The Chosen

Kyle was leaning against the pool edge, laughing.

“You are such an asshole, Kyle!” Vera yelled.

He continued to chuckle, slicking back his long wet hair. “Asshole? Me?” His laughter echoed. “That sure got a charge out of you. You think I was the creature of the black lagoon?”

“You’re a creature, all right,” Vera replied, and let her heart resume a normal beat. She lay her arms along the ledge, paddling her feet. He better be wearing trunks, she thought and tried not to be obvious about squinting. The low merging lights made it impossible to tell.

Kyle treaded water toward the deep end. “I don’t know about you, but room service was slammed tonight.”

Vera minutely smirked, still rowing her feet.

“Well, come on. How many dinners you do?”

“We did all right, Kyle. You don’t need to concern yourself with the restaurant.”

Kyle’s grin flared. “I get the message—you didn’t do squat for dinners tonight. Don’t worry, business’ll pick up for you.” He laughed again, harder. “Hey, maybe the ghost is scaring your customers away.’’

She watched him cockily levitate himself in the water. Horse’s ass, she thought. “Okay, Kyle, tell me about the ghost. You’ve been dying to for weeks.”

Kyle was a snide talking head atop the water. “The Inn’s got a bad history. Used to be a—”

“I know what it used to be, Kyle. Don’t bother trying to freak me out. Just tell me—have you ever seen it?”

“Sure,” he said. “The night before you and your gang arrived.”

Bullshit. “Okay, Kyle. What did it look like?”

“Just a big pale shape. Kind of hunched over, naked. Could hear its feet thumping as it walked. I only saw it for a second, stuck my head out the door, saw it moving down the second-floor hall toward the stairs.”

Now Vera laughed. “It was probably one of your maids going downstairs to snitch booze.”

“That’s what I thought,” Kyle said. “So I called out to it.”

“And?”

Kyle’s brash grin faded. “It turned around and looked at me.” Suddenly he seemed restrained, even distressed. “Looked like it…well, its face…”

Vera smiled, nodding. “Yeah? What about its face?”

“I don’t wanna talk about it,’’ he said. “You wouldn’t believe me anyway.’’

“Kyle, it’s not that I wouldn’t believe you. I already don’t believe you.”

“That’s cool.” He treaded closer, his head bobbing. “Just ask Mr. Feldspar about the wall contractors.”

“The what?”

“Three, four months ago, construction was getting a little behind, so we hired an extra contractor to hang all the Sheetrock and paneling. Had ’em work at night, to save time.”

“So what.”