Feature Short Story
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                           Room For One More
                                                            By Thom Olausson


“And still those voices are calling from far away
They wake you up in the middle of the night just to hear them say:”
Hotel California by Eagles

“There’s always room for one more!”
Room for One More by Anthrax



Jimmy sat down on the bed feeling disappointed.  This wasn’t what he had had
in mind when going on vacation.  Jimmy had been on many vacations and he
had stayed at many hotels.  He had tried to save up a little money and booked a
cheap hotel, mainly because he wanted to spend his money on something else.  
All he required was a bed and a large bathroom, somewhere to sleep and a
place for his pleasure.  Now, to call this a hotel was indeed an insult to all the
other hotels in the world.
For starters, it was situated way off the charts and the town lay miles away.  If
you wanted to see the outside world, you had to take a cab.  It was either that or
sitting down in the lobby staring at all the other cheapskates roaming around
looking annoyed that they too had been fooled by the luxurious pictures of the
hotel rooms on the web.  Big and roomy at a low cost the caption had read.  
That had been an outright lie!  It should have read: small, dirty rooms with a tiny
bathroom that we should let you live in for free instead of stealing your money!
Then there was the restaurant.  A sign above the entrance said Slice of heaven
but Jimmy thought it would be more accurate to call it Hell’s Kitchen.  The food
was appalling and the stench escaping the kitchen was out of this world.  So, if
you wanted to eat you simply ordered take-out.  Still, he did have a room of his
own.  It wasn’t very nice but it was livable.  The wallpaper was old and yellowing
and flowers decorated it.  The main color of the room had once been green.  
These days it looked more grey with specks of green thrown in just for
annoyance. The room had one small kitchen and an even smaller bathroom.  In
there you had just enough room to back in, do your thing, and walk out again.  
The tiles were grimy and it seemed as if the cleaning lady were on a permanent
break.  Still, you could at least flush the toilet and that was something.
Then there was the room itself.  A huge metal construction stood in the middle;
at first glance, it was hard to make out what the hell it was but after awhile the
shapes of a bed emerged.  A lonely TV stood sentinel by the foot of the bed and
it offered one channel and tons of porno flicks.  Of course, you had to pay for
the porno and Jimmy guessed that many had done just that rather than
succumbing to boredom.  Jimmy himself was considering doing so since he hadn’
t been able to get a hold of a cab; he felt bored and lonely and had too much
time thinking.  
He didn’t like to be alone with his mind for too long, too many inner demons
spoke up after awhile.  They all egged him on trying to persuade him to harm
himself and others.  Jimmy had always had those disturbing thoughts and he
hated them.  He wanted some company besides those inner demons.  Jimmy
usually had just that when staying at a hotel.  
He was good looking and nice enough, at least until the door was bolted. After
that? Well, let us just say that Jimmy Harrigan had carried his company out
piece by piece before checking out.  His inner demons always told him that they
would go away if he hurt others, and for a short period of time they did.  
However, they always came back and Jimmy hated them.  Therefore, he had
found a hotel off the charts hoping to save some money while searching for his
next victim.  Also, the pictures of the room on the web had promised a HUGE
bathroom after all.  He had been highly disappointed at how small they actually
were, there was just no way that he would be able to dismember a corpse in
there.
He looked at his two suitcases.  One was brand new and purple while the other
was ancient and made out of brown leather. The latter contained his tools:
knives, meat cleaver, a bone saw, and his pharmacy of death.  Jimmy wanted to
open it and use them but he had no one to use them on but himself.
Why don’t you cut yourself? I might go away if you do… one of his inner voices
whispered.
Should he?
No way!
He enjoyed hurting others and not himself, not if he could help it.  This was the
reason he didn’t like to be on his own.  He got ideas in his head.  What if he hurt
himself?  His torso wore scars from self-inflicted cuts, cuts he had made just to
get those voices to fall silent.  The feel of cutting through tendons and muscles
fascinated Jimmy but he was disgusted after having done it on him.  After he
hurt himself another voice took over, the others were silent but not this voice.  It
taunted him and told him he was CRAAAZIIEE!  How he hated that word!  How
he hated that taunting voice!  
No, he needed something to occupy his mind with to drown out the voices.  So it
was porno instead.  Jimmy found the remote and got the TV going.  A menu
appeared with several options.  The top line read: Erotic movies ADULTS
ONLY.  He highlighted it and pressed OK on the remote.  A pinkish menu
appeared this time and the titles of the movies appeared in alphabetical order.  
Anal Entrance, Attila the horny Hun and so forth.  The titles were stupid but
Jimmy didn’t care.  It was porno and no Oscar-award winning movies.
He scrolled down searching for something interesting.  After a little searching,
he found a title he liked: room for one more.  It sounded a little violent and
Jimmy liked it that way, he got aroused when someone was outnumbered and
used.  He pressed OK once more on the remote and the menu asked for his
room number.  Jimmy pressed the digits and his number appeared.  The menu
now told him that his room would be billed for the movie and if he agreed, he just
had to push OK. He did.
The movie came on.  The music playing was computerized and sounded disco.  
Several names appeared that starred in the movie and then the title came on in
screaming pink letters.  It faded to black and when the picture faded back,
Jimmy found himself staring at an identical hotel room as his own.
‘Now, that’s fucking original!   The damn hotel owners have recorded their own
porno!  What a rip off’ Jimmy said aloud.  That was low but hardly surprising; if
they could rent out these prison cells, they could record their own porno and
charge good money for it.  Well, he might as well look at the crap since he was
paying for it.  The music played and a woman entered the room.  She was
naked and had long brown hair.  Her breasts were firm and she walked over to
the bed where she lay down, spreading her legs.  The scene was arousing
Jimmy, it could even be in this bed she had been laying spreading her legs and
that made him even harder.  Anyway, as she lay there massaging herself the
door to the bathroom opened.  It was pitch-black in there and man’s dark voice
asked ‘is there room for one more?’  
The woman on the bed looked startled and closed her legs.  Jimmy felt himself
getting even more aroused.  The music played in the background and the
woman stared into the camera for a moment.  It was as if she saw Jimmy and he
felt unnerved.  Then she looked towards the darkness of the bathroom.
‘I never thought you’d ask… why don’t you come to me…’ she said silently.  
Suddenly the music changed and started to sound sinister and panicky.  Jimmy
could see how a man emerged from the bathroom.  He was hooded and in one
hand he held a huge- knife!?  That was strange in so many ways.  If the man
had held a dildo in one hand, it would have made more sense, but a knife?  
Jimmy wondered what the hell was going on.  
Before he could turn off the TV the hooded man had walked up to the naked
woman, she now lay there spreading her legs again with her eyes closed.  She
waited for the man to mount her but instead he inserted his knife just above the
pubic bone! With one rip, he opened her all the way to the breastbone while he
screamed in a high-pitched voice ‘LET ME SEE IF THERE REALLY IS ROOM
FOR ONE MORE!’
Like that, Jimmy became flaccid and he turned the TV off.  He never got
aroused by killing, he just enjoyed it.  It was like a hobby, nothing he got horny
by but rather liked inside his head.  The last he saw on the screen stayed on his
retina, the hooded man digging around with his wrinkly, pale hands in the dead
woman’s open stomach.  Hands dotted and smeared with crimson blood.  The
woman letting out piercing screams.  As the TV died, the vision and the dreaded
sounds of death were cut off.  He felt uncomfortable and wanted to puke.
Yes, he had killed people but never like that.  Jimmy preferred to poison his
victims and then do his thing, his thing being the act of dismembering.  This was
too sudden and crude for his taste. Besides, what kind of porno was that?
LET ME SEE IF THERE REALLY IS ROOM FOR ONE MORE!  The hooded man’
s voice screamed in his head and like that, Jimmy found himself headed towards
the bathroom.  He puked repeatedly until there was nothing left, the piercing
screams and the hooded man’s high-pitched voice ringing in his ears.  The
world was spinning and he felt as he had been beaten all over the body, his
head was full of whispers, and he felt weak.
What kind of fucking sick people owned this hotel?
Jimmy got up and walked into the room.  He lay down on the bed; he would try to
get some sleep.  At first, it was futile.  Every time he closed his eyes, he saw that
disturbing scene repeatedly in his minds eye.  Sleep seemed far away and it
took a long time before he dozed off to an uneasy rest.
He woke up when hearing a voice saying: ‘camera! And…ACTION!’
He flung his eyes open.  Was someone there?  He sat up and looked around.
The room lay in darkness and Jimmy was alone.  Or was he?  As the drowsy
feeling of sleep wore off he noticed that he wasn’t alone in the bed!?  He turned
on the lamp next to the bed and the room bathed in light.  Jimmy was blinded at
first but as his eyes adjusted to the light, he saw what lay next to him.
It was the gutted woman from the movie!  She was rotting and maggots crawled
all over her.  Her open stomach seemed to be alive as more maggots poured
out of it.  She slowly turned her head toward him; she opened her eyes and
stared at him.  They were horrible!  A thin white liquid covered the dead woman’
s retinas and she whispered: mmmhhh… won’t you stick it in me!
Jimmy got out of bed in a hurry and he tripped.  He got up and looked back at
the bed. It was empty!
‘A fucking nightmare!  Nothing but a dumb…fucking…nightmare!  Jesus!’ he
gasped.          His heart was hammering away in his chest.  He was getting the
fuck out of here!  No way was he going to stay in this room!  His eyes fell upon
the old suitcase and he saw that it was open!?  What the hell!?  He hadn’t
opened it as far as he knew.  Jimmy looked at the bed and saw something that
sent chills down his spine.
Maggots!  They were crawling around next to where he had been sleeping.
He was getting out of here!  Those inner demons that now screamed inside his
head would just have to wait; he decided to get packing at once.  Jimmy wanted
to be out of the room before that hideous woman reappeared again.  Once
more, the disturbing scene with the hooded man digging around with his wrinkly
hands in the woman’s intestines flashed before his eyes.
‘LEAVE ME THE FUCK ALONE!’ he screamed to the room.
As he stood there panting in his underwear the door to the bathroom opened
slowly.  Jimmy backed away, suddenly scared out of his mind.
‘Who’s there? Come on! Show yourself!’
There was only silence.
Jimmy felt scared and confused.  Suddenly his inner demons fell silent as well.  
He shook all over, for the first time ever he wanted the voices back!  The
complete silence was just too unnerving.  It felt as if everything held their breath,
as if even the hotel held its breath, as if they all waited for something to
happen.  Jimmy whimpered and was frightened by the sound he made.  With his
eyes on the dark and silent bathroom, he backed toward the door out.  As he
reached he tried the door knob with one hand behind his back.
It didn’t budge.
His eyes widened in horror and dismay and he stared into the dark doorway.
The bathroom was pitch-black.
Suddenly he saw the blade of a huge knife glimmer for a second followed by a
sinister high-pitched voice saying:

‘Is there room for one more, Jimmy?’