Room 13 part 4

Pictures from Google

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

Previously:
“I… I don’t know.” A thought flitted across my mind and before I could think to stop it, it came out of my mouth. “I used to sleep-walk, you know.”

“It looks like you didn’t quite grow out of that habit.”

I started to calm down and allowed Sylvia to lead me to the office where she would make me a soothing cup of tea. Then I remembered what happened at her room.

I snatched my hand from hers. “No! Your children, we have to check on them, make sure they’re all right. Please, please, you have to believe me. Dream or not, I have to be sure.”

I watched the expression on her face change as she realised I was deadly serious and utterly frightened. The frown on her face from concern for me turned to abject terror at what could possibly be true.

The elevator stood on the top floor and refused to be summoned.

We rushed up the stairs, the lights illuminating the gloom a moment ahead of us as we ran. Up three flights of stairs, we rounded the corner to the corridor and I pulled-up sharp. The light that had been flickering when I last visited shone an unbroken beam of light. I breathed a sigh of relief. Sylvia took the sigh as reassurance and the tension evaporated from her, too.

The light on the opposite wall to Room 13 flicked off and on. My heart lurched in my chest and my stomach fell into my boots. I took off like a sprinter, feet pounding down the corridor, not caring if we woke the other guests.

We approached mid-way along the corridor and the light speeded up its flickering to match our approach. By the time we reached the door to 3C, the light flickered spasmodically. I didn’t need to tell Sylvia that it was the same situation, I could see by her face, she realised for herself.

Sylvia fumbled for the keys to her door.

I pushed the door before she found the correct one. The door swung open on silent hinges.

Sylvia looked up at me, her mouth open in shock. She pressed her fingers to the door and pushed it a little further open and we went in together.

The room was the same as all the other rooms on the floor, the same décor, the same lay-out. The bed stood to one side, two children slumbering peacefully…

Yet they weren’t slumbering peacefully, they lay on top of the covers. The bed looked as though it had not been slept in and I knew that would not be the way Sylvia had left them. Of course, she would have tucked them up under the covers, wouldn’t she? Any rational person would have. She would not have placed them quite like they were, either. Both looked pale and lifeless.

I have seen a lot of sleeping children in my time at the orphanage. I have also seen my fair share of children that have shuffled off this mortal coil and those two children more resembled the latter.

Sylvia took in a sharp, audible breath. The two children snapped out of whatever it was that had ensnared them. They moved. As though disturbed in their sleep, they both twitched and fidgeted.

Soon, the elder one woke up. Sylvia raced across the room to the bed to clasp both children in her arms.

The eldest one woke up fully and wrapped her arms around her mother. “Momma, there was a man.”

Sylvia looked toward me. I don’t know if she believed I had come into her room and made up a story about being scared, or not, but at that moment, her eyes accused me of something.

The child pointed right at me. “That man!”

My hand went to my chest. “Me?”

Sylvia glared at me. “What did you do to my children?”

The child ignored her mother; she nodded in a solemn manner. “You saved us. The man with the teeth was coming and he ran away when you knocked on the door.”

The little one woke up at that moment and began bawling his head off. His speech was not so advanced as his sister’s, but a few words rang out clearly.

He wailed and sobbed. “Teeth, sharp fingers.”

The little girl nodded, agreeing with her brother. “You stopped him.”

Sylvia looked at me with tears in her eyes. “Thank you.”

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