Channels a collection, p.2
Channels: A Collection, page 2
“Men’s bathroom?” I asked. “My room doesn’t have its own bathroom?”
“No, Mr. Weston. We have communal bathrooms. I hope that’s not an issue.”
I stood there dumbfounded. It wasn’t really a big deal, but it did seem a bit odd. I had never stayed in a hotel that didn’t have a bathroom in each room.
I shook my head. “No, it’s not an issue. I just didn’t realize.”
“The information is all on the website. I’m not sure how you missed it when you booked.”
I can’t even remember booking it, I thought with a laugh.
She continued, “They’re larger bathrooms, so you won’t have to wait for anyone if you need to use it. Plenty of toilets, sinks, and showers to accommodate all guests.”
I nodded. “That sounds fine. Are there any good restaurants around?”
“There are a few, but the closest one is about thirty minutes away.” She handed me a sheet of paper. “On here you’ll see our meal schedule. We serve breakfast, lunch, and dinner every day. All guests are more than welcome to join.”
I looked around, realizing I hadn’t seen any other people since I had entered. There had only been a few cars parked outside when I arrived.
“Are there other people staying here? I haven’t seen anyone.”
“A few, but I assure you they’ve all been pleasant.”
I nodded. “Anything else I should know?” I did my best to sound sincere and not sarcastic.
“That should be everything you need, but if you have any more questions, just come down here and ring the bell.” She said with a smile… that creepy smile.
“Thank you” I said, beginning to walk away. I stopped after a few steps and turned back to face her again.
“Just curious. Did this building used to be a school? It kind of looks like it.”
“No, this place has always been our little getaway like no other.”
I nodded and made my way up the stairs. This place was so odd, but also kind of interesting. It was definitely fitting, considering how my day had been going so far. There was definitely a kitsch factor with the look and setup of the place, especially having physical keys with the retro plastic keychain; the room number printed in white.
I made it to my room and was surprised that, despite being a bit small, it was a fairly standard hotel room. There was no TV, but there was a king-size bed and a desk that would be perfect for getting some writing done. I walked to the window at the far end to see what the view was like.
Corn as far as the eye could see. I laughed at this and lay back on the bed, finally starting to feel my nerves settle a bit. I eventually ended up dozing off for a bit.
I’m not sure how long I had fallen asleep for, but I woke to the sound of a door closing out in the hall. I looked at my phone to see that it was just after five. I remembered the paper with the meal schedule saying that dinner was served at six. I decided to get myself motivated and take a shower before dinner. Between waking up in my car earlier, and the fact that I was beginning to notice a faint smell from my armpits, I figured it was best to clean up before being around other people.
I gathered some clothes from my bag and looked around the room, noticing there were no towels or soap like a standard hotel. I only hoped there were some in the bathroom. With my clothes in tow, I left my room and headed down the hall.
Entering the bathroom, it was larger than I expected. The room was a long rectangle with a partial dividing wall in the middle. There was a bench along the far wall and the wall by the door. The dividing wall in the middle had sinks with mirrors on one side, and two bathtubs on the other. The wall to the left was a row of shower stalls, and to the right was a row of toilet stalls. I was a little disheartened by the fact that not only did the showers not have curtains, but the toilet stalls didn’t have doors. Privacy wasn’t much of a thing at this hotel, apparently.
The bathroom seemed empty, so I shrugged it off and walked to the furthest shower stall. There was a set of shelves with towels and bars of soap on the far wall that I hadn’t noticed before. I was relieved to see that it was fully stocked.
I set my clean clothes on the bench and got a towel and bar of soap from the shelf. I was weird about being naked in front of people, so after getting my soap and clean towel in place at the shower, I looked around once more to make sure the bathroom was empty. Seeing that the coast was clear, I stripped down and got in the shower.
I was enjoying the feel of the hot water against my skin. My nerves began to relax a bit more as I felt like I was washing away all of the awkwardness of the day. Even once I was finished washing, I stood under the showerhead and continued to let the almost too hot water beat against my skin.
As I was turning around under the water to make sure I had rinsed off any leftover soap on my skin, I noticed there was a man now sitting in the toilet stall directly across from me. He was holding a magazine but looking over it… looking directly at me. I turned back around, probably too quickly, and faced the wall. My heart began racing, not only because his presence startled me, but also because he was clearly watching me.
I slowly turned back around to see that he had raised the magazine so that it was blocking his view of me. As I turned the shower off and stepped out to grab my towel, I could see that he was sporting a massive hard-on. This would have turned me on a bit if it hadn’t been for the invasion of privacy making me so uncomfortable. I wrapped the towel around my waist and grabbed my clothes before quickly heading to the other side of the dividing wall to dry off and get dressed. Luckily, I was able to get dressed and leave the bathroom without seeing him again.
Back in my bedroom down the hall, I debated continuing my stay or getting back in my car and heading home. I ultimately decided to continue my stay and get some writing done after dinner.
I made my way down to dinner with my nerves once again on edge. The whole bathroom situation was just another odd event thrown onto a day that, so far, had been full of odd events. What made it even more stressful to me was that, with the magazine covering most of his face, I never got a really good look at the guy who was watching me. I didn’t even get a good look at the clothes he was wearing, so I’d have no way of knowing who he was at dinner. I was considering just grabbing a plate of food and bringing it up to my room.
The dining area was surprisingly very nice. It was a fairly large room with a long table in the center. Off to the side was a small buffet with meat loaf, fried chicken, and a few different sides. I was pretty impressed with it.
There were already a handful of people seated at the table when I arrived. On one side, there was a fairly attractive couple that looked, to me, to be in their late forties or early fifties. Seated across from them was an elderly couple and another younger couple; the woman from the front desk and what I assume was her husband. He looked a bit like the man from the rest area, the man with the generic look, at least I think he did. When I tried to think back to that encounter earlier in the day, the memory of his face was kind of a blur, so I couldn’t tell if it was actually him or not.
Once I had my plate full of food, I turned to start heading back to my room but was stopped.
“Come join us, dear.”
It was the elderly woman. I looked over to see her patting the empty chair beside her. I was hoping for a quiet dinner alone but, not wanting to seem rude, settled for the awkwardly intimate group dinner with strangers.
With introductions being made, I learned that the elderly couple’s names were Bunny and Milton, and the attractive couple introduced themselves as Kara and Jim. Laura and Greg were the third couple, the ones that were running this ‘getaway like no other’.
“Is this everyone that’s staying here right now?” I asked.
Laura nodded. “Yep. It’s a bit of a slow week but will probably pick up over the weekend.”
I knew that the man I had caught spying on me wasn’t elderly, so with Laura’s confirmation of there being no other guests in the hotel, that meant the man watching me in the shower had to be either Greg or Jim. I occasionally looked up at the two of them while eating my meal and participating in small talk to see if I caught anything out of the ordinary from either of them. Neither seemed to be suspicious.
After dinner, I stepped out back to have a cigarette. I sat on a patio chair and stared off into the surrounding cornfield as I smoked. The stalks swayed in the slight breeze; it was almost hypnotizing. My mind felt like it was clear for the first time that day.
Movement in my peripheral pulled me out of my temporary nirvana. I looked to my left and thought I saw someone peeking around the corner of the building at me.
“Hello?” I called out.
No response. I snubbed out my cigarette and went back inside. I decided to go upstairs and lock myself in my room with my laptop and vodka for the rest of the night. I spent the time trying to write but couldn’t focus enough to really get any ideas going, so I ended up spending most of the night browsing social media on the slow wi-fi until I had enough of a buzz from the vodka to fall asleep.
I woke at just after three in the morning with a slight hangover and a wicked nicotine craving. I popped some Advil and walked downstairs for a quick smoke before trying to get some more sleep.
As I stepped onto the back patio and lit my cigarette, I was startled by the sound of a voice to my left.
“You can’t sleep either?”
Kara was sitting there, also having a smoke.
“I was sleeping okay. Just woke up craving a smoke.”
Kara nodded. “So… what brought you out here?”
I laughed. “To tell the truth, I honestly don’t know.”
Kara looked at me with a puzzled expression. I proceeded to tell her about the strange events of the previous day, including my temporary amnesia.
“Maybe you’ve just been dealing with a lot of anxiety.” She suggested.
I shook my head. “No, not really. My life is actually pretty chill.”
“You say that, but it could be your subconscious. Maybe there’s something you’re processing or dealing with internally, and your body’s response was to block it all out for a few days.”
I shrugged.
She continued, “Stranger things have happened. Our minds have wild ways of dealing with trauma and stress. The human brain is quite an amazing organism. You said you came out here to write, right?”
“Yeah, to finish a book I’ve been working on.”
“Well, maybe you should write about this instead. Maybe it will be the key to unlocking your memory. Might help you get to the bottom of it.”
I nodded as I finished my cigarette. “That’s actually not a bad idea. You coming back in?”
“Not yet. You go ahead.”
“Okay. Thanks for the advice. I might get started on that before going back to bed.”
“Anytime” she replied with a smile.
I stopped myself before I approached the door. Turning back to Kara, I asked, “How long are you two here for?”
“Oh, we’ll be here for a while” she replied in a flat tone, her expression changing quickly.
I shrugged it off. “Well, I’m not headed home for another two nights, so I’ll let you know how it goes.”
“Oh, I think it’ll be longer than that before you get home.”
I froze with a confused look on my face. “Huh?”
“I said you never know what could happen before you get home.”
Kara winked after saying this. I just nodded and went back inside.
“Apparently I can’t go thirty minutes without something being fucking weird.” I muttered to myself as I went back up the stairs.
I attempted going back to sleep, but to no avail. I booted up my laptop and, following Kara’s advice, I began writing an outline of events, starting from the point of waking up in my car. I had made it up to my conversation with Kara before drowsiness overtook me. I crawled back in bed just after six and fell back to sleep.
My sleep wasn’t restful by any means. I kept waking up with that weird sensation of forgetting something important, that waking thought that rips you from sleep and gets your heart beating fast. The bad part was that I didn’t know what I was forgetting. It was just an overwhelming sensation that I was forgetting something.
I managed to doze off each time, giving me a restless on-again off-again sleep. My last bit of sleep before deciding to stay up for the day was consumed by a nightmare.
In this nightmare, I was walking around a hospital. At first, I thought I was visiting someone. I realized quickly that I was a patient after noticing that I had on a wristband and a gown. I looked at the wristband, expecting to see patient information, but there was only a garbled mix of letters that formed no intelligible words.
As I roamed the empty and dimly lit halls, I noticed that every door I passed was opened just a crack. I was being watched by different sets of eyes in every doorway as I roamed the halls. I made my way to a nurse’s station, only to find it empty. The strangest part was that there was a folded-up set of scrubs in each of the chairs behind the station. I walked around the station and looked at the computer monitors, which were showing CCTV footage. The screens were all clips of me wandering the halls on a loop.
I came back around from behind the nurse’s station and began running in one direction down the hall, looking for a way out. No matter how far I ran, the hallway didn’t seem to end. It was just countless doorways with eyes staring at me. I didn’t see a single exit sign, stairwell, or elevator. Only the occasional nurse’s station, each one with the folded-up scrubs on the chairs and CCTV on the monitor.
Fed up, I ran to the nearest door with a set of eyes in it and kicked it open. The darkness inside was overwhelming. The only sound I could hear, other than my heartbeat, was the beeping of machinery. I turned back around to face the hallway and felt a hand grab my shoulder. This is when I woke up with a scream.
After lying in bed and catching my breath, I decided to get my day started. I headed down to the dining area to see if there was anything left over from breakfast. I ran into Laura at the front desk.
“Good morning, sleepyhead. We missed you at breakfast.”
“Yeah… sorry. I didn’t sleep well.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. The first night in a new place can often be unsettling.”
“To say the least” I muttered under my breath.
“Pardon?”
“Nothing… I was just wondering if there was anything left over.”
“Well, everything is cleaned up and put away, but I can grab you a packaged muffin or two if you want.”
I nodded. “That would be great. Thanks.”
Laura nodded and stepped away from the desk, into a room behind it. She was only gone for about a minute before returning with a small, brown paper bag; the kind kids use for school lunch. She handed it to me, along with a water bottle.
“Thank you so much.”
“It’s no problem.”
I began walking away but stopped when I heard her call my name.
“Oh, Mr. Weston?”
I turned around. “Yeah.”
“Do try to make lunch at one. We like to make sure the guests are all fed properly.”
“Uh… okay.”
She gave that white Chiclet smile as I turned around and headed back for the stairs.
After eating my small snack in the peace and quiet of my room, I got back on my laptop to write some more. I updated my outline from the morning and attempted to work on my book some more, but it went nowhere.
It was just after noon when I gave up and decided to get myself cleaned up for the day. After last night, I was a bit skittish about taking a shower, but I felt so gross that I made myself do it anyway.
Similar to last night, I double checked to make sure it was empty before stripping down. However, I was also more alert this time, and made sure the time my eyes were closed remained minimal.
About halfway through my shower, I heard the water turn on in the stall next to mine. I stood there, frozen, as a man I hadn’t seen before appeared in front of my shower. He had his back to me and was wearing dirty blue jeans, a black t-shirt with a yellow and orange hi-vis vest over it. He set a hardhat onto the bench next to my clothes and began stripping off his clothes. I was half aroused by watching him strip, but also weirded out to the fact that he seemed oblivious I was even there.
Once he was finished, he turned to face me, stark naked. Looking at his scruffy beard and hairy body, I realized there was something familiar about him, but I couldn’t pinpoint why. I just knew I had seen him somewhere before.
As he stood there, he didn’t say a word. He turned slightly from side to side, rubbing his hand over his stomach and chest as if he was posing in front of a mirror. He was looking in my direction, which made me blush and cover my growing erection. I noticed that he wasn’t looking directly at me. It was as though he was looking right through me. He smiled before stepping into his shower stall.
With him now in his stall, I quickly finished rinsing off and grabbed my towel. Just like the night before, I grabbed my clothes from the bench and went to the other side of the dividing wall to get dressed. When I turned around, the water in the stall next to mine was still running, but there was nobody in there.
With my towel wrapped around me, I walked around the bathroom to see where he had gone. I was alone in there. A chill ran up my spine at this. I quickly got dressed and left, leaving the water running in the empty stall.
I stepped out back to the patio to have a cigarette and clear my mind of the creepiness of what had just happened.
Who was that man? Where the fuck did he go?
The sky suddenly went very dark, interrupting me from my thoughts. The wind began picking up, making the corn stalks sway almost violently. It was becoming obvious that a big storm was about to hit. I was hoping to finish my cigarette before it started.
The strange sound of an engine caught me off guard as I was about to head back inside. I turned around to see where it was coming from. My jaw about fell to the ground at the sight of a small plane flying in way too low just before crashing somewhere out in the cornfield.
