The Hotel

The hotel bar was quiet. The few clients who were still drinking all seemed to be middle-aged businessmen sat alone at their tables. Michelle sipped her Archers and lemonade. She had drunk enough in order to feel the buzz of the booze and decided that she’d had enough to be able to sleep that night. She never slept well in strange places or beds. She finished her drink and headed towards the lift up to the 3rd floor. When the lift pinged she got out. She noticed the air felt strange. Heavy and still. It was strange but she put it down to possibly having one too many. She turned the corner onto her rooms corridor and stopped in her tracks. A man was trapping a frightened-looking woman against the wall. She stayed still and watched their conversation. Not quite able to hear what was being said all she could hear was the woman crying. It looked like a domestic between a couple as the woman was allowing herself to be trapped and not trying to escape. Then the man leaned over and kissed her. Yes, Michelle decided definitely a domestic, nothing that she should get herself wrapped up in. Still, she stayed and watched. She didn’t know why she just had a feeling that she should keep her distance and keep an eye on them. The woman turned from the kiss. The man hit the wall. The woman whimpered. She started to struggle to get out from the wall. She pushed the man. He wobbled almost falling over, the woman started to run away from him and Michelle. Michelle decided the man must be drunk as the woman seemed too small to have enough force to push him as hard as she had. The man ran after her. She turned to look at him, but she stumbled. Hitting her head on the windowsill. She lay on the floor. The man knelt next to her. Michelle could see blood on the windowsill. The woman had been badly hurt. The man stood. Michelle could see blood on his hands where he had examined the wound. She hid back behind the corner before he could spot her. Then headed to the staircase and ran down towards the hotel’s reception desk.

The man behind it looked like he was trying not to fall asleep until he looked up as saw Michelle’s pale face and trembling body approaching him. He came out from behind it and sat her on a nearby chair. At first, Michelle could only sit and cry so the receptionist went to get her a glass of water. She eventually managed to tell the receptionist what had happened and he called the police. They were there in minutes. Michelle explained what she had seen and on what floor. The two policemen went up to look. They came back Half an hour later.

“How much did you say you’d had to drink tonight miss?” The older one asked

“What? I… I don’t know, not many. Do I seem drunk to you?”

“Have you taken any recreational drugs today?”

“No, I don’t take drugs. Shouldn’t you be up there looking after that poor woman?”

“There’s nothing there miss. We went over every floor. No body, no blood.”

“But I saw them.”

“Tell us again miss. What exactly did you see?”

“I got off the lift on the third floor. A man and a woman seemed to be having a disagreement.”

“What did they look like?”

“The man had short hair, glasses Black shoes, Black trousers, white shirt. The woman had light blue court shoes which matched her light blue dress. They looked like they had been out for a meal or something.”

“And what happened between them”

“The man was blocking her in and talking to her, but I couldn’t hear what was being said over the woman crying. Then he went to kiss her but she didn’t want him too. She pushed him then ran away. He followed her, she stumbled and hit her hear on a third-floor windowsill. She cut her head badly. There was a lot of blood, You can’t miss it.”

Michelle was beginning to get upset. The younger one crouched down in front of her looking into her teary eyes.

“Do you think you could show us where you think it happened?” He said.

Michelle got up and walked over to the lift, While they waited for it to arrive she said

“I don’t think. I know what I saw.”

Michelle and the officers exited the lift on the third floor. Michelle talked them through getting out and going to her room. When they reached the place she had seen the accident she stopped. There was no blood on the window sill or the carpet.

“But I saw it.”

She walked to the window

“She hit her head here, she fell here and there was blood here and here.”

She pointed out all the places to the policemen. She knelt down to feel the carpet. It was bone dry. She smelled her fingers, there was no lingering carpet cleaner odour.

“Perhaps you should get some rest miss, if anything gets called in we will be in touch.”

The policemen escorted her to her door. They looked around her room to put her mind at rest and then they left. Michelle was confused and now too scared and sober to sleep. she heard the TV on in the room to her right and wondered if she should ask if they had heard anything.

Timidly she poked her head out of her room and looked down the corridor, seeing no one she knocked quietly on the door with the TV on inside. The door was opened by a man in his early thirties.

“Hi, did my TV disturb you? I’m very sorry I’ll turn it down.”

“No you didn’t disturb me, I’m sorry to be disturbing you now. I was curious to see if you had heard anything in the corridor in the last hour?”

“No, I didn’t.”

“OK I’m sorry” Michelle turned to go

“Wait, what was I supposed to hear?”

“Oh, nothing. I thought I had heard people arguing outside my room earlier,” Michelle lied “I’m so sorry to have bothered you.”

“Arguing? outside? here?”

“Yes, it must have been my imagination, I’m sorry. Good night.”

“No, you look troubled would you like to come in and talk?”

Michelle debated on this. He seemed like a nice man. She sensed she could trust him and the company would be nice but she knew you didn’t go into strangers hotel rooms. As if sensing this he said.

“Please, I’m not a monster. My name is Ryan.”

He held out his hand and she shook it. He opened his door wider to show her his room. There was an almost full bottle of cheap whiskey on a small table by the bed in front of his TV.

“There’s room for one more and a nightcap,” Ryan said with a smile.

Michelle nodded and went inside. Ryan poured her a glass of whiskey and offered her the other bed in the room to sit on. They sat in companionable silence for a while. Michelle was enjoying the burn of the whiskey. It made her feel warm and safe. Then Ryan spoke again and she didn’t anymore.

“The fight outside, was it a man and a woman?”

“I never said fight. I said argument.” The small hairs on Michelle’s body prickled.

“Yes, sorry argument. A man and a woman? She might have been petit in a dress, he was tall and in a suit?”

“You said you hadn’t heard anything,”

“I don’t mean to upset you, but if that is what you saw, then it’s very interesting.”

“That is what I saw. Why is it interesting?”

“Look I would really appreciate it if you kept an open mind here,”

“You’re creeping me out right now, Ryan”

“I’ll be two minutes, I’ll leave the door open so you feel safe but I have something to show you.”

Ryan left the room Michelle saw him walk up the corridor then he came back with something in his hands.

“What’s that?”

“It’s a spy cam. The hotel wouldn’t let me film, so I had to be sneaky.”

“What are you? some sort of pervert?” The whiskey had relaxed Michelle, now her natural curiosity was overpowering the feeling to run.

“No, nothing like that, I’m a ghost hunter, would you like to hear a ghost story?”

“I don’t believe in ghosts, but I do like a good scary story.”

Michelle poured out some more whiskey for herself and Ryan then got comfortable on the bed.

“In this hotel about fifty years ago Mr and Mrs Johnston had an argument on this floor. They were both drunk from going to a party of some relative or another. The fought and Mr Johnston bashed Mrs Johnstons head into the windowsill outside, killing her. Every year on the anniversary they reenact what happened.”

“But that’s not what happened,” Michelle contradicted “They had an argument and she ran, he went after her and she stumbled and hit her head as she was falling, it was just an accident. Or that’s what I saw.”

“let’s see if I got it on tape”

Ryan plugged in the spy camera to the TV. Then he fast-forwarded the footage to when Michelle could be seen looking along the corridor. There was nothing there at first. Then there was a flash on the screen followed by a bang.

“That’s when he punched the wall,” Michelle said, leaning closer to the TV

Two orbs appeared by the wall then chased each other along the corridor.they grew bigger as they got closer to the camera until right at the end you could see a vaguely female shape being chased by a larger shape. The large shape reached towards the female as she turned losing her misty footing and crashing down onto the windowsill. The large shape formed into a man as he picked up the woman’s limp head. Then he stood and ran to the nearest door banging on it for help as the ghosts melted away.

“Well, I’ll be damned. He was innocent all along,”

“We should do something, this proves it”

Ryan looked at Michelle. He shook his head.

“No one will believe this and it was done illegally, we can’t do anything.”

“We must be able to do something, you made a believer out of a sceptic!”

They finished their whiskey in silence and thought about what they could do.

“I have an idea,” Ryan said.

He walked out of the room closely followed by Michelle.

“Mr Johnston, I have seen what happened to your wife. You didn’t kill her. Please find peace.”

Ryan stood in the silent corridor looking at the windowsill. Nothing happened. He turned to Michelle

“Well, I tried…”

Michelle shook her head at him and pointed towards the window. Ryan looked back. There standing by the window were Mr and Mrs Johnston. Their arms around each other smiling at each other. They turned to Ryan, Mr Johnston nodded at him in thanks before they faded away.