Part Eight – The Second Night
It was after seven o’clock when we got in the elevator to head back to my room. I pressed button for the second floor and Amber said. “I’m really beat. Do you mind if we look at the video tomorrow?”
“Sure.” I said. Thinking that If I didn’t see anything on the video, I would just forget it.
“I’m on four.” She said.
I pressed the number four button. “Forth floor.” I said, “Spooky”
“What does that mean?” she asked. We had already reached the second floor. The doors opened and I stepped out.
I smiled, held the door open, and said “You are a guest of the most haunted hotel in Colorado, and you are staying on the most haunted floor of that hotel.” I let go of the elevator door and as it was closing, I said “Sleep tight.” Feeling justified with the payback for my sore ribs, I walked back to my room.
Back in room 202, I took the SD card out of the camera, opened my laptop, and began downloading the video. While the file was downloading, I decided to take a quick shower. After the shower, I dressed in a pair of pajamas I got for Christmas a few years ago. I think the pajamas were from one of my daughters, but could not remember which. Shorts and a t-shirt usually works for me, but the room was so nice, I thought it would be more respectable to wear the pajamas. I quickly removed the tags and dressed.
The file had finished loading and my laptop had gone into the sleep mode. I found my reading glasses and signed back on. When I found the video, I hit fast forward on the to get to the place where I saw the white poodle. Finally finding where I thought it might be, I pressed play on the video. The video was showing the drifts on the sides of the road. When I got to the teenagers and the peace sign I slowed the video down. A second later, I saw a white blur moving across the road. I backed up the video and played it at the slowest setting. I watched as the white blur crossed the road. I could not make out exactly what it was, but I could tell it was a running animal. “Proof enough.” I thought to myself. Not long after I closed the laptop, I fell asleep.
After a few hours, I was roused from sleep by a knock on the door. “What is it now?” I thought as I begrudgingly got out of bed and opened the door. It was Amber. She had bare feet and was dressed in an oriental style silk robe. She did not wait for in invitation, but again walked right into the room. She grabbed my hand and led me towards the bed. “Tell me again how you are done with women.” She said.
The rest of the night was a blur. When I woke up a few hours later, Amber was gone. I thought for a second that the whole thing was a dream, but then I started to feel pain in muscles I had forgotten I had. For some reason, I was sweating profusely. My back was screaming at me and I instinctively reached for the pill bottle on the night stand. It was not there. In a panic, I opened the drawer and felt around for the pill bottle. They were not inside the drawer. I checked the night stand on the other side of the bed. Still no pills. I rolled out of bed and went to see if the pills were in the bathroom. As I turned on the light I noticed a small bag of candy on the side of the sink. Below the bag was a note from Amber, that read, “You did good for an out of shape, old man. I hope to see you in the morning. Sleep tight. Amber.” And then a P.S. “Try one of these instead, I think you will like them.”
I looked at the bag again. There were four different colored pieces of candy in the bag. I absent mindedly poked at the outside of the bag and realized it was gummy candy. Then it dawned me that these were a different kind of edible. I took one from the bag and popped it into my mouth. It tasted sickly sweet. I chewed it as fast as I could, closed the bag and went back to bed.
In thirty minutes, I had forgotten about my back and was asleep.
At two exactly two o’clock in the morning I was jarred awake by another thump coming from under the bed. I turned the nightstand lamp on and immediately thought of the scratches, “Rats.” I thought. After mere seconds another thump, this one so hard I could feel it in my teeth.
At first I didn’t know what to do, I lay there petrified with fear. I was shaken from my inaction by another loud thump. I leapt out of bed, ran into the bathroom, and looked around for something I could use as a weapon. Seeing nothing that would do, I opened the odd little closet. Just my suitcase and some clothes hanging from the hangers on the bar. Then I noticed a lone wire hanger without anything hanging on it. In a rush, I grabbed the hanger and thought of how to make the best use of the flimsy weapon. I straightened out the curved portion at the top and bent the rest of the hanger in half to make a handle. If anything, I could give the rat a good jab in the eye.
I turned to look at the bed. I heard another loud thump and saw the bed jump from the below. Like a fast drumbeat urging me on, I could hear my heart pounding in my head. I slowly walked toward the bed, and took a step back when I heard another thump. I took another step toward the bed holding the hanger straight out in front of me. I dropped to my knees to peek under the bed. Another thump. “Fuck!” I thought, my hand shaking with fear. I glanced under the bed.
My mind did a double take when I saw what was under the bed. I tried to convince myself that I must be still asleep. I had heard of so called “Night Terrors” that some people had, when they could not tell the difference between the dream and reality. Under the bed were a set of glowing red eyes, staring back at me. I heard a guttural growl and I immediately knew what was under the bed. I pushed myself up and back and promptly fell on my ass. The hanger went skittering out of my hand and across the floor. The white poodle began working its way from under the bed. There was a foamy yellow slobber dripping from the poodle’s mouth. I immediately thought “Rabid.”
I stood there petrified as the poodle emerged from under the bed. I could tell it had been scratching at something because it had broken and bloody nails on its front paws. I glanced at the door, my mind racing and trying to calculate how fast I could get the door open. As if the poodle heard my thoughts it circled in front of the door blocking my escape. It crouched like a lion, prepared to jump into the attack. Before I could think I held my left arm up, and yelled “Come on fuc…” I did not finish the word because the dog had jumped and latched onto my left wrist with a bone crushing bite. The dog shook my arm like it was a toy, sending its teeth deeper in my flesh. I punched the dog on the side of its head as hard as I could. Hitting the dog caused its teeth to tear sideways up my arm. I howled in pain. The pain in my arm was causing me to lose consciousness when for some reason my mind went to Tim. I remembered when Tim was alive and I wanted him to let go of one of his toys, I would hold his nose closed. He had to release his bite to breathe. I grabbed the poodle’s nose with my right hand and pinched his nose closed. After a few frothy breaths from the corners of the dog’s mouth, he let go of my arm.
I lunged for the wire hanger, lost my footing, and fell forward. The poodle tried to bite down on my foot, missed and got the bottom of the pajama pants instead. I grabbed the wire hanger and quickly turned toward the dog, hearing my new pajamas tearing as I did. The dog released his grip and prepared to lunge at me again. I just got to my feet before he jumped a second time and missed his mark. I side stepped towards the door and sent the end of the wire hanger plunging into the dog’s neck. The entire length of my weapon had impaled the dog, down to the handle. The dog howled and backed away, scratching at his neck with a bloody paw.
I opened the door and ran out of the room and down hall toward the “Steven King” suite. As I looked back, I saw the poodle run out of the room and down the hall in the other direction. He paused for a moment in front of the large mirror at the far end of the hall. He looked at my reflection and I heard the low growl again, as if the dog was telling me we had unfinished business. Then the poodle turned and disappeared around the corner. Sensing the irony, I glanced down the right hall at room 217. I started laughing as my mind went immediately thought, “Cujo.”
My left wrist was leaking blood into the carpet. I had to stop the bleeding, so I stumbled back to my room. Finally, back in room 202, I closed and locked the door. I went into the bathroom, turned on the faucet and held my left wrist under the water for a few seconds. My wrist was in shreds. I could see pink bone through many of the wounds. I grabbed a hand towel from the towel bar and wrapped my wrist with the towel. I noticed the towel bar was made of iron, and wondered why I didn’t break it from the wall for my weapon. I glanced at the towel and saw that it was already soaked in blood. I grabbed another towel and placed it over the first. I started feeling dizzy and decided I needed to get the front desk so I could get some help. I slowly walked out of the room and towards the first floor and the front desk.
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