31 Days of Halloween Tales - The Sisters Van Helsing - Part 2

Another chapter in my tale of two sisters:

The Sisters Van Helsing

Part 2

The silence was killing me. I hate it when Lori gets all "big sister' on me and scolds me like I'm a child but the silent treatment is worse.

This was worse.

"Aren't you going to speak to me, Sis?"

"At some point, Dee. If we live long enough."

I caught the sarcasm in her voice but she was right about that. We had seen two ghosts in the hotel inside of thirty minutes of our arrival and it hadn't even been dark yet.

Ghosts don't hurt people. Well, not generally anyway, but with serial killers and psychotic murder victim ghosts, who knows?

Later that night as I was lying there in my bed at the Hotel Cecil, I started thinking about all the dead that might be roaming the hotel's hallways in addition to the ones we had already seen, counting them like one might count guests at a birthday party.

Like Richard Rameriz, there was another serial killer that lived here, Jack Unterweger. And while he didn't die at the hotel either, he did kill several prostitutes in these rooms. Perhaps after he committed suicide, he might have been attracted back to the hotel for some reason..

Murder victim, Elizabeth Short aka The Black Dahlia,  was rumored to have been here as well. She didn't die at the Cecil as far as anyone knows but that doesn't mean she isn't hanging around here.

Another murder victim,  Goldie Osgood was actually killed in the hotel so she might be a permanent fixture here as well.

There have been numerous suicides but  Pauline Otton was one that was reported and that I remember clearly. Plus the guy that Pauline landed on down on the street below, Gianni or somethin like that,  I can't recall his name but that brings the number up to seven and those are just the ones I know of.

There is really bad energy at this hotel, You can feel it in the air you breathe.

"What is that?"

There was music coming from somewhere outside.

"It's music I think. Someone is playing music this time of night?"

"That's not just music, Dee. That is a record playing on an old Victrola."

I listened again. "Is that Nat King Cole? Sentimental Reasons?"

My sister grunted beneath her covers. Clearly she was not pleased.

"I don't feel like playing Name That Tune with you, Dee. I need to sleep. Can you please tell whomever is playing records at midnight in a hotel that this is not proper form and they need to shut the hell up and go to sleep!"

My sister is cranky when she is tired. Or when she is hungry. In fact, she is cranky most of the time.

Come to think of it, I wasn't too happy either. "Alright!" I snapped a little louder that I probably should have.

I crawled out of my twin bed and pulled on my jeans attempting to be somewhat quiet while letting my sister know how annoyed I was to have to  go out into the cold and yell at someone. I didn't want to endure another lecture from her about how this was all my fault, blah, blah, blah however, so I kept most of my annoyance to myself.

 I didn't bother with the room key either, I figured I would only be gone a second or two since the music seemed to be coming from right outside our room.

As a note of future reference, never leave your room key behind when you are spending the night in a hotel haunted by serial killers and murder victims, it can never end well.


It was colder than I expected when I stepped out into the hallway, I could tell because my breath was already there, hanging out in front of me like a white mist.

This should have been my first warning to go back inside my room and bolt all four of the locks on the door.

But I didn't want to risk the wrath of Lori for a third time that night so instead of doing what my instincts were telling me to do, I softly shut the door behind me and tiptoed towards the music.

To Be Continued...