Floor Three

 One of the greatest mysteries to me then and now is how the answers to my questions always lead to more questions, without fail. They say when one door closes, another one opens, but I find that notion only to be partially true; for I have found that when one door is even partially shut, even with a remaining crack open, at least five more doors open.

 After hearing the mysterious screeching on the second floor, I wondered all night about the arguing women mentioned by the man in his journal. My question concerning the lights I saw under the door in the first place had never been answered, yet there I was then with even more questions than before.

 I was terrified and that sense of terror did not cease to torment me for the entire duration of that night, yet my curiosity continued to grow ever stronger. I tossed and turned in my bed, my eyes refused to shut, and my ears rang on occasion as I recalled the screeching. The moon that night was like a croissant, yet I could not allow myself to be entertained by that thought because of the intense need for answers combined with an overwhelming fear of what would be necessary to obtain them.

 The following morning my father woke me up early, despite that school was not in session on that day. "I could not sleep much last night, Lyra. Have you yearned for answers as I have?" He inquired of me, barely having been awake much longer than I had. The darkness under his eyes suggested to me that he was telling the truth.

 "Likely so. My thoughts have not departed from what we have seen since the event occurred." I admitted to him, though I feared that our mutual curiosity might drive us to do something we would both regret. I knew deep down that it was inevitable in spite of that fear.

 My father let out a sigh, his gaze drifting from me toward the window, looking out at the city of Port-Louis. "I will not push you, my daughter, but I know you desire the truth behind the matter of that man's journal as much as I do. Sadly, I dropped the journal as we ran, so we cannot find the answers unless we return." he explained somberly.

 I hadn't even thought that he could have held onto the journal. In my mind, the journal had simply vanished out of his hands when he held me and ran out the door. Somehow, that detail of the journal's whereabouts had vanished entirely from my mind. "I know we must return, but may we wait until the sun rises? I would prefer to have more sunlight to light up the rooms through the windows when we go." I requested. I thought to myself that the angry spirits that resided within the hotel might not cause us trouble in the light of day.

 "Of course," my father agreed, turning his head back toward me to meet my gaze. "I would not want for another experience like yesterday. Hopefully the daylight will help us discover what truly caused that metallic screeching." His firmness expressed to me that he was still clinging to the hope that perhaps what we heard and saw had some logical explanation other than true haunting. After all, he had already purchased the hotel, and his businessman spirit would not allow him to turn his back on this investment he had already made. I had a deep intuition into this man's pride, and I knew that his spirit would drown out the screeches of those evil spirits any day.

 For the rest of the morning, I drowsily fulfilled my morning routine. Although I was near falling back into slumber, I was yet wide awake. Inexplicably, I felt an unnatural pull toward the hotel. The traumatic events of yesterday told me to stay away, but my curiosity and some other force, whether supernatural or of my own brain, kept my mind on that Dutch man's words. The conflict within my mind was great and I could not rest until it was settled.

 Just what happened in this hotel to make it become what I knew then as L'Hôtel Hanté? Just who was this man writing in this journal, and why were those women so critical of each other? Was it really their ghosts haunting that hotel? Did supernatural beings glow enough to create the light I saw under the door? If there were spirits, were they truly harmful to us or would they simply be images of past guests at the hotel?

 Questions like that clouded my mind consistently. I simply could not find peace without knowing the answers. The hardest part about this was not knowing if those answers were truly attainable, or if they were, that I would likely be left with more questions than before. I wanted to be free of this curiosity, but I also wanted to be free of harm from ghouls and monsters.

 As we prepared and began eating our breakfast, my father noticed the troubled look on my face. "Be honest with me, Lyra," he began, "your face reveals to me that your mind is in turmoil. What is troubling you the most? I want you to talk about your fears and pain with me." As he sat down to the right of me, he reached across my shoulders and rested his hand on my left shoulder, assuring me that he was not going anywhere until he soothed me.

 I struggled to find the words to voice how I was feeling, so it came out as tears instead. "Papa, I need to go back there, but I'm so very afraid!" I cried to him. He immediately turned me to face him and embraced me lovingly.

 "Lyra, I hope you know that I too fear what we saw. But do you know how I plan to march up those stairs again?" He asked me.

 "No, I haven't a clue." I answered with tears still running down my face, looking up at his clean shaven face.

 "I am going to tell myself: Matis Gibeau is afraid, but he is not a coward! Do you understand the significance of this?"

 "No, father, I do not understand in the slightest. How can you be afraid and not a coward?"

 "Because a coward lets his fear stop him from doing what is right. The right thing to do is discover the history of the people that ran and stayed in this hotel, so that we may honor them by bringing it back to life!"

 I hadn't thought of it that way. "You're saying that you are going to do what you consider to be the right thing, even though you might get hurt or die?" I questioned him, now recalling some of the things he had taught me from the Bible.

 "Precisely, Lyra. You and I share one thing about us, and that is that we fear avoiding the right thing to do over fearing what may cause us harm." He assured me, holding both of my shoulders in his firm hands.

 He wasn't wrong, I did want to do the right thing. But I still wasn't sure if going on was the right thing to do. What if this curiosity were to lead to us discovering dark secrets that should never have been made known? A hotel does not become haunted simply because the spirits there were just having a great time and wanted to stay there, even after death. At least not in the stories I had heard, anyways.

 "I'm sure you agree with me that starting this hotel will welcome new visitors to Port-Louis. This in turn will help with the financial infrastructure of this place that many call home." He explained. "By facing our fears, we will not only be making a worthy business investment, but we will also be aiding our city in its growth. We will be helping people who dream of visiting France to achieve that dream!" His words rolled off his tongue like a proclamation of joyous tidings from a prophet.

 "You are right, Papa… but can we really help people if we're dead?" There was silence for a bit after those words.

 "No, we cannot. Perhaps it is irresponsible of me to drag my young daughter into this with me. Your point is valid, but also…" he said, "we do not yet know if we will receive any harm. We only heard noises." He made a solid point.

 It was true. Nothing had caused us any physical harm, nor had we been cursed with anything beyond our normal anxiety. What if this voice we heard was a real person screaming at us to scare us out of the hotel? It was probably a homeless man or woman making voices and screeching at us! They probably just wanted us to give up and let them continue to live there illegally!

This new realization gave me confidence that we could in fact clear the second floor if we wanted to. There wasn't likely to be anything there harming us. Sure, there may have been a screeching sound, but who knows what could have truly been making that sound! It could have been a living man grinding metal in an attempt to scare us for all we knew!

 It was with these thoughts that we carried on to the place that contained both of our fondest dreams and our worst nightmares. The fleeting moments of hope and grandeur, the frightful imagination of what could wait for us on future floors, and the anticipation of solving the mysteries of this enigmatic investment my father had made. Surely there was nothing more thrilling than those couple of days I had experienced in that moment.

 "Get out of this place, you naughty little scoundrel!" Shouted Adeline from outside of the hotel doors. We had only been there for two minutes when the Adalie family had arrived. Unfortunately, this meant her entire family, including her mother and brother; her brother being the problem in particular.

"Make me, witch!" Her brother shouted rudely as he burst into the hotel lobby with a bowl of fruit in his hand, flinging several cockroaches off the doors as they flew open. I had to duck down to avoid having one land on my face!

 "Lucas! You will not speak those words again! Do you hear me!?" A furious motherly voice rang from behind him. Lucas was known for being one of the most troublesome little boys in town. I hadn't a clue why they would bring him here!

 "My apologies, Matis." Jon walked into the door scratching the back of his head, watching his wife chase his troublemaking son around the lobby. "My wife wanted to see the hotel, and Lucas is far too rambunctious to leave home with Adeline or worse yet, alone." His face showed his embarrassment clearer than the sky on a sunny day in the Summer.

 "It's no frustration to me so long as he doesn't damage anything." My father assured him, a hand on his shoulder. "But what are you doing here so early?" He inquired.

 "It's going to take about an hour of us chasing him around for him to calm down." Jon answered with his hand over his face, hiding his embarrassment as his son crashed into a pillar, somehow managing to avoid spilling any fruit.

 "I see. Then perhaps you wouldn't mind discussing some more plans for the lobby's desk area over there before Lyra and I go to further inspect the damages on the second and third floors." My father requested of him, a commission that surely rang as a blessing for this poor man.

 "Look at all these bugs!" Lucas shouted, stomping on a spider. "Let's jump on all of them!" He began hopping from bug to bug, squashing each one he could find.

 "There we go. Free pest control." My father's optimism and humor successfully put a smile on Mr. Jon's face- at least for a few seconds, anyways.

 "You won't run out of pests so long as he's here. Lucas is a bigger pest than any of these poor bugs." Adeline sneered with a spiteful glare at her rambunctious younger brother. For her to have sympathy for bugs was shocking to me. She was known to have a particularly powerful dislike for insects.

 "I can take that up with the twins. On a different topic, how was your visit to the second floor? Is it as bad as the first was?" Jon asked as he turned his hazel eyes away from his son and back to my father and me.

We exchanged a short glance before my father responded. "It's not great, to be sure. I would say it is nearly double the wreckage in the second in comparison to the lobby."

 Jon's eyes widened. "You must be trying to make me laugh, right? This lobby was quite wrecked, you see, and I can't imagine what kind of wreckage must be the second floor should you persist that it is worse."

 "Can I see it?" Adeline requested, taking my hand in both of hers. Her mood shifted quickly from the previous spite and bold-faced distaste to a brightened sense of curiosity.

 I struggled to come up with a response. How was I supposed to tell her "no"? I couldn't explain to her what we saw, lest the rumors about it being haunted be confirmed and my father's dream be crushed.

 "Of course." My father answered cheerfully. I couldn't believe him! "Just let me go do some last inspections of its structural integrity before you do. It was too dark last time for us to see much, but now that the sun is rising and illuminating the inside through the windows, I should have the opportunity to do so."

 That was a clever answer. I should not have expected anything less from the master businessman, Matis Gibeau, I supposed. My father had to do his fair share of stalling for time in the past while trying to sell other buildings, and it seemed to be paying off now. Ideally, the sunlight would have chased away whatever terrible spirits we encountered last time in the dark, and this would give him time to confirm that before we allowed anyone else to see the second floor.

 "Oh yes, please do. I don't desire to have my daughter's beautiful face damaged by falling debris." Jon agreed, though Adeline seemed offended by his implication that such a thing would happen. I always found the Adalie family dynamic quite interesting, though most would have considered my own family dynamic odd as well.

 "I will return shortly. Within no longer than a minute, I presume." My father assured them. As he ascended the stairs, I noticed a slight hint of hesitation in his steps. It was plain to me that he was nervous, though no one else could tell. He must have felt the same sense of unnerving discomfort that I did at the thought of returning to that horrible place.

 "Lyra, how does my hair look today? I had my mother braid it again in case we had to do more climbing." Adeline immediately questioned me, turning her back to show me the braid her mother made.

 "It looks great to me, Adeline." I responded quickly, pushing away the nervousness I felt about what my father might find up there.

 Shockingly, it was not what my father was going to find that I should have been nervous about, but rather what I was going to find here on the first floor. Within the strands of the braid in Adeline's hair, I saw something I hadn't expected to see again… le cafard!

 Unless this was a new one that got there today, what looked like the same cockroach that had fluttered into her hair the day before had remained there up until this moment. How was that possible!?

 "Adeline, I think there may be…" I wasn't going to keep it from her any longer. That insect didn't need to stay on my friend's head, but when I went to inform her, I was interrupted by her bother of a brother.

 "Lyra!" He exclaimed. "Look at this grape!" Within his hands was a grape of unusual color. Instead of being the usual purple, green, or red, it had taken on an unusual hue of blackness. He was shoving it into my face, ensuring that I could see it though I was hardly focused on it.

 "Lucas, that's not a grape, that's a black olive!" Adeline corrected him, swiping the olive out of his hand. They then proceeded to argue loudly until my father came down from the stairs with a relieved smile on his face.

 "It appears that there are no significant dangers on the second floor. You can all come and see it if you'd like." He announced. That was a mistake.

 As soon as Lucas heard it, he began dashing toward the staircase. Fortunately, Mr. Jon had quick reflexes and caught him by the collar of his shirt. "Wait for your sister. I'm going to stay down here and help finish the first floor before I even look at the second floor." He ordered his son.

 "Ugh, why can't he just stay down here and keep stomping on these filthy insects?" Adeline whined to her father, stomping her foot on the ground. I hadn't expected such an immature response from her, though it was obvious that even Mrs. Adalie was worn out by Lucas. She had taken a seat on one of the old chairs and begun knitting.

 "Because there are even bigger bugs up there! I need someone to help squash them." My father explained, smiling at Lucas.

 "Yes! Onward!" Lucas cheered, his hazel eyes ablaze with excitement. With that, we ascended the stairs once more despite Adeline's newfound hesitancy with the mention of "bigger bugs".

As we ventured through the second floor in the daylight, the memories of what had happened the night before didn't seem to bug me so much anymore. With natural light pouring in from the windows my father had opened, all the terrifying feelings I had felt the night before had vanished. I began to wonder if I was just scared of the dark, though there was no denying that we heard something.

 "Adeline, my dear, are you quite sure you're all right?" My friend was trembling and eyeballing every corner as though she expected an army of certain small creatures with six or more legs to burst forth from the walls thereof. The look she gave me in response told me that she was not, in fact, quite all right.

 "Keep your eyes open, Lucas. I saw a few roaches scuddling about when I surveyed these halls earlier. I wager you would be overjoyed to crush those." My father seemed to be trying to keep him busy for the sake of the workers on the first floor. The Ducasse brothers would show up before long and they supposedly had a strong disdain for young children disrupting their focus.

 Speaking of cafards, the one crawling around my friends' head was no longer visible, which either meant it had found a hiding place in her thick, full head of hair or it had flown off. I direly hoped for the latter.

 I noticed my father pick up the journal he had lost from one the doorways, adding just a touch more relief that we would be able to get some answers from it so long as he didn't lose it again. I hoped with all my might there would be nothing to scare us away at that time.

 We had only been exploring for a few minutes when we realized that it was quiet. I didn't think that was possible with Lucas around. That, however, was because he was not around. He had disappeared!

 "Where is that troublemaker now!?" I heard Adeline mutter quite loudly. Her tone was so aggressive that I thought it wise for the boy to fear her more than she herself feared the insects.

 We agreed that he could not have gone far, and that he had probably followed my father somewhere to crush some bugs. Yet, when we located my dear Mr. Gibeau, Lucas was not there with him. This, in turn, gave me reason to believe that Papa too should fear us more than Adeline feared the insects.

 "Papa! How could you lose him!?" I scorned him. He could have been back on the first floor wreaking havoc!

 "What do you mean?" He questioned, ignoring my disrespectful tone in favor of his concern for Lucas. "He followed you, did he not?" Obviously, he did not.

 Adeline frowned and shook her head. "No, Mr. Matis, he did not follow us nor you. So then, the only other places available for his presence are back on the first floor or…" We all turned our heads upward.

 A sinking dread fell upon me. My father and I hadn't even thought about the third floor yet! What if there were more spirits there waiting to consume an easy target like a reckless little boy!? Without saying a word, I turned around and ran toward the next staircase as fast as I could, my father following me soon after.

 We found Lucas just standing there quietly at the foot of the stairs, staring into the darkness above. Without hesitation, my anxious mind made the assumption that he had fallen into some kind of dark entrancement. Surely, his soul was taken by the devil!

 "Mr. Gibeau…" Lucas said quietly, almost sounding like he would cry. "My fruit cup… an invisible man stole it." He pouted, confusing all three of us. Surely, he jested. I wouldn't have hesitated to believe there were ghosts here, but why should a ghost rob a little boy of his cup of fruit? Was this some form of petty mischief?

 "Lucas, what do you mean? There are no such things as invisible men." My father asked him, kneeling down to look him in the eyes.

 "It was, though. My bowl just floated up the stairs like a man had grabbed it from me… but I couldn't see him." Lucas' voice was low and quiet. His gaze upon the staircase was steadfast as a nail within a sturdy board. It must have been true to end the rambunctiousness of Lucas Adalie! Never had I imagined that boy staying still and speaking at such a lowered volume!

 "Papa…" I breathed heavily, looking up into his eyes. The fear within me caused me to tremble. I was far from ready to have another experience with a spirit. I knew if he didn't have some convincing logical explanation for this, I was going to have a combat de puer  then and there.

 "Think about this, all of you. A spirit would not have a physical body to lift his cup of fruit. It must have been a fruit bat." My father reasoned, though Lucas was quite obviously not convinced as he continued staring into the upward abyss. It comforted me just enough, however.

 "Oh yes, that makes sense to me." Adeline agreed. "Let's go up there. I would gladly take bats over nasty bugs." Before we could say anything, Adeline took Lucas by the hand and made haste up the staircase toward the third floor. We quickly followed them up.

 Surprisingly, the third floor wasn't as dark as I had imagined. It was still very dim, but enough light leaked out from the old curtains so that we could at least see where we were going.

 "Be careful, everyone. I have yet to explore this floor to know if everything is stable. Don't go jumping, stomping, or hitting the walls." My father warned us, stepping cautiously into the halls. Nothing seemed unstable, but something felt off, and I did not like it. I felt like I was being watched… by more than one pair of eyes.

 The floors were covered in a rug, just as the second floor was, but they were significantly darker tan. Each footstep we took left a lighter colored footprint in its wake, informing me that these rugs were so very dirty. Salissant, as my father would say.

 I could smell nothing but the smell of old, stale cloth and something faint that resembled the smell of a public outhouse. I could vaguely hear something crawling around in the walls, likely some pest; I knew not whether it was insect, rodent, some monster, or a combination of the three. Regardless, I prayed they would remain there until we could get pest control in here to exterminate them.

 Silence befell our little group as we slowly stepped forward into the halls. I most certainly didn't see a fruit bowl anywhere, nor did I really care to find it at that moment in time. I just wanted whatever was watching us to go away.

 Seconds had passed before I realized what was watching us. Tiny little black orbs attached to a sleek body with eight legs. There had to be hundreds of them crawling around the corners and above us on the roof. I dared not point them out to Adeline! I could only imagine if she screamed and one or more of them fell off the roof onto one of us, the way that their exoskeletons would feel as the unknown species of spider crawled across my flesh, or the way that it would sting to feel their fangs inject whatever kind of venom they may or may not have had into my veins.

 We had barely taken ten steps into the room when I noticed something of a familiar shape crawling around through Adeline's hair. Not just the one either, but now at least three that I could spot in the dim light. Three cockroaches with their nasty little twitchy antennas, scuttering around the braid her mother had so thoughtfully done for her. The sight forced a small squeal of disgust out my lungs, a squeal which caused my father to jump. Poor Adeline turned around all too swiftly, flinging one of the horrid creatures onto her brother's face.

 "Bleh!" Lucas grunted as he swatted it off his face onto the ground. I thought I might pass out. These bugs were really pushing me to my limit!

 "Adeline, stay still." My father commanded her cautiously, approaching her and reaching toward her hair. That was a mistake. Adeline may not have been the smartest girl in class, but she could put together what was going on here.

 Upon the realization, her face turned a ghastly pale. She swung her head around and screamed at the top of her lungs, sending the spiders above our heads into a frightening frenzy.

 I covered her mouth as quickly as I could, but it was too late. The spiders were all scuttling around the roof until eventually they were all gone. But where did they go? Why did they leave? Everyone else must have noticed them too, judging by the expressions of shock on their upward-looking faces. I wasn't hallucinating those spiders, so why would they retreat when we would have made an easy meal for them?

 "Excellent, Adeline. Your voice scared those creepy little arachnids all away. Now we can walk through here, find that bowl, and return without those crawlers looming above our heads." Said my father. I was beginning to think he had a death wish.

 "There it is!" Lucas pointed out toward the other end of the hall, where his bowl was empty on the floor. That, at least, was somewhat of a relief. I knew something bad was about to happen, though. The feeling of being watched was still ever so present, and the accompanying dread was no help.

 "Perfect." Said I, exasperated and wanting nothing more than to go back to the second floor and find that journal. "Let's grab it and go." I walked with wide steps at a quickened pace toward the cup, and as I bent over to grab it, I heard something I had hoped never to hear.

 The sound of exoskeletons clacking and rattling, getting louder with each passing millisecond. I had only enough time to look up before my feet were engulfed in insects. Not just any insects, but the very bugs that invaded Adeline's hair… cockroaches; massive, with eyes big enough to be distinguishable in the dim lighting. Their legs felt like skeletal fingers grabbing at skin and brushing against my ankles beneath my red gown.

 "NOPE!" Shouted Adeline as she turned around to run back down the stairs. She also was too late. The cockroaches were already crawling and flying in the doorway, paralyzing her in fear.

 "Lyra!" Papa shouted to me as the disgusting crawlers began climbing up our legs, making tiny little squeaky sounds. Taking action, he shook them off of his legs, picked up Lucas and gestured for me to follow him toward the stairs.

 Seeing him act reminded me that though these cockroaches were nasty, they didn't bite. I shook them off and swatted them out of the air as I ran toward my beloved father. I knew if we could make it down those stairs, we could get away from this flood of creepy crawlies. That hope didn't last long, to our misfortune.

 Just as I thought this nightmare could have been ending, I heard a loud "POP" from the doorway. Adeline's hair and face were covered in the innards and yellow, goopy guts of the cockroaches. Had she started trying to kill them? I had no time to find out. I needed to get out of here fast, but I couldn't. There were so many cockroaches that each step was heavy, and I almost tripped over the massive piles of their shelled, crackly, brown bodies. Flying in the air, they hit me in the face and left cuts near my eyebrows. The blood was slowly making its way toward my eyes, my heart was ready to burst, and the fear began to freeze my limbs. I had never imagined I would die drowning in an ocean of maleficent insects.

 As though to make things even worse, I witnessed in pure disconcertion as multiple of the disgusting things randomly combusted. One bug which had landed on my father's face exploded into a yellow splatter upon his eyes, blinding him as he attempted to make an escape from this hellish insectarium. Adeline had begun making her way down the stairs, though she too was surrounded by the invasive popping roaches.

 Terror spun in my mind as they crawled up my legs, flew onto my back, and even slid into my mouth to be quickly spat out. Was I about to be swallowed by a tsunami of cockroaches? Was my end to be here, in this the third floor of an abandoned hotel, finished by these giant, oval-shaped arthropods? How was the existence of this many bugs one floor even possible, and why were they all coming for us!?

 Despite my head spinning and heart pounding, I forced myself to think. If my legs were too weighed down, I would travel a different way. I flopped down onto my side and began rolling toward the door as fast as I could. To my surprise, it was working! The roaches were being spun off and crushed under me as I rolled. Shards of exoskeleton stabbed into my skin, but not deeply, and the addition of their innards spewing all over me was most definitely among the worst sensations I had felt in my lifetime.

 By the time I reached the stairs, the blood had reached my eyes and I could see only with a red tint. I stood up, tripped, and tumbled down the stairs. I was bruised, bloody, dizzy, and frightened beyond measure, but I had made it back down to the second floor. I got as far away from that staircase as I could before I turned back to see my father running near blindly with his own cut-up and guts-splattered face away from the staircase to me with both Adeline and Lucas in his arms.

 "Go! Get to the first floor! I have the journal in my pocket, and you have the bowl! Go now!" He shouted, grabbing my shoulders so that I could guide him to the staircase. As soon as we reached the stairs to the first floor, I slammed the door behind us, preventing the bugs from getting to us. At last, we were safe.

 "Are we all okay?" My father asked. We sat there for a few minutes, catching our breath and listening as the cockroaches continued to scuttle around behind the door with one occasionally crawling out and into a crack in the wall. Everyone nodded except Adeline, whose eyes were bulging as she rocked back and forth on the step where she sat. She was the least covered in yellow goop but the most affected. This was clearly a nightmare come true for her.

 "It's okay, Adeline. It's over now." I attempted to soothe her, though I was still recovering from panic myself. The bleeding had stopped, and I could see well enough to know that my words had at least brought her back to her senses. I felt so very guilty about dragging her into this, and I knew that neither of us would ever look at a bug the same way again.

 "Thank you for saving us, Mr. Matis. Please do not ever invite us up there again." She muttered, breathing heavily and leaning on my shoulder.

 "Fruit bats and cockroaches. This is an issue for an exterminator. We'll have to call them in tomorrow." My father stated, wiping blood, bug juices and shards of cockroach shells off his clothing.

 He was playing it off as a large infestation, but I knew that he knew exactly what that was. There was somebody here that didn't want us here, and whomever it was would employ the most peculiar and vile tactics to get us away… even if that meant employing an ocean of terrible insects to engulf us.

Fortunately, neither Lucas nor Adeline received any injuries. Despite this, we had to explain everything to everyone on the first floor without making it seem like the hotel was haunted, though we knew without a doubt it was. I could never forget it was, for if the namesake of this God-forsaken place wasn't… L'Hôtel Hanté.

To be continued