“Are you injured?” Amber called.
“Injured? No?” Liz replied, confused by the question.
Amber opened the door.
“Get in here.”
She shut it and locked it behind them, returning her eye to the peephole to make sure there was nothing out in the hallway following them.
Ricky went to the window and pushed the curtain aside with his finger to look out to the balcony.
“Stay away from the window,” Amber said.
“They can open locks,” Ricky said. “We have to find a better way to block the sliding door and the windows, in case they open these locks too.”
He rushed to the closet.
“Did you find Riley?” Amber asked Nick. She could already guess the answer even before Nick shook his head. “Jennifer? Aaron?”
“What happened to Jennifer and Aaron?” Nick asked.
“They’re missing,” Amber said.
“Since when?” Nick asked.
Nick looked like he was going to ask another question, but Ricky stepped between them. “Guys, we need to find a way to block the windows and sliding door. Can I use that?” Ricky gestured towards the sharpened stake that Amber gripped.
“No,” she said, gripping it possessively close to herself.
Frustrated, Ricky turned away and clear everything off of one of the nightstands so he could flip it on its side and put it in the track of the sliding door.
“You ought to worry more about the door to the hall,” Alan said. “That lobby door isn’t going to hold them for long.”
“Why would they follow us?” Nick asked. “There are plenty of people in this hotel. What’s so special about us?”
“That’s a good question,” Liz said. “Maybe that’s what we should be focused on. Aaron and Jennifer are gone. Your friend—Riley?—left the hospital after an encounter. What’s the motivation here? Why are we the target?”
“Nobody is the target,” Amber said. “They’re simply predators. They move around at night and prey on what’s in front of them.”
She went to help Ricky secure the window locks with packing tape.
Liz sat on the edge of the bed and Alan joined her. Nick drew the curtains across the sliding door, now that Ricky was done with it.
“Okay,” Ricky said. “That’s going to have to be good enough. We have two flashlights, one weapon, and the doors and windows are locked.”
“The phones are out,” Nick said. He held up his cellphone. “No bars and no wifi. How is that possible?”
“Could be the power outage,” Ricky said. “Maybe the power is out to the towers as well, you know? But the front desk had communication to the South Lodge, and they still had power, remember? We can call down to the front desk and talk to the sheriff.”
Ricky moved to the phone. As he lifted the receiver, Amber shook her head.
“The phones went out with the power. Our best bet is to wait here until morning. We have three hours until sunrise,” Amber said. “Once the sun comes up, they go into hiding and we can get out of here.”
“The mountains, though,” Liz said. “They’ll block the morning sun until much later. Does that matter?”
Amber shrugged. “Good question. I’m not sure. I think it’s the sunlight itself that they don’t like. But maybe they hide at sunrise regardless?”
“Let’s not make any assumptions,” Liz said.
“Right,” Amber said, pointing at her.
Nick put his hands up in the air, like he was commanding them all to stop. “Why do I get the feeling that everyone here has more information than I do? What happened to Jenn and Aaron? Where’s Riley, and what was out in that parking lot?”
“Demons?” Ricky asked. “That would be my guess.”
“Some kind of monsters,” Alan said. “That’s what I’m assuming. Some species that science hasn’t yet described. Maybe they don’t typically interact with humans.”
“What happened to Jenn and Aaron?” Nick asked again. The pitch of his voice was rising towards panic.
He started to ask a third time, but Ricky reached out and grabbed his arm. He put a finger to his lips and then they all heard it—tapping from the door.
It started slow, almost like it was probing the material of the metal door. Then, the tapping increased in speed, building to something. The door was locked both with the handle and with a lever from the frame that swung over to engage a ball on the door. As they watched, the lever started to move away from the wall, like it was propelled by the sound. Ricky ran towards it and slapped it back into place. He gestured to Amber and she tossed him the roll of tape. Ricky tore a long piece and used it to keep the lock from moving.
Then he pointed at the dresser. While Ricky made sure the door stayed shut, Amber and Nick pushed the dresser across the carpet, to the door. The three of them wedged it against the door so the locks weren’t the only thing keeping them secure.
As she backed away, Amber aimed her flashlight at the dresser, like the light could add to the weight of the barrier.
“I’ll tell you what I know about Jennifer and Aaron, but it’s not much,” Amber said, whispering. It was better when she talked—the tapping wasn’t as irritating when she talked. At some point when she was telling Nick and Ricky about the empty honeymoon suite and the open windows, the tapping stopped.
Everyone was silent for a moment and then they heard a click from the hall. After that, the tapping came again. This time, it was from the neighboring room—Liz and Alan’s room. The tapping was muffled by the wall and it moved slowly from the door towards the window.
“They followed us up here,” Liz whispered. “There has to be a reason.”
They listened to the tapping.
Nine: Trapped
It finally stopped. Amber didn’t know what was worse—listening to the crazy tapping or waiting for it to come back. The empty silence made her skin crawl.
“I just don’t
