Floor Eight

Death is an inevitable thing… at least, that's what people say. Mortality can be brutally short, especially for those who intertwine their fates with the wrong places and people. That's precisely why forced marriages have always made me feel a certain way.

 I had never wanted to be married to someone my father would pick for me. Besides the obvious factor of potentially never being happy with that man, I feared what consequences I might reap for allowing myself to be engulfed in the life of a man I didn't love.

 My greatest fear of all when it came to romance, however, was not being married to a man my father picked, rather, to be married to a scoundrel. A filthy cheater. I would never tolerate it and I would not be surprised at all if violence became my outcome of choice.

 That being said, involving oneself deeply with the wrong people has its consequences, marriage or not. You never know when somebody you trust will become someone you never dreamed they could become. These kinds of mistakes can even be fatal…

"Lyra?" My father was finally escaping the trance he had been placed under by the strange force residing on the seventh floor.

"I'm here, Papa. Everything is okay now." I assured him. I had spent the last few minutes encouraging him to swim up out of the depths of despair as I had.

"Were you shown the same tale of murder and bloodshed that I was, and did the paintings transform into dreams within your mind as they did for me?" I couldn't see him from the lack of light in the stairway, but I knew from the sound of his voice that he was still revitalizing his own spirit.

"Yes, father. I was narrowly able to escape, but I did so thanks to you." I explained, holding his hand that I could barely see.

"I did? I recall seeing you pass out, but I fell unconscious shortly afterward, myself. How did I help you?" He questioned as he sat up straight and held me in his arms.

"Wait a minute..." I had a revelation as I felt him embracing me. "Your arm... has it healed?"

He let out a quiet gasp. "I suppose it has... did you do this?"

"I did not... if you did not save me, and I did not relocate your arm, then..." I trailed off as my brain made shocking connections.

"Who did?" My father finished my sentence for me. I felt him tense up, his anxiety noticeable despite how I lacked sight of his facial expression.

"The man in the light..." I breathed out, hardly believing my own words as I spoke.

"You mean the owner of the hotel? Why would he help us?"

"I do not know, dear father."

"Does he need us alive for something?"

"I truly am unaware of his intentions."

"You mentioned before that you felt like he was trying to warn us, not threaten us. I suppose if he did help us, this would prove that he indeed does not have control over the other haunts within this place."

"I suppose it would. He is a good spirit after all... just a little shy." I marveled that one of my original wild theories born of overanxious imagination was starting to reveal itself as the most likely answer.

 "So, he is as helpless as we are… save that he has no physical body and is therefore safe from the physical monstrosities."

 "Actually, father…" I explained to him the encounter I had with him, how I had heard his physical voice and felt his breath on my neck.

 "Lyra…" I could not tell what emotion it was that accentuated his tone. I had never heard it before from his mouth, and I worried deeply about what he would say next.

"He's flirting with you."

 "…"

 "…"

 "…What?"

 "You mean you can't tell?"

 "Papa! I haven't even seen this man, not to mention that he is most likely a zombie like every other formerly living thing in this hotel!"

 "I would have no opposition to marrying you off to a rich man."

 "PAPA!"

 "Not a dead one, though. He is very obviously quite dead by now."

 "Would you cease your blatant tomfoolery!? I'm certain that a dead man would have no desire to woo me!"

 "You are my daughter, and I'm honestly quite surprised you haven't had any fine men propose to you yet at the age of seventeen years." He spoke as though his genetics made me a jewel among women!

 "That's because I only talk to two people… YOU and ADELINE. THAT IS IT." Such nerve he had to talk about my non-existent love life in the middle of such a place as this!

 "… And him." I couldn't see his face then, but I knew that he had the biggest mischievous grin plastered across it!

 "Sacre bleu, Papa! STOP!" I should have dislocated his other arm then and there, but I feared to lest we should have stumbled into some situation where both of his strong arms would be needed.

 "Very well, my dear. I will cease my jesting now that we are even." he quipped with much sass. This man!

My father and I discussed the possibilities of the identity of the man in the light a little further before proceeding to open the door to the next floor. There was a very faint light under the door, telling me that there were likely windows this time.

 "Enter slowly. We know not what lies ahead." My father and I cautioned each other simultaneously. Clearly, neither of us had a need to warn the other. The awful stench that saturated the halls was enough of a sign to us that something terrible awaited us on this floor as well. The only good sign was the light coming in from the windows. The sun was beginning to set outside, however, so this light we had would not last much longer.

 Walking slowly and silently through the halls, we found that the eighth floor was fairly normal in comparison to the other ones we had explored recently. There were a few large holes through some of the walls along with some bloodied furniture, but nothing we didn't expect… that is, until we got a little further.

 "Papa…" I mumbled. My stomach twisted in knots, and I desired nothing more than to unsee what I had just seen. Appearing before us in the sixth room that we checked in were the appalling remnants of two human carcasses lying on top of each other in the farthest visible corner. Flies buzzed about the room, attracted to the overwhelming smell of death.

 "Oh my…" Father sighed somberly. I expected him to say something about how bad this was going to look when they finally got people up to this room to restore it, but he did not. The discovery of the remains of someone passed was reason enough to maintain a respectful reverence.

 The corpses were just that, however. They did not move, they did not speak, nor did they crawl around demanding to play hide and seek. They lay there entangled in a mutilated mess, missing some pieces out of them from what I assumed was decay.

 With nothing we could really do about it, we pinched our noses to block out the smell and continued walking through the halls in search of anything else that could be a hint to us as to the story behind this hotel. We were able to do so peacefully for the most part until we found yet another corpse.

 The room where we found the corpse was much larger than the other rooms. It was so large, in fact, that it likely took up a quarter of the space on that floor. We quickly recognized it as a library. Its bookshelves were organized into a satisfying grid design with the occasional book overturned onto the floor. The corpse was sitting in a chair, its head flopped over onto its shoulder. Surprisingly, though, it did not stink too much and there were only a few flies roaming about. It seemed fresher than the others, though still rotten and rancid enough to make its facial details unrecognizable.

 "Who could she be?" My father wondered aloud, noting that she still had her blonde hair intact and a pendant around her neck.

 I closed my eyes and gritted my teeth as he reached toward the corpse to grab the pendant. Dust flew out from it as he opened it, preventing me from seeing what was within for a short moment. As the dust cleared, however, I could see a familiar sight…

 Three people posing for a portrait. A father, a mother, and a son, all of whom looked quite wealthy. I knew immediately the identity belonging to this dead woman.

 "This is the woman from the vision…" I stated to my father, looking straight into his brown eyes.

 "She must be. Then who must the two corpses in the room down the hall be?"

 That was a very good question. Whoever they were, they had become completely indistinguishable after the amount of rotting they had done. I wasn't about to walk back into that room, either. In fact, I suggested that we read the book located on her lap to avoid doing so. I would rather not have seen nor smelled that horrible scene again if I could have helped it.

 Having taken the book, my father turned around and walked out of the room. I followed closely behind him, wanting to be away from any corpses just as he probably did. After the things we had seen, dead bodies were the last thing we wanted to be around in this place.

 "A tale of drama and betrayal…" my father read from the first page of the book. He rapidly flipped through the pages, skimming each one for valuable information. I failed to read at his same speed, which frustrated me to no end. As such, I simply gave up and waited for him to finish.

 A few minutes later, he closed the book and looked over at me. "Lyra… this book is about punishment from God. The main character is a woman whose husband cheated on her. That husband was later murdered while at sea." he muttered, thinking deeply about what he had just read.

 That sounded all too familiar, though the "cheating" part was new. "So… do you suppose that this is a sign? Could it be that the story we witnessed in the vision was the same as the one in this book?"

 "I think not." He replied somberly. "There are a few differences. For example, the wife in this book was ginger, not blonde. The husband was also a pirate, not a sailor captain."

 "Still, though, doesn't it seem too ironic to be a coincidence? I suppose it's also likely that this family was staying in this hotel, seeing that the woman from the vision is here."

 "That is a fair observation, my dear Lyra, but… this corpse seems fresh. She also does not appear to have aged much. This hotel has obviously been abandoned long enough for the corpses of the other room to have rotted beyond recognition. Therefore, it would make no sense for this to be the same woman unless she somehow remained alive longer than the hotel had been abandoned and didn't age."

 "I suppose you're correct about that. But then… who is she?"

 My question went without answer. Our thoughtful discussion was interrupted by the sound of yet another terrifying sound. We were so tired of haunting sounds at this point that we both looked at each other, rolled our eyes, and went into hiding out of what felt like pure obligation.

 Having hid in a wardrobe inside of one of the rooms, we listened closely for any spooky voices. We weren't really scared, rather, we wanted to see if we could catch it talking about something that could give us more information.

 All we heard were ominous, heavy-sounding footsteps getting nearer. The footsteps didn't sound like those of a beast, nor of a crawling zombie, rather they sounded oddly familiar…

 "Boots…" My father silently commented, appearing to be thinking along the same lines as me. The footsteps were undeniably made by someone wearing heavy boots, chains jangling from their legs. The wooden floor creaked beneath the weight of whatever was walking by, sending my mind back to the vision I had not too long ago.

 As the noise got nearer, I found myself feeling fear once more despite the redundancy of being forced into hiding by some monster. This didn't feel the same as before, though. There was something more real… more ominous coming from those footsteps. This monster wasn't a monster in the same sense as the others.

 The heavy footsteps passed up our room, continuing to march onward through the halls until eventually we could hear them no more. It hadn't noticed us, whatever it was.

 Taking a step out the door of the wardrobe, I nearly screeched at what was waiting for us there. Neither of us had noticed before, but another corpse was sitting on the bed, leaned against the wall. This one was also very rotten, its smell as bad as the others. With half of an eyeball remaining, it seemed to stare through me. Its mouth hung open, flies and other nasty creatures crawled and buzzed within.

 "This might sound a little crazy, but I think we should follow the footsteps." My father suggested, looking a little pale from the sight of the corpse. "Maybe it'll lead us somewhere with less dead bodies."

 "Or it'll add us to its collection." I objected. "Do you not recall who in our vision made footsteps of that same weight and pattern?"

 My father shook his head. "I know. The captain's murderer. However, it may lead us to more useful information. If we want to know the truth behind this hotel, I'd be willing to wager that this trudging terror can lead us to it. I just have a feeling about it."

 The only feelings I had about it were the incessant mental images of having my throat cut open. Nevertheless, I followed my father down the hall toward where we last heard the footsteps. My mind raced with anxious thoughts of where this thing might jump out at us. I would prefer to be swallowed by a wave of popping cockroaches again than have my throat slit!

 Surprisingly, the footsteps became audible again as we continued forward. Not so surprisingly, there were the remnants of a severed head in the middle of the hallway that we had to carefully step over! The whole corpse trend of that floor got old very quickly. I felt bad for whoever was killed here, but I was so very tired of seeing their remains. Could they not have chosen a better place to hide these bodies?

 We stopped at a corner where two halls met, listening as a door opened and shut. The footsteps were very close, except that it sounded like they were climbing up the stairs!? Since when was one of the hotel's monstrosities able to move away from its assigned floor!?

 "Papa… please inform me of your plans not to follow that booted monster up the stairs." I practically begged him, holding his hand tightly.

 "We must, Lyra." he stated with firm conviction. "How else will we ever discover the secrets of L'Hôtel Hanté?"