Room 13

Hi, I’m Benjamin, Ben for short. I’ll be taking care of you during your stay. I have extensive knowledge of the hotel, the rules, the history, quirks and foibles. Any questions, feel free to ask me.

We don’t actually call it room thirteen. No one says, “Your room number is thirteen, enjoy your stay.” That would be crazy. We’d lose business and customers. We actually call the room 3C – five rooms to each floor A, B, C, D, and E. Unfortunately, whichever way you look at it, 3C is Room 13, even from the other way around - E, D, C, B and A.

It could be coincidence of course, most hotels have suicides and deaths under suspicious circumstances, and we have those in other rooms too, but room thirteen has more than its fair share.

I’ve been here a long time, I’ve witnessed trauma associated with room thirteen, death by natural causes – allegedly, suicides, murder and we even had a spate of copy-cat murder-suicides. Horrific!

We also have ghosts, spirits, ghost stories and more than the occasional bump in the night.

Sometimes, on slow periods, the manager books Ghost Walks, Séances and ‘Meet the Medium’ evenings.

The few days run-up to Halloween is usually booked solid and we’re all rushed off our feet. Yet the manager denies there’s anything evil about the place. I guess there’s a fine line he has to walk.

I came here as a ‘live-in’- straight from the orphanage. 16th birthday and – BOOM! – out into the big wide world to make my own way.

I’m assured things have changed now and the orphans get training to filter them into ‘real life’ a lot easier. I’m reminded of Star Trek with that… Assimilate!

As a live-in, I was taught most jobs to do with the general running of the place. Turning down beds was a cinch, we had to do that at the orphanage. A place for everything and everything in its place. Cleaning and housekeeping was also easy to master, and for the same reason – orphanage training. Stocking the bar and working with alcohol had to wait until I was 18 for the sake of the law, but what the authorities don’t know, won’t hurt them, right? I mastered everything to do with changing barrels, cleaning optics and stock control well before I was legal to serve behind the bar.

The restaurant work also proved easy enough to grasp. I guess I must have the right mind-set for this stuff.

Checking in and out took me a little time to get the hang of, but the staff couldn’t do enough to help me. Before I knew it, the transition time expired and I landed myself a full-time contract.

Considering I didn’t have to pay rent, I think I came out aces. I managed to save a little each month and I bought myself a little car. That worked out well for everyone, it turns out. Because the hotel is just out of the town centre, most of the staff walk to work. Because my car was parked out back, it was convenient for any little errands. Ran out of bread or butter? “Benjamin, could you…?” The manager decided it would be good business sense to pay my insurance in return for the running around I did. I even took a couple to the train station once. Newly-weds and they just got caught up in the moment, over-lay the next morning and would have missed their flight if they’d missed the train.

I was happy to help and though I tried to refuse payment, they insisted. I told the manager about it and he told me to keep it. I really dropped lucky when I came here from the orphanage.

There is only one aspect of the work that I simply don’t like. Night shift, or ‘graveyard shift’ as the staff like to call it.

I get a little jumpy when the hotel quietens down. I even prefer stag or hen parties when I’m on graveyard shift, because I have something else to concentrate on.

You see, Room 13 has generated a lot of corpses over the years, and try as I might, the manager refuses to have them exorcised.

I’m going to tell you one story. The story that involved me, just at the start of my career at the hotel.

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