What she said didn’t even sink in at first. The way she explained it was so normal and logical that I almost nodded, understanding.

“Wait, did you say someone was murdered?”

She only blinked with a slight shrug, like murder was as ordinary as wiping your ass after taking a shit.

“They replaced the pipes because the floor in 6 and 7 was damaged. The bathrooms needed to be updated anyway.”

My head was spinning, trying to wrap around the reality of how she said it so casually.

“Look, lady,” but she piped in before I could finish talking.

“My name is Tina.”

I looked at her, thinking if I should tell her I don’t give a crap what her name is, but decided against it.

“You’re telling me, Tina, that someone was recently murdered in room 7, the room I am staying in?”

She still held her nonchalant look and nodded, “Yes, in the bathroom.”

“How is this okay? I mean, someone was killed in there! Don’t you think I would find this a bit, I don’t know, troubling maybe, since you’re JUST now informing me of it?”

She replied defensively, “Well, we do have a business to run, and the room was cleaned, and the entire bathroom was remodeled.”

“I don’t give a shit if you have a business to run or if the bathroom is suitable for my ass, and if I actually paid for the room, I’d be demanding my damn money back!”

“If you can’t handle it, I can see if we have any open rooms left,” she said, acting as if I was an inconvenience.

“Yeah, that’d be great, thanks.”

I turned and left the small office, slamming the door behind me. I had hoped to hear something like an apology, but no, I got to be the weird one for being upset somebody was killed in the same room I was staying in.

If I were still who I was two years ago, a happy family man, I would have seen this as an excellent opportunity to start writing again. But no, I’m different now, wanting to escape for a moment, no family type, man.

I left the lobby and walked back to the room. The music that was bumping earlier was gone, and everything was quiet.

The closer I got to the door, the more I hesitated, thinking maybe I should have stayed in the lobby and waited till she found another room. What was one more night? It wasn’t like a ghost was there or some unsettled spirit wanting to take revenge would pop out and scare me. It was just a room, a bed. Tomorrow I could always check out and head far away from this crazy place.

I unlocked the door with the key and slowly opened it, looking toward the bathroom automatically.

Sure, some odd things have happened, and I didn’t even get to ask her my second question.

What happened in the bathroom could have just been a crazy, delusional episode. Stress can do that.

I closed the door and grabbed my phone with plans on calling the realtor, Sara, to complain about the room.

I thought better of it, she couldn’t do anything anyway, and she probably had no clue about the murder.

I dropped my phone on the tv stand in frustration, trying to ignore the bathroom, before lying on top of the unmade bed. I stared at the ceiling tiles.

Slowly my eyes gave up, trying to count all the water stains, and closed. I could hear the hum of things around me and the sound of a random car that passed the motel occasionally before sleep finally came, but it didn’t last long before I had a nightmare. At least, I was somewhat sure it was one.

I think the bathroom incident got to me.

The dream started with me standing in a wheat field while the sun was setting. Outside was at that point between dark and light.

Golden wheat rolled around me as the wind blew. In the dream, I turned, facing a toilet not more than 20 feet in front of me. So, naturally, my body walked toward it. It was like watching myself and simultaneously going through the motions. The crazy shit was, a toilet was just sitting there, with the lid down. It looked eerily out of place in the field, but I couldn’t resist getting close to it.

I was waiting for someone to tell me not to touch it, but no one was there. Yelling hello, hoping to get a response, but only the wheat field answered as stalks rustled in the wind.

I looked back at the toilet as my hand lifted the lid. Again, not sure what I was expecting, but there was nothing except water in it.

I started to turn away, but suddenly, the toilet gurgled and bubbled. And like a snake, a stream of blood started circling around in it. I jumped back, slowly taking a few steps away, and it gurgled louder.

The lid knocked shut, and like on a pot of boiling water, I watched the lid dance, snapping over and over. Then the thick red liquid started pouring out, pooling and taking over the ground right before the lid suddenly shot up.

The sky was filled with blood from it shooting upwards and raining down on the field and me. Everything was covered in red. The toilet grabbed my attention again as it gurgled, no longer spewing out.

The noise this time was a deep rumble, and then, a blood covered hand reached out, fingers grabbing the lip of the toilet bowl. At that point, I was terrified, frozen, watching in horror as the hand pushed against the toilet and a human head peered at me over the edge of the bowl. The thing had soaked red hair, and the whites of its eyes surrounded black, lifeless pupils. I felt myself scream in horror before waking up.

Sitting up quickly and looking around, I saw the room was dark, and the dream still crawled around in my head. I reached for the lamp and turned it on. I couldn’t remember if I turned it off, but I felt grateful for the light when it came back on. The room felt cold as ice, and I could see my breath.

Figuring the heater in the room must have shut off, I got up and checked it. The humming sound said it was running, and the warmth was adequate, so I shrugged it off, thinking maybe the temperature dropped outside too fast to keep up.

Needing to take a piss, I looked toward the bathroom and decided to hold it. Then, I grabbed my phone from the tv stand and saw it was only 3 am. I could hold it a few more hours, maybe.

Keeping the light on, I laid back in bed, but the more I tried not to think about relieving myself, the worse the feeling got. So I finally gave in and went to the bathroom.

Flipping the light switch on, I stared at the toilet. The lid was shut. Repeating in my head over and over that the bloody wheat field was just a dream, I reached down to open it. The nervousness made me laugh out loud.

“It was just a dream, Sam. You’ve had worse ones,” I said loudly as I started to piss in the toilet.

Closing my eyes, it felt good to empty my bladder. When I finally finished and looked down, the toilet was full of blood. I didn’t have time to react before a hand came out from the blood and reached for me.

Then I woke up, again, realizing I had still been dreaming. This time I woke in a pool of sweat, my skin was hot, and the clothes I had worn the day before stuck to my body.

Sitting up, I whispered to myself, “What the hell, Sam,” thinking maybe I needed to call the therapist. Even though the dream had nothing to do with Rebecca and Chrissy, or the accident, it still bothered me.