MicroHorror

“Jerry, look at this,” said Carlos, sliding his chair closer to the keyboard and isolating the feed onto the larger screen. “Check out elevator four.”

He and Jerry hadn’t been working at the Dormount Hotel long but they had thought they’d seen everything until a man and a woman, formally dressed, started having sex in one of their monitored elevators.

Jerry came over as the man was slipping her silk scarf past her shoulders and then started sensuously kissing her neck. She moaned and squirmed under his touch, appreciating the forwardness but wanting to reciprocate, pulling head back and kissing him deeply.

“What are we watching here?” Jerry asked, looking uncomfortable.

Carlos laughed.

“What floor are they on?”

Carlos looked at the security console and tittered at the flashing signal on the screen. “They were headed to twelve but he pushed the emergency button.”

“Are you kidding me?”

Carlos shook his head.

On the screen, the man had resumed control of the situation, removing her dress and leading her to the ground. Her legs, adorned in black patent leather pumps, craned around his back and locked, ruffling his hair from underneath.

“Cool, huh?”

Jeff sighed, grabbing the override keys and his radio from the corner desk. “I’m heading up to twelve. I’ll override the emergency button when I get up there. Monitor them from here. These two want a thrill, I’ll give them one.”

“Need help?”

Jeff smirked. “No. Just stay here and watch them. And don’t enjoy it too much.”

Carlos nodded and returned to the screen.

Jeff took the service stairs to the twelfth floor and immediately traversed the main corridor of rooms to the bank of elevators, stopping before elevator four. Jeff saw that the elevator was still stuck on level five. As a formality, he picked up his radio.

“They still there?”

The unsteady, arrhythmic crackling of static returned. He asked again, enunciating thoroughly.

Another wave of static and then a “Yeah” seeped through.

He walked over to the security console and inserted the override key, resetting the emergency switch and watching as the floor indicator began to climb, signaling the elevator was in motion.

A fuzzy call came over the radio, sounding abrupt and panicky. Carlos was yelling, “Wait!”

He furrowed his brow and pocketed the keys, waiting for the elevator to reach him. “Come again, Carlos,” he said.

Another wave of static and then, “Get out of there!”

The elevator continued to climb, nearing the eighth floor and rising.

“What’s going on?” Jeff asked, a little uneasy.

Nothing but the distressing crackle of static returned and he thought about grabbing the courtesy phone near the vending area until Carlos came back, clear of static like he had moved to an area with better reception.

“Get out of there, man!”

“Why? What’s going on?”

“When you kicked on the elevator, the man noticed and stood up.”

“So? Good.”

“No, it’s not. The girl stayed down. I zoomed in and it turns out that he wasn’t screwing her, he was eating her!”

The elevator chime dinged and slowly the doors parted. A fresh pool of golden light bled onto the carpet. Jeff slowly turned around and saw the man from the security monitor, eyes a luminous shade of burgundy with gobs of blood and severed entrails dribbling from his mouth.

“Get out of there!” repeated Carlos on the radio.

The man’s mouth widened, revealing a horrific row of barbed teeth, dripping with flesh. He licked them clean with a sinuous dab of a very lengthy tongue.

“I hate when a meal’s interrupted,” he said, eyes fading from burgundy to black. Jeff couldn’t move, petrified with fear.

“Jeff? Jeff?” Carlos called from the security room, receiving nothing but the resounding gurgle of static, intermingled with scattered screams.

• Copyright: © 2008 D. R. Dane