Room 15A Story by Lev821A metal detector finds the key to a room in an abandoned hotel. Should it be investigated?As the wind carved its way swiftly across
the sand and rocks of the Wirral side of the River Dee, seagulls tried
desperately to maintain some sort of stability as they circled in the air, and
a few dogs that were out still played and jumped around as though not affected.
One of those dogs, ‘Baron’, a three-year old border-collie sniffed around the
rocks and pebbles for nothing in particular, its owner near the shoreline,
concentrating hard on the metal detector that he slowly swept over the ground.
With his earphones on, he, like the dogs, barely noticed the wind, even though
it tried to push him off balance. Jimmy Reynolds, was 52, and had been an
avid user of metal detectors for 14 years, travelling all over the country, and
sometimes abroad in the pursuit of hidden treasures, of which he had found
quite substantial amounts, from ancient roman coins, to gem-encrusted
jewellery. He had walked this area many times, as he only lived just less than
a mile away, his detector having swept over the sands time and again, hoping
that perhaps he had missed something, or that maybe something had recently been
buried, but he could spend hours wandering up and down, the dog enjoying it as
it played and explored everytime as if it had never been there before. Jimmy was the type of man who had to buy
the extra-large in clothing, and sometimes even they would stretch at the seems
and rip. He had attended many lose weight programmes, but usually gave up after
around a week, the temptation of junk food simply too much for him. He was
balding with uncontrollable dark hair above his ears and around the back of his
head, and the wind tore at it with its intensity, but Jimmy simply continued
sweeping the detector over the sand. After an hour and a half, with Baron
sniffing around the shoreline, and Jimmy deep in concentration on the dry sand
where it was difficult to walk, near a pathway entrance, he heard the familiar
beeping sound, indicating that there was something below. He always brought a
trowel with him when he went detecting, and was soon on his knees digging away.
After nearly a metre, and a few stares from
passers-by, he found what it was that the detector had discovered. It was a
key, a rusty, three-inch key with a label attached. He picked it out and wiped
the label clean. ‘Room 15. The Dahlia hotel’ it said, and familiarity began to
grow in Jimmy’s mind. The dahlia hotel, he thought. Where was that? Then he
remembered. It was around two miles away, hardly noticed because it was just
another empty building of no significance, its heyday long gone, its windows
boarded-up, and decay and rot having set in soon after it had closed. Jimmy
thought he knew where it was, and pocketed the key, whistled to Baron who
looked up with concern on his face as if to say: ‘What? We’re not going already
are we?’. As his home was enroute to the hotel, he
dropped the gear off, except his trowel, and set about trying to find the
hotel. With Baron by his side, not needing a lead, they eventually reached the
area where he thought it was, only to find himself staring at an estate agents.
Another wander around the roads, and he found it along a quiet side road. It was
a small place with only three floors, sandwiched between the rear of a bakers,
and an apartment building. Its red doors were firmly locked, and he knew there
was no way in that way. He wasn’t sure why he wanted to try the
key, as he was guessing that it would simply open into a normal hotel room with
dusty furniture and a view of the backyard, yet, somebody was responsible for
putting the key where he had found it. Was it somebody who had thrown it away
in haste? Was it a tenant who had to bury the key so nobody could get inside?
If so, why? Jimmy wanted to find out, so found himself around the rear of the
place, surprised to find a backdoor open that led him to the hotel’s yard . He
was unsurprised to find a door locked, but it was however, rather loose on its
hinges. Jimmy knew he had to work fast, as he guessed somebody from another
back window could probably well be snooping at him, telephone in one hand. It took five minutes of him trying to be
quiet, and Baron pacing around behind him as though he knew that this was
illegal. With his strength, and nearly breaking his trowel, he wrested the door
open, and soon found his way into the foyer next to the dust-laden reception
counter. Through various uncovered parts of windows, and cracks in the
boarding, minimal light pierced through, creating enough light for him to see
the stairs, and basically to see where he was going. They creaked as he walked
slowly up, the dog racing ahead of him. It seemed to get darker, but still, he
walked along the soft carpet, trying to find room 15. It wasn’t on that floor, so he made his way
up the stairs again, the dog racing ahead, panting and sniffing around. There
was just enough light to see the room numbers, and because the hotel was fairly
small, he soon found himself standing in front of room 15. There were a few
wooden planks nailed across it, and the words: ‘Private, do not enter’ were
attached to the door on a torn away piece of card, but it was too dark for
Jimmy to see that. He set about taking away the planks, which wasn’t too
difficult, as they were easily wrenched away, the cracking sound shattering the
stillness. He could just about see the door handle,
and fumbled around for the keyhole. He didn’t know why he was hesitant, but
knew he hadn’t come this far only to turn away. He tried the door first, but
wasn’t surprised to find it locked. He slowly inserted the key and turned it.
The mechanism hadn’t been used in a long-time, and its workings were rusty and
stiff, but the lock clicked open, and Jimmy pushed the door, only to find some
resistance. It opened slowly, but whatever it was pushing against sounded like
a clump of grass that was slowly being torn away. Baron raced inside, and
within seconds was barking loudly, and if Jimmy knew Baron, that was a bark of
fear. He thought perhaps that a window had been left unboarded in this room, as
there was daylight, albeit somewhat shady. He walked in only to see his dog
barking at something he could not see as it was around a corner. It was
immediate that there was something very strange about this place. What appeared
to be silky stringed webbing adorned all surfaces, and it was quite an effort
to join Baron as his ankle boots kept sticking to it. It was all over the
living room, except for the large hole in the middle of the floor, where the
daylight was coming from. I could be in a giant spider’s den, he thought, and
when he looked and saw what Baron was barking at, he saw that he was. A large black Katipo spider, the size of a
transit van, was poised with long spindly legs ready to strike, its eyes
obviously staring at them. They had wandered right into its nest, and the hole
was its entrance. Jimmy yelled and staggered back, falling over Baron and into
the hole, where he fell directly into the spider’s tangled webbing, slowing his
fall. The sticky threads were wrapped around him, but he could see through them
enough to see that he was in some sort of forest, the ground being around ten
feet away. Baron continued barking, then gave a high pitched yelp, and fell
silent. Jimmy thrashed around, but only made it worse for himself, and then the
Katipo came out of its den, the shiny black eyes getting closer. Its legs
wrapping more silky thread around him, and Jimmy could no longer see the other
dimension, a parallel universe, a universe exactly the same as the earth, where
humans had evolved, but the spider had grown to be the top of the food chain,
the dominant species. Humans were simply their prey, and a tear
in the fabric of the dimensions, not of the spider’s, but nature’s making, was
the small entrance into what the spider called home. With the room being
sealed, the spider simply saw it as a place to nest, where it could put the
humans and animals it had caught in storage for when they were hungry, which is
what it did with Jimmy, cocooning him alive, and dragging him back into his own
dimension. Baron’s barks of terror were muffled by the
thread wrapped around him, and Jimmy’s screams went ignored. They were blended
into the fabric of the nest, along with its other victims, ready for when it
fed, and when it had finished, it saw along the corridor, an open door, a door
into a new universe. © 2023 Lev821 |
StatsAuthorLev821Liverpool, United KingdomAboutAs a native of Liverpool, England, I write twisted tales of horror, crime and mystery, and sometimes I'll dabble in other genres. I have written over ninety short stories, two novels and appeared in v.. more..Writing
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