Hotel Dakota

The hotel on the edge of town was haunted, everyone knew that. There was a story that said the ghost of the original owner, Old Jim, haunted it. Some said it was his wife Abigail whom he murdered, some said it was the traveller Ahrnam Scott who hanged himself and burned the place out by kicking over a candle.

But in every story, there’s one common element—whoever goes in, doesn’t come out, ever.

So, naturally, my friends decided they would be the first people to see both the inside and the outside of the old hotel, and live to tell about it.

“Josh! Josh, will you leave it alone? You don’t know where it’s been!”

I rolled my eyes at Karen and hung back, determined not to be the first to chicken out. Which meant—

“C’mon, Corey. You can go in first.”

I tried not to groan, smothering it with a yawn instead. I hoped it was convincing. Josh, Karen, Marci and Irene parted to let me past, Irene waving her flashlight in my face. I shoved it away and opened the rusted gates, trying not to be disappointed when they swung open easily. Maybe there was still a gardener working on the property?

Glancing back at my friends, I slipped inside the gate, using my mobile phone to see in the darkness. It was a full moon, the better for the dramatic tension Josh was constantly going on about, and that made the grounds easier to see.

There was an old, rusted car beside us, probably from around the 1920s. It was tilted, its drivers’ side wheels in the ditch beside the driveway. I looked around, trying not to gulp. There were rusted skeletons of cars all around us, the latest maybe from the 1980s.

The car boneyard was more terrifying than the thought of the hotel at that point.

Marci stumbled slipping through the gate, and I caught her, still looking around. She did too, and gasped.

“Look at all these old cars!”

“Looks like no one’s driven through since the nineties,” Josh said, helping Karen through the gate. “Creepy.”

I rolled my eyes, trying to look unworried. “Let’s just get in so we can go home. I have a Maths final tomorrow.”

“Did you study?” Karen asked, then answered herself. “Nooo, of course you didn’t, Corey never studies.” She started to giggle, but they sounded almost hollow in the still air. The sound bounced off the car skeletons, and she stopped giggling quickly.

An owl hooted from the other side of the fence. I jumped, but covered the crunch of gravel with a cough. Beside me, Karen sneezed and josh cleared his throat. I guess I wasn’t the only one jumpy tonight.

“Alright,” Marci said, taking Josh’s hand. “It was your idea to come here, you can go first, with Karen. Irene, Corey and I will be right behind you.”

Josh glanced at Karen, and I rolled my eyes. I knew that look. There was going to be some screaming tonight, and not all of it by the girls. Josh was going to hide behind some doors.

Josh and Karen started up the drive. Irene took one of my hands and Marci took the other. Together, they half-dragged me up the driveway, trying not to lose sight of the leading suo before they went inside.

One we were in the old hotel, however, josh and Karen had vanished, but I could hear giggling off to the left, as much as they were trying to hush it. I led Irene and Marci off to the right, away from their giggles, and I heard a sigh of disappointment. With a smile, I went around behind the admin counter and gently lifted the sign-in ledger from the desk the thing weighed a tonne, and groaned when the thing shut on my finger.

“Got it,” I whispered, looking up. Irene and Marci were gone. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up. “Guys?”

The girls jumped up from the other side of the counter, crying, “Boo!” I swore loudly and dropped the ledger, which landed on my foot, the corner of the binding first. I swore even louder and bent down to pick up the ledger. There was no way I was going to be able to tell if I’d broken a bone in the small light cast by my mobile phone.

Suddenly the lights of the hotel flickered on. I jumped and ran around from behind the counter, staring, wide-eyed, around. Irene and Marci were gone, and I assumed they’d left. I shrugged and followed them, heading for the front door.

It was locked when I got there. I sighed and banged on the door. “Guys, let me out. This isn’t funny.”

There was giggling to my left, and I turned. I caught sight of a shape behind the admin desk and frowned, peering through the bright light at it. It looked like an old man, balding and grey on the top of his head, aging and wizened on the bottom.

“Hello?”

The old man woke up with a grunt as I neared the desk. I leaped back, dropping the ledger again, this time on the other foot, spine down. I cursed and swore, forgetting all about the old man until he rounded the desk and picked the ledger up, flicking it open.

“You looking for a room, son?” he asked with a gaspy kind of voice, picking up a pencil from the desk. “Just fill in your details and we’ll get you all fixed up—”

Very funny, guys, I called, turning my back on the man. “Come out where I can see you.”

“Who’re you talking to?” the old man asked, snapping the ledger shut. “Now that your details are all taken care of, would you like me to take your bags up to your room, or would you rather carry them?”

“Details, what details?” I asked, looking at the ledger the man was placing on the desk. It had opened, all my details—including the measurements of my genitals!—were recorded on the page, and the man was staring at me as though I’d gone nuts.

“I’ll leave you to carry them, sir. Now, if you’d be so kind as to follow me…”

“What’s going on here?” I demanded, glancing around at the hotel. Every step I took seemed to bring the hotel into greater cleanliness; indeed, I couldn’t see any cobwebs or dust anywhere, and the place had supposedly been abandoned for thirty years!

“This is the Hotel Dakota, sir, the finest live-in you’ll find in this great state.” The old man pulled out a handkerchief and coughed wetly into it, then tucked it into his shirt pocket. “‘Scuse me. Now, we have room service, though it might take you a couple of minutes to get a hold of anyone—we each pull all shifts, so we might all be out making beds or whatnot, just keep going down the list until you find a number that works—”

I tuned the man out, trying to understand what was happening so far. “Josh? Karen?”

“To whomever are you talking, lad?” the man asked.

“My friends, they came in here with me…”

“Did they now? Don’t you worry yourself, son, Old Jim’ll find your friends and see they’re led to their own rooms.”

“Um… thanks, I guess,” I said as the man stopped in front of a door. Room 14 the nameplate on the door said.

“This is yours. Don’t be surprised if you can’t get any of that newfangled technology to work, television only works around here now and then, when it wants to.” The man smiled, revealing all of his two teeth. “You have a good rest now.”

“Um… thanks…”

The man nodded and headed back the way we came, and I could imagine him whistling through his teeth and swinging his keys around, even though he wasn’t. There was just something about him that screamed, “Loves his job”.

A blood-curdling screech echoed down the hall. I bolted through my door and slammed it behind me, only realising what I’d done when the lights slowly faded up, revealing the lush interior of the room.

It was a rich room, full of plush furniture that was just a bit too red for comfort. I sat down on the bed, readying myself for a face full of dust, but nothing sprang up to tickle my nose. It was as though the bed had been changed just ten minutes ago.

I looked around the room, staring. There was something odd going on here. For one, I couldn’t remember why I’d come here. And for every second that passed, I could remember even less of what I was doing here.

Deciding to do something to keep my brain occupied, I lifted my phone, prepared to take on minesweeper and win this time. I clicked a few buttons, but my phone was dead. I threw it on the bed with disgust, lying back. Now I had no clue what to do.

Another scream echoed around my room. I jerked upright, my heart racing. That sounded like it’d happened next door!

I jerked the door open and almost ran over the old man. Jim was glaring near-sightedly down the hall, muttering something.

“What the hell was that?” I demanded, staring down the hall.

“The man next door probably has his television up too loud. If you’ll excuse me, I’ll let him know that he should turn it down.”

There was another scream, and I jumped. I was doubting the story of it being the television. Surely I would have heard something other than the screams, like someone talking, or some music, at least?

The old man shoved me back into my room, then made his way down the hall. I kept waiting to hear the noise get worse as the door opened, but that didn’t happen.

I waited for what felt like hours, but there were no more screams. Instead, I  huddled on my bed, waiting.

I sat there for so long that light began to bloom behind the window. I stumbled form the room and headed for the stairs, but I hadn’t even rounded the corner once before someone grabbed me, pulling me back. I opened my mouth to scream but they clamped their hand over my mouth.

“Corey, shut up, it’s me!”

I stared at Irene, then hugged her tightly. “This place freaks me out. We have to get the others and get out.”

“They’re dead,” she whispered, covering her face. “Corey, you have to get out of here, you have to run and get out of here, no matter what it takes. Forget about the rest of us, just run.”

“What? Irene, come with me—”

Something erupted form her chest and she lurched forward, eyes wide. I screamed and backed away, hitting the wall. Blood flowed from her chest and she fell to my feet, but vanished before she touched ground. I stared in horror at the place she’d been, until footsteps echoed up the hall. I turned tail and ran, determined not to meet the unknown killer.

I bolted down the stairs, determined t reach the front door, and tripped over a body. I turned to look, trying to shove myself off it, and recognised Josh’s features, frozen in terror. There was a slice across his neck, as though someone had only shallowly slit his throat, but he’d bled out anyway.

Mindless terror had me on my feet and sprinting for the door, determined not to stop again until I was safe at home in my bed.

The door was solid when I hit it, and I felt my ankle twist. I hobbled back and tried the handle, but the thing wouldn’t budge. I raced for a window and tried to push it up, but it seemed glued to the sill. I grabbed a chair and hurled it at the glass, sending the window across the front lawn. I dived out of the window and slammed into something solid. I looked up to find myself back inside the hotel, Old Jim in front of me.

“No one leaves,” he said, pulling me to my feet. “We’re all stuck here. Even death won’t release us from this hell…”

I stared at him. “What?”

“The cost of a night in this place is your soul,” he said, pulling out a large and scary-looking knife. “And with each night your soul is stuck here, the longer it will take you to work it off.”

The knife jerked between my ribs, and I felt it grating bone. My eyes rolled and I suddenly the world was lighter, but darker on my spirit.

“Welcome to the family,” Old Jim said, hauling my body up from where it lay at his feet.

*

Now every night we wait, sometimes impatiently, for the next traveller to come along and help us pay off our debts. To offer their souls forever to the Demon in room 14, the real owner of the hotel.