Naha City, Okinawa, Japan. July 2002.
“What’s worse than the Yakuza?”
“This is a black market district; the Yakuza are the good guys.”
“Oh. . .yeah. . .that makes sense.” I said slumping into the van’s back seat.
“How much time before the typhoon hits?” Yurimi asked Ackley.
“It’s practically here. Can't you feel the wind hitting the van?”
The sky was darker and it looked like it was 7 at night instead of 3 in the afternoon. Ackley wove in and out of traffic avoiding scooters and stopped taxi cabs. He pulled out of the small alley-like streets onto the 222 headed towards Shuri Castle. Construction cranes jutted up across the landscape as more concrete bunker looking buildings were erected crowding out the tiled roves of the traditional Okinawan houses.
“I’m still waiting, patiently I might add, to hear why it’s called the Shadow Hotel San Wa and why it’s so bad.” Yurimi said.
“Besides the obvious.” I chimed in.
“It doesn’t exist.”
“What do you mean 'it doesn't exist?' Like on paper for tax purposes?”
“No, I mean it is not there. No such place in this world.”
“We just left our luggage somewhere. Yurimi’s mom gave someone our credit card information when she made the reservations. So it’s real.”
“Look. . .when I left the real Hotel San Wa I called Fujiwari and he said that the Shadow Hotel San Wa used to be a house that burned down years ago.” Ackley’s voice seemed to switch into campfire story mode. “The dude that lived there died in, of all places, the shower. He was burned alive while being in water.”
“Get out.” Yurimi said looking intently at Ackley as he drove faster on the 222.
“It gets weirder. When people walked by the ruins at night they could still hear sounds of a shower running.”
“A sewer drain most likely.” Even though I always considered myself a man of science, I winced inside because as soon as I said that I felt like Scully from the X-files. I was not a fan of Scully’s eternal skepticism.
“Maybe, but after a few years they built a new building over the ruins. They even did a Shinto purification ceremony on it and everything, but no one would go near it. No customers showed up and no one would work there. So it’s been unoccupied all this time.”
“That’s just a ghost story, man. It’s a real hotel. I have the hotel room key in my pocket.” I moved my hand to my pocket only to find it empty.
Yurimi was turned around in the front passenger seat of the van staring back at me expectantly. My heart was racing and could practically feel the dark forces aligning against us. I turned and looked up yet again at the swirling dark clouds over Okinawa.
“. . .Typical. . .” I sighed and shook my head slowly in defeat. “I really hate your mother, Yurimi.”
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