My Creative Writing Piece

The Haunted Hotel

            I  heard the crash in the darkness. I saw the glowing figure. I wanted to run, but it was like my legs didn’t work. I felt as if I was walking on jello. I was so shakey. I didn’t know what to do, and for the first time in my life, I was afraid.

            It all started with the phone call. I was sitting on the couch one day, watching T.V. My mom was in the kitchen, washing the dishes. She had been laid off of her job a few weeks before, and was staying home until she could find another. Suddenly, the phone rang. I really am not a nosy person, and usually can mind my own business. This time was different though, because there was a surprised tone in my mom’s voice when she spoke. I listened carefully. It sounded like my dad’s voice on the phone, but he was away on a business trip, just like he often was. Then the voice cleared it’s throat. That is when I realized it. It was my dad’s brother, my Uncle Peter. He was quite rich, and had a beautiful wife.

             Suddenly, my mother shouted, “You’re kidding!”

             I knew that it must be exciting, for my mother only used those words when she was very surprised and happy. She hung up the phone very quickly.

             “John! John! Get in here!,” she shouted. I sprinted faster than a cheetah into the kitchen.

             My mother started talking so fast that it was hard to understand her. I don’t think that she even stopped to take a breath.“Your Uncle Peter just called and he said that his millionaire cousin who owns the huge hotel is moving to Florida and giving his hotel to Uncle Peter but Uncle Peter said that it sounds like to much work just for him alone so he wants to know if our family wants to co-own it with him and I told him YES!”

             I was in shock. That was unbelievable! I was going to own  a hotel! I couldn’t wait to tell all my friends that my family was getting the largest and most popular hotel in Milwaukee.

                Soon, it made front headlines. I was one of the most popular boys in the seventh grade. After a few weeks dragged by, which seemed like a few years, we finally had the paper work filled out and officially owned the hotel.                              

                After school on Friday, I was supposed to meet my mom at the hotel so that she could show me around. All day at school on Friday, I had trouble paying attention. The teacher had to remind me 3 times to get my math worksheet done, but I was too busy day dreaming of how we would remodel the hotel lobby and design the new pool. I was staring at the clock, thinking about the huge suite that my mom said that I could have. It would be my very own! The thought of two bathrooms, a flat screen TV, and four beds was enough to… “SLAP!” The teacher hit the wooden ruler down on my desk for the fourth time. I nearly jumped out of my seat. My face turned red as the whole class started laughing as loudly as the Bradley Center.

             After school, I sprinted the five long blocks to the hotel. As I approached it, I got a weird feeling. The air suddenly got chilly, and for some reason, I actually felt nervous. I had been to this hotel a few times before, but never to stay the night. After all, I only lived about a mile away. Yet, I have to say that the sign above the hotel looked strange to me today against the cloudy sky. The sign displayed my second cousin’s last name, Hamunsted. It was certainly a strange last name, but I found it quite interesting and unique. It certainly made the sign stand out right in the middle of Milwaukee. It is not too often that you are walking along and see The Hamunsted Hotel in bright orange neon on the top of a 20 story building. 

             As I jogged to the revolving doors at the front of the hotel, I realized that lots of my friends would be coming here quite often. I looked around the street outside to take in the surroundings. There was a Subway, a Pizza Hut, a sports store, and a lazertag arena right across the road. That was enough to please any teenager, so I turned and ran inside the hotel to find my mom.

               I walked in and was amazed. It was so much different than the last time that I had been in there! The ceiling in the lobby was extremely tall, and there was a giant, crystal chandelier hanging from it. It was awesome!

             My mom came running up to welcome me. “Isn’t this just beautiful?” she asked. “We just finished moving things around in the lobby here. The front desk was over there in the corner, but I like it better over on this wall, don’t you?”

            “Ya, it looks a lot better, but why did you say ‘we’?” I questioned. I didn’t see any other people in the room.                                                                                      

           “Because….. your Uncle Peter is here!” my mother shouted happily.  Suddenly, Uncle Peter appeared from behind a corner. “Hey! How’s it going?” he asked me.

           “Good!” I replied.

          I went up to him and we did our “secret handshake” that we had made up when I was nine years old.

           “Hey, you still remember the shake!” Uncle Peter said.

          “Can’t forget it!” I replied back. We all laughed.

          “So,” my mom said, “do you want a tour John?”

          “Sure!” I replied.                                                                                                                     

          We first looked around the first floor. There were a few meeting rooms and 4 large ballrooms. It certainly seemed like an old fashioned hotel. Next, we looked in the room where the future pool would be built. It was huge! There were a few workers who were designing a place for the new hot tub, a diving board, and a few slides. In one of the three hotel elevators, my mom showed me the buttons that controlled each of the elevators. While visiting each of the floors, I tried to memorize the layout of the hallways. It wasn’t that hard, but it got more confusing once we were to the floors with suites on them.

             On the nineteenth floor, my mom went and stood in front of one of the doors. “This,” my mom said, “Is your suite.” A big smile lit up my face. I would finally get to see my suite at last. But when my mom moved and I saw the sign on the door, my jaw dropped. The sign read, Presidential Suite. My mouth hung open, while my mom just smiled. “The presidential suite,” my mom said, “complete with a view, a hot tub, a mini pool, three bathrooms, two flat screen TVs, and four beds. Welcome to your room.”                                                                                                                                           

            When my mom handed me the key, I almost fainted. I was so stunned. I couldn’t wait to open the door. I jammed the plastic card in the slot and turned the doornob. The door clicked. I walked in and just gawked at what I saw. It was the most amazing sight that I had ever seen, and it was all mine! I almost just wanted to live in that suite. The hot tub and pool had their own little room with a view, which was beautiful. The bathrooms were huge, but the flat screen TVs were enormous! All together, there were a total of 3 rooms including two with beds, and one with the pool and hot tub. I just couldn’t wait to have my friends come and stay with me.

            By Friday night on the next weekend, I had two of my best friends planning to stay with me in the hotel. Their names were James and Dan, and they were very excited after all that I had told them about.

              The pool had been finished in record time, and we already had work schedules made out for all of the employees. Yesterday had just been the first night that we were open to the public, but things were already picking up very fast. My mom really was surprised at this and didn’t know why rooms were getting booked so fast. The hotel had a total of 783 rooms, and 300 were already booked for Friday. We couldn’t figure out why business could possibly pick up that fast. What was so special about the Hamunsted Hotel? I soon found out for myself.

                 My mom and I were going to pick up James and Dan on Friday. I went up and rang the doorbell at Dan’s house while my mom stayed in the car. Dan’s mom answered and let me in.

              “Dan!” she called. 

              Dan came running down the stairs carrying a backpack. “Hey, how’s it going?” he asked me.

             “Pretty good!” I answered.                                                                                            

             While Dan was getting his shoes on, his mom said something that took me by surprise. “Now you boys be careful and don’t stay up too late,” she said.            

            “Why?” asked Dan.                                                                                                          

            “Haven’t you ever heard the rumors about that old hotel?” she questioned.

             Dan and I looked at each other, and then shook our heads.

             “I’ve heard that it is haunted,” she said. 

             Dan and I exchanged glances and then burst out laughing. 

            “Alright,” said his mom with warning in her voice, “But don’t be surprised when you figure out that I was right.”

           We said goodbye and started walking toward the car. “Your mom was just trying to scare us,” I told Dan.

           “I know,” replied Dan, “She does that a lot.”

            As soon as we got in the car, my mom asked, “What took so long?”

             I responded, “Oh, well, Mrs. Johnson was just trying to scare us by telling us that the hotel is haunted.”

              Dan and I burst out laughing again, for we just couldn’t hold it in. I knew that it was nonsense, but the look on my mom’s face made me stop laughing. Her serious expression made me curious.

             “What?” I asked her.

            “Oh, nothing,” she responded quietly. After that, it was a quiet drive.              We picked up James and headed for the hotel. When we got there, I gave them a quick tour, and the three of us headed up to the presidential suite on the nineteenth floor.

                James seemed to have a nervous expression on his face as I stuck the plastic key into the slot on the door.

              “What?” I asked him.                                                                                                       

             “There are a lot of rumors about the rooms of this hotel being haunted,” he whispered.                                                                                                                                            

           “Oh-no! Not you too!” exclaimed Dan. “That’s what my mom said too!”            

             The lock clicked and we walked inside. James and Dan’s faces mirrored what mine had looked like when I walked in for the first time. They ran through the rooms yelling, “awesome!”

             After taking a dip in the pool, we sat down on the beds and started discussing. “I am really starting to wonder about this hotel,” said James. “I’ve heard numorous people talk about it being haunted, but it seems like a normal hotel to me.”

             “You know, you can’t believe every rumor that you hear,” I told him.                  

             “But don’t you find it strange that both my mom and James had heard of the same rumor?” Dan asked.

                “I guess that does kind of make sense,” I replied.                                                    

                 “And, it did seem like your mom was trying to hide something when we laughed about it in the car,” added Dan.

                  “Ya, I guess so….” I said as my voice trailed off.                                                        

                  There was a brief silence, but I spoke up. “It also makes sense to consider that the hotel business picked up so fast right after opening. I mean, what would attract more people, a normal hotel in Milwaukee, or a haunted one?”

                     “It all makes sense, don’t you think?” commented James.

            “I’m not sure, but I have to find out,” I said. “My mom told me that the Internet service providers were hooking up the public Wi-Fi this morning. We could probably find some information online, I just don’t know how we could get on a computer here. James, did you bring your phone?”

               “Ya, but it’s dead,” he answered.

                That was one thing that really made me mad. It drives me crazy to know that some people just walk around with their phone dead, or “out of minutes”, because you never know when you will need it. James was the only one of us three that had the “fancy” phone that could connect to the Internet. 

                  I grabbed the bedside phone and hit 5 for the front desk.

                 “Hello, front desk,” answered Uncle Peter.

                “Hey, it’s John. Is my mom nearby?” I asked.

                “Ya, she’s right here, just a minute,” he answered.

                “Hello?” my mom said.

                “Hey mom, are there any computers that we could use?” I asked.

                 “What do you need a computer for?” she questioned.                                     

                 “We-” I stopped as I got nervous glances from Dan and James. “I want to show Dan and James a new game on the internet,” I lied. The three of us breathed a sigh of relief.

            “I’m sorry,” she apologized,” we are going to have a few computers for guests downstairs, but the tech people haven’t hooked them up yet. They should be working in a week or so though. You’ll have to show them some other time. Why don’t you three come downstairs. I heard that there is a new pizza place that just opened up just across the road. It’s already 7:30, so I’m sure that your friends are starving. I told you that you should start being more courteous when you have guests around.”

                 Dan and James laughed, but my face just reddened.

                We headed downstairs and my mom gave us some money for pizza. While waiting in the restaurant for our 2 large pepperoini, stuffed crust pizzas, we made a plan.
               “There is one computer at least that I know of,” I said. “It is the computer at the front desk. And the guard? My sleepy Uncle Peter. I would put money on that if we went down to the lobby at midnight, he would be sound asleep in his chair.”

                Everyone agreed on that plan, as well as the tastiness of the pizza.

                On the walk back to the hotel, I glanced up at the orange neon sign that normally read Hamunsted Hotel. But this time when I looked up at it, my jaw dropped. I saw that the “m” and “s” lights were burnt out, and gasped when I realized what it spelled. Coincidence? I don’t think so.

                 James looked up and wispered, “Oh my gosh!”       

                I tapped Dan on the shoulder and pointed at the sign. Suddenly, all at the same time, the three of us all said together, “What are we going to do?”

                It was quiet for a minute, and then I wispered quietly, “Well, we still need to get on the computer and find out more about the hotel. The plan will go as planned. Just don’t say a WORD to my mom about it.”
              “Ok,” they agreed.

               Then, we cautiously walked back to the hotel.

               As soon as we got through the doors and saw my mom, I realized that I should have mentioned something about not looking or acting strange about seeing the sign. It was not as much Dan that I was worried about. It was just James that I knew was bad at hiding emotions.

               And, to my horror, my mom instantly said, “Hey- James what is wrong? You look like you just saw a ghost!”

               I just want to say, “Oh, you have no idea!” But I kept my mouth quiet. I didn’t know what to do, and I could tell that James didn’t either. Suddenly I could tell that a light bulb went on in his head. “Oh, what Mrs. Smith? I’m sorry, I was staring off into space. Can you repeat that?”

                It was really a cheesy explaination, but I was was surprised with my mom’s answer. 
               “Ok,” she said suspiciously. She accepted it, but I could tell that she only half bought it. I knew that she would be suspicious of us now.

                 Later that night, a little after midnight, the alarm clock went off. I had set it to get us up to go downstairs. I took a deep breath, for I knew that this would be quite an event. I got up, got dressed, then shook Dan awake. While he got up, I went and woke James in the other room as well. In minutes, we were ready to leave the room.

                 We were planning to take the elevator down to floor 3, and then the stairs to the lobby so that my uncle wouldn’t wake up from the sound of the elevator opening. But Dan, who was only half awake, accidentally pushed 1. I stood in shock.

               “Dan!” I wispered harshly. “Wake up! You just pushed the button that will take us to the lobby!”
               “But isn’t that where we are going?” he asked.

                 I sighed, for I knew that it was no use trying to explain something to Dan at 12:15 at night.                                                                                                                                   

                 When the doors of the elevator opened, we stood silent. I listened, and to my surprise, I heard snoring. We quietly stepped out of the elevator, and tiptoed across the lobby. We slowly and silently hopped over the front desk. I navigated myself around Uncle Peter, and shook the mouse on the computer. A blue screen came up, and then a login box. This was a bump in the road that I had not considered.                                                                                                                                       

                We all got discouraged looks on our faces as we realized that we would need a password. I stared down at my uncle while thinking, watching his Milwaukee Brewers shirt slowly go up and down. Suddenly it came to me. Uncle Peter loved the Brewers. I slowly typed ‘Brewers’ into the box and pushed enter. It made a beep sound as ‘Password Incorrect’ appeared on the screen.

               I remembered who my uncle’s favorite player was. “James,” I wispered, “What is John Axford’s number?” 

               “Fifty-nine,” he replied. I typed it in and pushed enter.

               “Axcess Granted,” roared the computer speaker.                                                       

               We jumped into the back room quicker than rabbits as my uncle snored loudly, and then turned. He still slept. We breathed sighs of relief.

           

              After the computer booted up, I clicked on the icon for Internet Explorer. I typed in ‘the hamunsted hotel’ on Google. We gasped when we saw that it had over 2 million results. We knew right then that there had to be something up.

             The first result was for the hotel’s main page. The second was a result from a website called Information.com. I clicked it. My uncle showed up along with a short biography about him. The next paragraph was titled: The Hamunsted Hotel and its history. That was the paragraph that we needed. It said:

      The Hamunsted Hotel is an old fashioned hotel located in downtown Milwaukee. It is currently owned by Peter James and Anna Smith. The hotel opened in 1923 by millionaire Robert Anderson and has been active ever since. It is rumored that it is haunted, because in 1934, a famous celebrity, Ella Jackson, sang at a party in the ballroom of the hotel. She later stayed on the 20^th floor of the hotel in room 2216. People say that she never checked out. Eventually, a hotel manager came to her room, and found her body lying on the bed, dead. No one knows who murdered her. Not many know that the 20^th floor is now closed down because of it. It is also rumored that her ghost still haunts the hotel, and does many things to get revenge on the hotel and the people in it. Legend has it that she haunts the 20^th floor, the basement, the attic, and the hotel pools. Guests of the hotel sometimes claim that they hear footsteps, knocking, sinks sometimes turning on by themselves, and other strange, supernatural events. Guests have also said that they hear the ghost of Ella Jackson moaning around midnight and saying that she will soon get revenge.

            Suddenly, it all made sense. The secrets, the rumors, my mom acting strange, and the wispering around midnight up in my suite. It was right then that I also realized that during my tour of the hotel my mom hadn’t taken me up to the 20^th floor. I knew now why, and my mom knew as well. It was haunted.

          

            I looked at Dan and James as they looked at me. We all had shocked expressions, but Dan’s was different than mine and James’. I could tell that Dan was excited. Instantly, I could read his thoughts.

           “Lets go up to the 20^th floor!” Dan whispered.     

           “Lets not!” exclaimed James, sounding very frightened.              

           They both looked at me, expecting me to say something, but I didn’t know what to do. I knew that we would need to explore for ourselves, but I was too afraid to go up to the 20^th floor. The words that came out of my mouth next surprised me.

           “Come on guys,” I said, “we are going up to the 20^th floor.”                                      

           When we got in the elevator, I realized that the button displaying the number ‘20’ had been taken out. That meant that the 20^th floor wasn’t even open to guests. I decided that we could go to the 19^th floor and take the stairs. 

           After arriving on the 19^th floor, we entered the stairwell. I turned to the door that led to the 20^th floor and saw that it had a big padlock on it. We all sighed, but James’ sigh was a sigh of relief.

           As we turned to walk back to our hotel room, Dan said something that to this day I can not figure out how the idea could have popped into his head.                         

         “Do your elevators have safety hatches?” Dan asked.                                                 

         “What?” I asked, like he had just said something completely crazy.                        

         “A safety hatch, like for emergencies,” Dan replied. 

         “I don’t know,” I said.

          James and I followed Dan back to the elevators. Dan pushed the down button, and when the doors opened we walked inside.                                                               

        “James, hold down that button to keep the doors open,” Dan instructed as he pointed to a button with 2 triangles on it.                                                                                

         As James did as he was told, Dan started searching the elevator for a “safety hatch.” I still had no idea what a “safety hatch” was until Dan found it. Then I remembered seeing the same kind of little door in a movie. It was in the bottom left corner of the elevator, and just big enough to squeeze a person through. Dan stuck his head through the little door way and looked around. 

        “That is a long way down,” he mumbled.                                                                            

        Dan moved back and I looked through the little door. I realized that I was looking down the elevator shaft. There were several lights in it, so I could see all the way down the 19 stories to the bottom. Dan was right. It was a long way down. I looked up and could see the doors to the 20^th floor. Suddenly, I realized what Dan’s plan was.

       I crawled out, stood up, and said, “Are you crazy?”

       “Oh, come on!” said Dan. “Add a little excitement to your life.”                                     

       “If I fall, I’m not going to have a life!” I argued, exaggerating slightly.

        I knew though, that we had to get up there somehow, so James and I agreed.                                                                                                                                                          

       “All we have to do is climb up those metal rungs on the outside of the elevator,” explained Dan. “Then, standing on the top of the elevator, we can pry open the sliding doors of the 20^th floor.”­

      Standing on top of the elevator a few minutes later, we all cramed our fingers into the little space in between the two elevator doors and pulled them open. We stared into darkness.

            After finding a light switch, we decided to explore. There wasn’t much that we could do considering that we didn’t have access to the rooms, but we wandered the hallways. It looked just like any other floor of the hotel, and we started to wonder if it was even worth coming up for. Then the lights went out.

           We all gasped. Suddenly, we heard a moaning sound. The ghost of Ella Jackson! We all took off running down the hallway, but the sound made me stop. I  heard the crash in the darkness. I saw the glowing figure. I wanted to run, but it was like my legs didn’t work. I felt as if I was walking on jello. I was so shakey. I didn’t know what to do, and for the first time in my life, I was very afraid. All those haunted houses that we went to as kids seemed like nothing compared to this. Then, I felt the hand firmly grab my shoulder. Dan, James, and I all screamed.

             A hand clamped over my wailing mouth. Then, to my greatest surprise, a voice whispered, “Shhhhhhhhh! You’ll wake the guests!”                                                              

             The lights came on just as I realized who the voice belonged too. It was my mother.

            “What? How?” I stuttered. My mom? Suddenly, I saw Uncle Peter. Then, I was really confused.                                                                                                                                  

             Uncle Peter and my mom both burst out laughing. Then I saw the remote control box that Uncle Peter was holding. The whole idea then unfolded in my head, and soon made sense to Dan and James as well. We all laughed.

             After following my mom and Uncle Peter, down the stairs and into our suite, we all sat down on the bed with hot chocolate.                                                          

           “So do you understand the joke?” asked my mom.                

           “Not really,” I responded, still very confused.                                                             

           “Well,” my mom explained, “since I knew that you had heard of the rumors of the hotel being haunted, I decided to give you and your friends a little thrill. After all, it is Halloween tonight.”       

            That was something that I have come to forget over the years. Dan, James, and I had stopped going “trick-or-treating” in fifth grade, so Halloween had kind of become something that we forgot about.                                                                           

             “So,” my mom continued, “Your Uncle Peter set up a hologram of a ghost and recorded some moaning sounds. We watched for you to come out of the pizza restaurant,  and then Peter turned off the lights on the sign so that it spelled ‘the haunted hotel’.”          

            I was beginning to understand it, but I asked, “And you put that lock on the door to the stairs to the the twentieth floor?”     

          “What?” my mom and Uncle Peter both said at the same time. 

         “There was a lock on the door to the twentieth floor,” I said.            

         “Then how did you get up there?” asked my mom. “You couldn’t have taken the service elevator, because you don’t have a key.”      

          I knew that I had to think quickly, or we would be in trouble. “We found another way up,” I said, not wanting to tell her about the extreme stunt in the elevator.                                                                                                                                            

          “Well, it was a pretty cool trick,” said Dan, changing the subject.    

         “Ya,” I agreed.                                                                                                      

         “Well, I think it is time you boys get to bed,” said my mom, “now that you know that the hotel isn’t haunted, you might be able to get some sleep.”       

         We all said goodnight and got ready for bed. My mom and Uncle Peter left. We all laid down, but I couldn’t go to sleep. Staring into the black of night, I thought about how glad I was that the hotel wasn’t really haunted. I knew that the rumor was just to get guests to come to the hotel. I sighed, relieved. Then, in the darkness, I heard the bathroom sink turn on.

The End