At the rundown beachside hotel I work at, I’m writing now as sort of a last testimony because I’m not sure I will survive the night. If I could go back 4 months in time I never would have gotten this job although I can’t blame myself for what’s been happening as it seems out of the blue, this is my documentation and last will. I got the job because I had been jobless staying at home with my mom, as a recent college grad with a degree and no job prospects, I was emailing my resume out but I was getting lazy about it and sick of being rejected so many times it was getting old. My mother harped on me constantly about how I didn’t pay rent and was lazy.
It all culminated into a fight we had when she got back from work one evening. “Have you sent out any resumes, heard anything?” She asked for the umpteenth time, and I was pissed, “yes” I lied, she gave me a knowing look and said “okay because this can’t go on forever”, this made my blood boil and I remember yelling at her to lay off me and that I was going to have to work the rest of my life anyway so let me have my time off. Well the constant grating of my nerves was enough I decided I probably didn’t need to spend all day watching Harry Potter book reviews on YouTube and other equally trivial time wasters. I went and applied for a job at the hotel down the road by the beach, I figured it would be a fun place to work and maybe I could meet some cute French Canadian tourist girls that come down for the New England summers. And that was how it all started, it was supposed to be a temporary thing, it made my mother sigh a breath of relief. It made me feel like i was doing something better with my time then just the usually lounging around jerking off.
Now before I get further I need to give some context on the hotel I work at. It was old, the weathered and sun worn exterior had been painted over many times, and the hardwood interior floorboards were covered with carpets to hide their uniquely warped shapes and sizes, a lot of the furniture was old and the wooden window panes really sold a certain whimsical charm. Now before the reader chides me for working at a place that seems so stereotypically haunted, it was actually a really fun place to be. There was lots of natural lighting, new summer crowds always moving through, and a overly hospitable staff that all got along swimmingly. Part of that was due to my boss Bob who had owned the place fifteen years, and though he was multiple times divorced and always seemed to be having affairs he was incredibly charismatic and charming always brightening everyone’s day. When he suggested that I work night shifts at the front desk and that he would pay me extra for it, he flashed his usual manipulative grin and I couldn’t help but agree. Besides it payed more didn’t it?
I had an ulterior motive as well because I had noticed at the end of my shifts that there was a cute girl Lila who worked nights that I would work with. She always seemed to catch me checking her out and would smile back at me knowingly. I had that sixth sense she was totally into me. Of course I didn’t know then that she had a boyfriend, but being a morally decrepit twenty two year old I am that didn’t stop me from flirting with her a lot over the next few weeks.
The weeks shed away up until one peculiar night two weeks ago when it all started. I had come into the artificial plant adorned lobby for the night shift, Dunkin’ Donuts coffee in one hand, a book in the other and I was ready for what I thought was gonna be a mundane night. The hours ticked by as Lila sat in the chair across from me scrolling through the TikToks she always annoyingly played at full volume. Now like most hotels there was an electric notification system. A button that you could press to call the front desk for assistance, it rarely ever went off at night but this night, peculiarly at 3am the light flashed on in its florescent orange, room 216.
I gave it a weird frown maybe somebody needed extra toilet paper or something so I got up to go investigate, as annoyed as I was it happened to be my job after all. I stood up and started walking down the hall not bothering to say anything to Lila who hadn’t noticed anything and was still sitting there mindlessly scrolling like a zombie. I walked down the long silent hall to room 216 and gave a short few knocks on the door that rung out breaking the silence, “hello housekeeping” I said. There was no reply so I tried again. Odd I thought, but they had pressed the button after all so I decided to use my master key and I bellowed, “okay I’m coming in!” And I slowly opened the door. What I saw next was what started it all, it scared the living shit out of me.
On the bed, completely covered by a white sheet was the form of a man, there was blood stains on the sheets and there was a faint metallic smell permeating the air. The hair on my neck rose up and I felt a chill to my spine. I couldn’t see any of him besides his hairy arm poking out from under covers and hand pathetically laying on the nightstand index finger reaching out close to where the call for assistance button was. Now I only looked at him for three seconds before stepping back into the hall and closing the door my heart was pounding rapidly. Even though I hadn’t investigated at all, I was convinced of the scene I had seen. I was shaken up and I walked back to the front desk to Lila.
“Lila” she gave me a peculiar look and saw me shaking slightly, “there’s a dead man in 216”. “Haha quit fucking with me” she said laughingly. “No I’m dead serious” I said. She was convinced I was trying to scare her. She asked, “what room?” in her confident arrogant way and just like that we were walking down the hall to go see it. When she slowly opened the door and peered in, I was standing ten feet back parallel to the wall anxious not to gaze into the room again. She swung the door open slowly at first then rapidly, “phew” she said. “Stop messing with me” she seemed annoyed.
I bit the bullet and decided to look again. The room had changed I could’ve sworn the desk was on the other side and now it was just a plainly made bed and clean tidy empty room staring back at me. “I could’ve sworn” I stammered, stopping myself short. “Gotcha” I said, half heartedly trying to cover myself. I usually never acted this weird around her and she was picking up on it. It was that kind of awkwardness you feel watching a sex scene with your parents. Also I had just wasted her time and I was feeling incredibly perplexed as to what I had seen earlier. Now I’m a pretty straight edge guy I don’t do drugs, that is, besides smoke pot from time to time and that one time I did shrooms with some friends on a camping trip. But I knew I was dead sober and couldn’t help but ask myself if I had hallucinated.
The rest of the night Lila and I didn’t talk I spent my time sitting at the desk googling questions about schizophrenia and hallucinations aimlessly. I felt so lucid, I thought. Besides what I had seen made me so anxious, and thinking about it now made me want to barf. I was genuinely concerned I might be going crazy. If I see anything again I’m gonna consult a psychiatrist I thought. I mean I had a lot of stress in my life over my living at home and life anxiety in general, the sense of meaninglessness introspective teens have and of course a “lost soul mentality”, so I chalked it all up to just that, a manifestation of my anxiety.
I had the next night off and I hate to admit it but I had already brushed it off, the way we all do these sort of traumatic events. I distracted myself with tv that whole next day, I was watching food network mindlessly as I slipped into sleep on the couch. That was when I had my first nightmare, the minute I fell asleep I felt my body transition into the long carpeted hotel hall of floor two, the light yellow walls sped by me as I floated down the hall towards room 216. My stomach sunk. I started trying to dig my heels into the ground to stop myself, somehow I knew what was coming, my heart was pounding desperately and I began frantically trying to stop myself. I couldn’t help but float in the air stopping just outside the room. Somehow everything felt too real, I couldn’t swallow my mouth was dry. The door suddenly almost bursted off it’s hinges flinging itself open.
The room was completely different the floor was grassy and there was a grave in the center of the room, I was speechless as I saw my name on it saying Sunday the 16th, which was just two weeks away. I awoke with a bolt. In a crazed frenzy I flung myself from the couch and ran to the bathroom and began to splash water on my face. Taking deep breaths my heart rate started to slow down. Glancing at the clock, I saw I was only asleep two hours. I couldn’t understand what was wrong with me and that was the worst nightmare of my life. Nightmares are associated with stress right? but why was this all of a sudden occurring? And why was it all centered on this one hotel room? Now Im a scientific man but I slowly started to build a supernatural case around this room, by any means I knew I would never volunteeringly go in there again. Sitting on the couch mindlessly clicking the tv on, it whirred to life I knew sleep wasn’t an option that night and I was pushing to the back of my mind the oddly specific date on the gravestone about the two weeks.
The next day was work again, at the time I was doing an every other night kind of thing throughout the week, I was grumbly strung out and tired that night at work from not sleeping hot the night before. Lila picked up on this funk I was in as I was quieter than normal cheery self and my eyes were half closed while scrolling through Reddit on my phone.
Shortly after midnight that night at the front desk to the hotel lobby a breeze from the ac kissed my neck and the hairs stood up. I looked up from my phone and noticed there was a man across the street, way past the front glass doors I was looking through. He was standing by the bus stop bench on the opposite end of the parking lot. The light shone down on him but he was wearing a black raincoat and the hood was casting a shadow that just covered his eyes, his hands were behind his back and he appeared to be looking right at me. It was unnerving as he was the only person out there. Making sure Lila was still there I shot her a glance, she was busy casually watching Netflix, when I looked back to the street the man was miraculously gone. It had only been a fleeting second or two, and there was no chance he could’ve hid anywhere. Theres no trees on the street and everything was lit up by streetlights. Goosebumps covered the skin of my arms and thighs I shuddered violently. He was so far away I didn’t get a close look at him. I wasn’t aware at the time that he would soon be making many more appearances in my life. Why can’t he leave me alone?
The rest of the night was smooth and upon returning home I slept soundly. My off day was great, I got in a run and read some of my latest book and at this point nothing weird had happened to me other than what I thought was the minor bus stop thing. Maybe I was relatively same, this illusion of sanity went away the instant my eyes shut on my pillow that night.
This nightmare started out as if it were a normal work night. I was sitting next to Lila at the front desk in the big open hotel lobby filled with those artificial flowers and rickety couches, when suddenly Lila said to me, “whose that over there” pointing out the door towards the street. My chair as if on cue, swiveled towards the glass doors and I saw the thing that scares me shitless. The man I had seen the night before was there under the streetlight, except in this dream his hood was pulled back a little bit and his maniacal bright eyes were incredibly wide openstaring right at me. He garnished the widest toothy smile possible. The smile was absurd, his face appeared locked in that expression, and my heart was going frantic. After the two seconds that felt like an eternity our eye contact broke my chair swiveled around again to Lila. She was sitting on the edge of her seat gazing into my eyes intensively, through the locked eye contact she said, “why aren’t you at work tonight?” My stomach squirmed and I felt guilty, I wanted to look away from her.
I woke suddenly in my house on the couch again. Shaking slightly I switched the tv on and didn’t sleep the whole night I turned on all the lights in my living room and closed all the blinds, nervously glancing around at the windows or the kitchen for the man I had seen. The warning had shocked me, I didn’t feel I could sleep soundly unless I was at work. Resolving to ask my boss for every possible shift from then on out so that I could sleep at night. Another thought occurred to me as well, to ask him if anything haunted or weird like this had happened before. I would ask him nonchalantly of course. I had been a naturally very sane person with an easygoing disposition, I refused to believe I was going insane. I had dove off the deep end and accepted what was happening was supernatural.
I went in early to work that next day to catch my boss, exhausted yet again from barely sleeping another night. He was in his office in the back room behind his massive presidential style desk. He flashed his magnanimous smile at me as I walked in. “I want to work every night, I know it’s hard to find people for nights” he laughed at me, but he accepted. It was impossible to keep night workers and I had been there second longest after Lila. I proceeded to make some small talk asking about his kids he had with his ex wife he had cheated on, and other trivial topics before I casually asked what I wanted to know. I asked if he thought the place was haunted, “no” he said good humoredly chuckling. “Why, do you think it is?” “I don’t know” I lied, “maybe someone’s said something before about like certain rooms?” “Funny you should say that,” Bob said, “when I bought the place from Philip, way back when, he sold the place to me for very cheap, he was a geriatric old fellow a bit too loony for my taste. He kept insisting there was something wrong with one of the rooms, I think it was like 214 or 216,” my heart skipped a beat, “of course he got dementia and died the next year he always gave me the heebie jeebies though”.
I think at this point Bob picked up on my shock and quietness after this revelation, he had great people skills after all, street smarts as they say. “What’s wrong?” “I think I’m dehydrated I said” exiting the room shortly after, prompted along by my bosses order to get water. My shift started. I stood posted at my desk scanning the street, my phone in my hand ready to snap a photo at a minutes notice. Scared yet determined.
Heading into work now for what I’d probably my last night… I will update the rest when I get there as I wait at my desk with my shotgun.