Chapter Five: Where the magic happens

Another taxi journey and I’m back at the hotel. The crowd of fans have been moved on from outside the hotel now that it’s getting late, so I’m unlikely to ever see my dress again. Dylan will quite literally pay for this.

Dylan and Misty were going to have a drink, so the bar is my first stop. The place is packed with beautiful people – mainly famous faces – because everyone involved in the gig today is staying here tonight. It’s strange to go from the glamour of the backstage area at the festival to this weird old hotel in this strange town, but at least the place is full of my kind of people.

I push my way through the beautiful people, and accuse me of pre-judging if you like, but I’m going to hazard a guess that Misty is as odd-looking as her goth gal pal, so I’m looking for someone who looks like they’ve been attacked with felt-tip pens and a stapler.

I’ve scoured the whole room, but all I am seeing are the usual ‘beautiful’ showbiz types and their entourages.

‘Excuse me,’ I hear a male voice say as someone taps me on the shoulder.

I spin around to see Troy Reeves, and if I didn’t recognise him from his successful solo career or his time on one of those terrible reality TV talent shows, then I would still remember him because I interviewed him earlier today.

‘Hello,’ I squeak, unable to hide my surprise. He’s talking to me.

‘You interviewed me earlier, right?’

‘I did,’ I confess, suddenly worried I might have offended him.

Troy is your typical pretty boy. He’s tall, skinny and has dark, curly hair that he is constantly sweeping out of his eyes. I imagine he’s about the same age as me, maybe a little older – mid-twenties I’d guess. He has a huge female fanbase, although he’s a little more mainstream than Dylan so his fans are all much younger. Don’t get me wrong, Dylan is a handsome man, but in a Robbie Williams sort of way. He’s got that rough and ready bad boy look and, as far as his figure goes, he couldn’t care less. He’s not skinny, but he isn’t fat and I don’t think he’ll ever care either way. It’s his don’t-give-a-damn attitude that attracts the women, and as long as the women are willing (or easily talked round with a signed CD) he won’t be visiting the gym any time soon.

‘Yeah, I remember your pretty face,’ Troy tells me, much to my surprise. ‘Although you were wearing a hot dress earlier – not that I’m not enjoying all the leg you’re flashing now.’

I can tell he’s joking, but with everything that’s happened in the past few hours and the pressure to find Dylan mounting, I temporarily forget to keep my cool in front of a famous person, and even though I smile at his teasing, a single tear escapes from my right eye. I quickly wipe it away, but the damage has been done.

‘Oh fuck, I’m sorry. I’ve got four sisters, you’d think I’d know better than to make a joke about a girl’s outfit,’ he says, placing a hand on my shoulder, but still keeping me at arm’s length in case I attack him or, worse, cry on his shirt.

‘Don’t apologise,’ I insist. ‘I’m just having a bad day.’

‘Do you want to talk about it?’

Troy actually seems sincere, but I know that he has better things to do than listen to my silly problems about lost musicians and dresses. Against my better judgement, I share my situation with him – instantly regretting it.

‘Dylan was here not that long ago,’ Troy tells me. ‘Me and the boys from Beau were laughing at him because he came in with some witchy-looking girl.’

I try not to give too much thought to the fact that Beau are here. They’re one of the hottest boy bands around at the moment (and from the same TV talent show as Troy) and I’m in actual love with all four of them.

‘You saw Dylan? Where did he go?’

‘He went with off with the scary girl. Looked like they were heading up to her room, she waved her keycard in his face and he followed her like a puppy – or like he was under a spell.’

‘I don’t suppose you noticed her room number, did you?’ I ask, not that I’m expecting things to be that easy for me.

‘I did actually, she dropped her card and I, gentlemen that I am, picked it up and handed it to her. Room 666.’

I laugh wildly and roll my eyes.

‘Troy, don’t fuck with me. She is not staying in room 666.’

‘I’m not – what’s your name again?’

‘Nicole.’

‘Nicole, I swear to you, I am not making this up.’

Does he really expect me to believe that the girl he referred to as a witch and made spell puns about is staying in room 666?

‘OK then, Troy Reeves. Why don’t you come with me?’

‘Fine, let’s go.’

Fine. Hotels can be boring, I get that. You’ve got to make your own fun, and if this is the game he wants to play, we’ll go up to room 666 and see, won’t we?

‘After you,’ I say, gesturing towards the doors as we approach the lift. We both step inside and Troy checks the chart on the wall to see what floor we need to be on.

‘Top floor,’ he says as he pushes the button, but nothing happens. He tries again, and then again, and then I try, just in case he wasn’t pushing it right.

‘Feel better now you’ve pressed it too?’ Troy asks with a laugh. My God, he may be hot but he’s so annoying. Damned if I’ll be the one to back down from his ridiculous room 666 claim, I march over to the reception desk.

‘Excuse me,’ I say to the lady behind the desk. The woman, who I’d guess is in her sixties, dismisses me with a wave of her hand. She heads into the office without saying a word, and a man comes out to take her place.

‘I’m trying to get to the top floor, but the lift won’t go up there,’ I tell him.

‘That’s because we’ve disabled public access to the top floor via the lift, we’re having some…’ The man behind the desk pauses as he searches for the appropriate word, ‘…issues up there. That floor is currently out of bounds.’

‘What sort of issues?’ I ask, suddenly curious.

The man behind the desk glances around to make sure no one is listening.

‘Ghostly goings on,’ he tells us in a hushed voice.

‘Define ghostly goings on,’ I insist, unable to hide the disbelieving grin that has spread across my face.

‘This is no laughing matter, miss. Things were happening up there. Channels were being changed, bed clothes being ripped off people in the night – the power eventually just stopped working on the whole floor, we’ve got emergency lighting until someone can come and fix it. No one wants to stay…’ He pauses again, and has yet another glance around to make sure no one is listening, ‘…up there.’

There is a sinister-sounding tone to his voice, and as he utters the words ‘up there’, he glances towards the ceiling.

‘Why are you whispering?’ I ask, also in a whisper, still unable to hide my amusement at his ‘Are You Afraid of the Dark?’ campfire storytelling. ‘Are you worried Derek Acorah might hear about it, pay you a visit and annoy it back to the other side?’

‘Whispering is pointless,’ Troy informs us. ‘I went ghost-hunting with Derek Acorah for a TV show, he knows everything.’

I can’t tell if Troy is joking, but he does have a reputation for doing any crappy reality show going.

‘Can we leave Derek out of this, please?’ the man begs, overwhelmed with emotion. He must be a fan.

‘Anyway,’ Troy says, stifling a smile, which lets me know that he was joking about Derek, ‘I saw a girl earlier with a keycard for that floor, so you must be letting some people up there.’

The man behind the desk shivers.

‘Her,’ he says, terror in his eyes. ‘She wanted a room. I told her we were full last night, but she read my mind about the top floor being closed and asked for a room up there. We are allowed to check people in up there, it’s just no one wants to be up there with the emergency lighting and the spooky goings on.’

I glance at the sign on the wall behind him stating that rooms on the top floor are currently having power issues. I look at Troy, who has also noticed it. So much for Misty being a mind-reader.

‘Right. So you checked her in up there?’

‘She made me,’ he insists.

‘I’m sure she did. So how do we get up there to see her?’

Still in his hushed voice, the man behind the desk gives us instructions. ‘Take the lift to the fifth floor. When you get out, enter the stairwell by the door on your right and it’s one floor up. You’re on your own from there.’

Troy and I look at each other and share a giggle, this man is clearly batshit crazy.

‘So that was weird,’ I say to break the silence as soon as the lift doors close.

‘Tell me about it, the locals are clearly bored out of their minds and making stuff up – unlike me, who told you she was in room 666,’ he says smugly.

I don’t know about bored, but now that I think about it this place is pretty creepy. From the outside the Williamson Hotel looks a bit like an old block of flats. It’s tall, run-down and definitely spooky-looking. Inside things are by no means modern, but it is the only hotel in town and it’s big enough to accommodate everyone from the gig – oh, and obviously because it has a bar no one is complaining.

After getting out of the lift and climbing the stairs to the top floor, I can’t help but feel a little spooked as we leave the art deco lampshades of the previous floors behind us and walk along the dimly lit top floor, with its emergency lighting flickering intermittently. The lights, which run along the floor giving us both creepy-looking shadows on our faces, are buzzing loudly, and as we approach room 666 the nearest light to us shuts off, leaving us in the dark. I am half expecting the lights to come back on and the twin girls from The Shining to appear before my eyes.

I struggle to hide the fact I am spooked, but Troy is ever the manly-man and he knocks on the door. We wait in total silence for a few minutes but there is no answer. He looks at me for instructions, but I feel like I’m glued to the spot. We may have been mocking the man behind the desk before, but now that we’re up here I am terrified.

Troy knocks again, only much louder this time. We wait, but still no one opens the door to room 666.

‘Let’s go,’ I beg, hooking my arm around Troy’s. ‘She’s not here.’

‘Yes I am,’ a raspy female voice says quietly behind us.

Troy and I both jump out of our skin.

‘Fucking hell,’ Troy yells, and I realise we are holding each other Shaggy and Scooby Doo-style.

Standing before us is a gothic-looking girl who makes the first goth we met look like a Barbie doll.

‘Misty?’ I ask, my voice shaking a little.

‘Yes,’ she replies.

‘Oh, thank God it’s you,’ I say with a huge sigh of relief. ‘We’ve been looking for you.’

‘I was only in my room,’ she says, looking at our weird embrace with a puzzled look on her face.

‘How did you get out without opening the door?’ a pale-looking Troy asks – at least I think he’s gone pale, it’s hard to tell in this light.

‘Through the door, Einstein. How do you think?’

We both glance at room 666. How could she get through the door and stand behind us if we were standing in the doorway this whole time?

‘Not that one,’ she says, noticing us staring at room 666. ‘That one. Room 668.’

I give Troy a playful punch on the arm.

‘You tool,’ I tease him, suddenly feeling a lot less scared.

‘What?’ He giggles awkwardly. ‘It looked like a six, not an eight.’

As we tease each other and bicker like an old married couple, Misty interrupts us with a question.

‘Why exactly are you looking for me?’

‘Well, I’m actually looking for Dylan King,’ I explain. ‘A friend of yours told me he came back here with you, and Troy saw you both come up here.’

‘Yeah, he came up here. We screwed and then he said he had to go see a man about a dog.’

‘OK, thanks for your time,’ I tell her, and she disappears back into room 668.

Once we are back in the safety of the lift, Troy and I laugh at each other. I can’t believe that, even if it was only for a few minutes, I actually entertained the idea of ‘ghostly goings on’.

‘Well, thank you for all your help,’ I tease sarcastically, although I’m glad I had him with me, ghosts or no ghosts.

‘You’re welcome,’ he replies. ‘So, where are we looking next?’

‘Oh, don’t worry, you can get back to the party. I only dragged you up here with me because I didn’t believe you.’

Troy smiles and wraps an arm around my shoulders.

‘I could go back and get drunk with those guys but you know as well as I do how boring they all are. To be honest, I’m enjoying this – and I can’t leave you running around in the middle of the night all on your own, can I? Not with all the…’ Troy pauses, and jokingly looks around to make sure no one can hear us, ‘…ghostly goings on in this hotel.’

I giggle, and now that he’s not being a smart arse I can’t help but feel a little starstruck around him. I don’t usually feel like this around celebrities, but I’m suddenly feeling very attracted to him, and just having his arm around me is making my whole body feel tingly.

‘Are you sure you want to spend your night hunting for Dylan with me? It won’t be easy.’

‘I’m sure,’ he replies, squeezing me tightly before releasing me as the doors ping open in the hotel lobby. ‘Now, what could that girl have meant when she said Dylan was seeing a man about a dog?’

‘Ah,’ I say awkwardly. ‘About that…’