The Night Shift-Dream Collection

Dream Collection

The Night Shift

1st person

Closing the metal door behind me, I’m content, almost happy. The hotel I work at as a security guard is an abused relic of something that I imagine was once fabulous. The luxurious malachite green upholstered walls are still vibrant but now are covered in scrawl marks, bullet holes of varying sizes and smeared in blood.

I turn the corner and face a long hallway. At the end, stands a girl, about twelve years old, wearing a vintage dress maybe from the 1930s, the top red and brown. Her hair a brown bob, her skin ivory. It is at this moment I realize I forgot the keys.

I return to the room with the metal door. Inside, a metal chair sits against the wall with what appears to be a shotgun blast above a large bloody smear that streaks down the wall in a large crimson flourish. I pay no mind. Turning to the metal worktable, I grab what I’d forgotten, two keys.

I open the metal door and standing there is the girl. Just standing there, waiting. And I know what she wants. She holds out her right hand and I dangle the keys, dropping them into her small, pale palm. I look at her and say “Take care of my body.”

We pass one another, she into the room with the metal door and I, back into the hall. The metal door closes loudly behind her. But the corridor is no longer the vibrant malachite green but a sad, boring beige generic corridor. Glancing out the large windows, I realize it’s now morning. My shift is over. As I walk down the passageway, I say to myself, “I just hope she takes care of my body.”