Andrea had never noticed anything peculiar about the hotel room next door. It was only now that she noticed it as she waited impatiently for her brother to change into his swimsuit. The sun was still ripe in the afternoon sky, but she could feel that a big storm was about to blow in and there would be no chance of swimming for the rest of the day. Her family often came to South Carolina in the summers because her grandmother lived there. Andrea’s mother thought they should stay in a hotel and this one was particularly cheap.
Andrea banged on the door. Her strawberry blond hair hung damp at her shoulders and she carried a blue bikini in her arms. She was 14 and quite tall for her age at 5’8.
She yelled into the hotel room, “Are you coming?”
“I’ll be out in a few minutes,” Brian answered.
What was taking him so him long she wondered?
It was then that she noticed the room. There was definitely something strange about it and not just the fact that it was unoccupied. The door was never locked it was always slightly cracked open as if it were just waiting for someone to open it. Yet she had never seen anyone go in or out of the room. She bet no one would notice if she quickly opened the door, stepped in, and changed her clothes. No one was there to notice. The hallway was empty.
She walked over to the door and quietly slipped inside. She hesitated; afraid she would lock herself in. It closed with no resistance, but a loud creak which echoed through the quiet hallway. She began to unbuckle her shorts. They were baggy and made her bottom look big. She looked down at them on the floor and noticed something else that wasn’t hers. A lacey white dress that could have belonged to a little girl lay abandoned on the floor. Flowery skirts, shorts, tank tops, and underwear littered the hotel rug like the broken contents of a suitcase. There was even a baby doll that stared forward with its marble eyes like it had a mind of its own. Butterflies started to flutter in Andrea’s stomach. She wondered if a little girl would pop up any moment to reclaim her things. She looked around. The bed was unmade and a little stuffed bear lay near the pillow. The shades were closed, the desk was empty and the chair…On the chair there was blood, big drops of blood which looked fresh. Blood had dripped all over the floor near the window. There was no body to show for it. There was nothing but an eerie silence that crept up on Andrea like the ghost of a tortured soul.
Andrea screamed. She hoped someone, anyone could hear her. She stood in her underwear, unable to move.
The door opened slowly, not like someone who was in a rush to save her, but like someone who was afraid of what was inside. A woman, who appeared to be a maid because she wore a white apron, opened the door. She had salt and pepper hair and her face showed age. She looked at Andrea in shock like she was some kind of ghost. Then she began to look around the room. She pulled down the sheets and searched through the clothes like she was looking for someone or something. Andrea looked down at her bare legs and quickly pulled up her shorts in embarrassment.
When she finally spoke the maid said, “You shouldn’t be here.” She said it matter a fact like there was nothing strange going on and it was completely normal for there to be blood all over the floor. Did this woman kill someone or was she crazy and oblivious to the facts that lay before her. Andrea suddenly realized that she was in danger. If this woman had in fact committed the crime then she was the only witness. Andrea’s body began to shake.
“I shouldn’t be here? Well I’m sorry, but you have to tell me what the heck is going on here! There is blood on the floor! Did someone die?” She screamed it as hot tears fell from her olive green eyes.
She looked like she was about to cry and said in a whisper, “You won’t believe me if I tell you. I did not kill anyone. I am only a cleaning lady. I have cleaned this room for five years now. Five years ago a girl died in this very hotel. Her ghost haunts this room. She stays here all day and only leaves at night when I come to clean. She must have left when you came in.”
Andrea can’t believe it. This old woman is crazy. Ghosts can’t be real. But then she remembers seeing a something walk past her last night in the hallway. It was only a glimpse of long brown hair and…a white dress. But it was only her imagination, right?
Andrea asked, “What about the blood?”
“Every night when I come to clean, there is blood on the chair and the floor. Every night there are clothes on the floor. Every night I scrub away the blood and put the clothes away. They always come back. I do not know how, but they do. I discovered this room five years ago. I have told no one. If it came out no one would come here and everyone would find me a fool. Even you do.”
Andrea’s heart started to pound. It was like a horror movie. This room and this crazy woman, they couldn’t be real.
The woman spoke again. “You must leave now. You can’t be here, but please promise me not to tell anyone about this.”
Andrea nodded in agreement and searched for the door knob. No one would believe her if she told them anyway.
As soon as she reached the hallway, the rain began to fall. There was thunder too and likely lightning. No swimming for today. She would have to stay all day in this creepy hotel where some girl had died.
Brian came over to her, looking worried. “Are you okay? I heard screaming and…”
“Yes,” I lied. “I just thought I saw a ghost.”
He laughed, but Andrea couldn’t bring herself to even smile.
The day was dark and stormy. Andrea sat in the lobby of the hotel and watched as buckets of rain fell from the sky. She tried to stop thinking about the room and the strange story, but it just kept coming into her mind. It couldn’t be real, right? Then why was the room always open and why were there clothes all over the floor? Maybe part of the story was real. Maybe that girl really did die five years ago and the blood stains never went away. Maybe that woman just used that room to scare people. Maybe there was a ghost and she did litter the room with clothes every night because… she wanted to punish the person who murdered her. Maybe it was the maid who murdered her and she was still trying to hide it. But can ghosts really litter rooms? Maybe this was all just a bunch of hogwash. The maid probably killed someone and just made up the whole story to cover it up. She was stupid to fall for it. She had to tell the police, but what would she say. If she started talking about that room and the maid they would think she was crazy. Was she crazy?
That night the rain stopped, but it was still too cloudy to see the moon. Andrea lay in complete darkness, afraid and unable to sleep from nightmares. There was one time that she slept peacefully, but she was quickly awakened by sirens. Their cries were sad like a wounded wolf in the night. The lights flashed in the front yard of the hotel. Someone was hurt.
She quickly put on a pair of shorts and a tank top and quietly slipped out the door so as not to wake her family. She went left and ran down the stairs in order to avoid the room next door. When she arrived at the scene; there a woman lay on a stretcher. She wore a white apron which was covered in blood and her hair was speckled in gray. This was the crazy maid and she was dead.
Andrea looked up at the policeman who was likely surprised to see a young girl at two in the morning. She asked, “How did she die?”
“We’re not sure yet,” he answered almost to himself. “It may have been a suicide or possibly a murder. It looks like she was stabbed.”

“Who found her?”
“Someone heard a scream in one of the rooms. Thank god it was open. She called 911 right away. Poor woman, she looked scared to death, but who wouldn’t be after finding a dead body like that.”
Andrea wondered why she hadn’t heard the scream. She must have really fallen asleep. Maybe there was more to the story. Maybe the woman was so scared because she saw a ghost.
The policeman asked, “Did you know the woman?”
“No, I was just curious. I couldn’t sleep.”
“You know it may have been a suicide. I believe this the mother of that girl who died about five years ago. Some people never get over those things. It was her only child.”
“How did the girl die?”
“She actually died in this very hotel. We don’t like to talk about it much here because it scares people away. It was an accident. I believe she just fell down the stairs and hit her head. No one saw it. Her mother just found her lying there. ”
Andrea’s mind started racing. She didn’t fall down the stairs. There was blood in the room. She was killed there. She was murdered by her mother and she tried to cover up. She called it an accident. Her daughter never forgave her and always haunted her. She would make blood appear on the floor to remind the mother of what she had done. Every day the mother would clean it up because she really was guilty or because she was still trying to hide her crime. Then why was the mother killed? She didn’t kill herself, did she?
The policeman looked at Andrea and asked, “Are you okay?”
“Yes. I’m just a little tired. I have to go to bed.”
“Okay. Nice to meet you…”
“Andrea,” she finished.
“Paul,” he said.
They shook hands and Andrea was left with her thoughts.
Her heart skipped a beat as she reached her hotel room. She looked towards the room next door which was still cracked open yet no light escaped from it. If the story was real then the ghost wasn’t in the room at night when the maid cleaned. Was she in there now because the maid had died? What had happened to the maid? After all these years why would she choose now to commit suicide? Was it because of her? No, this was murder. But who would murder her? The only one who would want to would be the girl, but the girl was dead. Can ghosts kill people? Is that possible? There must be a logical explanation for this. Maybe someone found out about the murder and killed her for vengeance. What about the girl’s father? Wouldn’t it be beneficial for the owner of the hotel to kill her? If this story got out it could ruin them. But why now?
Andrea dreamed all night about knife wielding ghosts who snuck up on people and stabbed them. Every hour she woke with a start. It was crazy really, but the more she thought about it, the more scared she became. She needed to go into that room. She needed to see what was inside. She couldn’t do it in the dark though. She would wait until first light. She would finally be able to convince herself that it was just some crazy manager that killed the maid or maybe she was murdered for some completely different reason. Then she could finally calm down.
Andrea awoke at first light. Her eyelids were heavy from lack of sleep and her heart still pounded painfully. She walked out into the hallway and shakily opened the door to the room. It creaked like a wounded animal. She stepped in and looked around the room. The floor was spotless. There was no blood on the chair or the floor near the window from the girl’s murder or the murder that had taken place that night. The room was eerily clean. The shades were pulled up. Her eyes stopped on the bed. On the bed there was a little girl in a white dress and she was very much alive.