The last hotel

Dylan Smith was a lonely man without  a  family who lived only for his job. He was an introverted man who had only a close friend whose name was Tom Copper who had left for New York and he would have reached during Christmas Holiday.

On the 23rd December everything was ready: suitcases were waiting in front of the door. His plane left at 15.00 p.m.

Dylan Smith arrived in New York at 18.30. Already at the J-F Kennedy’ s airport Christmas’ atmosphere was in the air: decorations everywhere, families which gathered happily at the arrivals. A huge bright and coulored Cristmas tree which seemed to greet the passengers. People’s faces  were lit with happy smiles.

Once out of the airport Dylan took a taxi to get to the hotel who was lying in the suburbs. He had booked a room there the day before. During the way to the hotel he passed through the city centre. The city was busy and crowded, the shops full of joyful shopwindows. Joy was everywhere.

As he detached from the centre everything seemed less bright, darker and gloomier. 

The outskirsts appeared as a dormitory area, only houses, no shops, no stores and a very few people on the deserted streets. 

Noises, Christhmas atmosphere where far away and only silence, coldness and darkness here. 

Looking at the building Dylan understood that it was an unsafe area, where lived strange people that seemed to be of bad reputations. The taxi left him opposite his hotel. It was at the end of a dark street, an isolated and dirty hotel.  

He would have never chosen it if his friend Tom Copper hadn’t gone there one month before. 

But Tom was disappeared and had never phoned Dylan as Tom had promised to do. 

Where was he? 

Before entering Dylan remembered that Tom had gone  there because a friend of him Henry Barley had booked in the same hotel some days before and so Tom had decided to choose the same hotel but Henry hadn’t sent Tom any news about him.

The hotel’s owner was more or less 70 years old. He had no hair but he had a full beard and cold and chilling eyes which stared Dylan intensely. 

Dylan asked him some information about his friend and colleague Tom Copper but the man denied meeting him. 

After that the man gave Dylan the key of the only free room left. Tom opened the door, came into his room n. 13. The room was very large, there was a mirrow, a wardrobe and some paintings that depicted some beardded and creepy men. When  he opened his wardrobe he noticed strange objects and photos. He started looking at them and very soon came across a photo of Tom. At the first he thought he was wrong, but instead he was right. It was the photo of the last Christmast and he remembered it very well, because he had taken it. There were also some newspapers articles about disappeared people. Dylan paled and started trembling. 

After some days Dylan’s family called the police because they had no news of him. Two years passed and his body was never been discovered.

Suddenly he woke up, it was late, he had overslept and the alarm clok had not rang. The suitcases were ready and the plane would leave at 15.00.

By: Carlotta Bassotti and

Letizia Manganelli