Midnight

Innsmouth

The eerie owner of the hotel was standing at the door, arms crossed, cigarette in the corner of her mouth. There was no light outside except for the lonely streetlamp shining a pale yellowish tone on the trees. “Come in,” she said low. “We have been waiting for you.” The young man quivered. “We? We, who?” She nodded ceremoniously and turned around towards the hotel. “Come along, come along,” she said, summoning him with a wave of the hand. The ad sounded quite harmless when he read it in the local newspaper “Drop by Hotel Strangeways at midnight for a surprising adventure and a mysterious end of the day.” He had always enjoyed reading a good mysterious adventure and he didn’t have anything to do that night. But the words “…a mysterious end…” suddenly seemed like a bit of a warning, for some reason. He followed her up the hill to the door of the hotel. When she opened the door, he saw a rather small gathering sitting by the fireplace in the living-room, all reading from their books. He sighed in relief. It was a reading after all, as he had thought in the beginning. He was invited to sit down and was handed a book, opened on page 6. “Two more,” said the Victorian looking lady sitting to his right. “Excuse me?” he asked. She smiled back, showing her yellow teeth and something that looked like… He looked closer. In panic, he stood up and tried to run to the door. A number of arms held him back. “No, no, you have to wait for page 8, don’t spoil it,” they yelled. “Slowly, ladies and gentlemen, slowly,” said the eerie owner of the hotel. “This is the only one for tonight.” A grumpy chubby gray-haired man sat back down and throwing his arms in the arms said “… the crisis, even here, the crisis… I suppose we will have to lose weight too.”

Writer's Dash