Family Trip (standard:horror, 2443 words)
Author: kissofthehungry	Added: Aug 14 2005	Views/Reads: 3772/2410	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
When Gina, and her brother, Stephan, are sent to entertain themselves, they do what any other teen would do, begin to explore the seemingly empty motel. They discover it's not all that it seems.

Click here to read the first 75 lines of the story


When they were finished filling out the seemingly endless paper stream,
the old man handed them a pair of somewhat rusty keys and pointed them 
in the direction of their room.  Then he snuggled back down into his 
chair, preparing to return to his nap. 

“This place is a real winner,” Gina chuckled and her father gave her a
dirty look but didn't say anything. 

“I think it has a certain, um, charm about it,” her mother tried to keep
up a face, refusing to admit that this may not have been her best idea. 


“Charm?” Stephan didn't sound convinced, “Well, I guess, if that's what
you want to call it.”   His comment made Gina smirk in agreement, 
charm?  There was no charm in the layers of dust that threatened to 
completely swallow the paint that was peeling so bad that one could 
barely tell the true color.  She guessed it might have once been a 
light blue but was no longer. 

They reached number three and opened the door, Gina cringed, it was as
bad as the outside.  The wallpaper and décor looked as if it hadn't 
been redone since the seventies, the colors olive green, brown, and 
orange. 

“Mom,” Gina half-whimpered as she drug a finger across the dresser and
left a trail in the thick layer of dust.  Stephan had already turned on 
the television and was looking glum as he flipped through channels of 
static.  Her mom didn't say anything but pulled back the covers to 
reveal clean sheets.  A huge sigh of relief was heard from her over the 
noise of the flipping static. 

“Hey, why don't you guys go exploring?  I bet there's a pool,” their dad
urged and the siblings looked at each other, knowing full well that 
there wasn't going to be anything exciting but they also could take the 
hint. 

Once out the door, Gina grumbled, “Man oh man, I can't believe this. 
We're stuck in a hell hole and mom and dad need quality time.  
Shudder.” 

“Yeah, I know,” he pointed, “Look, there is a pool.”  There was a faded
sign that was barely readable, but it stated pool and pointed west.  
They walked in that direction in silence, each lost in their own 
thoughts.  Gina jumped back in disgust when they found the pool and 
Stephan gasped.  The water was dark green with big globs of bright 
green floating on the surface.  The lawn chairs were just the metal 
skeletons sitting in heaps scattered around the cracked pool deck. 

“Eeeew,” he spat, “Why didn't they just let it drain?” 

“I don't know, why didn't it go away?  It's too hot to have stayed here
on it's own.  That's nasty,” she gagged slightly, “That's almost as 
nasty as why we had to go exploring.”  He snorted and they turned away 
from the offending sight.  That was when they saw room number 
seventeen's door was open. 

“Hey, look at that,” Stephan nudged her and she nudged him back harder
cause she had already spotted it. 

“I know dweeb, I'm not blind,” she added and he stuck his tongue out at
her.  Looking around but not seeing anyone, they walked over to the 
open door.   The sunlight streamed in, revealing a room with two beds 
much like theirs.  Gina stuck her head in and called out a tentative, 
“Hello?” but no one answered. 

“This looks as bad as our room,” she joked and heard him giggle.  It was
strange creeping into the empty room, it felt like peeping on someone.  
The sound of their footsteps died as they stepped into the room, 
swallowed by the carpet.  As they walked in further, she noticed what 
was really strange was there was no sound whatsoever in the room.  
Outside, a slight breeze stirred the dust yet there was no sign of the 
wind in the room.  Her heart sped up and her palms started sweating, 
something was off. 

“Feel like we're not supposed to be here?” he asked, fear trembling in
his voice though he tried to disguise it. 

“Yeah,” but her discomfort came from more than what they were doing was
something wrong.  Forcing a smile, she tried to shake off the chills 
that were dancing across her skin but it was to no avail.  It was hard 
not to bolt for the door but she refused to be frightened by a feeling. 
Stephan was crowding against her, practically stepping on her heels. 

“Get off me dorkus,” she elbowed him and he gave a soft “oof” as she
connected.  Obligingly he stepped back, but she could still feel him 
hanging extremely close.  It drove her nuts yet she didn't say anything 
more, cause she was deriving comfort from him. Pretending that she was 
feeling confident, she began opening drawers on the dresser.  She was 
startled to find clothes folded, color coded, in each drawer.  They 
were perfectly folded, not an unnecessary crease on any of them.  There 
was a thin layer of the desert dirt coating them which told her they 
hadn't been disturbed for a while.  There was something disconcerting 
about the anal perfection displayed in the drawers that gave her the 
creeps.  Stephan seemed weirded out by it as well. 

Shutting the drawers, she walked over to the bedside table and opened
the drawer on it.  Inside was the Holy Bible and she pulled out, 
leaving fingerprints on the surface.  Casually, she began to flip 
through the pages and noticed notes in the margins. 

She read one, “Lies, all lies.  Hell is already here, the demons are
everywhere.  He cannot stop them.”  More chills swept across her and 
she had the feeling that what she was reading was the work of a madman. 
 Almost as if it were poison, she dropped the book back into the drawer 
and noticed the paper pushed into a corner with the pens carefully 
lined up all in the same direction with the caps all showing the clip 
section.  Carefully, she slid the drawer shut, afraid to disturb the 
order. 

“Stephan, something was really wrong with the person that stayed here,”
she whispered and turned around.  Immediately, her heart dropped to her 
stomach and she stared as her brother was doing. 

“I know,” he mumbled back, his hand still on the sheets that he had
pulled back.  In the middle of the white sheets was a huge dark 
bloodstain.  What was the most terrifying about it was it still looked 
fresh. 

“I think we should go,” she suggested, swallowing the urge to throw up. 
 Stephan dropped the sheets but she quickly pulled them back over.  
Just in case the nutcase was still around, she didn't want him to know 
that they had been there, going through his stuff.  Then they 
practically ran out, trying not to trip over their feet in the process. 
 Once outside, the roar of the wind almost deafened them from the lack 
of noise in the room.  The pool's stagnant scent wafted over to them 
and she couldn't help it, she threw up a small stream of mucus. 

“Nasty,” Stephan groaned and she saw him fight a similar urge. 

“Come on,” she grabbed his arm and yanked him back in the direction that
she came.  Her eyes scanned every shadow and window, half expecting to 
see someone watching them with a malicious desire in their eyes.  But 
there was no one, they were really the only people there. 

When they reached their hotel room, their mother and father were sitting
on the two beds.  Their father was busy scrawling in his business 
journal and his mother was reading one of her many dime store romances. 
 They didn't even look up when they walked in the room.  Gina, for a 
moment, considered telling them what they had found, but she 
reconsidered the idea.  If she were to tell her parents, they would 
merely be angry with them for venturing where they shouldn't have and 
wouldn't even listen to the truth.  She saw Stephan's eyes betray that 
he was considering the same thought as she had, and she could also see, 
he reached the same conclusion as she did. 

Trying to ignore the knot that was coiled like a rock in her stomach,
she pulled out her book, The Taken by Dean Koontz, and began to read.  
The images and details in the book were disturbing enough to take her 
mind off the horror that she had viewed in the other hotel room.  
Stephan played his gameboy but it seemed that every ten minutes or so, 
he would look up and nervously examine the room about them. 

Gina understood exactly how he felt, the whole place felt unclean,
tainted.  It was as if there was something boiling under the surface, 
straining to reach through to them, and every little sound made her 
skin crawl.  Somehow, the evening reached them, and as the darkness 
dropped upon the motel like a black curtain, the feeling that something 
was going to happen made her breath catch in her throat.  Knowing that 
night pressed hungrily at the window made her want to scream and it 
drove her nuts how ignorant her parents were of the danger that lurked 
in the place. 

“What are we going to do about dinner?” Stephan whined and Gina realized
that she had totally forgot about food.  Her stomach growled hungrily 
and that was amazing in it's own right, how could she be hungry after 
the afternoon they had shared? 

“Hmmm, I assume there is probably nowhere around here for miles,” their
father thought for a moment, then picked up the phone, “Hello?  Hi, I'd 
like to order room service, we're interested in dinner.  What are our 
options?” 

Ended up they didn't have many options, they had pasta with sauce and
bread or just plain pasta and bread.   Not only that, but their father 
had to run down to the front desk to pick it up.  What kind of room 
service was that?  Then she thought about it, there was no way they 
could get many customers, it probably didn't make sense cost wise to 
have real room service.  Despite all of their fears after their 
previous experiences, the pasta was delicious, better than any she'd 
had before.   Having a full belly and feeling very satisfied, she was 
able to dismiss her fears enough to slip into sleep.  Her mistake. 


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