The Final Stop

Chapter 1

"Hey Bella, can you lock up?" Theo called out from the kitchen. It was almost 11 pm and she was still at the bakery. They had been short-handed that day and ended up having to leave much of the clean-up to after closing time. After nearly two hours of working, she was finally done. 

"Sure!" Bella called back. "Good night!"

"See you tomorrow," I responded before stepping out onto the back street and shutting the door behind me.

Like normal, the night in Charleston, South Carolina was hot and humid. It was late at night and Theo was walking home from her job at the bakery. Curiously, the streets were practically devoid of cars. She had just turned down Broad Street when the street light flickered and went out. A cold breeze ruffled her shoulder-length jet black hair. Theo heard a low rumbling coming from the old hotel across the street.

It used to be a grand building called the Noctis Hotel. A long driveway wound up to what was once a grand entrance with huge double doors and a marble statue standing on each side. Now, the building stood, crumbling and abandoned. The statues had been reduced to dusty piles of rubble and one of the front doors was missing. The windows were grimy and impossible to see through.

Suddenly, a bolt of lightning came down, seeming to hit the building and blue light shot up from the hotel. It spread across the sky, tangling with the stormy black clouds. Theo stepped tentatively towards it. Then, she saw the figure. It appeared in the hotel doorway, a dark smoke shape standing in the doorway something silver gleamed around its neck. Theo backed away, turned, and ran.

Once she got back to her apartment, Theo sat down in front of her computer and Googled the history of the Noctis Hotel. The first thing that popped up was a news report. The article told about how, in 1978, John and Iris Hooper, who were having their honeymoon there, were found dead in their suite the morning after their wedding. Theo clicked on another article which told about a flood in the hotel in 1989. Then another one about a fire in 1997 where several people died. This caused an entire wing of the hotel to be closed down. Finally, she clicked on one that told how, in 2003, after two more deaths, the hotel closed for good. Theo sat back in her chair, thinking about what she had just found out. She looked at the clock and saw that it was almost 2 am. Still mulling over the information she had just obtained, Theo pushed back her chair, turned off the monitor, and went to bed.