The Hotel

It is a warm, humid summer night at the shabby, 1-star Sunapee Hotel in New Hampshire. The ugly yellow paint on the walls is chipping off, an ugly shade of red underneath it. The damp carpet floors are cold and loud, making a horrible squishing sound whenever they are stepped on, and there are more wooden bear statues than you could count, their black marble eyes boring into your soul.

At 1:20 in the morning, I can hear the constant, high-pitched song of crickets and peepers. I can also smell the nearby swamp, the wind picking up the scent and sending it up my nose.

 

My cousin Robin walks up to me and stands at my side. I am staring at the door to room 132. The room that declares my fate for the night. My Uncle Mike then trudges past us, the key to our hotel room in his hand. He barely manages to turn the key in the rusty lock enough to open the door. I walk in, wondering, hoping that the room I am sharing with my cousin will be better than the outside of the hotel. No such luck.

The walls have the same chipping, ugly colored paint. There is only a single chair and two 3- foot thin beds, and a TV with a crack through it.

 

My uncle is clearly exhausted. He is visibly struggling to keep his eyes open. “You guys should get to bed. You know it’s a two hour drive back to your aunt’s house?” My Aunt Anne has a house by the water that is conveniently on the farthest side of Lake Sunapee possible. “OK,” We both respond, knowing he only wants to sleep himself.

 

Robin and I retreat into our room and explore the small space. There is a tiny bathroom that has a shower, toilet, and sink. I don’t stay there very long due to the fact that there are about seven spiders that vary in size, clinging to the wall. I run out screaming, scaring my cousin so she screams as well.

 

About five minutes later, we are curled up on the only chair in the room next to each other, watching The Office on the cracked TV. Once we are too tired to keep our eyes open for over ten seconds, we decide to go to bed. I start to pull back the covers until Robin grabs me.

 

‘We have to check it for bugs!”

 

She looks genuinely scared and I laugh. Anyone who knows my cousin knows that she is obsessively afraid of bugs. I stare at her, and she stares at me until I finally gave in. I know she isn’t going to back down.

 

“Fine, but there’s nothing there,” I say, childish to argue with her.

 

“Who knows” Robin grunts as she throws the ugly sheets back.

 

Nothing. “See, I told you,” I gloat.

 

But my cousin isn’t listening. Eyes glazed over, face gone pale, she peels the flat pillows from the mattress. We both scream and keep jumping off of the floor as if the spiders that were under the pillow were covering the ground too. They are big, thick-bodied, with long legs. There are three of them, just sitting there.

 

Robin acts first, surprisingly, grabbing one of the four dollar water bottles and smashing them until they were paper thin. We both stand there, staring, not believing what just happened.

 

Suddenly, with no warning, the lights flicker off. We shriek until it becomes clear to us- the power has been shut off for the night. Robin and I sit down on the chair, side by side. We sleep for an hour at most, body going cold if we felt a single tickle or itch.

 

In the morning, we are extremely relieved to hear my Uncle Mike’s scratchy voice. From now on, I will be as scared of spiders as my cousin is, and that’s saying something.

 

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5 thoughts on “The Hotel

  1. I love the story! You used so much description. The only thing that I want to know, is how much is Robin afraid of spiders??

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