The Last Room at the Meridian

My friend Derek had turned twenty-eight, and for his birthday he insisted on a proper weekend in the city. He lived on the West Coast now, and I in the suburbs, so these trips were rare. He booked a room at the Meridian Grand, an old Art Deco hotel in the financial district. The kind of place with brass fixtures, a faded grandeur, and a bar that served martinis to ghosts. He checked in at three; my wife Elena and I met him at half past seven. We ordered Thai takeout, spread it across the bed, and drank whiskey from crystal glasses that felt too heavy in our hands. We talked about old times and new fears, the usual blend. Around ten, we hit the bars, and by three in the morning we stumbled back, laughing, into the room, which smelled faintly of dust and something sweet, like rotting flowers.

There was only one bed, a vast king with a headboard carved to look like a peacock’s tail. I took the side nearest the bathroom, because my bladder is weak and my aim worse. Derek took the middle, his arms flung wide, already snoring. Elena curled on the far edge, her hand resting on my hip. I lay there, staring at the ceiling, where a water stain in the corner looked like a face with its mouth open. The dream that came was not a dream. I was in the hallway, and the carpet was wet, and my bare feet squelched with each step. A door at the end was ajar, and light spilled out, warm and golden. I knew I should not look, but the light called to me by name, a name I had not used since childhood, a name my mother whispered only in storms.

I woke with a gasp, my heart pounding. The room was dark, but not silent. A low hum, like a refrigerator, but unsteady, almost like a voice humming a lullaby. I turned my head. Derek was frozen, his eyes open, staring at the ceiling. He was not breathing. ‘Derek,’ I said, but he did not answer. Then his eyes rolled to me, and his mouth moved, forming words I could not hear. I leaned close, and he whispered, ‘There is a woman under the bed. She wants me to trade places.’ Elena stirred, muttering in her sleep, but did not wake. I looked at the gap between the bed and the floor. It was dark, but I saw a glint, like a ring, or a tooth.

I knelt on the carpet, my hands trembling. The hum grew louder, filling my skull. I peered into the shadows. A face looked back, pale, with hair like wet seaweed, and eyes that were not eyes but voids. It smiled, and its smile was too wide, and its teeth were too numerous, like a shark’s. It raised a hand, the fingernails long and black, and beckoned. ‘Come,’ it said, in a voice that was both sweet and sour. ‘I have been waiting for a guest.’ I tried to stand, but my legs were water. Derek’s voice came from behind me, ‘Don’t. It’s a trap.’ But the thing under the bed began to crawl out, its limbs too long, its joints cracking like ice. The room grew cold, and the light from the bathroom flickered.

I screamed, and the scream was real. I was on the floor, my face wet with tears. Elena was shaking me, her face terrified. Derek was sitting up, rubbing his eyes. ‘What happened?’ he asked. I told them, and they exchanged a look. ‘It was just a nightmare,’ Elena said. But when I turned on the bedside lamp, there was a mark on the carpet, a dark, damp patch, in the shape of a hand. And the door to the hallway was slightly ajar, though we had locked it. Derek got up and checked, and the chain was off. ‘That’s odd,’ he said. He closed the door, and we all tried to sleep, but the hum remained, faint, like a distant engine, or a heart.

The next day, we tried to leave. We packed our bags, but the door would not open. It was not locked; the knob turned, but the door was heavy, as if something held it from the other side. We called the front desk, but the phone line was dead. We looked out the window, and the street below was empty, not a car, not a person, and the sky was a flat, grey void. Derek laughed nervously. ‘This is like that one movie.’ But Elena was crying. ‘We have to get out,’ she said. I tried to kick the door, but my foot went through the panel, and I felt a hand grab my ankle, cold and strong, pulling me forward. I yanked back, leaving a shoe behind. The door closed, and the shoe was gone, and the hand was gone.

We barricaded ourselves in the bathroom, but the mirror began to fog, and words appeared in the condensation: ‘YOU MUST TRADE.’ Derek read them aloud, and as he did, his voice changed, deepening, and his eyes turned black. He grabbed my shoulders and shoved me against the wall. ‘You were always the leader,’ he said, but his voice was not his own. ‘Now you will be the follower.’ Elena screamed, and the lights went out. In the dark, I heard a scuttling, and a wet sound, like a mouth opening and closing. I felt a breath on my neck, and a voice whispered, ‘You can leave, but one of you must stay.’ The next thing I knew, I was in the hallway, and the door was shut behind me. Elena was beside me, shaking. Derek was gone.

We ran down the stairs, past floors that repeated endlessly, no lobby in sight. We ran until we collapsed, and then we walked, and then we crawled. Finally, we found an exit, and we burst into a street that was not our street, but a city that was not our city. We wandered for hours until we found a police station, where we told our story. The officers did not believe us, but they took a report. They searched the hotel, but there was no record of a Derek Smith, no room, no Meridian Grand. The hotel had been demolished in 1989. They gave us coffee and a phone, and we called home. But when I spoke to my mother, she said, ‘Who is Derek?’ And I realized, in that moment, that he was a stranger, a man I had never met, and yet I had known him for years. Elena was silent, staring at the floor, and when she looked up, her eyes were not her own. She smiled, a wide, wet smile, and said, ‘I’m ready to go now.’ I never saw my wife again.

Now I live in a small room with no mirrors. I keep the lights on, and I do not sleep. I write this in the margins of a newspaper, but I know you will never read it. I am at home, in Chicago, but the city is empty, and the streets are silent. And every night, at three in the morning, I hear a hum, and a voice, calling my name. And under my bed, there is a space, and I know that it is waiting, and that I will have to trade places soon. Derek, if you are out there, I am sorry. I did not mean to forget you. But the Meridian does not forget, and neither does the thing that lives beneath it.