Behind Door Number 12

Part 7: Who goes there, looking for me?

'Twenty minutes later, I'm in bed, with the lights out. 

A fresh flurry of hailstones dash against my window and I'm a little worried that Jane left the doors unlocked but also grateful she left the heating on. I remember smiling; thinking that she forgot the heating in her haste to leave me all alone—the stroppy cow.'

Siska chuckled under her breath.

'I knew the old building was a decorated veteran when it came to holding out storms, so I felt pretty safe. What I didn't know was how many rooms were on the floors above or below me. Aside from the kitchen and one big lounge on the ground floor, I didn't know anything about the place. I thought back to the key-box and mentally counted about 20 rooms with locks. There were three floors in total and about 10 washrooms. All this counting kept me busy from dwelling on the fact I was stranded in a remote hotel, for a whole night, and I fell asleep. I just don't know what woke me first...'

'Bumps in the nights?' Siska ventured with a pinched smile. 

'It was...heavy stomping...against the ceiling above me, followed by a smashing sound. I remember bolting upright in bed, thrashing my sheets and getting up.'

'Fuuuck...' Siska whispered.

'Of course, all of that could be blamed on the cocktail of melatonin and the thunder, now rumbling low. As I regained full consciousness, I considered how one of the windows upstairs might have been damaged in the growing gale.' 

My breath caught as if on a fish bone. 'Then, there was the laughter.'

Siska's broadening eyes stopped blinking as she waited for me to explain. 

I nodded, 'I clearly recalled a roll of laughter behind the stomping and the storm, just before I woke up. Not sure if it was mocking or simply amused but it didn't fit into my notion of reality either way... No matter how bloody hard I tried, I couldn't get it out of my head. It was haunting.

It's only a nightmare, I thought at this point, and I prodded under my bed for my bag containing my phone. 

I looked at the time. About 2 am and—big surprise—no network. It's also pitch black inside, with storm clouds blotting the moonlight. 

I lifted my lit phone to check out the window, but of course, there was near-zero visibility. My light softly illuminated the rest of the room. I assessed my surroundings, but something wasn't quite as I remembered.

The Virgin Mary is no longer hanging from the wall.'

A small gasp coming from Siska's direction caught me by surprise. I noticed the sheen on her skin as she brushed past me to check no one was walking past my door and then back to her spot, to study my twitching lips as I formulated what happened next.

'I get up, looking for a nail in the wall, a clue that there had been a portrait there. As I inch closer, holding my lit phone, something sharp pinches my foot. I look down and there's a reef between the wall and my bed made of a thousand pieces of broken glass.

I step over them.

Not far from the radiator, I recognise the frame, with its poorly mended side, snapped in half. I lift it and there's that picture of Mary hanging in there by a corner. I place it on a nesting table near the window. I find the welcome booklet that Jane had asked me to read around there too, and I clamp it under my arm, so that my hands are free to start picking the glass off the floor.

I start piling shards and tiny fragments on this mat, stretched by the foot of the bed. Of course, my eyes were accustomed to the dark by this point and some clouds had parted, allowing some pale light inside the room.

As I reconnected with my surroundings, an idea surfaced...that there must have been an earth tremor behind all this.' 

Siska shrugged gently.

'Alternatively,' I remarked, 'the storm might have blown the hotel doors wide open, and a draught swept every inch of the place, funneling under my door and bopping the frame right off its perch.'

'Hum...' said Siska, twisting one of her curls. 'Doesn't feel like that's it either.'

'Well, honestly, as I listened to the wind twisting and breaking branches outside I thought it wasn't impossible. Then again, neither of my ideas was particularly reassuring.'

'So what happened next?'

'I... tossed the welcome booklet into my bag under my bed, thinking it might come in handy, if I absolutely had to use the phone downstairs. Then...I knelt on one side and I leaned on the other knee to lift a very large piece of glass. Shruush—that's what this sounded like.

Shrush—another piece was picked up—and so on, making a tiny noise each time. I'd almost finished this task when I started getting confused between the scraping from picking up the shards and something that was coming from below my floor.

I froze, still hunkered down, and I held my breath. As quietly as possible, I breathed out and held it again, for as long as I could focus on the noise.

Scruumf—Scruuumf—

Yes. Something was moving under the floor beneath me, and it sounded much too heavy to be a mouse. I gathered the last few bits of glass and moved towards my door, pressing my ear against it.

Scrumf-Scrumf-Scrumf—

The noise was real, kind of rough. Like feet rushing against the felt rugs lining the building, then pausing, then advancing again.

It was travelling without making a single floorboard creak along the way; yet I could hear it advancing, coming up the echo chamber of the staircase from the ground floor to mine.

After a nerve-wracking minute, silence.

Then—the heavy, fire-door at the other end of the hall squeaks, as it opens.

The feet rushing noise is back—louder.'

I make eye-contact with Siska before continuing. 'For a second, I remember the family dog. The dog exists, I've seen it. Maybe the storm blew open a door and the poor pet hurried inside the building... barking or yowling. It explained the scratching and the moving from earlier. It all made sense now. 

My fingers hovered over the door handle I was about to open.

I freeze. It's the noise—it's changing again...

INTO

SNARLING

I start shaking. This is absolutely not an animal but what is it? A person, really? Yes, I urged myself to believe. Someone who knows the hotel. Why not Jane?

THE SNARLS SPEED UP

I'm wringing my hands, sweating and feeling sick to my core. I picture a shell-shocked soldier unable to stop the killing. But then why, why is it that—

THIS NOISE

WASN'T

ANYTHING

HUMAN-LIKE

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