It was a dark November night. The trees painted pale shadows on our car as we drove through the dark abandoned streets towards our hotel. I had much rather gone home, but my parents decided we should go to a hotel in the area, since the drive back would take at least two more days. My father had insisted we drive back from our vacation with a rental car after he heard how much the plane tickets there had cost. This would’ve normally been fine with me, but not now that we were halfway across Europe. We were lucky to even find a hotel in an area this rural. And it was only a small diversion off of our route, and one highway exit later we were driving through this desolate village.
I say village, but it was really just one street with maybe a dozen or so dark abandoned houses, a couple of dead trees and not a soul in sight. The hotel stuck out like a sore thumb. It stood at the end of the street, towering above the tree line with a small roundabout separating it from the rest of the buildings. From the outside there must have been about five floors, all dimly lit by neon green exit signs. As we grabbed our bags and walked into the lobby, we were greeted with old Christmas decorations and an upbeat but slightly annoying jazz tune. There were no other guests in the lobby, and the only sign of life was a short receptionist in an old white suit, that looked like it was three sizes too small.
He seemed fixated on his screen and it was only after when we rang the little bell on the counter that he seemed to notice us. “Can I get you a room?’’ He asked with what sounded like a stuffed nose. ‘’Euh actually … yes?’’ My father replied, clearly taken aback by how direct the young man was. ‘’That’ll be two rooms then I’ll take?’’ The clerk replied almost instantly. Whilst my father handled the rest, my mother and I went searching for some coffee. From the lobby we passed some elevators and found ourselves in a small café/restaurant. From behind the bar a Balkan waitress was smiling at us with a smile like someone was pulling the corners of her mouth with their fingers. She started talking to us in an unknown, probably eastern, language, so we tried asking for coffee in whatever scraps of Lithuanian we could muster, since she didn’t seem to get English. After much signing she disappeared into the kitchen and, too our delight, returned with three steaming hot cups of coffee. My father had joined us in the mean time and handed me the pass to my room.
I had never really been to hotels, but in films and books they say hotels never have a room 13 or a thirteenth floor. That is why it struck me as odd that on my pass it said room 313. The owner was probably more concerned with getting customers, then with superstitions and bad luck. Apart from the front clerk and the waitress, we seemed the only guests in the building. My parents’ room was on the same floor, 309, down the hall. The hotel was built like the letter C. Curved, but without the two ends of the hallways not touching. There where however windows, so you could see into the other end of the hallway.
My room was located at an end of the hallway. When I entered, a waft of stale air filled my lungs. I put my luggage down and went over to the windows, expecting a view, but being met with the vague black shapes of trees an hills in the distance and the dead street beneath us. I closed the blinds and sat down in a leather chair. After pulling out my laptop and working on some projects, I got thirsty. So I stopped typing to get some water, only then I really realized how eerily quiet it was. Even the wind that had been moving tree branches around like puppets on strings had stopped making noise, which you would expect to hear blowing against such a tall structure. I figured it must be from good insulation.
After some searching I discovered a drawer with some glasses, but when I went to fill it at the sink, there came no water. In confusion I tried calling the front desk but the line wouldn’t get through, so I decided to walk down and check what was up. Since we went up to our floor, the hallway had been lit by yellowed fluorescent tubes. All of the doors were locked with keycard scanners, even the elevator and door to the staircase, But no matter how many times I tried getting into the stairwell, the key scanner wouldn’t react. The elevator wouldn’t open either, so, I started pacing in circles. Then I saw, through the windows, that the other end also had a stairwell, so I decided why not try my luck there. As I followed the curved hall, I was left speechless. When I reached room 300, where I expected the stairwell to be, the hallway went on and the sign on the next door read: Room 299.
This shouldn’t be possible. There was clearly an end, I saw it from the other side, and the first number of the rooms indicated the floor. There couldn’t be 313 rooms on this floor alone, there was no way, the hotel wasn’t that big. I decided to keep walking. 298, 297, 296. I kept walking. 209, 208. I took a minute to catch my breath. 134, 133. I was get more worried each room I passed. 23, 22. I was getting close. 03, 02, 01, 00. I froze. The hallway continued. Now in a straight line. -01 the sign read. I panicked and ran back the way I came, but stopped briefly every fifty rooms. I grabbed my keys out of my pocket and used my magic eight-ball key dongle to check if the floor was leveled and not on an angle. Never did the ball roll. The hallway was completely straight.
When I reached room 309 I stopped. My parents. The door was locked too, so I peeked in through a keyhole, and immediately smelled the same stale smell. The room was dark, the only light coming from the moonlight slipping through the curtains. Were they asleep? I noticed a weird white root like pattern on the wall, that my room didn’t have. I looked into more rooms through keyholes, but they were all the same. My room looked like the only one with lights and without the pattern. I wanted to try and look outside through the window at the end of the hallway next to my room. I really started to get scared when I realized a room 314, 316, 317… had appeared. There was no more window, or stairwell and elevator for that matter. Panicked, I ran into my room, 313, and checked my laptop, phone, the tv, nothing worked. I paced around the room, franticly trying to find something. The window!
At that moment I would have given anything to see the depressing black silhouettes of the trees and houses below. But I only saw the Hotel. It looked like the two ends had just simply connected from the C shape into an O shape. The outside hadn’t gotten bigger or smaller, there was no explanation. I looked at my watch an noticed it was 04.03 AM. I just decided to get some rest and fell backwards onto the dingy bed when the sleepiness finally fell over me. Tomorrow I would try to break the window and climb up to the roof. The last thing I saw was a weird familiar white pattern spreading onto the walls. I felt it spread on to me, but I was too tired from running to move. It covered me more and more before I drifted away.
When I woke up, I saw the front door. I was standing behind the front desk, looking at a blank screen. I could only dart my eyes around and see the white fungi like roots across the floor behind the desk going up my feet and covering my body like a tight white suit, holding me still. Across the lobby I saw my mother, behind the bar, white strands pulling her lips into a forced wide smile. They went into her mouth, holding her tongue down. A tear rolled down her cheek and got absorbed by the tendrils. I suddenly heard a familiar ‘’ding’’ and felt the strings pulling on my lips and throat.
‘’Can I get you a room?’’ I heard, echoing out of my mouth. It was me saying it, but It didn’t sound like me. It sounded cold and emotionless. I wanted to scream and warn them, get them to leave this cursed place, but I couldn’t. All I can do is try to get this message out, to someone. Every so often, the tendrils lose slightly lose their grip. I fight them and I’m able to type a sentence or two. I’m uploading this to the hotels informational channel. If you read this dear guest, I’m afraid it might be too late for you. All I can say for you is this:
Don’t go to sleep, in Lithuanian hotels..