13 Night Terrors

by D A Roach et al.

  “We’re home,” he said.

  Hayley nodded. “We’re home.” This time, when he came to the other side, she took his hand without hesitation. They clung to each other as they faced their house. So much happened in such a short amount of time.

  “Want to sleep on the couch tonight?”

  Anthony grinned. “I was going to suggest a hotel.”

  “No, I want to stay here,” she said. She touched the door, warm from the sun, the paint smooth under her fingertips. “We can curl up on the couch and watch Princess Bride or something.”

  Anthony rubbed between her shoulder blades. It was a casual touch she’d missed and craved so desperately since their loss. She leaned into him, giggling when he swept her off her feet and kicked the door open. He carried her over the stoop in new bride fashion, setting her down on the couch. He kissed her forehead.

  “Let me get you some aspirin for your arm and we can talk movies.”

  She watched him walk away, a dopey grin on her face. They were going to do this. They were going to come back together. They could leave this nightmare behind. Her smile faded as her eyes shifted down the hall to the empty nursery. The door was cracked open. It shouldn’t bother her, but it did. She couldn’t dismiss the niggling doubt the door was closed when they left.

  “Leave it, Hayley. Just leave it,” she muttered, gnawing on her lip until she tasted blood in her mouth. The corners of her mind itched. She could hear Anthony humming from the kitchen. The sink was running, dishes clinking, and through it all, she swore she could hear the creak of the rocking chair. Her jaw flexed, and she swallowed.

  She eased off the couch. Close the door. That was all she would do. Tomorrow she’d drag that rocking chair out of the house, with one arm if she had to, and burn it on the front lawn. Her quiet footfalls were eclipsed by the running faucet and by her pulse throbbing her ears. She paused outside the nursery door, her hands slack at her sides. Her heart fluttered inside her chest, trapped and panicked. There was nothing in this room, only an empty crib and heartache. She pushed the door open.

  The nursery was the same mess they’d left it in. Broken glass scattered across the floor, the contents of the picture frames shattered. Her vision blurred as she stared at the debris. So much ruined, so much lost so fast, her pulse stuttered as her unease melted to heartache.

  “Don’t look at the mess,” said Anthony, coming up behind her. He slipped his arms around her waist. “Look further. Someday our baby will sleep in this crib. We shall rock them in this chair and sing them lullabies.”

  The ache subsided at his words, at his embrace. She turned to tease him about the rocker. She smelled wet earth. Danny stood in the doorway.

  Her lips parted. Not real.

  Anthony’s neck snapped to the side, the crack of bone like buckshot ringing in her ears. His arms fell away as his body collapsed to the floor.

  Buzzing filled her head. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. She dropped to her knees hard, the impact jarring up through her teeth. She reached for Anthony, her breaths coming short and fast as she pushed his body over. His head lolled, the bone of his neck jutting out from beneath the skin. His eyes were still open, staring up at her, empty, empty, empty.

  Hayley screamed.

  The sound roared up from her guts, scraping her throat raw as it poured out of her mouth. On and on until she had no breath left in her. She couldn’t take her eyes off that jutting bone. Not until Danny’s small feet appeared in the corner of her vision.

  Hayley clutched at her chest, trying to hold her heart inside. Her sob stuck fast in her throat. “What have you done?”

  “I heard him, Mommy. I heard him in that room, in the car.” Danny stomped his foot. She jerked, gaping up at his pale, petulant face. “He said you were going to replace me. I couldn’t let that happen, Mommy.” His face crumpled, and he began to cry. “Please don’t replace me, Mommy. I’m sorry I hurt you. I’m so sorry. Can’t we go back to before? I just want you to hold me. Please, Mommy, I love you. Please, hold me.”

  He held up his arms to her, tear-filled eyes pleading. She couldn’t look at him. She couldn’t look away. Her gaze darted, flitted, drawn to Danny over and over, a moth to flame. Her wings were about to catch fire. Her gaze drifted over broken bone, shards of glass, and the vanity mirror. Half the mirror remained in the frame, reflecting back into the room. She stared at herself, at the spiraling misery she saw there, at Anthony’s body and the horrid angle of that jutting bone. Anthony’s skin in pale grays and pinks, his body twisted like a dead animal on the side of the road. There was no Danny in the mirror.

  Not real.

  Her mind reeled and snapped. Anthony was dead. Danny wasn’t real. He wasn’t, right? What did that make her? Her tears stung as they slid down her face. Her thoughts stuttered, unable to process. Anthony was still dead.

  “Please, Mommy, hold me.”

  Hayley opened her arms.

  About the Author

  Kristin Jacques is an author from small town New England. She grew up in the sticks, surrounded by river wildlife and various swamp inhabitants. She lives with her husband and sons in another small New England town. She is rather fond of these locations. After moving in the aspiring writing circles for many years, she took a chance on Wattpad and never looked back. When not writing, she is likely reading, gaming, Netflixing, or spoiling the family cats.

  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/krazydiamondwrites/

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  https://twitter.com/Krazydiamond07

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  http://www.kristinjacques.com/

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  https://www.instagram.com/krazydiamond_writes/

  Room 158

  By Thomas S. Flowers

  Chapter One

  1957, Iowa.

  Fishtailing out onto the wet pavement of Center Street, Douglas Creek depended on the high, sharp tunes of the Everly Brothers blaring “Bye Bye Love” from the speakers of his pink Chrysler 300 his daddy had sold him to help steady his nerves. Those black and white ringed rubber tires splashed through deep puddles caused by all the heavy rains they’d been having recently. Spring showers, they said. This was the same downpour that had caused tonight’s delay. Righting the car, he pushed down hard on the accelerator, screaming his wheels.

  Douglas glanced back at his wife Mary-Jane. He bit his lip, wondering if perhaps they’d waited too long to make the trek. Earlier, he’d insisted they wait out the rain. Too dangerous, he had told his pregnant wife. A tax collector by trade, he always erred on the side of caution…but perhaps…

  Mary-Jane, laid out in the back seat, hitched and moaned loudly. Her eyes clapped shut, sweat dripping down her red flushed face, soaking into her white blouse. With small, trembling hands, she held her ballooned belly, breathing in quick, controlled spurts.

  …perhaps they had waited too long.

  Keeping his eyes on the road, Douglas said, “We’ll get there. Just hang on. After tonight, it’ll be sunshine and roses for us, for all of us.” He grinned back at her, exhaling and relaxing at the sight of her joyful face.

  Turning back to the road, he glanced at his speedometer. A hair over 65 MPH. His hands trembling harder now, he reached over and turned up the radio, more of the Everly Brothers singing about saying goodbye to love and saying hello to loneliness. Hands on the wheel, he chanced little glances back at his wife from the rearview mirror. There was little doubt now. The child would be coming tonight. In another life, he mused, he would have aimed his recently gifted pink Chrysler 300 toward the city, toward Des Moines. He would have taken his wife to a real doctor. Delivered his firstborn somewhere…normal.

  However, Douglas Creek was no longer part of a world that could afford such luxury. Sacrifices had to be made. Deals. Agreements. This was, after all, an act of faith.

  Daydreaming, Douglas sped over a pothole. Mary-Jane hitched and groaned from
the back seat, her white blouse nearly soaked through. Crimson trickled from her bitten lip.

  “Sorry, hun. Hang on, we’re almost there. The convent is less than twenty minutes down this stretch of road. We can make it. We’re going to make it.” Douglas white knuckled the steering wheel, wondering if what he said was true.

  Were they going to make it?

  What would happen if they didn’t?

  His doubt wasn’t a matter of belief; he knew the reality of which they had dedicated the better part of their lives. They had both been members of the convent since childbirth, after all. He didn’t need the ring on his finger to remind him of the twin serpents suckling on a golden rod; there was a lifetime of memories. Promises of blessings to satisfy all wanton lust and greed.

  No. This doubt was not a question of belief, but rather one of nerve.

  Douglas kissed his sigil ring and pushed down harder on the accelerator.

  On the other side of the narrow road, a passing truck honked its horn. The driver was shouting something. “Slow down!” most likely.

  Douglas rolled down his window and shouted a string of profanity. Satisfied, he smiled when his wife told him he was behaving like a child.

  “Just a little—”

  Something small and covered in scales darted across the road in front of them.

  “Shit!” Douglas swerved.

  Again, on this wet night, the pink Chrysler fishtailed, the black and white ringed rubber screaming to find some traction.

  Douglas jerked the wheel the other direction.

  Whipping around, the tires gave out. The Chrysler’s momentum forced the car over, flipping, rolling along the road in a maddening tumble of metal and glass, which shattered and rained down on the damp cement.

  Finally, the pink car came to a halt, resting on its roof. The Everly Brothers somehow continued to wail “Bye Bye Love” from the crushed Chrysler. Headlights blinked rapidly. The stink of fuel and something smoking filled the cool spring night.

  Nothing stirred inside.

  All it took was a spark from a broken wire and the Chrysler was engulfed in angry red and orange flames. Still alive, Douglas and Mary-Jane Creek started howling from inside, pleading for whatever god they worshiped to save them.

  Across the road, a wide-eyed boy, no older than six, stared in wonder at the spectacle for which he was to blame. Noticing approaching beams of light down the road, he hunched in the tall grass. Glaring with yellow crocodile eyes, he took one last look, liking the warmth of the fire on his scaled skin. And then he dashed off through the field behind him, swishing deeper into the tall grass toward the glowing lights far off in the distance belonging to the Twin Pines Hotel.

  Chapter Two

  The 2010 Buick they stole wasn’t that old, but it sure ran that way. And of all the hotels Freida and Maria Gelhorn could have come to a stop in front of, among all the Holiday Inns and Hiltons and Hyatts and all that modern deco bullshit and five-star restaurants belonging to a lifestyle they knew little about, the smoking blue Buick came to a stop in front of Twin Pines Hotel.

  Twin Pines Hotel was not sleek. It was not modern. There was no grace about it. Simply round tubular logs stacked upon one another and a large stuffed grizzly bear near the front entrance.

  Freida pumped the accelerator and got the sedan to pull into one of the parking spots near the front. Something catastrophic rattled in the engine. She pumped the accelerator again, hoping to keep the junker from stalling out, praying for a miracle that her sister wouldn’t want to stay here because she as sure as hell didn’t.

  “Oh look,” Maria chirped from the passenger seat, “another Buick, like ours.” She smiled.

  Frieda groaned silently and glanced over at the car next to them. “Yup,” she said and killed the engine, knowing full well it would take an exorcist to get this puppy started again. “But with about twelve more inches of dust than ours.”

  Maria look around the parking lot. “There are others. They all look—”

  “Abandoned. Yeah. Look, are you sure you don’t want to try to find a room someplace else? Judging by the condition of these cars—”

  Maria touched her arm, smiling in that motherly sort of way that first came to her about nine months ago. But if Freida was to be honest, her sister had always had that motherly smile, even before the pregnancy.

  “Where else can we go?” Maria said, less of a question and more of a statement of the cold, hard facts.

  There weren’t many other places they could go, not tonight, not if they wanted to remain secluded. At the Holiday Inn and Hyatt and Hilton, there was too much light, too much connection, and they would certainly require a credit card, something neither Maria nor Freida had. Places like Twin Pines took cash and didn’t ask a lot of questions. You could sign a guest log without having to connect your social media accounts. You could use a pseudonym and remain completely anonymous.

  “There isn’t much time, Freida. We don’t have much time.”

  Freida rubbed her eyes. Her body was waterlogged, as if she were wearing cement shoes. It was getting late. There was no need to look at the odometer to be reminded how far they had come. Not far enough, in her opinion. She looking in her rearview; the hotel loomed in the glass.

  “This place will do. And once the baby comes—” Maria started.

  “We’re outta here. I know the plan. It was mine, remember?” Freida stretched her neck.

  Maria nodded. “That’s right. This was your plan. To deliver the baby and then hop on a plane. You got me out of there. Don’t fold on me now.”

  Freida took her sister’s hand. “Never. I’m worried is all. I’m worried about you.”

  Maria considered her for a moment. Then she glanced at the hotel behind them, the last rung on a road of much more glamorous establishments, nothing that set itself apart except for its aged banality.

  She squeezed Freida’s hand. “Come on, how bad can this place be?”

  Chapter Three

  Freida dropped their luggage in what she assumed to be the guest sitting area. There was an oddly placed flat screen surrounded by plush chairs and a sofa playing the nightly news. Something about a manhunt in the Des Moines city area. The image of a shaggy man named Andy Derek flashed across the screen.

  “Rest here while I go check us in, okay?” Freida gestured to one of the overstuffed chairs.

  Maria didn’t need convincing. She plopped down on the sofa, keeping her gaze glued on the TV screen, mesmerized. Freida couldn’t blame her. They hadn’t seen a TV since they were kids.

  “Maria? You listening?”

  “Are you seeing this? This man murdered a dozen people. Such darkness in the world,” Maria said, shaking her head.

  Freida rolled her eyes. “We ought to know, right? I’m going to check us in. Okay?”

  “Okay,” Maria whispered back, her gaze still on the screen. “He even looks like a killer, don’t you think?”

  Freida glanced at the screen. “Don’t they all?” She started toward the reception desk. Looking around, she was not surprised to find the lobby empty.

  “Hello?” she said, approaching the tall desk, doing her best friendly smile at the cropped ginger-haired woman wearing the black blazer with bright blue lipstick and eyeliner and long blue nails clicking frantically on her keyboard.

  “Hello?” Freida said again when the woman made no sign she heard her.

  Finally, her constant stream of typing ceased. The black blazer wearing receptionist with the ginger hair and blue lipstick and eyeliner stared coldly, expressionless, sizing Freida up from behind her desk. And then she smiled. Pleasant with hints of boredom.

  “Welcome to the Twin Pines Hotel,” she said. “How can I help you?”

  Frieda swallowed hard, unable to shake the oddity of this woman.

  “Do you wish to stay with us?” she prodded, arching her blue-painted eyebrows, those hints of boredom turning brushstrokes of amusement.

  Shaking away the strange vibes
, Freida smiled, her best attempt yet. “Yes,” she said, quickly adding, “Please.”

  The ginger woman began typing. “How many guests?”

  “Myself and my sister.” Freida gestured toward the sitting area with the couch and TV.

  The receptionist leaned forward, gazing over at the sitting room. For a moment, her mouth hung ajar, and then she asked, more of an assessment than a question, “She’s pregnant?”

  Freida frowned. “Is that a problem?”

  “Not at all,” said the receptionist. “Just…”

  “What?”

  “By the looks of your sister, I’m assuming she will be delivering the baby soon.”

  “She—”

  “You wouldn’t rather set her up at a hospital or something?”

  “We’re—”

  “Do you have an emergency contact?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “In case…”

  “In case what?”

  “In case she goes into labor during your stay here at the Twin Pines Hotel.”

  “Why would we need that?”

  The ginger woman shrugged. “It’s not required. Merely a precaution.”

  Freida relaxed a little. “We’re fine. I’m a certified midwife, in case we cannot make it to a hospital in time. Not that any of this is any of your business.”

  Again, the ginger smiled, filled with lines of boredom. “Of course. My apologies. Here at Twin Pines Hotel, we pride ourselves on our homely charm, you understand.” She began clicking away on her keyboard, her gaze fixed to her screen.

  Frieda shifted on her feet. Straining a smile, she apologized. “Sorry, we’ve been on the road all day. I appreciate your concern, but we’ll be fine.”