
Cottage Terrace Inn, Room 205
You look out of the peephole. Actually, you stand there and watch. Who do you expect to come to the door? You see the metal railing and part of the parking lot below and nothing more. You breathe a sigh of relief. Seeing that there is no one there will make you feel better, at least for about 5 minutes, before you go and check again.
You turn away from the door. You glance longingly at the bed.
You are tired. You really want to lay down and close your eyes. Something prevents you from doing that, however. Some bad feeling. Some dark expectation.
They aren't coming. Everything is alright. There is nothing to worry about.
You try to tell yourself that, but there is a louder voice that says, they are coming, they are coming very soon.
Aside from the unhelpful thoughts in your head, there are strange sounds outside of the cheap motel off of Highway 9. You've been in that room for two days and until that night, you heard nothing but a blaring television in the next room, room 206. You thought about going and asking the person in the room to turn it down a little. Because you've been watching out of the peephole, you know that a burly-looking man is in that room.
You don't want to knock on that door. You don't even want to think about him. But you do. You think about him banging on your door in the middle of the night, kicking it open, throwing you down, beating you.
You bring your hand to your head.
"Everything is alright," you tell yourself. "There is nothing to worry about."
You hear a soft call and you go immediately to the bed.
"Go back to sleep," you say in a sing-song voice. "Everything is okay. Everything is alright."
The child in the bed blinks again and again. He wants to say something. He doesn't know what to say.
"Daddy," he says.
You sit down on the bed with him quickly and rub his cheek.
"Go back to sleep. You were dreaming about puppies and kittens and soft teddy bears--"
"Daddy," says the child. "See Daddy?"
You turn your face to the wall while you rub the little boy's back.
"I don't know," you say. "See Daddy? I don't know. But we'll be together. We'll always be together."
The child seems soothed by the soft words and the gentle hand on his back. His eyelids begin to sink down, to close. You swallow, watching him.
You want to cry. But you can't. You want to sleep. But you can't.
You stand up. Time to check the door.
Before you can take two steps, you hear a loud knock. You nearly fall over. You inhale a deep, jagged breath.
You decide to:
or
.
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