Leaving Room 6, I quietly went down the carpeted stairs from the second floor towards the lobby. On the landing, a huge ten foot high by eight foot wide mirror hung on the wall reflecting the image of everyone on the steps and below at the registration desk. As I looked in the mirror, I thought I saw something behind me. I jumped and swung around, but nothing was there. When I looked again in the mirror, I saw only my own dim reflection.

I turned away from the mirror and hurried down the rest of the way to the lobby. Except for the sound of my breathing and the occasional creak and groan of the building, stillness filled the old place. The Lyceum knew I was there, but its spirit hadn't figured out why. I wanted to be ready before it did. I hurried through the lobby to the entrance doors and unlocked them and stepped out on the old, stone sidewalk.

Quickly, I went behind the hotel to the alley where I had my pickup parked, got out four kerosene filled cans, and rushed as fast as I could back to the front entrance. The Lyceum's old weathered limestone structure hauntingly resembled a sleeping monster. The lone street light glinted off the second floor windows making them look like partially closed eyes while the faceted glass double doors looked like a tooth filled mouth. The effect was the same as a dimly lit jack-o'-lantern at Halloween.

Hastily entering the lobby, I locked the doors behind me. I rushed back to the registration desk and put the cans of kerosene there. I sensed a presence. Good. The Lyceum was beginning to understand what I was about to do. I wanted it to know. I wanted to confront its negative energy and have it be as terrified as my brother and father must have been when it killed them in Room 6.

What was that? Something hit the registration desk with the sound of a cannonball. I even felt the desk shudder under the blow. My probing light didn't pickup anything. Good, the Lyceum was trying to frighten me. I was prepared. I wouldn't frighten easily.

My unease increased. I sensed the Lyceum's uncomfortable and menacing presence growing stronger with every step of my preparations. I stood at the foot of the stairs and could feel the Lyceum's energy building. It made sense. Most haunted dwellings have the energy of the past imprinted in their atmosphere. Stairs were a good place to feel this energy, because so much of it was expended by the guests climbing the steps to their rooms.

Murder created negative energy, and the old hotel stored it. I had to hurry. I climbed the stairs to the landing. Standing with my back to the gigantic mirror I shouted, "I'm Tim Kelly, son of Mickey Kelly and brother of Sean Kelly." A sudden powerful force pushed past me from behind. It was the energy of the Lyceum. I turned and yelled at the mirror, "I know what you did and you'll pay for it!" An intense cold swept through me, and a blue-white mist materialized on the mirror and then disappeared leaving two dim red eyes staring back at me.

I knew I had the Lyceum's attention now. Whenever you catch a ghost, its eyes turn red. But ghosts didn't haunt this hotel. The Lyceum was the hellish ghost itself. "I'm ready for you," I mumbled. Racing down the stairs I retrieved a can of kerosene from the registration desk and began my task.

I poured a puddle of kerosene inside the entrance doors. Then I trailed the liquid down the lobby and soaked two cushioned long wooden benches on either side of the lobby. Smiling, I picked up the second can and climbed to the landing tauntingly sneering at the mirror. As if in answer, the sinister red eyes glared back at me, and the chandelier pendants began to strike against each other as I turned around and looked at it.

Suddenly, I saw my brother standing at the bottom of the steps in the dim light through the front glass doors. I saw him, yet I saw through him at the same time. I ran down the stairs, but he moved soundlessly back into the lobby and stopped. As I moved closer to him, he moved back the same amount towards the lobby doors. Slowly, I followed him towards the entrance. He stopped. I stopped. I was only six feet away and jumped to grab him. An explosive, crashing sound occurred behind me and glass shards peppered me from behind and sprayed across the lobby floor ahead. I turned and saw a heap of glass on the floor that was the remains of the chandelier. The evil hotel had indeed awakened. I looked back for my brother, but he was gone.

I continued the trail of kerosene from the benches into the lounge at the right of the stairs. I put the can on the bar and went behind it breaking every bottle of liquor. Then I soaked the bar and drenched a large, round, velvet couch in the center of the room with kerosene.

Standing there I imagined how the flames would devour the richly paneled dark walnut walls, and how the long oak bar would pop and snap as it was consumed by fire. Something was on my foot. The floor was being overrun with twitching quivering symbols of filth - rats. Large rats. I grabbed the fuel can and raced through the bar to the reading room at the front of the hotel and to the right of the entrance. I closed the pocket door between the two rooms behind me and poured kerosene over the furniture.

I tossed a match. The room lit up. The furniture burst into flames, and a sheet of fire jumped up the wall. The dark, thick drapes turned to curtains of fire. I ducked, darted and dashed out through the side door to the lobby. I raced the length of the lobby pouring the last of the kerosene in a trail to the door. Dropping the can, I ran back to the registration desk and picked up the two remaining cans. Menacing flames were licking out of the lounge. Any minute they would find the kerosene trail, and the lobby would erupt in an explosive and consuming