My parents tragically lost their lives when our house caught on fire and they were trapped inside. Now I’m on my own in Arizona with no money. I didn’t know what else to do but look for a job and try to find some place to stay. I was looking for anything that payed decently without requiring many qualifications, and unfortunately jobs like that are really rare. I did stumble upon one listing for a job as a hotel front desk and room cleaning service that payed surprisingly well. Even better is that the job included a room to myself free of charge. This is exactly what I needed since I didn’t really have any place to call home at the moment. I didn’t recognize the street that it was listed to be on. I looked it up and found out it was in the middle of a small desert in the area.
What the hell do you need a hotel out there for? I thought to myself. There’s nothing even out there to do. Didn’t matter me to though, this was my best shot at having a roof over my head and some money flowing in. Surprisingly there was actually a bus route that goes all the way out there in the middle of no where. So I spent some of the little money I had to catch a bus ride down there so I could apply. I looked at the bus’s hours of operation and strangely it only ran at night. Between the hours of midnight and 4 AM. Around midnight I found the bus stop and waited for it to arrive.
It finally came around 12:12 PM and this was one strange bus. Completely black exterior with tinted windows across the whole cabin space. Didn’t have any signs on it indicating where it was going or anything. The doors open and I saw the bus driver sitting there in a black tuxedo and red tie. I stepped up onto the bus and greeted him. He didn’t respond at all, he didn’t even look at me. I stood there awkwardly for a bit before just deciding to take my seat. Maybe he’s tired or having a bad night.
There were a few other people on this bus, none of which looked at me at all. I made my way down the bus isle and found a seat toward the back. I always like sitting toward the back of buses, I don’t know why, it just feels a bit safer that way. We rode for a while before reaching the next stop, then an old couple got on. They had on long dark rain coats which I found quite odd since it wasn’t raining at all. They sat toward the front of the bus. Then we rode straight to the hotel and it was actually quite a long ride. Took close to an hour to get that far in the middle of a desert.
Seriously, what the hell is a hotel even doing out this far anyway. No one spoke a word the whole ride and it was practically dead silent except for the occasional road noise. When we arrived the bus came to a halt with a long loud hiss. The doors opened and the all passengers besides me stood at the same time. They all picked up their things and exited the bus in an almost robotic way, like it was some kind of routine for them. I stepped off moments later and saw the hotel in person for the first time. It was actually pretty nice, beautiful lights illuminating the plants and flowers near the entrance.
I walked in and was greeted at the reception desk by a young dark haired woman. Her name tag read “Ariel”
“Hi welcome, Can I get you a room?”
“Uh…No sorry I’m here about the job application.” I replied.
“Oh I see. Great! Please come this way, follow me.”
She led me back into a room right behind the reception desk. Inside looked to be a break room of some sort with tables, chairs, coffee machines, and other snacks.
“Please, Take a seat.”
I sat down in one of the chairs and she sat in the one across from me.
“So you saw our ad in the news, did you?”
“Uh yes” I awkwardly replied.
“Great, so what we’re offering is a decent paycheck as well as a complementary room to call your own. The only thing we ask in return is that you follow our 3 most important rules here at our establishment.”
“Okay, what are they then?” I said.
“First is that you don’t talk to anyone about anything that you see here during your employment. Second is that you do whatever any of the guests tell you to do, no matter what it is or if you want to do it or not. Lastly never go into room 592. These 3 rules are very important and should be followed or else employee safety could be at risk.”
She grabbed a clipboard, with an employee contract on it, and placed it in front of me.
“Wait, what do you mean employee safety could be at risk?”
“So, would you like the job?”
Did she just straight up ignore me? I thought to myself.
“How come I can’t talk about this place?” I asked.
“If I told you then I would break the first rule myself, silly. Now is that a yes or no?”
She had the most positive and bubbly air about her but it made me uneasy. I didn’t really have a choice with the position I was in. I can’t just turn down a job that promises to give me a roof and money.
“Sure” I signed the dotted line.
“Great, you can start first thing in the morning. Let me show you to your room.”
She escorted me out of the break room and to the elevator that was located down one of the long hall ways. We went to the second floor and stopped at room 295.
“Alright, here you are. Your employee uniform is already in the closet ready for you in the morning. Have a nice stay.”
She gave me my key card and turned around and took the elevator back down. I opened the door to the room and was surprised to see how nice it was. The whole room looked very clean and organized. Beautiful queen sized bed, big spacious bathroom, large TV, and a nice small kitchen. It had it all, I can’t believe they are letting me stay here just for being an employee.
I walked over to the closet to see the uniform Ariel had mentioned. When I opened the closet I was shocked to find the uniform had a name tag pinned to it with my name already on it. Wait a second, did she even ask for my name? No she didn’t. How could it even be possible that it has my name on it if I never told her my name? This definitely creeped me out a bit. I closed the closet and went to go take a shower before going to bed.
I awoke to knocking on the door at around 5 AM.
“Get up sleepy head, it’s time to start.” Ariel said from the other side of the door.
I got up and quickly put my uniform on and opened the door.
“Let’s go, you don’t want to be late, do you?”
We went down stairs to the lobby and Ariel went over basic educate for the hotel and how to treat guests. As well as standard procedure for cleaning the rooms.
“One of our responsibilities is to make sure all the rooms are neat and tidy for our guests return. No matter what kind of mess they leave in their room, it must be clean for them when they come back.” She said
“Okay I understand.” I replied.
For the first couple hours we only had one new guest arrive. He asked me to carry his bags to his room. He was a young man that had red hair and a lumberjack style beard. I did as I was told and grabbed one suitcase and carried it while rolling the other one behind me. He was assigned to room 81 on the first floor, so he walked beside me as we made our way there. His bags were really heavy and on our way to the room I could smell something awful coming from one of the suitcases. I asked him about it in a joking manner.
“Wow what do you got in here? It smells like something died in one of these bags.” I said with a chuckle
“I guess you could say that.” He replied with laughter of his own.
“Wait what?” I thought to myself. He isn’t serious right?
We arrived at room 81 and he swiped his key card to get in.
“If there’s anything else you need, just let us know” I said.
“Sure thing.” he responded. Then closed the door and locked it.
A little taken back by that comment about the bag I stood there, pandering if he was being serious. I turned around and made my way back to the front desk. Ariel and I stood at the front desk for another hour before a very old man came out of the elevator. He wore a cabby style hat with a blue shirt and jeans. He was also carrying a strange white container. He stopped before going out the front door and turned his head to the side.
“Good day, Ariel.” He said in a very deep raspy voice
“Good day.” She replied.
Then he walked through the revolving door.
“Who was that?” I asked Ariel.
“That was the guest from room 597.” She said. “Why don’t you go up there and tidy up his room for him while he’s gone.”
“Oh sure, no problem.” I replied.
I grabbed the cart full of cleaning supplies that we push around to each room. I wheeled it down the hall and up the elevator to the fifth floor. The elevator came to a halt with an unsettling screech. The doors opened and I walked down the hall of the fifth floor. It was then I passed the room she had mentioned to me. Room 592, the room she said to never enter. The door looked way older than the others, like no one had cleaned it or dusted it in ages. There was a strange cold air about the door as I passed it.
I arrived at room 597 and swiped the master key card to open the door. Everything seemed normal upon first entering. The bed was already made and there were no dirty towels on the floor or anything. Strangely though when I opened the bathroom I found the bathtub full of ice. That’s not all, along with the ice there was what I could only assume was blood all over the floor and in the bathtub. I stood there in shock, what the hell was I even looking at here? I walked back over to the cleaning cart and grabbed a mop and some supplies to clean all the blood. It took over an hour just to get the bathroom looking somewhat clean again.
I took all the blood covered ice out of the tub and put it in a garbage bag. I put it on the cart and then tidied up the rest of the bathroom. When I made it back down to the first floor I wheeled the cart over to the back door, took the bag of bloody ice, and threw it in the dumpster out back. When I was done I made it back to the front desk where Ariel was stilling waiting.
“Well, were you able to clean the room?” She asked.
“Yes but listen Ariel, there was…” That was all I could get out before she reached out and grabbed my mouth and held it shut.
“I don’t care about the details, we can’t discuss what we see in here with anyone, remember?” She said in a somewhat stern voice.
“Ah right, got it. Apologies.” I replied.
That was the first time she had broken her usual bubbly positive tone and it was definitely frightening. The old man returned about 6 hours later with a young man that looked to be in his late 20s. They both went up to his room.
Nothing else really note worthy happened for the rest of the day. I returned to my room around 11 PM still thinking about what I saw in that old man’s room. As I laid there in bed I remember feeling really uneasy, like someone was in the room with me. Every time I looked around the room there would be no one around. I eventually just ignored the feeling and went to bed.
I awoke in the middle of the night for seemingly no reason. I had the same uneasy feeling from earlier but there was no one around and it was dead quiet in the room. It wasn’t until I tried to sit up that I realized I couldn’t. I was frozen, completely immobilized on my bed. Suddenly I felt an immense pressure push me into the bed, almost like there was weights all over my body. I began to freak out desperately trying to get out of the bed, trying to flail my arms and legs to no avail. I tried screaming but no noise escaped my lips. I was stuck under the weight of something I couldn’t see.
The pressure was getting so intense that I was starting to choke, gasping for air like I was drowning in an ocean. I could feel my consciousness slipping when the pressure abruptly halted and I once again could breathe and move freely. I got out of the bed and ran to the corner of the room, still panicking as I tired to catch my breath. What the hell was that? Whatever it was, I couldn’t see it and it nearly killed me.
My heart rate and breathing slowly returned to normal, but needless to say I didn’t get anymore sleep. I stayed up and I’m writing this now. It’s around 3:30 in the morning and I’m already starting to wonder if taking this job was worth it in the first place. Technically writing this up and sharing it online breaks the first rule of the contract but I’m hoping they don’t find out. Assuming I make it through my next couple shifts I will update this log for you all.