As he tried to ignite his lighter, the overlay image of the room from the past started spinning. His room remained stationary, but the room of Torri’s memory started to rotate, accelerating like a children’s merry-go-round.
Determined to set off the sprinkler, Gavin closed his eyes to block out the dizzying images around him. He flicked his lighter, but as the room spun faster, it produced a wind that snuffed out the flame every time.
He opened his eyes to see why it wasn’t working, a miscalculation he paid for by dropping the lighter, and it was caught in the increasingly fast whirlwind and spun around the room.
The items, furniture, and structure of the room from Torri’s memory revolved around him at an incredible rate of speed. This resulted in a vortex of cool air, capturing the smaller objects of the suite, including the lighter, and hurling them in a wide circle around the room.
Gavin was frozen in fear and amazement as the phantom tornado knocked over the metal bed lamp, slung a pen and notepad against the wall, and even unplugged the clock radio. Everything small and lightweight in the suite spun clockwise.
The only stationary object other than the furniture was the brightly glowing typewriter on the bed. It was the hub—the eye of the storm—and all the loose items orbited it.
Gavin held on to the back of the chair. It felt as if the machine was trying to suck him into itself or to draw him to it.
He fixed his vision on the chair and lowered himself to the ground. “Torri, make it stop! I’m not typing anything for you—or whatever it is that you want. Make this stop, all of it!”
The image of Torri reappeared next to the machine on the bed, her hair lifting slightly as if by a spring breeze. The sharp crack of typewriter hammers cut through the noise of the room.
“No more typing! I command you to speak! I know you can. I just heard you. Now make it stop!”
“You command me?” an incredulous feminine voice asked, coming from everywhere at once as the machine typed her words. “You are nothing, simply a means to an end.”
The whirlwind abruptly snatched the chair from Gavin’s side. It spun around the room a few times before shattering with a loud crack against the wall.
Gavin felt faint and nauseated.
Shouting above the noise of items striking the walls, he asked, “What… what do you want?” His fists were knotted and tight, but he knew there was nothing tangible to strike. “I told you, there’s nothing here for you!”
Torri lowered her hands to her ghostly hips. The typewriter hammered out her words into the page as if taking dictation. “You still haven’t figured it out? Taking my mother’s machine, bringing it into Room 719, what you did with your little slut? You set all of this into motion. And there’s no going back now!”
The carriage return of the antique made a loud ding, accompanied by a bright flash of red. Gavin barely dodged the remains of the wooden desk chair hurled in his direction. The shards punctured the wall behind him like wooden daggers before the furious cyclone swept them away again.
“Monica was a long time ago!” Gavin shouted. “That’s between me and Josephine. It’s none of your business.”
“Wrong!” The wind within the suite grew. Gavin had to lean into the direction he tried to walk, like an unfortunate weatherman assigned to give a live report from a hurricane. Slowly and methodically, he placed one foot in front of the other until he reached the sliding door. It was opaque, as if the sheet of glass had been coated with tar.
He played the hunch that what he was seeing was false, just as fake as the exchange that he’d witnessed between Barta and his lover. Gavin reached for the handle to slide it open and pulled back when he felt an electrical shock.
She doesn’t want me over here, which can only mean one thing—the way out!
He rammed the door with his shoulder a few times, but the glass didn’t break. Each attempt delivered a punishing jolt of electricity through his body.
The fury that Torri displayed showed that he was on to something. She voiced an unearthly scream. “If you leave me here before the transformation is complete, everyone you’ve ever known will die before their time, and you’ll be the last to go so that you’ll see it’s true! I’ll search your memories like a catalog, calling up everyone you’ve ever met. What a lucky girl I am to pair up with someone who’s as well known as you, Gavin Curtis—someone who knows so many people to choose from.”
The sound of her sarcastically uttering his name gave him chills as he returned to the desk and lined it up with the sliding door. He batted away the small objects that rained on him from the whirlwind—a pencil, the empty carton of cigarettes, the clock radio, and his own dirty socks.
Sensing that her power was growing, he knew that he had to make this count.
Tossing the laser printer to the ground, Gavin pressed his shoulder against the edge of the ornate desk and rammed it into the glass. After a loud impact, he desperately checked for damage, but there wasn’t a single crack in the slate-black surface.
Torri protested. “I’ll extract every memory out of your brain. You’ve become a conduit, and I’ll destroy everyone you’ve ever thought about, everyone you’ve met, everyone you love.”
The typing reached an inhuman speed. “I’ll feast on their energy as they leave. Do you hear me? All of them—everyone—and send your unfaithful, cheating heart into cardiac arrest!”
Ignoring her, he tried again, this time with the desk already pressed against his target. He lunged forward, resisting the pull of the vortex. A thin line of white light no wider than a pinprick peeked through the glass. The fracture in the glass looked like a black-and-white photograph of a lightning storm, but it was undeniably there. He was breaking through. Encouraged, he returned to the task, finding an extra reserve of strength. He felt the white-hot glow on his back from the machine on the bed.
Torri sounded desperate. “I’ll destroy them!”
Gavin shoved at the desk. More random cracks of light splinters shone through the glass.
“I’ll kill them all, and it’ll be your fault!”
The fractures grew, looking like a drunken spider’s web stemming from the collision point.
“Do you hear me? I’ll kill them all just like I did with your choking little Mexican whore!”
He heaved at the desk as he enunciated, “Monica didn’t do anything wrong!”
Large shards of glass snapped and struck the surface of the desk as it broke through a quarter of the way.
It worked!
The specter shrieked and wailed, but Gavin didn’t turn around. He shoved at the desk through what remained of the shattered glass. The smell of soft summer rain filled his nostrils. The swollen grey sky was the most beautiful thing that he’d ever seen. He laughed and cried simultaneously.
As the desk made it two-thirds of the way onto the balcony, the front legs skidded on the concrete and snapped with a loud crunch. The abrupt lack of support from the front sent Gavin’s end upward. He slid forward uncontrollably and struck his chin on the edge, slamming his teeth together, then hit the edge with his forehead, leaving a deep gash.
Determined to break free from the horrors of the room, he crawled under the desk, lifting the fallen end when he was outside.
The typing ceased.
When he made it to the balcony’s railing, he looked back inside the room. Though the room was a wreck, the whirlwind had stopped. More importantly, the glow from the machine was gone, and so was Torri Barta. Or at least she wasn’t visible.
What’s she up to? Is she coming through? Is it starting?
The rain picked up, but he didn’t mind the drops hitting his head and soaking his clothes.
He felt reborn.
Gavin surveyed the area for help, but the parking lot was empty. He felt his shirt pocket for his cell to call the front desk until he remembered that it was dead. Behind him, the rain tapped a steady pattern on the metal railing, striking the same discordant note over and over again. The other rai
ndrops bounced off the smaller fragments of broken glass, making them dance in the tiny puddles that collected on the concrete.
Gavin felt something heavier than the rain bump his shoe, and he looked down. He instinctively jumped back when a small, dark-green creature leaped from his foot to join another one near him.
He turned to the destruction the desk had made of the glass door. Thousands of frogs were in the suite. He remembered the story of the plague of frogs he was taught at Catholic school in St. Anne’s Elementary. The sudden, unnatural manifestation of frogs was shocking, yet he found it strange that Torri was using the memory of the frog dissection against him. It wasn’t as if he had a phobia of frogs. She’d misinterpreted the memory.
Whatever her capabilities of reading his thoughts and dreams were, they were fallible. She still had to interpret their meaning. This revelation inspired him to believe that there might be a way out of this after all.
For the moment, the horde of frogs in the suite moved toward him in random, uncoordinated leaps and bounces. With a wide, sweeping motion of his foot, he slid the four small ones that had already gathered near him to the lip of the patio balcony. They fell from the ledge, too small for him to see their impact on the lot below, not that he was able to see much of anything through the downpour.
The frogs felt real enough, not like the phantom cleaning cart. More of them emerged from around the sides of the broken desk.
How much weight can the balcony hold before collapsing?
He ushered a second wave of frogs, mixed with bits of broken glass, over the edge. His drenched clothing made each move clumsy, and thick strands of his wet hair continually fell into view, blocking his sightline. Frantically brushing it out of his eyes, he looked at the bed.
While frogs of all sizes covered the bedspread, they gave the machine a wide berth. Next to it, they outlined a perfectly proportioned human form free of frogs—as if an invisible person were lying on the bed with her arm around the typewriter.
He studied the spot, expecting to see Torri materialize in it at any second.
I have to throw it over the edge before it kills me.
The frogs came around the sides of the slanted desk more quickly. The writing table vibrated from the bombardment of hundreds of them making their way onto the balcony.
He grabbed the edge of the desk that angled upward and rocked it back and forth. Finally, there was enough momentum for him to heave it toward himself. He jumped clear as the top of the desk landed flat on the balcony with a sickening squishing sound. He closed his eyes.
I’m sorry.
The noise from the frogs was considerably louder now that he was in the suite, but at least he was out of the rain. Everywhere he stepped, he crushed and crunched the creatures beneath his feet. He tried not to think about all of these poor frogs he was killing, only concentrating on throwing the typewriter over the balcony—but he couldn’t ignore it. The soles of his shoes slid on their guts and blood-slickened bodies, making each step both awful and uncertain.
He felt like he’d have a heart attack.
As he made it to the bed, he witnessed the impossible again: half a dozen frogs of various sizes emerged from the center opening of the device and hopped to the edge of the bed.
So that’s where they’re coming from.
He glanced at the paper roll from the machine. For the most part, it was a word-for-word transcript of all that Torri had threatened. He ripped the sheet from the device. He was fed up with all of this.
Gavin grabbed the device. Expecting it to shock or burn his hands, he was surprised to feel the cool sides of its metal casing. More frogs exited from the center opening of the device. Gavin batted them away before the next batch materialized.
The machine was heavy—too heavy. Despite straining with all his might, he couldn’t lift it from the bed. He’d have a better chance of lifting a cement truck. He slid his hands between the bottom of the device and the bed sheets. A tremendous weight pressed down on his hands as if to crush them. Gavin cried out in agony but managed to wrangle them free before they were crushed.
Another wave of frogs appeared from within the machine as the box spring of the bed bent inward and collapsed. The silhouette of Torri’s form on the bed filled in with frogs as they toppled downward.
Where was she?
Gavin lost his footing on a cluster of frogs. His soaked and weary body fell hard, but never actually made contact with the suite’s carpet. The decorative pattern was hidden beneath quivering mounds of green.
Frogs from around the room made their way to where he lay. He struggled to sit up, but the weight of them held him down. They jumped onto his head and into the openings of his clothing. A tiny one found its way into his mouth, which was more than he could bear. He spat it out and kept spitting as he rolled to one side and then to a pushup position. Pushing himself up along with countless frogs, Gavin clumsily returned to his feet. Frogs flung off in every direction as he shook his head and limbs violently. Gavin hobbled on the backs of crushed frogs on his retreat to the balcony, feeling nauseated by the sensation of the frogs under his feet.
In a panic, he scanned the parking lot for any sign of help, but he only saw spears of rain ricocheting off evenly spaced cars.
The drops were colder than before, and a large mass of dark clouds swelled on the horizon. This wasn’t going to be a summer cloud burst.
Gavin moved past the upturned desk to the railing closest to the other balcony and wiped the water from his face. “Hey! Hey, is anyone there?”
The distance was less than six feet from where he was to the railing of the neighboring enclosure. The challenge was that it wasn’t a straight shot. To ensure privacy, each balcony followed the contour of the round building, like ends of flower petals pointing away from the center. The only way to see another guest was for both of them to lean forward.
The croaking noise of the frogs grew louder as they exited the room to the outside.
Gavin moved past the upturned desk to the rail closest to the other balcony and shouted again. “Hello, can you hear me? Is anyone there? Help! Help me!”
Gavin’s heart pounded like it would explode.There were units positioned diagonally above to the left and right, but he could only see the underside of them. He returned his focus to the neighboring balcony.
He could never make a jump like that, especially in the rain.
He turned back to the broken sliding door. The amphibian exodus had already grown to three or four layers deep, causing the balcony to shudder under the extra weight.
The darkened sky lit up when a dazzling burst of lightning shot across the heavens. Gavin paused as the bolt crackled with energy, thin, veiny tributaries disappearing from view over the bridge.
A bridge! Yes, a bridge!
He moved with purpose, grabbing the two remaining legs of the desk. Hundreds of frogs of different colors hopped across the now-exposed underside of the desk. With as much strength as he could summon, he skidded the desk right and left across the tops of the helpless creatures, wincing and muttering apologies, until he made it to the balcony’s edge. He hoisted it upright, propping the side with the broken legs against the rail. Frogs fell over the side as if being poured from a bucket.
Gavin shoved the desk toward the neighboring balcony with such force that a clang sang out when it slammed into the other side.
Heh, still got a little fight in me, Torri, you bitch!
Gavin wiped the rain from his eyes. Only a few inches of the far left corner of the desk actually balanced on the top of the rail, but it couldn’t go any farther. It was alarmingly wobbly, and his blood ran cold as he contemplated what he was about to do.
He told himself that at least if this stunt didn’t work—if he died—it would be his own doing and not at the hands of Torri Barta.
The wind howled as he hoisted himself onto the edge of the desk. He knew he couldn’t hesitate. If he waited even for a minute, he’d convince himself not to go through wi
th it.
Locking a death grip on the sides of the desk, he inched forward on his knees. His heavy, waterlogged clothing clung to him, and the blood dripping from his forehead kept getting into his eyes. He resisted the temptation to look at anything but the surface of the desk. Even though smears of frog guts made him wince, it was a more welcome sight than the ground seven stories away.
Just as he was beginning to master the agonizingly slow and precarious process of moving forward one limb at a time, another startling explosion of lightning and thunder paralyzed him with fear. He was nearly halfway across, but he was now stuck, frozen in place like a statue, too afraid to proceed and unable to blindly retreat backward. His left hand cramped from clutching so tightly, but both hands refused his command to release their grips from their respective edges. He closed his eyes and sobbed uncontrollably for a minute or so until he began to hyperventilate.
Forcing himself to focus again, Gavin lowered his head and concentrated on breathing. Pain pulsated from white knuckles, shooting through his wrists into weary arms.
He had lost all sense of time. Though his rational mind pleaded otherwise, it felt like he’d been trapped in the middle of the desk for hours.
The noise and vibrations of thousands of frogs gathering on the balcony behind him snapped him out of his daze.
He bit his lip and returned to crawling painstakingly across, first his left hand and then his right hand, followed by his left knee, a shift in his weight, and then his right knee. It was the longest five-and-a-half-foot crawl of his life. Each inch gained was an act of sheer will and defiance of the malicious creature in his suite. Each move was a testament to his refusal to forfeit control to her. He was freakin’ Gavin Curtis!
Nearing the edge of the desk, he maneuvered his legs around until he was in a sitting position. Dark smears of frog blood and goo stained the knees of his trousers. He then cautiously scooted on his butt until his feet could touch the concrete. On solid footing, he turned and looked back at the other balcony and exhaled a sigh of relief.
The frogs tried to follow him, but only fell to their deaths in droves off the side of the balcony where the desk bridge was.
Cruel Devices Page 18
