To
begin at the beginning, it was a moonless spring night, bible black. The mother
of the household was upstairs reading a story to her daughter to put her to
sleep. Flashes of sadness occurred in
the mother’s eyes. Downstairs an aged lady was weeping. She was heartbroken.
Before that beginning, however, it was
winter, a bright night, and a family of five was eating dinner. Joy and
laughter filled every corner of the house. They were all happy for the man of
the house as he was going to a coastal town as part of his job. He was a news reporter.
The part of the story they didn’t know was that there would be no glory in it. It would be risk taking…
His boss had promised to pay him
extra if he took the job, and he needed the money as his mother was very
sick. A daughter had also just been
born. But it would be dangerous. No one had ever returned from such a trip –
ever. The destination for the journey
would be a place that had come to be known as a “ghost house”.
The drive down was bizarre; he saw nothing
for he had concentrated on the long, winding road. As he got out of the car, a gentle breeze
blew through his hair. The golden sun was setting. He was amazed by its color;
deep red in the middle, softly fading into yellow. He could not hear anything
except the sound of waves and the sea gulls flying above him.
He had arrived at a lovely beach
hotel – quiet and peaceful. Those two
words kept echoing through his mind. He
had a beautiful view of the sun and the sea, and just outside of the hotel was
a gorgeous fountain with 1910 inscribed on it.
Carrying his suitcase, the father entered
the hotel, and everything seemed to be simple and tidy, but the lobby had a
very strange odor. He couldn’t describe
exactly what it was, but it wasn’t something he was used to.
No one was there to greet him, and in
looking around, he noted that along the wall there were hangers, but there were
no coats on them. No suitcases were
there. The place was unusually quiet and
he figured that the management must like earthenware pots for he saw them along
all four walls.
Deep
in thought, he picked up the sign-in register.
It was very strange to see that at least twenty people had signed in
yesterday, but there was no evidence that they were still there nor had any of them checked out. That was surprising as the hotel was in the
middle of nowhere and there weren’t any other hotels available. He couldn’t
account for the fact that he seemed to be the only guest.
While trying to figure things out, a
pleasant young man of about 25 years of age suddenly appeared and greeted him
with, “Hi, my name is Bob; it is nice to meet you.” He had a pleasant smile
with decent teeth, light blue eyes and a short hair cut. He smelled of a mixture
of kitchen odors and heavy perfume. It was a weird odor.
“Um… Hi, my name is Mr. Jordan, Bill
Jordan.”
A smile came across Bob’s face, as he
simply said, “I know.”
Mr. Jordan tried to smile in return,
but it turned into a weird one, as he tried to cover up an anxiety which was
starting to grow, deep inside his heart, as to how Bob would have known that he
was coming.
Bob ignored the smile and said, “Come
with me.” Jordan followed after him as they went upstairs to a very small, dark
room. There were two windows, but they
were closed, and when he glanced through one of them, he saw that it was locked
from the outside. The room was painted in a color between orange and red – sort
of strange for a hotel, and the room had the same unpleasant smell as the lobby.
His good first impression of the
hotel had faded away and was replaced by dismay at what he’d gotten himself
involved in.
It didn’t help when he heard Bob
say, “It can get quite boring around here these days. No one comes here anymore. Well, no one
really came here anyway”
Jordan listened, but he felt there
was something not rquite ight with what he had just heard. He chose to ignore it, however. Perhaps he was thinking just a bit too
much.
“How old is the hotel then?” Jordan
asked in a polite manner.
“Not too old; about three years old,
I think. It’s a shame it is shutting
down already”, he replied with strong emotion but there were something disturbing
about his facial expression. Part of his
face looked sad but his eyes…his eyes look more joyful than any other eyes Mr.
Jordan had ever seen.
“So do you own the place or do you
work for other people?” Mr. Jordan asked
out of interest, as the answer would give information he could report back to
his boss.
“No, I work for myself. I own the hotel;
it was only built about three years ago.” Their eyes met and Bob smiled
again. There was something about that
smile that made Mr. Jordan shiver, so he looked away to the window.
“So, everything in this hotel is
new?”
“Absolutely everything”, Bob said as
he reached for the door. “I have to go
now to get you your tea.”
Jordan let him go - not because he
wanted the tea, but something about their conversation made him felt really
uncomfortable. It was really weird to feel that way, as it had been just a
casual conversation, but he suspected that some of the things Bob had said were
not true and he’d need time to sort things out.
Bob came back in with the tea, but this
time he didn’t smile. He entered, put
down the tea, and walked out. It was as if he had mood swings - major swings in what he was feeling. .
While in bed later, Jordan thought
over the conversations he’d had with Bob.
He was trying to work out the various mysteries ihe'd encountered. There had
been several weird things. First, the pots; they all seemed to be really
precious and there were so many of them. If Bob was a pot collector, that could be the
explanation for there being so many of them, but he’d said that he’d had no
guests so how could he possibly have afforded all those wonderful and expensive
pots?
Secondly, the smell that was so weird
– sort of like vomit and really disgusting. The conversations had also been weird, and he
had a strong feeling that Bob was trying to cover up something.
Suddenly a thought came to mind; it was about the fountain from 1910 - that was almost few decades ago, but Bob had said all
the furniture came with the hotel. How could that possibly be if the hotel was
only found three years ago?
Another thing that bothered him was
that when he had told Bob his name, Bob had replied that he already knew that. That was strange! How could he have known?
The orange-colored room was also unexpected. It was so ugly and wasn’t at all what one
expected in a hotel.
The sign-in register in the lobby
provided more information to think about.
Why was it that there were twenty people signed in yesterday, but none
of them were here today. Why was he the only
guest?
In turning all these thoughts over
in his mind, he felt himself being overcome by the power of fear. It felt as if his whole back was glued to the
bed. As hard as he tried, he found that
he couldn’t move even though he heard slow, heavy footsteps coming up the
stairs.
As the sound grew nearer, he
imagined that the person must be tall and muscular – just like Bob – and he
tried to call out, but his voice wouldn’t work; the words seemed to stick in his throat –
were unable to come out.
There he was; helpless, paralyzed, silenced
by fear, and quite unable to protect himself. The window was locked from the
outside. He was trapped in a body that wouldn’t
move, he couldn’t speak, and yet he could hear things - like Bob coming up stairs,
and slowly the doorknob moved.
Jordan shut his eyes and prayed. He prayed that he would see his family again…
His eyes were still closed when the
door was suddenly BANGED wide open with a crash that echoed in his ears, brain
and heart.
Bob entered the room saying, “Hi, my
friend. It’s nice to see you again. How was your sleep thus far?”
Fear gripped Jordan so tightly that he
was shaking and unable to open his eyes.
Every blood tissue and cell in his body seemed paralyzed until he suddenly
felt a great pain in his stomach, and his hand was able to move toward it.
He felt some kind of liquid, and
just before he lost consciousness for the last time, he realized that it was
blood, and it was his.
No further details will be given of
what happened that night except to inform the reader that Jordan had been right about the mood swings. Ever since Bob’s mother
had died his moods had changed frequently without warning his short term
memory no longer functioned. The
following day, he would have no memory of what had happened and Mr. Jordan would
never speak again.
No one knows how many times such an act
had been performed before but it came to light during the investigation that one part of each body had been kept in
one of the pots.
The end of this account is like the beginning: It was a moonless spring night, bible
black. The mother of the household was
upstairs reading a story to her daughter to put her to sleep. Flashes of sadness occurred in the mother’s
eyes. Downstairs an aged lady was weeping.
She was heartbroken.