Uncanny Trilogy

1. Taboos in the Hotel

In my country, we have a lot of taboos about staying in hotels. Some are well known: don’t take the last room at the end of the hallway; always knock before you enter; cover bedroom mirrors at night; don’t take selfies after dark. The reasons are always the same: to avoid a close encounter with a bitter ghost.

There are lesser-known rules, too. For example, if you see an open Buddhist scripture on the nightstand, ask for another room.

Of course, I was ignorant of all that when I was traveling in the American South, starting in New Orleans, ending up in Houston. I thought maybe superstitions from my culture didn’t apply to American ghosts.

It was 2017. I was in my last stop, Houston. I remember feeling a bit disappointed not seeing a single American ghost, not even in the hometown of witches. The hotel in downtown Houston was old, and the room was modestly cheap for its location. Yes, my room was the last one at the end of the hallway. The floor number was lucky, though, eight, auspicious in my culture. I didn’t knock before swiping my card, who knocks, anyway? And I did see a closed Bible on the nightstand. “Sure,” I thought. “I’m in the Bible Belt.”

Everything seemed normal. It was already hot and humid in May in Houston; a short walk left me drained. After some barbecue, I retired to my room, took a shower, watched an old show on TV, and went to bed early. I drifted off around eleven.

I woke to loud noises in the middle of the night. It sounded like a big family had returned to the room next door. A boy whined, the father intervened, someone kept slamming a door. It sounded like people, at least a boy and a girl, coming in and out of the adjoining room. I shuddered because, where the noise came from, there should have been only walls.

The girl began to cry. The mother argued with the father. Doors slammed again. I covered my ears with the duvet and told myself it was just some inconsiderate guests. Then someone knocked on my door. A voice said, “Come out and play with us.”

I had no lights on. I made sure I didn’t make a sound.

The knock came again. “Come out. I know you heard me.”

It was the boy. Then he began pounding on the door. I had both the bolt and the chain on, but the door shook as if it might give way at any moment.

I thought of the Bible. I don’t have faith, but I reached out anyway, an act of desperation, and pulled the book into the duvet, flipping it open at random.

The boy kept banging. Then, as if someone had snapped or broke something, I heard a woman’s voice from next door: “Dinner is ready.”

I stayed awake for a long time afterwards, afraid the noise would return, but eventually I slept until morning. When I woke, I thought it had all been a bad dream, until I saw an open Bible on my nightstand. It was opened to Matthew 8, where Jesus casts out spirits with a word.

Luckily, I had a friend in suburban Houston who let me crash for a night before my flight home. Her place was quiet and serene. I woke twice that night, but everything was normal.

Just as I began to shake the memory loose, I brushed past an old woman at the airport. She wore a floral dress and a wide-brimmed yellow hat. She looked polite and ordinary. But when our paths crossed, her smile dropped and she leaned close.

“The other day,” she said, cold as ice, “my son wanted to play. Why did you hurt his heart?”

I tried to move away, but she clung to my shoulder with three fingers. “Do you know what I had to do to calm him?” She raised her hand, her ring and pinky fingers missing. “He said finger dip was as tasty as raw oysters.”

“Mind your fingers,” she called out after me as I ran.

Do you want to guess how many fingers I have left?

2. Hurricane Irma

That year we had a hurricane. For a few days, the weather forecast had shown an image of a storm brewing and moving toward the East Coast of the United States. I kept track of it—not because I was afraid of the rain or the wind, but because I’d booked a flight to Tampa, Florida. It was supposed to be my long-overdue vacation. Sunshine and beach in September to prolong the duration of summer.

“Don’t worry,” my boyfriend said the day before my flight. “They’ll refund you. You might even get a partial refund from the hotel.”

He never understood. For him, everything was fine as long as he didn’t lose money. I desperately needed the break.

“Looks like the flight’s still on time,” I said, closing the laptop. “I’ll still go tomorrow morning if I don’t hear back.”

The following morning, I woke at 4:30 a.m. and called an Uber at 5. I left while my boyfriend was still sound asleep.

JFK was already packed. I was far too early for my 10 a.m. flight. My boarding pass didn’t yet have the gate information, but I didn’t mind. I found a window seat not far from the billboard where they updated flight information.

Gradually, the sky outside began to change its face. At first, it was overloaded with cloud—heavy, gloomy. Then, showers slanted their traces across the glass. As my gate information appeared on the billboard, the rain started to pour. I dragged my suitcase toward the gate, sometimes taking detours as more people crowded around the overhead screens. Some sighed. I saw the status of several flights change to “delayed.” I paused, waiting for my flight to show up. On time! Yes! I kept walking.

It was still about 90 minutes before boarding, I told myself. Anything could happen. Next to me, a young mother kept checking the news on her phone while her toddler played Fruit Ninja on an iPad. More “delays” appeared on the screen—in fact, all the flights heading south were now delayed. An elderly Mexican couple looked worried. The man let his phone speak aloud in Spanish:

“Hurricane Irma is expected to make landfall in Florida later today. It will bring high winds, heavy rain, and flooding.”

A murmur of groans spread through the crowd. I looked up to see “delayed” replaced by “canceled.” Still, our flight to Tampa promised to be “on time.”

An eerie feeling started to tickle my throat. As boarding time approached, I felt as if ants were crawling all over my body. The airline staff appeared and announced they would begin boarding soon. Whispers rippled in different languages. People turned their heads this way and that.

Priority boarding. They called for military personnel, families with small children, and gold members.

The young mother kept asking the staff whether they were 100% sure the flight was safe.

Smiling too widely, the crew members reassured her that everything was done “by the book.”

She was about to scan her boarding pass but then pulled her son out of the line. “I’ll call my husband first,” she said to the man in the white shirt behind her. “You go ahead.”

The formally dressed man looked nervous and asked the staff the same questions.

“Our airline would suffer much more financial loss if we weren’t sure we could arrive safely,” the taller one said politely.

That man scanned his boarding pass.

Others hesitated, asked the same questions, hesitated again. The two staff members never stopped smiling.

Half boarded; the other half lingered.

When they called the last group, I scanned my pass without asking anything. The shorter staff member whispered in my ear, “Thank you for your patience.” For some reason, her smile felt unnatural.

We waited a while on the plane. I imagined the staff continuing to announce final boarding calls, and that the more they said it was safe, the more agitated people became.

The plane steered away from the terminal. I could hear rain pounding on its iron shell.

I was the only one in my row. A woman across the aisle was praying, making the sign of the cross over her chest.

When I realized I hadn’t even called my boyfriend, the pilot had already turned off the seatbelt sign. Well, he didn’t call me either, I thought, feeling a little sad.

The crew began offering drinks and snacks. They smiled just like the ground staff—too wide, almost clown-like.

“Take more cookies if you want,” the flight attendant said. “It’s going to be a long flight.”

The word “long” echoed in my head. It was only a three-hour flight—I wouldn’t call that long. But I drowned that slightly sinister feeling with Diet Coke and a cookie. When the attendant walked back, I asked for one more cookie. She offered two packs. That same clown-like smile.

I didn’t know what others were thinking. The plane was very quiet. Nobody snored. Only once, when we lined up for the restroom halfway through the flight, did anyone speak. A woman in her fifties asked each of us for our full names.

“David Speraw,” said the man ahead of me.

“I’m Martha Elizabeth Preciado Buzbee,” she said. “From this minute on, I want to remember everything.”

“Kevin Nugent,” the man behind me added. “I’m from a suburb of Tampa. We’ve seen hurricanes like this every year. Don’t worry.”

His words soothed us. When it was Martha’s turn to use the restroom, we fell silent again. Nobody asked my name.

The rest of the flight was uneventful. We didn’t even hit turbulence. When the attendant came to check our seatbelts for landing, it felt like everyone exhaled at once. The woman across the aisle made the sign of the cross again.

It was raining heavily in Tampa. I had over ten messages on my phone. Before I could read them, my boyfriend called.

“Where are you?” His voice was urgent.

“I just landed in Tampa,” I said.

“How come? Your flight was canceled. Hurricane Irma made landfall in Florida hours ago. I know we’re having a rough time, but please come back. We’ll figure things out together.”

He hadn’t sounded that caring since his promotion. I almost wanted to get on the next plane back home. But at that moment, I noticed something strange: all the flights on the information board were marked green—“on time.”

“Honey,” I said, “can you Google Tampa International Airport and check the flight status?”

He told me the airport should’ve been closed. I looked around—people were coming and going as usual.

Martha, the fifty-something woman, was waving at me from behind two moving walkways. She seemed to be mouthing “What’s your name?” as she gestured she was coming closer.

“Wherever you are,” my boyfriend said, “run! I love you!”

“I love you too!” I crammed the phone into my pocket and ran, dragging my suitcase.

Martha started running too. She didn’t have any bags.

I rushed out through the first gate and jumped into the first taxi I saw. Through the back window, I could still see Martha waving.

Knowing the taxi shouldn’t have been waiting outside, I called my boyfriend again. He stayed on the line as the driver took me to my hotel.

Everything seemed normal afterward. The hotel staff were polite and kept apologizing for the weather. “We have an indoor pool,” said the young man at check-in. “Feel free to use it.”

I spent the first day watching the rain from my room. The internet was iffy, and the phone signal weak. I clung to my boyfriend’s texts as if they were a thread tying me to the real world.

On the second day, I was bold enough to swim in the pool. Only one other guest was there—a pale woman in her late forties, using a kickboard to practice the basics. When we were both drying off on the lounge chairs, she said, “I’m Heidi Zehner. What’s your name?”

For some reason, her polite smile sent me running. I didn’t visit the pool again.

My boyfriend told me the airport had reopened the day before my scheduled return flight. “I’ll meet you at JFK,” he texted. “I miss you so much.”

I texted back that I missed him too, and that I wouldn’t leave him like that again.

After four long days, I had no idea what was normal anymore. I confirmed my flight status with my boyfriend: one hour delay? Right! When I saw the exhausted staff and the impatient travelers—one even arguing with a foreigner whose English was broken—I felt strangely relieved. The flight was almost full. Two people sat in my row. The attendant barely smiled when she handed out cookies. Nobody asked for anyone’s name while waiting for the restroom.

I felt almost reassured when the plane landed at JFK. I hugged my boyfriend for a long time, so tightly. Our tiny Brooklyn apartment felt cozy again. And I would agree to marry him a month later.

“It was like a very real nightmare,” I’d tell him one day after we became husband and wife. “A nightmare with very specific names.”

He’d reply, between bites of a bagel, “What was the name of that lady again on the plane?”

I’d still remember them: Martha Elizabeth Preciado Buzbee, Kevin Nugent, Heidi Zehner...

Casually, he’d Google the names for fun. Then, he’d pause and show me the screen—each of them had died during Hurricane Irma.

3. Careful What You Wish

I didn’t know such a thing as a New Year’s resolution existed until I moved to the United States. I assumed it was like a birthday wish: you blew out the candles, blushed a little, and forgot about the wish the next day. So I set up many resolutions over the years—learn a new language, work out daily, stop eating processed food—but like everyone else, I kept them only until late January. By mid-February, I was lazy and lousy again. The same old me.

But there is a difference between a birthday wish and a New Year’s resolution: the former stays private, and the latter you say out loud. And that makes all the difference.

The year was turning from 2018 to 2019. I was working as a student intern at the library. Sandra—another student intern who happened to sit with me on the last day before break—asked me what my New Year’s resolution was.

I gave it some thought. Sandra was a sweetheart, so kind you’d assume she’d never met a bad person in her life. She also had this habit of taking people very literally, which I never paid much attention to until later.

“I am going to kill my neighbor’s dog,” I blurted out.

I waited for her shocked expression so I could say I was joking. To be fair, I did have some issues with my upstairs neighbor’s dog. I lived in a cheap apartment with paper-thin walls. The dog woke at five a.m. every day and trotted laps across my ceiling. I’d filed complaints and only received automatic replies.

“Oh.” Sandra lowered her eyeglasses. She didn’t look afraid or offended. “How are you going to do it?”

I had absolutely no idea. No, I had no intention of harming animals. No, I was not that sort of person. But before I said anything, she continued:

“You know, my family killed a few mad dogs in the past.”

“Rabies?” I asked.

“Not that.” She casually flipped her bangs. “You must kill animals with rabies, of course. But these were the ones that didn’t behave. They sneak onto other farms, tear up the corn, steal eggs.”

I stared at her as if she’d become a different person. But she hadn’t. Her smile could still melt you. Her voice was still as mellow as marshmallows. In that same gentle tone, she told me about her family’s farm in the South. Things were different down there, she said. All the animals had to work. They weren’t cruel; they kept the rule of “three strikes and you’re out.” Meaning the animals could be warned twice before they were executed for their crimes.

We stopped chatting when a student dropped off a stack of books. Sandra asked him about his holiday plans. He said his family dog had just been put down. Sandra teared up immediately and told him she’d lost a golden retriever in high school.

“Penny loved potatoes,” she said.

“My Tin Tin loves cucumbers,” the student said.

Before the student even disappeared through the main gate, Sandra had dried her eyes. “So,” she said, shoveling the books onto the sorting cart, “how are you going to kill that annoying dog?”

I looked at her. Which side was the real her—the loving pet parent or the ruthless dog executioner? She blinked. She still looked like Natalie Portman before Black Swan.

“I was joking,” I said finally.

She didn’t laugh or say she was joking too. “We tried different methods,” she went on, dead serious. “Lethal injection, electrocution, hanging, firing squad. Lethal injection was the least messy. I can smuggle you a dose or two after break.”

No, I said. I apologized for even making the joke. I told her I was fine with my neighbor’s dog.

“On the positive side,” I reassured her, “getting up early makes me feel like I have more time during the day.”

I pushed the cart back to the archives. When I returned, Sandra had already left for break.

My neighbor and her dog went away for Christmas and New Year’s. I had a few weeks of peace. One day, I was so energized that I did some car maintenance: drained and refilled the transmission fluid, added antifreeze, and vacuumed the interior. A week before the spring semester started, they came back.

The first morning, at exactly 5:02 a.m., the ceiling thudded like someone rolling a bowling ball in circles overhead. Then came the scrabble of claws. The dog was back. My sanctuary of silence vanished.

But something seemed different.

The steps were slower, heavier. Between laps, the dog paused for several long seconds, as if confused about where it was going. After the third day of this odd pacing, I imagined it hobbling around with an ice pack tied to its paw or wearing one of those Elizabethan neck cones.

By the fifth day, the noise stopped altogether.

I told myself not to be paranoid. Dogs get tired. But the silence pressed down on my ceiling like a warning.

On the way to work, I ran into my upstairs neighbor at the mailbox. She was carrying a grocery bag full of soup cans and looked more frazzled than usual.

“Hi,” I said. “I haven’t heard your dog lately. Everything okay?”

She frowned. “You haven’t heard him?”

“No,” I said. “Not since earlier this week.”

She hesitated. “He’s been… really restless. Running around at night. Barking at the door. I thought maybe he was bothering you and you complained to management.”

I shook my head. “No. I didn’t file anything.” Not since December, but I didn’t add that.

“Weird,” she said. “Last night he kept running to the front door like he sensed someone outside.” She gave a thin laugh. “Anyway. Hope he calms down.”

I walked away feeling uneasy.

That night the noises returned—but faint, staggered. Instead of trotting, it sounded like the dog was dragging something. A rug? A toy? A wounded limb?

At 8 p.m., a sharp thud hit the floor so hard I sat upright.

I listened. Nothing.

Then a single bark. Short, rough, cut off almost instantly.

I threw on a hoodie and went into the hallway. Her door was slightly open.

“Lily?” I called. “Everything okay?”

No answer.

I stepped closer. The hallway carpet muffled my footsteps like I was sneaking through someone else’s dream. I knocked on the doorframe. Inside, the apartment was dark except for the blue glow of a paused TV.

“Lily?”

A shape moved inside. Low. About the size of a medium dog.

Relief washed over me. A tail flicked in the dim light. I hurried back downstairs.

But the next mornings stayed silent. A few days later, I saw Lily walking the dog. It moved slowly, like a very old animal.

“What happened?” I asked.

“The vet says he has kidney failure,” she said, her eyes red. “He said I should put him down, but I just can’t.”

“How all of a sudden?” I asked.

“He said it’s not uncommon. Dogs sometimes ingest toxic things outside.” She sighed as the dog sprawled on the snow-covered lawn. “He might’ve eaten something on a walk. The restlessness was an early symptom. I should’ve taken him to the ER.”

When I started my library shift the second week of school, Sandra came to see me.

“So?” she blinked her Natalie Portman eyes. “How was your break?”

“Did you do anything?” I grabbed her arms. “I told you I was joking about my neighbor’s dog.”

“Easy,” she said, brushing off my hands. “Jesus, so many dogs die in the winter. A dog in my complex died because she kept licking the car tires. And one engine dripped antifreeze.”

I bolted upright as if struck by lightning. I remembered pouring antifreeze that afternoon. My Toyota was old, and I’d noticed a small puddle afterward. Lily often cut across the lot to get to the dog park…

Sandra watched my expression shift.

“So you made the same mistake,” she said casually. “I won’t blame you. The owner shouldn’t have walked the dog around the cars. So dangerous.”

She turned away.

I stood there, my stomach churning.

I ended up in urgent care that evening. The doctor suspected food poisoning, but I hadn’t eaten anything. As the fluid dripped into my body, I felt a sudden awe for words.

I’d spoken a wish into the world—lightly, carelessly, as if words were nothing.

But someone, somewhere, had listened and responded.