Haunting at the Hotel

by Lauren Magaziner

  TO INTERROGATE SUNNY, CLICK HERE.

  TO INTERROGATE FERNANDO, CLICK HERE.

  * * *

  AS I STARE at the door to the outdoor equipment shed, I can feel the cold getting deeper and deeper into my bones. If we don’t crack the code to the combination lock, then we’ll surely freeze out here.

  “Eliza—help!”

  OUTDOOR EQUIPMENT SHED

  Q – 3

  M + 2

  R + 1

  S + 1

  Q + 1

  S – 2

  H + 2

  P – 5

  I – 3

  N + 5

  “Okay, so find the Q in the first line, Outdoor Equipment Shed,” Eliza says. “Now count three letters back from the Q.”

  “It’s O,” I say. “And then next one is M + 2, so I would . . .”

  “Find the M in the line,” Eliza says. “And count two letters after the M.” I look at the word equipment. M + 2 would be two letters after the M in equipment. N. “The letter N.”

  “Exactly,” Eliza says. “Carlos, let’s split up the work! You get the five in the middle—I’ll get the two at the beginning and the three at the end.”

  OUTDOOR EQUIPMENT SHED

  Q – 3 O

  M + 2 N

  R + 1

  S + 1

  Q + 1

  S – 2

  H + 2

  P – 5 R

  I – 3 E

  N + 5 D

  “You can get the rest, right, Carlos?”

  “Got it,” I say.

  * * *

  IF YOU THINK THE ANSWER IS 150, CLICK HERE.

  IF YOU THINK THE ANSWER IS 100, CLICK HERE.

  * * *

  WHAT A MESS! Thanks a lot, Frank. The only way out of this is to shut down the whole computer system.

  I reach forward, only the desk is super tall. I jump high, grab the plug, and yank. I pull the plug out, but the desk clerk hugs the computer to his chest.

  “What are you doing?” he says. “You know we have an external hard drive!” Oh no. That means all the guest records are backed up and saved somewhere. “SECURITY!” The desk clerk snaps his fingers, and three security guards swarm us. “You’re trying to crash our system!”

  Time to come clean. “No, we’re not. We just needed to meet Mr. Covington. Can we talk to him?”

  “No.”

  “Well, can you at least give us a lift up the mountain?” I ask.

  “Up the mountain? But the only thing up there is the . . . Sugarcrest.” The clerk’s eyes widen. “I get it! You’re spies for our competitors! You’re helping them gather intel on our business!”

  “We’re not, we swear!”

  “Like we’d trust the word of a spy!”

  “I spy with my little eye,” Frank says, “something ginormous!”

  “The security guards?” Eliza says as they stomp closer to us, their muscles rippling.

  “Yup!” Frank says.

  The security guards drive us even farther down the mountain—and miles farther—until we reach an airport. They drag us out of the car and leave us at the departure curb. “See a spy, make ’em fly. Bye!”

  “Nice poem!” Frank says, waving cheerfully as they drive off.

  This outcome is just plane awful.

  CASE CLOSED.

  WE PUT THE code 7341 into the keypad. Here goes nothing. . . .

  Click.

  The door opens.

  “Open sesame!” Frank cries.

  “We have to get out of here—and fast!” Mom says.

  Mom leads us through the halls, back the way we came. We are retracing our steps until we get to the grandfather clock again. We push the back, and it swings open like a door. We scramble out into the lobby.

  “We have to get to the client before they do!” Mom says, running up the staircase.

  I take two steps at a time. I don’t pause until I reach Reese’s hallway.

  It’s disturbingly silent as we move toward her door. Mom turns the doorknob, and the door swings open. I wonder if the spy on the inside left it unlocked for Sunny.

  Either way, Mom opens it, and we follow her in.

  The suite is dark, but I can see the shadows of fifty tall and menacing people standing in her apartment.

  No, not people—mannequins. I can see it, finally, in the moonlight. Stretching all across the suite, in every room. They have glossy, painted faces—bulging eyes and grinning mouths that stretch far wider than the average mouth.

  Well, this is creepy.

  “Hello, Creeper McCreeperson,” Frank says, shaking the hand of the nearest dummy. No, wait—he’s wiggling its arm until it unscrews completely. Frank swings the arm like a baseball bat. “Now I can fight the others.”

  “Shhhh!” Eliza whispers. “Do you hear that?”

  The mannequins are whispering. I mean . . . they’re dolls, so their mouths aren’t moving. But there are voices coming from them.

  “This hotel does not belong to you.”

  “Last chance.”

  “Get out.”

  We slowly walk through the rows of mannequins as they chant. Eliza’s hand finds mine, and she squeezes tight.

  Suddenly I hear sobs from the other room—the living room. We turn the corner, and Reese is on the floor in a puddle of tears. Surrounded by ten different looming mannequins.

  “H-help me.”

  “Mrs. Winters,” Mom says. “It’s Sunny. And someone in your house. Where are Harris and January?”

  “I don’t know,” she hiccups.

  “Get out,” the mannequin whispers menacingly.

  “Last chance.”

  “We know what you did, Reese.”

  I stop dead. What did Reese do? Is this haunting vengeance for something? My mind goes back to the conversation Eliza and I had with Reese in her office. She said she had stabbed her sister in the back. She’d betrayed her. She’d stolen the lodge right out from under her, and her sister always suspected but never knew. . . .

  “Sunny is Reese’s sister,” I say.

  “What?” Eliza says.

  “Sunny—she’s Reese’s sister. That’s why she’s doing this! Sunny was supposed to inherit the hotel, but Reese convinced their parents to give it to her. And—”

  “Ahhhhhhhh!” Reese screams, looking at something behind us.

  Two figures in long flowy cloaks, holding scythes, are standing at the edge of the room. They look like Grim Reapers.

  One points at Reese.

  The other says, “We’ve come to collect.”

  There’s no way we’re giving Reese over to these monsters! Frank holds his mannequin arm out in front of him threateningly as the two fake reapers weave between the dummies.

  * * *

  TO USE THE MANNEQUIN ARM LIKE A BASEBALL BAT, CLICK HERE.

  TO KNOCK OVER THE MANNEQUINS LIKE DOMINOES, CLICK HERE.

  * * *

  “WHAT HAPPENED WITH the mice?”

  Reese stares at her shoes as she talks. “Last week we called you for help, finally. And that’s because . . . well . . . the straw that broke the camel’s back . . . was that we woke up to dead mice.”

  “AWESOME!” Frank says.

  “No, not awesome, Frank,” I say.

  “Gross,” Eliza whispers.

  “Where were the mice, Reese?” Mom asks, putting her pencil down. Leave it to the professional detective to ask the pointed question.

  Reese gulps. “A path of them, leading from my bedroom, all the way out the front door. The end of the path had a message in the snow. GET OUT.” She shivers. “Mice are my greatest fear. I . . . all their little bodies . . .”

  Harris squeezes Reese’s shoulder.

  So . . . either someone who knows Reese’s fears planted the mice and is using ghosts to get her to leave the hotel. Or there are some seriously scary supernatural forces at work here.

  * * *

  TO ASK WHO MIGHT WANT REESE TO FLEE THE HOTEL, CLICK HERE.

  TO ASK WHET
HER THEY THINK THE GHOST IS REAL, CLICK HERE.

  * * *

  WE CAN ALL talk later. Right now, we need to find a way out of the Dead Room before we all turn into human icicles!

  “We have to get out of here . . . now!” I say. “Everyone, take a flashlight. I know we can’t see well, but we have to find some exit.”

  “There might not be an exit,” Mom says, which alarms me because it’s so not like her to be so negative. “I’ve been here for a day, and I haven’t found anything.”

  “Th-there has to be,” Eliza says. This temperature is really affecting her. “The c-c-cold air has to blow in from s-somewhere. A vent or a passageway. M-maybe this connects to the secret p-passage in the walls we found yesterday.”

  “Eliza, you have to keep moving. Get your blood pumping, or you’re going to freeze!”

  Eliza is examining the walls, Mom’s shining her beam on the ceiling, and Frank is wiggling on the floor. I turn to focus on a different wall, made of thick, wooden planks with peeling black paint. I can barely see anything in my flashlight’s dim beam.

  “BLOODY MARY BLOODY MARY BLOODY MARY!” Frank suddenly chants.

  “What are you doing?” I say.

  “Trying to summon Bloody Mary!”

  “Well, don’t!” The last thing we need around here is another violent ghost.

  “You c-can’t, Frank,” Eliza says with a shiver. “You need a mirror.”

  “Here’s a mirror!”

  “Where’s a mirror?”

  “HERE.”

  I make my way over to Frank, who is looking between two floorboards. I put my face on the floor and my eye to the crack in the planks.

  A big brown eye is staring back at me.

  My brown eye.

  “Watch out,” Mom says, pushing me out of the way. She knocks on a few floorboards until she finds a loose one, then spends fifteen minutes trying to coax it up. It’s like wiggling a loose tooth, but finally she yanks it out. For the two floorboards around it, she uses one of the flashlights to hammer beneath them until they pop up from the nails.

  Sure enough, there’s a pretty large mirror under the boards. Without hesitation, Mom slams her shoe through the mirror. It shatters into a bunch of pieces, revealing a long pipe leading down—almost like a slide. A very steep slide. We can’t see the bottom. “I’ll go first, just in case,” Mom says, easing her legs into the pipe. “Here goes nothing!”

  She is totally silent the whole way down. That’s a professional for you.

  “You next, Eliza,” I say, because she is shivering violently.

  “D-don’t let Frank g-go last,” she says, and she disappears down the slide.

  “You heard your sister, Frank,” I say. “Frank?”

  I turn around. A six-foot-tall woman is standing behind Frank, her fingers outstretched. Her mouth in an eternal scream.

  I drop the flashlight in panic. “FRANK! RUN!”

  He turns around—spots the lady behind him. For the first time in his life, I think he’s speechless. Then he dives headfirst into the slide. Behind me, the ghost is coming closer, her skin like a raisin, rattling breath filling the room.

  I jump into the tube and plunge straight down.

  I land in something soft and squishy—a puddle of mud. The space down here is creepy. I’m assuming we’re in some sort of unfinished basement, but it’s hard to tell in the darkness. I wish I hadn’t dropped my flashlight. “Hello?” I call, and my voice echoes around and around. It must be huge down here.

  On the plus side, it’s like twenty degrees warmer than the Dead Room, and a pink flush has returned to Eliza’s cheeks. She’s stopped shivering altogether.

  “Where are we?” I ask.

  “Under the lodge,” Mom says. “Everyone okay?”

  I don’t want Mom to know about the ghost Frank and I saw upstairs. “We’re great. Right, Frank?”

  “But Carlos! What about—”

  “What next, Mom?” I interrupt.

  “We have to keep going,” Mom says urgently. “Come on. This way.”

  I silently follow her across the basement. There are lots of cloths dangling from the ceiling. They’re nearly invisible to see, but somehow I keep running right into them.

  Suddenly, something from the EMF reader makes all sorts of noises. I reach into Eliza’s backpack and fish it out. The needle is jumping wildly, and the light is flashing red—a ghost is present.

  Bang!

  The noise echoes from the pipe we’d all slid down. Maniacal laughter fills the basement and echoes around. I’ve never fainted before, but I might now. I edge closer to Eliza and stare at the EMF reader.

  “It detects changes in the electromagnetic field, Carlos,” Eliza says. “Can I?” I hand it to her, and she waves it near the wall. “There’s a door here. Powered by electricity. It’s making the meter go wild!”

  “But how do we get in?” Mom says, turning to stare at the door with us as the laughter behind us gets closer. I don’t want to be a coward, but I don’t dare turn around. Frank, though, is the only one watching the basement behind us with wide, horrified eyes.

  Eliza runs her fingers across the wall. “I think there might be . . . yes! There’s a mechanism here. If we can just figure it out.”

  “Eliza, can you do it?” Mom says. She turns around, and her eyes get just as wide as Frank’s. “Carlos, help her. Do not turn around.”

  My stomach leaps into my throat. I am curious, but I do know what they say about curiosity and cats. So I don’t turn around.

  I kneel down and help Eliza. And leave the ghost fighting to Mom and Frank.

  “What do we do?” I ask.

  “We have to make sure all the batteries are facing the right way. Each battery has a plus end and a minus end. When they’re placed in their rectangle slots, no plus can be next to another plus, and no minus can be next to another minus.”

  * * *

  IF THE FINAL CHARGE IS POSITIVE, ADD TEN TO THREE HUNDRED, AND TURN TO THAT PAGE.

  IF THE FINAL CHARGE IS NEGATIVE, SUBTRACT TEN FROM THREE HUNDRED, AND TURN TO THAT PAGE.

  TO ASK ELIZA FOR A HINT, CLICK HERE.

  * * *

  REESE, HARRIS, AND January won’t be jazzed about a broken window. We have to get away from the scene of the crime—now! We’ll tell them the truth later, once the shock of it wears off. Because it’s no good trying to reason with angry people.

  Very carefully, I reach through the hole in the window and unlock the latch. Then I gently push the first-floor window open.

  We crawl in. Then I shut the window and blinds behind me.

  “That was fun!” Frank says. “Let’s do it again!”

  “Has anyone ever told you how much trouble you are?”

  “Every day!” Frank says proudly, leaning on a cabinet. It pops open . . . and I see something interesting.

  “Hold on—move aside, Frank!”

  The inside right door of the cabinet has a bunch of letters carved into the wood. I open the left door, and that whole half of the cabinet is locked with a three-digit lock.

  “What do you think this is?”

  “Letters,” Frank says.

  “I know, but do you think it has anything to do with the lock on the cabinet?”

  Frank shrugs. “Don’t know, don’t care.”

  “You’re impossible,” I sigh.

  “Oh, I wish Eliza were here.”

  “But you have FRANK,” Frank says. “Frank is way more fun.”

  “We don’t need fun,” I mumble. “We need puzzle brilliance.” I guess if I treat it like a word search, maybe something will reveal itself to me. I just hope I can find all the words!

  “I see rat . . . and sit . . . but I don’t think those are right,” I say to Frank. “Knowing the Winters family, they’d probably have all winter-themed words. Like sled or luge.”

  “What’s a luge?” Frank says. “Sounds huge.”

  “It’s an Olympic sport. Now shhhhhh! Let me concentrate on fi
nding more winter words.”

  * * *

  THE LETTERS NOT USED IN THE WORD SEARCH WILL LEAD YOU TO YOUR NEXT PAGE. READ THEM IN ORDER TO FIND YOUR NUMBER.

  IF YOU THINK THE ANSWER IS 296, CLICK HERE.

  IF YOU THINK THE ANSWER IS 246, CLICK HERE.

  TO ASK FRANK FOR A HINT, CLICK HERE.

  * * *

  “LET ME BORROW that mannequin arm,” I say softly to Frank.

  “It’s mine!” he whispers.

  “I’ll rip you off two more to make up for it.”

  Frank passes the arm to me.

  The culprits move closer. I pull the mannequin arm back behind my shoulder. I have a decent batting average. Let’s hope it comes in handy.

  I swing the arm with all my might.

  The second it connects with one of the ghosts, the arm cracks in half and falls to the floor. Unlike a baseball bat, it’s hollow. So it did absolutely nothing.

  Meanwhile, the ghost pushes me, and I trip into Eliza, who falls into Mom, who knocks Frank down. And all of us tumble into an open closet.

  The door slams.

  They must stick a chair under the doorknob or something, because we can’t get out no matter how much we bang and rattle the door.

  “Ahhhhhhhhhh!” Reese screams.

  “Reese!” Mom shouts. “REESE!”

  I can’t believe I thought that a mannequin arm would be a good substitute for a baseball bat. Boy, was I a dummy!

  CASE CLOSED.

  “WE SHOULD TELL Reese,” I say. “She’s in danger!”

  “Carlos, wait!” Eliza cries after me, but it’s too late. I run into the fire den, where eight pairs of eyes swivel in my direction.

  “We’ve just decoded the message on the ground,” I say. “And Reese, the ghost is coming for you tonight.”