Togo (Goes) on Assignment (A Grand Haunting)
Chapter 5: "Why?" is the Essential Question, Scene 13
Togo Goes on Assignment is published weekly as a series. If you came in late, you might want to go back to the beginning. Or, if you’re cut from the same adventuresome cloth as Togo, feel free to read on and figure things out as you go. If you’ve been reading along and just forgot what happened in the last episode, you can click here.
Togo was puzzled. Why in the world was Nikki hanging around with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles? He glanced at the picture again and shuddered.
Equally eerie was the fact that Togo had overheard a couple of other hotel patrons at the next table in the rooftop lounge whispering about the history of the Hotel Parq Central. Seems that, originally, the hotel structure had been a hospital and then a psychiatric treatment facility. Through the years, staff and patients reported apparitions and had experienced poltergeist activity. Togo shuddered again. Just to be on the safe side, Togo went down to the lobby and found the hotel manager.
“So, my good man,” Togo began, “tell me the truth. Is this hotel haunted?”
The manager looked around the immediate area furtively and then back down at Togo. “What makes you ask that?”
“I am an international dog of intrigue. I am uncannily aware of many things,” Togo asserted. “And I read it on the hauntedrooms.com website.”
The hotel manager lowered his voice and said, “Well, it might be a little haunted. But the spirits seem to be friendly.”
Togo wrinkled his nose. “So, when you say ‘friendly,’ do you mean Casper, the friendly ghost, friendly?”
“That’s hard to say,” the manager replied. “I mean, as far as we know, the spirits haven’t hurt anyone. In fact, most of the reports are about this one woman spirit who watches people in the hallway on the top floor of the right wing.”
“And where is my room?” Togo arched his brows.
“Actually, it’s on the right wing on the top floor.”
“Oh,” Togo said, his voice a little weaker. “Anything else I should know about this woman ghost?”
“You might want to tuck in your sheets tightly,” the manager paused. “Occasionally we have had reports of guests’ bed covers being ripped off in the middle of the night.”
“Dandy,” Togo muttered.
As the elevator opened on the top floor, Togo remembered that his room was at the very end of the hall. He pulled himself up to his full height and strode forward with what he hoped was confidence. About a third of the way down the hall, he heard the door to the stairs behind him open and then slam shut. Togo quickened his pace as he heard steps behind him. And was that a woman’s voice?!
Togo bounded to his door, unlocked the door, and lurched inside. His heart was pounding, and he thought he could still hear a woman’s voice calling and then knocking on his door.
He dove into the bed and burrowed under the sheets. It took a couple of hours, but Togo finally went to sleep.
Shortly before sunrise, Togo was dreaming a vivid, Technicolor dream. He was playing in green grass. Not a care in the world. And suddenly he was shaken from his sleep when the bedsheets flew off his back!
Trying not to panic, Togo looked around the room cautiously. No one was there. Once he got his breathing under control, he sidled over to the desk in the corner. Just to be safe, he had positioned a small surveillance camera from his collection of gadgets.
As the sun peeked above the eastern horizon and through the open curtains to his room, Togo plugged the camera into his computer. He might not have a clue who he was chasing all over the world for S.H.E.D. But he’d soon know for sure about the haunting of the Hotel Parq Central.
His phone rang.
“Are you ready for breakfast?” Nikki asked. “I have a table in the hotel dining room.”