Haunted Hotel

Chapter 4

When I woke up I was in a white room. I guessed it was the hospital. I sat up and noticed Bea beside me. She had been crying and had dark circles under her eyes. When she saw me she broke down into a fresh wave of tears. She threw her arms around me. I appreciated the gesture, but my neck and chest did not. She began babbling bursts of incoherent sentence fragments. I finally managed to calm her down and get a straight story from her.

Not long after I passed out, the police arrived on the scene and were able to stop the crazy old man. I was rushed to the hospital. I was making a full recovery but I hadn't woken up until today, two days later.

"So today is Monday then" I said. Bea nodded. "Well I guess Tuesday's science homework was destined to be late" I said and she giggled at that. "Do we know why that guy way trying to kill us anyway?" I asked. "I mean besides the obvious fact that I broke into his lab.

"They got no coherent confession out of your friend." She said "He's completely bonkers. But the booklet that you nabbed was his journal. The police looked through it and not only solved this case but the other deaths in the hotel room."

So as it turns out that the crazy old man's name was John Smith. The first person who died in the room was Laura Williams. He was in love with her, but she did not reciprocate his feelings however and was engaged to another man. She was getting married in Ogden and was staying in the hotel. He came to her room and they had an argument. In the heat on the moment he killed her by holding her head underwater.

Fearing the police he tried to hide hid in her body in the closet and in the process found the hidden door and the room down below the basement. Smith speculated that it had belonged to Al Capone as it was rumoured that the gangster had ordered the deaths of people while staying at the hotel. Much of the torture devices already existed before he found the room.

We had to some guess work here as his journal became more rambly by the minute. Her murder had tipped him off the deep-end and time had only made it worse. He began to see Laura's ghost everywhere. Chased out by the hallucinations he came up to the room. It was occupied by a woman that vaguely resembled Laura. Terrified he murdered her in almost exactly the same way. He almost never left his room after that. He became paranoid. He was sure that anyone who was in that room was out to get him for the murder's. He somehow managed to spike any food that was sent up to the room with what he thought was poison.

It wasn't though. The police were able to find what he was serum he was using and test it. It causes massive headaches, and hallucinations. My mother had had her food drugged with that and that's what had caused her ghost vision. Smith must have panicked, thinking that her scream was because of him. After mom passed out he tried to kill her. Someone had heard the scream and had come to investigate, interrupting him. He had made a hasty escape leaving the door slightly ajar in his hurry. The reason behind the theft on my moms notes remains a mystery, though. One speculation that the police have is that he thought the notes was evidence against him and he was trying to conceal it.

Beatris has already gone back down to St George. We have school tomorrow and she can't miss that. My mom and I will be in the hospital for a couple more days until we can go home. I'm not to happy though to be staying in Ogden for more time than I have to. All I want to do is get the heck out of here as soon as physically possible and my mother agrees. I think we both have had enough of Ogden to last our whole lives.

Life won't be the same though. Almost dieing and losing my mother was too traumatic for me to pretend nothing happened. At the moment though, I can't wait to get back home where there aren't any crazy mass murderers lurking in the basements of hotels. The simple joys of life. I'm even excited to get back to school, which is a first for me. Mostly excited anyway. I still have to get that Science project done...