The Hotel

The room was cold and blank. White like an icebox and devoid of all emotion. My instinct was to run but there was no way out. The door was locked from the outside. I looked up at the narrow window so close to the ceiling I would have had to stand on the bed to touch the sill. I contemplated the bars, steel grey and solid. They were the only colour in the room aside from my hair and skin. The bed was white, the sheets were white, my gown was white. The sink in the corner, even the stool and small desk against the wall opposite were white. I have never been sure why the desk is there; they wouldn’t allow me a pen or paper to write with. I looked through the bars at the sky, unvaried and filled with snow. Outside in the corridor wheels creaked as someone pushed a trolley towards my room. I heard myself growl like an angry dog.

My limbs were heavy and my mind fuzzy like cotton wool. It was dark when I came too but the blackness that filled the room was marred by a silvery glimmer seeping beneath the door. I closed my eyes and pictured the moon, shimmering and fat behind the clouds. I sniffed at the air but all I could smell were chemicals and clean linen. I wanted to be out there, tearing through woodland or at the very least jogging in the park. I wanted to smell damp grass and frosty earth. I ran my tongue over my sharpened teeth and recalled the taste of blood. My heart thumped hard and every muscle in my body fought the drugs that pumped through me. Why had I gone there, why had I locked myself away? I vowed never to return. I tugged at my restraints and felt the leather bind slice into my wrists. As I drew blood I breathed in the metallic scent. I tried not to howl but I could not prevent it. Down the corridor, another was doing the same. A male, hot and strong. I could feel his body pulsing as one with mine. I looked down at the scar on my arm, the bite marks where the wolf had taken a piece of me. I closed my eyes and prayed for morning. That was my first time at ‘The Hotel’. A high-security government facility for half-breeds like me. I did go back of course.

The first few months were a pain-ravaged haze. I was caught in a back alley just after I was infected. My body temporarily transformed with fur so coated in blood I could taste it for days. They never told me whether the blood

was human. You asked me if I had ever killed someone. I honestly can’t answer that. But every month I check in to ‘The Hotel,’ and I don’t leave until the full moon has gone.

For the audio version visit Deadly Night Tales