Hotel Le Grand

iv

"Wake up, little Temperance Collins." A voice whispered in my ear, stirring loose strands of my hair. I jerked awake, sitting up so fast my head spun. The lamp and the bathroom lights were still on, and I clearly had fallen asleep before plugging in my phone because when I turned it on, it flickered at six percent.

"Damn it," I cursed, tugging open my suitcase and rummaging through the crumpled, wrinkly clothes for the familiar white charger. Just as I pushed passed the last shirt, something moved in the corner of my eye.

Whatever it was a fairly small, and tinting a kind of gray. I sat up straighter, squinting in the dim lighting, "What the-"

The alarm on the bedside table started going berserk. Flashing and blaring, and effectively causing me to fall off the bed and onto the floor. Swearing loudly, I pounded on the snooze button, but the stupid thing continued to go off. I was suddenly filled with a weird panic as I yanked the dumb thing from the wall, thankful for the silence.

I rubbed a hand over my face and went to get off the floor when I saw it again. The little gray thing. This time, it was in front of me. I blinked rapidly, trying to make out what it was, but it vanished again. "Okay, I've about had it-"

Suddenly, the alarm turned back on. But instead of playing that never ending beeping noise, a very slowed down version of Ring Around The Rosie began to play.

I stared at the thing for a moment before letting out a laugh, "Okay, whose screwing with me?" Picking up the alarm, I twisted it around in my hand, attempting to figure out where the on and off switch was to the thing.

A little girl started joining in with the song, "Ring around the rosie."

"What the hell," I hissed, officially beginning to get creeped out.

"Pockets full of posies."

"What kind of sick hotel-"

"Ashes, ashes."

"What is this!?"

"We all fall down."

The alarm shut off, leaving me staring at the thing in shock. Quickly getting off the floor, I rushed to the bathroom and turned on the sink, splashing water onto my face. I looked at my reflection in the mirror, noting the bags beneath my blue eyes when suddenly the gray thing shot out from behind me, disappearing on the other side of the door.

I spun around and stared at the doorway in disbelief. My mind automatically tried to rationalize what my eyes were seeing, but it only came up with one explanation: ghost.

By no means am I someone who believes in the whole, wandering, lost spirit mumbo jumbo, but it seemed like the only thing that would make sense given that whatever it was just vanished before my eyes.

I inched out of the bathroom and looked around for the gray thing, only to come up empty. Scrunching up my face, I walked to the small window and looked out at the empty street. The hotel was located in the middle of nowhere, with only a small rundown gas station as a neighbor.

Suddenly, out of nowhere, something shoved against the small of my back and my face slammed into the glass, causing a spiderweb fracture to appear beneath the skin of my temple. I shrieked, shoving off and spinning around to find a small girl looking up at me with her faded blue eyes, an innocent smile on her face. "I'm sorry," She said, batting her eyelashes.

Taken off guard by the child's sudden appearance, I blurted out a small, "Yeah, it's okay. Hey, where's your parents?"

She frowned and cocked her head in thought, "Mommy and Daddy aren't here anymore."

"They left you!?" I gasped.

The small girl nodded solemnly and held her hand out for me to grasp, "I'm scared."

I stared at her hand for a moment, wondering if it was my lack of locking the door that allowed her to get in, before I took it. "It's okay, kid. Why don't we go to the front desk and call your parents okay?"

"Okay!" She said cheerfully but then frowned, "Why can't we use your phone?"

"Oh," I looked over at the bed and walked over to my phone, picking it up. It flashed a red battery sign at me, "It died."

"Oh." She murmured.

"We'll just take the elevator to the front desk, okay? Call your mom and dad from there." I took her hand again and and lead her into the hall towards the elevator when suddenly she stopped, tugging on my hand. "We can't go in there," She whispered like it was a big secret.

I bent down, "What's that?"

"The monster's in there," The child's eyes grew wide as she gazed at the elevator as if it were a monster about to eat her.

"Honey, there's no monster in there. C'mon, I'll show you," I picked her up and carried her over to the elevator, placing her down inside once it opened. "See?" I said after pressing the lobby button and looking around. "No monster."

Out of nowhere, a hand wrapped around my arm and I jumped, looking down at the girl who cocked her head and smiled. Her smile was haunting, creepy, and made me feel as if I had plunged into hell itself. Suddenly, the skin on the left side of her face began to bubble and turn an awful yellow; a putrid, rotten eggs smell began to fill the elevator. I ripped my arm from her grasp and stumbled into the back corner, "What's wrong, Tempie? I thought you said there wasn't a monster?"

The child took a step forward and with each step she took, slabs of her skin peeled from the bone and fell to the floor, making a terrible squelching as her black, dirt covered flats stepped on them. "Tempie?"

"What are you?"

"What do you mean?" She asked, coming a few steps closer. The floors on the elevator rolled by.

"What are you?"

The girl let out a haunting laugh, "Well, I'm the monster in your closet, Temperance Collins."

The doors to the elevator opened.