The Hotel: A Short Story Read online

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  The Hotel

  Copyright 2012 Leslie M. Joyner

  Written and Published By Leslie M. Joyner

  Edited By Kym Goodell

  1It was just creeping up to 6 am. The darkness was slowly receding as the sun began to climb into the sky. But the darkness refused to dissipate completely, a thick fog holding onto it, refusing to let the light from the sun through. The fog gave the autumn air a feeling of suffocation. Nothing stirred. No wind, no birds. No squirrels. Nothing. Everything was silent....

  The loud ringing of an alarm clock began to reverberate through the silence. Joshua slammed the off button, wishing that today was not Monday, any day but this Monday... October 31. For one thing Joshua hated Halloween for what the marketing geniuses had turned it into. For another he was scheduled to inspect the old Lamar Hotel downtown. Joshua was the lead architect on this remodeling project. He didn’t know why, but that building made him nervous. Even before he found out that his grandfather had jumped from the 10th floor in 1929.

  Jeremiah was not the only man that died that fall. Hundreds of investors across the nation lost everything that year on Black Tuesday, the beginning of “The Great Depression” and they could see no way out of their financial ruin. Jeremiah Foster lost everything including his home, but even worse, his young wife, Lena, who was 4 months pregnant with Joshua’s father, Daniel, lost her husband, and her only family. Lena’s parents had died 3 months before her marriage to Jeremiah the year before. Like many families during that time she managed. Working in shirt factories, waitressing, whatever she could find.

  Luckily she had a friend in Craig, Jeremiah’s partner in law. Craig was a strong man. He had become very depressed about the loss of his money, as well as the firms, but when he heard about Jeremiah’s suicide, he knew that he had to remain strong. Secretly, Craig had always loved Lena. He had known her all her life. They had been neighbors growing up. But he could never do anything about it. By the time that he had almost built up enough courage to even ask her out Jeremiah had swept her off her feet and married her...

  Craig had never thought again that he would ever be able to tell her that he loved her. Especially since she married his best friend and partner. He wasn’t happy that his friend was unable to handle the failure of the stock market, but he also saw this as an opportunity to make right what he had never been able to do before...

  After a few months of close friendship, he finally asked Lena to marry him. That made him Joshua’s step-grandfather. But who knows what would have happened to Daniel if Lena had not married Craig. Craig was a wonderful husband, and a terrific father even if Daniel was not his son, he treated him as such.

  But that was the past and today was the present, and Joshua was scheduled to inspect the old hotel for renovations that morning at 8. The new owners where remodeling the building from office space, back into a hotel. He quickly showered and dressed. He made some toast and grabbed a cup of coffee as he walked out the door.

  The drive to downtown seemed to take forever. Morning traffic is always congested in any town. Finally, he pulled into the parking garage of the old hotel/office building. In fact the parking garage used to be a feed shop back in the 1930’s when the building was a hotel. This area Joshua envisioned as a gift shop for the hotel. The second floor would be returned to the glorious ballroom and pub. What formerly was the Sheriff’s office would become a small diner and the hotel room service department.

  The grand lobby Joshua saw as being decorated in the original art deco style of the 1920’s. The rest of the floors had been butchered to accommodate different offices, but that was easy enough to return to hotel suites. The various floors and room sizes would be determined by the new owners which Joshua was meeting with in 5 minutes, if they showed up on time which they seldom did. He supposed that was a benefit of being a successful hotel mogul, show up when you want regardless of appointment time.

  Forty-five minutes later Joshua had all of the preliminary information that he needed to begin the proposed sketches. But as always he did his own walk through of a remodel project to determine exactly what the best options would be. He looked through ever floor, checking for wiring, plumbing, footage etc. and making meticulous notes as he went along.

  He had just finished the 9th floor and stepped onto the elevator and began to push 10, but he stopped. In fact he felt as though his heart had actually quit beating, and he was no longer breathing. Joshua had to force himself to begin breathing again. After composing himself, he pushed the 10 button. The floor on which his grandfather had plummeted to his death. The grandfather that he had never met...

  Before the elevator came to a slow and grinding halt, Joshua had the eerie feeling of de’ja`vu. As if he had been in already... He stepped into the darkened foyer. The floor was cleaned from debris, but this floor had remained in tact as far as the rooms wall areas were concerned. Joshua began at the southern most end of the floor and began his walk through.

  As he neared the northern most section Joshua became light headed. The room seemed as to be spinning. As he entered what used to be room 10G, the door slammed shut, and locked. At the same time Joshua became so racked with fear and pain that he passed out...

  When he came too, or when he thought that he had come too, he was lying on a bed in a hotel room. He wondered where he could be. The last thing that he remembered was inspecting the old hotel rooms and then nothing...

  Voices began to appear from nowhere and yet everywhere at once. “Voices, how could there be voices here. There is no one here but me.” Joshua chided himself for even thinking that he was hearing voices. In fact he was beginning now to think that he was not awake. That when he passed out, maybe he had hit his head on the wall, or floor. That was it. He was dreaming, or hallucinating. He probably had a concussion. Plain and simple...

  The door began to open and the voices of two men arguing became louder. As they entered the room, Joshua felt as though he recognized both men. But they were dressed funny. In fact they were dressed in the clothing style of business men of the late 1920’s. He was defiantly hallucinating.

  The men came in part of the way, neither of them noticing that Joshua was there. Then one of them left and the other one shut the door and turned around. He continued to ignore the fact that there was a stranger in his room, in his bed in fact.

  Joshua made several attempts to get his attention by coughing politely, but to no avail. Finally, even though his head was pounding, he stood and walked to the desk where the man sat writing a letter, or perhaps in a journal. As Joshua came closer he saw that it was a journal, dated 1929...

  This was not good, it was one thing to have a concussion and see people and hear voices, but things were becoming to clear for this to be a hallucination. He attempted to tap the man on the shoulder, but his hand went straight through the man.

  Joshua jumped and screamed and backed away all at the same time. “Now I know that isn’t right. I can’t just put my hand through someone like that, unless I was a ghost or having one of those out of body experiences or something weird that the late night psychics talk about on tv. Besides if I was dead and I was a ghost wouldn’t I be in my own time? Why would I be in 1929?” Joshua began yelling, but elicited no reactions from the man in the chair or anyone occupying the surrounding rooms.

  He was dumbfounded, he couldn’t comprehend what was happening to him, and he just sat down in the middle of the floor and began to cry. No it was not a manly thing to do, but no one could see or hear him, so what did it matter. He did not know if this was a temporary situation, or permanent. Was this his eternal Hell for some unknown crime? Was there no one that could explain what was going on?

  After several minutes Joshua composed h
imself, and heard the man ring for room service...

  “Yes, this is room 10G, please send up a bottle of scotch, and a bucket of ice.” A muffled voice from the other end...

  “Yes, put it on the room bill for Jeremiah Foster...”

  Joshua didn’t quite understand, what was going on, but now he began to realize why the two men had seemed so familiar. He had seen photographs of his grandfather and this man was him. But how could that be, he died in 1929. The other man was the man that he had called grandfather, because for him Craig was his grandfather. Jeremiah was just an old picture...

  Jeremiah returned to the desk and continued to write in the leather bound book that Joshua realized was a journal. But there was never any mention of a journal in the family history. Perhaps it had been lost or was