She Vanished from Room 209. I Was the Last One to See Her.

I checked into the Red Pine Inn on a Monday night. A quiet, no-frills hotel off Route 12 in upstate New York. My job required constant travel—sales pitches, meetings, handshakes. Cheap hotels like this one were familiar territory. But Red Pine felt… wrong the moment I stepped in.

The lobby reeked of mildew masked with lemon-scented cleaner. The receptionist, a pale man with watery eyes, barely looked up.

“Room 208,” he said, sliding me the keycard.

As I turned to leave, I noticed a door down the hall marked Room 209—taped shut with bright red tape across the frame. I paused.

“Is 209 out of service?” I asked.

He didn’t blink.

“No such room.”

I frowned. “But it’s right there—”

“There’s no such room,” he repeated, slowly this time. His voice dropped to a whisper. “Have a good night.”

Back in 208, I tried to shake it off. Old hotels had quirks. Maybe 209 was storage. Maybe he just didn’t want to explain.

Around 2 a.m., I was awoken by soft tapping—three light knocks. Then silence. I waited, holding my breath.

Three more knocks.

I opened the door.

No one.

But something had changed—the tape on 209’s door was half-peeled, fluttering like it had just been touched.

The next morning, I asked about it again. A different clerk was on shift. I mentioned the door across from my room.

He looked confused.

“There is no Room 209. Just 208, then 210. Always been that way.”

He even pulled out the hotel layout sheet. 209 was missing.

I went back upstairs.

209's door was still there.

Still taped. Still… wrong.

That night, I heard it again.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

This time, I stayed silent. Waited.

A voice followed—a soft whisper, like wind through a vent.

“Help me...”

I bolted out of bed, grabbed my phone, and hit record.

“Who’s there?” I asked.

No reply.

The next morning, the door to 209 was wide open.

Inside was a dim, untouched room. Clean but old. Furniture draped in sheets. A faint floral scent hung in the air. On the nightstand: a hairbrush, a pair of glasses, and a half-finished crossword puzzle dated October 7, 1993.

That night, I left my recorder running and tried to sleep.

At 3:14 a.m., the knocks came again—louder this time. I froze under the blanket. But the recorder caught it. Not just the knocks—a woman’s sobbing.

The next morning, I packed to leave. I couldn’t take another night there.

As I checked out, I mentioned what I’d seen. The manager—a wiry woman in her 60s—went pale.

“You heard her?” she whispered.

“Who?”

She looked around, lowered her voice.

“Room 209 was sealed after a woman disappeared in '93. Her name was Lila Mendez. Frequent guest. Stayed for business trips—same as you. She went to sleep one night and… was never seen again. No signs of forced entry. No trace. She was just gone.”

“They found her things?” I asked.

“They did. Same as you described. But the room was taped shut and removed from the system after that. It’s not supposed to exist anymore.”

I showed her the recording. The knocks. The crying.

Her face went blank.

“We’ve never been able to prove anything. No body. No clue. But the staff say her soul’s still in that room. Still knocking. Still waiting for someone to listen.”

I left that morning. Threw away the recorder. Changed my route. But I can’t forget her voice.

Three months later, I was in a different hotel, hundreds of miles away.

Fell asleep on the couch.

At 3:14 a.m.—

Knock. Knock. Knock.