Vacancy

Chapter 2 - Thin Air

ONE MONTH LATER.

"You're still on schedule right?" Daniel asked the new foreman, Jim.

After Robert had disappeared, Jim had stepped up and taken over the team.

Jim threw down the plywood he was carrying, "For the last time Daniel, everything has been going according to the time line."

Jim was getting real tired of Daniel's hovering ways. He understood the business man's need for this hotel to be up and running as soon as possible, but Robert's disappearance had been stressful on the whole team. The police were involved when they had all reached the end of the day and Robert was the only one that hadn't emerged from the decrepit building. They panned out the entire asylum, but found nothing.

Robert's pick-up truck was still parked outside, so he didn't drive off. His wife and daughter had continually been to the site pestering the cops to keep searching. After a week of no results, the hounds had finally been called off.

So here they were, a month later with Robert still missing and the renovations being pushed on. Daniel's daughter, Samara, had come by the asylum today. A pretty little thing she was, Jim thought. She had a lighter shade of onyx skin than Daniel, perhaps something from her mother. A lithe body with a short, cropped hair cut. Very business-like, just like her father.

Fresh out of business school, she was going to help her father run the hotel. Jim could sense her distain for the place as soon as she stepped out of her aged, but well taken care of BMW. Her flawless face scrunched up as she took in the barely standing asylum.

"Dad, you got to be kidding me. Look at this place, it should be condemned!" Samara all but yelled as she gestured angrily towards the place in question.

"I crunched the numbers sweetheart. A brand new building would have added at least a million to the cost, even on top of all the renovations," Daniel reasoned, placing an arm over her shoulders.

Samara shrugged him off and stepped closer to the building. The hair on her arms were already standing at attention.

"This place is creepy, like Nightmare on Elm Street creepy."

She rubbed her hands along her arms, smoothing the spiked hair down. This place gave her the creeps.

"You won't be able to tell once it's all fixed up," Daniel said proudly. "And look at all this parking!"

Even Samara had to admit that it was a decent size. There was nothing worse than having to park a mile away from your hotel when it was booked up.

"Did they ever find that guy?" Samara asked her dad.

He narrowed his eyes. He did that whenever he felt challenged.

"You know they haven't, Samara. But I can't be held liable, especially when there's not even a body."

"It just seems so weird that he disappeared out of thin air."

"Maybe he was tired of the nagging wife," Daniel shrugged callously.

Samara narrowed her eyes in response. Daniel smiled whenever she did that, much to her dismay. She looked so much like him when she did it.

"Then why was his truck still here?"

"I don't know sweetheart, to make it harder to find him?"

Daniel was growing tired of all the questions. He wanted Samara to be as excited as him, not focusing on the grim details.

"In three months, this will be our legacy," Daniel motioned like conductor at a grand orchestra. In his mind, that's exactly as he pictured it too.