Speaking of strange feelings and foreboding.
Last year me and my wife were on a holiday trip in France, driving around in a rental car, improvising as we went, finding a hotel when the day ended.
One late afternoon we were again getting ready to find a hotel for the night. We saw a small two storey hotel by the roadside, in a well populated area on the coast.
We parked the car and entered the hotel lobby. It was a two or three star hotel, not very well kept but not exceptionally bad either. There was a young man in this thirties that came to greet us. We wanted to see the rooms. The host showed us a room on the second floor, with a large balcony with a very nice view onto the sea.
The price was well within our budget and we decided to take the room. When we got back to reception, surprisingly the host said we should pay in advance. This is very odd as the custom is to pay when you leave. He had some kind of explanation of making sure we do not leave without paying. I had an eerie feeling and did not offer my credit card, opting instead for cash.
The hotel was empty, it seemed we were the only guests. We took our bags to the room and drove the car to the nearest town to do some shopping for groceries. On the way we discussed that there was something strange about the manners of the host of the hotel, but we could not pinpoint what it was.
When we came back to the hotel it was already getting dark. There were no cars in the small parking lot. The hotel was totally dark.
We went to our room, set up a supper on the table on the balcony. There were four rooms on the seaside of the hotel, with the balconies in a row. We were on the first balcony. The third or fourth balcony had the door to the room open. On the table of the balcony were a couple of glasses, half full. I remembered that they were just like that a couple of hours earlier when we had left to town. Not a thing had been moved on that balcony, which felt a bit odd in a hotel.
It became very dark, we sat at the table on our balcony, ate our supper we bought from a supermarket, enjoyed the night sky and the stars. Suddenly I heard a very loud noise somewhere very near, but could not see anything in the almost total darkness. We both startled. Then I heard the noise again. Then I saw what it was - a big chicada had entered the balcony and was sitting on the wall.
We relaxed and continued enjoying the Mediterranean summer night. Out of the blue something hit me in the head. The chicada had jumped from the wall and hit me right in the temple. We chuckled at the scare.
Finally we went to bed. I was feeling a bit nervous and closed and locked the balcony door even though it was hot in the room and there was no air conditioning. My wife seemed to understand well, she felt uneasy, too. We discussed that something does not feel right, but decided it was just because of the darkness and that we were tired, and went to bed.
We did not fall asleep, we both kept turning around in bed. We said to each other that something is wrong, this place does not feel good.
We decided to have a look around. We dressed and quietly left the room, slid down the unlit stairs, very softly and carefully went across the small lobby and quietly opened and then closed behind us the main door. We were on edge, having a tingly feeling.
We had a look at the front of hotel, not a single light, every window totally black. There was another car in the parking lot beside ours. We went past the two parked card and around the corner, then took a dark alley to the other side of the hotel. We took a look at our room, one in the row of four balconies. It felt good to be on the outside, and a dreary feeling to think of going back inside.
There were also a few windows with no balconies and there was a light in one of the windows. Someone moved in the room and we heard muffled sounds of talking. Everything seemed normal in that, a couple of guests getting ready to sleep.
All the other windows were pitch black, including our balcony. We continued walking around the small building of the hotel, and came out to the main street through another alley. The hotel felt very menacing by now.
We crossed the street as there was a small building with a couple of shops in it, with the soft light of the front windows standing out in the darkness. We had a look at the adverts in the windows, the other shop was a realtor's office, the other some other type of office.
Me and my wife did not feel like returning to the black and eerie building of our hotel so we found a place to sit under a big tree. I picked the place as it was in the shadows, I did not want for us to stand out on the quiet street. Call me paranoid, but having gone through guerrilla warfare training I have learned the value of seeing and not being seen.
As we sat there pondering our next move we heard a motorcycle. Not a car had passed us even though this is the only road along the densely populated coast. The motorcycle rounded a bend, slowed down and stopped in front of a fence that was around the other end of the hotel. The rider put the bike on the stand, opened a gate, rode the bike inside and closed the gate. It seemed to be the same guy that had checked us in a few hours earlier.
A light came up on the second floor and we saw the guy move around with no shirt on. It seemed he was doing his evening routines and preparing to sleep. Just after a few minutes the light went out. We still sat under the tree, quietly whispering to each other.
Then we both reached the decision: we are not going to stay in this hotel. Too many out-of-place incidents: almost empty hotel at the peak of season, no other guests except for the one room, the somewhat creepy host that did not act according to the normal hotel routines, the balcony of the other room being in a state just like someone left in a hurry and no-one cleaning up the table, the guy coming in late on his motorcycle and switching off lights in his room almost immediately. To top it all off the chicada jumped right at my head.
Hesitatingly we walked across the street to the hotel main door, entered the lobby, walked upstairs to our room. With a sense of urgency we packed our bags. We felt tension rising, it was very uncomfortable to be in the room.
Not a moment too soon we stepped out into the corridor, me carrying the large bags, my wife carrying a smaller one. We quietly shut the door and once more went down the dark stairs to the lobby. My wife opened the main door and I took the bags out, then I went back inside and left the key on the counter. Then I took the bags to the car, helped my wife into the car, put the bags in the trunk. All the while I was doing this I watched around, listened carefully.
With a sense of relief I started the engine and drove out on the street. In the town not ten kilometers away we took a room in a modern Best Western hotel. It was a huge relief to be in a normal hotel, with every little detail being as it should be.
In the morning we woke up in a good mood and had a good laugh at our sillyness. How can grown up people get so scared of a hotel that they abandon the room in the middle of the night? But we both agreed that this was exactly the right thing to do, not a hint of doubt about it.
You cannot tell if there really was some danger or if our imagination just ran wild. But when you get such a strong sense of doubt and then fear, it is better to act on it. I am happy we did not stay to see those cards.
