“It was a night just like
tonight, in a place just like this one. In fact, it happened in this very
room.”
Billy
raises his hand. “In the honeymoon suite of a shitty motel?”
Scout
leader Mr. Thompson lets out a sigh. First his smokes got drenched in the
sudden downpour that flooded their campsite. And now the kids were getting
restless. “Yes, Billy, right here in the honeymoon suite of the West Pines
Motel. And watch your mouth.”
“Shouldn’t
it have been a dark and stormy night? These stories always start on a dark and
stormy night,” says Frankie while the other scouts in the room nod in
agreement.
Mr.
White, Frankie’s dad, jumps in before Mr. Thompson loses his cool. Again. “Now
kids, why don’t we let Mr. Thompson tell the story while we wait for the food.”
He nods to Mr. Thompson to start again.
“Can
I use the bathroom?” asks Francis, already shaking. He never sat through the
ghost stories whenever they went camping. Mr. White waves him to go and Francis
disappears into the bathroom.
“Fine,
on a dark and stormy night,” starts the Scout leader again. “The newlyweds
arrived to the honeymoon suite of the West Pines Motel. As the husband carried
his new wife into the room, a familiar smell wafted out the door. There, on the
table, the one Jack is sitting at,” he says, pointing at Jack, the newest
member of their troop, “were three medium-sized pizzas.”
“Oh,
can we have pizza?” Steven raises both his hands in celebration, as if just by
asking made it so. The rest of the boys start shouting what toppings they like
the best. Calls for pepperoni, sausage, mushroom and a lone cry for anchovies
fill the air.
“No,”
Mr. Thompson says, stopping their chatter. “So, where was I? After they found
the pizzas the woman calls the front desk. ‘Consider it a wedding gift from us
to you. Please enjoy your stay and please eat the pizzas,’ the manager said. Instead,
the couple decided to get into the red, heart-shaped Jacuzzi. Yes, the very one
you kids immediately started playing with even though you were already drenched
from the storm.”
“Why’d
you pick this room if you didn’t want us playing with it?” Austin scowls, still
wet from the rain and being the only one to fall completely into the Jacuzzi
after Billy pushed him.
“Your
parents would’ve killed me if we kept camping in the storm. Plus there were no
other vacancies.” He gives Austin a glare just to shut him up, and seeing him
shivering, sends him to the bathroom for more towels. “Back to the story. After
an hour in the Jacuzzi, there was a knock on the door. The man slipped into a
yellowing robe. He found the manager outside to greet them and see if they were
enjoying their stay and if there was anything he can get them. ‘And please eat
the pizzas,’ he said with a smile
“After
the manager left, the couple decided to turn in for the night into the
heart-shaped bed, pulling the red satin sheets over them.
“That
night, the sound of footsteps creaked on the worn, red rug, feet dragging,
shambling, but whenever the husband or wife sat up only the darkness of the
night filled the room. Then came the scratch, scratch, scratching sound on the
wooden table holding the pizzas. However, it was the shaking of the bed that
finally drove –”
“This
is dumb,” Billy says, standing and heading to the bathroom, “I need to piss.”
“Hey,
I said watch your mouth,” says Mr. Thompson. “Mr. White, could you check on
those kids and let them know the story is almost done.” Mr. White nods and heads
to the bathroom as well.
“So,
there were the footsteps and the scratching and the bed shaking. And finally
the couple couldn’t take it anymore. The husband called the manager while his
wife headed into the bathroom. He told the manager of the noises but the
manager only asked if he and his wife had eaten the pizzas. ‘No,’ he said ‘we
haven’t touched them yet.’ There was a scream from the bathroom and the man
dropped the phone and sprinted there only to find the bathroom empty. He could
hear the manager’s shout through the receiver dropped on the floor, ‘Eat the
pizza! They only want the pizza!’ Frustrated and angry, the man gobbled down a
slice and with a mouth full of cheese and crust yelled into the darkness,
‘There, I ate the pizza! Now give her back!’ And through his rage, he saw the pizza
slice return. Smoke and darkness formed into a solid, triangular shape in the
box to complete the pie – the slice he just ate! A cold breeze ripped through
the room and now a ghostly image stood before him. It reached down and grabbed
the ghostly slice, its hand passed through everything but the ghost pizza. And,
as if perfectly natural, the ghost gobbled down the slice, hungrily, greedily.
Soon enough, more ghosts appeared their moans and cries distinct and unnerving and
demanding, ‘Eat,’ they said, ‘Eat.’
“And
so the man ate and ate and ate. He devoured the first pizza alone and the ghost
pizza is devoured by his supernatural guests. Halfway through the second, as if
sensing him slowing down, his wife emerged from the bathroom – disheveled but
unharmed – and the two of them managed to finish the remaining pizzas. The
End.”
At
that moment, there is a knock on the door and Mr. Thompson stands up to answer
it. “Okay kids, looks like dinner is here,” he says as he hands the money to
the delivery man and puts the bags on the table. He points at Frankie. “Tell
your dad and the rest of them they can come out of hiding. It wasn’t even a
scary story anyway.”
Frankie
races back from the bathroom, shaking and stuttering, sweat mixes with tears as
he shouts, “There not there! No one’s there!”
“Okay,
kid, quit fucking around!” Mr. Thompson storms into the bathroom only to find
instead of three children and one grown man, the room is completely empty. Mr.
Thompson turns around, pale with fear and shock. The eyes of his troop stare
back at him, teary-eyed but accusing, as if his story is what caused them to
vanish. No, not vanish, they were taken. The ghosts. They only want food. He
sees the two dozen tiny white boxes stacked together in the plastic bags the
delivery man gave him. “Well, I hope the ghosts like Chinese food.”
They
don’t.
And
the four members of Troop 276 were never seen again.
No comments:
Post a Comment