by Jon Sauve
Turns out, it’s hard to eat when your hands are shaking so much you feel like a malfunctioning robot. And even if you wipe, wipe, wipe your hands, the memory of blood on them pretty much turns you off food completely. I ate half the granola bar, then confessed I couldn't finish it. Mary grabbed it from me and gobbled the rest.
As much as I hated eating it, the food helped. My head felt a bit clearer. I could think critically and strategically now. If only I wasn't a sheltered geek, and knew anything at all about surviving.
The fact that I had already survived two separate encounters with killers had to count for something. But what next? Trying to get out had resulted in Luke getting shot. Trying to ally with others had resulted in Jacob getting his arm chopped off. So, I decided it was time to fucking hide in a dark room and wait until something happened. And something certainly would. I was pretty sure that the universe wouldn't just let me ride out the storm in this room and come out when everything was finished. Sooner or later the shit would roll all the way downhill, right into my face. I would be chewing on corn and peanuts the rest of my life. Or I would die.
Now that I was convinced that I was still a living person, I was free to dwell on thoughts of mortality. Somehow, I had already fought and won twice. The chances of that were already astronomically low. How good of a chance did I have for surviving the whole thing, of ever getting out of this hotel?
About as good a chance as Jim Carrey had of getting with that chick in Dumb & Dumber. Unfortunately, I wasn't quite dumb enough to believe I had a snowflake's chance in Satan's asshole.
Mostly I kept my eyes glued on the hall, and my mind focused on remaining still and silent, but I looked back to check on Mary every few minutes. She stayed behind me for a while, then started pacing, and eventually went to sit in the corner with her knees drawn up to her chest. She looked about as despondent and hopeless as I felt.
When I was done staring at her, and wishing we had met under different circumstances, I went back to staring down the hallway. Half an hour or so went by and I saw no one. But I did hear them; thumps from above, echoed bangs, that sort of thing. No screams, though. At first that seemed like a good thing. Neither Ben nor Beth had met their doom. But then, neither had Oogie, Jeremy, or Elden.
Where were they? Someone was scratching and shuffling around almost directly above me for a while, but then they stopped. Were they now crouched low, hiding and waiting like I was? Employing the trifecta of wisdom? Or were they stalking the hotel, looking for people to murder? Were they close, or far away?
Maybe the game had reached a bit of a stalemate point. I was pretty sure that Jeremy would still be hunting, but it seemed like everyone else was almost certainly hiding. Anyone sane would be.
After ten minutes of complete silence, I started to worry. Both Beth and Ben could have been dead by now, for all I knew. Maybe they had been killed silently, or I had been in the middle of fighting at the time and hadn't heard their screams.
Maybe, maybe, maybe. And maybe Orin, did you ever think of this, you might be dead?
Back to that shit. I forced myself to look at Mary again. I caught her staring at me, and she looked away. The shock had apparently worn off, and she was trembling. And did I mention it was cold as fuck in the hotel? I doubt there was much insulation left in the walls. The squirrels and mice had probably made nests out of it a long time ago.
I was cold too. And thirsty. Very thirsty. I wasn't about to drink my own pee, so I sucked it up and kept my vigil.
I started to imagine that I was a monk at some mountain temple, keeping the same vigil night after night, month after month, year after year, decade after decade. Just a lonely, wind-blown post somewhere in the Himalayas, with only a few chanting bald guys for company. Shit, that would have been preferable. The abstinence wouldn't have bothered me either. I was already a virgin, and I didn't drink. And I liked tea and lighting candles. Hole in one.
Except I don't think I would ever reach enlightenment, not after murdering two people.
No. I only killed them. Murder makes it sound like you did something wrong. Look, if I hadn't killed them...
I came out of my thoughts as Mary walked up behind me. She touched my shoulder and leaned over to look into the hallway.
"Nobody's coming," she whispered. "We need to get out of here."
"How?" I asked. Legitimate question, really.
"The boards." She gestured toward the room's solitary window. "There must be a way we can get them off. If we just find something to pry with..."
I shrugged at her. "The noise..."
"Right. We would just have to do it fast. I mean, the boards will probably splinter, right? As long as we get one off we can both get through. We're both skinny."
I nodded. The noise might not be terrible anyway. As long as no one was in our wing, and I had no reason to believe anyone was, it would probably go unnoticed.
"Snipers," I said.
Mary shook her head. "There's a fence there. I saw it on the way in. And Jacob said there were only six. We have to try."
"Okay," I said, secretly thinking she was insane. "We can at least take a look. If we see anyone, though..."
No need to expand on that.
The prying thing was the main problem. Neither one of us was very strong, so we would need something long and sturdy. Like a fucking crowbar. So we went into the closet, grabbed a crowbar, and... then I woke up.
I went to test the boards while Mary searched. As I already said, they were strong and fresh. Had probably been put up in the last twenty-four hours. There were four screws per side, set in a zigzag line, drilled into the two-by-six frame around the window. I'll bet they used really long screws, too.
I grabbed hold of the middle of the board and gave it a shake. It flexed, but not much, and there was no cracking sound. It was a strong bastard. So I planted my feet on the wall, pulled myself up by the board, and put all my weight and strength into it. This time I heard a tiny pop, but it might have just been a blood vessel in my brain. The board flexed more, and a bit of liquid even squeezed out, but it did not break.
I decided to give up on that before I got hemorrhoids. I went to help Mary instead.
The best thing we found was a bent curtain rod laying in the closet. It was a hollow piece of junk, rusty and jagged, more likely to give us tetanus than break the board. But we tried anyway.
The rod folded in half. We unbent it and tried again. This time it broke.
"Fuck!" Mary said. "Fucking fuck! Shit! Goddamn it. Wait, look!"
She had her face right up by the left end of the board. I got closer and looked. Two of the screws were suddenly sunk a quarter inch deeper, which meant... Yes, my fingers confirmed it; we now had a slight gap between the board and the wall. We had made progress. Whether from the rod or my handiwork earlier, I don't know. Maybe our friendly hosts fucked up when screwing the thing on.
I got my hands back around the board. I was fueled now by a mad urge to get the fuck out of the hotel.
With a lot of wiggling and yanking, we managed to get the loose end of the board free from the wall. The presence of the four screws at the other end prevented us from just pivoting the board out of the way, but we did get a lot of prying leverage. We both grabbed the board and jerked it backwards, again and again, each time hearing a satisfying crack. The noise we were making was starting to rise above what we probably wanted, but I guess we didn’t care at the time.
Finally, blessedly, the stupid fucking board let out a final wooden screech and came off all at once. Mary and I stumbled back, hit the bed, and sat down with the cracked board across our laps. We stared at the new ten inch gap in the window, at the twinkling stars outside, and started to laugh. Hey, at least it was fresh air, and a reminder that the hotel didn't encompass the entire universe.
We set the board aside and ran over. Mary had been right about the fence. It was about six feet high and ran to the left and right as far as I could see from my limited angle. It didn't seem t
o have much of a reason for being there, but it was there goddamn it.
I reached toward freedom, just wanting to feel the wind, and my hand struck something hard. I wrapped my fingers around it and gave it a wiggle. It was unyielding. Further searching with my hands revealed that we were even more fucked than we thought. The window was barred.
I stepped back. Mary looked at me like I was crazy, then used the remaining board as a handhold to climb through. She bonked her head on the bars and dropped to the floor.
"Shit," she said. "Who the fuck puts bars on windows?"
I turned around and went right back to the door to continue my watch. I tried not to show it, but I was angry. At Mary mostly, for getting my hopes up, for allowing me to open the door to optimism. It only took a few minutes for me the settle comfortably back into being terrified and hopeless.
Mary stomped around behind me for a while, mumbling about "a way out." I heard her knocking, scratching, digging. When I finally looked back she was reaching through the window, shoving and pulling at the bars in turn.
"Fuck!" she said, falling back. "They're welded or something."
That gave me an idea. Not an idea of how to get out; just an idea of how to kill some time. I went to the window, reached an arm through the bars, and felt all along their edge. After a minute of painful searching I found one of the bolts attaching the bars to the wall. As I had already expected, they were hex-shaped, reamed so deep into the window frame that I probably couldn't even get them out if I had the proper wrench.
Too bad. If this had been a movie, the bolt would have had a groove that just so happened to perfectly fit the edge of a quarter. I said a bad word and pulled my hand back in before a sniper could shoot it off.
"Can't get it off," I told Mary.
She stared at me. Her expression was easy to read. She wanted me to give her good news, a plan, leadership. It was a scary fucking thought. At home, I could barely work up the courage to walk to the mailbox. What good was I here?
Think, Orin. Think your ass off. You have to get out of here. You have to make sure Mary doesn't die.
And what about the others? What about Ben and Beth? Well, I'm not goddamn Superman. I can't save everyone. And maybe they had also teamed up. They had to be good, the two of them. Both of them had seemed too sincere when I had met them outside the front door. Not like Boogie and Oogie. They had given everyone the creeps even back then.
Yeah, back then. Before everyone started trying to kill me. It was a different lifetime. I was a different person.
"What do you want to do?" I asked Mary.
"What kind of stupid question is that?" she shot back. "I want to get the hell out of here, is what I want to do."
"Right, but we can't just leave. So, what do you want to do?"
We thought about it.
"We have to find weapons," she said. "We can get the ax maybe, if we're fast enough. Then we go after Jeremy and that other asshole. No more hiding and running, Orin."
Her words rang true. Being scared is exhausting. Waiting is exhausting. I wanted to see this over with. And what would hiding here accomplish, anyway? If Jeremy and Elden found us, we'd still only have the multitool. We would be double-fucked. Better to get armed and ready.
Taking the first step back into the hall was painful, but I had Mary behind me, shoving me onward. We moved slowly at first, then both of us lost our nerve at the same time and completed the journey to front door in a rush. We stopped a few paces short of it.
No one there. I couldn't see the sniper's laser dot, nor could I see the sniper himself. I could barely even see Luke, sprawled on the ground right outside. The night seemed to have grown darker.
"Can you see it?" I asked.
"Right there," Mary said. "I think."
Out there in the dark, at what seemed to be ground level, I spotted a vague wedge shape. The ax, for sure. It wasn't even that far out. I probably could have grabbed it on my mad dive back through the door earlier.
"I can get it," Mary said.
But I shook my head, all cool logic. Not really, but that's how I wanted to appear.
"I have longer arms," I told her. "I'll grab it."
Actually, I was just afraid she would think I was a coward. The mindset of a twenty-three year old virgin. Fuck me. Not literally, of course. Never literally.
Mary didn't argue. She even gave me a nudge to get me going. I needed it; apprehension had frozen me solid. But now that I had gotten going, it was hard to stop. I lurched forward like a reanimated corpse. I definitely felt like one, and probably looked like one too. Your facial muscles can only hold so much tension. Once you overload them, they kind of just go slack, and you end up looking like you just had a stroke, or like you haven't slept in four days.
Was I a vampire emerging into the night after a long slumber? A tormented immortal whose only solace is the darkness?
No. I was barely more than a kid, scared shitless and desperate.
I stopped just inside the door. I waited maybe only a few seconds, but it felt longer. I thought I could already feel the laser dot on my chest, burning through my jacket like a focused ray of sun. But it wasn't there. The night was still and dead. But they were out there, and even though I couldn't see them, they sure as hell could see me.
My mind was racing. You hear that expression a lot, but it really is accurate. Thoughts flew by at a hundred miles per hour, and the further I went the crazier they became. I told myself I would be fine, that the ax was part of the "scavenger hunt" and that they would just let me take it, that they certainly wouldn't kill me unless I made an obvious effort to escape. It all seemed logical later on, in hindsight, but at the time I felt like a fucking idiot. There was no way they wouldn't blast me.
But Mary was there. I could feel her breathing on my neck. Or I thought I could feel it. Either way, she was watching, and counting on me. And I knew that, if we didn't have this ax, we were probably dead anyway.
Just do it quick, Orin. Lean out the door, don't even put your feet over the threshold, and grab the thing. It's right there. Hell, it must have bounced or something when Luke dropped it. It's very close.
Then again, Orin, there is a motherfucking sniper out there.
Oh, wonderful.
I waited just a little bit longer. Maybe part of me thought the sniper would call out a warning, or even give me permission to grab the ax. Nothing happened. I still didn't see the laser dot.
Then I did it. I just shut off my brain, leaned through the shattered door, and grabbed the ax. I almost fell getting back inside, and did some kind of feline anti-gravity twist to steady myself. Then I threw myself against the wall inside, shut my eyes, and waited to meet eternity. After a moment, I felt Mary touch my arm.
"You got it," she said. "You got it, Orin."
I opened my eyes. It didn't make much difference. Mary's face was just a grayish splotch in the blackness. But her grip was warm and comforting, and the ax was cold and hard in my hands. Yes, I had gotten it. No, I wasn't dead.
"What now?" I asked, more than happy to relinquish leadership to her for a while.
"We check that room where we saw someone," Mary replied. "You know, where we were when Jacob found us."
I gave her a nod. It was a good idea. Most likely the room would be empty by now, but it might hold a hint as to who the person was and where they had gone.
Mary led the way back to the common area. We waited to either side of the doorway for a short while, watching and listening. I kept hearing phantom noises behind me, from the hallway leading to the one wing of the hotel I hadn't visited yet. But every time I looked, the hall was empty. Just the old floorboards flexing and settling. Or mice in the walls. The hotel was so damn quiet it might even have been a spider crawling across the floor. Or maybe it was someone far away, their movements causing a subtle cascade of noise.
The common room was still. No sound or motion, not even a subtle shift in the darkness to belie someone's presence. But we kept on waiting
, just to be sure. Finally, Mary waved at me. I went in, hands tight and sweaty around the ax. Funny, how you can be numb with cold and soaked in sweat at the same time.
I made a beeline for the door on the left side of the room, where we had seen the mystery person. I fell against the wall to the right of it, and Mary took the left. More waiting, more listening.
More silence. I shimmied around the doorjamb and shoved myself into the wall again on the other side. Mary went left again, struck something with her feet, and cursed. A few seconds later a light flipped on. She had found a lantern, perfectly intact, not a single drop of blood on.
A bolt of fear shot through me, and I turned my head to survey the room. A lantern must mean there was someone here. But the place was deserted.
At least there was a door. I shut it carefully, employing Jacob tactics, and stood in front of it to try and block the light. Mary moved deeper into the room, swinging the lantern around her. She seemed to be looking for something, but I don't know what. The room was totally empty. No furniture. Just cobwebs.
Mary stopped halfway across the room and turned back to me.
"What were they doing in here?" she asked.
"Looking for something," I replied. "Same as us."
She shook her head. "But they didn't even close the door. Didn't turn on their lantern. And apparently they just left it here."
Well, they certainly hadn't forgotten it. It would have been like forgetting to breathe. Or forgetting to block a knife that someone is trying to put in your neck.
But it seemed possible that the lantern didn't belong to anyone, that it had just been here all along.
Either way, it was ours now. I just hoped it wouldn't be ruined like the last two. Me and my shitty track record. Thankfully, I didn't expect Jeremy would bill me for them.
"He was over there," I said, indicating the wall to my right.
Mary nodded, and went over. Meanwhile, I stripped off my jacket, shivering all the while, and blocked the gap under the door. Better to be cold than dead.
