The Awakening
While Steve went to investigate room 237, Carrie was outside wearing only a summer white dress. It was cold under her bare feet but, it didn't hurt her. She loved the cold feeling as she skipped through the snow in the labyrinth. It was like skipping through sand only cold and slippery. For the months that Carrie had been living with the Barker's in the Hotel she began to know the large maze by heart. It was nothing like the Hell's Labyrinth were there was screaming and gnashing of teeth. What makes it even better was that there was a sky to look at.
Into the great wide open,
Under them sky's are blue,
Out in the great wide open,
A rebel without a clue….
Carrie stopped when someone called out her name. Carrie turned in a full 360 degrees. "Hello?" she called but, there was no answer. For reasons unknown to her, she was afraid. She began walking out of the labyrinth humming the rest of Tom Petty's "Into the Great Wide Open" in order to calm herself down. Maybe the cold was playing with her head, she thought. She remembered the time when she went to the coldest room in the Labyrinth. The room was something that would be best described in the last circle of hell. The room was covered in ice from ceiling to floor. Underneath all the ice were thousands of bodies, whispering to one another. Carrie found that room on accident and didn't care to visit that room again.
Only here in this cold it was different, it wasn't sorrowful nor despairing. On the surface this cold was fresh, clean even at first glace but, underneath there was something else. She couldn't really think what it was but, all she wanted to do was get out of here fast. A faint ruffling of snow was heard from behind her making her freeze. She didn't want to look but, her instinct told her to. She looked over her shoulder and behind her was a shrub lion. That lion wasn't there before, it belonged on the other side of the maze. Carrie looked forward to run but there was a horse shrub before her which actually belonged at a dead end two spaces from here.
Carrie began to panic, these plant animals were alive even though they weren't moving, at least not now. She never felt so afraid of a thing that wasn't made out of flesh. Carrie had an image in her child like mind that these beasts wanted to eat her. Before Carrie began to lose hope she heard that familiar voice that called her name. "Turn left," she didn't protest and then she ran. The voice in her head was her guide out. She could hear the lion and the horse coming after her with possibly even more shrub beasts. A sudden thought came into her head, now I know how Kristy feels. As she was finally out of the labyrinth going inside the Hotel to the nearest couch Carrie made something between a laugh and a cry into the couch pillow.
Mom was right, they needed to get out of here, it wasn't safe. First things first, she needed to find her mother then try to convince the Barker's to leave. Carrie knew Christine and Annie would agree to leaving but, Steve was going to be a little harder. Carrie had seen a slow change in Steve. He had become more reclusive and lost his temper more easily. Even in his facial features there was a difference. His face looked more like a mask made out of skin. Carrie looked up from her pillow seeing a man in a red tux wearing a wolf mask on his head. The presence was enough to make Carrie run to find Annie.
Carrie wasn't the only one that had a frightening experiance at the Overlook. Steve Barker was in room 237 trying to find the mad woman who tried to strangle his daughter, Christine. While exploring the room he found nothing out of the ordinary. Everything was in place and in order in this room until he went to the bathroom. At first Steve thought there was nothing in here until the shower curtains began to move revealing a goregous young woman. Steve was paralyzed in awe of this beauty. When she stepped out of the shower, revealing her nude body to him, he felt the feelings of lust come over him. As they came together, drawing into a kiss it was like Steve was 18 again. At first she tasted of vanilla to his lips but, when he stroked her back pulling away flesh she tasted like rot.
He pulled away from the woman. She was no longer the beauty he saw before but a rotting corpse. Steve backed away, far away from the disgusting thing before him. It was laughing at him, trying to advace upon him like a lover. Steve got out of the room quickly as possible. He closed the door with a hard slam, locking the door. While Steve was catching his breath, Carrie was running up the stairs to find Annie but instead to her dread found Steve instead. Carrie and Steve stared at eachother like gunslingers ready for a fight. Steve curled his lips in a snarl, Carrie must have done this he thought. She making him hallucinate his irrational brain was telling him. Carrie could sense what was brewing in his head, it was madness, pure utter madness.
"I know what you are, Carrie Regan. I know what...you...ARE!" After that Carrie ran as fast as her feet can carry her. As she was running from the thing that was Steve she heard the Hotel laughing. It was maddening, the place was taunting her every move. As she was about to scream she bumped into Annie that was tending to Christine. Carrie hugged Annie and began to cry. For the first time in her life she wished she was home.