As we rounded the corner, I casually inquired how many guests shared the top floor with us. At the same time, I heard the unmistakable 'bzzz-click' of an electronic lock opening, and right in front of our eyes, our suite door cracked itself open an inch or two. I halted so abruptly that Emily ran into me, and the clerk grabbed my arm to steady me. I looked at her. "Does THAT happen often?" I asked. She shook her head and said, "I think you're the only two guests in a suite up here right now." So! Back down to the lobby we went, returning with the male night manager and the clerk who had originally accompanied us. This time, the suite door was firmly shut. "I'm not going in there," Emily stated. I think we all shared that sentiment, but hey, we had Mr. Night Manager there for that very reason. He cracked the door, then pushed it open most of the way. In the hallway, we three brave women stood together in a huddle, peering in. The living room was trashed. Completely wrecked; lamps on the floor, furniture turned over. The microwave was also on the floor, and the fridge was on its side. Unbelieving, I stepped forward and pushed the door open wider. There were clothes from both our suitcases scattered everywhere. Costumes, underthings, and t-shirts hung from the sprinklers mounted on the ceiling. Worse, the lock on Emily's travel trunk had been - well, crushed - and all the designer things she was so proud of were also thrown everywhere. There was a Fendi sandal in the toilet, and the curtains over the window at the far end of the living area were torn from the mounted rods and were lying in a heap on the floor. Emily and I stared at each other, open-mouthed. "Was it like this when you came downstairs?" asked Mr. Night Manager, rather idiotically. Still staring around us, we shook our heads. The female clerk had entered by then, and stood there, looking shocked. "Well, what about when the door opened the first time you came up here?" he went on. The female clerk answered him this time. "They don't know," she snapped. "We didn't look in, we just left." Emily had begun picking up clothing and shoes, accessories and makeup. Several small eyeshadows had been broken and scattered, then ground into the carpet. "Who could have done this?" I asked. "Does anyone else have access to a pass-key around here?" The clerks exchanged a look that I'd have missed if I blinked. "No," they answered, simultaneously. The phones rang again. We all looked at one another. Mr. Night Manager answered the phone closest to him. "Suite ***, this is Stan." Then, "Yeah. Nope, nobody. The suite's been wrecked, though. No, probably not. Yeah, I know. Will do." He hung up, turning to face us. "That was Lisa, down at the front. We're going to switch suites for you tonight. Do you want us to help you get your things together?" "No, but please don't leave us here alone for another second," I blurted. The other clerk was helping Emily toss our stuff any which way into the suitcases. Everywhere I looked, I found more broken, torn up personal items. My journal was halfway shredded, with what looked like bite marks on the cover. "Who could have done this?" I asked again. Nobody had an answer (not even [especially!] the police officer who took the report), but a day or so later, in the hallway leading to the fitness room, I encountered the female clerk. She wanted to talk to me, and had, in fact, been looking for me or for Emily. We sat on the steps while she talked. What happened to Emily and me in our suite had occurred before, she thought, but not while she worked there. She had heard things, as all old, decrepit hotels have histories, but she'd largely disregarded a lot of it as just...fantastic ghost stories. Tales, told and re-told among third-shifters to pass the boredom of another long night. The suite we had been in was at the crux of most of the problems, she went on to tell me. As nothing had happened in her six years there, she'd assigned it without a second thought. From the moment we arrived, she said, there had been electrical malfunctions at the switchboard. Malfunctions? Like what? Well, such as every single line lighting up, calls coming in from rooms that were unoccupied as well as the occupied ones. Nobody was on any of the inbound lines. There was a bank of pay phones in a hallway off the lobby, and they'd ring simultaneously. The security guard had attempted to answer them, more than once. More problems with the doors, as we'd observed from the lobby. The people we'd both seen on the monitor downstairs had not been guests at that hotel since June, she thought. There was no way to explain why they hadn't been taped over, or why that particular loop had keep repeating. Worse, their security guard had actually quit that night. He just walked out, she explained, right before the doors started acting weird. They were still waiting for another to be assigned. We were interrupted then by another clerk I had never seen before; an older woman who gave off the 'management' vibe. My new friend jumped up guiltily and went off with her to attend to whatever needed doing, and I went to find Emily. We were blowing this crazy joint, hell or high water. Weird, I wouldn't have been able to handle this emotionally. That night I would have been gone from there. Between the actual seeing "it", and then finding the room trashed! Scary.....:chair::behindpc::stone