by Jon Sauve
"Jesus!" Luke said when I came out. "Man! You scared me! How about a warning next time?"
"Sorry," I said. "Did you see..."
Luke nodded. "Shaun. He's dead by now, gotta be. When I saw him, he was just..."
"Who did it?" I demanded, with a force I didn't know I could summon. "Did you see?"
Luke shook his head. "Man. What the fuck? We gotta get out of here."
He darted across the room, to a window I hadn't even known was there. It was covered by the limp, gray tatters of a curtain, which he swept aside with one of his four foot long arms. More boards. Also screwed down. Fresh and unyielding. They were two-by-fours. There was no way we were getting through them, unless we found a saw somewhere.
"Shit!" Luke said. "Fuck, man! We gotta get to the door, then. It's made out of glass. Even if they locked it, we can bust through."
I barely heard him. I was crouched in front of an especially rotten patch of the wall, sticking my fingers into the cracks. I found solid wood underneath the decayed paneling. Not encouraging.
"It was Max," Luke said. "I saw a shadow. It was too big to be anyone else."
I looked up at him. "What do we do?"
He shrugged. "Hide. Wait. Hope."
I didn't see any other options.
Hide, wait, hope. The trifecta of wisdom.
We weren't entirely stupid about it. Luke suggested we move to a different room, and though the idea of going into the hall was scary I had to agree. So we did. We didn't go far. We only switched to the opposite side of the hall and went four doors down. We shut the door, and turned our lights off rather than stuff the crack. That way we would clearly hear if anyone came down the hall. And see them coming, too, by the swinging shadow of the lantern they would probably be carrying.
We didn't say anything to each other. Luke stayed to one side of the door, and I stayed to the other. I had my multitool, but all Luke had found in his room was a sandwich bag full of trail mix. He started munching it as we waited, but he was shaking so bad that half of it ended up on the floor.
I wondered at first if the trail mix was poisoned. But the idea didn't even make sense when applied to apparent psychopaths like Max, Jeremy and Elden. They probably wanted living prey with enough energy to fight back, hence why they had provided snacks in the first place.
Also, Luke was still alive and well and terrified ten minutes after having his first mouthful.
When the bag was empty, he let it flutter to the floor and dusted his hands. He worked his mouth and tongue, digging peanut mush out of his teeth.
"Heard anything?" he asked.
I shook my head.
Luke leaned against the door, trying to listen through it.
"I dunno, man," he said. "I'm starting to think we should be in different rooms. If one of us gets in trouble, we won't both be screwed, you know?"
I didn't much like the idea. The least of the reasons was that Luke had no weapon of his own, other than fists the size of cantaloupes and arms like garden hoses.
"Dunno," I said. I admit it wasn't much of a reply. I've always had trouble speaking my mind, and situations of stress usually exacerbate negative qualities.
Luke pushed off the door and stood back to consider it. "If I got in the room right across... We can watch out for each other, right? If Max comes for one of us, the other can do a sneak attack on him. Yeah. I think it's the best protection we're gonna get."
"You need a weapon," I pointed out.
"Yeah, I'll find something. I can use my lantern if I have to." He hefted it. "I bet this would hurt if someone hit you in the head with it."
As someone who had often imagined household items as zombie-killing devices, I had to agree. The lantern had a handle on the top, attached to the sides of the fogged plastic casing around the bulbs. Its bottom portion, where the batteries were stored, was heavier than the rest. I could imagine the lantern swinging in a tight arch, catching someone in the back of the skull. Yeah, it would hurt for sure. The only problem was you wouldn't have a light anymore.
Luke turned out to be dead set on this plan. After listening a few more minutes, he opened the door and quickly stole across the hall. I shut the door behind him and fell back into the shadows. I didn't or couldn't say anything to stop him, and I even felt some insane sense of relief that I would be alone again.
Periodically, over the next fifteen minutes or so, I heard Luke making noises. He was probably looking for a way out, or just being clumsy. Other than that, the hotel was silent, and that was somehow worse than anything. I wondered what everyone else was doing, where they were, if they were even alive. I decided they must be. If Luke and I, the Two Stooges, were still breathing, why not the rest of them?
But what about Shaun? My first, second and third impression of the guy had been that he must be a cop or a marine. Someone resourceful and tough. But he was either dead or close to it, with a Swiss army knife sticking out of him. By now my mind was already blanking out the image of his face and the way he had asked for help, the way it would blank out a bad dream, but for some reason the image of that red plastic handle was still vivid.
Blue light suddenly flashed under the door. It confirmed two things; my eyes were still open, and I was still in this fucking hotel. I sunk to a crouched position, holding the multitool at my side with every muscle in my body tensed and ready.
The light danced, throwing a rolling shadow across the stained carpet. I heard whistling. Whistling! The sound instantly put me on edge. Every hair on my body stood up. No hope for a chance encounter with a friendly stranger this time. Whoever it was walking down the hall, I knew for a fact they were bad, bad, bad.
Though I obviously couldn't see or hear Luke, I felt I could still somehow sense him, and he was crouching and cowering just as I was. And listening. Listening hard. And praying even harder.
Luck ran out for one of us, and you can probably guess who. I'm not sure how the person in the hall knew which door to open, but I heard a little chuckle and a creak of a door handle being turned. The sound was close, too close to be from any other room. Luke was in trouble.
I'm no hero or fighter. I'm no anything, really, other than a predictable meat sack driven by self preservation. I didn't act straight away. I hid, waited, and hoped. The trifecta of wisdom, right?
I heard the door screech as it opened, the sound of rusted metal and wood on wood. For a moment there was nothing. Everything was silent, still, dead. Then everything happened at once.
First, I heard the person in the hall let out a loud, sudden breath. All at once, in a big whoosh. Then I heard some animal noise from Luke, a sort of chimpanzee yell. Last, there was the sound of the lantern smashing over someone's head.
I'm not sure what kind of inspired courage caused me to stand up and go into the hall. Well, now that I think about it, it was probably just pure instinct. I had to do something, and the door was the only way out.
In the shadows of the next room, I saw darting feet and trembling legs. Two tall silhouettes were struggling, letting out bestial noises. By the time I reached the door, Max had Luke pinned under him, half on the bed and half off. The IT nerd's scrawny limbs were flailing; his face was bright red. There was more surprise in his expression than anything else. Max was bleeding from a gouge on the back of his head. A hairy strip of skin hung from the bottom of the wound, wiggling like that bit of fat on a chicken breast. Blood flowed freely. I could hear it pitter-pattering on the carpet.
Once when I was younger, thirteen or fourteen, I helped my dad clear out a storage locker. We had finally moved in to a place big enough to keep all our shit, so we were reclaiming all of it. I remember how small the locker was - it was six by six, at most - and how much godforsaken shit we managed to cram in there, by dubious and unsafe means. First, we loaded it front to back with utility shelves. Then we stacked the tops of them to the ceiling with everything from bookcases to recliners. There was even a wheelbarrow, stuffed with all kinds of stupid shit that my dad hadn't b
een willing to throw away.
And then there were the speakers. They were two huge rectangles, and must have weighed forty pounds each. When you are moving and under stress, you tend to do stupid things. As for us, we put those two speakers on the very edge of the shelf, actually hanging off of it by an inch or so. And that day, as we were clearing out the locker, my dad bumped one of the speakers. I saw, he didn't, and I watched for five or six seconds while the speaker wobbled, teetered, and finally fell. Its corner edge hit my dad right in the head. He went down and the speaker came down with him, shoving him to the ground.
He was okay. He had to get four stitches, but we went back the next day and finished clearing the locker out. The shame of that experience didn't leave me for a long time, though. I thought about it at night, and lost sleep over it. I told myself I would never hesitate again.
And here I was, standing in the door of a shitty old hotel room watching one man try to kill another. I probably stood there for about ten seconds, just watching, the way I did when the speaker started to fall. I couldn't move; I couldn't even open my mouth.
What finally spurred me was the sight of the blade in Max's upraised hand. He was waiting, watching Luke struggle, holding the other man down easily with one hand. I could see the glimmer in his eyes from the light of the lantern at his feet. He was drawing it out, trying to maximize the pleasure.
I could tell he hadn't seen me yet. He had no idea I was there. If there was any time to strike, it was now. I took one step forward, and hesitated. The multitool didn't feel right. It was blade, a weapon you used when you wanted someone dead. And I wasn't ready to kill, not at all.
The lantern. It was still in my left hand.
Without thinking, without even breathing, I took another two steps and swung the lantern.
Max did see me then, but it was a little too late. The lantern was already on its way. I could hear the cheap plastic casing around the bulbs start to crack from the torque I had put on the handle. But it was still intact by the time it contacted Max's head.
I know the guy must have been bleary from the first hit. He might have even been close to losing consciousness, which might help explain his hesitation in stabbing Luke. Whatever the case might be, he went down like a sack of shit.
Luke fell off the bed and landed face down in the moldy carpet, gasping and coughing and letting out little whimpers. Max was totally out. I could see his legs and feet twitching in the light of the lantern on the floor. I felt a moment of regret.
"Shit," I said to no one. "I hope he'll be OK."
"Fuck that," Luke wheezed. "Make sure he's not OK!"
I picked up Max's lantern. Its new elevation let its light spread farther. I could see Max's face now. His eyes were partially open, and his nostrils were flaring rapidly in and out. His whole body was shaking. The sight of it filled my head with ice. I knew enough about brain trauma to know that Max wouldn't be getting up anytime soon.
"I shouldn't have hit him so hard," I thought.
And I'm still thinking it. I shouldn't have hit him so goddamn hard. I had swung the lantern with all my strength. It had shattered on impact, and its pieces had flown around the room. One of the batteries had made it out into the hallway. I had heard it knock against the wall.
"He's fucked," Luke said. "You put him into a coma, man."
I dropped Max's lantern. Thankfully the floor was carpet or the cheap thing might have broken. I heard Luke talking from far away.
"You saved me, man. And that's one asshole down, two to go. We better get out of here before the noise brings them."
He grabbed my arm, and I let him pull me out of the room and down the hall. By the time I came back to myself, we were fully in the danger zone. Luke had led us straight to the second floor landing, where any-fuckin'-body could see us. I was about to start fighting, but then I realized why we were here. Anyone who had heard the noise, and went to check on it, would have to pass this spot. We would hear them. Maybe we would even see them.
Luke seemed to have had enough of splitting up. He dragged me with him into the room directly across from the landing. When the door was shut, I turned Max's lantern back on. I don't even remember turning it off, but I guess instincts and reflexes can be pretty wise.
It wasn't a bedroom we were in, but a laundry room. A couple of the double-stacked machines still stood here, rusted and missing their doors. The floor was littered in all kinds of crud. Cigarette butts, bottle caps, empty half-pint plastic bottles with names like "Olde Oak Barrel" on them. Hobo fuel. I guess some bums had used the room as a party venue at some point. I could imagine them laying here in the dark, making guttural noises with their dirty toes sticking out of torn socks.
"Off!" Luke said.
I turned the lantern off. I guess it was a pretty dumb idea. Reflexes are unwise as often as not. Maybe more often.
After that, it was back to the trifecta of wisdom. The hiding and waiting was easy to figure out, but the hope was not. What were we hoping for? That no one would come? Or that someone would, so we could bash their skull in too?
I know which one I was hoping for. My hands felt so dirty I had to put the lantern down and shove them up into my armpits. At the time the idea that I had murdered someone wasn't really settling in. It was all defense and denial.
I must have said something about getting out of the hotel, but all I remember is what Luke whispered in response.
"The front door, man. That's the way. Check this out." I heard a jingling. "My keys! They didn't even take them. We just need to get out and we can drive the fuck out of here! Wait, quiet!"
I heard it too. Someone out in the hall. This time there was no lantern light or psychotic whistling. Whoever it was, they were being sneaky. That seemed to leave out Jeremy; it was impossible to imagine that guy caring much about stealth. But maybe it was Elden.
The trifecta was in full effect at that point. Hide so you don't die, wait to find out who it is, hope they don't happen to open up the room you're standing in.
The person in the hall kept going, or so it seemed. I could hardly tell where they were. A few minutes passed without Luke or me hearing anything. I think both of us were ready to burst; we desperately wanted to peek into the hall, but were too afraid.
I went and looked under the crack. There was enough of a gap there to see through, but there was no light at all. Even the lights in the common area downstairs, where we had received our briefing, were turned off. I hadn't noticed that on the way into the laundry room.
After staring for a minute, my eyes adjusted and I could kind of see. My sight wasn't blocked by anyone. Still, someone might be standing right next to the door, waiting.
But really, how could they know we were in here? They might be bloodthirsty psychos, but they were still human; they couldn't see through walls or hear like a cat, and Luke and I were being extremely quiet.
I decided to look. It was stupid, maybe, but I was feeling antsy and confined. I opened the door just enough to fit my head through. I looked to the right first, straining my senses. No one there.
I looked left. A flash of movement. I narrowed my eyes and drew back. Something went past my face, blasting wind against my eyeballs, and hit somewhere near my toes. Just before I shut the door I saw an axehead there, buried in the wooden floor.
"Fuck!"
Yeah, it was me who screamed it. Turns out shyness disappears when you're face almost gets chopped off.
Someone banged into the door on the other side. There was some subtle feature to the noise that suggested it came from a stumbling or tripping rather than someone trying to knock the door in. There was another sound, this one pulpy and squeaky; the ax being wrenched out of the floor.
"Get your thing out!" Luke said behind me.
I assume he was talking about my multitool. I already had it in my hand. The blade was looking particularly pathetic just then.
"Shit!" a voice hissed from outside.
"That was a girl," Luke said.
"Who's there?" I said.
Silence. But I could imagine her out there, probably with her hand clapped to her mouth to stifle her breathing.
"Mary?" I said. It was hard to get out. I've always had trouble saying people's names, for some reason. "Beth?"
"Mary." The reply was shaky but immediate.
"Can we open the door?" Luke asked.
"Yeah. Yes."
Luke nudged me. I reached out, opened the door, and stepped back quickly. Mary piled in, stumbling, as if she had been leaning against the door. The axehead scraped across the floor, thudding over inconsistencies and stuck-on bits of junk. She hooked one foot on the edge of the door and gave it a shove. It seemed about to slam, but at the last second a cushion of air pressure slowed it down. Mary pushed it again, wedging it shut. Then she turned toward Luke and I in the dark. She was breathing hard. And when I flicked on the lantern, I could see that she was shaking as bad as I was.
"You almost killed him," Luke said, pointlessly.
"Sorry," she said. "Sorry, sorry, sorry..."
I gave her a shaky smile. "I'm OK."
"Sure?"
I nodded.
Luke was at the door, listening. "Did you see anyone else out there?"
She shrugged. "I don't know. Yeah. Someone in the hall, walking away from me. I was following them when you opened the door. I guess I just reacted without even looking. Stupid."
No. Not stupid. Not extremely, anyway.
"Which way were they going?" Luke asked.
"Uh... That way. I mean, left."
"From where?"
"From the top of the stairs."
So, down toward my room. The bastard.
"Did you see who?"
Mary shrugged. "Too dark. They weren't very tall. I think it was that older guy. Maybe."
"Jacob," I said. Boy, I was just full of names that night. Making up for lost time, maybe. Or more likely scared out of my mind.
