Value Place: An Extended Stay Horror Story

(This is a story I should have shared long before now. Make sure you have some time to spare—this one is lengthy.)

Two years ago my wife was accepted into a summer internship program at Arkansas Children’s Hospital. We were still living in Arkadelphia at the time, but my wife didn't want to spend the summer making the hour drive, fighting traffic to and from Little Rock. So we decided to live in Little Rock for the summer. However, in case you don’t know, it’s difficult finding a place to live for two months. Most rentals don’t have two-month leases. If they do, the price is either ridiculous or it’s a place you do not want to live. After looking for a couple of weeks, my wife found an extended stay hotel—Value Place—advertising for like $500 a month on Craigslist.

A number of things. I didn't know anything about extended stay hotels—oh how I want to be naive about extended stays again, but more on this topic shortly. All I knew was that a flat rate of $500 a month without having to pay deposits, electricity, water, sewage, etc. sounded great at the time. And… Value Place? Nothing screams slasher horror movie like a hotel with the word value in the name.

Also, there are only bad ideas on Craigslist. It’s a dark, evil place. If it something sounds like a good deal on Craigslist, there’s a good chance you’ll be murdered, chopped into pieces, and thrown into the nearest swamp with the help of Siri. This will be one of the first pieces of wisdom that I pass on to my children. I may have mentioned this before, but I have an irrational fear of being murdered, specifically during a home invasion. I wish this fact wasn't relevant to my story. Sadly it is.

There were so many signs. We had reserved a room on the first floor a couple of weeks before our check-in date. We didn't want to lug our junk up the stairs or in the elevator (yes, I also have a mild fear of elevators—I know: what am I not afraid of?). And, more importantly, it was one of the smoke-free floors. I have enough problems with my sinuses and allergies breathing clean air. Anyway, when we checked in, the manager regretfully informed us that there were no rooms available on the smoke-free floors. The only rooms he had were on the third and fourth floors, both smoking floors. We were young, stupid, and poor (which sounds better than how I feel some days now: older, stupider[!], and poorer). We settled on room 323.

I barely made it a week at Value Place before I was threatened with my life.

It was a Thursday night around midnight. I had left my electronic keycard, which I needed the next day if I wanted to leave the room, in my truck. When I first stepped out of my room, I noticed a purse and cell phone sitting in front of the room next to mine. I paused, but I couldn't get back in the room without knocking (what was I thinking, leaving the room without any way back in during the middle of the night?). I decided the person would be right back and it wasn't a big deal. You don’t leave your belongings lying around unless you’re just going to be gone for a split second, right?

After retrieving my keycard, I decided to take the elevator back up to the third floor. If only I had taken the stairs. The elevator opened into a small dead-end in the middle of the floor. As I exited and turned the corner, I ran into somebody. I apologized to the short, middle-aged woman in front of me. However, when I tried to step around her, she side-stepped and blocked my way.

When I took the time to look at her eyes, I knew I was in trouble. She had that crazy blank-eyed look.

“Have you seen my purse?” she asked.

Well, fiddlesticks (not exactly verbatim), I thought.  Normally I like telling the truth.  But there was no way that I was going to admit to this woman that I had seen her purse. What if someone had seen me leaving my room, pausing at my door, staring at the purse in the floor? I took my chances with lying.

I said no, threw in a  ma’am, and apologized.

“I know you took my purse.”

This is the definition of from bad to worse.  She was still blocking my way, standing less than a foot away from me. No, I had not taken her purse. Yes, I had seen it. She did not know that because it wasn’t true, but she could have seen me on my way down to my truck and assumed that I was the thief. I laughed—and I hate adverbs (though I use a lot more in my blogs than I do in my fiction), but I laughed nervously. I tried to act calm and reiterated to her that I had not seen her purse, I did not take it, and I hope she found it as quickly as possible.

“I will get my purse back.” She turned and entered room 325.

My hands were shaking. As I fumbled to slide my keycard in the reader, a young man stuck his head out of room 327. He was clearly taken aback by seeing someone—he quickly waved his hand and closed his door.

Safely back inside, I engaged the deadbolt and told my wife the story. She thought it was funny. I guess I can’t blame her for taking the situation lightly given my propensity for dramatizing situations (I write fiction after all) and my plethora of irrational fears.

It wasn't nearly as funny, though, when we heard the banging on our door at 3 o’clock in the morning. It was one of those surreal moments when you ask yourself, Surely this can’t be happening, right? And these weren't pansy noises. Imagine the battle for Helm’s Deep. I still don’t understand how all of the people on the third floor weren't sticking their heads out their doors to see what all the commotion was.

During a brief respite from the banging, I crept to the door and peeked through the peephole. You guessed it: the crazy lady who was convinced that I had stolen her purse. But she wasn't alone. The man from room 327 was with her. And they had a crowbar and a hammer. I even heard them whisper about finding a saw or sneaking in through the window. I kid you not.

I called the manager’s desk, which was advertised as occupied 24/7. No one answered. For the only time in my life, I called 911. Uh, yeah, I think someone is trying to break into my hotel room. Could you please hurry before I am brutally murdered for a purse that I didn't steal? Thanks.

Of course, it took the police over twenty-five minutes to get there. And, as my luck goes, the people had given up and left before the police arrived. Did the police knock on my door and ask if everything was okay? Of course not. 911 eventually said that they didn't see anything and to go back to sleep.

I didn't sleep, but I did check the door to make sure it wasn't about to cave in before cowering in the cheap and nasty hotel bed. No more than twenty minutes later, the banging started again. I called 911 again. We went through the same routine. Luckily, as I watched out the window, the lady and man got into a dark sedan and drove away for the night.

The next morning I finally talked to the manager. He said he had talked to the police and there were no visible signs of an attempted forced entry into my room. They had experienced some trouble with the people before, but there wasn't anything they could do right now.

I decided to look at the door myself. The manager was, at least, partially correct. When closed, the door looked perfectly intake. However, when I opened the door for a better look, the edge of the door was nearly destroyed from the prying of the crowbar.

Fearing for our lives, we went home to Paragould the next day for the weekend. I made sure to get my old metal bat from little league.

The only remaining photo of our room. Yes, I brought my own TV,
so I took this picture as proof in case someone stole it.

The rest of this may sound like the ramblings of a mad man, but believe what you will.

A week or so went by without anyone trying to break into our room. Every time I left the room I knew that the purse lady would be waiting on me, hiding in the stairwell, ready to pounce. I tried to be cautious. So when the cleaning ladies stopped by periodically and asked if we wanted them to come in or come by sometime while we were gone and clean the room, I kindly rejected their offer. However, no matter how many precautions I took, there was no peace at Value Place. Once again we would be awakened during the middle of the night.

This time it wasn't people banging at the door, but the braying of the fire alarm. After taking ten minutes of shaking and yelling to wake up my wife—I have never known anyone else who could sleep through a fire alarm as loud as a bullhorn with flashing lights ten feet from your head—we decided to stay inside. Maybe I was paranoid, but I wasn't falling for that trap. Needless to say, there was no fire.

I had avoided being the victim of a break-in and foiled two other potential plots. I had an aluminum bat now, just in case. I almost felt safe. That was, until I found the shreds of paper.

When my wife and I left for the weekend, we tried to be discreet. We didn't want the purse lady knowing she had free reign to attempt breaking into our room a second time. However, on a Monday after returning from Paragould, as I left the room to meet a cousin for lunch, I decided to double check the door and make sure it locked. Without swiping my keycard, the door handle turned effortlessly. I opened and shut the door and tried again. No resistance.

After going through this routine for almost five minutes, I decided to inspect other areas of the door, only to find that the strike plate was filled with paper, preventing the lock from engaging. Clumps of wadded paper cannot randomly collect in a door jamb. Some law of physics says that this is impossible, I’m sure. Considering that I didn't fill the striker plate with paper and the door had shut properly for the last couple of weeks, someone else had to put the paper there. Someone who could open my door.

For the rest of our stay, I slept with the bat beside the bed and checked the striker plate for paper every day. I denied all offers of room services and avoided interacting with the people of the third floor. In short, I lived like a mad man for two months at the Value Place in Little Rock.

Eventually the purse lady and the man from room 327 were kicked out of the hotel. Somehow the purse lady got locked out of her own room, which she tried to break into, while screaming like a loon in the hall. I watched out the window as they loaded the black Lexus.