Through room nineteen’s window, Tim saw a flurry of feathers fall from the Dawn Star Hotel’s gutters as pigeons erupted into the sky, startled by the screaming inside. Another loud, blood-curdling yell made it easy to follow. Without thinking, Tim overtook the chambermaid and headed for the stairs. The terrible noise was coming from the ground floor.
Tim arrived to find Elisa and Donald, the new consultant, already there. Mary was looking on from the end of the hall, concerned, but keeping a distance. The new chef, Stephen, peered through the lobby’s oak doors and guests were beginning to open their rooms.
‘What’s going on?’ Tim asked.
‘We’re not sure. Go back upstairs,’ Elisa said. She banged on the wood. ‘Is everything all right in there?’
The door swung open – a woman ran into the hallway, clutching her hair.
‘Are you all right?’ Elisa asked. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘There’s an animal in there. A monster! A thing. I don’t know what it is!’ Her fear had now turned to anger. ‘It’s gone back in the vents. I want you to know that I am suing!’
Elisa and Donald entered room four. Tim went in behind them, looking straight to the vent near the floor. The metal grid that opened up to the hotel’s ventilation system was damaged – the slats had been bent, snapped, twisted open and a large hole made in the centre. It would have taken a lot of force.
Tim turned, thinking, fearing, realising. He felt dizzy, sick. Was this still a nightmare? He clenched his teeth. Wake up, wake up, he thought.
He ran straight back upstairs. Rushing, he didn’t even see Mary’s trolley parked outside his room and collided with it, sending all her cleaning bottles, cloths and collected towels across the carpet. Too panicked to pick it all up, he burst into his room and slammed the door behind him.
Instantly, he swooped to the corner where, near the skirting board, the brass slats of the ventilation grill were broken – just like the ones in room four.
‘Timothy,’ Phil said from the bedside cabinet, ‘what is happening?’
Tim scanned the floor, the walls, even the ceiling. His hands were shaking as he knelt down, pushing his shoulder under his bed frame to pull out the rucksack that housed his imagination box. His fingers passed over the frayed threads. It had been torn, ripped open – the zip still intact.
‘Oh no,’ he said to himself. ‘It’s … it’s real.’
‘What is?’ Phil asked.
Tim didn’t answer, he just grabbed a stack of books and rammed them against the vent. Then he got a chair and wedged it between the barricade and his chest of drawers.
‘Has something got into your room?’
‘Worse,’ Tim said. ‘Something’s got out. I … I fell asleep with the reader on, my reader hat,’ he explained. ‘I think … I think I might have accidently created my own worst nightmare.’
‘Well fiddle my sticks,’ Phil exclaimed. ‘This sounds far from ideal.’
Tim’s heart was thudding in his chest. Each beat was like being punched – he felt it in his mouth. ‘I used to have this nightmare, when I was little,’ he said, staring at the wall. ‘I was home, alone, and I was running up the stairs. I was being chased by something. By a … a monster.’
The monkey, who’d clambered on to the bed, glanced over his shoulder, unsettled by Tim’s distress.
‘It’s like … I always wake up before it gets me.’ Tim tried to picture it in his mind. The image was unclear. He couldn’t put his finger on exactly what it looked like, or what made it so terrifying. ‘It’s never … it’s made of shadows. It’s a blur.’
He couldn’t really describe in words what it was. It was more of a feeling … of dread, hopelessness, loneliness.
‘Basically,’ Tim sighed, ‘it’s not a good thing. Maybe Eisenstone was right. Maybe this is what he meant about the possible dangers, what it could do in the wrong hands?’
‘Right,’ Phil replied. ‘And this thing, it is loose in the hotel?’
‘Yes,’ Tim said. ‘It is loose in the hotel.’
*
Sitting against the wall, with his knees pulled to his chest, Tim managed to calm himself. A minute or so later, outside his door, Mary shouted what he assumed was a Spanish swear word. She’d obviously just discovered he’d knocked over her trolley when he’d rushed back to his room. He pushed himself to his feet.
‘Mary,’ Tim said, stepping into the hall, ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t see it.’
‘It’s OK,’ she replied. ‘These things, they happen.’
She was on her hands and knees, retrieving everything. Feeling responsible, Tim was about to help her. But, on the carpet, among all the bleach bottles and cleaning cloths, he spotted something. Something that somehow made him completely forget about the monster he’d accidently created. The minute hand froze. Time stopped. Staring, fixated on the item that Mary had obviously found in room nineteen, Tim’s shallow breaths stuttered.
Swallowing, he reached down and placed his hand on top of the silver watch. He slowly lifted and turned it to look on the underside.
The letters ‘P’ and ‘E’ were carved on the back, engraved in a delicate font.