Trapped in Room 217

by Thomas Kingsley Troupe

  “What?” Jayla whispered. “What are you talking about?”

  Dion sat up and opened his eyes wide. “The hotel lady,” he whispered back. “I saw her too.”

  Chapter 4

  Creepy Caves

  Jayla woke up the next morning with a start. She was stunned that she and her brother were able to fall asleep at all after what they’d seen. Jayla looked at the time on her phone and saw that it was almost 9 a.m.

  “Wake up, D,” Jayla whispered. She grabbed his shoulder and rocked him back and forth.

  “I’m still so tired,” Dion groaned and rolled to his side.

  Jayla nodded. She was tired too, and couldn’t remember what time they’d fallen asleep. As much as she wanted to talk with Dion about the ghost lady last night, they decided they couldn’t risk waking up Dad. Before they went to bed, Dad had complained more than a few times that he was going to have a very early morning.

  After a few more groans about being tired, Dion sat up and squinted at the room door.

  “Dad left a note,” Dion said, sleepily.

  He climbed out of bed and pulled a piece of Stanley Hotel stationery off the door. Using the sitting bench at the end of the bed as a springboard, he launched himself back onto the covers.

  “What’s it say?” Jayla asked. She still looked around the room, worried that their visitor might decide to make her rounds early.

  “Good morning, guys,” Dion read. “I didn’t want to wake you since I was up before just about everyone else in Estes Park. Go ahead and order some breakfast and lunch. I should be back by dinnertime. I could go for that pizza again.”

  “That pizza was pretty good,” Jayla admitted.

  Dion nodded. “Yeah, I liked it too.”

  “What else did he say?” Jayla asked.

  “Oh, right,” Dion said, then picked up where he left off. “Try to stay out of trouble when I’m gone and MOST IMPORTANTLY . . .”

  Dion help up the note. “He capitalized that part.”

  “Of course he did,” Jayla said and smiled.

  “Behave yourselves and get along. Love, Dad,” Dion finished. He flipped the paper over to see if there was anything else written on the other side.

  “I was hoping to tell him our room was haunted,” Jayla said. “Then maybe we could get out of here.”

  A silence passed between them. The room was quiet, as if the word “haunted” made it true. Dion set the note from Dad aside and hugged himself. His brown eyes darted around Room 217 as if he meant to make sure it was safe for them to talk.

  “So what was that?” Dion asked quietly. “Who was that lady?”

  Jayla shrugged. “I have no idea,” she said. She looked again to the door leading out into the hallway. “And I was trying to tell myself it was just a dream until you said you saw her too.”

  Dion shivered, thinking back to the night before.

  “I woke up because I was really cold. I was going to get up and grab a blanket, but when I saw that lady, I thought forget it. I just pretended to be asleep,” Dion said, eyes wide. “I thought maybe if I didn’t move or look like I was awake, she’d leave us alone. It worked.”

  Jayla stood up and walked over to where the ghost had stopped at the wall along her side of the bed. There was nothing there that she could see. Just a painted wall.

  “She stopped and touched the wall here,” Jayla said. “I’m not sure why.”

  Dion twisted up his mouth before responding. “I don’t know what she was doing and I don’t want to know. I’m just glad she didn’t try to get us.”

  Jayla walked over to the long dresser beneath the TV and picked up the hotel’s menu. There were all sorts of fancy breakfasts that they could order and have delivered to their room.

  “Do you want to eat in here or downstairs?” Jayla asked.

  “What do you think?” Dion said.

  “Downstairs,” they both said together.

  __________________

  Jayla and Dion took showers, then got themselves dressed and ready to go. Jayla had to remind Dion that wearing pajama pants someplace as fancy as The Stanley wasn’t a good idea. She was pretty sure people would give him strange looks and they didn’t want to be “those” kids.

  After they were seated in the restaurant, Jayla looked around. They were the only kids there. The other customers were older than them by at least thirty years. The older couple they’d seen in the lobby the day before was there too, eating omelets. Seeing them reminded Jayla of what the old guy said when he heard they were staying in Room 217.

  You’re in for an interesting night.

  “I didn’t think ghosts were real,” Dion said before taking a sip of his orange juice. It was in a goblet-like glass and he held it like he was some sort of king toasting his royal subjects.

  “Neither did I,” Jayla said. “Mom and Dad always told us that there were no such things as ghosts. After last night, I’m beginning to think they don’t know what they’re talking about.”

  “Well, that lady wasn’t like the ghosts from movies and stuff,” Dion said.

  “You weren’t scared?”

  “Of course I was scared,” Dion replied, taking another sip. “But she didn’t seem like she was going to hurt us or anything.”

  Jayla hadn’t thought of that. The ghost maid really didn’t do anything besides make the room cold and startle both of them. But still, seeing the ghost of some strange woman was enough to make anyone nervous.

  “Still,” Jayla said. “We have to tell Dad.”

  “Yeah. He can tell the front desk that the room is haunted,” Dion said. “People should know what kind of hotel this is.”

  That gave Jayla an idea. She pulled out her phone and typed in Stanley Hotel. There were a few hits that described where the hotel was and some information about booking a room. A little farther below that, Jayla found what she was looking for.

  “Well,” Jayla said. “Looks like a lot of people DO know what kind of hotel The Stanley is.”

  She turned her phone so that Dion could see some of the entries she found.

  “What?” Dion said. “People know this place is haunted and they actually want to stay here?” Dion looked unconvinced.

  “I guess so,” Jayla said. “I don’t think complaining about the ghostly maid is going to do any good.”

  A moment later, their breakfast arrived and they stopped talking about ghosts for a good twenty minutes.

  __________________

  Neither Dion nor Jayla were excited about going back to their room after breakfast. Even without the threat of the maid coming back to scare them, staying in the same room for hours until their dad came back just didn’t sound like much fun.

  “I really wish they had an indoor pool,” Dion said as they walked out of the restaurant and toward the lobby.

  Jayla and her brother made their way toward the staircase leading up to the second floor and continued on to the area behind it where there was a hallway. They kept going down the hall until they reached a small museum-like room. There, on display, were old guest books, framed black-and-white photographs, and clothing from the early 1900s.

  On one mannequin, an outfit caught Jayla’s eye. It was a maid’s uniform and looked exactly like the one the ghostly woman had been wearing the night before. Just seeing the white apron and the long black sleeves made the hairs on her arm stand up. Jayla stared at the faceless figure wearing the clothes. She took her phone out of her pocket and took a picture of it.

  “Whoa,” she whispered. “Dion, you need to see this.”

  There was no answer.

  “D?” Jayla called, looking around the small museum. There was a group of people standing by a counter, waiting for a tour. Her brother wasn’t there. She walked back out into the hallway and looked to the left and right. Dion was nowhere to be found.r />
  Great, she thought, her thoughts spinning out of control. Now he’s lost in this giant-sized haunted house. Dad’s going to flip out!

  “I’m right here,” a voice whispered to her left. Jayla turned and found her brother, sitting on a bench in the hallway, his head in an ancient-looking book.

  “I don’t think you’re supposed to be reading that,” Jayla said. “It’s probably just for decoration.”

  “Really?” Dion said, looking at the spine of the book. “It’s about The Stanley. Did you know there are supposed to be tunnels underneath the hotel?”

  “Really?” Jayla asked. “Where are they?”

  “There’s supposed to be a door in the hallway behind the front desk,” Dion said, nodding to Jayla’s right. “So, probably like . . .”

  “Right here?” Jayla turned to see a door partially cracked open. Letting curiosity take over, she opened it slightly. Immediately, her heart sped up as fear tickled her neck and spine once again. She waited for the inevitable cold feeling to wash over her. A moment later, Dion’s head peeked under her arm.

  “Whoa,” Jayla whispered. “Check this out!”

  Before Dion could object and demand she get out of there, Jayla opened the door a bit wider. She looked around to see if the hotel management would catch them before she grabbed her little brother and dragged him inside with her.

  “What are you doing?” Dion whispered as loud as he could without yelling. “We’re not supposed to be . . .”

  Dion’s voice faded off as he took in their surroundings. They were standing at the top of a wooden staircase that led down into what looked like a dark tunnel. The walls of the tunnel were chiseled out of stone, almost like it was a cave.

  “You think those are the tunnels?” Jayla asked, pointing down the staircase.

  “Yeah. They’ve got to be, right?” Dion said, slipping completely under her arm and taking in the view.

  Jayla took another cautious step closer to the stairs and let the door creak shut behind her. The single light bulb at the top of the wooden stairs cast eerie shadows to the tunnels below.

  “What are these tunnels for?” Jayla asked, not expecting an answer.

  “Not sure,” Dion said. “I didn’t read that far.”

  Jayla took another look at the deep, dark black that hung like a mist a few steps down.

  “We shouldn’t go any further. We don’t have a flashlight,” Dion said. “Besides, we should—”

  “I’ve got the flashlight on my phone,” Jayla said.

  “I don’t think we should,” Dion said. “We might get in trouble or something.”

  “So what? And seriously? You want to go back to our room?” Jayla asked. “Dad’s not going to be back for hours.”

  Dion hesitated and that was all Jayla needed.

  “We take a quick peek and then we get out before anyone even knows we’re down there,” Jayla said. “C’mon. We’ll just be bored sitting in the room watching TV,” Jayla shuddered, “or worse, doing math homework.”

  “Okay,” he said. “But only for like five minutes, okay?”

  Jayla swiped to the screen with the flashlight function. A small beam of light emitted from the back of her phone. She wondered if it would be enough to see through the darkness of the tunnels.

  “Whoa!” Dion shouted, then covered his mouth when he realized he wasn’t being sneaky enough. “Creepy.”

  The two of them descended into the darkness beneath the hotel. Jayla could feel her shoes scrape against loose rocks as she stepped onto an uneven floor. Like the walls, it felt like the floor was carved out of stone too.

  They walked through the first passage and Jayla saw wires and pipes running along the ceiling. There were also heating ducts too. The light on her phone was tiny, but it was strong enough to give just enough light to see, around six inches in front of them. She turned around and realized she could no longer see the stairway where they’d come down.

  “Let’s go this way,” Dion said, pointing to the right. “There’s a passage that goes down a little deeper.”

  Jayla was a little nervous about going too far, but she was curious about what they would find.

  They continued along the passageway. Along the path, there were open doorways that seemed somehow even more impossibly dark than the darkness around them. At any moment, Jayla was sure a hand was going to reach out and grab them.

  “This is pretty cool,” Jayla admitted more to herself than her brother.

  “. . . don’t get lost,” a voice she didn’t recognize whispered.

  Jayla stopped in her tracks. Dion’s footsteps came to a halt too.

  “What did you say?” Dion asked, his voice suddenly high with fear.

  “I didn’t say anything,” Jayla whispered. “But I heard it too.”

  “. . . don’t belong here.” Again, there was a voice that didn’t sound like anyone whom either of them recognized.

  “Is there someone down here?” Jayla cried. “Hello?”

  Just as she was about to suggest that they turn around and head back, Jayla saw the charge level on her phone go from eighty-eight percent to zero percent in a matter of seconds.

  And just like that, she and Dion were standing in complete darkness.

  Chapter 5

  Voice in the Dark

  “What happened to your phone?” Dion asked, grabbing onto her left arm.

  Even though Jayla could hear her brother right next to her, and feel him clinging to her, she couldn’t see his face—or any other part of him. All she could see was the last thing her eyes had seen, her phone’s screen, which left a rectangular impression of light on her eyes.

  “The battery drained down to zero percent,” Jayla whispered hoarsely. “It was like something pulled the charge right out of it.”

  She pushed the home button and the power button, but nothing happened. For a moment, the little image of a depleted battery lit up the space for a split second, then went dark again.

  “We have to try and get out of here,” Jayla told her brother, who was still gripping her arm so tightly that it was starting to tingle. She shook her arm to break free until he finally let go. “Let’s retrace our steps back to the stairway.”

  Jayla turned around and put her hand out into the void, afraid of what she might touch. She brushed her fingers against chiseled stone. It was the wall of the tunnel. She turned again and bumped into Dion. She had no idea which way they needed to go.

  “We’re going to end up lost down here,” Dion whispered. “But at least we haven’t heard that creepy voice again.”

  Somewhere in the darkness, the faint sound of a child laughing echoed against the stone walls.

  Jayla’s stomach dropped. “That’s even worse,” she said.

  “We need to find a way out of here. Now!” Jayla had seen a few horror movies and knew that creepy kids giggling in the dark was never a good sign.

  “How?” Dion sounded panicked. “It’s too dark!”

  Somehow, her brother sounded farther away from her.

  “Grab my vest,” Jayla said. “We can’t lose each other down here.”

  “I can’t even see your vest!” Dion cried.

  “Don’t move,” Jayla said. “Let me find you and we’ll stay together so we don’t get separated.”

  She reached out into the darkness, hoping that they wouldn’t touch something gross like a dead body. After feeling around for a moment or two, she bumped into something. There was a cry of pain.

  “Ow!” Dion shouted. “That was my eye!”

  “Sorry,” Jayla replied, then she felt his shoulder and then his arm. She grabbed him by the wrist and had him clutch her vest again. “Don’t let go.”

  “This time I won’t,” Dion promised.

  She felt along the walls, walking slowly forward, letting the wal
l lead them along the tunnel’s hallway. Jayla wasn’t sure they were going in the right direction, but knew it was better than standing there, waiting for something to get them. She just hoped they weren’t headed deeper into the underground labyrinth.

  “We see you,” a young voice whispered farther off in the dark.

  “Did you hear that?” Dion whispered, his voice high with panic.

  Jayla nodded, but remembered her brother wouldn’t be able to see her response.

  “Yeah,” she replied. “But let’s pretend we didn’t.”

  Jayla did her best not to breathe out more than she needed to. Somehow, in her head, she thought if she was quiet, the voices in the dark couldn’t find the two of them. Dion wasn’t nearly as quiet. He scraped his feet along the floor, making more noise than Jayla was comfortable with.

  “You have to be quiet,” Jayla said. “The whole hotel can hear you!”

  “Maybe that’s a good thing,” Dion snapped back. “We might need help getting out of here! I knew this was a bad idea!”

  After a few minutes of staggering through the blackness, Jayla’s outstretched hand touched an old wooden door. “I found something,” she cried.

  “Shhhhhhh!” Dion shot back.

  Tracing her hands along the wood, Jayla soon touched a rusty, wobbly doorknob. She didn’t remember seeing anything like it in the tunnels when they’d had her phone light. A wave of panic washed over her. Small beads of sweat sprang up along her forehead.

  “There’s a door here,” Jayla croaked.

  “Open it,” Dion replied. “It might be the way out.”

  “Or maybe there are dead things behind it,” Jayla said quietly.

  “Don’t even say that,” Dion said quickly. “Keep it closed, Jay.”

  Somewhere in the darkness, there was the sound of slow, careful footsteps.

  “Are you moving?” Jayla asked.

  “No,” Dion whispered. “I’m too busy trying not to scream.”

  “Okay,” Jayla said. “Don’t. Don’t move and don’t make any noise. I think I hear something.”