Nickerblog’s Mystery Hotel

For an explanation of what’s happening here, visit Shane Nickerson’s Nickerblog

It was awkward, the photographer’s entrance.

Father knew. I had told him just seconds before. Father knew I’d made the mistake again. He knew, although I promised it would never happen again, that I had broken the agreement. It happened on the very day our little town was going to become famous. We had just opened the front doors to the hotel. The night’s guests had not stirred for the morning and the mountain travelers and insurance men wouldn’t be coming through the doors for another hour or better.

No sooner had I said, “Father, it happened again,” did the man with the camera walk through the door. He asked for our time, for us to pose. “For posterity,” he said.

I know Father steeled his face for the picture. I know he wanted to cry. Every time it happened before, Father had taken on the job of fixing my mistake. No one would ever know, he promised me, as long as I never did it again. And yet. And yet, I had done it again.

The photographer took just three minutes to set his camera on a tripod and burn a hard flash into our eyes. For a moment, I was blind. I couldn’t see the calendars on the wall. I couldn’t see how my father was reacting. I couldn’t see if anyone else was walking in the doors. I only knew that when I could see again, I would have to look my father in the eye and tell him in which room he would find the body.

It was awkward, the photographer’s entrance. But it was the only moment all day that I was at peace.

Brad Willis

Brad Willis is a writer based in Greenville, South Carolina. Willis spent a decade as an award-winning broadcast journalist. He has worked as a freelance writer, columnist, and professional blogger since 2005. He has also served as a commentator and guest on a wide variety of television, radio, and internet shows.

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8 Responses

  1. Heavens. Pause this for next year’s Nanowrimo. Or write more now. This is compelling!

  2. Awesome story – concise, powerful, well done!

  3. Anonymous Daddy says:

    I enjoyed this.
    Thoroughly.

  4. Anonymous Dils says:

    Good Lord… you and Wil Wheaton must have connected on some psychic level.
    How about collaborating on the next chapter?
    Loved it, made me want to read some horror.

    Dils

  5. Sawweeet….they found the body in room 72…you are messed up in the head…speaking of messed up in the head, what happend to that crazy spooky banner you use to have on this site…shit use to scare the hell out of me all the time.

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  8. AWESOME story. I could read these things all day.

    Any chance you can write something poker-related but in this same vein someday? I’d pay to see that. Not really.