Alice’s vacation had just started and she was already shopping and walking around downtown for hours. She loved this little town, it was right outside of Raleigh North Carolina and everyone there was so friendly. Many people recognized that she was new to town and they stopped to greet her. Once she got home she went on a rampage looking for her keys after she realized that she had left her wallet in the car, she began to dump out her purse when she came across an old rusty looking key.

Alice tried to remember who had given her the key, but she could hardly remember even being handed the key. She sat down grasping the key in her hand trying to focus and tried to think long and hard, but the whole idea of the key seemed to slip her mind, all she remembered was being handed the key but she could not remember when or from whom, it was all a blur and she had no idea why. She remembered everything else just fine but when it came to the key her mind went completely blank.

Alice had tried out the key on many different things. First, she tried the safe in her motel room, the door to her room and a couple other doors down the hallway. Right when she was about to give up and she was about to decide that the key was pointless to her, she saw a strange door out of the corner of her eye. The door looked older than any of the other doors and there was a rusty number 3 on it. She looked down at her key, licked the top of her index finger and her thumb and rubbed gently on the top of the key only revealing another number 3. She put the key in the lock and turned to the right, she heard a ‘click’ and she slowly opened the door with an eerie creak.

As the door opened just enough for Alice to slip her body through she stepped in and turned on the flashlight on her phone, she shined it all over the room trying to decide if it was safe for her to go any further. After she became familiar with the room she looked up at the fan and saw a dusty rope hanging from the antique ceiling fan. After analyzing briefly Alice soon realized it was a noose. She became weak in the knees and slowly turned for the door, when Alice was almost fully turned around…the door slammed shut.

Alice immediately panicked, reaching for the wall desperately trying to find the light switch to eliminate the pitch black darkness, she scratched and clawed along the wall trying to find the switch and finally alas, she found it and quickly switched it up. The light revealed a dull, boring room with a melancholy theme to it, a bed, a bathroom and a closet. She still was not sure why someone gave her this key. She thought for a couple minutes and came to the conclusion that someone had given her to key simply just to freak her out. As soon as she perceived that idea she bolted for the door and furiously tried turning the rusty door knob, of course no luck. Someone had locked it from the outside, she was locked in. Soon her claustrophobia kicked in, her room was much bigger than this, and she could not deal with being locked in such a confined space especially with knowing that there was no immediate way out.

Alice darted to the bathroom and tried to open the bathroom window, but that was nailed shut. She grabbed the shower curtain pole above the bathtub and jammed it through the window and not even a crack was made. She collapsed to the floor letting her tears of fury and frights overcome her. She was so scared and so mad at herself for letting herself walk in there. After she pulled herself together she looked out the window and peered into the vast darkness of the North Carolina woods, she looked left and right and soon she saw an old red pick-up truck out far in the woods…mocking her. Mocking her, the truck represented quick and easy escape when Alice was stuck there, with no escape, no quick and easy way to get out of this terrible mess, she was stranded alone. She soon felt like she going insane she kept hearing knocking and tapping and sometimes seeing the door knob move on the front door. She had thought and reenacted every possible way to get out of that room but each escape route was either nailed shut or not available. Someone was playing a cruel prank on her… or maybe someone wanted to murder her, maybe this was their way of preparing her. So all her guards would be down, she had no self-defense, she was tired, dehydrated from crying so much and weak from anxiety. Yes that was it, she had to be prepared, she had to show them she was not weak, she was going to live she was going to get through this. She went to the mirror and punched it hard breaking the glass also releasing some of her anger and puncturing her knuckles. She kneeled down carefully and got the sharpest piece or glass off the tile floor and gripped it tightly in her hand. She crouched down behind the bed against the wall so when someone walked in they would not see her, she gripped the glass tightly and was ready to spring up and attack once someone walked in. After 45 minutes of waiting, she heard faint footsteps coming from down the hall, she got on her feet, and ready to attack, she heard the sound of several locks being unlocked as a man whistled a horrifying toon to the song “John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt”.



She gripped the glass so tight her hand soon started to bleed getting all over the pink carpet, dripping continuously but she felt no pain, the adrenaline let her feel no pain. As soon as the door busted open with a man standing in the door way with a maniac smile on his face… you could almost see the crazy in his eyes. Alice waited until the man looked in the bathroom. When she flung from behind him, got him in a headlock and threatened to slice his throat with the razor-edged glass. He clawed and tried to get her off of him, but there was no luck for him, Alice was going to win. She was now on his back still with her arm wrapped tightly around his thick neck that was covered in demented tattoos. Soon he gave up and fell to the floor, exhausted. Alice soon put her glass to his neck as he lay sprawled out on the floor. She yelled “why did you try to kill me? Why me? Did you give me the key?” the man responded with a choked voice still trying to catch his breath “she sent me…” “WHO?!” Alice demanded. He glanced behind her, not being able to point due to being restricted and as soon as Alice turned around she soon saw a young woman with an even crazier look on her face. The crazy woman looked at Alice then looked at the noose hanging from the ceiling fan that Alice seemed to completely forget about, she cocked her head to the left and smiled the most terrifying smile Alice had ever seen. Alice looked up and saw the crazy man with the glass in his hand right behind her, standing over her. She was cornered and this time, there was definitely no escape.