the river

The River

Three teenagers stepped out of the cab of the faded yellow taxi, and onto the uneven cement on the side of the road. As Austin leaned in through the passenger window, making small talk with the driver in french, he counted the paper bills in his hand as the other two stood near the rear of the car, waiting for the trunk to open. A THUNK signaled the release of the latch, and the trunk door cracked open, allowing the two to retrieve theyre belongings from the back.

Austin stood up looking over the top of the car at his two friends, to make sure the driver opened his trunk, and wasn't about to take off with all their belongings, paranoid after being riddled with warnings by his family and friends the dangers of travelling to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, he kept a tight grip on the cash in his hand until the two gave him a thumbs up, and Austin forked over three American dollars to they're driver and thanked him with a handshake through the window. 

Illuminated by the yellow light emitted from the very few working lightpoles lined along the street, Austin, Jesse, and Jack stood on the sidewalk, suitcases in hand and took their first impressions of the place they had picked to spend their week-long trip. A cracked and uneven sidewalk led a path twisting throughout the yard, leading through the tall green grass sprouting up from the damp soil on either side of the concrete, the patch of grass swayed in unison as it bent over in the direction the wind willed it, occasionally blowing over the path itself. 

The building stood extending to both sides of the property, rickety and wooden; suspended less than a foot off the ground supported by wooden stilts, the hotel had one floor roofed by metal sheets lined along the roof, one slanted down towards the front of the building and one tilting down the back, allowing rain to run off during the wet season. On the right side of the building occupied a room with thin black bug screens on three sides, allowing whoever was inside to view both the river behind the hotel, and the street in front of it.

Dim yellow light flowed out from the nearly see-through walls, casting a shadow from the cans sitting along the wooden porch railing that lined the decaying patio wrapped around the building, pushing outwards several feet in each direction supported the same way as the house. In the middle of the house were three identical square windows, smudged with handprints and spread out evenly a solid six feet, only one of the rooms had a light on behind the thick gray curtains. 

At the end of the concrete path stood two closed large wooden doors, the doors were a rich brown that stood out from the rest of the building, almost as if it looked like it wasn't meant to be there, compared to the state of the rest of the hotel the doors seemed to be brand new. Music emitted from the far end of the building, bass booming could be heard from the street.

After exchanging glances, the three began their trek on the sidewalk, eyes scanning the grass for any sign of movement or animals, they walked together in a single file line down the skinny cement path, stepping over risen concrete and puddles of water, bags held high in order to prevent them from dragging through the grass. Reaching the end of the path, Austin guestured towards Jack to go ahead of him, and up the three crooked stairs that led onto the landing with the front door. The first stair creaked as he shifted his weight onto it, and he stepped onto the landing after skipping the middle stair. His two friends followed shortly after, and Jack pushed the polished steel door handle down, swinging the door open inwards as the three walked in.

Inside was an entirely empty waiting room, where at the opposite end of the room from where they entered what looked to be the hotel's front desk, with only a computer, a printer, and a few papers cluttered around the surface. The desk stretched to either side of the room with a gate on the right side (opposite of the computer and printer) to get behind the desk. Pinned to the walls were photographs of presumably other people who had been to the hotel on boats, most of them holding up fish neither of the three had ever seen before, or pictures of varying exotic animals each drinking or eating on the shore of a river. Lined against both sides of the wall were waiting chairs, three of them spread out equally lined up against both sides of the walls. 

Yellow light shone through the crack in the door standing in the center of the wall on the right of the room, music still bumping in the distance, much more muffled now that they were inside. Austin approached the front desk, and leaning against it he pointed at the small silver desk bell next to him with his index finger,

"Should I ring it?" He asked the group motioning towards it with his hands. His friends nodded in agreement and each sat down in a chair as he rang the bell. He hit it twice and sat down, resting his suitcase on the floor. All of them rested against the back of their chair, exhausted after the flight from their hometown of indianapolis, the three had left early in the morning and had just arrived at their hotel at dusk.

Heavy footfalls came from the other side of the door, as someone approached from inside the hotel, each one of them felt a small sense of relief as they would finally be able to relax and catch their breath. The door was suddenly pushed inwards as a tall man emerged from the room dressed in khakis and a black t-shirt, he greeted them before walking behind the desk in long strides.

"Welcome in, welcome in," he said, "Apologies for the wait, my name is Charlie I'm the owner of the hotel, did you have a reservation or did you need to book one?"

"We already paid man, my name is Austin, we spoke over the phone a few weeks ago" Austin said, shaking his hand over the counter. The man seemed to remember who he was and after a brief conversation, he handed a small bronze key over the counter, the number three engraved into the metal, and led the boys through the door to guide the three to the room they'd be staying in during their trip. He led them through the door, and into a long and narrow hallway, lights hanging down from the ceiling made their shadows dance on the floor in front of them.

Lined along each side of the hallway were numerous doors, three on each side of the hallway, the doors were identical except for the plaque nailed head-level into the door, numbering the rooms one through six. A rug stretched all the way down the hallway, with a black border and decorated with repeating diamonds and triangles stretching down the center of the stitching, mud had been dried on multiple parts of the rug, probably tracked in from another guest's shoes.

They had only purchased one room for the three of them to share, and when they entered they soon realized that cheaping out had left one of them sleeping on the floor, and the other in a lawn chair pushed into the corner. Inside the room was much smaller than they had thought, with wooden floorboards the room was in no way big enough for them. Their "hotel room" was much more the size of a small hallway. 

At the end of the room, there was a nook in the wall where a table stood flush against the each side of the outcove, and above it, one of the small windows they had seen from the outside of the building. The room was a rectangle, and a red and yellow striped lawn chair sat in the corner to the right of the door, whereas the only bed was crammed into another section in the wall, where the ceiling hung lower than the rest of the room. The only light in the room was a short brown lamp, sitting atop the desk in their room.

Outside the window, only the moonlight illuminated the churning river and the forest that had grown flush against the bay on the other side of the water. The back of the hotel contained a brick patio in the ground, where an array of lawn chairs surrounded a metal fireplace made with the same material as the roof.

The owner had clearly kept his focus on the courtyard of his hotel, much more maintained then the front of the yard its green grass was kept short and clean, growing just as vibrant as the vegetation across the river creeping out from the tree line of the jungle, inside the yard was a tetherpole, with a ball hanging down against the side of the pole from a rope attached to the top. 

At the end of the property was the river, the water moving rapidly, although it was brown, in the dark it looked like a river of oil, flowing in between terrain effortlessly, pitch black and unable to see through. Illuminated by nothing but the small amount of silvery light cast off by the moon, a one armed dock stuck out from the bay, light reflecting off of the soaked wooden boards. Tied down from the front and from the back secured by two ropes thicker than the boy's arms, secured a brown boat to the dock, rusted in parts around the rim, it had five seats between two rows, with one seat sitting at the back, next to the motor.

After much arguing over who would be sleeping on what, (the bed, the chair, or the floor) the three prepared themselves for bed, which didn't consist of much more than setting down their belongings and crashing on whatever surface they would be sleeping on that night. The sun had set nearly an hour ago, and the only light keeping them from being swallowed by the pitch black everywere around them, was the table lamp that stood humming.

Eventually Jack reached over and shut the light off with a click, removing the steady noise it had been creating, and leaving the three to the silence of the building, along with the sounds coming from the jungle across the river.

Austin woke up sweating in their room, blinded by the blanket of darkness swept over them by the night, and overheated by the humid weather in the area combinated with the thickness of his blanket, he had soaked through the rug underneath him that had been substituted for a mattress. Careful not to wake anyone up he got up on his feet, and felt around the base of the lamp, guided only by the slight amount of moonlight pouring in through the window, he clicked on the switch.

An anchor sunk to the bottom of his stomach, leaving his mouth open and a feeling in his gut that left him frozen. Neither of his friends were in the place he had last seen them, and neither of them were in the room. The chair Jack had been sleeping in was knocked to the ground, laying on its side no more than two feet from where Austin had been sleeping and centered in the white sheets covering the bed, was a deep red stain, still wet and soaked through the sheets, the color thinned the farther it got from the center. Dressed in only pajama bottoms he scrambled for the door handle, trying to escape the scene left in their room

"Hello?" He said into the dark hallway. He didn't say it loud in fear of the wrong person hearing him. Outside the room, the building was completely dark, no other sounds in the building besides the croak of wildlife emitting from the jungle. 

Swinging the door open inwards, yellow light splashed through the doorway leaving a square of light cast upon the opposite wall, illuminating another sporadic splash of blood on the floor, and an open door in the room across from him. peeking out from his room, he saw that all five of the other hotel room doors had been swung inwards, unable to see past his own hallway, he was left blind, no light emitting from any of them made the lamp in his room the only light source in the house.

THOOM, THOOM THOOM. Three heavy footfalls thundered throughout the hotel, and Austin immediately slammed the door to his hotel room shut with a thunk, his eyes beginning to pan over the room. He leaned against the door before sitting down on the floor against it. He had no clue what was going on, where his friends had gone or what time of the night it was, and the severity of his situation began to get through to his head. He was alone. Locked in his room, and unable to see. A creak cut through the silence in the hotel, and Austin jumped back up on his feet. The noise of the floorboards outside the room hit his ears like a gunshot. 

Austin grabbed the knocked down chair and lunged at the door, pressing the small metal button in the center of the knob, locking it, before slamming the chair under it to barricade the door. Backing up he held his breath and stared at the door, listening for any sort of noise, but the house stood silent again. Washed by a wave of fear Austin looked around the room for anything he could use, shaking as he as quietly and as slowly as possible, edged across the room to his open suitcase on the floor. Although turned around, he heard the door handle slowly turn, making barely any noise before it hit the lock, stopping the handle with a metallic click.

Waves of terror washed over Austin, and he searched for any option as his legs filled with lead, however it didn't weigh him down nearly as much as his choices of escape did. The door boomed as whatever was on the other side began throwing its weight at the door, thudding each time as it did and shaking the door in its frame. 

Rushed with a new surge of adrenaline, Austin grabbed the lamp that had kept the room from being pitch black, and swung the base into the square window planted in the wall, smashing a hole in it. The attacks against the door became louder after the glass shattered. He backed up, before hearing the legs of the chair snap under the force of the door, and dove headfirst through the window, the glass gashing his shoulders and down his torso as he broke the rest of the glass in the frame with his body.

Austin groaned as he hit the ground four feet below the window, landing on his chest and knocking the wind out of his chest. He rolled over, glass crunching as the broken pieces lodged in his body broke off and were lost in the grass. His body felt cold as streams of blood trickled down towards the earth, he layed on the ground before coming back to reality.

Isolating the searing pain coming from many places in his body, Austin could hear running from inside the house, loud thuds combined with the creak of the run down floorboards whatever was inside was moving fast, and with no intention of masking the sound. The first THUD of a door being slammed shut sent a spike through austin's body, as he forced himself to get on his feet. Wobbling he began moving as fast as he could, each step the needles of broken glass only cemented themselves further, he held his hand to his mouth as he ran to prevent himself from screaming.

With nowhere to go and unable to see, Austin darted for the river, guided by the moonlight reflecting off the water, the sounds coming from the jungle were almost deafening now that he was outside, they filled the air with noise only making his heart beat faster. Austin limped towards the boat, his head throbbing as if it was repeatedly being slammed with a hammer, his vision narrowing as he neared the boat, he flug himself over the side of the thin steel sides of the boat. Laying down, Austin quickly began to panic again as he realized his options were again limited. 

THOOM! Another shudder of a door being forced open riddled his body with defeat, and the thud of feet hitting the dirt left a sinking pit in his stomach weighing him down to the floor of the boat. Bloody, confused, and without any source of light he looked straight up into the stars, his vision closing in on itself while blood pooled around him on the metal bottom of the boat. He tried to lift his arm to get himself up, but it didn't move. Nothing moved. He lay there, helpless in the bottom of the boat, the stars disappearing one by one until he closed his eyes, never to reopen them.

Austin's boat suddenly flipped on its side, rolling his body out into the churning river, sweeping him away under the current, washing his corpse down the river.