A low, feline growl woke Parker up.
I’m NOT opening my eyes, Parker thought. His roommate’s cat loves waking Parker up to be fed, and THIS time Parker isn’t dealing with it. It’s not his fault that his roommate leaves for the library so damn early!
… gggggrrgh… another hungry kitty noise. This time, Parker could feel Tabby the cat walking around his head… Nope, he thought, I’m not doing it. It’s freakin SATURDAY!
Parker started dozing off again, his mattress felt damp against his cheek. Did Tabby drool on my pillow? Parker drifted back into dreamville.
-
As Parker got to the drive through window, he was getting strange looks from the girl about to hand him his food. It made sense though, it WAS raining, and Parker WAS on roller skates… in his boxers… and a pink tutu…
HOOOOOONK! HONK!
-
“What the… !”, Parker yelled as he jerked awake.
Rubbing his eyes, Parker vowed to stop drinking Fireball after class. His roommate and friends make a game out of how much Parker could drink, and not fall over. Lots of fun… until the morning anyway.
Parker opened his eyes slowly, squinting because of the bright sunlight invading his brain. The blinds must still be open. He reached for the water on his nightstand… his nightstand… where the hell is my nightstand? He waved his hand in the general, hungover direction of the nightstand.
Parker slowly began to focus. He felt slick with sweat, and his back was damp.
“What the hell?!”, he said a little too loudly. An echo slammed back into his aching head from everywhere. Echo?
Where the hell am I? Parker rubbed his eyes again. He sat up and slowly opened his bloodshot eyes.
He wasn’t in his room… he wasn’t even in the dorms.
Parker looked around slowly, his blurry vision clearing completely. He was in a weird yellow wallpapered room, lit by harsh buzzing fluorescent lighting fixtures. Just like the ones in the science lab. The floor he was sitting on was damp tan carpet, soaking into the jeans and shirt he neglected to take off the night before.
Aside from the strange carpet and walls, the only other thing within sight was his desk chair. The lonely green plastic chair was on its side on the floor. His old backpack was laying on it, as if placed there carefully after the cheap seat was flipped over.
“What the fuck?!”, Parker was almost sure he was still asleep, but his dream is worse than the tutu wearing version he THOUGHT he woke up from.
No! I’m being punked, he thought … this IS the science lab. Those assholes must have left me here last night. Parker has great friends. Well, friends that are great at messing with each other.
Parker slowly started to get to his feet, “Okay… funny guys. Where the hell are you?” Parker called out, feeling the full force of his hangover hitting him. The incessant dull buzzing like a dagger in his brain. Right… no more Fireball.
He stood on the damp carpet in his socks, apparently the new boots he bought last week didn’t make the trip with him across the quad. Nasty musty carpet. Wait… the science building floor doesn’t have carpet anywhere… did it?
“Guys!”, he called out again, a little quieter this time.
Buzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz……. those annoying lights.
Parker wiped the nasty carpet juice off his face with the sleeve of his long-sleeved tee shirt. He was beginning to think this wasn’t a joke, “… guys??”. His slightly trembling echo sounded weak and tired. His throat still dry from all the booze.
He realized that he had a couple of bottles of Gatorade in his backpack from yesterday. He took a step over to the chair and grabbed his backpack. The backpack was the only dry thing in this room. Everything else seemed to be slightly damp from the carpet.
His thoughts snapped back to the cat drooling on his pillow while she was standing by his head… wait, was it the cat?
Okay, relax stupid, it was the cat. He lightly laughed at himself as he unzipped his backpack and grabbed one of the two bottles of Gatorade.
Parker opened the half full Frost flavored Gatorade and took a deep swig. It was warm, but so good!
He recapped the drink and put it into the backpack. The other Gatorade, his project folder for math, and a few odds and ends were all that occupied the bag. He was sure there were a couple of Clif bars in there too, but decided to wait and see if he felt like puking from the Gatorade before eating anything.
He zipped up the bag and threw it on his back.
As Parker slid his arms into the backpack straps, he had a thought. He THOUGHT he had a thought, but no. His head was so cloudy, he wasn’t sure of anything right now.
He looked around again, realizing that he’s seen this place before. The yellow walls and drop ceiling with fluorescent lights looked very familiar. The lights look like the science lab, and those walls reminded him of his Grandma’s basement… maybe.
The smell, though, he KNEW that smell.
While doing the laundry, Parker had knocked a big bottle of laundry detergent off the back of the washer, causing it to fall behind the machine, snapping the water hose off it. At the time, he had no idea how to turn off the water… which was spraying all over the small laundry room. The resulting mess soaked the carpet in the adjoining game room.
His parents were fairly understanding about his mistake… when Parker finally told them. But they weren’t thrilled, by any means. Appropriately, his punishment was to help dry the basement carpet.
He used countless towels and several fans in a failed attempt to dry the carpet, but as it happened to be summer, the musty stank eventually forced his parents to have the carpet replaced the following week.
A full week with that wet carpet smell, imbedded the aroma deeply in Parkers psyche.
Mold… wet carpet mold funk… THAT is the smell now assaulting him in this strange building.
This place was really giving him the creeps. It LOOKED like a normal room. It was a large rectangle, maybe 20 feet by 40 feet, with a hallway at one end. There weren’t any windows here, making it all the more difficult to figure out where he was. The hallway leading to the next room was narrow. It was a very narrow, really dark hallway. Nothing illuminated his path between rooms.
On the other side of the hall was another lit room. It looked the same as the one he was in… yellow on tan. One of the lights in that room was flickering a little, otherwise it looked normal. Normal… ish… except for the creepy feeling of being watched, normal.
Why am I so freaked out? He wondered as he readjusted the pack on his back.
“Okay…” he said to himself, as he took a tentative step toward the entrance of the hall.
Parker was beginning to doubt that his friends would dump him in a strange place, and NOT be there to give him a jump scare as he was coming out of his drunken stupor. They were always talking about how funny it would be to carry the first guy that passed out at a party, to the sand volleyball field just outside the dorms. After hiding, they would make loud noises until the guy woke up. Then, boo!
This wasn’t the volleyball pit. It wasn’t the science labs. It wasn’t even the main hall, and Parker woke up alone. Wait… why would they leave my desk chair AND backpack next to me? Parker turned quickly and looked at the chair. The goofy green chair had no answers either. This doesn’t make sense!
He turned back to the hallway and started to walk slowly toward the dark, and even though there was light spilling into both ends of the hall, the tight space was unnerving. The width of the passage was only slightly wider than his shoulders.
Parker entered the hallway.
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