. But there was no one behind me. I swallowed hard, knowing that if I didn't get back to my room and lock the doors right now, something bad was going to happen.
I never got the chance.
As I turned, something long and hard collided with my forehead, causing me to black out. The last thing I saw was a pair of eerie brown eyes looking down at me, a wicked smile across a face I knew too well.
***
I could feel my eyes shifting around in my skull and a dull throb on the front part of my forehead. I reached up to touch it, assuming I would feel a good sized bump, but was stopped when a gentle hand captured mine.
"Not now, Miss Martin," a familiar voice spoke, "You have a bandage up there, I wouldn't touch it as it might get infected."
My eyes peeled open to a brightly lit room.
It looked like I was in some sort of hospital. The walls were painted white and bright light-emitting diode lights sat in the ceiling above, illuminating everything around me. I was in some sort of bed with hospital equipment all around me, though I wasn't connected to any of it - which was a good sign.
I looked next to me.
Dr. Oliver Bose sat in a wooden chair next to my bed, his pale hand still gripping mine that had reached for the bandage around my head. He was dressed in his dark purple dress shirt, black dress pants, and black dress shoes. When he released me, he leaned back into his chair and crossed one leg over the other. His hospital badge had returned to his person, standing out like a beacon on the darkness of his clothing.
"Miss Martin," the man spoke, "Do you know who I am?"
"You're Doctor Oliver T. Bose," I answered softly, "You were Jimmy Hall's psychiatrist..."