Hotel Invasion

I was on holiday with some people I didn't know. I think it was a prize I'd won or something.

The coach turned up this road going up a grassy hill in lovely countryside. The hotel at the top was hilariously ramshackle.

Something else, too: it was haunted. Strange things were happening: doors opening and closing of their own accord, windows and curtains opening and closing, cupboard doors, drawers ...

I had with me what looked like a carbon rod mounted in a silver hilt, like a dagger but with a thick pencil lead instead of a steel blade. Apparently, one touch of this "pencil," which was actually as thick as a cigar, was enough to dispel whatever magic or possession had control over the object; so I was putting big black marks on everything.

The weirdness, however, was caused by something external: and the minute it dawned on them that they were losing control, they sent in goons. First I heard was a crashing as the main door was brokrn open. I was upstairs, having reduced an Ikea table back into its component flatpack, and I'd left the three old people whose room it was and was making my way along the corridors and stairs. I bumped into one of the staff, a room service person, and greeted her cordially. I barely had time to register when I heard her give a cry, muffled. I peeked back around the corner and spotted her in the arms of some thug dressed in black. He had a rag over her mouth, and she was going down, her eyes closing.

Time for me to split; and I did that thing I seem to enjoy doing in all my dreams - find a thick wall, and phase into it. Then I heard more people converging on the thug's position. He'd obviously called it in. It was me they were after - me, and the secret of my thick carbon rod.

Freudians, the queue starts back over there.