He Strikes at the Hotel

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Nineteen

The evening came by quickly. It was just like every other night this week. Me being exhausted and just wanting to relax. But tonight I needed to speak to Zachery, and I needed to find a way to do this without anyone noticing. It's all very well for him to wander around when he fancies and come knocking on my door once his guards are asleep, but I had no way of knowing whether his guards were still around or not, or even where he was to begin with. This was going to be risky.

I poured myself a glass of wine to give me some Dutch courage before I left my room, as if I was about to encounter one of Zachery's henchmen in the middle of the night, I may as well have the scent of wine lingering on my breath so that I could use that as an excuse for my strange behaviour. I began to drink the wine and felt my nerves begin to settle instantly. I could do this without getting caught, I know this hotel like the back of my hand, I know exactly where to go and where to hide. I will be fine.

With that thought, I got ready to leave my room, thinking it best to check Zachery's room first to see whether he was in there. I walked down the hall and thought about where I was going as my pace began to slow. "The quickest way to his floor, and the best way not to be seen, would be..." I spoke to myself out loud as I eyed up the unused storage cupboard a couple doors down from the kitchen. That cupboard is used for nothing other than cobwebs and dust, mainly because there isn't much actual storage space. But also, because the walls were decaying rapidly in this room, which we always presumed was due to the heat from the kitchen mixing with the freezing cold within the room itself, which ate away at the walls and insulation, resulting in a number of holes in the wall which were big enough to squeeze through comfortably. This was great for me, because I could get from this floor to the downstairs floors by crawling through one gaping hole on one side of the room and climbing down some beams, and just like that I find myself in another cupboard. It sounds simple, but I must say it is quite tiring, and messy, and not as easy as I always convince myself it will be. The same applies for going up floors, as on the other side of the storage cupboard is a hole which if you climb through, you find yourself in a miniature corridor of its own, with no lighting other than from cracks of light filtering through from the walls around you. It is very eerie, which is why I don't go that way very often, but I found out one day when I first came here and was exploring, that if you climb up onto two beams, you are one floor up. So after climbing up four beams, I would be on Zachery's floor. I'm not entirely sure where I would come out on that floor, but there would no doubt be an exit along those walls somewhere.

"Well... Here goes nothing. Other than my clothes being presentable."