He watches from the cracked closet door, his palms sweating and his stomach rolling.
She is chatting animatedly, seated on an armchair drawn close to the hotel bed.
"Won't be sorry to see the end of this winter," she huffs. "It's killing my business, you know. No one wants to brave this weather - the only guest I've had in weeks is the young man in 115."
He shudders.
She leans forward and pats the hand of the woman lying beneath the florid blankets. "I don't know what I'd do without you, Melanie - you and all my other friends. I am so very lonely here...Tea?" She laughs. "You read my mind, dear. Let me drop by Eustace's room - I promised I'd bring him fresh sheets - and I'll join you."
She bends to kiss the woman's cheek then bustles away. Once she has gone, he can clearly see the silent woman on the bed: a rigor mortis grin, a smudge of fresh lipstick just below the empty eye socket, a wasted arm laid lifelessly on the quilt.
Even though he'd prepared himself for this sight - hadn't he seen the same in every other room? - he clamps his hands over his mouth to keep himself from vomiting. I have to get out of here, he panics, but where? She is right about one thing: the weather is formidable. He can see the hard-packed snowdrifts against the window; there is nothing within ten miles of this hotel.
Lost in frantic pondering, he does not hear the quiet footsteps until it is far too late; the closet door bursts open, and there she is above him, a sickeningly sweet smile on her wrinkled face, her pudgy fingers laced around a pistol.
"I love making new friends," she trills, and she pulls the hammer back.
My headline was "A Hotel in Which Some Guests Have Been Dead for Years..."
ReplyDeleteI was going to make it funny, but I decided to limit my humor to the title line. Otherwise I would have come off as just corny.
I don't do a lot of drama, but when I do, I tend to stray towards vague pronouns (as I'm sure you noticed), but I can't tell whether or not I'm being too vague.
I really liked it! Definitely a lot of suspense--and you didn't give it away all at once.
ReplyDeleteYikes! Shades of Norman Bates and Stephen King! Well, I think there are a number of ways to go with this. Right now it does kind of reside with those other models, but it you could recast it in a different form. What if the fellow is there to interview her and we hear her reasons for keeping dead folks on hand? Or if it were written as a travel article? Or if had become a big tourist attraction? Another option is to really go the gross out direction and make even more of the bizarre ways she preserves her guests. Perhaps each room in the hotel has a particular theme? And perhaps the people each have some particular significance for her, whether they're related, or enemies, friends, etc. Mainly, though, it could do more to break away from the most recognizable types.
ReplyDelete