I had first heard of the Royal Glenn Hotel from a friend. It was an urban legend in his hometown that you could check in anytime you wanted, but you’d never make it out alive. I thought it was the cliché’ bullshit, “Hotel California”-type legend that nobody should take seriously. My best friend of years, Jackson, was a legend killer. He had attended numerous haunted houses and debunked the rumors. He’d gone to graveyards and slept overnight and made fun of the people who freaked at the smallest sounds. Jackson loved the thrill, he was afraid of nothing, but when he decided to stay at the Royal Glenn Hotel, something changed about him.
It’s been four weeks since the last time I heard from Jackson, and as I stood over his corpse in the shitty motel room on the outskirts of Meridian, I regretted not trying to reach out to him. The room was in complete disarray, fast food bags lined the bedside table and floor, half eaten cartons of Chinese food sat overturned on the floor and the refrigerator door had been left open. The room smelled like that juice that builds up under your summertime trash when you leave your garbage cans full for too long.
Newspaper clippings overflowed from the itchy ruby sheets onto the floor, all about the Royal Glenn Hotel. Journal entries and notes were intermixed. I collected them and tucked them into my jacket pocket. I knelt over my best friend’s body for the last time and said my goodbyes before dialing 9-1-1.
Jackson had been dead for three weeks. Following the journal entries, the Royal Glenn Hotel had done something to his head. Apparently, the legends were real. He mentioned trying to reach out to me on numerous occasions in the entries, but I don’t recall ever receiving a phone call from him. I attended his funeral a week after visiting the motel room.
After the funeral, I drove back to Meridian and stood outside the Royal Glenn Hotel, staring up at it’s old, red neon sign. I asked a few passerby what they knew about it and the same answers seem to always come, “People die there, I don’t see how they’re still in business.” I reviewed the newspaper clippings, speaking of people dying in states of immense fear.
I read through some of Jackson’s journal entries, and was convinced that he’d gone insane from whatever he experienced here. They started as cognitive, full entries, descriptive to a tee of what happened to him, but after a few days, the words didn’t make sense, as I got to the back of the journal, the pages were torn from him scribbling something over and over again. I flipped to the the first untorn page I could and ran my fingers over the indentions. M…A…T…H…I…S…O…N.
I stared at the page in awe, my name. Why did he scribble my name? I reviewed the first few pages.
September 1st, 2014 I just left the Royal Glenn Hotel. I don’t know how to explain what exactly just happened, I don’t think anybody will believe me. For once, the legends were real. I don’t know what else to say, what else to write. I need to think about this.
September 3rd, 2014 The check in was normal. The man behind the desk handed me the key after the credit card checked out. The people I met in the hallway didn’t seem to have anything wrong with them. I had no qualms with walking into my room and showering. I settled in for the evening after a hearty meal from room service.
The alarm clock sounded around 1 am. I jerked from my sleep and swatted at it. I didn’t remember setting it and chalked it up to a maid having a bad day. I stood up and prepared to move towards the bathroom for a mid-night pee break when I kicked something in the middle of the floor. I heard it skitter across the room and reached for the light next to the bed and turned it on. What happened next was…unexplainable. I don’t know, I thought I was ready for this, but.
Sepembter 50th, 2104
The voice choed thogh eth ruom, it sa-
The letter M was carved through the next few pages. The next six entries were unreadable. My curiosity was killing me, I wanted to know what happened to Jackson, but was this all worth it. Maybe he finally had that mental breakdown everyone thought he would. The autopsy had come back as an overdose on pills. Maybe he had finally just had enough and decided to bite the bullet.
I decided to find out what happened at the hotel.
After checking in and finding my room, I unpacked my bags and ate a simple dinner of fig newtons and Gatorade before hitting the hay. The alarm clock started blaring around 1 am. I jerked from my sleep and stared at it menacingly. After fighting to make it shut up, I promptly picked it up and slammed it against the table with enough force to knock something inside loose. I swore under my breath, realizing it was something else for me to pay for. I sat up in the bed and rubbed my eyes before checking my phone. The bright light hit my eyes with the force of a thousand suns. I blinked a few times to clear the “sleep” from my eyes. I scanned a few texts and emails before stalking Jackson’s facebook page for a few minutes. I stood up to go to the bathroom when
BANG. BANG. BANG.
The sound echoed throughout the room, jerking me to a fully alert state. I stared in the direction of the door. Another trio of bangs echoed from it. I approached the door and peered out the hole. The hallway was dark. I took a few steps back and reached for the light switch. Another trio of bangs sent me back a few more steps, “Look, I’m trying to slee-“
“You think you can make it out? Can you face your fears?” The voice cut me off. It was eerie, small. A giggle followed, “We’ll see, Mathison, if you are as strong as your friend.”
I was at the door in seconds, ripping it open. The light of the hallway illuminated my doorframe. I stepped onto the diamond carpet of the hallway and looked both directions. The hallway was abandoned aside from a cart by the top of the stairs. I returned to my room posthaste, locking and deadbolting the door. “Enough of that for the night, just go back to sleep Mathison.” I moved groggily back to the bed and tumbled onto it.
“Is that what they call you, Mathison?” A female voice cut through the darkness, jerking my attention in its direction. I reached for the lamp and flipped it on to find a woman sitting in a chair in her night gown. “Good evening, Mathison. My name is Anna.”
My eyes didn’t leave hers. Her figure was perfection, a Hepburnian clone. “What are you doing in here?” I inched my way away from her as she moved closer.
“I’m here for you, Mathison. I’m all yours.” She made her way to the foot of the bed and began removing her nightgown. “They told me downstairs that you love girls that look like me, so I came to you as quickly as I could.”
How do they know that? I held out my hands, the international sign for stop right fucking there, but she wasn’t stopping right fucking there. “Listen, lady. I’m not interested, okay? I just wanna go to bed an get the hell out of here tomorrow morning.”
“Why didn’t you leave when you had the chance, then? You know they won’t let you leave now.” She had fully removed her gown and was down the buff at this point. She ran her hand up my leg and towards my crotch.
I immediately jerked away, recoiling from the side of the bed and towards the corner with the door. “Look, just get out of here, okay? Leave.”
“You’d kick me out into the cold, Mathison?” Her gaze locked on mine and I couldn’t resist. I shook my head as she moved my direction and removed my boxers, mounting me.
After a few steamy minutes, I looked up at her as she pressed me back into the corner and let out a long moan. She glanced down at me seductively and as the light caught her face, I could have sworn I saw something in her mouth. I cocked my head a bit as she let out another moan, there was definitely something off here. I finished in glorious adulation and glanced up at the lady who was smiling down at me. She spread her lips and I saw it, something popped out from between her teeth for a brief second. I shoved her off of me and she frowned, “What’s wrong, Mathison? Did you not enjoy it?”
I shook my head, trying to clear my head of the webs. This isn’t how I’d normally act. I didn’t do stuff like this. I stood up and pulled my boxers back up, “What the hell are you?”
She smiled her best supermodel smile, “What do you mean what am I? I’m your fucktoy. You’ve always wanted a fucktoy, didn’t you? I’m the woman you admire the most. What else do you want?”
For this to be real. For this night to end. To leave. I shimmied across the wall, creating a little distance between her and I, that’s when I noticed the shadow. It looked…malformed…inhuman. I couldn’t pinpoint what it was.
The woman scowled, “Fine then. If you don’t want me at my most beautiful, I guess you’ll have to take me as what I am.” As soon as she spat the last words a pair of pedipalps extended from within her mouth, and I watched as the woman mutated, her body elongating, her legs being ripped apart by a spider’s abdomen. I fell back against the bathroom door and forced my way in, locking the rom behind me. I heard her scratching on the door, hissing, waiting for me.
I got to my feet and turned on the light, taking a few more steps away from the door for good measure. I closed my eyes momentarily to calm myself, “It’s all a dream.” I turned on the water and washed my face. I sat on the floor and pulled my knees to my chest.
“You can’t sleep, Mister Mathison, that’s cheating.” A voice ripped through my head, jerking me from a slumber. How long had I been asleep. I glanced towards the door. The hissing had stopped. I fought my way to my feet and glanced at the mirror, I saw myself but something was wrong. I pushed my face close the mirror and looked at myself, trying to pinpoint it. That’s when I saw it, a little strand coming from my eye. I wrapped it around my finger and began to pull. One inch, two inch, three inches, then something caught. Pain erupted through my skull, behind my eye. I pulled on the strand harder and with a refreshing, “pop” I stared in horror as a spider dangled from the end of the string. I tossed it across the room and looked in the mirror for any more blemishes, that’s when it happened.
The showerhead shot across the the room and spiders began pouring out. I watched, helplessly, as they began to force their way from the wallpaper and towards me. I turned and stared at the door momentarily and hesistated before launching myself towards it. I ripped the door open and just ran towards the entrance to the room.
SMACK.
I was sent back feet from the force of what I ran into her. The spider-woman awoke, obviously perturbed. It was the first time I got a good look at her. The upper half of her body was that of a nude woman, but not the Hepburn look-a-like I had the pleasure of having coitus with earlier, the face sagged, I could see spider eyes through the holes where the human eyes used to be. The pedipals had ripped at the skin around the mouth, breaking the human jaw. The lower half of the body was that of a normal spider.
I stumbled backwards, over the bed and into the corner where the chair had sat earlier. I peered over at the window behind me. It was a six story drop, but was it better than having to confront this she-beast that now stood before me?
I gripped the chair and slammed it into the window once, twice, three times. I slammed until I had no more energy, and then I watched as the bitch approached me. I fell backwards onto the ground and pushed myself as hard as I could against the wall. The beast lumbered towards me, reaching towards me with it’s human arms. I felt it caress my face before it picked me up and
“I like the way you work it, No Diggity, I gotta bag it up." I jerked from my slumber and grabbed at my phone, tearing it away from the charger. The alarm was going off, six am. I sat up in the bed and walked groggily towards the bathroom and washed off my face, I glanced at the mirror and saw that the shower head wasn’t there. I walked over to the bath tub and picked it up. A spider ran across my hand and I stared down at it for a few moments before squashing it.
As I stood up, I heard the voice, “You’ve done well, Mister Mathison. Better than your friend, Jackson. Unfortunately, I’m not going to let you go without a consequence.” I spun around to see an eerie little man with a beak-sized nose staring up at me. “You may check out any time you like, Mister Mathison. I hope you enjoyed your stay. We hope you come back.”
The small man moved to the door and opened it up. I proceeded to collect my belongings and check out. I drove home and unpacked before plummeting onto my soft bed and staring at the ceiling, recalling the events of the night.
That was three weeks ago. I cannot stress this enough, do not go to the Royal Glenn Hotel. Do not neglect the stories. I still see her. I see her every night in my sleep. She is there, and she seduces me each time. The memory replays and every night she gets closer to devouring me. I cannot get rid of her. Whatever uoy do, do ont gvie n2 our cruositykledtehecat.
Submitted October 14, 2014 at 11:31AM by WhoIsTimYoung http://ift.tt/1yxj3EJ nosleep
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