Maasai Mara Hotel

Wailing of police and ambulance sirens disturbed the air. Two police officers were transporting a body into a police van. This was the fourth murder case in a span of two months.

“Have you got any single shred of evidence?” Inspector Muchai asked one of the police officers following up the murder cases.

“No sir…”

Inspector Muchai and his investigation team had tried their best to gather any clues to the murders that took place in Maasai Mara Hotel, only for a dead end to laugh back at them.

There were neither finger prints on the victims’ bodies,’ nor foot prints near the crime scene. The first victim was killed by strangulation, the second stabbing in the chest, the third a hit on the head, and the fourth a fall from the third floor, through the balcony. The fourth victim had previously cried for help through the office phone, claiming that a statue wanted to kill him!

According to the local Maasai legend, the hotel was cursed by a village elder a hundred years ago. At the exact location where the hotel lay, a sacred tree once existed. The elder was ready to defend the tree with his life, even against British investors and contractors, who neither carried a sword nor a spear.

Proving to be as stubborn as summer flies, one of the investors shot the elder right on the chest. As he lay on his grass bed, he whispered some words in Maasai language, before meeting his ancestors. One of the local porters interpreted the words the British investor. “Cursed is every human who will inhabit this land the tree stands….” the porter said.

Chopping down the tree was the investors’ reaction to the elder’s last words. It did not take long for the investors to start clearing the land where the tree lay, in order to build a one of a kind of a hotel. Their dream was to invite the Queen of England to the hotel one day.

Deep in his thoughts, Inspector Muchai had a different plot altogether, as to how the victims died. “I have a great sense of suspicion that the murderer or murderers first spray some kind of odorless hallucinogenic sprays in the room of the victims. It is after the victims inhale the substance that the murderer or murderers is able to kill them without being recognized facially or audibly. The problem is that the murderer or murderers don’t leave a single shred of evidence to track them down….” he wrote in his investigation reports.

Police dogs had been dispersed around the hotel for days, without any success in capturing the killer or killers. It seemed the dogs were looking for people without any body scent. “How could this be!” one of the police officers wondered aloud.

The only option that Inspector Muchai had in succeeding to capture and arrest the offender or offenders was by recruiting a spy in the police force, who would pretend to be a local tourist, with fake IDs and passports.

A week before, he had proposed for the installation of cameras in the hotel rooms and corridors, only for the hotel guests to oppose it in unison. They perceived the cameras as a limitation to their privacy rights.

One Friday summer afternoon, a tall, dark, beautiful lady checked at the reception in Maasai Mara Hotel. She looked sophisticated in her sunglasses, tiger-patterned high heels, and a sundress.

“Good afternoon madam?” the receptionist greeted her.

“Good afternoon to you too,” the guest replied.

“Please give me your ID or passport.”

“Alright. They are all here!”

It is after filling in the booking forms that she was given her room keys. They were for Room 12, which was next to Room 13, where the last victim was killed! The day that the victim fell from the third floor, was the same day that the previous occupant of Room 12 checked out. It wasn’t a coincidence, though. The room’s previous occupant, by the name Tom Wilbert, couldn’t hold his fears any longer. As a Vietnam War veteran, the things that gave him the creeps must have been really creepy to almost any bravest of men.

The hotel looked deserted, as the new guest walked along a lonely corridor, as she pulled the luggage behind her. She was certain that she was the only person outside a three-star hotel, yet she felt as though someone was watching her every move.

As she reached for the lift’s button closest her, it suddenly opened! An eerie sensation flowed through her spine at that moment. She was so quiet that she could hear water flowing through the pipes in the walls. “At least the lift has lights”, she comforted herself.

No sooner had she raised her right leg to get into the lift, than amplifying footsteps from behind shattered her confidence completely! The fright was so much for her to bear, that she fell on the floor.

“Can I give you a hand?” a manly voice asked.

“Sorry if I startled you……”

Her fright turned to a gradual sigh, when she realized that it was only one of the hotel assistants.

“Which floor are you heading?”

“Third floor”.

Lilian Wanjiku, as her name read in her ID and passport, was really glad to have got some company in the lift. Within seconds, they had reached the third floor. The scent of flowers, and aroma of Asian cuisines filled the corridor. It was as though the scent and aroma were compensating for the disturbing screams that had haunted the floor a fortnight back.

The corridor was quite long. The porter was very quite. This made the trek to the 12th room boring for Lilian. She was a loud and talkative person, who spent most of her times chatting with her friends and partying. The only thing she could do is to make her own fantasies.

“Welcome,” she heard. As the door slowly opened, her eyes grew wide, and her mouth opened wide with amazement. A sparkling, tiled floor, Turkish carpets, a Jacuzzi, and custom-made furniture made her feel as though she had reached heaven.

So moved with the furnishing of her room, that she jumped onto her bed. She only did that right after the porter left, and closed the door.

Hours turned to days, and days turned to a week, without any report of murder. Lilian had started to get impatient. Throughout her stay in the hotel, she hadn’t gathered any single plausible report to send to Inspector Muchai.

No one in the hotel or police force knew what shock was in store for them. At three o’ clock in the night, on a Wednesday of her last week in the hotel, Lilian heard squeaky noises along the corridors. Silently and swiftly she wore her nightdress, and picked a candle stick for a weapon.

As she went closer to the door, the noises turned to hard footsteps, akin to those of a Norman knight. There was no time to call the police. In addition, their sirens would only disrupt her from the discovery of which one of the killers was.

Moving with the swiftness of lightning, she got out of the room, and torched the murderer’s face. The sight she saw made her drop the torch and race for the stairs. It was a two- meter, marble statue of a Maasai Moran, wielding a spear! To make matters worse, the statue was moving!

Lady luck seemed to be on her side, when she reached the ground floor, teaming up with the porter. “Look! Do you see……that! The place where the Moran statue ought to be is empty!” the porter whispered. His lips and hands were trembling, as his fingers pointed to a fountain without a statue.

Lilian wasn’t ready to risk her life taking a statue wielding a spear a photo, and sending it to Inspector Muchai via her phone. “My life is more precious than this case,” she thought.

“I also know that the inspector will think I’m mad if give him my written accounts of my observations……” she whispered. Insanity was slowly getting into her head.

Her career as a security officer had been put to the test. “I’m not a police officer any more. I leave this to God….” she whispered.

Screams from the third and fourth floors could be audible. A stream of blood flowing on the stairs from the first floor could be seen. The phrase “We are sitting ducks!” could be read on their faces.

Lilian and the porter raced as fast as the legs could carry them, towards the exit door. They could hear mammoth thumps right behind them, with a gap of almost five meters. In the midst of shivers, Lilian looked behind, only to see eight more statues racing for their blood!

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