I chose door 1. Why not try the first one? So I knocked, and was surprised to hear an unfriendly greeting come from behind the door.
“Go away!”
It was Zach. I recognized the voice, but his tone was far more emphatic than anything he had said at dinner.
“Dude, it’s me, Kevin. I need help finding my room.”
“Yeah, I’m not falling for that. You just go find someone else.”
Wow. What a jerk.
But as I turned away, I noticed that Zach had pulled the drapes away from the window, just a little bit, to see what was going on outside. All I knew is that I was standing there, getting cold and having no place to sleep.
The next thing I knew, I could hear Zach unlocking the door. He opened it just a crack, and spoke to me again, this time in a less forceful but equally urgent tone.
“I’m gonna let you in, but you have to be quick, ok?”
“I…”
“OK?”
“OK, yeah, dude, fine…”
In one swift move, I felt the breeze created by the opening door, and then immediately, I could feel Zach pulling me inside the room. We were about equal in size, but I was sure that I was the stronger one until he grabbed me.
I nearly fell over the TV as I stumbled into the room, but I was able to regain my balance. Zach, meanwhile, had shut the door and was frantically turning the lock and putting the chain on the door. He also made sure that the heavy
drapes on the windows were completely shut.
“Zach, dude, what’s going on?”
“We’re safe in here. I… I wasn’t thinking clearly at first. You can’t be outside at this hour.”
“What?”
“Things happen at night here… weird things…” Zach pulled off his shirt because he had worked himself up into a cold sweat. He sat on the bed and began to slide under the covers.
I just kind of walked over to a chair that sat on the other side of the room and made myself comfortable. I wasn’t comfortable at all, I just needed to sit down.
“So I didn’t mean to bother you, I was just looking for my room…”
“Six? Yeah… I was here before… this time last year… I was supposed to be in room 6, but never found it. We’ve all been here before, except for you…”
“So there’s not a room 6?”
“Maybe there is but I never found it. All I know is… the light… we have to stay inside… I don’t know what will happen if we don’t…”
“Dude, you’re kind of scaring me…”
“No, no… it’s not scary unless…”
We both heard the sound of something crashing against the wall, something or someone from Room 2. Then we heard more crashes into the door of our room. Zach pulled the covers over his head, and I made a really dumb mistake. I went over to the window and pulled the drapes back, just a little, but enough to let the moonlight in.
“WHAT ARE YOU DOING! NO! YOU… AAHHH!”