legends · 4 min read ·
Wake-Up Call
A night manager keeps deleting a wake-up call for a room that does not exist, and someone keeps answering it.
**The Royal Bellamy Hotel — Night Audit and Desk Log**
**Night manager: S. Okoro. Date: 14/15 Nov.**
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**23:05.** Took over from evening desk. Occupancy 61%. Two late arrivals expected. Bar closed at 23:00. Lift 2 out of order, notice up.
**23:20.** Mr. Brandt, room 214, requested extra pillows. Sent porter.
**23:45.** Auditing the day's takings. Cash balances. Wake-up calls for the morning loaded into the system, nine requests, the earliest 05:30.
**00:10.** Alarm panel check. All clear.
**00:40.** Phone rang at the desk. External line. Silence. Hung up.
**01:15.** Wake-up call list shows an unfamiliar entry. Room 12, 03:00. There is no room 12 in this hotel. Rooms begin at 101. I checked the register and the system. The room is not in the building plan. The call was logged as requested by the room itself.
**01:20.** Cleared the entry. Deleted from the queue.
**01:55.** Entry reappeared. Room 12, 03:00. Deleted again.
**02:10.** Tried to find the source. The IT helpline is closed overnight. I called the group duty manager, who said it was probably a corrupt record and that I should ignore it.
**02:30.** The wake-up call system is a simple one. At the due time it dials the room extension and plays a recorded message. *Good morning, this is your wake-up call.* The extension for room 12 does not exist. There is no line.
**02:50.** The system has dialled something. The log shows a connection established for 00:00:00 seconds at 02:50, ten minutes ahead of schedule. No message played. Status: ANSWERED.
**03:00.** A call came in to the front desk on the internal line. The display read: 12.
I picked it up. I said, "Reception, how can I help?"
A woman's voice said, very sleepily: "Is it time?"
I said, "I'm sorry, I think you've got the wrong extension."
"I asked for a call at three. I was told someone would wake me. I've been asleep a long while." She yawned. "Is it morning?"
"It's three, madam. It's the middle of the night."
"Oh," she said. "Then I shouldn't get up."
"No, madam."
"Don't let them wake me, then. They try. They knock." A pause. "Isn't that funny? You'd think, in a hotel, they'd let a person sleep."
**03:05.** I looked at the corridor camera. The cameras cover all floors. I can see every door. There is nothing on the monitors, only the long carpets and the little exit signs.
**03:12.** From the first floor, the sound of a door. A single firm knock. A pause. Another. They came from near the lift shaft, from the blank wall beside lift 2, where the lift is out of order. I went up. I took the torch.
**03:20.** First floor, the wall by lift 2. There is a plain painted wall, with a fire extinguisher bracket. And in the wall, at the height of a door, a rectangle of a slightly different white. I put my hand to it. It was warm.
Someone was knocking on it from the other side.
**03:21.** I said, "Housekeeping." I don't know why. The knocking stopped.
Then from the other side of the wall, a polite, tired voice. A different one. A man's. "Mrs. Dane has asked not to be disturbed," it said. "She's very ill. I'd be grateful if you'd leave her."
**03:25.** I said I would. I said I was sorry for the trouble. I went down.
**03:40.** I deleted the entry from the system a final time. I put a note in the log. I took the extension off the board.
**05:30.** The first wake-up calls went out as normal. Nine rooms. All answered.
**05:31.** A tenth went out. The queue showed it dialled without being scheduled. It played the recorded message, in the usual voice, to a room that doesn't exist.
*Good morning. This is your wake-up call.*
**05:32.** The line connected. A tiny click. Then, over the speaker on the desk, slowly, the sound of someone sitting up in a bed, and a long creaking breath, and the faint rustle of a hand feeling for a light switch in a dark that was not ours.
**Handover note for the day manager:** Please do not take any calls to room 12. If you must, say that it is early. Say there's plenty of time.