She walked on. More toast, more eggs. She tried to remember the last time she'd been on vacation herself. It had been a while, that was for sure, back before her parents died, which made it five years. Funny what you remembered. Snapshots of views. A favourite coffee place, reading a trashy novel. Some trinket lusted over, bought, now lying forgotten in a drawer. Vacation sex. Boys now men, just as she was now presumably a woman. Anyone over forty who thought of herself as a girl was kidding herself, whatever was implied by magazines that funded themselves through adverts for anti-wrinkle creams.
There was the sound of a door opening.
She turned. 'Burt?'
No reply. She'd kept her voice low — nobody wanted waking at this time — but he'd have heard, and responded.
A guest, maybe?
She added the tourists' menu to the bottom of her stack and walked back the way she'd come. When she passed the door to the stairs she noticed it was open. Not wide, but propped on the latch.
She hadn't left it that way. You had to close it. Fire regulations were strict on the subject, and there was a sign which said so very clearly. Burt knew about them too. Strange time to be using the stairs, in any event.
She pushed the door further ajar, and said 'Hello?'
The sound echoed down the staircase, but didn't seem to meet anyone either going down or coming back. Just another sound in her own head. Except…
She turned quickly.
The corridor was empty behind her. Of course it was. But it felt like it hadn't been so a moment before.
That was kind of creepy. Burt wouldn't do that. A late guest wouldn't do it either.
There was only one way someone could have gone. Katelyn walked quickly back across the foyer, passing the elevators. A glance at the floor indicator showed they were all down in the basement. Which left…
She looked down the other corridor.
Empty. Pairs of doors, leading away. Silent as it should be.
But then she heard a click. Very quiet, from down the end.
So probably a very late guest. Came up the stairs for reasons of their own, let themselves into their room. Elevator phobic. That's it. No big drama.
Except… something didn't feel right.
The guest had to pass right behind her — which she'd felt. Wasn't it bizarre not to say hello, even if you were drunk, embarrassed at not being cool in front of the staff?
Unless you weren't supposed to be here at all.
It happened all the time. The hotel doors were open all day and half the night. You walked in, nodded confidently at the desk, nobody gave you trouble. At the right time of afternoon or evening you could take as long as you liked to get into a few rooms.
Katelyn had two choices. Go downstairs, pick up the radio she should have had with her — damn it — and get hold of Burt, or else galvanize the useless security guy who spent the night lurking in the basement jerking off. Burt, preferably, who wouldn't look at her as if asking what she was doing being night manager if she needed her hand held after dark. He wouldn't say it, or possibly even think it. But other people would, if they heard about it.
Which led to choice two.
She turned from the elevators and set off down the corridor. Feeling very calm, businesslike and relaxed, she picked up a couple of menus on the way. Continentals.
Behind her she heard the sound of one of the elevators in movement.
She stopped, looked back, hoping that it might halt at the floor and the doors open, that another employee would happen to arrive. If so, she'd call them over on some pretext or other.
The doors didn't open. She shook her head, irritated. This was her hotel. She wasn't going to be spooked.
Another menu. A few more blanks. Another menu.
She stopped in mid-stride, turned back.
Strange. The door of room 511 didn't have a menu. But it did have a 'Please Make Up My Room Now' sign.
That didn't make sense. Who puts that up before they go to bed?
She gave the door a gentle push. It opened a couple of inches.
It was dark inside. Odd again. The door should have been locked, of course, self-locking doors being basic security in a modern hotel. Not to mention it having a latch, which at the very least should have kept it closed.
She rapped on it, quietly. There was no response.
She didn't know if the room was supposed to be occupied. Along with her radio she should have brought up a list. She'd never seen the point. People either wanted breakfast or they didn't. What was she going to do: wake them up to see if they'd forgotten?
She reached inside the door and flipped the light switch. Nothing happened. Ah. Suddenly this was looking more explicable. Obviously there was a problem with Room 511, circuits burned out or something. It happened. The sign was on the door was most likely there to remind someone to get on to fixing it.
But why hadn't she been told? This was exactly the kind of thing that should be on her schedule. If people didn't take her seriously how the hell was she supposed to do her job?
Katelyn's mouth set in a tight straight line. Not being taken seriously was something she absolutely couldn't bear.
She pushed the door open further and took a step into the dark interior corridor. Stood and listened. Couldn't hear anything.
She walked into the room. It was stuffy. The air around her seemed to ebb and flow, stirred tidally with the breath of all those sleeping around her. Normally street and ambient light would have kept it light enough to make out shapes easily, but the drapes at the far end had been left drawn. She could make out that the bed was empty and unused, but little more than that.
She felt her way over to the desk and tried turning on the light.
It didn't work either. Okay, so the power was definitely screwed. She didn't really understand how that could happen in one room alone, but…
Suddenly the room seemed darker still, and there was a soft click. She turned. The rectangle of yellow light from the corridor had disappeared.
She heard something that might have been the sound of feet on carpet. She took a step back, banged into the edge of the desk.
She swallowed. 'Is someone there?'
He didn't answer, but there was. He stepped out of the deepest shadow, face a softness in the sparkling gloom.
Katelyn tried to move backwards, but there was nowhere to go. He took another smooth step towards her, and she caught a glint down by his hand.
She gathered herself to scream, but just then his face passed through a dim beam of filtered light, a cloud coming out from behind another, darker cloud. Something about his features stopped her mouth, and she stared at him.
'No,' he said firmly. 'You don't know me. Nobody does.'
And then he came at her, up through time, with a speed nothing could have stopped.
— «» — «» — «»—
Nobody got their eggs or toast or steel-cut oats on time the next morning. There were a lot of complaints, especially from the top two floors, where the menus had inexplicably disappeared. It was early afternoon before a guest checked into Room 511 and found menus spread over the floor of a room that was otherwise empty, and where the lights didn't work.
The hotel kept the disappearance as quiet as it could. The police questioned Burt first, of course, but he was as bewildered as anyone and more upset than most. He'd liked Miss Katelyn. Last night he'd nearly said something when they met at the elevator, tried to say 'hi' in a way that was a bit more personal, case she thought he was being standoffish or something just 'cause she was the boss or white or something. Now she was gone. Most people seemed to think she'd just wigged out and would be back in a few days with her tail between her legs. A lady night manager meant 'no one back at home', so they said, and women like that were all one stop from the funny farm or Prozac Beach.