My Vacation

         This is my vacation. Twenty men locked in a hotel talking about their drinking problems. Nothing could possibly go wrong with that scenario, it certainly doesn't sound like any horror movie plots. Never mind that though, this is a month without booze. Who cares if some axe-wielding maniac butchers us all, I want some damn liquor.
         I used to be clean, sober, straight edge, however you want to say it. I used to not drink is the point. It doesn't matter why I started drinking, but now I'm an alcoholic. So, naturally, I've spent the past 12 days rummaging through this old lodge for a single drop of wine, a shot of whiskey, a glass of beer, anything. I haven't found a bit of it.
         We spend every night talking about what we've accomplished during the day, and how we could never accomplish that while sloshed. I maintain I'd be just as bored if I was drunk. Whatever. I guess they think I need to be sober to run around this cabin on steroids.
         The hotel used to be one of the most famous lodges during those days your granddad used to talk about. Back when a drink was a nickel. It reminds me of the one in that Jack Nicholson movie where he kills everyone, except with no ghost mobsters. It's situated on some mountain in Colorado, and I'm sure the view would be great if I wasn't shaking so much. Snow and trees and rocks for miles and not a damn liquor store within walking distance.
         When we got here, the counselors locked the doors behind us, and they were barred from the outside. Sixteen alcoholics looking to get rid of the monkeys on our backs and four counselors who want to help. Steve, the man who sits on the left of me in our nightly emotional circle-jerks, has cirrhosis of the liver and stinks of stale onions and sardines. Sean, who sits on my left, is a little too happy about being here for my taste. Brown-noser. The head counselor, a whale of a man called Little Pete, dotes on Sean and keeps telling the rest of us how successful Sean is and how the rest of us would do well to follow his example. Little Pete can shove that lesson where the sun don't shine.
         Little Pete doesn't much care for me, probably because I tried to bring a flask into the lodge. He kept talking about how this was a group effort and we were only as strong as our weakest link, but all I could think about was how I could kill him and get my flask back. To be perfectly honest, it still sounds like a good plan.
         Lately, Sean has been trying to convert me to drying up. I keep telling him that quitters never win, and that he needs to just get over it and ask out Little Pete so they can both leave me alone. He blushes so richly that I'm actually starting to wonder if he is gay. He's probably too annoying to get laid though, so it doesn't matter either way.

         Last night, Steve and me were sitting around the fireplace in one of the side suites, just shooting the shit. We had just gotten out of that emotional masturbation session that's supposed to break us of drinking, and we were talking about how we missed being outside. Steve had just opened up another can of sardines when we heard the screaming.
         We rushed into the main room and found Sean shrieking like a little girl over the body of Little Pete. Sean had clearly wet himself, and I had to punch him in the jaw to get him to shut up. Apparently, someone had taken a fireplace poker to the back of Little Pete's mammoth head. There was bright red blood everywhere, and some gray gelatin hanging off of every surface I could see. Probably brain matter. Or fat.
         The three remaining counselors, three unremarkable catamites named Fred, John, and Howard, all climb over each other to make themselves in charge of this crisis. Fred finally gets the upper hand when John and Howard get into a slapping match over whether or not we need to perform CPR. Idiots.
         Fred tells us that this doesn't mean the seminar is over, but we're going to have to call the cops to get rid of Little Pete's body, blah blah blah. I loudly tell them we should leave, since the killer is probably still here. I mean, does he think Little Pete bashed his brains out suicidally? Fred shoots this idea down very quickly, and I start saying that he's probably the killer and wants us to stay there so he can finish what he's started. It doesn't take too many of my wild accusations to get the crowd riled up, and we lock Fred in the walk in freezer with the other two catamites. I hope they kill each other out of boredom.

         Steve and I vouch for each other, and we find out that the only one without an alibi is Sean. We form a kangaroo court and decide that it's only fair to hang Sean. I mean, we knew he killed Little Pete, that paragon of virtue and health. And all of us loved Little Pete so so much, that we hung Sean right there. We even hung one of the other boozers; some guy named Ralph who thought we should call the cops and let them handle it. Obviously by the time the cops got here, we'd all be dead at the hands of some nut job with a fire poker.
         After the lynching, I decide to go to Little Pete's room and find my flask. Steve decides to come with me, so that we can be safe and secure. When we get there, we find another man going through Little Pete's room already. I told Steve that he was probably the killer looking for proof that he killed Little Pete so we couldn't hang him too. We knock the looter down and leave more of him in bloody clumps on the floor than we drag downstairs for the second kangaroo court of the night. He's found guilty so fast that he doesn't even have time to defend himself. We string him up next to Ralph and Sean. The three of them make for some lovely decorations.

         I woke up this morning only to find out that 9 more had been killed. Of the four of us remaining, only Steve and me can vouch for each other. We decide to lock the other two up with the three catamites, and Steve and me will just assume that whichever one survives is the killer. But, as we were leading them to the freezer, one looked like it was about to swing at me. I took him down with a chair leg to the back of the neck. The three of us beat him to death as he screams on the reddening carpet.
         The three catamites beg us for food and release when we bring in the fourth prisoner. Steve and me simply lock the door and turn the temperature down a few degrees. Steve seems way too jolly about all this though. Maybe he was the killer. Before I can confront him, he turns around and I bash his face in. After all, he killed that man in Little Pete's room. And now I don't have to share my flask with anyone.