Awarded 1st Distinction in Short Story and Poetry Competition 2010.

Curse at Palace Hotel

This story starts in 1779 when the Palace Hotel was being built. It was going to be the biggest and the most modern hotel in the world. I was working on the construction site. One day my friends and I were working when one of them, John, told me that he was going to the bathroom, but he didn’t come back again. I waited for ten minutes, then for twenty. After that, I started getting worried. So we searched all the hotel but we didn’t find him.
That night I had a nightmare about John. I dreamed that something, I didn’t know what it was, had killed him and I knew where his body was. It was a very strange dream. The next morning I went to the Fifteenth Police station. I told a police officer what had happened that day and they told me that they had looked all over the place but didn’t find anything. I didn’t believe him so I decided to go to John’s house. I talked with my friend’s wife. She didn’t know anything about his disappearance so she cried and asked me if I could do something. I promised her that I was going to catch the guilty man or thing.
I knew that the police weren't going to help me so I went to the construction site on my own with a spade and a bucket to go on searching. I went to the bathroom on the second floor and I started to hear voices telling me that a demon had killed John. They also told me that he was buried somewhere on the ground floor. So I started to look for him. I found him at 2:30 a.m., and he had a scar on his chest. It was like a cross, so I told all about it to my other friend, Michael. He told me that the hotel was built on an old Indian cemetery. Afterwards I went to the nearest church to ask the clergyman what the cross in his body meant and he told me about an Indian curse.
That night I went to bed thinking about the situation. This morning I woke up with a phone call. It was the police telling me that all my work mates at the construction site were dead. I dropped the telephone and started to feel strange. I couldn’t breathe well so I ran to the bathroom. Now, I‘m standing in front of the mirror watching the cross on my chest. Finally I understand everything. I’m the next, I’m the last one.


Pen name: Lompart
Category A