Chapter Seven- That Room on Floor Thirteen

 Alan got the job and had the job for weeks. He seemed to be thoroughly enjoying it until the day of Room 1345. The hotel lobby was busy as Alan carried luggage to several different floors using the elevator. The elevator in the hotel was huge, lined in gold and with 4 spectacular mirrors on every side. Alan walked in the elevator dressed as a bell hopper carrying a rather large piece of luggage with clothing in it to Room 1345. Alan arrived at the room, a grand suite with a white door.

        As Alan was about to open the door with the luggage in hand, another bell hopper rushed out of the room sweating bullets. “Don’t go in there!” he yelled.

        “What happened, Jonah?” asked Alan confusedly. Jonah rushed out into the elevator wiping the sweat off his forehead with a piece of red cloth. Alan opened the door quietly and immediately smelled the aroma of smoke.

        In the fireplace inside the room, a fire had been eating away at all the furniture and everything else in the hotel room. The fire was blazing hot and even started to spread to Room 1344. Alan, in a panic, rushed downstairs in the elevator trying to get down as fast as possible. Once he reached the lobby he screamed, “FIRE! There’s a fire on the 13th floor!”

        Everyone in the lobby froze, sweat dripping down Alan’s face, and then started to panic. People in the lobby grabbed their luggage and booked it out of the hotel. Alan saw people behind the front desk speaking into the loudspeakers as calm as they possibly could, “Fire on the 13th floor,” the loudspeakers echoed, “Repeat, there is a fire on the 13th floor,”

        Alan ran out and saw that the flame engulfed the upper portion of the hotel in flames. It was so bad that gray clouds of smoke billowed over the New York horizon, the flames were visible from outside, with bursts of fire flaming from the very top floor, the floor Harrison Heyford’s gigantic office was in.

        Up in Heyford’s office, Harrison Heyford heard the news and went into his private elevator in his office to the lobby in a panic. Turns out that the fire reached the office once he got into the elevator and spread to the elevator. The wire carrying the elevator snapped due to the fire eating it away with Harrison Heyford inside. The elevator fell all the way to the bottom, people even said they could hear loud banging coming from the walls as the elevator fell by. The elevator crashed, as ambulance wagons traveled by slowly. Heyford was 34 when he died in the elevator crash.

        Alan was running as fast as he could, ashes still on his uniform all the way to his apartment. People in the streets were running haywire as far away from the hotel as they could. Half the hotel was now in ruins from the fire and in a state of disrepair as Alan reached his apartment.

        “Why are you home so early?” asked Mr. Lisiewicz, “It’s only 2 PM, you should be at the hotel!”

        “Are you seeing what’s going on?” asked Alan in a frenzy, “The whole hotel has caught fire! It’s in a state of disrepair!”

        “Oh my!” shouted Mrs. Lisiewicz, “Is everyone OK? Never in my life has this ever happened!”

        “I’m not exactly sure what happened!” said Alan catching his breath, “All I know is that a fire started in the fireplace on the top floor! Now the hotel is destroyed! We’ll have to see if there are any casualties,”

        The newspaper came out that evening, Mrs. Lisiewicz read it aloud to the whole family, “Harrison Heyford found dead in a crashed elevator. The founder of the famous Hotel Hightower, Harrison Heyford, was found with several injuries and a silent heart in the rubble of his private elevator. Detective Jack Lennon guesses that the fire spread to the elevator causing the elevator pulley system to malfunction and crash to the floor. People also stated that they heard banging from the walls, probably the last that anyone ever heard of Harrison Heyford. Other than that, 4 adults and 2 children died in the fire, people all belonging to the room next to Room 1345. They were the Roswell family, and may they rest in peace,”

        “Harrison Heyford? Dead?” questioned Alan, “There’s no way Harrison Heyford is dead! He was a good man!”

        “I remember when Harrison Heyford announced the construction of that hotel, it was big news to the people that a young man built the biggest hotel in America,” said Mr. Lisiewicz, “I wonder if they’re going to rebuild it,”

        “Most likely,” stated Mrs. Lisiewicz, “It was a symbol of New York, they would never just let it burn down,”

        “Yeah,” agreed Alan, “And it was the most beautiful building in all of the world. It’s sad that my job had to end so soon, what am I going to do now?”

        “I don’t know,” Mrs. Lisiewicz said doubtfully, “You’ll have to find a new job, I suppose,”