By Emmanuel Williams
September 11, 2026
Terrance could hardly wait to get his room key. He had run as far as he could from the nightmare waiting for him in what seemed like every town before this, and twice on the road. It was his need for rest that told him to turn in here, a hunch had a little to do with it, but he was becoming accustomed to surprises by now. And pissed at how little he could trust each good intention he discovered in his cross-country ride for his life.
The ugly old lady at the desk set the key on the counter before him. She had tried to drop it in his hand, but he stared at the four moles crawling up her index finger and his face twisted unexpectedly. He knew it was rude, but he took a step back anyway.
“Number 27,” she cackled.
“Number 27.” There was nothing nice to say otherwise. He didn’t want to insult her any further. Not to her slightly melting, sallow face. Poor thing.
Outside the office, he discovered the room pattern by glancing around at the doors. The first floor was numbered 10-19. He must be on the second. He had wondered what this place had seen in its time. Second-rate rock and roll lifestyles of the obscure and lonely. Not much of a town around so the possibility of prostitution was low, but not unheard of. If any business would still be here when the cockroaches took over, it was whores and johns.
A man in a dirty red ball cap slipped his curtain back enough to see the new arrival. He needed to shave his stubble, but something about his chin said nothing but stupidity and stubbornness. Terrance saw his door number.
“Fuck. 26. That means…” He had just met his new neighbor. Rather than protest, he opened the door to 27 and stuck his duffel inside. It was dark, and he had hit a small table with the toss. Slamming the door behind him, he felt along the wall for the switch, and flipped it a second later. A lamp came on from its side on the floor before a small round table held up by three metal legs connected to a center pole. The lamp was light enough to lift one handed to its proper place. Terrance looked around the room. One queen with a floral cover, two small pillows in white cases lay at the head with no headboard, just a faux wooden wall that would feel like plastic when he ran into it later in the night.
He didn’t give much a shit about these details, so long as he got to shower, and the bastard in the other room kept the noise down. After his wash, he found a new pair of briefs, killed the lamp, and climbed in bed.
He awoke to a bird trapped in his room. On and on it flapped around the room. Something about the bird rooted him to the bed. It had somehow gotten colder in the room since he had nodded off, and he was frozen in more ways than one. He listened as the bird started chirping frantically. Though he had never heard any small bird chirp this way. It was actually screeching. Soon another bird joined in. Two of them. He had just placed the sound as much as he could, and assumed they were bats.
“What the hell?”
He should have kept his mouth shut. Once they heard him, they dived lower, searching for the source. He could hear their screeching, as if they were talking to each other, and what felt like him as well. He sniffed as he grabbed the blanket closer to his neck, and they found him.
One of them bit his nose, but wouldn’t let go. Terrance reached up to grab hold of a wing, but they were too fast, and too thin. It didn’t matter.
“Aaaaaaah!!!” His nostrils tore in the bat’s mouth, it could be heard eating it next to him on the bed as he grabbed his own face, screaming in horror. And so he forgot about the second one. Until it sank into the flesh of his raised forearm, perching its feet on Terrance’s bent elbow, and YANK went a large portion of the skin, tissue and muscle from his arm. He could feel blood pouring from his nose and arm, he’d soon be swimming in it if he didn’t come to his senses.
He made for the door, but the bats had finally found their night sight useful, each chewing into the back of his legs just as they escaped the shelter of his sheets and blanket.
“AHhahahow!!! OWW!!!! HELP!!! HELP ME!!! SOMEBODY!!!”
It was horrible and painful misery being chewed up by two hungry bats. One headed upwards, and the other down the other leg. He could only bang on the floor with his fists, but the sound soon died as Terrance had lost too much blood to fight any longer…
From the outside doorway, a puddle of blood was gathering under Number 27 and spilling out. Growing larger, wider, and faster all the same. Until finally it dripped over the edge of the floor, falling faster and faster until at last, it poured onto the ground below.
In the morning, management came out for her morning cigarette. She heard slow dripping with her left ear, and turned to see the floor soaked with blood, still dripping from the second floor.
“Goddammit,” she said. Turning back forward to finish her cigarette, and head back into the office.
When the police arrived, she had put a bucket beneath the drip, but what good it did, she didn’t have the slightest. Across the street stood a man and a woman dressed in formal attire, as if observing a funeral for a dearest friend.
“Who are they,” asked one of the officers to management, who could barely walk without trailing red behind her. She nearly slipped and fell as she whipped around to see who else would even be around these parts.
“Who?” she said. “I don’t see anyone.”
fin
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