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The 9 Story Hotel was opened in 1920 (closed in 1929)
The 9 Story Hotel was opened in 1941 (closed in 1955)
The 9 Story Hotel was opened in 1962 (closed in 1968)
The 9 Story Hotel was opened in 1978
It has been open under the same management since.
The Fabulous 9 Story Hotel is Always Open
Arthur Pinch stands at his post flipping through a U-Line catalogue, marking things that he wants to buy. Rope. Tape. Tyvek bodysuits in bulk. Rubber aprons.
He never sits.
His tall thin frame and shoulders that want to be broad, the sharp angles of his thin face, his pencil mustache. The way there is nothing about him that approves of you.
His hair never out of place. His voice modulated in a way so if life is a play, he’s playing his part. Mostly.
He wasn’t here in 1978, when the hotel opened. Shortly after, yes, but Valentine and Malick were already staff by the time he was hired.
He had to teach the first room service girls that to get blood stains out of carpet you use have to use potato starch, you dumb cunts. Potato starch.
Arthur Pinch isn’t just the concierge.
Day manager.
Night Manager.
Often away from the front desk.
That fucking running joke with the regulars he won’t even think to repeat.
Where he stands, inside a crumbling gaudy shamble, an eggshell sheathed in once breathtaking wood paneling, is Arthur Pinch’s sanctum. His teak crescent shaped desk. Glass window with sliding door, the new brass bars. The bell on the other side.
On his side. Telephone. Bank of monitors. The wall of keys to his left that looms across the corner. Switch to kill or jam every cell Bluetooth or wifi signal in the hotel. Ledgers, guest book, records, files, behind him the brass wall of mailboxes on one side, rarely used by anyone but permanent residents, and even then, opened, filed, monitored, communicated to the man upstairs. Across from the mailboxes, the plate with the hotel rules carved into them. Real gold of some kind, some mixture; the plate. He’s checked.
He looks down and there is a drop of dried blood on his right shoe. A flat, rusted fifty cent piece. Need more rubber aprons. Business accounts here are good for something at least.
He’s stood with mail in his hand, brain clicking, a puzzle box that never stops, gears that grind forever, and stared at it, but still doesn’t know who carved the rules in the plate. Who put the plate where it is. Why the rules are what they are.
To Arthur they’re rules, that just means they must be followed.
At the back of his sanctum is a green door. above the green door is a sign that says “staff only.”
Behind the green door is Pinch’s office.
Headache green walls. Buzzing lights. Drop ceiling. The cheapest rattiest parts of anywhere are places only staff see. Arthur’s bag lunch is still on the little round cheap formica imitation wood top table, twin to the one in almost every room in the hotel.
framed pictures, a conspiracy nut pinboard six feet wide. An accompanying white board. Cheap truck stop folding knife on a ledge in smoky branch camo.
Cheap cabinets. Grey. scratched. Completely out of place.
The pictures on the walls, on the cabinets and the boards, the polaroids, they’re not of Arthur’s fucking family. Bone white. Hot lipstick blood red. Fresh sticky yellow fat. Shining rubber. Pictures of the abattoir blues. Waiting for a True Crime documentary.
The next door, the door to what’s beyond his office, is yellow. Yellow painted on yellow painted on yellow. Chipped and painted over again.
Pinch would call it the Van Gogh door, but never out loud.
A worn brass plaque in the door reads “KEEP OUT”
Six locks of all configurations keep the door shut.
A sign above it hangs from the drop ceiling, flickering red in a metal frame:
THIS IS NOT AN EXIT.
A lone rusting seven foot tall locker stands to the left of the door.
Inside the locker, among many things, is a shiny vintage gas mask, well worn, well cared for, lying on the top shelf, where you put all your pictures from magazines and stash your weed in highschool. But the whole compartment, the inside of the locker, is lined.
The gas mask sits on red velvet.
Room… 650… That Asian girl, the Japanese rabbit with the Yakuza tattoos. Arthur grabs the sign that says he’ll be right back from under the desk.
Haven’t checked on her in a while.
He hits the intercom button to the lobby and locks the front doors with a button press.
Ladies and gentlemen, he starts. The residents of the hotel that live there, every one of them in the lobby groans.
This Week at The Nine Story Hotel
We have new stories:
Monday with
- The Sisters pt.2Tuesday
takes Griffin Pinch adventuring in - Full of Grit pt.2Wednesday
brings more - Althea Stories (Age 10) BalthazarThusday
continues the confusion of Nerisse
We’re dedicated to bringing you new voices in horror and noir in a setting as interesting as the stories we spin using the Nine Story Hotel as a starting point. Thanks to
the man who created Phineas Poe, and Jack Fell, as the mind behind the genesis of the hotel concept and our creative lead.We have a stable of current writers but are always looking for anyone interested in participating in the 9 Story Hotel Publication and project as either guest contributors or regular collaborators. for inquiries, questions, sample submissions, and gossip with Arthur Pinch, email 9storyhotel@gmail.com for now.