Something Foul

…There was a strange feeling about the hotel, Jared thought. The guy at the lobby had been very friendly, and now it struck him that the other clients he had met seemed a little too happy.  He’d noticed, when he entered the room, that there wasn’t a TV set nor a telephone…he needed one to call his friend to pick him up the next day, since his car had broken down. Right now, with the sun gone down, everything was dim, for the lightning was very poor. There was dead silence everywhere.

He left his room to explore the place…he could feel it in the air, something foul was about. That was when he stumbled on something—he looked down. It was a dead goat, its side tattered with blood, eyes bulging wildly and mouth open revealing teeth, resembling a demonic grin.

“I killed it right now”, said a voice. Jared jumped. He hadn’t seen a young man crouching nearby, in the shadows. “It’s for the Hotel’s proprietor.”

“Huh?” said Jared. “Wha—I don’t get this. Why in the world would he want that?”

“You don’t realize it, do you?” said the young man, “you made a great mistake in choosing this place for the night. We are all prisoners here, ever since the moment we stepped onto the lobby.  We’re doomed to be under the tyranny of the proprietor…he demands we sacrifice goats and leave them in the corridors for him to feed on when he walks by at midnight. And, on every new moon, we have to shed some of our own blood into a flask and leave it in his pent house. Such is life in this hotel.”

Jared felt chills run down his spine as he heard these words. “….who IS this proprietor?....What IS he?”

The young man looked at him steadily. “We once tried face him…put an end to all this and become free, but there was no way our weapons could wound him….” He paused. “There is only one explanation…he’s not human.”

The next minute, Jared was running down the stairs, going to the lobby to run out the door….he halted abruptly. The door through which he had entered earlier was gone, just a solid wall with a painting hanging in its place. He looked left and right. The lobby guy was still there, looking at him with no sign of surprise at all, smiling.

“Trying to get out?” he said, his eyes widening strangely, “My friend, in this hotel, we gladly accept anybody’s coming…” the eyes were beginning to bulge, similar to the dead goat’s, and his smile widened, too, “… But we don’t let anyone leave .”◙


...if you have the time, I'd like you readers to listen to this song: