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I'm stuck here, in room 1290, with a corpse and that—thing—waiting for me. I think I'd even face Stern again, to escape the Hotel.
But Stern's surely happy I'm trapped—may have helped bring me back. God knows I never wanted to see this room again. But I didn't know I was coming.

The Convention

I came here first when I was a kid, in the early 2000s. It was supposed to be bonding time for me and Dad. We had little in common: I played tennis and raced bicycles; he brought work home and watched sports on TV.
We both liked science fiction—he'd introduced me to Star Trek and let me read his old paperbacks—but I was still startled when he said we were going to a sci-fi convention. Usually Dad hated family trips, fiddling with maps, shushing us kids, grumbling to Mom about the price of gas and Motel 6.
This time, it was just Dad and thirteen-year-old me, "bonding." We packed for five days, then he drove us apparently halfway to the North Pole. I ate in greasy spoons, peed in gas stations, threw up along a twisty mountain highway, and finally woke up in a parking garage at two in the morning.
I didn't know if I was in Maine or Montana—I was cold, the garage was dark and creepy, and I had to carry my duffel bag two blocks through hissing snowfall, flanked by dirty snowbanks higher than my head.
I'd never stayed in a genuine hotel; after my first glance I never wanted to again. The three-story lobby smelled of mud and dead mice. I collapsed into an upholstered armchair while Dad checked in—it felt damp, and the dark stain on one arm looked like blood.
A drooping sign said "Welcome, Coalition for Adhesives and Sealants". I picked up a newspaper from a low table to read the funny pages, but the stained sheets stank of spoiled fish. A huge front-page headline said, NIXON RESIGNS.
I looked up to ask Dad who Nixon was, but he was arguing with someone out of my sight. "I paid for a confirmed reservation," he said in the low, steady voice that preceded all my worst spankings. A voice quacked behind the desk. "I don't care if it's a broom closet, as long as there's twin beds and a bathroom."
Somebody appeared, wearing an ill-fitted green uniform and a tiny cap. At first I thought, "It's a midget!", then, from my lofty thirteen years, "He's just a little kid." But as he led us toward the elevators, I couldn't tell how old he was.
A sign at the elevators said, OUT OF ORDER. Dad swore. "Are we gonna have to walk up twelve floors?"
But the little guy led us around the corner to another elevator, where a couple waited. This one was much older, with those folding grillwork doors in old movies like Titanic, waiting to lovingly bite off my fingers.
The elevator car rose into sight, operated by a tall man with thin shoulders but a round belly, in a uniform of the same swampy-looking green.
"Floor, please?" he asked. The other man named a floor. The little guy held up a key to show him its big brass tag. "Twelve, very good." He closed the doors—I kept my hands behind me—and the elevator lurched upward.
"Dad, why do we have a key?" The older man, wearing a name tag saying CAS / My Name Is CLIFF, carried a magnetic card, for the sort of electronic lock movie heroes hack to break into evil government labs.
"Because we're in a lousy room," Dad replied. He held out his hand for the key. The little guy shook his head.
"It's the bellhop's duty, sir," said the elevator man, "to show you into your room." The car thudded to a stop, and Dad waved the little guy forward.
"Ninth floor," the operator said. The couple edged past Dad, the man frowning, the woman giggling. Dad fell back, muttering and blushing.
I was old enough to realize the man's companion—red-haired, twenty years younger, badly dressed for the cold—was probably a whore. But why, grinning at me, did her teeth look so sharp?
At the next stop, the operator intoned, "Twelfth floor." Dad and I followed the bellhop off into a dingy, worn hall.
Although it was nearly three a.m. (Dad had reset my watch when we changed time zones; whether back or ahead I didn't know), a surprising number of people wandered around. Next to their outlandish garb, the redhead's clothing looked sensible. I began to believe the outrageous tales I'd read of sci-fi cons.
I'd expected cosplay: Star Trek, Star Wars, anime. I hadn't expected medieval and barbarian outfits—some very revealing. I'd have to study them tomorrow; for all his short legs, the bellhop led us a quick march down the hall, around a corner, and down another long hall.
The first hall looked like Versailles next to this back corridor. The pattern of the ripped, stained wallpaper was barely visible. Lights in ornamental wall sconces flickered on the low ceiling; one buzzed like a nest of wasps.
But all the doors had electronic locks. He led us around another corner, down a third hall, to a door at the end with a small sign: Performers ONLY / Backstage Pass REQUIRED. The bellhop gestured us through.
"We must be at the very back of the hotel," Dad murmured; he had a good eye for distance. He gestured to our right. "That wall"—doorless, decorated with faded theatrical posters—"must back up to the office building next door."
The odorous lobby had once been magnificent; the twelfth-floor main hall retained a fading luxury. But this passage was where bad cops took someone to beat out a confession. At least I didn't smell dead mice.
Light spilled from a door ahead. Inside we found a maid straightening the bedspread. She wore a white apron over a calf-length dress of the hotel's decaying green. She had no hair and a boyish figure, slim and narrow-hipped. But surely she was a girl?
She said to Dad, "I apologize that you find less than readiness. This room was scheduled for no use. Shortly I will finish." Her voice was low, what one of Dad's sexier novels had taught me to call contralto. Instead of sexy, I found her obscurely terrifying. Just as I couldn't judge the bellhop's age, I couldn't decide if she was in her twenties or her fifties.
She carried fresh towels from a laundry cart. "This room, behind the theater stage—guests dislike the theater noise." Her faint accent and phrasing sounded foreign.
The bellhop handed Dad the key on its heavy brass tag. Dad tipped him a dollar, and he bowed his way from the room. Moments later, the maid finished fussing in the bathroom and left, apologizing again for her presence.
Dad closed the door. The boy-man bellhop, a head shorter than me; the maid, ageless as carved onyx, hairless as an onion, sexless as an angel; the inhuman voice at the desk—I asked Dad, "Are they aliens?"
"Who what?"
The maid particularly reminded me of the bald alien chick in Star Trek: The Motion Picture (which Dad said was awful, but made me watch twice). "Aliens," I repeated. "Are aliens running the hotel?" Dad laughed, but he set the night latch.
The small, windowless room was clean, but smelled old; the linens were fresh but my narrow bed creaked and breathed musty air when I lay down. I slept badly; how much from fear and how much from excitement I still can't say.
I find it ironic now that I remember the Coalition of Adhesives and Sealants but can't remember my first sci-fi convention's name: one of those rhyming names like Blonde-Con or Won-Ton-Con. There's a reason I remember the CAS, and for why that was my only sci-fi con.
The first day we visited a billion booths in the third-floor ballroom: comic books and action figures, T-shirts and coffee mugs, fake phasers and light-sabers, real swords and daggers. We went to panels in the tiny fourteenth-floor theater, which had a proper stage with curtains and boxes on the side walls, and seating so steep the stage was actually on the twelfth floor.
It should have been fun, but everyone seemed edgy; several people called the hotel "creepy." Dad remarked on people's bad tempers. When two guys came to blows over Kirk-versus-Picard, two other guys wearing armor and swords dragged them apart; not all the live steel was on the sales floor.
Dad grumbled about cons at old hotels without proper show halls, debated aloud which panel to attend next, and added up things he wanted to buy. I mainly looked at girls.
Back home their clothing would have gotten them arrested: corsets and armor, strange alien ears, body paint and slinky robes with nothing underneath. Mingling with them were men wearing CAS tags—"Prowling for poon," Dad said. I spotted Cliff, last night's elevator companion, minus the toothy girl.
Several girls wore chainmail, which I'd never seen in real life. Most wore it over clothing, but a few wore only mail—and linked circles of wire don't cover much. To my shocked Bible-belt eyes, naked women strolled the con areas.
That afternoon, we headed to our tiny room to drop Dad's purchases. He'd found a hidden door from the theater seats into our dungeon-like twelfth-floor passage. But a young, muscular guy in armor stopped us by the stage. "No guests allowed," he said. "Thou shalt not pass."
Dad gave him the look he saved for when I told some especially dumb lie. "We're going in," he said.
I grabbed his arm and whispered, "The guy's got a sword!" I pictured Dad getting his head hacked off for trying to push past.
Dad just held up our key. The sword guy grinned at the brass tag. "They stuck you in the leper colony, too!" Long ago, he explained, actors, depraved and dissolute, were isolated from regular guests. From that moment he and Dad were buddies.
He introduced himself as Herbald; he and his wife worked for the sci-fi con, heading a six-person security team, all wearing medieval armor, swords, and daggers.
I asked him what sort of name Herbald was. "That's my SCA name," he said, which explained nothing. I thought he'd mixed up the initials of the Adhesives and Sealants guys. (Later, in high school, I learned Herbald was Beowulf's uncle.)
He showed us the prop storage and dressing rooms, the complex rigging and lighting, and a narrow backstage door into our "leper colony" hall, with a hand-painted notice: DON'T SLAM THIS BLOODY DOOR!
"Come see our room." Up a flight of narrow stairs—metal, covered in carpet to prevent "noises off"—a catwalk served a second tier of dressing rooms behind the flies. "Technically," he said, "I guess we're on the thirteenth floor now; good thing I'm not superstitious!" He led us to the first door, knocked, called, "Are you decent?" and took us in to meet his wife, Dagmara.

The Missing Princess

She was unfazed by strangers invading her quarters, but she knocked me sideways: heavyset but athletic, carrying herself with authority; a broad, happy, dark-eyed face under tousled brown hair. She wore a skirt of leather strips like a Roman gladiator and a red cloak hung from leather shoulder guards; between them she wore only a chainmail halter, hiding absolutely nothing of her large chest.
She wore a rapier and carried a staff taller than me; among the guards she had the same authority as Herbald. On her rapier's sheath a sticker said, DO IT IN CHAINMAIL.
She plopped onto a dressing stool, boobs bobbling, and waved one hand at their room. "See where they stuck us? The con told the hotel they'd hired security, but the hotel didn't reserve us rooms!"
Their room was tiny, but fascinating. The rust-stained sink stood in the open room; only a sheer curtain closed the shower. In an alcove right of the shower, a rolling rack of dusty costumes stood before a wall-to-wall, floor-to-low-ceiling mirror. A narrow bed and a double dressing table, twin mirrors ringed by lights, completed the furnishings.
It hasn't changed much since. I liked it then, but I didn't know one day I'd be trapped in it.
I don't know why, but they seemed happy to have Dad and me tagging along. "We're on duty round the clock," Dagmara said, "so we eat when we like and take turns sleeping."
"And we can check any room the con's using," Herbald added, "any time we want."
All evening and into the night, we wandered the hotel: checking the ballroom, theater, and panel rooms, escorting guest speakers, shushing the noisier parties. I never met any more of their team, but they exchanged texts and calls frequently.
Tempers grew shorter after dark. Several times Herbald and Dagmara intervened between con attendees and CAS members. Many CAS guys viewed all the female cosplayers as easy meat; twice I saw Dagmara discourage some middle-aged drunk by cracking her staff against his ankle. The guards didn't drink on duty, and Dad never drank; we all found the roving boozers fairly tedious, whether CAS or con.
By midnight I was dead for sleep, but as long as Dagmara boobled around the halls I was determined to follow her. I had fantasies of her saying, "Come on back to our room—I want to get a shower and change."
Cliff of the CAS turned up around 12:30, trying to convince Dagmara he had the perfect sealant for her staff. "Clear 's glass," he said, "and tough as leather. Never ship—chip, no matter how many heads"—a sly chuckle—"you knock." But his eyes weren't on her staff.
"Sweetie," she told him, "go find a call girl, so next week you can give your wife the clap." Clear Cliff just grinned and reeled away.
Dad at last buckled. I followed him to bed, relief and regret mixed. A few hours later we were at it again, watching a panel rant about some show called Firefly, then roaming with our new friends. Dagmara, disappointingly, dressed more modestly today, but greeted me with a hug to that wondrous chest.
Then she squeezed my biceps and said, "Hon, check this kid's arm! We gotta get him in armor!"
I was skinny from my latest growth spurt, but proud of my athletic ability; I nearly burst at her compliment. Herbald explained that his hobby, the SCA—the Society for Creative Anachronism—recreated medieval fighting with real armor and blunt weapons. "I just won Crown Tourney," he boasted. "Next month me and Princess Dagmara become king and queen."
When I was sixteen, he said, I could compete in SCA fighting. "You've got endurance, too," Dagmara said. "You must've walked ten miles last night. With tennis reflexes, you'll be a great fighter."
That was the last time we were all together. Something in Dad's breakfast disagreed with him; he wanted to lie down. He said I could go alone to the con's morning movie, some 1960s creature feature, if I promised not to wander the hotel. As he was leaving, Dagmara said she was ready for a nap and would ride upstairs with him. We agreed to meet at the ballroom at noon.
Herbald and I roamed until time for the movie. As we rode the elevator up to fourteen, Clear Cliff joined us, friendly as ever but obviously wishing Dagmara was with us. The operator—who never seemed to go off duty—let him off at twelve. We rode to the theater's main entrance on fourteen.
I'd seen the movie before and hadn't liked it. Halfway through, despite my promise, I cut out to poke around one of the prop rooms I'd learned to sneak into.
At quarter to noon I banged on our door. Dad let me in, toothbrush in his mouth. Shortly we found Herbald waiting on three.
Dagmara didn't appear. By 12:10 Herbald was on his phone; by 12:15 he was worried. "She's not answering," he said. "None of our guys have seen her. I'm going up."
We followed him to their dressing room, where a mix of steam and citrus shampoo lingered. I licked suddenly dry lips at the hopeless thought of Dagmara's wet body behind the translucent shower curtain. But Herbald was growing frantic.
He called the desk for a hotel detective. "A house dick," Dad said to me. Herbald hung up and said the chief of security was coming.
The chief was not what we expected. "Call me Stern," she said, giving it a Germanic pronunciation: shtehrn. She stood a confident five foot nine, piercing eyes beneath a fluffy mop of short grizzled hair.
She chased Dad and me away: "Civilians hangin' around I don't need." We went back to the con; but our hearts weren't in it, and we sacked out early that night without seeing Herbald.
The next morning Stern questioned Dad, me, and other guests. But the third day passed with no news. Herbald prowled, eyes wild, cheeks hollow and unshaven. I felt horrible for him, but there was nothing we could do.
The con ended at noon the fourth day. After packing, Dad and I slipped through the hidden backstage door. "We can't leave," he said, "without giving him—" He stopped. What we could possibly offer Herbald?
We climbed the stairs anyway. Dad knocked. Stern answered, staring without speaking. "We came to tell Herbald goodbye, and wish him well."
The guard slouched on the narrow bed, haggard and exhausted. "You know what's the funny part?" he asked, voice lifeless. "The con organizers say they're canceling our contract, and won't pay. We contracted for a crew of six, and they say we only provided four. They say I haven't been any use."
Stern said, "I'll have a word with them." Her eyes gleamed.
"No use. Not a feather's weight of empathy among them."
I wanted to hug him, but was too shy. Dad gripped his shoulder and said, "I'm sure she'll turn up. There's an explanation somewhere."
"Thanks," Herbald said. "You're full of shit, but it's a nice thought."
In a movie, now the clever kid spots the key clue. I knew I wouldn't spot anything.
But Dad did.
I said he had a good eye for distance. Now, staring distractedly across the room, he measured the walls with his eyes. "Wasn't that deeper?"
"What?" Herbald and Stern asked together.
Dad pointed at the alcove by the shower. "Wasn't that mirror further back?"
Herbald stood shakily, crossed the room in three steps, and yanked the rolling rack out from the mirror covering the alcove's back wall. He felt around the mirror's edges. "There's silicone sealant here." He leaned over and sniffed. "It's fresh! That's what I've been smelling!"
The mirror had two panels, each about two feet wide and seven tall, a wooden stile between them. Herbald reached for a stool from the dressing table. Before anyone could protest, he swung it at the mirror's center. Knives of silvered glass crashed down.
I believe for a moment Dad forgot I was there, or he'd have tossed me from the room.
Within the jagged-edged hole stood Dagmara, strangely bent, as though frozen while sleeping, then raised to her feet. She wore a convention T-shirt and cutoff shorts. Her face, arms, and legs were dark and mottled.
She gleamed in the dressing-table lights, as if cast from plastic. Herbald pulled her forward. As he laid her on the floor, I saw his fingers dent her upper arms—soft plastic.
"She's covered in something!" he cried. He tugged at the skin of her face. "She can't breathe!" Her clothes and skin had a smooth, transparent layer of something on them.
Dad reached for his shoulder. "She's already—" Herbald threw his hand aside and snatched a dagger from the table. He carefully sliced the film over Dagmara's lips, then pried them apart.
With the sound of a flushing toilet, gas rushed from her mouth, so foul it clouded the air. A ghastly, fetid stench flooded the room, as Dagmara's swollen body sagged. Dark fluid filled her mouth, overflowed onto the carpet.
I fled to the catwalk, gagging, gasping for air. Dad came next, dragging a stunned Herbald along. "What the hell?" Dad exclaimed. "How can it be that bad?"
Stern walked out without haste. "Peculiarity of the Hotel. Bodies here, unfortunately, tend to rot like butter meltin'."
"What was that?" Herbald sobbed. "What happened to her?"
From their faces, the idea hit him, Dad, and me at the same instant. "Coalition of Adhesives and Sealants," Dad said grimly.
"Clear Cliff!" I exclaimed.
Again, we couldn't witness the interview; Stern interrogated Cliff in his room, while Dad kept Herbald company. I got the story from Dad later.
Cliff denied having seen Dagmara after offering to coat her staff. But one of Cliff's associates revealed that several sample jugs were missing, a new clear sealant supposed to make polyurethane look like library paste. Streaks of the sealant were found in Cliff's bathtub. On top of that, a maid said Cliff had paid her "seven score dollars" for an hour's use of her laundry cart the evening after Dagmara disappeared.
"He killed her," Dad said, "dumped her in his tub and poured sealant all over her. When she hardened, he stuffed her in a cart, took her to the theater, and carried her upstairs. He pried the mirror loose, put her behind it, and used silicone cement to glue the mirror back in. The clear stuff kept her body from stinking."
We couldn't check out fast enough. Dad was afraid we'd be subpoenaed to testify against Cliff. Still, when Dad spotted Stern in the lobby, he stopped to ask after Herbald.
"Young fella's pretty broke up," the chief said. "Had to physically restrain him, or he'd'a took that sword 'a his to old Cliff."
I asked, "So he's going to prison? Clear Cliff, I mean?"
"Nope," she answered. She grinned at my shocked look. "Won't be necessary. He busted loose from me, and jumped out a sixteenth-floor winda. Mebbe he thought there 'uz a fire escape. Anyway, he landed right on the port co-cheer, kaboom! Scared ten years off an old lady just gettin' outta her limo."
I gulped. Kaboom! Imagining that tortured me for days.
"Just as well," she went on. "Way that body'd decayed, the docs'd prob'ly say she'd croaked three-four days before Cliff ever got to the hotel. Would'a played hell with a jury. Lucky fer ev'ryone we don't hafta deal with that." Her calm certainty belied the idea of luck.
We hurried into rain and sleet. I didn't dare ask if Dad thought Stern had thrown Clear Cliff out the window. After one glance at the water running from the porte cochère's downspouts, I didn't dare look away from my feet.
We drove home with even fewer stops than our outward trip. We agreed: no more sci-fi conventions. We also agreed to never speak of that trip.
Did that count as bonding?

The Hotel Non Dormiunt

Somehow, I survived high school, collected a B.S. in engineering, and went into manufacturing. I jumped jobs twice, landing in a U.S. plant of a European transnational. I married a plump happy woman. We agreed kids could wait a few years.
I saw trade shows from the inside, and liked the view no more than at thirteen. Though now the rooms were non-smoking and the call girls accepted prepaid debit cards, too many drunks still made trouble with cheap women. But shows are part of manufacturing; I had to attend two or three each year.
This February I was scheduled for one in a southern city I'd never visited. As usual, the Corporate Travel department booked my flights and my hotel. I expected a booking in a chain, a Marriott or Hilton.
So I was surprised not to recognize the name Travel emailed to me: the Hotel Non Dormiunt. Googling the address, I learned it was an old high-rise right downtown. Apparently, it would also host the show three colleagues and I were attending—another surprise; most manufacturing shows are too large for anything but a major convention center.
I remembered enough Latin roots to puzzle out the name. "The 'No-Sleeping' Hotel!" I told myself. "Perfect for a trade show."
No airline shuttle went to the Non Dormiunt, so we shared a Lyft from the airport. She had trouble finding the address, but finally pulled under the porte cochère of a towering old pile, twenty stories or so of eroding brick-and-stone elegance.
The lobby, three stories tall, was worn and dark. Cheap-looking couches littered a frayed broadloom carpet. The air of outdated grandeur was somehow familiar, as if I'd seen this lobby in a movie.
At the desk, a surly young man in a red jacket checked in my three companions, then informed me coldly that I had no reservation. After reluctantly checking the confirmation number from my email, he pouted and said, "We have no regular room available. We'll have to put you in a twelfth-floor special."
Despite the years, that number sent a chill through me. I'd stayed in many high-rise hotels, but by chance never again on a twelfth floor. "Room 1291," he said. "It's a single, an emergency room only. It's not handicap-accessible. Will that be a problem." His flat tone said he wasn't asking.
He summoned a bellhop, an amenity I was surprised still existed. "You'd never find this room otherwise," he told me, handing me a key card, 1291 penciled on the sleeve.
The bellhop, in matching red, still wore a pillbox hat from a century earlier. Without a word, he took my bag and led me to the elevators.
On twelve, he led me around two corners, past an already-open hospitality suite, then through a door marked "1280-1293".
The lobby had looked vaguely familiar; the hotel's general layout resembled others I'd known—but there was no mistaking this narrow passage: After over fifteen years, I'd come back to the "leper colony."
I refused to believe it. I didn't know where that long-ago convention had been, but I knew we'd gone north: There'd been yards-deep snow. This couldn't be the same city. A wild coincidence—or the same architect designed two similar hotels.
The bellhop led me past all of the rooms along this narrow hall, to a door at the far end. For the first time in years I thought about the bellhop at that other hotel. This fellow was of similar build, but looked years younger than that other man would be by now.
Then he opened the door to backstage, and all chance of coincidence evaporated. There was the familiar command, faded and scratched but legible: DON'T SLAM THIS BLOODY DOOR!
Inevitably, the bellhop turned toward the stairs, thumping my bag against the steps. I followed like a man climbing a gallows; the same carpet, more worn and stained, muffled my footfalls. There was the handrail I'd gripped, trying not to throw up at the stench of Dagmara's decayed flesh.
If he led me to the first door, I thought I'd break down and cry.
It brought only slight relief when he walked past to the second door, with its shiny new numerals: 1291. He waited as I slid in the key; the lock flashed green, and I opened the door.
This room was a mirror of Herbald's room, modernized for an actual guest. Costume rack and dressing table were gone, replaced by a standard bed, a desk, and a tiny hospitality counter with coffee maker, refrigerator, and snacks. A proper bathroom replaced the shower and mirrored alcove, but it still had no tub.
The real shock was inside the bathroom: A maid arranging towels, in black slacks and white tunic, slim and boyish—and utterly without hair. As the final, fatal touch, she said, "I apologize that you find less than readiness. This room was scheduled for no use. Shortly I will have finished." Her contralto voice was no less terrifying than when I was thirteen. She hadn't aged a day.
If she said more before leaving, I didn't hear: I was at the point of fainting, collapsed on the bed, blood roaring in my ears. The bellhop stood my bag by a tiny closet and bowed himself out, not waiting for a tip.
As the door clicked shut, I bolted to the bathroom. I vomited into the toilet, then leaned my head against the cool porcelain tank. The toilet stood where the mirror wall had been. A few feet from me—the other side of that wall—Dagmara's clear-sealed corpse had stood rotting, waiting for my dad to notice a mirror's altered position.
It was impossible, insane, that I could be in the same hotel. It was unbearable that I could be only feet from the transitory sepulcher of that woman of lush figure and happy immodesty, who'd laughed away the men her body drew, a princess of some imaginary kingdom. Unbearable.
I fled.
The surly clerk refused to change my room. "I can't stay there!" I insisted, voice rising. "Not where someone was murdered!" In my distress I exaggerated: I knew she'd been killed elsewhere, then moved.
Maybe the clerk pressed a button; maybe the Hotel passed some subtler signal. But a cool voice spoke behind me: "Sir, I'm gonna hafta ask ya to control yourself."
The grizzled hair was now iron-gray, the face more lined, but there was no mistaking Stern. I now topped her by several inches, but she still carried the aura of a sleeping god, to be roused only by the reckless. "I'm—I'm sorry," I stammered. "But I just can't stay backstage!"
"We're very short right now," Stern said. "Seventeen's closed, the whole floor—water trouble." Under her stare, my further protests died. As if hypnotized, I took the elevator back to twelve.
A room-service supper of passable fettuccine Alfredo soothed my nerves somewhat. Belly full, I set the night latch, left my laptop open for a night light, and fell into a restless sleep.
A thud from somewhere woke me. It wasn't repeated, so I rolled over, thinking, Some other poor leper. Then the moaning started.
I shook with chills at the low sound: pain, mourning, and anger in a single voice, the sound my father had surely made after someone bumped his car off a hillside, in the hours before paramedics found him lifeless but still warm behind the wheel. The moans came from the bathroom; when I went in, I heard them coming through the wall.
Sobbing with fear, I yanked on pants and ran out. From the catwalk the sound clearly came from the first door, Herbald and Dagmara's old room, now marked 1290. Frantically I pounded on the door. The moaning hiccuped, then stopped. I pounded more; no one answered.
In my room, I frantically dialed the desk. "There's no one in 1290," a reedy voice insisted. "In fact, that room can't be opened. If you wish, though, I can send the house detective."
Dear Lord, a visit from Stern? "Never mind," I said hastily. "The noise stopped."
I went back to bed in my pants and shirt. Unable to sleep, I tried to distract myself with email, then my messages. One of my travel companions had sent me a photo—of the Seattle skyline. "Missing a great show u lazy bum," his message said.
How could he be in Seattle? I tried to call; it rolled to voice mail. I checked my email again. Nothing from Corporate Travel: no flight reservations, no confirmation number for the Hotel Non Dormiunt. I'd paid the Lyft driver, but the Lyft app had no record of the ride; my email held no Lyft receipt.
The phone slipped from my hand. This hotel couldn't be in this city, and I couldn't be at this hotel.
I heard another thud, then footsteps on the catwalk. Flesh, or phantom? They hobbled unsteadily back and forth past my door—then came a sudden cry followed by uneven thumping. Someone had fallen down the stairs!
Terror or not, I couldn't sit idle. I opened my door to look down the dim stairs. A human shape huddled at the bottom.
I yanked a blanket off my bed and rushed down barefoot. There lay a man, broad-shouldered but wasted, hair and whiskers long, shaggy, and unkempt.
Fearful of spinal injury, I didn't dare move him. I threw my blanket over him and started back after my phone. But before I climbed halfway he sat up, pulling the blanket close.
"What manner of man art thou," he said huskily, "to offer succor to such as me?" His speech baffled me: a medieval revenant? Then he coughed and said, "Oh, crap. You got any Advil?"
That mixture of archaic and modern idiom— I clambered back down and bent to see his face. Imagine hair brushed back, beard gone—
"Jesus Christ—Herbald?"
"Huh?" He gaped at me. "Nobody's called me that in a coon's age."
He refused my help climbing the stairs, refused to come to my room. So I followed him into 1290.
Closing the door, he proceeded to barricade it. "Maintenance quit trying to get in here years ago," he said. "Makes it easier for me. Only problem is food, but the maids help."
"Jesus, Herbald." I looked around. Only three tiny bulbs on the dressing-table mirrors still burned; what little they lit had hardly changed. One stool lay broken; the other still sat before the table. His sword lay half beneath the bed. "Why are you still here?"
"She won't let me leave. Says I've got to find one more answer."
I realized he must be in his forties by now. "She's dead, man. Dagmara's dead."
"You remember that name…" He turned away. "Dagmara! Come see!" A costume rack still stood in the corner; he pulled it aside.
I thought I'd known horror.
Beneath still-hanging mirror fragments stood a ghostly shape, a cloudy specter. The phantom of a woman, bones hung haphazardly within.
Then I saw the dim reflections of the makeup lights off her—dulled with years, stained with corruption, but still impressively clear: the plastic sheath from Dagmara's corpse.
"I had to keep washing her out," Herbald told me. "Just the hard parts're left." Bones, he meant: The sealant still held her skeleton. The yellowed skull sat in place; the upper spine and many ribs still hung in the neck and chest; but other bones were disjointed, hand bones fallen into clutter, pelvic bones askew, lower spine dropped into her right leg.
Was the mouth he'd slit that awful day still the only opening? Had he patiently run water into that small hole, sloshed it around, poured it out—over and over, day after day, to rinse away the rotting flesh? No shreds of fabric remained; he must have used something to dissolve her clothes.
I had to catch breath to speak. "Why is she still here? Why didn't the cops take her?"
"Nobody called the cops," he said. "He killed her, he killed himself. Nothing for cops to do." He stroked the transparent skin; it seemed to breathe, responsive to his touch. "The Hotel was nice; they let me keep her."
"Dagmara…," I breathed, shocked beyond thought.
And the head turned to me.
He'd done it; he'd somehow turned her without me seeing.
Then one arm raised, the sealant still flexible. The clear fingers curled, bones rattling faintly. One finger extended toward me.
Herbald had pulled back; she stood alone. Now one leg swung slowly forward, then the other. She walked.
Inside the plastic, around the bones, something formed: the misty figure of a woman. But the sight was inside my mind, not in my eyes. And I heard her voice inside my head, as my ears heard Herbald say, "She won't let me leave. She's got to show me something, but she won't say what."
She spoke without sound: You. The Hotel brought you back. Both arms reached for me, the movement squeezing a faint whiff of foulness from her mouth.
I hadn't played tennis since college, but my backhanded blow still had strength. Skin and dry bones weighed little; she flew clattering across the room, and I turned to run.
But I was blinded by memories. The stool tripped me to the floor.
Dad, ill, had gone back to our room. Dagmara had gone for a nap. Herbald had taken me to the theater for a monster movie, then left on his rounds. But I'd grown bored, had sneaked backstage.
Voices: one angry male, one amused female. I'd peeked into an open prop room to see Dagmara in T-shirt and cutoffs, Clear Cliff blocking her exit. I could guess: Cliff stalked her, followed her in here, and expected sex.
But Dagmara, trapped, unarmed, showed no fear. "Three like you couldn't handle me," she laughed. "You see that skinny boy with us last night? Thirteen, and twice the man you are."
He raised clenched fists; I braced to charge. But she laughed louder, until his hands drooped, his shoulders slumped. She shoved at him, thump-thumping his chest until he turned away shame-faced. I ducked into shadow as he came out and shambled away.
Twice the man. Pride-puffed, I slipped into the room.
She'd turned her back, poking in a box of masks. I pussyfooted up behind her, said, "Hey."
She turned, startled, then smiled. Recklessly, I stepped forward, dug my hands into her hair, and kissed that smile.
She shoved me away, astonished; I tripped over a coil of extension cord. Laughing, she reached out a hand to steady me, and I backhanded her away. Though she outweighed me fifty pounds, my blow knocked her off her feet.
Into a crate of tools. She hit hard, then rolled to one side, revealing the screwdriver driven into the base of her skull.
It took only seconds for the gasping and spasming to end, for the life to leave her eyes. I stared at the body. At last I looked away, to spot something on the floor, something I'd half-seen fall while she thumped Cliff on the chest.
A key card.
Cliff's key, in a paper sleeve with his room number. Hardly thinking, I rummaged the prop rooms to find a stage-sized Roman chariot. Grunting, with wiry strength, I curled Dagmara's body in it, then covered it with a bedspread. I slipped on a dirty trenchcoat and slouch hat.
With cosplayers decorating the halls, nobody noticed the skinny private eye pushing a chariot. I wheeled Dagmara out to the elevator and up to sixteen. Years later, I could still rouse a brief, bitter smile by picturing Cliff's reaction at finding her corpse in his bed.
But I'd never envisioned this horror, a plastic-skinned specter breathing ancient corruption.
Herbald slowly grasped the situation. "You? You killed her?" Now he'll grab his sword, hack me apart. His face darkened, but his legs failed and he collapsed. "I liked you!"
Now comes Stern, and a window. I would fly without wings, until I met my shadow on hard pavement.
Dagmara rose where I'd flung her, a woman's empty shell. She drew a deep breath, and blew it out, her full bosom—her hollow chest—rising and falling. Foulness from the very tomb swirled around me; I fainted.

Room 1290 Evermore

The door won't open, though I've tugged away Herbald's improvised barricades. The room phone is live, but only repeats a recording: We're sorry—room service has closed for the evening.
Dagmara, the hollow princess, lies in their bed. Herbald, more badly injured than he realized, slumps against the wall; he stopped breathing hours ago. The double mirror he broke brought more than fourteen years of bad luck, but it's over now.
How long have I been trapped? My phone and laptop are in 1291. Herbald's phone is broken. The wall clock probably hasn't run this century.
I'm growing weak. I must be starving—I've already wondered if I could stoop to eating Herbald—but the nauseating odor of decay steals my appetite. After so many years, how can she still reek of rot?
I've even wished for Stern to come, but I know she won't. The Hotel brought you back. And the Hotel Non Dormiunt plans a slower punishment than a dive from a high ledge.
Dagmara lies quietly, breathing slowly. The stench of her respiration fills the room.
Come to bed, I hear her saying. I'm ready to kiss you back.
GUEST BOOK
DTS

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Date: 2012-10-14
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Questions	Answers
The craziest story ever?	Well, near the beginning of my career as a front office manager, I had gotten a call to help calm down an irate woman. Her beef was that she was convinced she was confirmed at a $49 rate. Our rates at the time were running at $129. I tried to talk her through it, and we eventually came to a a point where she agreed to go out to her car for the confirmation letter. I breathed a short-lived sigh of relief. Something in writing almost always solved my problems, one way or another. Except, there was no confirmation letter. Instead, she loaded in to her Suburban, threw it in to drive, and floored it... Right in to the side of the building. She calmly got out of her smoking vehicle, strode up to the front desk with a smile and said, "I think I'll take that $129 rate."
	You know, watching the FBI run a sting in my parking lot to pick up some guy from another state who had murdered his family was pretty crazy, too. When the FBI shows up with a court order for information, you know it's about to get crazy.
Did you call the cops? Did she get arrested?	I carefully told her that she absolutely could not stay there, and I called the cops. She melted down in to a fit of rage and they had to lift her up and carry her to their car.
What was her reason for doing this? I'm so confused.	My guess? Rage issues.
Did you ever catch anybody having sex? Where was the weirdest spot?	Always. I think walking in one one couple literally hanging from the gym equipment having sex was a bizarre one for me. It was compounded by the man begging me for "just 30 extra seconds" so he could finish. I offered my sympathies to his lady friend and told him he had 2 minutes to be clothed and out.
You seem to be a great person.	My primary rules: Always do the right thing, and don't be a dick. :)
What is the best way to get free stuff at a hotel? I'm talking anything from knocking the internet fees off the bill to comps on drinks.	It takes a few steps:
	Make sure you join the chain's loyalty program (HHonors, Marriott Rewards, etc). You get instant free things that way. Generally you can easily get wifi, room upgrades, and food or drink coupons.
	Make nice with the front desk folks. They generally want people to have a great time and they have a slew of freebies they can give away. Make up a special occasion... Even if it is something silly. Tell a story and get some buy-in.
	Don't ever threaten, yell, or try to belittle. You get put on the "no freebie" list.
If you have a special occasion, should you just come out and mention it and then just wait for them to offer some free stuff? Isn't that bad form?	Here's the honest answer: just come out and say it.
	As a guest I know it feels weird, though. When we went on our honeymoon I had found all of these cool stories about one of the resorts we stayed at. They did all kinds of fun things for honeymooners. Did I once mention we were honeymooning? No. I silently sulked.
	I'm not great at taking my own advice, but if you truly want a fun experience for a special event you have to tell someone.
Did you ever get to bang a guest there randomly? Or anybody every invite you in for some awesome party? More or less tell me your best night at work.	Sorry, no randoms for me. As a girl, I got the offers all the time, but they were definitely not good offers. Not that I didn't think really hard about it a few times... But it's way more fun to have romps at someone else's hotel.
I've been reading this for quite a while, and up to this comment I thought you were a man and look like this.. Also, i don't remember his voice so I put you the voice of a white Morgan Freeman.	Hey, at least he's, uh... Dignified. :)
OK this brings up a question I have. What would you suggest as being a good approach to asking out a hotel staffer? Is there a policy to never go out with a guest during off hours? What if that guest lives in town?	There is a policy that everyone ignores. I had an associate marry a man she met while he was a guest.
	It has to be done carefully because it might not be easy to tell if the person is in to you or just being super nice because that is their personality. If you can talk to them away from coworkers, try starting by asking if you can bring them a cup of coffee or something. (Most of us are rampant coffee drinkers.) The reaction is a good gauge. Then just come up with something fun to do, and ask.
	I never appreciated the creepers that would literally just invite me up to their rooms. That's lame. Nobody really bites on that trick.
	Slipping $100 in to a note with your room number... is not a good method.
Do you get to keep the $100 when that happens, even if you refuse? :)	Ew. No. That's dirty money. :)
Any interesting celebrity encounters?	Definitely. Dr Ruth was honestly my favorite. She's a tiny little lady that could barely see over the front desk counter, but would come down early in the morning to visit with me. She is hysterically funny, full of energy, and very smart. Upon leaving, she grabbed my hands and in her very thick drawl exclaimed, "You're going to have GREAT sex for the rest of your life!"
	I did also watch Sting get chased through the restaurant by a mob of middle-aged women.
	BB King was another good one. He wandered around every day telling jokes and giving away guitar picks.
	Oh! And I did also have Wee Man help himself to the kitchen. He pretty much just went wherever he wanted. Super funny.
I got way too much of a kick out of picturing Sting running through a crowded restaurant away from a stampede of middle aged soccer moms who just read 50 Shades of Grey.	You just nailed it. That man is a master of evasion.
Upon leaving, she grabbed my hands and in her very thick drawl exclaimed, "You're going to have GREAT sex for the rest of your life!" Was she right?	Absolutely!
It seems like the escort business wouldn't exist without hotels -- so do you know when it's happening on the property?	Every damn time. I can spot even the best escorts right when they get there. Men are a little more difficult, but we usually figure it out.
So do you get rid of them, and call the cops, or is more like keeping an eye on them?	Neither, really. They don't usually cause trouble, and who am I to ruin someone's fun? :)
What is the five away? Is there a difference in look between an attractive pro and just an attractive civilian?	It's more in behavior than physical traits. There are a few tells that I've picked up on.
What's the single weirdest thing you or a co-worker has walked into in one of your guest's rooms? First thing that comes to mind...	I mentioned this on another thread, but I walked in on a woman who had gotten drunk and handcuffed herself naked to the legs of the bed. She'd been expecting company and hadn't realized that she couldn't answer the door or the phone. By the time we got there to do a wellness check on her she had peed all over the place. I asked her what she was thinking and sheepishly answered that she thought it would be a sexy surprise. Failed.
Wow. How did you free her? And how any people had to witness this before she could finally shut the door, shower and get dressed?	She had stashed the key, so she lead us to it.
	As the saying goes, misery loves company. I used the buddy system. Luckily it was just two of us.
Whats the craziest weed related story you have?	We got a call from the police department that they had picked up a guest of ours for writing fraudulent checks around town. An assistant and I went up to the room to start packing and inventorying his belongings. He was clearly OCD, and had neatly arranged a ton of soap bottles all around the room. After getting a good laugh out of his organizational systems, we grabbed the first duffel bag. It was full of weed. So was the closet, the drawers, and a number of other duffel bags. He had some large bags that we expected to be full of video equipment. Nope. Weed. It was all packed down very tightly and stashed everywhere that he could manage. Overall, the cops told us that he had nearly 20 pounds. It was an incredible amount.
You ever regret not keeping all or most of it?	Never.
He became Adrian Monk.	Hah!
	We had nothing to do with Trudy's death.
Did you take any? I mean, I would have but I love cannabis.	No. Even if I were a smoker, I can't ever seem to escape my own moral sense of obligation.
Who leaves the rooms the dirties, the rich elite people or the middle class type of people?	Sports teams and middle-class families on vacation. The amount of trash and broken items in one single room is astonishing. Cheetos ground in to the wallpaper, seventeen pizza boxes, shaving cream in the light fixtures, chocolate cake on the pillows... You name it.
Man, I treat that shit way better than my own house. I don't know how people do that to you guys. they must know someones gotta clean it.	I once read s random statistic that something like 94% of people do things in a hotel they would never do at home. Little things, like eating toast in bed. It's really crazy to see exactly how far they take it.
When we travel with our two small children we are so ultra careful about picking up after ourselves. It's like staying at someone else's house! I can't stand slobs. We leave a big tip not because of our mess but because of other peoples.	You are awesome! On behalf of hotels everywhere, thanks for being the rarity. :)
Eating toast in bed? That would just make it all crumby when you tried to sleep. That's counterproductive... If anything, eat toast on the toilet.	Seriously. Who wants to sleep with crumbs? If you ca talk on the phone on the toilet you might as well just eat toast there, too. Hah!
Do you feel you were fairly paid for your job? Overpaid? Underpaid?	Well, most of us agree that we don't work in hospitality for the money... I have always felt okay about my salary, but its definitely below an equivalent in another industry.
How did you handle drunk loud people in the lobby?	Most of the time I treat drunk people in the lobby like kids in a daycare. They're obnoxious and completely irrational. I usually make them laugh, entertain them for a moment, and then convince them that sleeping in their room is going to be way better than jail. I rarely have bigger problems. I give them one chance to behave. Sometimes fist fights have broken out and I won't tolerate those. I instantly call the cops.
Ever had to evict a guest due to complaints from other guests?	Yes, I've had to evict people. It's rare, but it happens. It's usually worse than noise. Fighting, breaking things, or threats usually come along with the complaints.
How many guests were at your hotel to cheat on their spouses? Were they obvious?	I can pick out the cheaters sometimes, but not as often as the escorts. I don't know of any regulars, if that's kind of what you mean.
How often do mid to higher end hotels clean their carpets and bedspreads? Do they ever do a deep cleaning of rooms to get the accumulated crud out?	Most of us triple-sheet the beds, so every part of the bedding except for the decorative throw at the bottom gets cleaned each time. I can't speak for those that still use bedspreads now, but my experience before was that they got washed at least weekly or as needed.
	We shampoo the carpets in each room once a month. Every time there is a party, smoking, or anything gross like vomit we'll do it immediately.
	The philosophy on cleaning a room is that it should seem as if nobody else has ever stayed in that room... Every single time they clean it. We also do something called a PM that is a super detailed check done on a rotation. We will redo little things like caulking, calcium removal on the shower heads, cleaning window sills, tightening screws, etc.
Is there a way I can swim at hotel pools for free?	Walk in behind another family and pretend like you just got lucky? It's tricky to loiter in the common areas in a swimsuit and not look like a creeper, though. You'd have to come up with a good plan!
Also don't leave your clothes next to the pool. It's a dead giveaway to security that you don't have a room. I've caught sooo many kids that way.	Absolutely! And carrying your bright orange pool towel in will get you, too.
How do you get the lowest hotel prices?	Unfortunately it really is opaque websites like Priceline. There are tricks to figuring out which hotel you will get. Otherwise, use the advance purchase rates. Those are a good discount. Some hotel chains are really loose with their Friends and Family rates. You often don't even have to prove you know someone. Those discounts can be 50% or more.
There are tricks to figuring out which hotel you will get.	Do a bit of research. Find out where you want to stay and if there is anything unique about the hotel. I recommend Tripadvisor. So, you notice that this is the only 4-star hotel in the downtown area that has both a pool and free wifi.
Go on...	When you make your Priceline selections, be sure to check those amenity boxes, bid on a 4-star hotel downtown, and there you go. You'll get that hotel.
I'm about to start school for Hospitality Management and Tourism; I start in four days. Is it a good career choice for somebody who wants to have kids one day and actually be able to spend time with them?	Um... Ehhh... The honest answer? No.
	Is it possible to balance work/life as a hotelier? Yes, but something always has to give. We work very long hours and are on call 24/7 365 with no real relief from that.
	It's an industry that gets in to your blood, though. I wouldn't want to dissuade you, but it's hard. Families sometimes struggle and parents feel like they're missing out. Yet, we go back every day.
Hmm, maybe I'll have to look into the other sections of that degree that I could do. Thanks a lot for your honesty!	Certain areas like sales & catering, or revenue management aren't as bad. Some of that work can even be done from home. They do generally require some work to get in to, though.
Sweet AMA, What rooms in a hotel are the worst and best (besides the usual next to an ice machine etc. )	Almost every hotel has rooms with a better view. They usually sell for more, but are easy to get as a free upgrade. Make a casual reference to how great it would be... I think the best rooms are the odd rooms. We have a few that used to be some kind of Junior Suite but don't quite currently make the cut. They're bigger, but sell for the exact price of a standard room. I always ask about stuff like that. I don't know about worst. It almost always pertains to noise, though. We do have one room that tilts a tiny bit. We call it the vertigo room... It's so bizarre. Another one vibrates ever so slightly. Hah! Loyalty programs are the easiest way for an upgrade. Second easiest way? Ask. Super nicely. Be cheesy if necessary. Front desk folks love to feel like they've done something really meaningful. Non-peak times are super easy. So what's the $20 trick? I'm curious.
Also free upgrades and the $20 trick...advice?
Is it better to clean up after yourself or let the cleaning people wash/clean things themselves?	They'll do it, but some things are really helpful. Keep trash in the trash cans, throw your dirty towels in a pile on the floor, and be careful about leaving your electronics on the beds. Some hotels will move them and pick up after you, others won't even make your bed.
	Just remember, always tip your housekeeper! They've got the hardest job there.
How do you tip a housekeeper? Leave a note with money?	Exactly. They usually share the tip with anyone else who did any cleaning, but it seriously makes their day.
Sad story time?	Oh... Okay.
	My General Manager died on a treadmill while at a yearly Brand meeting. I was very new in my role, and he sat down and told me he was going to need a small procedure done sometime soon. Doctors were telling him a valve that had been replaced was failing. He said he was going for a second opinion after the meeting. I disagreed as wholeheartedly as I could, trying to get him to go immediately. No luck. He laughed and insisted he was doing the right thing. I called him to see how things were going while he was gone. We talked briefly and he said he was in the workout room to go for quick run before dinner. Just like that, and I never spoke to him again.
	The family could not do a memorial service that our staff and community members could attend. He was from another state so they moved him. So, I held a funeral service for him in our restaurant. I wrote an delivered a eulogy for him. He was very young (mid-30s) and an absolutely incredible GM. He was loved by many, so there was a huge crowd.
	I couldn't have imagined what a tragedy it really is for the staff to lose their leader. It was the hardest thing I've had to do so far. And the saddest.
Are the bed sheets ever "dirty"?	Shouldn't be. If my executive housekeeper suspects anything, she will backlight the room herself. She'll even mark sheets with invisible ink to make sure all beds have been changed.
Do hotels care if you have more people staying in the hotel room than what's been reserved? For example, the rooms is reserved for 2 during the stay but you actually have a larger group of people staying in the room.	Yes! Please tell us.
	It's a huge safety issue if we don't know. For example, a fire breaks out in your area. We are frantically checking rooms and making sure all guests are accounted for. Your room says 1 adult. You actually have 2 adults and 2 kids. We saw you leave your room, we move on...
	This actually happened (not at my hotel). The children were hiding in the bath tub and nobody knew they were there. It was tragic.
	Please, please, please tell us everyone that will be in the room.
Do you think a hotel for dogs is possible and a good idea?	Sure! I won't judge.
I'm current working at a hotel right now, so this feels awesome to possibly ask someone with a lot of experience some questions :D.	Hmmm good question. I think that, for whatever reason, the industry is starting to demand degrees. Any old degree, really. I have one in Anthropology...
I've been working in the hotel industry for almost 5 years now, 1 year at a 300 room 3 star hotel as a reservationist, 3.5 years currently at a 2 star at the front desk and Night Auditor.	Having the education to work with your experience will definitely help you. It not only lends credibility to any endeavors in a market where the recruiters don't know the validity of your experience, but you're likely to learn something, too. It's not a bad idea.
I wanted to go to school for Hotel Management since I graduated from High School, but I'm wondering if that's a good route to go now. I talk to people locally and they say that experience is more beneficial than a degree.	On the flip side of that, I have never declined a qualified and ready internal candidate based on a lack of formal education. The work you demonstrate speaks volumes. I would try to move to a few more day shifts. Night auditors have a hard time receiving the recognition they deserve. It's hard to evaluate their performance and promote accordingly.
Would you recommend going back to school for the degree, possibly taking classes online, or stick with working full time and using experience as a leverage?	I usually feel that after 3 years someone should be up for promotion if they're performing well. It sounds like you're due. :) Maybe a talk with your manager about areas of opportunity and where you're currently doing well would help.
Up vote for Anthroplogy degree! It was fun/challenging in college but that's...about...it.	So fun! So...not helpful. :)
I'm a teenager really interested in the hotel industry (strongly considering Cornell School of Hotel Management). How would I go about getting a job at a hotel/experience in the hospitality industry?	Start at the bottom while you take classes. You could do something at the front desk or in housekeeping. If you are bright and do an excellent job with the guests you will see promotions happen. I'd venture to guess at least 75% of manager positions are filled by internal candidates.
	Doing some volunteer work and gaining experience making people happy will be so valuable for you.
What is the worst mess you have ever seen?	I'd say it is a toss-up.
	A group of 4 male athletes (likely swimmers) decided to shave all of their body hair, including their heads. To this day, I'm astounded at the number of places they managed to completely coat with hair. Every surface of both the room and the bathroom was furry. We had to call in Roto Rooter to get the drains working again.
	We had a group of hippies attending a String Cheese Incident concert. They got in to some drugs of some kind and found about a dozen blue Bic pens and cut them up with a razor. They smeared the ink over all the furniture, the walls, and the bedding. We had to replace almost everything. They also left huge piles of vomit and hair in the tub. Ugh... It was so gross.
Do you charge for that sort of thing?	If we can, yes.
Have you ever subtly/unsubtly lost composure with an irritating guest and gone out of your way not to help them?	Yes. I had a guest once insist that I move the two queen sized beds out of his room and bring in two kings, instead. I tried every trick in my bag to make him happy in a way that did not include dismantling the beds that were attached to the walls... He fought me for hours. Days! Every time he saw me he got aggressive. He complained about the river not being high enough, the bushes being too green, the windows being too small. He was making me crazy. So, when he'd call needing something like towels or something... I was never in a big hurry.
	I'll always help someone, but it might be on my terms at that point.
My question regards smoking herb in a hotel room. If you smell it, are you gonna call the cops?	Probably not. We will likely warn you ourselves. It's sort of rare to call the cops on it. We treat it more like any other guest smoking when they shouldn't be.
I use to travel for work a lot. If I have a complaint (eg. room not made, something missing or not working, etc), what's the best thing to ask for complimentary? I would not get anything complimentary unless I asked as they usually fixed the situation and that was it or is it unreasonable to ask?	Maybe free breakfast if it isn't included? Free wifi, 1000 loyalty points, or a coupon for an amenity might be available.
	It's not unreasonable to ask, as long as you do it nicely.
How many suicides have you had to deal with? I have a friend who once worked at a premier place in NYC and he said it was like a suicide magnet.	I have not had to deal with any. I came very close, once. A man attempted to overdose, but had called his family and said some strange things. They called me and we did an emergency wellness check and found him, still alive. We called 911 and they took him to the ER.
	In this area, people drive up in to the woods... It isn't terribly common in hotels.
What would your staff tell me if I asked them "What is M_Moxie's favorite catch phrases?"	So I actually texted a bunch of people and they all just laughed at me.
	I don't really do catch-phrases, I don't think. I think what they'd tell you about my personality is that I am very perceptive and can almost instantly change my communication style to solve a problem or talk to a guest or associate. I laugh a lot. That's kind of my signature.
	I just got an answer that I say "absolutely" and "listen" a lot. "Listen, here's the deal." Haha. "Listen, we have a problem." "Listen, you did great." Shit. It's true.
That's awesome! Too funny, didn't expect you to actually ask them. I'm cracking up! Its something I would do. Your management style seems to be a lot like mine too, I tend to use humor all the time. Just because you're the boss doesn't mean you have to be a hard ass to be respected.	Absolutely!
	Haha. Ahhh.
Listen, I know it's been awhile, but I really enjoyed this AMA. Question: what is a loyalty program and what's it going to cost me?	A loyalty program is something set up by the various hotel brands to encourage travelers to be brand-specific when choosing a place to stay. The idea is that for every dollar you spend at one of their hotels, they'll reward you with "points", or in some cases airline miles. Those points can later be redeemed for free night stays, free stuff, or vacations. That varies a bit by loyalty program, but they all operate on roughly the same premise. The programs are always completely free to join, and the more loyal you are, the more goodies you get. You'll move up levels and get more perks (free upgrades, free drink/breakfast vouchers, free newspaper delivered to your door, free wifi, etc). If you're a person who frequently needs late check-outs, they're really valuable. That's a fairly universal perk offered to almost all levels. There's no reason not to join, honestly. (And I'm not even getting anything to say that!)
I want to be the manager of a Hotel someday. Do you have any advice? Where would you start from?	I love the constant challenge in my job. I do actually love people, work with some fantastic associates, and have this ability every day to do something that is meaningful to someone. That seriously rocks. I can problem solve my way out of almost anything. It requires a ton of agility.
What are the things you like/dislike most in your job? What was the hardest experience you had and what was the happiest moment?	I dislike exactly how stressful it is sometimes, and how unpredictable my schedule is. My hobbies suffer, and most of my friends just assume I will ditch. My husband doesn't get terribly frustrated, but I know that sometimes he feels bad. He gets it.
What do you do if someone claims they found bedbugs?	Tear the room apart and see if we find any. If yes, we take that room and all of the rooms around, under, and above it out of order. The exterminators come and work their magic.
Steritech?	Ecolab.
How do I go from the front desk to hr? I've been at the desk for 5 years, I'm a supervisor, but how do i get over there?	Oh that's a hard one! It takes some luck, honestly. Here's what you need:
	Experience demonstrating some HR functions like recruiting or training. Ask your manager if you can help with hiring. Offer an idea for training.
	Good instincts. Feel free to start sharing your insight on any situations you may be involved in.
	Always act with 100% integrity. Inspire your coworkers to follow suit. Never get caught being a gossip or bitching about work conditions.
	Volunteer somewhere. Talk to the ladies at the YWCA about job hunting, do something with your local university or college, or offer your time at a GED program helping with resumes.
	Accept an intro position if there is one as an HR coordinator or intern.
I'm currently going to University in pursuit of a degree in Hospitality Management. What is a some advice you would give to someone aspiring to reach the top of the career ladder in hotels? Also, how did you get your start?	I started at the front desk as a regular agent. That's the best thing to do. Start somewhere at the bottom and be excellent. Learn as many roles as you can, and always pitch in when others need help. The managers will notice. If they don't, find a hotel that will.
	I personally don't like the idea of limited service, so I started with Doubletree. Take your own path as far as that goes, but I've found the options to be much greater with full service.
Are you enjoying Borderlands 2?	Absolutely. When I have time to play...
Any crazy murders, suicide or death stories?	Fortunately, not really. I already told the story about a suicide attempt, but the only other death was from natural causes. Just a nice old man who died in his sleep.
	I've definitely had my share of emergencies. Heart attacks are not uncommon. One choking incident in the restaurant.
Have any good stories about Gypsies?	Ooh. Nope. Not from my hotel experience.
Was this within the last year or so? Was the guy from Massachusetts?	It was not.
Creepiest request over room service?	Well, this might qualify... I once had a guest call me to tell me he was having a problem with a movie he had ordered in his room. I had a hard time finding out what was wrong, as I was thinking it was a technical issue. As we kept talking, he finally said, "Well, okay. Here it is. This porn is just to softcore for my tastes. I need something really raunchy. Can you help with that?"
	I answered carefully that I didn't have any additional movie options available for him to select, and he insisted that no, he wanted ME to help him. I apologized and flat turned him down. He huffed at me and then asked for a refund on the movie, which I also told him wasn't going to happen. He resigned with a sigh and hung up on me.
	He called 2 minutes later asking for some extra bottles of the complimentary lotion.
	For actual room service, the creepers always call and place a perfectly normal order... then answer the door with their wang out.
	So gross.

Last updated: 2012-10-18 17:29 UTC
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