The Thirteenth Floor[ON HOLD]

Chapter Three

When Jonathan woke up in the morning the first thing he did was log into his laptop and typing Hamilton Hotel's Thirteenth Floor and dozens of results popped up all about the same thing, the fire. But he needed more.

Jonathan was getting impatient. He didn't get a word out of the lady with the pretty voice at the front desk and all he had as evidence was the pieces of newspaper from decades ago. He needed a good news story and he needed it now. He groaned resting his head on his arms at his desk.

"I will find out about that thirteenth floor." He muttered in his arms. Just then a cold wind brushes across his back causing a shiver to run down his spine.

I think my heat really does need to be fixed... He thought to himself not looking up from his arms. He didn't want to see anything that will make him faint in terror.

Man up! He thought to himself straightening himself out looking around the room. The silence was eerie, all that you could hear was his shallow breaths, he could barely hear them himself. It was early in the morning and he had the whole day to try and get started, that was one way to look at it. Another way is that he's wasting a nice day by trying to get a good story. Maybe he would just ride that elevator once more.

Grabbing his jacket he walks out the door, brief case in hand. The elevator stood down the hall, he didn't waste any time getting into the machine skimming over the buttons. Once again, it wasn't there. He slammed his fist against the buttons in frustration. That floor had to be here! He knows he's not insane and he knows this hotel is hiding a secret. He tried to contain his anger before a stranger walked in seeing his fit.

With a ding the metal door slid open revealing the front entrance, not seeing a pretty lady he thought the voice would belong to but the same old scowling face looking at him in disgust. He awkwardly mutters a 'hi there' and walks out the front sliding doors to the nearest library.

Surely there would be some old folk there that could give him some type of history lesson about the hotel, or so he could hope there was. Lies flooded this city.

.  .  .

Too bad he didn't have a car at the moment, the weather was better than last night but not by much. It was winter, a car was mandatory. When he reached the library he looked around the shelves. It wasn't likely there were books just laying around about the Hamilton hotel but he wanted to make sure. He started at the very back of the library. People often do that in movies, why shouldn't he try it? But yet again, he wasn't in a movie.

After an hour of looking at every book he saw, from stories of Germany 1942 to old ghost stories. He couldn't find anything. So he did what anyone else would do, he walked up to one of the librarians, trying to find the oldest looking one that might know something. Tapping on one of the ladies shoulders gently he whispered a 'hello' the lady turned and looked at Jonathan with a soft smile.

"Hello there, may I help you with anything sir?" she asks trying to straighten up her posture but not having much effect.

"Yes ma'am would you know anything...mysterious about the Hamilton hotel? Just down the street?" He asked curiously looking at the lady intensely. She looked back at him, Jonathan could see she was having an internal battle with herself.

"I'm sorry sir I have no idea what you are talking about," she said defensively. Jonathan was tempted to roll his eyes

He tried hard not to get annoyed or frustrated, she was just an old lady. "Ma'am I'm just looking for some information, please just please help me out? I am not going to hurt you or say a word about this to anyone else." That was a lie. He was going to tell everyone who bought newspapers, but he was not going to tell her that. What could a small lie like that do to someone?

She cleared her throat and nodded her head, "Very well, have a seat at that table and I'll tell you what I know." Setting his briefcase down he sat on one of the carefully carved wooden chairs.

The lady, who he had not gotten the name of yet, sat down on the chair across from him folding her hands, the lady went on talking, he pursed his lips wanting to catch every single detail.

"I didn't know what happened I still don't, I was a little girl. I was scared and Lordy I still am young man. Now I don't know exactly what happened but I will tell you what I know and remember," she paused making sure he was listening, "My mom and I were out in the streets I remembered, well we weren't necessarily homeless but we didn't exactly have a home. Anyway, after my mother and my father had a horrid argument my mom decided she wanted to get out and get away from him. And we did by going to the fanciest hotel there was, golly it was beautiful. It was hard to get a room too! My mom was lucky, but not too lucky. When we got to our room and got settled we heard these terrifying ear piercing screams. It scared me something awful," she took a deep breath

"My mom told me to stay close behind her as she walked outside to see what was going on, on our floor people were running, hollering, and the firemen were telling us to evacuate. I didn't know what was going on, I was only 5 years old at the time. My mom quickly grabbed all of our things and we left, not turning to look back. We later found out it was a fire and hundreds of people on that floor died, only a handful made it out alive. We were very lucky. That's all I really know, no one really likes to talk about it now but I'll tell ya young man, I wanna know." She sighed frowning, looking out the window.

Jonathan looked at the old woman. It sounded terrible, but he was getting closer to finding out what he needed to know.

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Chapter written by Mikala Sidney (@LittleBlackStar99)