The Strange Occurrences At The Grand Hotel

“Hey Ollie, mommy told me to get you up.” A tiny voice called as small tapping of feet came closer and the door to his bedroom opened.

“I’m already up Lizzie, but maybe you want to use that pitcher for Sammy instead.” Oliver said as he looked up from his book to see his little sister standing there with her cute pink dress on with a pitcher full of water.

“Ok!” She said happily as she turned and skipped out of his room, water sloshed around inside the pitcher and her pigtails bounced along with her as she ran down the hall to their sister’s room.

He glanced over at his clock and saw that it was only five past seven and he had until twenty to eight to be out the door. Since he had time, he flipped the page to the book and kept on reading. A few minutes later there was a yell followed by a squeal and he glanced out into the hall from where he sat on his bed to see Lizzie running out of Sam’s room with an empty pitcher of water. He smiled to himself as he yawned and continued reading his book. His mother had gotten up at six that morning and for some reason so did he, but unlike every other morning, he couldn’t fall back asleep so he ended up picking up the book he had fallen asleep to the night before.

When he checked the clock again, he found that it was already half past seven and he had fifteen minutes to get ready for work. He reluctantly put his book down and got out of bed and almost ran down the hallway since he saw his sister was walking out of her room the same time he did. And he didn’t have time to wait for Sam to finish in the bathroom so he made sure to get there first and slammed the door just as he heard her start to yell something at him. When the door was close, he smiled triumphantly to himself in the mirror as he turned on the shower and waited for the water to warm up.

By the time he was back in his room and buttoning the last button to his shirt, it was already three minutes to 7:40. Once he grabbed his bag and pulled his shoes on, he kissed his mother goodbye then headed out the door. Then put his iPod on as he headed down the crowded New York sidewalk toward the subway to get to work. He worked at a five star hotel in the heart of New York City called the Grand as a janitor. But he usually just picked up different jobs that needed filling it and since he didn’t have an official job title, he called himself a janitor. He did everything from cleaning up the rooms to cleaning out the large pools.

Thankfully his uniform consisted of black pants, but he usually just wore a pair of dark jeans since it really wasn’t specific to what pants they had to be. There was no real requirement for shoes so he usually just wore his old pair of converse along with a black vest and he also had a bow tie, but he usually ‘forgot’ it at home. He usually kept his shaggy brown hair messy since it usually got tangled after a few minutes anyway since he had to keep pushing the curls out of his eyes when he worked. The hotel had a strict ‘proper’ dress code that the employee’s had to follow but usually the people that didn’t interact with the guests much could slide by and didn’t get yelled at.

As he rounded the corner and jogged down the stairs to the underground subway, he fished in his messenger bag for his train card and then got it scanned as he headed to the number six train platform. He checked his watch and adjusted his square black glasses better as he waited for the train to come and pulled out his book. There was still about five minutes for the train and that day it was actually on time so by 7:50 he was boarding the train and trying to find all the while with his nose stuck in the book.

When the train stopped at the platform he needed, he stood and followed the flow of passengers out and toward the stairs going up onto the sidewalk. Even with all the buildings around, The Grand Hotel was very easy to spot even from three blocks away. It was tall and gothic looking and towered over all the other buildings around it making its neighbors look small and insignificant compared to The Grand itself. He crossed the street with the crowd of business men in fine cut designer suits and women in stiletto heels that clicked rapidly as they walked.

Then as he got to the block that the Grand was on, he sped up when he checked the clock to see he was about to run late. He walked through the polished glass doors of the hotel and went through the lavish lobby that echoed with voices and footsteps with its high ceiling and expensive chandeliers. Everything looked expensive and polished that you would think that if you barely touched anything it would break.

But for working at the hotel for nearly two years already, Ollie barely noticed it and instead made his way to the back where the employee area was. He typed in his code in and the door buzzed in acknowledgement and he pushed the door open and headed back to his locker in the back. The room looked totally different from the rest of the hotel and almost seemed like it didn’t belong. It was painted in a dull colorless blue that was chipped and worn and the three rows of lockers almost matched the color perfectly. The lockers were also beat up and the lights above them weren’t very bright and shadowy.

It almost seemed as if the hotel seemed to give up once they got to the employee room. Like the owners had already spent all their money in the hotel itself and just spent as little as they could for the parts the guests wouldn’t ever see. So all the employees were stuck in a small little room with bad lighting while the guests had expensive rooms that they had to clean. It was unfair but something they had to live with.

Ollie opened his locker and put his lunch in the locker next to the stack of books he had in there and then grabbed his master card key to get into any room or closet in the whole hotel. After he had everything he needed, he headed toward the back of the room where his boss calling everyone over for their daily morning meetings before they all set off to work.

“Good morning everyone,” Their boss said after he cleared his throat to get everyone to pay attention. He was a middle-aged bald man with beady eyes and a bad attitude. Usually all the employees tried to avoid him as much as possible and did a good job of it unless he was out looking for you to either yell or have you do a task a different way.

“As you know we had that little problem last week with one of our guests slipping on the wet floors that someone had cleaned but didn’t put the wet floor sign up.” He said shooting daggers at the employee who had done that. The girl blushed and immediately dropped her gaze to the floor and shuffled nervously on her feet. “But thankfully the guest was not harmed and didn’t sue us for our ignorance. So it is a new week and we will leave the past in the past and move on. Just remember to use that grey thing inside your skull while working from now on.” Again his gaze went to the poor girl who looked like she was near tears now. “But another thing that I need to discuss, a few employees are absent for various reasons so I have assigned temporary replacements for the time being.”

He stopped talking for a few seconds to glance at the clipboard he held in his hand and paged through them as his eyes quickly scanned them. “Ah here we go, ok. So until further notice, Anna Brown and Aaron Carter will work together, along with Alex King and Kyle Burke, Sara Ellis and Paige Stevenson, and Ellie Smith and Oliver Jones as well.”

Immediately, Ollie stiffened as he glanced over to where the girl he was now paired up with. She was not your average girl with strangely colored hair and stood a certain way that no a lot of people approached her. Then he also realized that he was on maid duty until further notice. He sighed as their boss finished up his speech and then dismissed them to their work and Ollie took a deep breath as Ellie walked up next to him not saying anything as they went to get their supplies.