The Night Sister

Since Piper and Margot had arrived this morning, Amy had been insisting that some ethereal creature had visited her in the night.

“I swear,” Amy said. “I wasn’t dreaming. I woke up and it was just like…there…at the foot of my bed.”

“And what’d it look like again?” Margot asked. “A dog with a human face, or a human with a dog face?”

Amy banged a drawer open, pulled out a mildewed Gideon’s Bible. “You’ve gotta believe me! It was real! You believe me, don’t you, Piper?”

Piper nodded. “Sure. I believe you saw something. Or thought you did.”

Amy shook her head and dropped the old Bible back in the drawer. “There’s no thought involved. I opened my eyes and it was there, just kind of hovering, watching me sleep in the dark. I got a glimpse of a pale face, but it turned away, and then it was, like, all covered in fur, or like it had a fur suit on or something. And then it was like it had this dog face. With a snout and stuff. But then it was gone! Poof.”

“Maybe you just thought you were awake but you were still dreaming?” Piper suggested. “That happened to me once, I—”

“I was totally awake. This was not a dream!”

“Maybe it was Bigfoot,” Margot suggested.

Amy blew out an exasperated breath, making the pink bangs fly out. “Would you get serious? It was not freaking Bigfoot!”

“Okay,” Margot said. “So it was a pale-faced, furry ghost who just disappeared when you turned on the light?”

“Ugh, you guys are hopeless. Just forget it. If it comes back again, I’ll get proof. I’ll sleep with a camera next to my bed,” Amy said, and then sighed. “Let’s get out of here. There’s nothing in this room.”

“Three down, twenty-five to go,” Piper said. They left Room 3, locking the door behind them, and moved to Room 4.

“Lock on this one’s broken,” Amy said, sticking the master key back in her pocket as she pushed the door open. She stepped into the room, then froze. “You smell that?”

“Cigarette smoke,” Piper said. The other rooms had smelled faintly of it, but this was much stronger.

And there was something else different, too. This room felt…lived in.

Amy nodded and walked over to the window; an ashtray sat on the sill, with a barely smoked cigarette crushed in it.

“Someone’s been here. This is no twenty-year-old cigarette butt.”

“Your grandma, maybe?” Margot said, sounding unconvinced.

Amy shook her head. “Nah. Why would she come all the way down here to smoke? Besides, she only smokes Virginia Slims. This isn’t one of hers.”

Piper got down and looked under the bed. “Um—guys?—there’s stuff under here. A bunch of stuff, it looks like.”

Amy pushed her aside and reached under to pull out a heavy pair of binoculars, then a red plastic flashlight. She switched it on. It worked. She dragged out a plastic two-liter Coke bottle full of water. Then a small paper bag, like what some kids carried lunch to school in.

“What the…” Amy said as she opened the bag and peered inside. She dumped the contents onto the bed: a skeleton key on a heavy ring, sunglasses, a silver earring, a few pieces of Tower Motel stationery, an old glass soda bottle, and a book of matches.

“What is all this stuff?” Margot asked, leaning in.

Amy picked up the earring. “This is mine. So are the sunglasses.”

“Creepy,” Margot said.

“Yeah,” Piper agreed, “maybe you’ve got your very own stalker. I mean, why would you have binoculars in here unless you were using them to watch the house? There’s nothing else around.”

“Maybe it’s the Bigfoot guy!” Margot said. “Mr. Man-Dog. Maybe he’s been living here, watching you!”

“You should tell your grandma,” Piper said.

“No way! She’d probably call the cops, and they’d come and start poking around.”

Piper didn’t think that was such a bad idea and almost said so, but she didn’t want to sound like a baby.

“I say we put everything back,” Amy said. “Then we just keep an eye on it. We check the room several times every day. Maybe we’ll catch our smoker.”