The Inn (Evenstad Media Presents Book 3)
Page 12
They killed the other woman. The trans one. And looking at it that way, it gives me the chills. Not the trans part. The woman part. The only other women I’ve seen so far in this place? Dead, now. Far as I’ve seen, I’m the last woman. It’s just a coincidence or something, I’m sure of that, but I can’t help but feel even more vulnerable. I ain’t the type to put much stock in something like this, but it almost feels like I can’t ignore it. Is it really a coincidence that the women are all but gone? If there’s anything to it at all, then I can’t afford to just write it off as a damn fluke. It would make it so much easier if I could do that and just move on, but that ain’t an option. Not unless I learn different for sure.
Last woman standing. I guess it’s a little comfort that I’m holed up in this room with a couple people I know I can trust. But I ain’t sure who else is out there or what they got in mind. It don’t make me feel any more comfortable, I’ll tell you that much.
I guess all I can really do right now is try to get to tomorrow. Make that a goal every day I have to stay in this place. Get through until tomorrow, and then the next tomorrow, and then the next one. I’ll just have to see how long that lasts.
ENTRY END
TO: Niels Evenstad
FROM: Magnus Evenstad
SUBJECT: Joy
SENT 1/24/2076 AT 12:00 p.m. EST
Niels,
With Billie officially out of the picture, there’s only one woman left in play, and from what’s gone on so far, I doubt think there’s much chance of Joy actually winning. One problem is essentially taken care of at this point, so that’s no longer something to worry about. Even if she does manage to win by some twist of fate, no one could possibly blame us for that happening.
However, there may well be some flack, particularly from those viewers who still believe the show is fictional. The cries of misandry were worrisome enough to warrant notice, but misogyny could raise far more issues for us. I’m sure you reached that conclusion, of course. I leave this situation in your hands.
Magnus Evenstad,
Chief Executive Officer, Evenstad Enterprises
JOURNAL 09HIKARU
ENTRY 009
DATE: 1/24/2076
Things never seem to go the way you envision them. It’s something I’ve noticed before my time in here, of course, and I’m hardly alone in seeing it. Many people have spoken about it and written about it. But I don’t think it ever struck me as more than another annoying part of life until last night. When I threw in the grenade, I covered my eyes. But I didn’t expect the brightness to be so intense. Some of it managed to get through and that made it harder to see. I pressed on anyway. I didn’t expect the screaming, though I should have. A lack of experience in this sort of thing, I suppose. I’ll know next time.
I didn’t think it would be easier than the first one, either. But it was. I could see vague shapes, and I found someone’s neck. I don’t know who. I already decided it didn’t matter. It was cleaner this time. I didn’t plunge the knife in. There wasn’t much time to get blood on my hands because I ran in and ran out. Nobody tried to stop me, which makes the grenades very effective for an active role.
I didn’t enjoy it, but that’s just a reality of this venture. However, if I’m the only one doing this, then I have to think I have an advantage. Although I could still slip up and die very easily. At least one of the people down in the lobby has actively killed someone. The older gentleman saw that woman behind the counter as a threat, and he very quickly dispatched her. If I make myself seem dangerous in any way, I have to assume that he would do the same to me.
I’m back upstairs, but I haven’t taken to one of the hotel rooms. There isn’t much point to it, so far as I can see. I don’t want to be a braggart of any sort, but I feel as though I’m playing this differently than anyone else. Better than they are. As though I’m more capable of continuing on. This is the sort of pride common wisdom warns against, but these are my thoughts, and I’m allowed to have them. I don’t think that I’m untouchable or infallible in any way, but I don’t feel the need to seek some sense of security inside four walls anymore. I can see the hotel rooms here for the traps they truly are. I don’t intend to be trapped. And if someone comes out, I’m confident enough that I can handle them.
I feel stronger. When I think too much about that, it makes me feel sick. Stronger because I’ve killed. But I know that’s not the reason. I feel stronger because I’ve taken it upon myself to control what happens, as much as I can. If anyone catches up to that, then I won’t be nearly as confident. But for now, I am the main predator in this ecosystem. If anyone else ever saw this journal, they’d think I was an egotist. Maybe they’d be right.
All I have to do now is wait for signs of life somewhere else, then go at it again. It will work. I will make it out with my life.
ENTRY END
JOURNAL 12TERRENCE
ENTRY 008
DATE: 1/25/2076
It’s been a long time since I’ve wanted to run from other people. I considered it an option in this place just as soon as it got dangerous, but I never felt like I should actually do it. But after that whole thing went down, I’m itching to move. It’s no good staying in this tight of a group. It just means we all get killed. If I were to run, I could damn sure try to get away and stay alive.
Maybe it’s not even worth it. There’s now somebody out in this hotel, wherever they might be, who is willing and able to kill. And that wasn’t some sort of accident or spur of the moment decision. “I’m walking along and there’s some people. Let’s take one out for the hell of it.” They had a plan. I’d put money on that. Almost everyone left alive was probably down here when all those alarms went off. We didn’t make a subtle group, and we never bothered to hide. I can’t even figure out what was going through our heads, myself included. Why would staying the open be a smart idea?
Maybe we all wanted to buy into some delusion that we’d finally gotten to safety. I wish it worked out that way. In the end, all that it really got us was a bullseye on our collective backs. It could easily have been myself or Max or Joy who got killed when that went off. Maybe whoever did it thought that young lady was the weakest link. If that’s the case, he didn’t notice my old body. Something to be thankful for. Can’t turn good luck like that down in a place like this.
I wonder if I should even be this lucid or this self-aware, given the circumstances. Is that right? Is it a good reaction, or an unhealthy one? Shouldn’t I be cracking a lot more than I am? I’ve been trapped in Hell itself for a month, now. Something should have happened to me. My luck is running out, if that’s what’s been keeping me going. No way anything good could last long in here. I don’t buy it at all. I’ve seen too much hardship in this world to believe that this would be any different.
I might run. I might sleep on it one more night and see what I feel like then. It’s probably the best move, but then I keep thinking I should go while I’ve still got the drive. I don’t know which is right, I just know that both options are terrifying in their own ways. I guess it’s a matter of which nightmare I’m willing to risk.
ENTRY END
JOURNAL 07DANIEL
ENTRY 008
DATE: 1/27/2076
I wasn’t fast enough, Marie. I got caught in my hotel room when the alarm went off. I was asleep for too long, and all I got for trying to escape was my fingers almost slammed in the door. If I hadn’t pulled them out fast enough, I probably wouldn’t have fingers left. There’s so much force behind those doors when they close. I’ve still never felt pain this bad in my life. They’re all broken, obviously. They’ve got to be. I can’t move any of them, and I’m not even going to try splinting them. I’d do it wrong and end up with my hand fucked for the rest of my life. Not that I won’t anyway, I guess.
It won’t be much longer, though, so I’m not sure why I’m so concerned about that. I may as well wrap up my damn hand so I’m maybe no
t in so much pain while I’m about to die. I know it’s happening soon. I’m not an idiot. I would like to hope that I’m wrong, but I’m not. I know I’m not. Especially not after getting trapped in here. I didn’t even leave when everything was done. There isn’t much point to it, is there?
I don’t even know what happened, exactly. I tried to hide under the covers, not breathe, close my eyes. But I got so hot. I forced myself to stay under the covers, but it felt like my skin was melting off. I could smell smoke. I swear, they must have lit the room on fire, but I didn’t see anything burned when I looked after the fact. I don’t know what happened at all, but the room is still so hot. I’ve been drinking a lot of water to try and keep from getting dehydrated. I’m coughing a lot now, too. There must have been smoke. Or maybe some kind of chemical that smelled like smoke. But I don’t see any evidence of that. Maybe it’s all in my head and they just pumped in some drug to make me hallucinate. I don’t know. I really, really don’t know.
I wish you could tell me what’s going on. Do you know? I’ve never seen this show. Do they make it obvious what’s happening, or do you have to guess just as much as I do? Did you even bother to guess? Maybe you didn’t care at all. Maybe this whole time, you’ve been reading my journals for nothing but a laugh. I was so pathetic. I hid the entire game and I still died.
Maybe I need to get out of here, get out of my own head just a little bit. Assuming I’m not already drugged out of my mind.
ENTRY END
JOURNAL 09HIKARU
ENTRY 010
DATE: 1/27/2076
I’ve moved toward the sound of the alarm. There’s certainly someone in this room. I can hear them moving around, running water. Room 3109. I just have to wait until their activity calms down, or until they choose to come out. Then I’m down by one more opponent. By then, everything downstairs should have settled enough that I can make another run down there, assuming anyone stuck around. I think we’re down to a fairly small number of people left in here. The alarms haven’t been going off nearly as much, and I have to assume that means something. They probably only bother to activate a hazard if there’s someone who might be inconvenienced by it.
Sitting here this way, waiting for the right time to go kill someone, I do have to wonder what people think of me. Do they think this is who I am? A killer, constantly on the lookout for blood? I shouldn’t even give a thought to what a bunch of strangers might think about me. I have good reasons for doing these things. But I’m currently alone with my own thoughts, and this is where they’ve wandered.
I’m just a cashier trying to survive in a horrible situation. I’m doing my best to not end up dead, to get out and see my family again. I have to be able to make these hard decisions if I want that to work. That means making the choice to kill, since that’s where I am. I intend to make it out. I want to see my friends and family again. Assuming they still want me around after all this. Another issue I’d rather not deal with until I have to.
I’m not a bad person or a cold person. I’m confident enough about that aspect of myself not to let those worries eat at me. I’m familiar enough with my own mind and soul to dismiss anything like that. I just hope that, out in the world again, people’s ideas of me won’t cause any problems. I’m imagining harassment, negative articles, maybe even issues with vandalism. It’s far too easy for people to find out where you live. I have to assume that, if I become a public figure by winning this competition, it’s only going to be that much more likely that I’ll get doxed, and it would only happen that much faster. With me on TV, maybe someone is already looking into it, looking into all of us. I doubt my computer is very secure. I’m not tech-minded at all.
I suppose it doesn’t matter in the end. Not now. I can come back to those thoughts once I’ve made it out of this place. Until then, I should be focusing on the tasks in front of me, not what I might end up having to do once I’m done. I need a distraction of some kind.
Maybe I should just stop sitting and go into the room, speed things along. It’s most likely the same outcome however I go about it.
ENTRY END
The Inn Says: No More Women!
Posted 1/29/2076 at 12:06 a.m. EST
Hello, night-owls. I’m assuming that a number of you are awake after watching The Inn, and I’m hoping that at least some of you are sharing my fucking rage at the newest episode.
If the title didn’t make this all clear enough, let me spell it out: there’s one woman left, and four men. Does anyone really think that’s a coincidence? Given the huge uproar from a lot of the fans, blaming Evenstad for two women winning the first two seasons, it’s too convenient. You can lay the blame on me, say that I’m being paranoid and jumping to ridiculous conclusions. Maybe I am, but I doubt it. Evenstad has been controlling things in this game far more than they did in either of the previous seasons. They had a hand in the way things were going.
Doubt me? First kill of the game came from one of their trap rooms, and of course it was a woman. Shelley. Could easily have been two women if Deb had been a little slower. Three four and five were also women, including Lena, who a lot of people saw as a huge threat. As big of a threat as Susan was in the first season. Maybe she would have won, maybe she would have lost. No one knows, because Evenstad took that chance away.
But it was Max, you might think. Would Max or anyone else have been down there at all if Evenstad hadn’t set off every God damn alarm in the building? No. But they could see Lena dominating with her current strategy. They could tell that she was operating outside what they expected by sleeping down there, so they engineered a way to take her out quickly and easily. The fact that another of the female contestants died by her hand right before was probably just a delightful bit of icing on their misogynistic cake.
They aren’t making this a fair fight. The only reason they have the one woman left that they do is because Joy attached herself to Terrence and Max. Otherwise, she would have joined in with the other statistics. I’m absolutely positive of that. But even with Joy still alive, we have seven contestants killed and five of them are women (If you have any problems with me calling Billie a woman, get the fuck off my blog.). That’s 71% of the dead players as women. If we just assume that Joy would have gone down too, without her brother there, that’s 75% of them. It’s too much of a statistical anomaly to write off, since there was so much of a complaint.
It pisses me the hell off. I don’t care if a woman wins or loses, but they don’t deserve to have their chances limited just because they’re female. If by some chance I ever end up in the arena, I guess I’ll know to look out for this kind of sexist dog-shit. And if it ever comes to pass that I’m there, I don’t intend to let myself become a statistic. I’d rather go down as some demon woman ready to kill whoever else is in the place than some corpse to rot on national TV. Even if I did end up losing, it wouldn’t be because of bureaucratic meddling. I’d make damn sure it would be because I went down in a blaze of fucking glory.
I’m not amused, Evenstad. Not amused in the slightest.
Sugar
JOURNAL 02JOY
ENTRY 008
DATE: 1/28/2076
Max is beginning to worry me, to the point I ain’t sure that I can let him protect me anymore. I think it might be close to time for me to take action on my own. Don’t know how much I can do, but I’m taking off for a bit. I’ll look around this hotel, see if there’s anything we might have missed. We ain’t been apart once since this whole ordeal started, and we ain’t been looking around for nothing else. It’s about time to start. The only problem is going to be convincing him it’s a good idea for me to be off and away. Bless Max, he’s still devoted to keeping me safe, even if he ain’t a good choice in his particular state of mind. He ain’t able to see that.
I’ve talked to Terrence. He thinks I’ve got the right idea, even gave me his flash grenades. Turns out the things are damned useful, and he figured it was best if I didn’t run out, in case I ended up needing them.
Don’t know how things would really turn out if he weren’t around. He said he’d even try to keep Max from going after me.
I’m going to explain things to my brother, of course. I ain’t about to just run straight off and not say a damn word. But he ain’t gonna be happy about it, and that’s where Terrence comes in. I’m slipping out while Max is asleep. Much as he tries to avoid it, his body just eventually gives out and he’s got to take a rest. He’ll wake up, though, and realize what I did. Don’t know how long Terrence will be able to keep him from going after me, but anything is better than nothing. I’ll still be trying to head back quick as I can to avoid anything going wrong. And to avoid me getting killed, too. Better in numbers, though I guess not much. Someone still managed to rush in and snatch a kill. But numbers at least feel better. Lets me keep my head more reliably.
I don’t know what I might find, but I might find something. Anything. As long as it takes some of the pressure off Max, I think it’s a good thing. He ain’t right in the head, and in this kind of place, that’s too dangerous for me to allow. He might normally be my protector, but he’s still just my kid brother. Sometimes, you’ve got to step up and move out of your comfort zone. This is one of those times for me, and I ain’t backing down from it.
ENTRY END
JOURNAL 12TERRENCE
ENTRY 009
DATE: 1/28/2076
Max is asleep and Joy took off. I hope this isn’t all for naught, because this could end up being a pain in my ass. Max didn’t take it very well when she said she wanted to go out. I don’t blame him at all. If I had family running out into potential danger like that, I’d have lost my shit, too. She lied and said she wouldn’t go if he didn’t want her to. It was the only way to handle it. She needed to look, which meant she needed to lie.