Dance Dance Dance by Haruki Murakami Page A

the middle of my story and called over one of the staff boys, and all three of us went back up to the sixteenth floor. Just to check things out. But everything was perfectly normal up there. All the lights were shining away, there was no old smell, everything was the same as always, as it was supposed to be. We went to the staff lounge and asked the guy who was there if he knew anything about it, but he swore up and down he'd been awake the whole time and the power hadn't gone out. Then, just to be sure, we walked the entire six-teenth floor from one end to the other. Nothing was out of the ordinary. It was like I'd been bewitched or something.
    "We went back down and the manager took me into his office. I was sure he was going to scream at me, but he didn't even get mad. He asked me to tell him what happened again in more detail. So I explained everything as clearly as I could, from the beginning, right down to those footsteps coming after me. I felt like a complete idiot. I was sure he was going to laugh at me and say I'd dreamed the whole thing up.
    "But he didn't laugh or anything. Instead, he looked dead serious. Then he said: 'You're not to tell anyone about this.' He spoke very gently. 'Something must have gone wrong, but we shouldn't upset the other employees, so let's keep this completely quiet.' And let me tell you, this manager is not the type to speak gently. He's ready to fly off the handle at any second. That's when it occurred to me— that maybe I wasn't the first person this happened to."
    She now sat silent.
    "And you haven't heard anybody talk about something like this? Weird experiences, or strange happenings, or any-thing mysterious? What about rumors?"
    She thought it over and shook her head. "No, not that I'm aware of. But there really is something funny about the place. The way the manager reacted when I told him what happened and all those hush-hush conversations going on all the time. I really can't explain any better, but something isn't right. It's not at all like the hotel I worked at before. Of course, that wasn't such a big hotel, so things were a little different, but this is real different. That hotel had its own ghost story—every hotel's probably got one—but we all could laugh at it. Here, it's not like that at all. Nobody laughs. So it's even more scary. The manager, for example, if he made a joke of it, or even if he yelled at me, it wouldn't have seemed so strange. That way, I would've thought there was just a malfunction or something."
    She squinted at the glass in her hand.
    "Did you go back to the sixteenth floor after that?" I asked.
    "Lots of times," she said matter-of-factly. "It's still part of my workplace, so I go there when I have to, whether I like it or not. But I only go during the day. I never go there at night, I don't care what. I don't ever want to go through that again. That's why I won't work the night shift. I even told my boss that."
    "And you've never mentioned this to anyone else?"
    She shook her head quickly. "Like I already said, this is the first time. No one would've believed me anyway. I told you about it because I thought maybe you'd have a clue about this sixteenthfloor business."
    "Me?"
    She gazed at me abstractedly. "Well, for one thing, you knew about the old Dolphin Hotel and you wanted to hear what happened to it. I couldn't help hoping you might know something about what I'd gone through."
    "Nope, afraid not," I said, after a bit. "I'm not a special-ist on the hotel. The old Dolphin was a small place, and it wasn't very popular. It was just an ordinary hotel."
    Of course I didn't for a moment think the old Dolphin was just an ordinary hotel, but I didn't want to open up that can of worms.
    "But this afternoon, when I asked you about the Dolphin Hotel, you said it was a long story. What did you mean by that?"
    "That part of it's kind of personal," I said. "If I start in on that, it gets pretty involved. Anyway, I don't think it has anything to do with