The Inn Read online

in a jiffy. I walked around the trees and plants looking for something that might quench my thirst. My eyes fell on a grape vine which was perfectly within my reach unlike the apples. I reached up, plucked an entire bunch and started gobbling it up. I was enjoying the taste so much that I didn’t realize when I was teleported from the garden back to the inn!

  “Having fun…I see”, said the evil voice again. I dropped the grapes as soon I heard him and looked up with horror. I was in the same spot I had disappeared from and bogeyman was still sitting on the bed eating a bunch of grapes. GRAPES?!?

  I looked down at my discarded grapes and asked, “what is going ON?!” “Please let me go…Please...” I pleaded.

  “Ohhhh….Lets see….” He jumped off the bed placing the half eaten bunch of grapes on the table and walked towards the window. The moonlight forming a silver line on his pale blue skin made him look like more evil than everything evil you have ever heard of. He leaned against the window pane and looked at me with that grin and said “Let’s play a small game. You survive till dawn and you can go wherever you want, away from me.”

  “What happens if I don’t?” I looked at him worried.

  “If you don’t….You will be here with me forever. Here could be anywhere you know…” continued the boogeyman winking at me. I didn’t like the sound of this. Not one bit.

  “No! No! No!” I started banging the door hysterically. This isn’t happening to me. “There’s no use doing that boy, you see these doors are custom made…..for me. Nobody’s going to hear you unless they come in here by themselves, which is highly unlikely”, said the boogeyman.

  He clapped his hands in air and said “off you go!” Even before I could ask him what this stupid game was all about or anything else, there was that white light all around me. The next thing I knew, I was lying on a branch of a tree in the middle of some rain forest. The forest was so thick that I could barely even see the sunlight between the leaves. I let out a sigh before moving my leg a bit. That’s when I realized there was nothing beneath my legs…it was suspended in air. I slowly turned around to look down and it was steep, very steep.

  I carefully sat up and looked around. I hadn’t seen this much of greenery in a long long time, but how was I supposed to get out of here? I carefully pulled myself up and tried to stand. I slipped and almost lost balance. Holding on to the branch I looked carefully at the tree I was on and realized it would be impossible for me to climb down this one like other regular trees because this was covered with algae which made it extremely slippery. I held on to the branch with all fours and started crawling down. Just when I was about to reach the ground, I saw a huge tarantula in front of me. Panicking, I lost balance and fell hard on the floor beneath. Thanks to the bushes, my injuries were minimal.

  Now, this was worse than staying on top. It almost felt like night thanks to the lack of sunlight. What sort of game was the stupid boogeyman talking about? How was I expected to get out of here in one piece? None of this made any sense.

  I started walking without a clue where I was going trying to find a way out of this jungle. It might have been an hour or two or maybe even more, I was still walking finding nothing. My stomach started making weird sounds indicating how hungry I was at the moment. There were plenty of bright colorful berries and fruits around me. But I was afraid to touch any of them. There was one red colored plum like fruit on one of the shrubs which looked familiar and thus edible. As soon as I touched the fruit, it flipped around and bit me even before I could realize that it was no fruit, but another spider!

  I stepped back in horror and started running away from the bush afraid the spider might just eat me up. I clutched my finger hard hoping to ease the pain a little. I ran till my feet hurt and stopped to catch a breath. I was still in the middle of the trees canopy. Didn’t this jungle have an opening, like a clearing or something?! I collapsed on the floor looking up in despair. I was completely drained of energy and really needed to eat something. There was a slight rustle behind me that snapped me out of my thoughts.

  Oh my god! Animals! How could I forget that there would be animals in the jungle! I got up and turned around with my fingers crossed hoping it wouldn’t turn out to be a lion or a tiger. I couldn’t see clearly what was hiding behind the bushes but I did see something that scared me so much that I could crap in my pants right away. There was a pair of horns jutting out of the bushes. My fear received conformation when the animal grunted, it was a bison! I began running and once again only this there really was something huge chasing me. I started screaming for help even though I knew I wouldn’t get any. I could see an opening at a short distance, a tiny opening and since I was running so fast I didn’t think before running into it. It was an opening to a river and I fell plop into it.

  I drifted far away from the river bank and looked back. The bison stood at the banked and grunted loudly a couple of times. I just managed to keep myself afloat and stayed with the current. Even though I was a good swimmer, I had never swum outside a pool before. I was so sure I was going to die and my thought was solidified when I saw a waterfall within a distance. I frantically started steering myself towards the bank. Failing miserably I was thrown over the edge into the steep waterfall. I found a long branch jutting out of the water somewhere in the middle of my freefall and held on to it, saving myself. I crossed into the waterfall holding on to the branch only to find a small cave like thing behind the waters. This tree was on the edge of the cave. Climbing down the tree I walked into the cave thinking what to do next. I sat down by a small pile of rocks and blankly stared at the water veil in front of me. I picked up a couple of stones and started throwing them into the waterfall one by one. Just when I reached around the last stone, I pricked my finger against one of them. I dropped all the stones wincing in pain and sucked on my finger that got cut. I stopped sucking on my finger when I noticed that one of the stones wasn’t just a stone.

  It was micro miniature statue of the ugly gargoyle with ruby eyes. I shrieked and threw it away before standing up. The eyes, even though tiny, glowed in the rather dark cave. I felt hypnotized looking into the red glowing eyes and didn’t quite realize when the white glowing light surrounded me again. I was back in the inn room before my next blink. I rubbed my eyes hard before opening them.

  “Welcome back baby boy!! Had fun didn’t you?” asked the ugly looking thing who was now resting on the bed propping his head on his hands. I looked at him with as much malice as I could muster and said “I was bitten by a dangerous spider, chased by a bison and almost died in a waterfall! And you find all of it amusing?!”

  “Oh…was it that bad? I promise am going to be nice to you next time. You can pick where you want to go next”, he continued with a wide grin.

  “I don’t want to go anywhere! I just want to get out of here and go home!” I screamed in frustration. Just then I an idea flashed in my mind. I looked at boogeyman again and said “I want to go home again, please. You can send me wherever you want after that”

  “Are you sure you wan to go back to your house? Every door you see in there will lead you to different parts of my imagination you know…” said the boogeyman straightening up and picked up the ugly gargoyle which looked like it had a different expression now.

  “I want to go….Please…” I pleaded.

  He set down the statue on his lap and snapped his fingers before saying “Tata!!” with a wide wicked smile.

  The white light surrounded me once more and the next second I was back in my living room at home. I was so glad for the first time tonight. I was on my couch and the house seemed empty. I looked around for a bit just to make sure that it was. There was a weird colorful glow emitting from behind a closet door. I knew I had to finish my work fast before I’d get lured into something else.

  I raced upstairs into my dad’s study hoping the door would be open. The last I wanted was to touch anything unnecessary or open anymore doors. To my luck, the door was open and the phone on my dad’s desk was right there. If the only way to be rescued from that room was to have my parents come looking for me from their room below mine, they had to be awake first. I picked up the receiver and dialed my father’s cell phone number hoping he’d pick up. The phone rang a couple of times before disconnecting. With redialed the number with full determination, this had to work. Just when the phone began to ring, the receiver turned to ashes in my hand and there was a loud pop behind me and even before I could react I was teleported back to my room in the inn.

  “What do you think you are doing? I don’t remember giving you lifelines in this little game of mine!” the boogeyman yelled at my face, his grin vanished.

  I looked at him in horror with shivers running down my spine. This was getting a little out of control and I could only pray my father would be awake by now and come over to check on me.

  The stone statue gargoyle appeared from behind him. Both of them looked motivated enough to rip me to pieces from head to toe.

  I jumped onto my feet and made a run towards the window hoping to jump out of the room and survive. Just as I climbed on the window sill I