By John Hood
Ms. Raines tugged the steering wheel of the silver Lexus gently to the right and slid around a white cargo van with the word Budget emblazoned on it in big vinyl letters, which was turning left onto the Rhinecliff bridge. She stomped firmly on the go pedal and smiled with inward satisfaction at the sucking sound of increased fuel consumption as the thirsty carbs of the big vee six gulped fuel and the late model sedan leaped through the moonlit intersection.
Budget, she thought. Suckers.
Anybody who would rent a van from a company called Budget would have to be a loser by definition, she conjectured; I mean, we know you’re a loser by the fact that you’re renting a cargo van with“do it yourself” stamped all over it, but why advertise your insufficient means and remove any shadow of a doubt, jackass? Okay, admitted, she was driving a rental sedan, but that was business, and it didn’t have “short on cash” stencilled on the door panels. In the unlikely event she had ever needed to rent a cargo van, she figured she would have looked for one from the "slumming for the fun of it” or “wanted to see how the other half lives out of abject curiosity” rental agency, just so people would know she wasn’t a bottom feeder.
Ms. Raines braked slightly as the shocks absorbed a stiff jolt from a bump in the road. The Lexus bounced a bit, then steadied as she continued north up 199 towards route 9G at a better than ample speed. She swerved a bit around a cyclist. Stupid kid, she thought. Dumb ass college kids on bicycles out at night on back roads. She knew she was close to Herald College, a big liberal arts school that consisted of a rambling series of 1880s farmhouses and brownstones and a selection of more recent buildings tucked into the woods on the east side of the Hudson. If you didn’t know it was there you would never guess at its presence. You could hardly tell the boys from the girls at these places, she thought; same clothes, same blackberries and mp3's, same candy-ass politics. These little prima donnas were in for a shock when they got to the real world, alright, but then again she figured there were enough of their ilk around to sustain their cosy fantasies.
“Still, we don’t want to kill one of them, do we Sheila...” she muttered.
Not especially since those two Vodka Martinis from the late meeting in Poughkeepsie would still register. She eased off on the gas a bit. (Attagirl Sheila...take it easy.)
Sheila Raines it in, she thought. Ha ha ha. (Mrs. Raines didn’t raise any stupid children...)
Sheila Raines over everything was more the way she liked to think of it; and she liked the fact that she had lots of money and some power, and that she was going to get more of same. As a rising star junior executive from a plastics firm that had one of the largest footprints in the New York state area, a great deal more money and influence were hers for the taking, she knew,
provided she had the cojonés to go after it and not worry too much about the bleeding bodies she left in her wake, as far as her business rivals were concerned. But she didn’t want to fuck up her game with troublesome charges stemming from a traffic accident.
She had actually decided a long time ago that she would be ready to commit murder to further her own interests, and she knew she was smart enough to get away with it. All you had to do was establish a rock solid alibi, and then make sure there was no body, and no murder weapon to be found. True, it was difficult to avoid contaminating a crime scene with DNA evidence, but in the absence of a weapon and a body, a conviction would be very difficult with a good defence lawyer, especially in the event of a personal business relationship with the victim...
But this wasn’t one of those times, and she didn’t need a DUI or vehicular manslaughter conviction to spoil her plans. These college kids were just about ready to leave the school for summer recess, but just now they were still all over the area doing whatever the hell college kids do, so she’d best watch it. Anyway, Christ knew what the hell were they doing biking around the roads at this hour? She glanced at the digital clock on the dash. It was well past midnight. Didn’t they have to get to bed? Study or something? What the fuck?
What the fuck...that was what she had thought when her secretary had informed her by phone that there had been a mix up in the scheduling of the Poughkeepsie meeting and they had needed to reschedule for an evening get together at a restaurant. She recalled with a curious pleasure the verbal whipping she had given the girl for her part in the “mix-up". Sheila had sensed that she was crying as she nervously stammered her apologies. Good. Maybe that’ll teach the foolish little bitch to be more efficient.
Sheila Raines all over everybody. (Damn her secretary anyway!)
_________________________
Sheila was growing very fatigued.
It would be such a god damn waste of time to stop for the night, but she figured it would be crazy to go on much further. She grudgingly resolved to stop at the next likely spot and get a room.
She continued up 9G, dimly remembering that she had to go north about another ten or fifteen miles before the woods thinned out on either side of the dark road. There was a little town there, on the other side of the toll bridge, where she thought she remembered seeing a small and somewhat shitty motel. Right now it didn’t much matter to her if it were as shitty as hell. She was starting to drift and badly wanted to get off the road.
Besides, Sheila was becoming uncomfortably aware that an involuntary picture of her dead brother was forming in her mind. She tried to shake him off, but he just kept hanging there in front of her. Jesus, what a bastard he had been to her when they were small. He had really liked to scare her, really seemed to get a fucking kick out of it.
Suddenly she was in the middle of a full fledged sense memory;
It’s late summer and the air is hot and humid. She is back in her parents house in Rochester and they are out for the evening-no-they are away overnight, and she is alone with her brother. She is thinly dressed in a little t-shirt and her underpants. Donald has tied her to a chair in the middle of the basement with one of those stretchy pink plastic skipping ropes. It hurts her hands; she knows the pink of the skipping rope will have turned whiter where it is stretched around her thin little wrists but she can’t see this in the dark, she just knows it. She could get out of the knots, she thinks, but she is afraid to move because he has turned out all the lights and is slowly circling her in the darkness making terrifying soft throaty wailing noises. He is calling her name in a weird quavering voice...
“Sheila...Sheee-la...SHEEE-LAAH...”
She is weeping now, terrified and furious and filled with hate, hate for her horrible mean brother, and her stupid pig-eyed mother and her filthy drunken father, and she cries out in spite of her fear
“no...no...stop it Donald, please stop it, I’m scared...”
Her tears streaming down her cheeks now. She is shaking with fright and rage and misery, and she can hear the warm August wind making a high rushing sound in the tall leafy boughs of the enormous trees outside the house. She has the ghastly idea that something is coming in from the night to devour her brother, and she will be left alone in the blackness, half naked and tied to the chair.
“SHEEEE-LAAH!” her brother wails.
Sheila shook her head and rubbed her tired, tear stained eyes with one hand as she steered the Lexus with the other. The memory dream was gone, but her brother still swam in the air just outside the front windshield. He appeared to be trying to speak to her, but it seemed as if it was an effort for him to achieve audible volume; eventually she began to hear his familiar voice moaning in that old frightening way he had...
“Sheeilaah...don’t stop...Sheila...don’t stop the car...keep on driving Sheeilaah...”
Sheila saw a red sphere glowing inside her dead brothers head. It was a traffic light. It didn’t register for a second, then she stomped on the brakes hard and the car skidded to a halt, rubber whining on the dry pavement. She watched in horrified fascination as her brothers image sped away and up into the night, a terrible beseeching look on his pale features, his wails echoing in the night air.
“Fuck you, Donald...fuck you.” She thought as she waited for the light to turn green. When it did, she gunned the motor and started over the toll bridge. She pulled up at the toll booth and flashed her express pass. The guy in the booth grimaced out at her, his face looming out of the darkness, caught in a beam of light.
“You OK, lady? You look like you seen a ghost...” He rattled. She realized there were beads of perspiration running down her forehead and she was clutching the steering wheel in a death grip
“I’m fine.” she barked curtly and stepped on the gas.
A sign saying “Welcome to Cottingham...stay for awhile” swam past in the darkness. She was just a mile or so northwest of the turnoff for the thruway.
Cottingham, New York; there wasn’t much to it. An Ultramar gas bar, a generic looking diner, a clutch of distressed houses around the crossroads, one or two rusty light industrials, that was pretty much it. Nobody around, nothing going on. She saw a dim orange glow ahead about a quarter mile and made for it. She was pretty sure this was where she had remembered noting the location of a (shitty) motel. Rolling up to the amber lights, her memory was confirmed, there was an old motel on the east side of the road.
The Wayside motel, Cottingham New York, looked like it had seen better days. Or maybe not. Maybe it had always been a mouldy rat hole with threadbare grass coloured carpeting on the cement walkways lining the front facade. Looked like about thirty units, with a dingy little office on the north side. There was a mom and pop Italian restaurant next door, closed for the night. Too bad, thought Sheila; she could have used some pasta and meat sauce, it might have helped to alleviate the severe headache she was working on. Just as well. It was too late to eat...she just wanted to go to sleep, wake up early and get the hell out of here.
Sheila got out of the Lexus and walked slowly and a little unsteadily at first, over to the office. She pushed open the door and went inside. The air was stale and the odour of mould and cleaning fluids assailed her, making her feel nauseated. What a dump. She crisply smacked a bell on the counter, and after a bit the night guy emerged from a back room. He had an unpleasant face; sort of Germanic looking in a regular folks kind of way but with pale blotchy skin and eyelids that looked too tight, no eyebrows, thin lips and a pointy beak. She found herself strangely repulsed by his appearance, his peculiarly nasty physicality. He had a name tag; “Jim”.
The creepy dude gave her an appraising look and licked his lips. She smiled coldly. Sheila liked to think of herself as kind of a young Sybil Sheppard type; she was a million miles out of this losers league, but she arched her back and thrust out her hip just to tease him a little. Just give him a little look at what he’s never gonna get, make him sweat a bit.
“Evening Ma’am.” He offered.
“I’d like a room for tonight...how much?” said Sheila, her expression cool.
“Guess you’re in luck. Got one left, room 3. It’s around the back. It’s $66 for the night. Check out is 11 a.m. We can give you a wake up call, if you like?”
“No, that won’t be necessary.” Sheila gave him money and he handed her the key. She turned and began to slowly walk out to the car, swaying her hips just a little.
“There’s ice and a pop machine in the hall, miss.” he called after her.
“Ma’am?” He called again, his tone questioning. She turned and looked back at him.
“Yes...?”
“There’s another motel about quarter mile down on the other side...” he began. She raised her eyebrows incredulously.
“So?”
“It’s just...well, some people don’t like number 3 is all, miss...we’ve had some, uh, complaints in the past...concerning number 3." She threw her head back and laughed.
“What, is it haunted?” She couldn’t believe he was giving her this shit.
“We’ve had some complaints. Some people just don’t like number 3, is all...I just feel it’s fair to let you know there’s been complaints before, and...” She cut him short, her expression now icy.
“Look, Jimbo, I’m not expecting the Ritz, so do me a favour and spare me the local colour...I’m a little too tired for that crap, alright?”
She turned on her heal and strode to the Lexus, ignoring his reply.
Sheila was growing very fatigued.
It would be such a god damn waste of time to stop for the night, but she figured it would be crazy to go on much further. She grudgingly resolved to stop at the next likely spot and get a room.
She continued up 9G, dimly remembering that she had to go north about another ten or fifteen miles before the woods thinned out on either side of the dark road. There was a little town there, on the other side of the toll bridge, where she thought she remembered seeing a small and somewhat shitty motel. Right now it didn’t much matter to her if it were as shitty as hell. She was starting to drift and badly wanted to get off the road.
Besides, Sheila was becoming uncomfortably aware that an involuntary picture of her dead brother was forming in her mind. She tried to shake him off, but he just kept hanging there in front of her. Jesus, what a bastard he had been to her when they were small. He had really liked to scare her, really seemed to get a fucking kick out of it.
Suddenly she was in the middle of a full fledged sense memory;
It’s late summer and the air is hot and humid. She is back in her parents house in Rochester and they are out for the evening-no-they are away overnight, and she is alone with her brother. She is thinly dressed in a little t-shirt and her underpants. Donald has tied her to a chair in the middle of the basement with one of those stretchy pink plastic skipping ropes. It hurts her hands; she knows the pink of the skipping rope will have turned whiter where it is stretched around her thin little wrists but she can’t see this in the dark, she just knows it. She could get out of the knots, she thinks, but she is afraid to move because he has turned out all the lights and is slowly circling her in the darkness making terrifying soft throaty wailing noises. He is calling her name in a weird quavering voice...
“Sheila...Sheee-la...SHEEE-LAAH...”
She is weeping now, terrified and furious and filled with hate, hate for her horrible mean brother, and her stupid pig-eyed mother and her filthy drunken father, and she cries out in spite of her fear
“no...no...stop it Donald, please stop it, I’m scared...”
Her tears streaming down her cheeks now. She is shaking with fright and rage and misery, and she can hear the warm August wind making a high rushing sound in the tall leafy boughs of the enormous trees outside the house. She has the ghastly idea that something is coming in from the night to devour her brother, and she will be left alone in the blackness, half naked and tied to the chair.
“SHEEEE-LAAH!” her brother wails.
Sheila shook her head and rubbed her tired, tear stained eyes with one hand as she steered the Lexus with the other. The memory dream was gone, but her brother still swam in the air just outside the front windshield. He appeared to be trying to speak to her, but it seemed as if it was an effort for him to achieve audible volume; eventually she began to hear his familiar voice moaning in that old frightening way he had...
“Sheeilaah...don’t stop...Sheila...don’t stop the car...keep on driving Sheeilaah...”
Sheila saw a red sphere glowing inside her dead brothers head. It was a traffic light. It didn’t register for a second, then she stomped on the brakes hard and the car skidded to a halt, rubber whining on the dry pavement. She watched in horrified fascination as her brothers image sped away and up into the night, a terrible beseeching look on his pale features, his wails echoing in the night air.
“Fuck you, Donald...fuck you.” She thought as she waited for the light to turn green. When it did, she gunned the motor and started over the toll bridge. She pulled up at the toll booth and flashed her express pass. The guy in the booth grimaced out at her, his face looming out of the darkness, caught in a beam of light.
“You OK, lady? You look like you seen a ghost...” He rattled. She realized there were beads of perspiration running down her forehead and she was clutching the steering wheel in a death grip
“I’m fine.” she barked curtly and stepped on the gas.
_________________________
A sign saying “Welcome to Cottingham...stay for awhile” swam past in the darkness. She was just a mile or so northwest of the turnoff for the thruway.
Cottingham, New York; there wasn’t much to it. An Ultramar gas bar, a generic looking diner, a clutch of distressed houses around the crossroads, one or two rusty light industrials, that was pretty much it. Nobody around, nothing going on. She saw a dim orange glow ahead about a quarter mile and made for it. She was pretty sure this was where she had remembered noting the location of a (shitty) motel. Rolling up to the amber lights, her memory was confirmed, there was an old motel on the east side of the road.
The Wayside motel, Cottingham New York, looked like it had seen better days. Or maybe not. Maybe it had always been a mouldy rat hole with threadbare grass coloured carpeting on the cement walkways lining the front facade. Looked like about thirty units, with a dingy little office on the north side. There was a mom and pop Italian restaurant next door, closed for the night. Too bad, thought Sheila; she could have used some pasta and meat sauce, it might have helped to alleviate the severe headache she was working on. Just as well. It was too late to eat...she just wanted to go to sleep, wake up early and get the hell out of here.
Sheila got out of the Lexus and walked slowly and a little unsteadily at first, over to the office. She pushed open the door and went inside. The air was stale and the odour of mould and cleaning fluids assailed her, making her feel nauseated. What a dump. She crisply smacked a bell on the counter, and after a bit the night guy emerged from a back room. He had an unpleasant face; sort of Germanic looking in a regular folks kind of way but with pale blotchy skin and eyelids that looked too tight, no eyebrows, thin lips and a pointy beak. She found herself strangely repulsed by his appearance, his peculiarly nasty physicality. He had a name tag; “Jim”.
The creepy dude gave her an appraising look and licked his lips. She smiled coldly. Sheila liked to think of herself as kind of a young Sybil Sheppard type; she was a million miles out of this losers league, but she arched her back and thrust out her hip just to tease him a little. Just give him a little look at what he’s never gonna get, make him sweat a bit.
“Evening Ma’am.” He offered.
“I’d like a room for tonight...how much?” said Sheila, her expression cool.
“Guess you’re in luck. Got one left, room 3. It’s around the back. It’s $66 for the night. Check out is 11 a.m. We can give you a wake up call, if you like?”
“No, that won’t be necessary.” Sheila gave him money and he handed her the key. She turned and began to slowly walk out to the car, swaying her hips just a little.
“There’s ice and a pop machine in the hall, miss.” he called after her.
“Ma’am?” He called again, his tone questioning. She turned and looked back at him.
“Yes...?”
“There’s another motel about quarter mile down on the other side...” he began. She raised her eyebrows incredulously.
“So?”
“It’s just...well, some people don’t like number 3 is all, miss...we’ve had some, uh, complaints in the past...concerning number 3." She threw her head back and laughed.
“What, is it haunted?” She couldn’t believe he was giving her this shit.
“We’ve had some complaints. Some people just don’t like number 3, is all...I just feel it’s fair to let you know there’s been complaints before, and...” She cut him short, her expression now icy.
“Look, Jimbo, I’m not expecting the Ritz, so do me a favour and spare me the local colour...I’m a little too tired for that crap, alright?”
She turned on her heal and strode to the Lexus, ignoring his reply.
Sheila guided the car around a tightly curved driveway on the south end of the building leading to the rear of the motel, and pulled into the spot in front of #3. There was a tall stand of trees at the west side of the parking lot, screening the motel from the Hudson. Nobody in the other units was making any sound, and the place was pretty dark, save for a few lights over some of the doorways. She took her overnight case from the passenger side seat and went to open the unit door.
The key turned easily in the lock and she swung open the door and felt for a light switch. Finding one, she flicked it and a soft glow lit up a dresser with a mirror and a TV set. The room was small and neat, and smelled a good deal cleaner than the office, which was more than she had expected. She stepped inside and threw her bag down, flipped another switch. A fixture came on over the two queen size beds. There was a night stand, and next to the bed on the wall enclosing the bathroom there hung a large motel style painting, sort of a “Sunrise at Malibu” type of thing. The curtains over the wide picture window facing the parking lot were tightly drawn. The room was cool.
Sheila slid her dress down over her thighs and let it drop to the floor, stripped off her underwear and drew a bath, let it fill while she arranged her things. When the tub was ready, she slipped into the water and closed her eyes, just let it all go away for a bit. She began to sink into a dreamy state almost immediately, and she went with it, just letting a series of colours wash through her mind. Sleep overcame her.
She woke with a start, water splashing onto the floor, disturbing images of a violent dream still flashing in her head; images of her brothers tortured pleading face, a lurid purple landscape, the motel night man, his face a grinning mask and an overwhelming sense of something, some bestial monstrosity stalking her. She felt sick, her head aching and spinning, waves of nausea coursing through her. What the hell, she had only had two martinis. She hadn’t eaten anything unusual, hadn't eaten anything at all actually...
(maybe that was the problem?)
No. Ridiculous. Hunger never made her feel like this. She realized the water had gone very cold, much colder than the air in the room and she was shivering hard. She lurched to her feet and as she moved toward the bathroom door, grabbing a scanty bath towel, she became aware of a sickly cast of pale coloured light suffusing the larger part of the motel room.
Sheila stumbled through the bathroom door into the bedroom. The room seemed to spin and dip giddily around her and she had the momentary idea that maybe the night guy had somehow slipped her some kind of drug. She heard a weird clangorous noise behind the window, an unearthly humming, ringing sound.
(What the fuck was going on around here? What the fuck is this shit?)
She moved to the bed and fell down onto it, and as her head rolled over drunkenly she saw the painting and a shocked scream issued from her throat. Where “Sunrise at Malibu” had previously hung, another much different painting was now suspended. It was oriented vertically, unlike the horizontal format of the generic beach scene, and its dimensions were much larger, much too large for the wall space. The painting seemed to generate its own weird light, and the image that light revealed would have been entirely appropriate to a really high end horror magazine, but in the context of the cheap motel room seemed completely inappropriate and terrifying. It showed some kind of a monster or demon, with long writhing tentacles that had a sickening oily sheen. The tattooed skull was grotesquely crowned with enormous shiny black horns and the huge jaws were wide open revealing a row of cruel fangs. It was magnificently painted. How the hell had it come to be here?
Sheila was losing her grip very quickly as she contemplated what kind of weird sick fucker would have come in and placed that bloody thing on the wall as she dozed in the tub just behind the partition. She struggled upright and reached for the phone. The fucking creep in the office. This must be his idea of a (totally fucked up) joke. She would let him know that his ass was in a sling. She grabbed the phone and put the receiver to her ear. The phone made weird ringing humming sounds, but she couldn’t get a dial tone.
The television set flickered on.
Sheila felt herself go limp with dread as the image on the TV screen resolved. It featured the character from the painting. He seemed to be leading some kind of a dance. A hoard of smaller but similiar creatures cavorted around the horned grotesque. They danced and gyrated obscenely in a wasted landscape amidst huge bonfires fed with what could only be cadavers.
Sheila, still naked, dropped the towel and sprang for the door. She grabbed the knob and yanked, pulled, pounded on the door. It wouldn’t budge. This situation was rapidly losing it’s appeal to her, and she gave another desperate attempt to wrench open the unyielding portal of the spinning, hideously coloured motel room.
Room 3 at the Wayside.
Ask for it by number. You’ll fucking love it...hah ha ha hah...
She shrieked with laughter as she thought of night guy Jim’s words.
“We’ve had some complaints...”
ha ha fucking ha.
If someone had somehow tried to do a number on her, she conceded that they had done a hell of a good job. The horror DVD coming on by itself had been a great touch. This was just a hell of a set up, that had to be it. she calmed herself a little and went towards the TV.
It was unplugged.
Sheila clutched her head in her hands and rocked back and forth on her feet. The phone was off the receiver, and it was playing a stereo version of the sound scape coming from outside, in a high, thin, tinny tone. She turned slowly and went to the window. She clutched at the dark heavy drapes and thrust them open, half knowing what she would see.
She screamed again despite this awareness, a shrill desperate scream devolving into drawn out broken sobs. Outside the window where the Hudson river should have flowed behind a tall dark green stand of woods, there stretched a vast ochre and ash coloured landscape, a barren blasted heath with a sickening coppery green sky. The horrid charnel plain seemed to undulate and give forth with a discordant nauseating music, a sort of ringing hum. In the distance, many miles away a gibbering crowd of oily blackish things advanced over the charred ground, moving inexorably towards the motel window.
The phone rang. It had somehow hung itself up. She laughed at this as she picked up the receiver. It was Jimbo, the night guy. He spoke to her in a disagreeable nasal whine.
“I guess they’re coming for ya...sorry Ma’am...it ain’t nothing personal. They’ve been trying to get through for years, maybe for always, I don’t know. Anyway, we found out from others a long time ago that if we sort of...feed someone to them...uh...every now and then...it sort of seems to keep ‘em at bay...”
He coughed, as though he was embarrassed.
Sheila somehow realized in the small still functioning part of her mind that it was useless to scream threats of retribution. She dropped the phone down on the hook and reached for her night bag, pulled out her make up kit and went slowly into the bathroom. She applied make up to her face, selecting a particularly alluring shade of red for her lips, and then went to the bed and stretched out, naked, upon it and waited for them to come and take her.
The key turned easily in the lock and she swung open the door and felt for a light switch. Finding one, she flicked it and a soft glow lit up a dresser with a mirror and a TV set. The room was small and neat, and smelled a good deal cleaner than the office, which was more than she had expected. She stepped inside and threw her bag down, flipped another switch. A fixture came on over the two queen size beds. There was a night stand, and next to the bed on the wall enclosing the bathroom there hung a large motel style painting, sort of a “Sunrise at Malibu” type of thing. The curtains over the wide picture window facing the parking lot were tightly drawn. The room was cool.
Sheila slid her dress down over her thighs and let it drop to the floor, stripped off her underwear and drew a bath, let it fill while she arranged her things. When the tub was ready, she slipped into the water and closed her eyes, just let it all go away for a bit. She began to sink into a dreamy state almost immediately, and she went with it, just letting a series of colours wash through her mind. Sleep overcame her.
She woke with a start, water splashing onto the floor, disturbing images of a violent dream still flashing in her head; images of her brothers tortured pleading face, a lurid purple landscape, the motel night man, his face a grinning mask and an overwhelming sense of something, some bestial monstrosity stalking her. She felt sick, her head aching and spinning, waves of nausea coursing through her. What the hell, she had only had two martinis. She hadn’t eaten anything unusual, hadn't eaten anything at all actually...
(maybe that was the problem?)
No. Ridiculous. Hunger never made her feel like this. She realized the water had gone very cold, much colder than the air in the room and she was shivering hard. She lurched to her feet and as she moved toward the bathroom door, grabbing a scanty bath towel, she became aware of a sickly cast of pale coloured light suffusing the larger part of the motel room.
Sheila stumbled through the bathroom door into the bedroom. The room seemed to spin and dip giddily around her and she had the momentary idea that maybe the night guy had somehow slipped her some kind of drug. She heard a weird clangorous noise behind the window, an unearthly humming, ringing sound.
(What the fuck was going on around here? What the fuck is this shit?)
She moved to the bed and fell down onto it, and as her head rolled over drunkenly she saw the painting and a shocked scream issued from her throat. Where “Sunrise at Malibu” had previously hung, another much different painting was now suspended. It was oriented vertically, unlike the horizontal format of the generic beach scene, and its dimensions were much larger, much too large for the wall space. The painting seemed to generate its own weird light, and the image that light revealed would have been entirely appropriate to a really high end horror magazine, but in the context of the cheap motel room seemed completely inappropriate and terrifying. It showed some kind of a monster or demon, with long writhing tentacles that had a sickening oily sheen. The tattooed skull was grotesquely crowned with enormous shiny black horns and the huge jaws were wide open revealing a row of cruel fangs. It was magnificently painted. How the hell had it come to be here?
Sheila was losing her grip very quickly as she contemplated what kind of weird sick fucker would have come in and placed that bloody thing on the wall as she dozed in the tub just behind the partition. She struggled upright and reached for the phone. The fucking creep in the office. This must be his idea of a (totally fucked up) joke. She would let him know that his ass was in a sling. She grabbed the phone and put the receiver to her ear. The phone made weird ringing humming sounds, but she couldn’t get a dial tone.
The television set flickered on.
Sheila felt herself go limp with dread as the image on the TV screen resolved. It featured the character from the painting. He seemed to be leading some kind of a dance. A hoard of smaller but similiar creatures cavorted around the horned grotesque. They danced and gyrated obscenely in a wasted landscape amidst huge bonfires fed with what could only be cadavers.
Sheila, still naked, dropped the towel and sprang for the door. She grabbed the knob and yanked, pulled, pounded on the door. It wouldn’t budge. This situation was rapidly losing it’s appeal to her, and she gave another desperate attempt to wrench open the unyielding portal of the spinning, hideously coloured motel room.
Room 3 at the Wayside.
Ask for it by number. You’ll fucking love it...hah ha ha hah...
She shrieked with laughter as she thought of night guy Jim’s words.
“We’ve had some complaints...”
ha ha fucking ha.
If someone had somehow tried to do a number on her, she conceded that they had done a hell of a good job. The horror DVD coming on by itself had been a great touch. This was just a hell of a set up, that had to be it. she calmed herself a little and went towards the TV.
It was unplugged.
Sheila clutched her head in her hands and rocked back and forth on her feet. The phone was off the receiver, and it was playing a stereo version of the sound scape coming from outside, in a high, thin, tinny tone. She turned slowly and went to the window. She clutched at the dark heavy drapes and thrust them open, half knowing what she would see.
She screamed again despite this awareness, a shrill desperate scream devolving into drawn out broken sobs. Outside the window where the Hudson river should have flowed behind a tall dark green stand of woods, there stretched a vast ochre and ash coloured landscape, a barren blasted heath with a sickening coppery green sky. The horrid charnel plain seemed to undulate and give forth with a discordant nauseating music, a sort of ringing hum. In the distance, many miles away a gibbering crowd of oily blackish things advanced over the charred ground, moving inexorably towards the motel window.
The phone rang. It had somehow hung itself up. She laughed at this as she picked up the receiver. It was Jimbo, the night guy. He spoke to her in a disagreeable nasal whine.
“I guess they’re coming for ya...sorry Ma’am...it ain’t nothing personal. They’ve been trying to get through for years, maybe for always, I don’t know. Anyway, we found out from others a long time ago that if we sort of...feed someone to them...uh...every now and then...it sort of seems to keep ‘em at bay...”
He coughed, as though he was embarrassed.
Sheila somehow realized in the small still functioning part of her mind that it was useless to scream threats of retribution. She dropped the phone down on the hook and reached for her night bag, pulled out her make up kit and went slowly into the bathroom. She applied make up to her face, selecting a particularly alluring shade of red for her lips, and then went to the bed and stretched out, naked, upon it and waited for them to come and take her.
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