The Horrible Hotel
4
The Shining, The Maze, Room 237, and Klaus's Temper
“Well, that’s the end of the tour. Pretty soon you’ll have the whole hotel to yourselves- by five o’clock you won’t know anybody was here.” John said.
Violet twisted her skirt nervously behind her back. This was their last chance to get out of it, before they were past the point of no return. Still, Klaus seemed to like it, and it was a beautiful hotel. And she had met Quigley- surly a good omen.
Oh, Quigley… how glad she was that he was alive!
So why couldn’t she shake this feeling of uneasiness off?
-The Shining-
Quigley watched Sunny eat her ice cream thoughtfully.
“So… how long have you been able to do this?” he asked, finally.
“What?” asked Sunny evasively.
“Shine.”
“Shine?”
“Yeah.” He looked off into the distance. “I remember when I was younger- and my family was alive and I was with my siblings- I remember how me and my grandmother used to hold long conversations- without even opening our mouths. She called it “shining.” And for a long time, I thought it was just the two of us that had the shine to us. Just like you probably thought you were the only one. But there are other folks, though mostly they don't know it, or don't believe it. How long have you been able to do it?” He looked questioningly at Sunny.
Sunny was silent.
“Why don’t you want to talk about it?” Quigley asked.
Sunny looked up. “I’m not supposed to.” She said.
Quigley was surprised. “Who says you aren’t supposed to?”
“Jane.” Sunny said simply.
“Who’s Jane?”
“Jane’s the little girl inside my mouth.”
Quigley blinked. “If I looked in your mouth, would I see her?”
“No, she hides. She slides down into my stomach.”
Quigley thought a moment.
“Does Jane tell you things?” he asked.
“Yes.” Sunny’s ice cream was now finished.
“How does she tell you things?”
“ It's like I go to sleep, and she shows me things. But when I wake up, I can't remember everything.”
Quigley bit his lip. “Does Violet and Klaus know about Jane?
“Yes.”
“Do they know she tells you things?”
“No. Jane told me never to tell 'em.” Sunny licked her fingers clean.
“Has Jane ever told you anything about this place? About the Overlook Hotel?”
Sunny pondered a moment. “I don't know.”
“Now think real hard now. Think!” he stared at Sunny.
Sunny paused.
“Maybe she showed me something.”
“Try to think of what it was.”
Sunny looked at Quigley.
“Quigley, are you scared of this place?” she asked.
“No. Scared - there's nothing here.” He bit his lip. “It's just that, you know, some places are like people. Some 'shine' and some don't. I guess you could say the Overlook Hotel here has something almost like 'shining.'”
Sunny looked at her nails. “Is there something bad here?”
“Well, you know, Sunny, when something happens, you can leave a trace of itself behind. Say like, if someone burns toast. There’s a smell in the air.
Well, maybe things that happen leave other kinds of traces behind. Not things that anyone can notice, but things that people who 'shine' can see. Just like they can see things that haven't happened yet.
Well, sometimes they can see things that happened a long time ago. I think a lot of things happened right here in this particular hotel over the years. And not all of them were good."
Sunny looked Quigley in the eye. “What about Room 237?”
Quigley stiffened. “Room 237?”
“You're scared of Room 237, aren’t you?” she asked.
“No I’m not!”
“Quigley,” said Sunny, her voice dropping to a whisper, “what’s in Room 237?”
“Nothing! There’s nothing in Room 237! But you don’t have any business going in there anyway. So stay out! You understand? Stay out!” Quigley said forcefully.
Sunny said nothing.
A Month Later
Everything was going well. The hotel was fine. They watched TV, read books, invented things, talked, played board games, and explored the hotel. Klaus had even started writing a book to pass the time.
At this moment, while Sunny is riding around the hotel on one of those serving trays on wheels, Violet is bringing breakfast upstairs for her and Klaus.
“It's really nice up here, isn't it?” Violet said with a pleased sigh.
“I love it. I really do. I've never been this happy or comfortable anywhere.” Klaus said, over the top of his book.
“Yeah, it's amazing how fast you get used to such a big place. I’m telling you, when we first came up here, I thought it was kind of scary.”
“I fell in love with it right away. When I came up here for my interview, it was as though I had been here before. I mean, we all have moments of 'deja-vu,' but this was ridiculous.” He looked up. “It was almost as though I knew what was going to be around every corner.”
Klaus was bored. He picked up a tennis ball and began bouncing it against the wall, trying to think.
Meanwhile, Violet and Sunny were trying out the hedge maze.
“I know that if you follow one wall of a maze, you can get out, but I think it would be fairer- and quicker- if we tried it the old-fashioned way.” Violet told Sunny. Sunny nodded, smiled, and began to chew on a hedge.
They weaved through the maze, trying to find the center.
Klaus looked down at the small miniature version of the maze on a table (wish I had one).
For a moment he thought he could see Violet and Sunny walking through it, like little dolls- but the moment passed.
Tuesday
Violet was cooking lunch andwatching the news,keeping an eye outfor signs of Olaf.
Sunny was wandering around, looking for stuff to chew.
She wandered around the silent, empty corridors. The carpets was soft and cushy under her little feet. She turned the corner, looking at the long hallway. The was the door. She walked up to it, and looked up at the room number. 237.
She looked at the knob, tempted. She was afraid, but excited too. She reached for the silver knob… she turned it.
It was locked. Sunny turned away, defeated. She looked up. There were the two girls. The two blondes in blue party dresses, holding hands, devoid of smiles.
Sunny turned and ran away down the hall.
~*~
Klaus, tired of being bored, tried writing. The hotel had a computer and printer. Perhaps the unfortunate adventures he and his sisters had had. Or fiction. He didn’t tell Violet or Sunny.
Violet came in.
“How’s the book going?” she asked. “get a lot written today?”
“Yes.” Klaus said coldly. Violet grew worried. He’d been acting very strangly, almost since he got the job.
“Hey! Weather forecast says it’s going to snow tonight.” Violet said, trying to lighten the mood.
Klaus clenched his teeth.
“What do you want me to do about it?” he growled. Violet was so shocked she took a step back.
Could Klaus - her little brother - really say something like that?
“What’s wrong? Why are you so angry?”
Klaus continued to stare at the screen, but his fists clenched. “I’m not grouchy. I’m just trying to not lose my concentration!” he waved at the computer, and looked at her. His eyes were cold and angry.
“Ok, ok… I’ll make you some sandwiches and come back later. Maybe you’ll let me read something then.”
“Violet, let me explain something to you. Whenever you come in here and interrupt me, you're breaking my concentration. You're distracting me.” He hit his desk with his fist, ripped up a few already printed pages, and threw them onto the floor. “And it will then take me time to get back to where I was. Understand?”
Violet stared, scared. She managed a small nod.
“Fine. I'm going to make a new rule. Whenever I'm in here, and you hear me typing,” he typed a few keys to demonstrate, “whether you don't hear me typing, whatever the hell you hear me doing in here, when I'm in here, that means that I am working. That means don't come in. Now do you think you can handle that?”
Violet nodded shakily. “Y-yeah.” She said. “Sure...”
“Good. Why don’t you start right now and get out of here?” he turned back to the computer.
Violet ran out of the room, back into the kitchen, sat on a chair, and buried her face in her hands.
What was wrong with Klaus?
