Room #309 was odd in every sense of the word.

It was assigned with an odd number, located on an odd floor, positioned oddly in proportion to the hall and its décor was terribly old-fashioned, especially odd considering the modern appearance and tight upkeep on all the rest. But most odd of all; odd with a dash of mysterious and a sprig of spooky was that for a very long time – Room #309 did not officially exist.

It was during my first few months at the Inn, at the very beginning when I had just begun to wet my feet and embark on what would be my journey as an Innkeeper, when I became aware of this inherently odd room. The Front Desk Supervisor at the time was a man named Eric. I learned a lot from him in the very short time he was my supervisor, most of which were lessons of “don’ts” in working at a hotel. He never took his job or himself too seriously, which explained why he did not last long. Perhaps, just last long enough to introduce me to Room #309.

Short staffed for a busy weekend, the Inn wasted no time in throwing me to the wolves after just a few short weeks of training. I was scheduled for a busy Friday shift with a jam-packed arrivals list and only Eric as back-up to assist me. The night was sheer chaos all the way through; the flow of check-ins seemed to continue on like a steady parade of elephants, each more demanding than the last.

Due to Eric’s lack of leadership and my novice expertise at the time, I took up making notes on everything that passed through my hands to avoid any errors. Room assignments for example were unbearable; matching numbers and locations to demands and requests was a delicate game. Since I dreaded double-assigning a room or voiding keys by mistake, I kept a detailed running list of vacant rooms and crossed them off manually as I checked them in so that I would have back-up for later reference as I went along. Towards the end of the shift the computer showed the Inn was over-sold by one more room than made sense according to my notes. Soon I realized that Room #309 was not crossed off and yet the computer would not recognize it as an assignable room number.

“Eric, I think we can break even here if you can help me get this last arrival assigned to #309,” I said to my vain leader as he adjusted his hair in a painting’s reflective glass covering.

“309? We don’t sell that one, don’t even bother,” he replied without turning his head.

“Is there a 309? It doesn’t show up in the computer; did they skip a digit when they numbered the rooms or something?” I chuckled.

“You haven’t heard about 309 yet?” he seemed more interested now. “If you can stick around for a few minutes after your shift, I’ll show you.”

Eleanor, the full-time Night Auditor, (who remains with the Inn to this day, though limited to only weekend 3^rd shifts) arrived ten minutes early and plopped her large white purse on the back desk, setting off rumbles of prescription pills and loose change, “How was the night, fellas?” she asked.   

We filled her in on the essentials and griped about this and that as the last minutes of my shift ticked away. Eric let Eleanor in on his plan to educate me on Room #309 and added that he would return shortly to finish his paperwork and end his night.

“Is that really necessary Eric?” she asked, “I wouldn’t go messing if I didn’t have to.”

“We’re not ‘messing’, it’s just a quick tour and I’ll be back in a few minutes,” he replied as he scooped the master set of keys from a mounted box in the back office.

We made our way out the door, through the lobby and stopped at the bank of elevators nearest the first floor guest room hallway. Eric stretched out his arm and pressed the call button.

“I don’t know if anyone has been in there lately; I haven’t stepped a foot inside since last Christmas and the last guests to use it was over year ago - and they didn’t make it over night,” he told me, “we had just opened it up again after a long hiatus to try to maximize revenue, but we had to move them a few hours after check-in and issue a full refund in the morning. It was taken out of inventory later that same day.”

The elevator doors flew open and we stepped inside. Upon Eric’s direction, I reached over and selected the round white “3” for the third floor which illuminated a bright yellow. Gravity shifted as the as metal box moved upwards and Eric continued, “Decades ago, the owner of the Inn was an old man named Bookhart and he had a sister, a resident at some loony-bin, who in turn, had a son named Lloyd .”

The elevator came to a halt and the doors opened exposing the 3^rd floor; we stepped out and continued down a long hallway. After passing the first set of four guest room doors, (# 301, 302, 303 and 304), I thought back to the tour I was given by the General Manager on my orientation day, which I then realized was thoroughly useless as I could not remember ever being shown the third floor in particular, rather the extent of that initial walk-around was limited to locating the pool and a couple random rooms on the first floor only.

“Keep up, okay?” Eric whispered; I wasn’t sure if he was lowering his voice for the guests in surrounding rooms or to set the ambiance for our destination. “Lloyd was terribly neglected and eventually abandoned for a number of years when his mom was put away. So Uncle Bookhart basically adopted him as his own and since he spent so much time here at the Inn, Lloyd got a room all to himself.”

The hall began to widen to the left as we passed rooms 305, 306, 307 and 308. The widening created an oddly disproportionate inlet that housed a boardroom with a wooden oval table and twelve chairs that I could see into through two large panes of glass and open faux-wood blinds. A plaque hung on the door reading, “The Pine Room – Max. Occupancy 16.”

“And here we are,” Eric said as he stopped in front of Room #309.

The door was fit into the wall on an awkward angle that made it seem more apt to be a broom closet than a guest room, but was labeled just as Eric had said, “309”. The room numbers following chronologically after it seemed to skip the chaos all together and pick up again a few more feet down the hall, creating a new grouping of rooms.

Eric jingled the master set of keys from his pocket, “They lock the deadbolt so regular key cards don’t work,” he said softy.

The heavy lock pounded open and the door swung inward.

~The Innkeeper     

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