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The Hotel in the Middle of Nowhere

It was a time of great trouble. The land was in chaos and people were running to and fro. Crime was brutal and relentless. Little children were the ones that suffered the most under this wave of crime. People’s hearts have grown cold over the years and they didn’t care for the little children any more. There was no one to protect anyone in the land of sleaze and transgression. So in this time of anarchy some people turned back to the old ways. The ways of magic and sorcery and enchantment. Others combined the magic of the elder times with the latest technology. Both old and new were tools; tools that could be used for good or evil.

This was the time that Aiden Reed started his grand journey through the country. It started out as a journey to look for his lost love; his beautiful girlfriend, Kelly Collins. Kelly just disappeared one day as if she had never been born. Before the disappearance she was on her way to her aunt who lives in Victoria West. She was supposed to travel there by intercity bus. But she never arrived at her destination. The search by both the Police and the family came up blank. It was as if she was swallowed into a big void. There were absolutely no clues as to what happened to her. According to the investigation she was never even on the bus.

So after a few months of sitting around the house not knowing what to do and with this unending longing for his beautiful girlfriend, Aiden decided to go on a trip, following the same route she did. Or the route that she was suppose to take for that matter. He was sure that something would come up. He had nothing else to do, so he could really take his time. While looking for her, he could also acquaint himself with the country side and its people.

So on a rainy night, after having been on the route for two days he pulls into the parking area of a hotel between Beaufort West and Three Sisters just off the N1. The cold rain makes hot steam come from his hot motorbike engine.

In a big arch with large red letters the name of the hotel is advertised as: The Hotel in the Middle of Nowhere. And it really is in the middle of nowhere, because there is nothing all around, except for green grassy fields as far as the eye can see and many good looking horses grazing in the lushness.

When he enters the foyer he can hear that the hotel is already filled with many jovial guests.  He hears their laughing and talking. On such a cold and wet night people will off course prefer to be off the road.

He is welcomed to the hotel by the proprietor herself. She is a tall, impressive woman with steely blue eyes and hair hanging in a wide pony tail over her one shoulder. She smells like the freshness of spring and sweet cinnamon on a pancake early in the morning.    

“I am Mrs Steed and you are very welcome in my hotel.” She introduces herself to the weary traveller.

“Come inside and make yourself at home. We have a fire going and there are lots of braaivleis. You will be rid of the cold in no time.” She talks all the time while she leads the young man towards the other guests who are drinking and laughing and dancing.

The lounge is enormous. Little dining-boots are scattered all over the place. There is lots of space between the boots. Against the walls there are games of every description; snooker, table tennis, darts, chess, dominoes, poker. There are even arcade games as well as casino games. There are dining-boots where people can have a romantic dinner in candle lit corners. There is a dance floor where lights are pulsing with all the colours of the rainbow and music streams from the heavy speakers. There is everything that any traveller can want from a hotel.

“Are you staying for the night? His host asks. “I have a special low price tonight, because of the heavy rain.” Hearing this makes his heart feels lighter. Where in this corrupt country can you still get people who ask cheaper for something when it is in short supply?

“Yes, I am staying the night and maybe a few days…” he says. He likes this place and from the cheerful clamour he can see and hear the other guests too.

“I’ll send the waitress around to you. Make yourself at home. Here we are all friends.” And then she is off.

Aiden quickly becomes part of a group as he feels the spirit of the place taking hold of him. There is much shouting and laughing during the playing of a game of darts.   One would never say from the outside that the inside of the hotel is so big. Not big, but gigantic. 

The other thing is that mostly everything is for free.  All the games are for free. There are no charges to play any of the games. No wonder the place is so popular.

“Do you guys come here often?” He asks his new mates as they sit down at one the tables to have a bite to eat.

“No, it is actually the first time that I come here. But you can bet from now on I’ll be a regular visitor.” One happy businessman says

“Yes, this is a very nice place. It has a nice atmosphere and everything is so reasonably priced. That is the stuff that is not for free.” A long haired man who calls himself Doctor Doom laughs, while he bites into a fresh meatball. “But it seems that everyone here is first time visitors. Or at least everybody I spoke to here is.”

“They say that the owner makes her money from the horses that she sells. The hotel is built on a horse farm. They say that they breed the best race horses in the country here on this very farm.”

Then the waitress arrives at their table. For Aiden it is as if all reality is pulled from under him. The waitress is none other than his lost girlfriend.  

 “Kelly…”he exclaims as he gets up from his chair. “Kelly? What are you doing here?”

The waitress just stares at him.

“My name is not Kelly….”she says in a very friendly, but almost robotic tone. “I am Ginger. You must confuse me with someone else.”

The other men look at him sheepishly.

Something tells him to let it go. He quickly sits down and apologizes to her.

“Sorry, I must have confused you with someone else.”

“Nice try, Aiden.” His new friends mock him playfully as the girl walks away with his order.

She brings his food and he and his new friend talk the night away.

He arrives in his bedroom very late that night. As he rolls the blankets away to get into bed, he finds a small handwritten note: 

“Go to the Manager’s office at four o’clock. Don’t let them see you. And whatever you do, don’t eat the Vetkoek tomorrow morning.

- Ginger”  

He now knows that something sinister is going on here. They had some hold on Kelly and he was sure they were holding her against her will. But he will solve the whole issue tonight. 

On that faithful night the rain came pouring down from the heavens.  The rain clatters against the glass of the windows like little stones. In contrast it falls in near silence on the tile roof. 

At about four o’clock he gets up out of the chair where he has been sitting the whole time – too excited to go to sleep. As he leaves the room he feels a cold draught blowing through the long corridor. From the snoring and restful breathing coming from the rooms he can hear that everyone else is sound asleep. 

With his black biker clothes he silently melts into the shadows of the night. His soft soled boots masks his stride in silence as he makes his way towards the Manager’s office in the front of the building. That is the same office he reported to when he arrived at the Hotel in the Middle of Nowhere.

As he approaches the office through the darkness of the hall he hears some noises coming from the office that is flooded with light. He looks through a slit in the door and sees the owner, Mrs Steed busy with her computer. On the computer screen he sees what look like The Sims. But it is not the famous game, it is only little computer men that look like The Sims.  He sees Mrs Steed typing something on the keyboard and then the little people are suddenly in a field filled with wheat. He sees them harvesting the wheat with machines that the computer magically creates. They take the wheat to a mill where he sees them milling it until it is the finest flour that one can imagine. This flour they put into bags. Each little computer man then picks up two of the bags and stand and wait.

Aiden sees Mrs Steed looking onto a little card as she again type something onto the keyboard. Then the thing happens that he would never have thought he would ever see in his life. The little computer people hand the bags of flour forward and then it falls from the monitor onto the desk. It has materialized from the computer into the real world. Real bags. Real flour. Mrs Steeds then types in something else from the card and the little electronic people disappears from the screen as the system returns to the Windows™ desktop.

Aiden hides himself as he sees her picking up the bags and carrying it to the kitchen, where she immediately starts making the vetkoek for breakfast.

He stays in his hiding place until the early risers starts coming to the dining room to have their breakfast. He can see that everyone is very happy about the free vetkoek. Big dough-balls, prepared in hot oil.  There are many dishes filled with the magical vetkoek. One can eat it with fresh farm butter, or marmalade, or jam, or even put some of the curried mince on it. Where in this world can one get something as nice as this for free?

He watches as they merrily eat and drink of the many foods freely given by Mrs Steed.

And then it starts. It happens in front of Aiden’s eyes. It is more like a dream or a movie with lots of special effects, than reality. But it is happening right in front of him and he knows that he is wide awake.

He first sees the happy travelers grabbing their stomachs as if a great pain washes through it. Then he sees them trying to scream out as they fall from their chairs. They are still grabbing their stomachs and a kind of gargling sound comes from their mouths. Then he sees them changing. They first grow out to become about five to six times their original size. Then they change. Their arms and legs become long and thin with hooves where the hands and feet used to be. Their faces become elongated. When the change is done he sees them get up and fill the enormous lounge. All of them have become beautiful race horses. The stomp around in confusion for awhile, neighing like no real horses would ever neigh.

Something in that vetkoek turned these travelers into race horses. That is where all the horses on the premises come from. And that is what happened to Kelly. But she changes back to human form at night. The others are sold and they never change back again. There is also no way that they can tell anybody about what happened, because…well, they are horses.  And that is also the reason why there are never any return visitors, because no one ever leaves the hotel.  Or at least they never leave as humans.

With a clickety-clack all the new horses are led out of the immense lounge. Now he knows why it is so large… to accommodate the horses.

But he is Aiden and he was always a plan maker. He knows what to do. He is determined to stop Mrs Steed and set his sweet Kelly free.

Ten minutes later he arrives in the dining room like someone who just got up. Mrs Steed greets him friendly and takes his order. With his order she brings a large dish loaded with succulent, fresh smelling vetkoek. He can even smell the fresh farm butter from where he is sitting.

“I’ll join you,” she says, “let me just get my coffee.”

As she leaves the dining room, he quickly put her vetkoek into a Tupperware bucket that he brought with. He put his own vetkoek on the dish.

When she returns he makes a fuss as he takes the vetkoek out of the dish and put some jam on it. He eats it with a smacking of lips. Then he takes out his own Tupperware bucket and offers it to Mrs Steed.

“I made this vetkoek myself.” He tells her. “From the taste of your vetkoek I can see that you are a connoisseur. I would like you to taste my vetkoek and give an opinion.” He tells the now smiling woman.

“Off course,” She smiles and gives a little cackle as she takes a large bite out of the vetkoek.

“Very nice…it tastes as good as mine.”

Within a few minutes the changes start.

“No…you tricked me…uuuurgh….aaaaaaaaarghh…” her screams turns into gargles as she changes into a lovely mare. 

He takes her outside to where the other horses are grazing. He feels how she struggles against going outside.

When they arrive at the other horses Aiden says:

“I don’t know if you can understand me, but this is Mrs Steed. The one who did this to you.”

Then he walks away.

He goes straight to her office where he quickly locates the little card. He sees it is computer code written in C++. This was the way that she communicated with the little computer people.  He knows C++ very well and he quickly writes a code of his own.

Then he switches on the computer and summonses the little people. He types in the old code and then his own. On the screen he sees them going to work. He sees how the fields and little implements are created by the computer. He sees the little people going to work in the field.

After five minutes they cut the special grass and put it in a bag. They hand him the bag that materializes on his side of the monitor.

With this special grass he runs to the stable. He calls out

“Kelly…Kelly…” One of the horses, a light brown mare with a shiny skin knocks on the stable wall and looks out over her door. The name Ginger is written in huge white letters over the door. The mare holds her big head up as she neighs as loud as she can.

“Here eat this; it will change you back permanently.” He says as he holds the grass out to her in his hand.

With a crunching chomp the mare eats the grass. With the third mouthful she changes back into a beautiful girl.

At last he is reunited with his Kelly.

“I missed you so much.”

She embraces him with a laugh and whispers in his ear.

“Thanks, Aiden. I knew you could do it.”

As they walk hand in hand to the hotel she asks him.

“Where is Mrs Steed?”

“Look over there; she is the horse being bitten and kicked by the others.”

Aiden and Kelly are now the owners of the Hotel in the Middle of Nowhere. All the horses that were still there had been changed back to people. None of them could actually remember much of what had happened. Aiden thought this was good, because now he didn’t have to do a lot of explaining. Not all of the horses were actually people, so there are still some horses left.

The Hotel in the Middle of Nowhere is still famous for its nice and mostly free food. There is always a jovial atmosphere hanging over the place. After it was featured on Top Billing it received three times as many visitors as before.

Every night the computer people make food that goes out to the hungry children the next day. People can’t understand why the children are suddenly getting better, much better at their schoolwork and why they are not interested in drugs and crime anymore.

Aiden knows that the children of today are going to be the leaders of tomorrow. If today’s children are happy and balanced, they will grow up as happy and balanced adults. Once the country is filled with happy, healthy, energetic and intelligent individuals all other ills will disappear forever.

And everyone lived happily ever after…

THE END