Three months ago, I got summoned for jury duty, and let me tell you, that alone is a shitshow. But it got worse. Much worse.
I live in West Covina, California. Boring ass town in a big city. I drive for Uber. No gig = no dollars. And no paid work leave. So when I showed up at the courthouse, the only thing on my mind was getting out of serving on a jury as quickly as possible.
But of course, nothing can ever be easy. As soon as I walked into the waiting room, I knew something was off. There was a weird vibe in the air, like everyone was on edge or something. I waited for about two hours before my number got called.
They took about 80 of us into a courtroom. The judge gave us all some instructions about the case – it was a manslaughter trial – then brought in the lawyers for voir dire. That’s where they ask everyone questions and decide who’s going to be on the jury. I had rehearsed all sorts of different things I could say to get kicked off, like “I got pulled over once and I’ve never trusted cops since,” or “I’ve seen every episode of Law & Order: SVU.” But once it was my turn, and I was sworn into that seat next to the judge, I just answered everything truthfully and even though I never get picked for shit, both lawyers agreed to put me on the jury.
It took the rest of the day to select all 12 jurors and the two alternates. I’d like to tell you it was a great learning experience and I was happy to be doing my civic duty, but honestly all I was thinking about was the 25 bucks an hour I could have been making during rush hour.
The judge had us all take our seats in the jury box and I looked around at my fellow jurors.
Let me tell you, this was the best and worst of this city. We had a middle-aged white guy with a beer gut, a young black woman with a nose ring, and an older Asian man who looked like he’d seen some shit. And that’s just to name a few.
The judge wasted no time getting down to business. He told us that we were all going to be sequestered for the duration of the trial. I groaned inwardly. This was not what I signed up for. Oh, and then he had the bailiff take all of our cell phones and said we couldn’t have any contact with the outside world.
There was just enough time for the lawyers to make their opening statements, and that’s when shit really got real. The defense attorney was a slick, well-dressed guy with a smarmy grin and a greasy comb-over. I could tell right away that he was gonna be a pain in my ass.
As if that wasn’t bad enough, the prosecutor was some young hotshot who kept winking at me like we were best friends or something. I wanted to punch him in the face.
And then there were the other jurors. Let me give you a quick rundown of the rest of the crew:
Esmerelda, a middle-aged Hispanic woman with a thick accent who kept muttering prayers under her breath.
Curtis, a young white guy with a neck tattoo who looked like he belonged in a gang.
Amrita, a soft-spoken Indian woman who kept fidgeting with her hijab.
Franklin, an older black man with a booming voice who kept cracking jokes.
Joyce, a twenty-something Asian girl who was actually kind of hot.
I was juror number 8. And on either side of me were the two people I ended up talking with the most:
John, a middle-aged man with a receding hairline and a dad bod. He looked like he’d rather be watching a game at home than sitting in a stuffy courtroom. He didn’t say much, and when he did, it was usually a muttered complaint about how long everything was taking.
The other was Adrianne, who looked like she couldn’t have been more than 20 years old but was actually 28. She had bright pink hair and a lip piercing, and she was wearing a T-shirt with some band logo on it that I didn’t recognize.
I am missing someone else but I can’t remember who. And there were alternates. They were pretty invisible as well.
So there we were, a ragtag bunch of misfits who were going to decide the fate of this sketchy looking dude on trial who was almost definetly a murderer. And to top it all off, we were going to be stuck together for God knows how long, in some shitty hotel room where I was sure to get bedbugs or worse.
I’m not gonna lie, I was feeling pretty fucking hopeless at this point. But then something weird happened. As we all filed out of the courtroom, piled into a van, and headed to the hotel, I started to feel a weird sense of camaraderie with my fellow jurors. Maybe it was the shared sense of dread, or maybe it was just the fact that we were all in this together. Whatever it was, I found myself laughing and joking with these strangers who were about to become my only companions for the next six days.
We had chaperones. The bailiff, Dennis. His job was to enforce any rules or restrictions imposed by the court. No Internet. No TV or cable news. No newspapers. A court officer, Tony, who was basically Dennis’s right hand man. And Mercedes, the court attendant in charge of logistics and such.
We arrived at the hotel (a Holiday Inn) and everyone paired off with a roommate. I ended up with John. The receptionist, a tired looking woman with hollow eyes, handed us our room keys one by one. Her silence was unnerving, and I couldn’t help but wonder if she knew something we didn’t.
Mercedes suggested we all go freshen up before meeting in the hospitality room for dinner and some TV (old reruns or game shows).
As John and I entered our room, a musty scent filled my nostrils. There were two queen beds. The television had been removed. And a stack of old magazines sat on a coffee table. It felt more like a doctor’s waiting room than a hotel.
“Well, this sucks,” I said.
John walked over and sat on one of the beds. “I snore. I hope that’s okay.”
Yeah, that’s just fucking great, I thought.
We all ate pizza and watched Jeopardy. Drinking was allowed, but Tony made sure nobody overdid it. Since none of us had our cell phones, we actually had to talk to each other. I learned all about Dennis’s sciatica and Adrianne’s cheating boyfriend. Franklin offended Joyce with one of his jokes. We found out that Curtis has been sober for almost a year. I’m not a big sharer, but I did confess that my dad died not too long ago. Fuck cancer.
Mercedes reminded us that the van was leaving at 7:45 sharp in the morning, so we called it a night.
Back in the room, John hit the pillow and was asleep within a few minutes. I had a harder time winding down from all the excitement.
As I lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, a strange feeling washed over me. The atmosphere in the room seemed heavy, suffocating even. The silence was unnerving, broken only by the faint sound of distant traffic outside. I couldn’t shake the sense that something was off about this place.
Suddenly, a cold draft brushed against my cheek, causing me to shiver involuntarily. I sat up, scanning the room, trying to identify the source of the chilling breeze. The window was securely shut, and there were no vents nearby. Yet, the cold persisted, enveloping the room like an icy fog.
I slid off the side of my bed to wake up John. But as I reached out to shake his shoulder, I noticed something that made my blood run cold. John’s face was pale, his eyes wide open, but he wasn’t breathing. Panic seized me, and I stumbled backward.
Frantically, I fumbled for the light switch, my heart pounding in my chest. The room was engulfed in darkness for a few agonizing moments before the lights flickered on, revealing an empty bed beside me. John was gone.
I couldn’t fucking believe it. John had been here just moments ago, and now he was nowhere to be seen. My mind raced with thoughts of what could have happened. Was it some sort of prank? Did he sleepwalk out of the room? Or was there something more sinister at play?
I quickly grabbed for my phone, only to remember that it had been taken away by Dennis. Shit! I had no way to call for help or notify anyone about John’s disappearance. My heart pounded in my chest as I considered my options.
Without wasting another second, I rushed out of the room and into the dimly lit hallway. Each step I took echoed through the quiet corridor, amplifying the sense of dread that had settled upon me.
I frantically knocked on the neighboring doors, hoping that someone would provide some answers. As I reached the end of the hallway, a door creaked open, and Adrianne, the juror with the bright pink hair, peered out with a concerned expression.
“What’s going on?” she asked, her voice trembling slightly.
“John… He’s gone,” I stammered, struggling to find the right words.
“What do you mean, gone?”
“I mean he’s not in our room. He was. And then he wasn’t.”
“So he left?” she asked.
“No. Not like that.”
I just shook my head and turned back for the lobby. I needed to call the police. Halfway back down the hall, I looked out the window. I saw something in the parking lot.
John. Lying on the ground. Face down. Not moving. I raced down two flights of stairs, blasted through the emergency exit, and ran over to his motionless body.
“John!”
And he woke up. Like nothing had fucking happened. He looked around, sat up and blamed it on the sleeping pills and his diabetes medicine. We walked back to the room together. He was in a haze. How the hell would I know if he always acted like this in the middle of the night? He collapsed onto his bed when we were back in the room. Snoring in three seconds.
Nothing else happened that night.
*****
In the morning we went down to breakfast which was pretty decent. Not just bagels and dispensers filled with week old cereal, either. Eggs and bacon and fruit salad.
I sat down at the table where Adrianne was already eating. When she saw me, her eyes widened, mirroring the fear that gnawed at my insides. “After I saw you last night, something kinda messed up happened to me, too,” she said.
I leaned in closer, eager to hear her story.
“I woke up around three. I thought I felt something moving on my arm. In the moonlight, I could see there were spiders crawling all over my bed,” she said quietly, her voice barely audible. “Thousands of them. And they were… I know this is going to sound insane… but they were whispering something. I couldn’t make out what they were saying, but I heard it. I freaked out and screamed, but when I turned on the lights, they were gone. It was like they vanished into thin air, just like you said John did.”
My blood ran cold. Whispering spiders? Vanishing people? This shit was beyond my comprehension. I couldn’t wrap my head around what was happening, but one thing was certain: there was something seriously fucked up about this hotel.
“Did anyone else mention anything strange last night?” I asked her, my voice barely above a whisper.
Adrianne shook her head, her pink hair swaying gently. “I haven’t heard anything from the others yet, but who knows? Maybe we’re not the only ones.”
I glanced around the crowded breakfast room, observing my fellow jurors. They all seemed engrossed in their own conversations, unaware of the eerie events that Adrianne and I had experienced. It was hard to imagine that such an ordinary-looking group of people could be caught in the midst of something so inexplicable.
As we returned to the courtroom after breakfast, my thoughts were divided between the grisly murder trial and the unsettling incidents at the hotel. The initial witnesses questioned by the prosecution washed over me, their words blending into a distant murmur. I struggled to focus.
As the day progressed, testimonies were given, evidence was presented, and the lawyers battled it out. No matter how gruesome the details, my attention was somewhere else.
During our lunch recess, I noticed that Curtis wasn’t eating. He was sitting quietly, his arms crossed, wearing a serious expression.
“Hey, man,” I said, trying to act nonchalant. “Not a big fan of the tacos, huh?”
“I’m just not very hungry,” he said. “Didn’t sleep great.”
“Yeah, me neither. Something must have been in the air last night.”
Curtis glanced around before leaning in closer. “Dude, I woke up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat, and I saw something standing at the foot of my bed. A shadowy figure. Not a man or a woman. I couldn’t see its face. The arms and legs were twisted and gnarled. It freaked me the hell out.”
I could feel a pit in my stomach. “What did you do?”
“I closed my eyes and counted to ten. When I opened them it was gone. I’m sure my imagination was just fucking with me.”
“I don’t think it was,” I said.
I proceeded to tell him about what happened to John and what Adrianne told me. One or two incidents like that might be a coincidence. But three was a pattern.
We got called back in to the courtroom for the rest of the afternoon. If I was distracted before, now I was completely consumed, replaying the different events over and over in my head. Trying to make sense of them.
After we were adjourned for the day, the bus took us all back to the hotel. Before heading up to my room, I quick used the bathroom in the lobby. On my way to the stairwell, I saw that the elevator was already there waiting, so I decided to take that instead.
As I stepped inside, I noticed Esmerelda standing near the back of the elevator, her hands clasped tightly together, muttering prayers under her breath. Her eyes were closed, and her face bore an expression of intense concentration. The sight was a bit unnerving, but I tried to brush it off.
I pressed the button for my floor, and the elevator began its ascent. The ride was silent, save for the low hum of the elevator’s machinery. The air grew increasingly stifling, and I could feel beads of sweat forming on my forehead. Glancing at Esmerelda, I noticed that her muttering had grown louder, her words becoming more urgent.
Just as the elevator reached the halfway point, a sudden jolt shook the cabin, causing me to stumble backward. The lights flickered for a moment before plunging into darkness, leaving us in pitch-blackness. Panic surged through me as I fumbled for the emergency button, desperately trying to bring back the light.
As I pressed the button repeatedly, a faint glow emerged from beneath the elevator’s doors. It illuminated the confined space with an eerie, greenish hue. I glanced at Esmerelda, whose face had paled considerably, her prayers now audibly frantic. The elevator remained motionless, suspended between floors.
Then, Esmerelda’s chanting stopped suddenly and her eyes fixated on me. She spoke in a raspy whisper, her words piercing the silence. “Who are you to sit in judgment of anyone?”
“I’m sorry?” I asked, confused.
“What gives any of us the right to decide a man’s guilt or innocence?”
“I.. I don’t know,” I stammered.
“None of us are without sin,” she said.
Just as I was starting to panic, the elevator jolted back to life, resuming its ascent. The lights flickered back on, temporarily blinding me, and the doors finally opened on my floor. I stumbled out, and to my surprise, Esmerelda followed behind me.
Whatever spell she had fallen under on the elevator seemed to have broken. And she didn’t appear to have any memory of what just transpired.
“Did Mercedes say what time dinner was called for?” she asked matter-of-factly.
My heart was still beating out of my chest. I took a deep breath.
“Um, seven I think.”
“Great,” she said with a smile. “I’ll see you then.”
Her room was to the left. Mine to the right. I unlocked the door and found John lying on his bed, taking a nap before dinner. I had been fighting off a headache all day, so I thought maybe a hot shower would give me some relief.
As I turned on the water and began to undress, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was being watched. I dismissed it as paranoia, a byproduct of my weary mind.
Steam billowed from the shower, enveloping the small space. As I stepped under the warm spray, the same sensation hit me. That I was not alone. My eyes darted around the bathroom, searching for any sign of an intruder, but the only reflection staring back at me was my own in the fogged-up mirror.
Then, in the misty surface, a face materialized, its features distorted and contorted with a malevolent grin. The image was unmistakably human, but there was something profoundly wrong about it, an otherworldly quality that sent a shiver down my spine.
The face, a ghastly visage with sunken eyes and rotting flesh, pressed against the mirror as if yearning to break free from its spectral prison. Its mouth opened, emitting a low, guttural moan that resonated within the depths of my being. The sound was a symphony of anguish and despair, chilling me to the bone.
I shut off the water and hurriedly wrapped a towel around myself. I was getting the fuck out of this hotel.
*****
I couldn’t stay here any longer. I got dressed and hurried towards the door, my mind racing with a mix of fear and confusion. Once in the hallway, I bolted for the stairs and started down them.
Bursting through the exit, I found myself gasping for air in the cool night. I ran down the alleyway of plastic rat traps and discarded fast food bags. I came out into a field of dry grass and rocks. No road in sight.
I turned to look back, the hotel was gone, vanished as if it were never there. My breath caught in my throat, and an overwhelming sense of disorientation hit me. Where the alleyway had been was now just dried grass and dirt.
Confusion drove me to retrace my steps, hoping to find the hotel once more, to prove to myself that I hadn’t completely lost my mind. I don’t know what I was thinking. It was gone. I could see that. But still, how was it possible?
In the distance, I saw a group of people standing by a boulder. I moved closer to see what was happening. A bone-chilling sight stopped me dead in my tracks. A firing squad, dressed in ominous black uniforms, stood poised, their weapons aimed at a hooded man. Time seemed to slow as I watched the scene unfold before me.
“Any last words?” a man with a rifle spat out.
From behind the cloth, a hoarse voice called back. “Please. Don’t do this. I’m innocent.”
The man with the rifle laughed as if nothing the hooded man said mattered at all. Then he shouted:
“Fire!”
Several shots rang out. They missed their target, piercing the air instead. The hooded man stumbled forward, frantically clawing at the fabric obscuring his face. Then he sprinted blindly.
“Get him!” the armed man called to the other executioners.
I stepped backwards, knocking a branch with my foot.
Panic gripped me as the firing squad turned their weapons towards me, their eyes void of mercy.
Shit. That was fucking stupid.
Without a second thought, I turned and ran, the adrenaline fueling my desperate escape. In my mad dash, I caught up with the hooded man, matching his frantic pace. With each step, my mind whirled with questions. The hooded man came to a stop and ducked down behind a dried bush.
I had so many questions but before I could voice them, he pulled off his hood. The face that greeted me mirrored my own, except for the hollow sockets where his eyes should have been. The sight sent the blood draining from my cheeks, as his lips curled into a chilling smile.
“Justice will always be served,” he whispered, his voice a haunting echo in the night. The words resonated in my mind, further fueling my terror. I stumbled backwards, the weight of the encounter pressing upon me like a suffocating fog.
Suddenly, the blaring of a horn shattered the silence, jolting me back to reality. I barely managed to leap out of the path of an oncoming truck, narrowly escaping a tragic fate. Bruised and scraped, I turned my gaze back towards the hotel, its facade seemingly twisted into a sinister grin.
Jury duty was going to kill me.
*****
The next thing I remember, I was waking up in my hotel room. John was already dressed, sitting on the edge of his bed reading an issue of Sports Illustrated. I sat up and rubbed my eyes.
“How did I get here?” I asked.
John looked up from the magazine. “I’ve been asking myself the same question for the past three days.”
At breakfast, I pulled Mercedes aside and told her that I was having some kind of nervous breakdown. I needed to speak to the judge about being replaced by an alternate. She put her hand on my shoulder and gave me a reassuring smile. “Everyone who gets sequestered on a jury feels that way. It’s totally normal.” I tried to explain that this was different, but she basically said unless it was a medical emergency the judge’s answer would be no.
We were back in the courtroom for day three of the trial. The prosecution wrapped up its case and now it was the defense’s turn.
As the defense attorney began presenting his case, I found myself once again drifting in and out of focus. How was I supposed to concentrate on alibis and DNA when I was literally questioning my own sanity?
During one particularly grueling cross-examination, I glanced across the jury box, my gaze falling on Amrita. Although she was partially obscured by her hijab, I could see that her eyes looked exhausted. They were bloodshot and glassy. And she seemed as unfocused as I did.
During a brief recess, the jury gathered in a private room in the courthouse. I approached Amrita and asked her if she was okay. She was quiet for a moment. Then she reached out and took my hand.
“There’s something wrong with this trial,” she said. “We’re not just here to decide the fate of that man.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
Amrita hesitated, her grip on my hand tightening. “There’s a darkness at play here,” she finally whispered. “I’ve been seeing signs since we arrived, but it wasn’t until now that I started piecing it all together. This trial… it’s not what it seems. And we need to find out what’s really happening here before it’s too late.”
“Yes, I’ve been feeling it, too. I thought it was just the hotel.”
Amrita shook her head. “I had a dream last night,” she continued, her voice quivering slightly. “In the dream, I saw the accused man, the one we’re judging, standing over me. His eyes were filled with anger and hatred, and he said, ‘You will regret this decision.’”
“But we haven’t decided anything yet,” I said.
“I think he’s already decided for us,” she replied.
Once we returned to the courtroom, I suddenly found myself even less interested in the witnesses and the questioning. My attention was drawn to the defendant, who sat emotionless, a vacant, faraway look in his eyes. He was dressed in a somber beige suit, his dark hair tinged with gray. I stared at him, searching for a hint of empathy beneath his cold exterior.
Minutes passed. Or maybe it was hours. All I know is at some point, he turned and our eyes met. Before I could avert my gaze, his pupils turned bright red, transforming into burning orbs of crimson. I immediately felt an unholy presence in the room and I started to wonder if the man on trial was even human.
The defense rested their case and the lawyers presented their closing arguments. Then the judge gave us some instructions about jury deliberations and we were escorted to the jury room to agree on a verdict. I was selected as the jury foreperson, which is the person who oversees the deliberations. I’m not sure why they picked me, but I wasn’t going to make a stink about it.
We started by taking an anonymous straw poll. I tallied up the votes, and it was ten guilty, two not guilty. The anonymous part didn’t last long. The two hold-outs were Amrita and I. After some impassioned arguments, Amrita caved and changed her vote.
I tried to make a case for reasonable doubt, but it was a stretch. Everyone was ready to go home, so I joined the others and made the guilty verdict unanimous.
My instructions were to notify Mercedes once we had reached a decision, but before I even left the room, a chill suddenly filled the air. Then a demonic growl emanated from the wall, causing the hairs on the back of my neck to stand on end. I turned to the others, wide-eyed and tense, hoping they heard it too. Their faces mirrored my terror. Yeah, they heard it.
With a sickening thud, the wall ruptured, and a figure emerged—a grotesque doppelganger of me, identical to the one I had encountered in my desert dream. Its vacant eyes had been brutally gouged out, leaving behind hollow sockets that seemed to emanate an otherworldly darkness. The stench of decay permeated the room, filling the air with a sickening odor that was almost suffocating.
Before any of us could react, the doppelganger lunged at Amrita with a ferocity I had never witnessed. Its movements were unhinged, like a creature possessed by pure malevolence. I stood frozen, paralyzed by fear and disbelief, as she was torn to pieces at the hands of this abomination.
Amrita’s blood splattered all over me. I stumbled backward, then watched as the doppelganger turned its supernatural fury on Curtis, ripping him apart with similar savagery. As the others panicked, I fled from the room with a mix of horror, guilt, and desperation. People in the courthouse halls caught sight of me, their eyes widening in shock as they pointed accusatory fingers and unleashed shrill screams.
“I didn’t do it. It wasn’t me!” I cried.
I ran, my heart pounding, never looking back, the weight of the world crushing my shoulders. Outside the courthouse, the once-familiar streets became a labyrinth of confusion and paranoia. The truth was lost in a sea of chaos, drowned out by the accusations echoing in my ears. No one would believe that I had nothing to do with the carnage left behind in that room. I had to disappear, to vanish from the life I once knew, or else I would be the one on trial.
*****
In the depths of Montana, I found refuge, hiding in plain sight amidst the vast wilderness. Here, I can only whisper my story, a dark secret burdened by the weight of a shattered life. The fear of being found, of being punished for what happened, never leaves me. I am haunted by my doppelganger’s eyes, the ones that now reside only in my nightmares.
If you’re reading this, believe me when I say that I am innocent. I am a victim of forces beyond my comprehension, trapped in a twisted web of supernatural malevolence. As the days turn into nights, and the nights stretch into eternity, I pray that my tale finds sympathetic ears and that the truth will one day prevail.