Haunting at the Hotel Read online

  V = VICTOR

  W = WHISKEY

  X = X-RAY

  Y = YANKEE

  Z = ZULU

  CHARLIE HOTEL ALPHA SIERRA ECHO TANGO HOTEL ECHO MIKE TANGO OSCAR LIMA INDIA BRAVO ROMEO ALPHA ROMEO YANKEE INDIA NOVEMBER FOXTROT INDIA FOXTROT TANGO ECHO ECHO NOVEMBER MIKE INDIA NOVEMBER UNIFORM TANGO ECHO SIERRA.

  DELTA OSCAR NOVEMBER TANGO LIMA ECHO TANGO TANGO HOTEL ECHO MIKE FOXTROT INDIA NOVEMBER DELTA KILO ECHO YANKEE UNIFORM NOVEMBER DELTA ECHO ROMEO PAPA INDIA ALPHA NOVEMBER OSCAR LIMA INDIA DELTA.

  “The first letter of each word is the only letter we need. So if we ignore the weird words and just focus on the first letter only, that will give us our message. Frank—I told you to get your shoes on!”

  “I don’t wanna!”

  “I got it from here,” I say, as Eliza rolls toward Frank and begins to bicker with him. When I finish writing down the first letter of every word, I have:

  CHASETHEMTOLIBRARYINFIFTEENMINUTES

  DONTLETTHEMFINDKEYUNDERPIANOLID

  Now all I have to do is figure out where the spaces go and read the message!

  * * *

  IF YOU THINK THE ANSWER IS 50, CLICK HERE.

  IF YOU THINK THE ANSWER IS 15, CLICK HERE.

  * * *

  MOM IS SCREAMING, and the pressure is too much—I can’t solve this puzzle!

  “Eliza! Help! Where do I even start?”

  “With the first battery in the top left corner. Everything should unfold from there! I’ll get some of the others for you.”

  “Eliza!” Frank calls.

  “Carlos—my brother! I need you to do the rest! Remember, you have to switch back and forth between pluses and minuses. A plus can’t be next to another plus, and a minus can’t be next to another minus. Call me when you figure out the charge in the bottom right corner!”

  * * *

  IF THE FINAL CHARGE IS POSITIVE, ADD TEN TO THREE HUNDRED, AND TURN TO THAT PAGE.

  IF THE FINAL CHARGE IS NEGATIVE, SUBTRACT TEN FROM THREE HUNDRED, AND TURN TO THAT PAGE.

  * * *

  AS MUCH AS I want to keep poking around Cricket’s desk, we have to follow the noise.

  Thump.

  That’s got to be the ghost, right? More banging in the walls? Or maybe it’s Mom. My heart leaps at the thought.

  We bound up the stairs and veer to the right. I’m staring at the door of the Dead Room, wishing, hoping, praying that the sound isn’t coming from there.

  Thump.

  I run halfway down the hallway and stop in front of the door where I definitely heard the sound.

  “Carlos, this is Reese and Harris’s bedroom. We can’t go in there!”

  “We have to,” I say grimly.

  “If we get caught, your mom will be fired for sure!”

  I put my hand on Eliza’s shoulder. “Let’s not get caught.”

  When we get to Reese’s door, I realize that we’re going to have a really hard time getting in. Reese doesn’t have a lock with a skeleton key, like the guests do. She doesn’t have a card slot or a normal alarm pad. What she does have is a bizarre, unique alarm pad with shapes and symbols on it.

  “Now what?” I groan. “Why can’t she have a lock and key like everyone else in the lodge?”

  “Maybe she thinks a keypad is safer,” Eliza says. “After all, there’s no way to pick the lock, and there are hundreds and thousands of combinations to choose from. We probably shouldn’t test it until we understand it.”

  “Maybe it has something to do with this!” Frank shouts from across the hallway. I shine my flashlight at him, and he’s wrapped up in a blanket. No, not a blanket—a wall tapestry.

  “Frank!” Eliza hisses. “Where did you get that?”

  “Put it back now!” I scold him.

  “No!”

  “Frank!” Eliza scolds.

  “But Elizaaaaaa,” he whines. “I’m cold!”

  “Still,” she says, “you shouldn’t pull rugs off the wall, no matter how soft they look.”

  “But this one’s important,” Frank says, laying it down on the floor. “All the symbols are on it! Starting with moon, and ending with snowflake!”

  He’s right. There’s a crest in the center of the tapestry, with all the symbols around it. At the edges of the fabric are words.

  In sun and in snow,

  This household stands tall.

  Our love for it grows

  Spring, summer, and fall.

  But winter is what we cherish the best,

  For Winters we are, and Winters are blessed.

  Eliza grins. “Carlos! Frank is right—this tapestry is useful. I’m pretty sure we know what we have to press.”

  * * *

  TO PRESS MOON, LEAF, HOUSE, STAR, SUN, LIGHTNING, FLOWER, HEART, SNOWFLAKE, CLICK HERE.

  TO PRESS SUN, SNOWFLAKE, HOUSE, HEART, FLOWER, SUN, LEAF, SNOWFLAKE, SNOWFLAKE, SNOWFLAKE, CLICK HERE.

  TO ASK ELIZA FOR A HINT, CLICK HERE.

  * * *

  THERE’S NO WAY I’m letting the ghost chase me to the library, so I make a sharp turn and run outside.

  “Carlos! Where are we going?”

  “Away from the ghosts!”

  The wind hurls fistfuls of snow at us. Over and over again. It’s like being spit on by Mother Nature. I never knew how loud a storm could be. I can barely hear Eliza, begging us to turn back.

  After a few minutes in the storm, I realize I’ve made a huge mistake by leaving the lodge. My clothes are soaked through, and all three of us are shivering. I pull Eliza and Frank back to the hotel, but the doors are locked.

  We shiver as we hopelessly stare at the double doors. We’re dangerously close to turning into snowmen. Whose smart idea was it to run out in the middle of a storm?

  Oh right. Mine.

  We knock on the doors with all our might, but no matter how much or how hard we knock, the doors don’t budge. There’s snow way in.

  CASE CLOSED.

  “ELIZA, WHAT DOES this even mean?” I squint at the message. It looks like a different language, almost!

  Eliza grins.

  “What are you so happy about?” I say suspiciously.

  “Cheese,” Frank says sincerely. “Candy. Farts. Ghosts. Snowmen. Handstands. Dandelions. Sea lions. Regular lions. There’s a lot to be happy abou—”

  “Not you!” I say. “I meant Eliza!”

  “I’m happy,” she says, “because I know what to do with this message.”

  “Yes?”

  “Hold a mirror in front of it, and everything will be crystal clear.”

  * * *

  IF YOU THINK THE ANSWER IS 3:35, CLICK HERE.

  IF YOU THINK THE ANSWER IS 3:45, CLICK HERE.

  * * *

  I THINK OUR only escape from this monster is to go into the Dead Room. I pull the key out of my pocket, and the beast snarls. In the dark of the hallway, the fang-toothed smile is the only thing I can see. And it gets even wider as it points to the key in my hands.

  “It wants us to go in,” I say.

  “NO WAY, JOSÉ!” Frank shouts.

  “Carlos,” Eliza says quietly. “It’s a trap. They knew we took their walkie-talkie, and so they gave us that secret coded message on purpose. They wanted us to go for the key under the piano lid. So that they could force us into the Dead Room. Whatever we do, we can’t go in there.”

  Thud, thud, thud, comes the knocking from inside the Dead Room.

  “In,” says a sharp voice from behind the beast mask. A female voice. But I just can’t place it.

  I put the key in the keyhole, and it turns. Sure enough, this is the key to the Dead Room. I’m glad we were able to solve that mystery before, ya know, dying in the Dead Room.

  “In,” she repeats.

  “DON’T DO IT, CARLOS!” Frank cries.

  I open the door. I open it wide, but there is only darkness inside. Then, from behind, the beast charges and shoves us in. The door closes behind us, and the lock clicks.

  We’re loc
ked in.

  A hand grabs my shoulder.

  “AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!” I shriek.

  “AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!” Eliza shrieks.

  “WHY ARE WE SCREAMING?” Frank yells.

  The hand slides off my shoulder, and as I click on my flashlight, I finally understand who was knocking on the door from the inside.

  “Mom?”

  She grabs my face and starts kissing my cheeks rapidly, over and over again.

  “Mom, you were in here this whole time? Why didn’t you walkie-talkie us?”

  “He took my walkie-talkie!” Her voice is scratchy, probably since she hasn’t used it in a while.

  “He?”

  “Or she . . . I didn’t get a look at their face.” Her face turns serious. “But what are you doing here? You shouldn’t be here! Carlos, it’s a trap!”

  “What do you mean, trap?” Eliza asks.

  “They lured you here on purpose—this is some kind of scare tactic!” She looks around frantically. “Let us out!” she shouts hoarsely.

  “OR YOU’LL BE SORRY!” Frank adds.

  Of course no one comes to let us out, and the room is eerily silent. And cold. It’s like ten degrees colder than the hallway. Poor Eliza’s teeth are already chattering.

  I reach into Eliza’s backpack to hand Mom some water. Then I wrap my arms around Eliza to keep her warm.

  “T-t-thanks.” Eliza shivers.

  Mom drinks so fast that she ends up choking on the water. “Wrong pipe!” she coughs. Mom puts the cap back on the water bottle and wipes her mouth with her sleeve. “Thank you,” she says. “I’ve been so thirsty. I think this room is soundproof. I was screaming all day yesterday, and no one came. And if all four of us are in here, we have to assume that no one is coming to rescue us.”

  “Are you okay, Mom? Did they hurt you?”

  “I’m fine,” she says.

  * * *

  TO ASK MOM HOW SHE ENDED UP IN HERE, CLICK HERE.

  TO SEARCH FOR A WAY OUT, CLICK HERE.

  * * *

  FRANK IS SUPER prone to temper tantrums, and who knows what will happen if I don’t get him his snowball fight.

  “Okay, Frank. You win. One snowball fight.”

  “Yayyyyyyyyyyy!”

  I grab our coats off the foyer’s hideous antler-sculpture coat hook. The front doors are still blocked by the snow, so we crawl out the fire-den window again.

  The grounds look like the sand dunes of the desert . . . only it’s all snow. The wind nips at my face, and I sink even farther into my coat.

  I take Frank around the side of the lodge—in view of the sunset. Down the mountain, I can barely make out Luther Covington’s Super Hotel Express. I nearly forgot about him, since I haven’t seen him since yesterday. But just because I don’t see him doesn’t mean he’s not around. And he’s still a suspect. Everyone is a suspect until we figure out the truth.

  I stand by the wall of the lodge, and Frank runs across the mountaintop, nearly sinking into snow up to his waist. He starts making his snowballs, and just as I’m reaching my hand down to do the same, I hear voices coming from the window above me.

  “Come on, Mom,” says a voice I recognize as January. “This is too much. It’s not even safe here anymore. Why won’t you leave?”

  “Because this place is my family legacy! It will be yours one day.”

  “I don’t want it,” January grumbles.

  “I agree with our daughter,” says a deep voice. “Honey, how many hauntings is it going to take before you realize that it’s dangerous here? You’re putting January in danger. Don’t you care about that?”

  “Of course I do! But I also care about her future.”

  “I don’t need Sugarcrest, Mom. I have a future in a lot of things!”

  “Yes, like the hospitality industry.”

  “No, like video editing and music production,” January says.

  “Now’s not the time for this fight again,” Harris says. “Reese, these attacks are getting increasingly worse. I know for a fact that the ghost trapped Detective Serrano in the Dead Room.”

  “How?” Reese says. “That place is perpetually locked! I’ve lived here since I was a girl, and even I’ve never been able to get inside!”

  “I don’t know,” Harris says. “All I know is that we have to leave.”

  “Carlos—ONE TWO THREE FIGHT!” Frank says, suddenly beside me. He pelts a snowball at me. I turn around just in time to see a huge chunk of ice flying overhead, headed right for the window—

  CRASH.

  A direct hit on Reese’s office window. Oh no!

  The conversation above me immediately stops.

  “What was that?” Reese says. I can hear her high heels clicking as she runs to the window to look out; I grab Frank, and the two of us sink into the snow right beneath her window. She won’t see us unless she leans out the window and curls her torso over the edge.

  “A haunting or a vandal?” Harris says.

  “I don’t know. I’m putting my boots on!”

  All three of them leave the office and shut the door.

  “What did you do, Frank?” I groan.

  “Ice ball!”

  It doesn’t seem like we have any choice but to own our mistake. Unless . . .

  I look up at the window, and we’ve shattered the glass just enough for me to reach my hand inside and unlatch the window. If we crawled through the window, maybe we could escape the wrath of the Winters family . . . at least until they cool down a little.

  * * *

  TO RUN AWAY BY CRAWLING INTO THE LODGE THROUGH THE WINDOW, CLICK HERE.

  TO FESS UP TO THE WINTERS FAMILY, CLICK HERE.

  * * *

  THIS GRANDFATHER CLOCK puzzle is too confusing. “You’re going too fast, Eliza!” I say. “Slow it down.”

  “It might be easier if we break it down,” she says. “‘At midday.’ So start it at twelve o’clock. Yes, perfect. ‘At midday, you said you had five hours to go until the party.’ So five hours after twelve o’clock is . . .”

  “Five o’clock,” I say turning the hands.

  “‘But your guest was going to be one hour early,’” Eliza recites. “Which means the guest arrives at—”

  “Four o’clock,” I say, setting the clock back an hour.

  “‘The zipper of her dress broke, which tied you up for three hours.’” Eliza looks up. “Three hours after the time she arrives—four o’clock. That puts us at seven o’clock.”

  I nod and put the hands at seven.

  “‘But you still arrived two hours before the cake.’ So if we get to the party at seven, and the cake arrives two hours later . . .”

  “Nine o’clock,” I say.

  Eliza nods. “The cake . . .” She looks down at the paper again. “‘Was there six hours after the floral arrangement.’ So six hours before the cake arrived is our final number.”

  * * *

  IF YOU THINK THE ANSWER IS 2, CLICK HERE.

  IF YOU THINK THE ANSWER IS 3, CLICK HERE.

  * * *

  THE DOOR CLICKS open, and the EMF reader is going nuts, and Frank starts screaming behind me.

  “GET AWAY!” Mom shouts. And she grunts, like she’s punching or kicking or I don’t know. I promised her I wouldn’t turn around, and so I don’t. I push Eliza through the door and blindly reach behind me for Frank.

  “Frank! Come grab my hand! Eliza, where is he?”

  But Eliza is now looking at whatever’s behind me. Her mouth is in the shape of an O. And then, as if she can’t look anymore, she closes her eyes tight. “Frankie!” she shrieks.

  “Frank!” I yell again.

  A small hand reaches mine, and I yank him forward—through the door.

  “Mom!”

  She gives a huge tennis grunt. “GET. AWAY.”

  “Mom!”

  “Don’t turn around, Carlos!” she says, even more frantically. Then she screams like she’s attacking something.

  Do I follow her directions? Or
do I turn around to help her? I don’t really want to see what’s behind me, but it’s hard for me to help Mom if I don’t know what we’re dealing with.

  * * *

  TO STARE STRAIGHT AHEAD, CLICK HERE.

  TO TURN AROUND AND LOOK, CLICK HERE.

  * * *

  WE WALK AROUND the hotel looking for Sunny, but she’s like a ghost herself: nowhere to be found. Eventually we head back to the top of the stairs. Eliza and I lean over the banister while Frank runs around the floor to let out his excess energy.

  “Where could she possibly be?” I ask. “You don’t think she went outside, do you?”

  “In this cold?” Eliza says, just as the wind rattles the windows.

  “Wheeeeeeeeeeee!” Frank yells as he whips by us again.

  “Are there . . . secret passageways and rooms to find?”

  “I don’t know, Carlos. I know just as much about this lodge as you do!”

  “So . . . where is she?”

  “Wheeeee—” Frank stops running, halfway down the hall, and he grins at us. “Found her!”

  I run toward him, and he points at a door. Room 237.

  “Hey,” I say, “isn’t that—”

  “Our room,” Eliza confirms.

  The door swings open, and someone comes out of our room backward, pulling a cleaning supply cart . . . and it isn’t Mom.

  Sunny turns around and recoils, like we startled her. We haven’t said anything to each other yet, but I can already tell she’s going to be a difficult suspect. She has that way about her—the way she presses her mouth together tightly. And the way she glares.