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The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/AbbyHut on 2023-07-02 20:37:19+00:00.
“
"Bury me at the Grand Rosette"
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I had always recognized that there was something fishy about the job. I had been skeptical about taking it until the hiring manager discussed compensation.
“In addition to your generous base salary, you can expect to earn substantially more in tips. The Grand Rosette serves a very specific, very wealthy, very generous clientele, and even our most disliked managers have taken home at least fifty thousand dollars per month. Some have received much more. We don't put that in the job posting since we don't want to attract the wrong type of person, but suffice to say you will be very well compensated for any of the job's peculiarities.”
The job certainly had peculiarities. For one, “manager” was my official job title, but I was effectively also the bellhop, concierge, housekeeper, chef, and receptionist - in fact, I was the only employee present in the hotel. The hiring manager had assured me that this wouldn't be too much to handle: there were rarely more than a few guests present at a time, and they wouldn't get fussy if I couldn't be overly attentive. For the most part, she was right.
There was one major exception, as the previous manager informed me on the day I arrived at the hotel. "Yes, the guests won't be demanding, but if a guest does demand something of you, you have to accommodate them. Drop everything, if you have to. Even if the request seems silly, or if it requires you to ignore your normal hotel duties, you do it. That's the type of service that the generosity of the Rosette patrons buys." This struck me as being a little concerning, but I figured I could always just leave if a guest asked me to do something I wasn’t comfortable with.
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It was for one of these special requests that I now found myself in the middle of the wilderness with Auntie Estelle.
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Estelle had been the first guest to check in after my arrival.
She looked to be about fifty, in a way that suggested that she was probably at least sixty. She had a cackling laugh, and she loved to use it - she found my lame jokes hilarious, for some reason. It was just me and her in the hotel for a while, so we spent most of our evenings together; she appreciated the company, and I found her fascinating. She was the type of older figure who had a lot of life experience and wisdom to share, but was equally willing to listen and never presumed to know better than you. We would play cards while she regaled me with casual advice and tales from her past: hobbies learned and lost, ill-advised adventures, old lovers, and The Festival.
A few of the peculiarities of the hotel seemingly had something to do with The Festival. As far as I could surmise, it was an event that was held at the Grand Rosette sometime in the past, maybe five, ten, or twenty years ago: the stories were never really clear. Every present-day hotel guest had attended The Festival, apparently, and most would mention it at least once in passing. "Don't ask about The Festival," the previous manager had advised me. "Smile and nod if a guest tells you about it, but don't ask follow-up questions or dwell too hard on it. Actually, try not to ask questions in general."
Estelle mentioned The Festival often, but mostly in passing and never in much detail. For instance, she told me a story about going skydiving, and ended it by saying "that was the most exciting experience I've had since The Festival" - most of her references were like that. My best guess from context was that it was a Woodstock-type event with some sort of New Age spiritual component, but I had no strong evidence for that assumption. Again, I was asked not to inquire further, so I didn't.
It was a month into her stay that Estelle asked me to call her Auntie Estelle. "I don't have any family left, hon, and you're a wonderful kid, so it'd mean a lot if I could leave a little of me behind with you." I was more than happy to oblige. She mentioned offhand the next month that I had been written into her will, which was a very touching bonus.
Even as the months went by and other guests checked in and out, Auntie Estelle stuck around. She was a welcome constant, and I'm not sure if I could have handled the place without her. The hotel had... other peculiarities, that the previous manager and hiring manager had not informed me about. I could only attribute their negligence to willful malice - if I had known about this side of the job, it could have persuaded me not to take it.
The first peculiarity was the hotel’s other visitors.
As I mentioned, the hotel guests all had a few things in common: they were wealthy, polite, never made trouble, and had attended The Festival. However, they were not the only people on the property.
My first encounter happened soon after I arrived. I was pruning the bushes by the pool deck, while Estelle sat on a lounge chair nearby. Something moved in my peripheral vision. I glanced towards the treeline. A person was standing there.
For a few moments, I just watched. I didn’t know this person - his clothes were tattered, and his skin was as white as bone. He was staring at me, mouthing something. A strange dread crept up my back. My body shook, but otherwise I was frozen.
Estelle broke me out of my trance. "Calm down, hon, it’s just a visitor. They’re not any danger, just keep your eye on ‘em, they’ll get a little riled up if your back is turned. If it’s gettin’ to you, just go inside. They’ll go away on their own."
She shook her head solemnly. “Poor dears.”
I kept staring, transfixed, until the man turned around and walked back into the trees.
She brought up the event again at dinner.
“Sorry about the visitor, hon. The last manager should have told you, but they never do. If you see anything else like that, I’m happy to help you, hon. Just don’t ask me about it. You can tell me about it, but never a question, mhm?”
“And don’t ask me why that is, either.” She cackled a little at her own semi-joke.
I saw a few more visitors after that. They all looked similar - gaunt faces, tattered clothing - but I don’t think I ever saw the same one twice. Estelle gave me a few more pieces of advice - some unprompted, some in response to strange events.
“Don’t look towards that part of the forest for a while - it’s not dangerous, you just won’t like what you see,” when I noticed a stack of three boulders in the treeline - they were far too big to be moved manually and they hadn’t been there before.
“Go to bed before midnight and have some herbal tea when you do,” when I started seeing faces in the trees.
“That’s just a wild animal, hon,” when I mentioned the scratching I kept hearing on the outer walls.
“If you hear tapping on the skylight, don’t look up.” She offered this unprompted, and it confused me a little - the hotel didn’t have a skylight, and I never heard any tapping.
In general, none of the oddities seemed dangerous, they were just really, really off putting. With Estelle around, I was never too worried.
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Now she was gone, and I was all alone.
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I already mentioned the rule about requests. If a guest made a request of me, I had to follow it. There were plenty of benign requests - bring me more towels, please clean the bathroom, et cetera - but frankly far fewer than you’d expect in a normal hotel. The big requests happened very infrequently - I think I received five in total, over my seven months of employment.
The first one was from Rick, a middle-aged man whose most memorable characteristic was that he went for a jog at least twice a day. While I was sweeping the patio, he told me to dive into the pool and hold my breath for as long as I could. This sounded like the setup to a murder, but Rick had seemed trustworthy so far and Estelle was with us, so I figured I shouldn’t be in any danger.
So I humored him and took a swan dive into the pool, staying under for as long as I could. After about a minute, I still didn’t have any strong urge to surface for air. After five minutes, the same thing. At ten minutes, I counted my fingers and pinched myself, confirming that I was awake and lucid. It seemed I was. I went through my multiplication tables in my head - no issues there, my brain wasn’t fuzzy. I definitely wasn’t breathing, and I felt a slight pressure in my lungs, which wasn’t comfortable, but I didn’t feel any panic. So I stayed there, as minutes blended into hours.
I woke up to the sensation of my face clearing the water’s surface. I hadn’t realized I’d fallen asleep. It had been midday when I jumped into the pool, and now it was sunrise. Rick was still standing on the pool deck. “Good job, champ,” he said as he extended his hand, grabbing me and pulling me out. “I can’t fault you for surfacing while you were asleep. Couldn’t have done i...
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