But that was dumb, right?  It was just another way of freaking myself out in a strange place.  In reality, the men I had passed downstairs had all been perfectly pleasant and polite, and if any of them turned into an asshole, I could handle myself.  As for the building itself…it was just a building.  Huge and weird, yes, but so what?  All that meant was there was more work and money to be had.

I stopped along the hallway at random and turned toward a room door.  213.  Well, that’s as good as any.  All of the room doors on this floor had the keys stuck in the locks, and I hadn’t seen any missing, so it might be I was the first one to pick a room on this floor.  That suited me fine.  While I was going to try my best to get along with everyone, I wasn’t here to make friends, and I was kind of gunshy around people at the moment anyway.  The more time alone, the better.

Turning the key, the door unlocked with a loud click and swung open.  I flipped the switch just inside the door, and to my relief, the lights came on without any hesitation.  Again, very weird.  In fact, while the outside of the hotel was dark, all of the interior I had seen seemed fully powered, and I didn’t remember seeing the first blown bulb.  Even if the lights had all been turned off until recently, what were the odds of that?

Still, at least in this circumstance, the relatively pristine condition of the hotel was working in my favor.  The room was spacious, with a king-sized bed against one wall, a large sofa against the other, and plenty of open space in-between.  The decoration inside the room was much more subdued than outside, with a simple, abstract watercolor hanging over the bed and a few knickknacks cluttering a small writing desk tucked into one corner.

The bed itself was even made, though the linens did seem a bit stiff and musty.  And aside from a light coat of dust on everything, it was hard to say I wasn’t just spending the night in a stuffy luxury hotel.  Except it wasn’t a night, I reminded myself.  I was likely going to be there for days, all alone except for the group gathering downstairs.

Still, I had resigned myself to sleeping on a towel or rotten mattress in a decrepit run-down building.  How could I complain that everything was so nice?  Shaking my head, I stowed my backpack under the bed, locked the room back, and went down to try and find out more about what I was going to be doing during my stay at the hotel.

****