I am a kid of divorced parents. One of the benefits at least to my juvenile mind was that when my twin brother and I visited dad every other weekend the rules were a little more relaxed in some aspects. At least my mom wasn't there to immediately shut down what ever we were scheming. A common narrative during my dad's weekends was to visit the local video rental store and pick up a few movies for after dinner. Dad would even let us rent rated R ("Don't tell mom") and it only took a little while to nearly completely check off the horror movie section as we were Halloween junkies. We had seen them all from the latest thrillers, to sharks in the water, to cheesy B movie slasher flicks, and back around to the classic Universal Monsters.



Apparently it had an effect on me (possibly permanently damaged my psyche) and influenced me to write a short (well pretty long for an 11 year old) story. I wrote the story back in 1988 and I still have it.

It wasn't even for a school assignment, it remains a mystery why one long hot summer day I decided to delve into the world of print media and write my own book. I use the term "book" very loosely. If fact it wasn't even printed at all but hand written laboriously in cursive over 24 grueling pages and bound by me with tape and brass brads to hold the pages together. It was even illustrated. I have always loved to read and even back then was probably already starting to read Stephen King books interspersed between Conan the Barbarian books, Choose your own Adventures, and the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings.

My horror story is about a family that becomes stranded in the middle of nowhere with a abandoned hotel nearby. It is full of murder, mystery (mostly what the heck was I thinking when I wrote this), the supernatural, violence, gore, and even some sexual innuendo that were the subjects that preoccupied my thinking back then I guess. It is a wonder I didn't turn out to be a serial killer or something.

The story is heavily influenced by the 1977 book The Shining by Stephen King and the 1980 Stanley Kubrick film version of the Shining. Where an isolated family faces a deranged killer at a hotel high in the mountains stuck in a haunted hotel with ghosts playing havoc on the caretaker's sanity.



It is also influenced by the board game Clue and the 1985 movie version with secret passages and familiar room settings.



It may be influenced by the 1974 film Texas Chainsaw Massacre.



It also has settings and similarities to the 1976 Scooby-Doo episode The Harum-Scarum Sanitarium that I had seen in syndicated reruns in the 80s.

A haunted mental asylum



A ghost playing the organ



The ghost of Dr. Coffin on a stormy night



Most likely though it has its roots in Alfred Hitchcock's 1960 film Psycho and the two sequels 1983's Psycho II and 1986's Psycho III that we had watched in a marathon one weekend. Why an eleven year old was permitted to watch such things you will have to take up with my dad, but it is sufficient to say that my own children would not be allowed to do the same.





When I was a kid during the summer we would travel and take road trips all over. We cruised around in a Chevrolet Celebrity station wagon and hit every museum, ghost town, geological oddity, geographical curiosity, small town celebration, county fair, State historical marker, State Park, National Park, and National Forest within a 300 mile radius.

The Devil's Slide





In the fall we traveled up the canyons in the mountains to see the colors of the autumn leaves. We traveled the deserts in search of ghost towns with the help of a guide book. We ate picnic lunches in cemeteries and told ghost stories. By an early age I was an expert in the supernatural and knew all the local legends, folklore, and stories.



Settler's Cabin



Bodie Nevada Ghost Town



We stayed in many motels and hotels, and camped along the way. One motel we found was a dead ringer for the Bates Motel from the movie Psycho! It even had an old house in the back but it didn't look as cool as the Psycho one. Let's do a little comparison. Let's see, sign out front.

Bates Motel



Real life Bates Motel -Check



Caretaker giving you keys with the room number - Bates Motel



Real life Bates Motel - check!



Bates Motel "L" shaped building with ground level entrance and single door and windows to each room.



Check real life Bates Motel is "L" shaped just painted a different color.



What is really creepy though is that even though it is no longer a motel and has been abandoned for years the building still exists and has weird black crosses on the door now. But the color scheme is even closer to the Bates Motel as it was in the movies when I found it on Google Street view. The address has changed however as Main Street was rerouted if you put in the address on google maps it comes up with one of the few remaining sit down Pizza Huts and a Dollar Tree in a strip mall.



Creepy old house on the property of the Bates Motel



Creepy old house on the property of the real Bates Motel -Check!



Maniacal, homicidal, psychopathic murderer wanting to kill you while dressed as his dead mother -Bates Motel 



Real life Bates Motel - Well all I can say is I don't know, but I feel like we were some of the lucky ones at least we lived to see another day.

Here is the cover to my story, The Haunted Hotel. Morpheus is the Greek god of dreams. I guess I chose Morpheus as the hotel's name because the story is about a nightmare. Influenced by Psycho you can see a cleaver wielding killer's silhouette in the window. Fright Night also must have made an impression as I put a death's head in the clouds like the vampire in the clouds on the VHS cover of the movie.



The back cover



Spoiler alert! Here is a picture of the ghost of the murdered maid with visible wound in her back playing the organ. Here is also a picture of the detour sign.



Here is a sample page of my awesome preteen cursive writing.



Dramatis Personae

Thomas - Our plucky young hero
Dad - Thomas' dad
Mom - Thomas' mom
Little sister Susan - Thomas' pesky little sister
Little brother Franky - Thomas' whiny little brother
The Killer - ?, an escaped lunatic named Max Bruno
The crazy innkeeper - one of the many suspects
The jealous wife - suspect #2
The berserk caretaker (a butler) - Suspect #3
A murderous guest - Suspect #4
A lunatic cook - Suspect #5
Ghost of the murdered maid - Victim #1
Ghost of the murdered guest man in a suit - Victim #2
Ghosts of the whole household except the killer - Victims #3-5

Setting: An abandoned Hotel off the beaten path

For those who are just dying to read a story from an eleven year old's troubled mind I have typed up word for word the entire narrative with grammar and spelling errors included that you can read. But, don't say I didn't warn you. You may not come away unscathed. I mean, I ramble on forever and don't even tell you the names of the characters until the story is more than three fourths of the way through. Enjoy!

THE HAUNTED HOTEL

Copy Write 1988 Scary Stories INC.
All Rights Reserved
No part of this book
May be copyed in any
Way or form without
a writtin note from the
Author
A Spooks Anonymus Book

It was a windy, fall afternoon My dad, mom, little sister, and little brother were all driving upstate to see if it were posible to relocate. Times were hard in our home town and money was scarce we seemed to be desperate but never lacked for anything. Maybe dad just wanted a change of scenery.

Our old station wagon seemed to be running pretty good. As we rode up the canion road we could see many brightly colored leaves red, yellow orange and brown. The wind was wirling the leaves around.

As we were driving up the winding road we came to a sudden stop. dad got out the map, mumbled under his breath and said, This detour isn't on the map. I read the sign (which was old and faded) It said the bridge is out detour five miles. mom said let's go back. I have a bad feeling about this. Naw thats silly we'll go on, it's only a dirt road. and it's just 5 miles. Reluctantly she says ok and up the dirt road we went, brown clouds of dust followed the car as we went.

Three miles up the road the car overheats and stalls we opened up the hood to see a broken fan belt.

Dad says we are going have to let the car cool down and find a telephone.

About a hundred yards up the road I saw a summer hotel, maybe their might be a phone inside. Dad its getting dark we might have to stay there during the night. Let's walk up to the hotel and see if theres a phone.

We walk up to the front of the hotel it looked dark and shadowy as if it hadn't been used for a year.

The was a moth eaten couch on the front porche we walked up creeky  stairs. We trie the oldwooden door it was opened. Dad looked inside he said hello is anybody there? nobody answers.  Dad carefully steps inside he sees a dusty hotel desk. my little brother walks in and rings the bell we all walk in. Gee its dusty in here. he looks under the furniture sheets. He grabs a sheet puts it over his head and says boo! I am a ghost! Franky stop that right now. I looked down the hall there were several closed doors.

franky says, dad I gotta go to the bathroom. dad says, frankie a told you to go before we left. franky says but dad. dad where's the bathroom? I don't know. let's look. We opened the first door to my left. It was a dinning room. There were several tables and chairs. Then we went tot the next door it happens to be the bath room. franky yells, oh boy! and runs in. after he is through we decide to check the other rooms. the next room was the kitchen. with a big coal stove on my right and a big wooden table on my left. dad says wow it's a butcher block I haven't seen one of those in years but what is a bloody meat clever doing jamed in the block, and why is there blood in the sink. mom says, I don't know why but it is making me sick to my stomach. mom walks over and runs the water which washes down the blood. dad says, Gee thats pecular all the rooms sofar are clean ecsept the kitchen. mom says it is getting dark honey, so we better light the oil lamps we found. then we went up the creaky old stairs. then we walked into one bed-room it was neat and clean. there were clean sheets and pillow cases on the beds. franky says, daddy I'm cold. so dad lights the fire place in the bedroom. we hudle around the fire place. then we heard the door slam shut and lock from the outside.

We start to panic. we all run down the stairs panic stricken. and find the door locked. suddenly we hear the car start and drive away. dad says, someone is stealing my car. with a sigh I slowly start up the stairs. when we get up there. dad says I'm tired and I am going to go to bed. we crawled into bed we were almost asleep when we heard someone down stairs.

we fallowed dad down the stairs and into the lobby to our suprise no body was there. Then we went back to bed. during the night we heard wailing noises. but we are too scared to investigate. after a while we hear whispering noises that seemed to be calling us. I was very frightend and I knew my famliy was too. When it was about one O'clock we heard someone walk up the stairs pause at the door and go back down stairs. then we heard a eerie music from a gramma phone. It sung us asleep like a luliby. magicly my sister got up to get a drink not realizing where she was. she walked down the hall unowing of who was behind her. she turns around with a bad feeling and sees the ghost of the maid she walks in the library and goes through a secret passage in the bookshelf. My sister fallows. they walk through many tunnels

When we wake up dad says Susan's missing. we look all around the room. but she is nowhere too be found. the pitchers eyes seem to be fallowing us wherever we go. she must have gone to get a drink. We race down the stairs and look in the lobby, dinning room, bathroom, kitchen , and libray but we can't find her she must have gone back up stairs. I sudgest. We race up the stairs, and find in another bedroom, where the Inn Keeper sleeps, under the bed the maids blood stained uniform. dad says the maid was probily fooling around with the innkeeper, and a jealous wife killed her. mom says, sounds lodgical. we walk into the geusts room and see blood stains on the on the floor. and their suitcases were on the bed and the were un-packed.

mom says, that dosen't make any sense. why would the jealous wife kill the geusts? I sudgest, maybe, the inn keeper was a lunatic. maybe, but why wouldn't he kill the wife? I dont know.

we search the next few rooms only to find more suitcases. then suddenly we hear a pot clang on the floor of the kitchen. we race down stairs, franky shiviring with fright as we open the kitchen door. there is a pan on the floor, the meat cleaver is missing, and the pantry door is open we race inside and a peice of a blood stainded apron is sticking out of the wall we push on the wall to find a secret passage we walk cautiously through the passage. only to find us end up in the dinning room there is a prepared meal on the table . after we eat goes to look for susan.

he walks down dreary halls and rooms. in one of the rooms he almost figures the mystery out. he thinks of all the suspect. It could be the jealous wife, or maybe a crazy innkeeper, or maybe even a berzerk caretaker (a butler) or it could even be a murderous geust or a lunitic cook. but I don't know. as he thinks he doesn't hear door open behind him the murder jams the meat cleaver into his head. we hear a scream fallowed by mysterous laughter. we run up the stairs to find my dad all bloody twisted, and sprawled on the floor we start to cry and I think of all the goodtimes we had to gether and there is a long silence while we are in greif I notice drops of blood and muddie footprints leading

to the wall in mad fury I dash toward the wall. I hear laughter and stumble on the rug and hit the drapes wich uncover a secret door and I race in with franky and mom close behind as we are walking we find the innkeepers wifes purse on the floor, pools of blood, and signs of a struggel.

we walk for hours and hours wandering where it might lead. we find several holes in the walls. I decide to look through one of them and I see our room. I get madder and madder as we go but I am also very frightend. I stumble over my sisters doll that she must have droped. then someone grabs franky and takes off we see who it was and there is a note. saying

IF YOU EVER WANT TO SEE THEM AGAIN YOU WILL LEAVE THE HOTEL AND IF YOU TRY TO FIND THEM YOU WILL NEVER SEE THEM AGAIN

But there was no signature. mother groans I hope they are alright. we start to run down the hall and we come out of a bookshelf in the library.

and there in a chair is susan. we run up and hug her. she says, mommy a nice lady took me through the tunnels. and mommy a bad person hurt her. she was very pretty in her uniform. and I lost my dolly. we started to cry. Susan says, mommy where is daddy and frankie? we told her how dad got killed in the bedroom and now franky was kidnapped by the killer. we started to cry again. then we started looking for frankie we checked the rooms down the hall we opened the first door. It was the ballroom the organ was being played by the ghost of the maid who had been murdered. she mysteriously disappered and was no where too be found. We walk into the next room. It is the lounge I sit  on the couch to rest. susan leans against the wall and the wall open to reveal another passage we step inside cautiously and the wall closes behind us. We feel chiliy but we keep going on. we come out of the closet of the conservatory and we try the door but it is jammed we hear franky screaming and we hear a struggle and a mysterious laugh. we hear someone killing franky. then we hear footsteps leading away. we start to ram the door over and over again. finaly it gives way. we rush into the conservatory only to find franky dead on the floor we start to cry and are very frightend. and I fallow the footprints into the study an enormus shandeler falls between us I hit my sister out of the way as a wall falls between me, susan, and mom we can hear mom on the other side she says to go tot the billiard room we fallow her directions and make our way to the billiard room. we hear screaming. oh no its mom we run down the stairs and into the wine cellar. we run to her. her arm is badly gashed but we manage to get her into the lobby we lie her down on the couch.

We can hear it raining heavily outside. then we hear footsteps coming down the hall. It is the killer. but it is too dark too see who it was. we hide under the sheets. we hear the murder coming closer. everything was still all I could hear was my own heartbeat and the sound of the rain we hear the killer walk away.

I peek my head out coast clear. we crawl out from under the sheets. We take mom to the attic. we walk up creaky stairs and open the door. we lay her down and wate we sit there listing to the rain and thunder crackling in the sky. We watch a rat chew on stuffing of the couch. We get colder and colder I wrap my jacket around mom to keep her warm. I start to fall asleep laying there. I feel as if we had been there all my my life. We wonder when the murder will find us. I fall asleep when I wake up I find my sister gone again mom is asleep so I decide to go looking for her. I walk for hours looking for her. I hear someone coming I dash into a closet as the murder walks by. he doesen't notice me. I wonder if he had found susan. I hope he wouldn't.

I wished none of this had happend. I ran towards our bedroom. I saw the ghost of a man with a suit walking toward me. I was very frightend. What if he was the killer? what if he wasn't? he walk right past me without even looking at me. I shiverd from the cold and from fright as I looked for her. I wandered where she could be.

I had spent two days in the hotel and I didn't want to stay another. I ran to each room hopeing to find her.

She was either traveling around like I was or she was in the secret passages I wished she would stay put. but she didn't. I walked around and around, but I didn't find her I wandered if she could be dead. If she was why couldn't I find her body?

If she wasn't why wouldn't she stay put? I fainted from exsostion and when I got up I thought I was dreaming. Because when I got up I saw the ghosts of the whole house hold except the cook. I knew I wasn't dreaming and I knew the cook was the murder, and he was still alive. I heard mom get up and call my name I ran to her. she had an old news paper in her hands. on the front page was an article that read escape mental patient from the insane asylum nown as max bruno former occupation cook wanted dead or alive extremly dangerous. we gasped at the thought, we started looking for susan again. we looked all over for her. then we heard screaming, it was her.

We ran toward her he was chasing her. he finaly caught her I jumped on his back. he grabbed me and through me off. he chased us into the kitchen we ran to the pantry. he had us cornerd. I grabbed a fruit jar and shattered it on his fore head. he screamed and backed away in pain we dashed through the secret pasage with the cook close behind. he picked me up and threw me through a table. mom ran up started hitting him he slashed mom's throat and came dashing for susan I tripped him and grabbed susan's hand. we rant to the lobby I picked up the the bell through it at the window it shatterd. hurry tom hurry! I heard my sister saying. I started kicking the sutters open. when he gabbed susan. I kicked the meat cleaver out of his hands it stuck in the wall behind us. I jumped on his back and started choking him. he started to run backwards and to crush me against the wall. I saw him trying to get the cleaver out of the wall. he dashed at susan a picked up the oil lamp a busted it over his head he fell to the floor and started groaning. I gabbed the cleaver and started hacking at the shutters he got up and threw susan over the desk and grabbed me and wresteled me to the floor. I his his hand with the meat cleaver he screamed in pain and threw me through the door. I hit the ground.

I felt warm blood run over my face. I saw him hacking up susan. no I yelled. he saw me and started running after me. I got up and ran into the forest. I did not dar to stop because I knew he was close behind. I ran over rocks and fallin trees. I tripped on a branch and fell down. he raised the meat cleaver and brought it down swift on the log. I had rolled over just in time. I got up and jumped into the creek. I swam to the other side and gained some distance because the fat cook was out of shape. I ran through the forest as fast as I could. but the cook was still close behind me. Iran up alongside the road and looked for a car but there weren't any. I ran and ran. I looked back. the cook had stoped to rest but not for long. he chased me onto the main hiway. I waved violently at eh cars but did not seem to care I ran to the hiway entrance and rand down the intersection sceaming and waving violently but they looked at me as if I were crazy. I ran down the road and saw a sign wich read metropolitan city 5 miles I ran and ran but he was still very close behind me. I saw him bend down and pick up a stick. he threw it at my legs and tripped me. I screamed and doged the cleaver he started to laugh again. the eerie hidious laugh. I couldn't stand it. I tripped him with a sweep of my leg and ran for my life.

I coughed as I ran and I wandered if he would capture me.

Iran as fast as I could and sprinted for the last 2 miles. I saw him stop and turn back I started to laugh. I walked slowly but shirley in the direction of the town I saw him fall from exsastion. I knew I would make it to town. then suddenly the cook jumped on my back. he had not went back after all I wrestled him and dove into the bushes. I ran through the bushes and picked up a rock I threw the rock and it hit him in the head he droped the cleaver and fell on it and killed himself.

I woke up as we hit a rock I was dreaming. It was only a dream. I felt the cool crisp wind on my face I could see many brightly colored leaves red, yellow, orange, and brown. The wind wirls the leaves around. I look at the mountains and high cliffs. as we ride by trees. I am shur glad it was only a dream the more I think about it the more happy I am. I look at the beautiful fall scenery. I smile as I ride toward the town.

I ask dad how father we have to go. dad says about ten more miles. I nodd my head.

We stop the car so franky can go the bathroom. susan yell's hurry up franky. and I look at the birds over head. I stare and gaze out the window. we ride joy fully along and look around at the country.

me and frankie get bored so we start to play cards

As we were driving up the winding road we came to a sudden stop dad got out of the car, pulled out his road map This detour isn't on the map. I read the sign which was old and faded it saide the brige is out detour five miles. mom, says lets go back I have a bad feeling about this. suddenly I yell, nooooooooooo!

THE END