Week 9 Story: A Hotel in the Woods

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The man has been traveling for some time and has run out of food. He's walking through a dense forest, when suddenly "Thank goodness, something to eat!" he proclaims as he starts ripping mushrooms out of the ground.

The sun sets, it becomes very dark and cold. "Those mushrooms weren't enough, I need more food." He walks around with his eyes toward the ground, looking something else to consume. So concentrated on the ground, he bumps into a sign hanging above that reads "Welcome to the Cortez Hotel".

"That's weird. It seems too far from the main roads for an inn, but maybe they have food inside". He walks through the main door into a lobby where the lights are flickering. The lobby is empty, so he rings the bell for service.

"What?" speaks a woman suddenly behind him. The man says, "I need somewhere to stay, and I am terribly hungry". The woman looks at him with an unfazed expression, gazing at him with the coldest blue eye's he's ever seen. She smells likes smoke. "I have no food to spare as I am preparing for soldiers who booked the night here, but we do have one room left." She hands him the key, and he stares down at it. It is very cold in his hand. He looks up to find the woman is gone. The key has a tag with the number 64.

The silence from the hotel is deafening. He can hear himself breathing very loudly and he is sweating despite it being freezing. He lays down on the small cot in the tiny room numbered 64. Slowly, he falls asleep.

***

The man is woken by laughter. Peeping through his door, he sees the soldiers the woman was speaking of. In the lobby they have assembled a buffet with lots of hot food and beer. His stomach growls and his mouth waters. Right before he decides if he will wander out and try to steal some food, the doors to the lobby slam open. "Hey, there he is!" The cries of joy from the soldiers and the metals on this other man's chest indicate he's their leader. "Celebrate tonight, for we have won this battle. I am going to bed early. I suggest you all get a good nights rest, for this war is not over yet." The man closes the door to his little room quickly, as he realizes the soldier's leader is in the room next to his.

Curious still, he then looks through a crack in the wall. The general calls in his assistant to the room "I would like to be put to rest now" says the general and removes his head.

The man jumps back from the wall "what in the world is going on, what horrible people inhabit this hotel?" He opens his door again to find all the soldiers gone. The tables are turned over, and there is red liquid on the floor. "I didn't see them drinking wine" he thinks. Back through the crack, he watches terrified as the assistant begins removing the generals limbs one by one until he is in pieces. "I have to get out of here" the man thinks.

He cracks open his door, and sees all of the soldiers again - but slaughtered and scattered across the lobby, dismembered and disemboweled. Not wanting to walk through the room of corpses, he locks the door and breaks the window. As he teeters on the window's ledge, he hesitates because he can't see the ground. "Where is the ground? I was on the first floor!" Behind him, he hears the door creak open.

Twisting, he finds blue eyes staring down at him. The woman who gave him the key to his room standing inches from his face. She reeks of the smoke smell that only lingered before. "I wont tell anyone! Please! Let me go!" she shouts. Suddenly, she shoves him out the window.

The man is falling, flailing rapidly trying to grasp on to anything for support. He can't see anything as he's falling except the light of the window getting smaller and smaller as he falls. The man hits the ground with a thud, knocking him unconscious.

***

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Birds are chirping and sunlight streams through his eyelids. He opens them slowly to realize he is laying on his back, staring up at trees in a dense forest, surrounded by mushrooms. He sits up, and notices a sign that reads "We honor the men who died on this ground, where the massacre of the 64th division was committed".  He stands and runs to the main road, going to another hotel - this one he is familiar with.

"What happened in those woods? What's the 64th division?" he asks the clerk. The clerk replies "There used to be a hotel in those woods that catered to soldiers during WWI, it was off the main road to give some privacy. The 64th division was a band of soldiers who went there to rest after winning a particularly gruesome battle, but they ate the mushrooms growing around the property and went mad. They thought the enemy was attacking again, and slaughtered each other after killing their general."
"They killed their own general?" said the man. "Yes," replied the clerk, "they cut off his head, and his arms and legs before turning on each-other. Rather than admit their soldiers went crazy and killed everyone, the government sent people to burn down the hotel and claimed it was a massacre committed by the enemy. Legend says they set fire to it when there was still a civilian inside, some poor woman working the front desk who survived the soldier's attack. I guess they didn't want any witnesses."

"God, that's horrible. But, those mushrooms out there, they make you go crazy?"

"Yeah, but that's not the worst part. You sober up for a while after, only to have your heart stop and die."

Authors Note:

Here is the original story. I really liked the idea of ghosts on an old graveyard, and my story starts the same as the original but he is so hungry he eats mushrooms on the ground - he sees the ghosts, but it's because he ate the same mushrooms the soldiers did that killed them. Instead of seeing a light, he runs into the hotel sign. The general's assistant is still seen taking him apart, and I reason that he came apart not really by an assistant but by his own soldiers who went mad from the mushrooms. This time, the man leaves the hotel instead of staying the night. I added the lobby character and made the hotel name the same name as the hotel in the TV show American Horror Story - where half the residents are ghosts who died there. The room 64 is where a bunch of crazy stuff happens. The falling scene was one that I took from the movie, Get Out, where the main character is in hypnoses and falls through a tv screen only to be falling farther and farther seeing the screen shrink in "the Sunken Place". The man goes to a near by hotel (just like in the original story, I wonder why he didn't just go there in the first place), but I gave the place he was in a slightly new background with a government cover up and a twist ending for the main character - indicating he is about to die.

Reading Notes: The Elves, Part A

The Grimm Brothers' Children's and Household Tales translated by D. L. Ashliman (1998-2013).

A poor shoemaker only had enough leather for one pair of shoes left, so he made the stencil and went to sleep, intending on finishing them in the morning. He awoke to find the shoes made perfectly, and done so well that the first customer to walk in paid more than the normal price for them.

He now had enough money for two pairs of shoes. He went to bed again with the stencil cut out for four shoes, and woke to the shoes made as perfectly as the last. A customer once again paid more than the original price and he had enough money to buy leather for four pairs. This pattern continued and he became very wealthy.

One night, before Christmas, his wife and himself decided to stay up and see who was making the shoes. At midnight, two streakers appeared and started making the shoes.

The wife said they should show gratitude to the naked men, and sewed them some clothes while the husband made them shoes. They set the presents out and waited to see what would happen. They were so happy that they left and never returned, but the shoemaker still prospered and had a good life.

Elf on the Shelf: Halloween Edition

Afterthoughts 

I decided on the elf on the shelf for my picture, but since Halloween is around the corner I chose this version of him. 

Why did the little men come, and why did they leave once they had clothes? At first my mind went into horror story mode and they would find that the shoes were made of human skin instead of cow. Then I had an idea, maybe the little men were cursed to perform good acts until they were given a gift of gratitude - after that they could stop. It also reminded me of the whole elves-steal-your-left-sock thing and that's why your socks always go missing. This story doesn't provoke too many ideas for a rewrite, so I hope next week's A and B stories do.

Reading Notes: The Sorcerer of the White Lotus Lodge, Part B

The Chinese Fairy Book, ed. by R. Wilhelm and translated by Frederick H. Martens (1921).

A sorcerer was very powerful and developed many students as many wished to learn his powers. One day, he left with a bowl covering another bowl and told the students not too look what was inside but to watch it. As soon as he was out the door, the students uncovered it to only find clear water with a mini boat on it. They touched it, and it fell over. They quickly fixed it and recovered the bowl. They turned around to see the sorcerer asking why they disobeyed him, to which they tried to lie and say they didn't. He told them because of this, his ship capsized at sea.

The sorcerer left again, this time with a candle and told them to watch it to make sure the wind does not blow it out. After two days, the students became sleepy and when they awoke they saw the candle was out. They relit the candle, only to see the sorcerer asking why they disobeyed him again. He told them because of this, he was forced to walk 15 miles in the dark.

A student insulted the sorcerer, and he told the student to go feed the pigs. As soon as he walked into the pig room, the sorcerer turned him into a pig and sold him to a butcher. The son's father came looking for him, but the sorcerer said he left along time ago. Another student told the father what happened. Fearing the sorcerer, the father did not have him arrested but had him surrounded and seized by a thousand soliders who took the sorcerer, wife, and child to the capitol.

On their way, they encountered a giant angry monster. The sorcerer said only his wife could stop him, so they unchained her, only for her to be eaten by the giant. This happened to the son, and then the sorcerer. Suddenly, the monster was calm and walked away - leaving the soldiers to realize they had been tricked.

Tim the Enchanter

After thoughts

A lot could be done with this story. The kid turned into a pig could have been the one influencing all the other students to disobey the sorcerer, and that is why he was turned into a pig. The sorcerer could have been testing if he could trust the students with a simple task, and if not then they could not handle magic. The sorcerer didn't seem to be taking his job to seriously, and it made me think of the ridiculous Tim the Enchanter from the Holy Grail.

Reading Notes: The Cave of the Beasts, Part A

The Chinese Fairy Book, ed. by R. Wilhelm and translated by Frederick H. Martens (1921).

A father of 7 daughters goes to the woods and finds 7 wild duck eggs. Selfishly, he shares them only with his wife. The next morning, a daughter asks the mom what shes cooking and the mom says eggs, and that she will give her one if she does not tell her sisters. This happens with all 7 sisters, and the father is furious there are none left. He asks if they want to go to grandmas house, but he really plans to leave them in the woods to be eaten by wolves. The older daughters saw through his ploy, but the younger did not and agreed to go. He abandoned them, and they were left to seek shelter.

They found a cave behind a boulder, lit inside with many jewels owned unknown to them by a fox and a wolf. The two sisters settled to sleep on the two golden beds. When the fox and wolf returned home, the wolf swore he smelled human flesh but the fox said this was nonsense since they locked up the cave too well. They settled down to sleep near the fire. When the girls woke, they were terrified of the animals. They stoked the fire and put the boulder back, locking them inside to burn to death.

The daughters lived in the cave for a few days, and when the father started to miss them he went looking for them. He found them and the jewels, brought them home, and they became a happy family.

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After thoughts

I chose this one because the title reminded me of the first Lovecraft story I read, The Beast in the Cave. It was honestly a let down, and I guess the girls get their murderous nature from their father. The wolf/grandma element made me think of red riding hood. Then you have a little bit of goldilocks thrown in, sleeping in someone else's bed. I don't like the ending, where the only message I can find is the opposite of the Beatles song, becoming "money can buy me love". Why didn't the older sisters warn the little sisters? Why were the little sisters so quick to forgive their father? How was the mom too stupid to see what was happening in her house? What a horrible family.