Room 1038 - Prologue, and Chapter One and Two - A horror story, written by Sandie May Joyce
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Prologue
Have you ever been to a place where you could swear you have been before, and yet, you cannot remember ever having gone to that place? Or have you ever thought about doing something, only to realize you have done the very same thing before? That this manufactured illusion is but a fragment of your overactive imagination – and you begin to wonder – have I visited this place before? In a past lifetime, perhaps?
Is there such a thing?
Most people would tell you no, there isn’t such a phenomenon in existence, while others still, will tell you that we are all incarnations from our past lives - that our souls have been living for eternity in the universe, even beyond the beginning of this world.
Every so often I have a recurring dream, one which is not unlike the experience of what most would call déjà vu . One in which taste, sound, touch, and smell – place and time repeat themselves – exactly as they had the last time I experienced my unconscious nocturnal sojourn. Could it be that the dream – the recurring dream to be exact – holds the answer to this mystery? Could it be the portal to a past world? Re-visiting those of us with unfinished business from our former lives?
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Chapter 1
Hotel Cityville
I stood in front of this high rise building, looking up at its towering height soaring above me. I did not know which floor I needed to reach. I only knew I had an appointment with Dr. Hanson, who was supposed to perform a surgery on me. I walked inside through the revolving door where I was greeted by a lobby filled with people. The setting of the place was like a hotel: a few people dressed in vests, busying themselves with customers and telephones behind the service counter, others gathered together in small intimate groups on sofas and wingback chairs, immersed in idle chit-chat in the front lounge. Others still, groping at bags filled with sundries as they impatiently waited for the short ding of the elevator to signal their awaiting ascent to higher grounds.
It was toward the latter group I approached – quite naturally, I thought as I counted the familiar sixteen clicks of my blood-red leather heels on the marble floor.
I wonder why I thought that?
Instinctively, I pressed the 10th floor. Again, I was struck by a feeling of familiarity.
Have I been here before?
As I exited the elevator upon by ascent to the 10th floor, I found myself not the sterile hallway of a doctor’s office, but a rather more frequented pathway toward a room.
My room?
I slipped a key into the deadbolt and listened for the click.
Success.
I opened the door and walked in. My cat, Princess, greeted me at the threshold. She must be hungry. The poor thing was left here all by herself!
"Hey, Princess! How are you doing, kitty? Are you hungry?" I greeted her.
Princess seemed happy to see me, as she always does. I picked her up, patted her gently, and then put her on the bed. I sat down on the bed with her and leaned my head toward hers for a quick “I love you” head-butt. Princess, purring like a revving engine, happily obliged. I closed my eyes to bask in our shared pleasure before opening them to plant a well-deserved kiss on her forehead.
Alas!
There, laying before me, was not a kitten, but a baby grinning, cooing baby girl!
What in the world? Why is this baby in my room? It is not supposed to be here! Whose baby is this?
I picked up the baby from the bed and stared at her rosy puffed-out cheeks, and curly red hair trying to make sense of this bizarre situation. Trying to remember.
Who is this milky-white child, laughing? gurgling? why is she in my room? She could not have been mine.
I scanned the room for something – anything familiar. It seems I had everything that was necessary here for a baby – bottles, formula, toys, diapers...
Is this my baby, or is this someone else's baby?
I gently placed the baby once more on the bed and began a frenzied search. There has to be a note! Someone – her mother – must have left me a note, must have left a phone number!
Nothing. There was no note!
Instinctively, I ran to the phone to call for help. Immediately, I was connected not to a dial tone, but to a front desk.
So, am I in a hotel after all?
I asked the man on the other end of the phone – Simon, he called himself...the front-desk clerk - about the former occupants that were here before me. I told him about the baby that they have left behind.
“The system shows they have checked out this morning around 11:00 a.m., and it doesn't mention anywhere that they had a baby with them.”
"No. That can’t be right! Check again!" I urged him to check the registry.
Simon let out an impatient sigh. He must have been anxious for the call to end as I heard, even though the static on the line, the distinctive thud of the hotel’s registry and the frustrated rustle of papers.
"There was no baby," he said again.
"But you really need to come up to see this baby! She is real, and she is in my room right now!!!" I screamed through the line.
"Whadda ya want me to do? Call the police? Or maybe I oughta call the newspaper instead. Maybe they oughta be the ones to find the baby's parents?"
Simon seemed to be coming up with a resolution on the fly - he seemed more concerned about the hotel's publicity than the fact that he had an orphan on his hands.
"Can you please get in touch with the couple just to be sure? Look! I cannot stay here for long to watch her, I have a doctor's appointment to go to, and I'm running late already," I urged him.
Simon muttered something obscene under his breath before begrudgingly replying that he would call the couple. The clerk knew only too well. The woman in Room 1038 had just checked in an hour ago, and she had the baby with her when she checked in. Sure, he was a little rough around the edges, but it wasn’t his place to act Shrink to a patient. The baby, he knew, belonged to the woman on the other end of the line.
Chapter 2
At The Front Desk
"Very odd, sir?" he turned to his colleague, George, as he hung up the phone.
Simon, a young man in his 20's was on the first day of his job. He had blond wavy short hair and wore a pair of silver-rimmed glasses. His slim-built body fit well into his hotel slim uniform, making him look more like a poet than one who would work at a hotel's reservation desk.
"What is? What was that all about?" George, replied, his eyes wide with curiosity.
George, a short rounded middle-age man in his 50's from Greece, had just been transferred to this Hotel Cityville only last week from another branch. George had a fair complexion, a round face with dark hair and a short dark beard. This was his second week on duty. Being a crew manager, he needs to oversee and supervise all the clerks at the front desk. He noticed Simon was a little shaken by what was happening. Clearly, it was not meant to happen on the first day of his job!
He watched as Simon put the phone down. This poor kid needs to build up his muscles. He needs to join some fitness class. George thought.
"We have a looney toon up there on the tenth floor. She just checked in with her baby about an hour ago, and now she is claiming the baby does not belong to her!" Simon seemed shaken by the experience.
"No way! Are you sure?"
"I checked her in myself!” Simon answered.
"Well, what does she want us to do? Does she want us to contact the police?" George was bemused.
"She wants me to call up the last couple or person who had occupied the room to find out if they have left the baby behind. Something I probably will regret doing." Simon complained, making note of the fact the crazy woman in 1038 planned on calling the fuzz. He had no choice but to comply with her request – to make a record of it or prove that he’d responded to her complaint.
"Well, let's look up who was there before her, and just make the call. Now let's see who was there before her," George said, reaching over the desk to grab the dusty old registration log. There was no entry for the day before.
Simon pulled up the registry on the computer screen.
George readily obliged, logging into the hotel database. A few keystrokes later and he found himself on the log-in sheet for the previous day and scanned the bookings for the tenth floor. He counted under his breath – an annoying habit, that, Simon thought – “1034…1035…1036…1037…1039?”
There was no room 1038!
Perhaps no one had checked into the room yesterday? George wondered as he pressed a few more buttons to see if there were any occupants the day before.
“1037…1039??”
"That's odd! There is no record of room 1038 in the system for any day but today. Why is that? B...but...when I looked at the system a while ago while I was on the phone with that woman I could have sworn the system showed me some people have checked out this morning, and that's what I've told her, but why is the system showing nothing now?" Simon asked over George’s shoulder, clearly perplexed, and suddenly quite shaken by what they were witnessing on the hotel log.
“I could have sworn...” he began again, the hair on the back of his neck now rising, "I...was just talking with someone in 1038! A crazy woman! You heard me talking with her too...didn't you?...And she had requested that room when she registered, and I have checked her in myself!"
George didn’t reply. Instead, he pressed a few more buttons, seeking a different result but finding the same. There were no error messages of any kind popping up on the screen either. It seemed like room 1038 had never even existed - until today. Today, the log showed a room 1038, showed a name - Sarah Richardson – and showed a check-in time: just around noon.
"Well, if she calls again, you let me know. I will talk to her myself," George told Simon. “Better yet, maybe I better go up to 1038 to pay Ms. Richardson and her baby a visit myself. I will talk to her, try to get her to understand the reason. If the baby is not hers, we may have to send for the police and perhaps the law enforcement would follow up with a press release afterward if the parents are not immediately found. The baby's well-being should come first...”
George was up and off to the 10th floor before he could even finish his sentence.
As he stepped out of the elevator, he immediately noticed that the hallway light was dim. He made a note of it – a crew manager’s habit – so that he could have maintenance tend to it later. Squinting in the cast off from the flickering shade, George persisted down the hallway, mumbling under his breath –old habits die hard – the suite number displayed on each door he passed. “1036…1037…” he paused, looking left to right..”103…9???
There must be a mistake! George’s mind was racing now. Half running now, he picked up his pace, walking further down the hall, counting aloud the suite numbers as he went, before doubling back to the low 1030’s and counting up again: “1034…1035…1036…1037…” shaking, George swallowed hard. Once more, he looked left to right – more frantic this time – on his left he could clearly see, even in the flickering light, door 1037. But to his right, where previously there stood door 1039, there stood an unmarked door, the faint outline of a plaque the only evidence a suite number once marked its location. George turned once more to his left, sure enough, there was a “1039.”
It made no sense!
Breathing heavily, George approached the numberless door and began to knock. "Hello! Is anyone in there?" he half-whispered through the heavy oak, his voice now a quiver. There was no answer. He pressed his ears against the cold wood to see if he could hear any noise from inside the room.
1) George thought if the baby wasn't the woman's baby, then they would need to call the police. The baby's well-being is of most priority, but you are right about the press conference. It is now being corrected. Thank you!
2) As for Simon to talk like that over the phone to suggest calling the police and hold a press conference is what every young inexperienced guy would say in a situation where he has to respond to an irate woman over the phone, just for bluff, especially he was new to the job. He KNOWS everything he does has to be approved by his supervisor. He went along with calling the former occupants just to please this hysterical woman. In his mind, it is better than to call the police and have them come to make a scene while he was on the first day of his job.
3) The mystery of 1038 is not about the plaque on the door, it's about what is inside the room that is unmarked now, and why Room 1038 has never had anyone checked in until today. If I let out all the mystery in my first two chapters there won't be any need for my story to go any further. Just stay tuned.
4) Typos corrected.
Thank you for taking the time to read and comment on this! Much appreciated!
A good beginning of a what appears to be, a horror story.
I noted a couple of things that seemed odd. George must certainly have been new and inexperienced. If Simon told him that a woman checked in with a baby, why would he want to call people who supposedly checked out? Would he believe the woman that called down from 1038 hysterical, or Simon? Second, George was right in thinking he would need to call the police to check things out but to make a press release seemed totally inappropriate and out of place. That would be something for hotel ownership, with legal advice, to do… Only if necessary. Making of police report would bring the press.
Finally, I don't see all the mystery at the end about the room not being there. From the description, the room is there, but the nameplate has been altered.
Only two typos:
"… Making him look[ed] more like…"
“…, he need[ed] to oversee…"
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