He rubbed his eyes and looked at the bedside clock. How could it be 9:53 a.m.? Had he even slept? Sure didn’t feel like it. He’d been too hopped up on adrenaline. Besides, whoever was currently occupying the unit upstairs seemed to have suffered a bad bout of insomnia last night, which they attempted to cure by pacing back and forth either wearing wooden shoes or riding on a pogo stick. All night long it had been clunk-clunk-clunk-clunk. He didn’t dare complain to the management, though. He needed to lie as low as possible, make himself invisible.
Before checking into the hotel last night, he’d snagged a half gallon of milk, a box of cereal, two packages of hot dogs, and three cans of beans from the convenience store across the street. It wasn’t much, but it should hold him a few days.
He shuffled into the kitchen and fixed himself a cold bowl of cornflakes. He pulled open the silverware drawer to find a cockroach looking up at him, taunting him with his antennae. The bug seemed to know that he couldn’t call down to the front desk and complain. He grabbed a paper towel to crush the bug with, but by the time he returned his attention to the drawer, the roach had skittered off down the counter and now taunted him from beside the toaster.
“You’re dead!” he hissed, diving for the bug. But the roach disappeared under the toaster. He snatched up the appliance only to find the cockroach had seemingly disappeared into thin air. Oh, well. He might not have been able to kill this pest, but he’d put an end to Greg Olsen last night.