To-night’s tale:

Knock-Knock! You’re Dead.

***

Pray,

dear fans of horror & the unknown,

have you heard tell the true story of the ghost

of the Cecil Hotel?

Would you like to?

Wait!

Before you answer,

remember that I definitely cannot hear you.

ii.

Our story, friends, begins in the 1940s,

when a down on his luck, door-to-door salesman, 

checked into a downtown Los Angeles business

known as the Cecil Hotel.

iii.

After settling in,

he called down to room service

and ordered a bottle of cyanide, and the lunch special,

which also had cyanide in it.

Which killed him first only God knows,

and God was not interviewed for this story.

Nevertheless, the salesman is now doomed

to walk the hallways of the Cecil hotel for all eternity!

iv.

The first reported sighting

was in the late 1950s by

a unlucky family who had traveled from

Missouri to California to see

the famed orange groves of Anaheim;

only to learn, upon their arrival,

that the groves had been torn down

and replaced with a theme park.

v.

According to the family,

around six o’clock that evening,

they heard a tapping on the door of their hotel room,

and believing it to be room service,

opened the door,

to suddenly be confronted by the horrifying specter!

The children screamed.

The mother screamed.

And the father began to panic,

as he had just paid for dinner,

and he did not remember

ordering a ghost.

vi.

Without a word said,

the ghost went directly into the room,

wheeling in a vacuum cleaner behind him.

With a wink, the ghost poured a half a bag

of planting soil onto the carpet,

quickly vacuumed it up,

and then using the skills he had honed for a generation,

tried to sell the family

a half bag of planting soil.

vii.

They bought the bag,

if only to get rid of the ghost,

although, the father noted later,

that it was sold at 1940 prices,

which was a steal

for quality planting soil.

viii.

But, that was not the end,

for the moment after the ghost had left,

the bag disappeared,

the stain returned,

and the family was charged an

exorbitant housekeeping fee

for the damaged rug

viiii.

The next ghost sighting was in the 1960s.

The hotel had by this time had fallen into disrepair,

and was know as a illegal gambling haven

for jacks players.

One such jacks enthusiast was a young man,

who had just returned from a disappointing day-trip

to Anaheim to visit a famous theme park,

only to learn that it had recently been

torn down and replaced with orange groves.

viiiii

At six o’clock that same evening,

the man heard a tapping on the door, and voice

inquiring if the woman of the house was available.

But when he opened the door, 

the ghost immediately reached into the man’s chest cavity,

pulled out his still beating heart,

showed it to him,

put it back in,

and then using the skills he had honed for a generation,

tried to sell him life insurance.

viiiiii.

There is a happy ending, though, dear readers,

for the very next morning

the young man, shaken but not stirred by

the events of the previous evening,

attended the jacks tournament,

where he finished in the top threesies.

viiiiiii.

In the 1970s the ghost passed away.

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