Please read, 'Watson's Family Hotel (I)'.
The fog grew thicker with each passing moment. I joked to myself that we might get lost in the parking lot and never find the hotel. The rain was now a steady drizzle, misting the windshield. With the car engine turned off, a dead silence enclosed us sitting in the car and no sound intruded from beyond.
“Sure is peaceful here,” I commented to Siobhan who peered out, squinting and studying the place as it wafted in and out of visibility through the fog.
“Means we'll have a good sleep after I get you all relaxed,” she said and winked playfully at me.
“I can go for that,” I answered, smiling, and moved to open the door. Siobhan followed my example and stepped down to the pavement. She turned and fetched her overnight bag from the back seat and I did likewise, swinging it over my shoulder. The drizzle collected quickly, damp, on my face and I felt a chill cross my shoulders. My mind focused on an odour that came to my sense of smell - a pungent scent of fire. 'They must have been burning leaves today,' I thought and then plucked the heavy cooler from the trunk. Siobhan stood waiting for me in front of the car. I pushed the button on the remote and the locks closed with a heavy thump and an electronic chirp.
Entering to the sound of an electronic chime under the flickering light that proclaimed 'Office', we grinned at each other; the place was decorated in 'mid-70's awful'. I could only imagine what the room would be like. Yet, despite the odour of flame that persisted in my nose, it seemed clean and tidy, well-kept and I also detected disinfectant and Lysol. It was a good sign.
“Good evening, folks,” came the voice from a young man with dark curly hair who immediately appeared from the living space beyond the front desk.
“Good evening,” I responded. He looked us over and smiled but it seemed strained.
“Awful night out. Can I set you up with a room?” Behind him, down a short hallway, two little girls came into view, bounding about in exaggerated dance steps. I smiled at the sight of their carefree play.
“Yes, just for tonight. We'll be off in the morning.” Another figure appeared in the back – a young woman, attractive, with a kerchief tied over her hair and sporting a daisy print dress and apron. She smiled briefly in our direction and disappeared carrying a roasting tray. The young man, with taut movements, readied the necessary paperwork. Fifteen minutes later, with business disposed of, we walked up the inner stairs to avoid the outside dampness and entered Room 14, or 'faw-teen', as the fellow had pronounced it.
“I wonder if it's like floors and this is really Room 13,” commented Siobhan scanning, in aesthetic dismay, the dark paneled room with the checkered upholstery chairs and 'flying saucer' shaped lamp.
“I don't know. But this room has sure been unlucky!” Siobhan laughed; the sound was high and musical to my ears. It was a moment in which I knew I loved her. She freshened up in the sterile white bathroom and then, while we occasionally snacked on fruit and cheese selected from the cooler, she insisted on rubbing my back, grown stiff and painful from the drive. I, thankfully, consented. In the midst of her kind ministrations, she became surreptitiously naked and I felt her skin against mine and her whispered, husky voice in my ear. 'Roll over,' she demanded.
I awoke, retching at the stench in my nostrils. Siobhan was dead. Her head was cleaved nearly in two; hardly recognisable in the dim light amidst a spatter of brain and gore across the pillow. Her chest and gut were also split open and the entrails spilt across the bed, the intestines trailing off onto the floor. I choked and my own guts boiled, threatening to turn out.
A scream called us urgently from our sated sleep and we both sat bolt upright in bed, eyes agape in the darkness.
“What the f...?” whispered Siobhan next to me. Her hand launched out, claw-formed, and grabbed my arm.
“Shh!,” I hissed, springing from sleep to an innate, primal sense of threat. The sting of her nails in my skin brought me to full wakefulness.
Another scream, muffled with distance, caused the hairs to rise on my neck. There were voices, too, indistinct – a woman's: 'Jed! No...!', and a man's; '...Demon shall not take thee!' It was worse when the voices stopped. We heard soft impacts, repeated. The sound of something heavy sinking into the yielding flesh of a body, withdrawn, and then falling again with a sickening, wet thump. Siobhan leaned from the bed and vomited on the floor, helpless to control herself.
“Throw something on,” I ordered, rising myself. She responded weakly and then I heard her heaving again. I crossed the room to the phone on the little writing desk. My ears were attuned to every sound but, when I lifted the receiver, the sound I needed was not there. “Jesus, my cell!” I hissed toward Siobhan who now had a t-shirt lightly covering her. A string of saliva hung, swinging from her lower lip. She moved mechanically and unzipped a pocket on the side of my over-night bag and crawled over the bed to pass it to me. We heard more sounds. A child squealed briefly and then abruptly stopped.
Siobhan's eyes rolled in their sockets like a horse on the verge of bolting; the panic in her threating to explode outwards. I fumbled with my cell phone, dropped it and retrieved it shakily from the carpet. I poked at the numbers; 9 – 1 – 1, and then waited, feeling the plastic encased device slick with sweat in my palm. The call clicked through, buzzing on the other end.
“C'mon, pick up,” I exclaimed, my whispered voice leaking out between clenched teeth and jaws. The ringing stopped and a response returned.
“Watson County Sheriff's Office.” The voice was thick with a Massachusetts drawl. From beyond the confines of the room, a door slammed. Then came a brief yelp, a cry of surprise, quickly cut off by more of those wet and sticky impacts, the sound of muttering and heavy breathing. There could be no doubt that it was closer – maybe only a door or two away. Siobhan slipped, trembling, from the bed and clung to my back.
“Listen,” I tried to slow my breathing, to retreat from my own panic, and make myself understood. “We're at the 'Watson's Family Hotel', in room 14 on the upstairs. There is something terrible happening here – we think people are being killed by someone with an axe or a club or something. Please! Help us!” There was a long pause on the line. When the voice returned, it was low and serious.
“You know, this yarn is getting old. But I suppose we have to expect it every Hallowe'en.” 'Yarn' sounded like 'yawn' but I understood the implication all too well.
“Are you crazy? This is no joke!” I spit back. “We can hear these awful sounds from our room!” Siobhan emitted a feeble and despairing groan.
“Son, I don't know who you are but I'm guessing you know the story as well as I do. 'Watson's' was burned down twenty-five years ago by young Jedediah Smith, yes, after he axed his whole family. Now, I can take a drive out there but, I already know and you do too, I'm just gonna find an overgrown parking lot on the state road.” The line clicked dead.
Siobhan is sleeping now, covered in a car blanket. Once I hit the interstate, I floored it and haven't let up yet although the speed and the distance have done nothing to diminish the disgusting noises we heard. The escape, almost naked and with only the things we managed to grab, from the balcony door and down the exterior stair, is only a blur. I'll try to make everything look normal and convince her it was just a dream once she awakes and we are far beyond the Georgia state line.
Maybe, one day, I'll convince myself.
thanks for visiting.
have a happy and safe hallowe'en everyone!
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