The girl who sat alone at the back of the class in the far right corner, the farthest seat from the air conditioner which her less than sane geometry teacher always had in what she swore was negative degrees, was me, Jennifer. With cherry red hair, light green eyes, pale skin, 5’3 and 102 pounds, and a 32 C bra size if anyone wanted to know, I guess I’m not an ugly girl. The reason I was almost completely alone in the high school was because of my incredible shyness that was harder to penetrate than a steel wall. I had only a handful of friends, and even they were more like acquaintances. My only goal in that school was to get to my classes on time and do my work so my mother wouldn’t bitch at me.
My worker drone attitude in school was pretty untypical of a 16 year old junior, who should have been more worried about the social aspects of high school existence. But I absolutely hated drama, no exceptions. I didn’t want to hear rumors, I didn’t want to hear who’s fucking who, I just wanted to get through the seven hours of hell and go home. This exact attitude, the forced self-seclusion, the annoyed feeling I got every time I stepped through the doors of that school, may have led to my story.
October 18th 2007, 8:05 AM
I walked down the long main hallway of Cherrywood High, my binder clutched to my chest. I was headed towards the library to finish my essay before the 30-minute study hall was over and the 8:30 bell rang to go to my 1st block class. If I was just five minutes earlier or five minutes later getting to school and walking down that hallway, then there would be no story to tell. I would have gone on living the same, monotone life I’d been living for 16 years without interruption. But I was just in time to have life as I knew it crash around me. And this all happened at exactly 8:06, and it started with one word no more ominous than,
“Hey.”
I spun around and was face-to-face with Jason, yet another shy, awkward member of the Cherrywood High community who was hard to talk to and harder to like, but I had somehow found it in my heart to share my friendship with him. He had shoulder-length, dark brown, straight hair that covered most of his face. He was thin and bony and 5’11, and he sort of reminded me of a pale, nice-haired version of some starving man in a 3rd-world country.
“What are you doing?” I breathed out in my typically quiet voice. Jason smiled nervously.
“I wanna show you something, Jennifer.” He said, his voice quivering a bit, like it always did. He was a very nervous person.
I stared at him for a moment, my perverted mind at play.
“In the boy’s bathroom?” I asked in a sarcastic tone. Jason glanced behind him to the door that led to the bathroom.
“Uh, no. Well, kind of. Come in?” He stuttered. I laughed scornfully.
“Whoa, big guy. No thank you.” I said teasingly, peering up at him from a bowed head, a bad habit of mine, not really wanting to look anyone directly in the face, not that Jason was much to look at anyway. Jason stuttered a bit, and I noticed him blushing out of the corner of my eye.
“No, not like that. Jen, no. Eww. Well, I mean, not that you’re gross, but…”
I sighed. “What is it, Jason?” I asked, annoyance creeping into my conscious thoughts and spiking my words.
“Um, oh, um, ok… I guess I can show you here… uh… I just wanted privacy.”
God, he was so awkward.
He suddenly grabbed me by my upper arms and squeezed them to my sides. My heart began to pound and I struggled to twist away.
“Hey! What the fuck are you thinking?” I asked, disgust entwined in my words.
“I just need to talk to you!” He said defensively. He quickly pulled a slip of torn paper out of his back pocket and shoved it into my hands. I stared down at it. The messy handwriting read “room 17”.
I glared at Jason in annoyed disbelief.
“Wow. Just… wow. That is really something I wanted to see. This is truly a once-in-a-lifetime event, Jason. Bravo.” My quiet voice toned down the sarcasm, but Jason still blushed, bringing out the freckles on his face. He swept his hair out of his eyes.
“Uh, yeah, I know, but… I mean… have you ever been to that motel? I mean, when I first came here, that’s where we stayed the first week… um… we stayed next to that room and um… I don’t know, there’s just something… not right about it.” Jason stuttered out, the shade of his cheeks growing redder. “I mean, um, didn’t I… I told you about when I was there, right?”
“Uh, okay. And why do I need to know this? I have to get to the library.”
Jason tried looking into my eyes, but they darted from the floor to the ceiling to the part of wall directly behind him expertly, always careful to avoid eye contact.
“Jen, I wanted to know if… um… if you wanted to come with me to you know… check it out.”
The only way to make Jason shut up, I had realized long ago, was to agree with him. I really hoped I’d think of some way to avoid actually going with him the next day, but I doubted it; I was horrible at lying and coming up with excuses and I’d feel bad if I just ditched him anyway.
“Okay, god, Jason, I’ll come with you.” I said reluctantly. Jason beamed at me, scrunching up his face and making him particularly ugly. I looked away from him, feeling slightly embarrassed for him, and peered around the corner to make sure no one was watching what looked like me exiting the men’s restroom. The coast was clear, so I slipped into the hallway and hurried to the library.
October 19th 2007, 8:17 PM
“I can’t fucking believe I’m here with you,” I grumbled moodily as Jason and I stared at the decrepit building that was Stop n’ Stay Motel not that long ago.
“Maybe you should’ve stayed a few months longer here,” I said, smirking.
“What? Why… oh.” Jason said quietly, realizing I was referring to the fire that’d destroyed the place and killed 12 of the 15 residents staying there at the time. He stared at his feet.
“That was mean.”
Those words kind of tore at my heart, how innocent and sincere he sounded when he said them, but after a second of feeling sorry for him I brushed it to the side.
“Yeah, whatever. You’ll get over it. So, what’re we here for?” I said quickly. Jason stared up at the old building, and suddenly a smile played on his lips. He narrowed his eyes, and suddenly he looked more demented than innocent. The act was over for him. He opened his mouth to speak, and at that moment the wind started blowing and howling over the old, rusted metal roof of the motel. The moss on the trees danced eerily, and my hair whipped around my face and into my mouth, sticking to my moist lips, making me cough and sputter.
“What’re we here for?” Jason mimicked ominously. I looked up at him.
“Jason, what the hell’s wrong with you?” I asked quietly, taking a step back. He was staring at me with an almost possessed look on his face. Then he lashed out at me, so quickly I had no time to react, and grabbed onto my wrists with his hands. I couldn’t break free; it seemed as if he were unnaturally strong.
“What’re we here for?” He repeated.
“Let go of me you fucking freak!” I screamed at him, writhing in his grasp. He leaned in close to me so I could feel his breath on my cheek. I turned away from him but he released his grasp with one hand and twisted my face to look at his. He pulled me in close, so that his lips were next to my ear. I heard him laugh softly, a ghostly laugh that sent a chill up my spine. The last thing I remember clearly was the next words he spoke, words so innocent yet so ominous.
“Room 17.”
I felt myself relax, and I stopped struggling. A sense of calm flooded my body, and when he released me I swayed as if the wind was strong enough to move me like one of the trees. I felt detached from my physical self, and I felt at peace with the world. I stood still for a moment or two, seeing nothing yet seeing everything, a world of hazy shapes and intense colors spinning around me. Then, some invisible force compelled me to run. My mind wasn’t in control of my body anymore, it was somewhere stuck in limbo, watching the scene like a movie. I sensed trees flying past me at impossible speeds, and I thought I heard some sort of animal grunting with effort; its pounding heart and beating footsteps as it raced to nowhere.
It seemed as if my body had come in contact with a large force; the building. I watched the animal rip at the sealed doors. Incredibly, it got though. An unknown force guided my mind through the charred hallways until a door came into my vision. My eyes, detached from my body along with my mind, wandered around the scene. The animal was still close, though I couldn’t see it, grunting breaths exhaustedly. My eyes locked onto a tarnishing metal sign, with a number engraved into the middle- “17”. Once again, the animal was out of control, tearing at the singed door, clawing at the wood until its fingers bled. Finally the wood splintered and the door caved inward, and the beast fell into a room of complete darkness. With the collision of body with ground, I felt myself fall and pound inside of the body of the animal, becoming one. That’s when body and mind fused, and the world began to spin again. I could feel the darkness swirling around me, and I felt as if I had been lifted off of the floor and was right in the middle of a spinning vortex. I heard a snarl from out of the abyss. Master; the word hurled itself into my thoughts.
come closer, the voice was in my head, and was my own, though somehow not my own.
closer, I dug my nails into the floor and dragged my limp body towards the Master.
closer, I struggled to kick my feet, I had to reach the Master, I had to reach the Master, I had to, there was absolutely nothing I could do or wanted to but to reach this all-powerful, snarling force…
closer… I could feel its warm, life-giving breath, I could feel its all-knowing power drifting from its being and flooding my senses, if only I could just get a bit closer, all I had to do was touch it… I reached out my arm, fingers stretched in its direction, I could feel the power emanating from it, I forced myself precious centimeters closer…
closer…
closer…
October 19th 2007, 10:00 PM
I awoke to the sound of chains rattling, drenched in sweat. I lurched upward, my heart pounding in my chest, my head throbbing. My lungs felt frozen as they pulled in the unnaturally icy air. Where was I? I was surrounded by blackness; I couldn’t see more than three inches in front of me. I sprang from my seated position and felt my back bump into an ashy wall. My hands flew up the wall, patting it, trying to locate a light switch. After what seemed like hours, my fingers stumbled onto a plastic switch, and I let out a sigh of relief. I flicked it upwards, and to my dismay, nothing happened. I toggled it in frustration a few more times, when suddenly realization crept into my consciousness. I was in the motel. More specifically, I thought, my heart beginning to race, room 17 of the Stop n’ Stay motel. I tried to remember the events that led up to me being there but my mind seemed blank. The last thing I could remember was being with Jason…
“Oh god,” I muttered as the first thing I could think of clawed itself into my mind- Jason had raped me. “Fuck,” I hissed out, patting myself down as if I could find evidence of the crime. I was fully clothed, though, and my vagina didn’t hurt or anything, and other than scrapes and cuts on my arms I was ok, so I tried to convince myself that wasn’t it. But he’d drugged me, that was for sure, and I was in a dark hotel room. So what was going on?
Suddenly I heard a rustling noise behind me. I jumped and slammed my back into the wall, my heart jumping into my throat and my breath accelerating.
“Who’s there?” I called out shakily. There was no answer. “Jason you son-of-a-bitch, if that’s you I swear to god I’m going to claw your fucking eyes out!” My shaking voice and heavy breathing made it clear that the threat was just that- just a threat. The heavy breathing that responded to me sent an icy chill up my spine. A strangled scream escaped my throat and I searched frantically for an exit. What I felt was a door. An image of myself tearing through the same door flashed through my mind like a movie scene. Why was it still here? That was impossible… but there was no time to think about that, so I dismissed it as just a hallucination from whatever the hell Jason gave me. My fingers wrapped around the cold handle and I jiggled the handle fiercely, but it wouldn’t move. It was locked. Locked! My panic grew and I pounded at the ashy wood with my fist.
“Let me out, god damn it! Let me out! Let me out!” I screamed desperately, kicking at the door, thinking crazily that I could somehow break through it like they do in the movies, though I was weaker than a 10 year old chemo patient. The heavy breathing stopped. I spun around and squinted my eyes, trying in vain to see through the blackness. I held my breath, listening to the stale air that surrounded me, though I heard nothing. I stooped to the floor quietly and searched for some sort of heavy object. My fingers curled around a dislodged chunk of cement and I hurled it as hard as my weak arms could manage in the direction of whatever was hiding in the shadows. It clattered onto the cement ground, but before it could clamber to the wall it made a thud, the sound of the cement hitting flesh. Something grunted with discomfort, and I heard the jingle of chains, making the hair on the back of my neck prickle in fear.
“Who’s there?” I demanded breathlessly. I became conscious of the fact that I was shaking uncontrollably.
Whatever was in the room with me sucked in a harsh breath of air. I pressed my back to the door, hoping I had put as good a distance between me and it as I could get with still having some sense of an escape route, no matter how false.
“Who the fuck is there?” I gasped frantically, my eyes straining in the dark to pick out shapes from the solid blackness. My fingernails were digging into the old wood of the door. It was a bit charred from the fire, maybe I could get through it if I tried hard enough. But I was too afraid to move.
“…Jennifer?” A voice traveled out through the darkness. I let out a short, strangled scream. I didn’t recognize the voice, though it was strangely familiar, like from a dream; a deep voice lost somewhere between the line of maturity and adolescence, and the slight though defined accent couldn’t decide whether it was Irish or Scottish.
“Oh Jesus… who are you?” I breathed out between deep, nervous intakes of breath. The other person’s breath seemed as ragged as mine now, blending with my own breathing.
“Jennifer…” The voice breathed again, though this time, though I was too terrified to process many thoughts, I thought it sounded a bit hurt, a bit questioning, and maybe a bit relieved.
“Jenny… you’re alive?” I felt a force pushing at me, pinning me flat against the door. It felt as if strange, invisible hands were caressing my face, hugging me close, feeling the shape of my body, the structure of my face, carefully running over my features. I tried frantically to get away, but I couldn’t move. An animal-like sound came from the back of my throat. I was completely terrified; a trapped, helpless animal. Then I felt the force tugging at me, not just an arm or leg, but my entire body, my entire being, as if every fiber of me was being softly tugged in the direction of whatever was waiting for me at the other side of the room. I struggled; or at least I would have if I could have moved at all. I let out a long, panic-filled scream.
“Stop! Please stop!” I screamed, my eyes filling with tears as I was dragged slowly across the room.
“Jennifer…” The voice said once again, dreamily. Finally I felt cold, stiff hands brush against my arms, wrap themselves around me, the force still keeping me completely still, even though all I wanted to do was claw out of the cold, corpse-like grasp, run out of the room and just keep running, running to nowhere, running to anywhere, anywhere but here.
“Please…” I choked out, a tear rolling down my cheek. The arms squeezed me close to the cold body, close enough to feel the stiff naked flesh press against me. It was like being hugged by Death. Whatever was holding me in this preternatural grasp was breathing heavily, and I felt a cold cheek brush across my face, making me shiver and release a small sound of terror from the bottom of my throat.
“Jenny…” The voice breathed out quietly. “I’ve been waiting for you.”
Terrified, I searched frantically for a glimpse at who… or what… was holding me. My eyes locked onto two glowing white orbs, shimmering unnaturally, standing out in the darkness, staring directly at me, and for a moment horrible emotions, pain so deep, sadness so strong, things no human could possibly experience so strongly, played like a movie behind those smooth orbs. I blacked out.
