She was heading back to the bathroom when she saw movement out of the corner of her eye.
The dust ruffle on the bed was fluttering.
Like something had disturbed it.
Something that had just crawled underneath.
Maria paused, standing stock-still. The fear kicked in again like an energy drink, and she could feel her heart in her neck as she tried to swallow.
There is NOT some man under my bed.
And yet...
Far-fetched as it may be, there was probably enough room for someone to fit under there. The bed was high up off the floor on its frame, with plenty of space for a man to slip underneath.
A filthy man with a rusty knife?
Maria gave her head a shake.
It’s the wind again.
No, it can’t be. This side of the bed isn’t facing the window.
A rat?
Could be a rat.
“I came in fourth in Iron Woman last year. I’m not afraid of a little rat.”
Maria got on her hands and knees and began to crawl over to the bed.
What if there’s a man under there?
There won’t be.
But what if there is? What if he grabs me when I lift the dust ruffle?
“Then I’ll squirt him in the eyes and kick his ass,” she said to herself.
Maria reached for the fabric, aiming her pepper spray with her other hand.
I’ll do it on three.
One...
Two...
Three!
Maria jerked up the dust ruffle.
No one grabbed her. The space under the bed was vacant, except for a small plume of dust that she waved away. Maria let the ruffle drop, and her shoulders drooped in a big sigh.
“I really need to get some rest.”
Maria got to her feet, wondering when she’d last slept. She quickly calculated she’d been awake for over twenty hours. That was probably enough to make anyone a little jumpy.
She padded back to the bathroom, reaching for her toothbrush on the sink, picturing her head on the pillow, the covers all around her.
Her toothbrush was gone.
Maria checked under the sink, and in her make-up bag.
It was nowhere to be found.
She stared at the Lincoln poster. He stared back, his expression grim.
This isn’t exhaustion. Someone is messing with me.
“Screw the free room,” she said, picking up the bag. “I’m out of here.”
Maria rushed to the bed, reaching for her cell phone on the nightstand.
Her phone wasn’t there.
In its place was something else. Something small and brownish.
Maria let out a squeal, jumping back.
This can’t actually be happening. It all has to be some sort of joke.
She stared at the brown thing like it would jump up and grab her.
Is it real? It looks shriveled and old.
Some stupid Halloween prop?
Then she smelled it. An odor of decay that invaded her nose and mouth and made her gag.
“It’s real. Oh my god... it’s real.”
Someone put a severed human ear in my room.
She ran to the door, and the knob twisted without her unlocking it. Maria tugged it inward, raising her pepper spray to dose anyone standing there.
The hallway was empty. Dark and quiet.
She hurried to the stairs, passing doors with the names Theodore Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman, and Millard Fillmore. Over the winding staircase was a gigantic poster of Mount Rushmore. Maria took the stairs two at a time, sprinting as soon as her feet hit the ground floor. She flew past the dining room, and the living room with its artificial fireplace, and ran up to the front door, turning the knob and throwing her weight against it.
Her shoulder bounced off, painfully. Maria twisted the knob the other way, giving it a second push.
No good. The door won’t budge.
She tried pulling, with equal results.
Swearing, Maria searched for a deadbolt, a latch, a door stop, or some other clue why it wasn’t opening. The only lock on the door was on the knob, and that spun freely. She ground her molars together and gave it another firm shoulder-butt.
It was like slamming into concrete. The door didn’t even shake in its jamb.
“Hey! Girly!”
The words shook Maria like a blow. A male voice, coming from somewhere behind her. She spun around, her muscles all bunching up.
“Yeah, I’m talkin’ to y’all, ya pretty thang. We gonna have some fun, we are.”
The voice was raspy and mean, dripping with country twang. But she couldn’t spot where it was coming from. The foyer, and the living room to the right, looked empty except for the furniture. The overhead chandelier, made from dusty deer antlers, cast crazy, crooked shadows over everything. The shadows undulated, due to the artificial fireplace, a plastic log flickering electric orange.
“Who’s there?” Maria demanded, her pepper spray held out at arm’s length, her index finger on the spray button and ready to press.
No one answered.
There were many places he could be hiding. Behind the sofa. Around any number of corners. Tucked next to the large bookcase. Behind the larger-than-life-size statue of George Washington, holding a sign that said Welcome to the Rushmore Inn. Or even up the stairs, beyond her line of sight.
Maria kept her back to the wall and moved slowly to the right, her eyes sweeping the area, scanning for any kind of movement. She yearned to run, to hide, but there was nowhere to go. Behind her, she felt the drapes of one of the windows. She quickly turned around, parting the fabric, seeking out the window latch.
But like the Lincoln bedroom, there was no glass there. Only bricks, hidden from view on the outside by closed wooden shutters that she’d thought quaint when she first pulled in.
This house is like a prison.
That thought was followed by one even more distressing.
I’m not their first victim. They’ve done this before.
Oh, Jesus, they’ve done this before.
Maria clutched the pepper spray in both hands, but she couldn’t keep it steady. She was so terrified her legs were trembling—a first for her. A nervous giggle escaped her lips, but it came out more like a whimper. Taking a big breath, she screamed, “Help me!”
The house carried her plea, bounced it around, then swallowed it up.
A moment later she heard, “Help me!”
But it wasn’t her echo. It was a male falsetto, mocking her voice.
Coming from the stairs.
“Help me!” Another voice. Coming from the living room.
“Help me!” This one even closer, from a closet door less than ten feet away.
“Help me.” The last one was low pitched. Quiet.
Coming from right next to her.
The statue of Washington.
It smiled at her, its crooked teeth announcing it wasn’t a statue at all.
The incredibly large man dropped the Welcome sign and lunged, both arms outstretched.
Maria pressed the button on pepper spray.
The jet missed him by several feet, and his hand brushed her shirt.
She danced away from his grasp, and then barreled toward the stairs as the closet door crashed open and someone burst out. Someone big and fat and...