The checkout alarm

A fictional hotel story written for this project. It does not report real people, places or events.

At eleven that night, I asked the front desk for a wake-up call. The clerk did not ask what time. Instead, he quietly checked: ‘You do want us to wake you?’ Too tired to think, I said yes.

The phone rang at 4:13 a.m. The receiver was silent for a long time. Then footsteps sounded in the distance and the clerk whispered, ‘Who is lying in your bed right now?’

I was about to say that I was, when I looked at the bed. A figure lay beneath the blanket. Long hair spilled over the pillow I had touched only moments before.

‘You’ve seen them. Then don’t wake them.’ The line went dead. A hand emerged from the blanket and patted the empty space. It bore a scar in the same place as mine.