by Blake Crouch
“Yeah, something happened.”
“I guess I could try Sheriff Hanson at his home.”
“Really? I mean, I don’t want to put you out or anything just ‘cause someone put glass and hooks and roaches in my wife’s fucking dinner and almost cut her tongue in—”
“It’s not her fault, Ron.”
Carol lifts the phone, dials a number, after a moment, says, “Arthur? Hey it’s Carol. I’ve got the couple from out-of-town standing here at my desk, and I think they need your help…I don’t know…yeah, I think so…okay.”
She hangs up the phone.
“He’s coming down.”
“Thank you,” Ron says. “Now we were hoping you might have some other good news for us.”
“Like what?”
“We’ve had a really rough evening, and we need a…”
She shakes her head. “I’m sorry, we’re booked.”
“I’ll pay double. Triple. I don’t—”
“Sir, what do you want me to do? Kick someone out? I’m sorry, there’s no vacancy.”
-13-
They sit in the leather sofa by the fireplace, Ron holding Jessica, running his fingers through her hair, thinking they should be sitting in this lobby under completely different circumstances, cuddling by the fire with glasses of wine, musing on what the future has in store. In those rare moments when his mind cleared of all the things he needed to do, he’d come close to admitting to himself that despite all the money he and Jessica were accumulating, they were sacrificing the primes of their lives—him for the superrich and the ultra-shallow, that elite class who could drop seventy-grand to buff a few dents out of their noses, Jessica for faceless pharmaceutical companies in pursuit of the next billion-dollar drug. Between the ninety-hour workweeks and all the Saturdays in the office, even in those fleeting idle moments, he had to remind himself to look around and enjoy what he had, to tell himself how good he had it—the Lotus, the collection of ancient single malts, the four point two million dollar view of the Valley from his Mulholland mansion.
“I’m gonna need something for the pain,” Jessica whimpers.
“Soon as we talk with the sheriff, we’ll head down to the Benz. I’ve got Lortab in my suitcase. Jess, can you hang here on your own for just a second?”
“Why?”
“I want to go upstairs and check on something.”
“Please hurry back.”
He moves through the empty lobby, the walls adorned with stuffed, dead animals—an elk head over the hearth flanked by coyotes, a large brown bear standing on its hind legs, encased in glass, birds of prey frozen in mid-flight from wires in the ceiling.
Ron takes the steps to the second floor two at a time, emerging into a long corridor warmed by light from faux-lanterns mounted to the wall between the doors.
He walks a third of the way down the corridor and stops.
He approaches the nearest door, leans in, his ear pressed against the wood, hears only the bass throb of his heart.
Three rooms down, he drops to his knees and looks through the slit between the bottom of the door and the hardwood floor—darkness.
He stands, knocks on the door, no answer.
Goes to the next door and knocks even harder.
Pounds on the third.
“Is anyone on this floor?” he shouts.
-14-
The desk clerk glances up as Ron storms over.
“You wanna tell me what the hell’s wrong with you?”
Her eyes widen and she sets her book down spine-up and rises out of her chair. Short, heavy, late-fiftyish, her big eyes magnified through the thick lenses.
“I don’t care for that tone of voice even a little—”
“I don’t give a fuck what you don’t care for. I just came down from the second floor. It’s empty.”
“No, it’s not.”
A noise like a distant explosion briefly derails Ron’s train of thought.
“The rooms are all empty and dark.”
Jessica rises from the couch, coming toward them now.
“Did it occur to you that our guests are sleeping? Or perhaps having a late dinner out?”
“Every single one of them? Why won’t you give us a room? What have we done to you to—”
“I told you. I don’t have any rooms available.”
Jessica reaches the front desk, stands beside Ron, says, “What’s going on?” with her swollen lisp.
“They’re fucking with us.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Baby, I just walked up to the second floor. There isn’t a single room occupied.”
Jessica focuses a smoldering gaze on the clerk. “Is that right?”
“Of course not.”
“Show us.”
“Excuse me.”
Jessica leans forward, lowers the napkin so the clerk can see the fishhook still embedded in her bottom lip.
“Show us.”
“I don’t have to show you any—”
“Bitch, I am an attorney, and I will make you a solemn promise right now. When I get back to LA, the very first thing on my agenda will be to call the top law firm in Denver, hire the meanest motherfucker on the letterhead, and sue your ass and this honkytonk piece of shit hotel for every last fucking cent.”
Ron feels so sure the desk clerk is on the brink of tears, it surprises him all the more when she leans forward and smiles at Jessica, her lips parting to speak.
The lobby doors squeak open, drawing everyone’s attention.
He wears a voluminous black parka dusted with snow, a sheriff’s star embroidered onto the lapel, smiling as he shelves his hat, clumps of snow dropping on the hardwood floor.
“Evening folks,” he says, striding toward them.
“Oh, Arthur.” The desk clerk bursts into tears. “They’ve been so mean to me.”
The sheriff arrives at the front desk. “What are you talking about, Carol?”
“This woman has been verbally abusive. Called me a cunt. Threatened to sue—”
Jessica says, “Wait just a—”
“You’ll get your turn.” To Carol: “Tell me what happened.”
“I tried to explain to these folks that we don’t have any room avail—”
“She’s lying!” Ron yells.
“Ya’ll need to take a walk,” the sheriff says, motioning toward the front doors. “Right over that way.”
Ron holds up his hands in deference, and he and Jessica backpedal toward the entrance.
The desk clerk points at Ron. “And that gentleman went up to the second floor and started banging on the guests’ rooms, screaming so loud I could hear him from down here. I’ve had numerous complaints.”
“And then his wife started swearing at you?”
“Him, too.”
“What’d he say?”
“I don’t remember exactly but he used the F-word a lot. They both did.”
Ron sees the sheriff reach across the desk and squeeze Carol’s hand. “I’m sorry, Carol. I’ll handle this.”
“Thank you, Arthur.”
The sheriff puts on his Stetson, turns, and advances toward the Stahls, a hybrid of a sneer and a scowl overspreading his face.
He stops, the steel tips of his boots two feet from the tips of Ron’s sodden sneakers.
“Sir, did you go upstairs and disturb the guests? Swear at—”
“I can explain—”
“No, don’t explain. Just answer the question I asked you. You and your wife do these things?”
“There isn’t a soul in this hotel but the four of us in the lobby, and that woman won’t sell us a room. Please. Just go up and look.”
Sheriff Hanson tilts his neck, vertebrae cracking, says, “Sir, you’re beginning to make me angry.”
“I’m not trying to make you angry, officer, I just—”
“Sheriff.”
“What?”
“Sheriff, not officer.”
“Look, we’ve had
a terrible few hours here, Sheriff, and we’re just—”
The sheriff moves forward, a good four inches on Ron, backing him up against the wall, his breath spiced with cinnamon Altoids.
“You will answer my question. Did you do the things Carol said you did?”
“You don’t understand, she’s—”
The sheriff pinches Ron’s nose between the nostrils, fingernails digging into the cartilage, tugging him along toward the doors, kicking them open with his right boot, Ron losing his footing, the sheriff shoving him completely across the sidewalk into the foot of snow that has piled up in the empty parking space.
He hears Jessica say, “Don’t you fucking touch me.”
“Then walk.”
She runs over and helps Ron sit up in the snow, his nose burning, both of them glaring at the sheriff who stands under the canopy of the Lone Cone Inn, smoothing the wrinkles out of his parka.
“Take a guess what’ll happen if I see either of you again tonight?”
“You’ll throw us in jail?” Jessica mocks.
“No, I’ll beat the shit out of you. Both of you.”
Jessica scrambles to her feet and marches over to the sheriff.
“You see this?” she screams, pointing at her bottom lip.
“Yeah, you got a fishhook in your lip.”
“Your little restaurant over there—”
“I don’t give a shit. You’ve blown through all my good will. Now I own a blazing hot temper, and you’d do well to get out of my face right now.”
“Please, we just—”
“Right. Now.”
Ron has rarely seen Jessica ever back down, but something in the sheriff’s tone convinces her to retreat from the sidewalk—maybe the possibility that she might get slapped or worse.
“Let’s go, Ron.” She bends down, gives him a hand up, and he slides his arm around her waist as they start into the street.
Jessica glances back over her shoulder, yells out, “This isn’t over! You know that, right?”
“Best keep walking!”
-15-
“How’s the pain, Jess?”
“Bad.”
They trek down the middle of Main in the single set of tire tracks. Jessica walks ahead of Ron, crying, but he doesn’t dare attempt the distribution of comfort. He made that mistake the last time she was passed over for partner, and like an injured animal, the fear and sadness instantly metastasized into rage.
“I’m freezing, Ron.”
“I’m thinking.”
“You’re thinking?”
“I’ve been trying, but there’s no cell service in this valley.”
“Right.”
“No place to stay for the—”
“Quit telling me shit I already know.”
“Let’s just get back to the Benz. I have Lortab in my bag. We’ll tilt the seats—”
“We’re sleeping in our car now?”
“Baby, when the Lortab hits, you won’t know the difference from that seat and a bed at the Waldorf-Astoria. We’ll crank the heat, get it warm and toasty inside.”
“Jesus, Ron.”
“It’s the best I can do, Jess. They’ll probably have the roads plowed when we wake up, and then we’ll get the fuck out of this town.”
They near the end of Main, every building dark, no light but the muted glow of the streetlamps. A quarter mile ahead, Ron sees the gate lowered across the highway that climbs north out of town toward the pass.
Jessica says, “See that?”
On past the buildings of Main, near the city park, a bonfire shoots ribbons of flame into the sky.
They improve their pace, Ron noting a jolt of hope, thinking this could be a party of some sort, attended by people who might help them, but as he opens his mouth to suggest this to Jessica, she shrieks and starts running toward the flames.
-16-
Speechless, they stand thirty feet back, the Italian leather seats charred beyond any hope of salvation, the glass blown out, flames licking through the windows, the dashboard boiling, the scorching tires pouring black smoke up into the falling snow. Ron’s face tingles in the warmth, and it occurs to him that frostbite might be an appropriate concern.
“Why are they doing this to us?” Jessica asks.
“I don’t know.”
And he realizes that his wife doesn’t sound angry anymore, just confused and scared, and for the first time he feels it, too—not annoyance or frustration, but real tangible fear.
He puts his hands on her shoulders, and she lets them stay for a moment, then turns and faces him, the firelight refracting off the tears in her eyes.
“Hold me.”
As he embraces her, the lamps up and down Main wink out, and the drink machines at the visitors’ center across the street go dark and quit humming, and an oppressive silence blankets the town, nothing beyond the whisper of snow collecting on their jackets and the quiet hisses and exhalations from the burning Benz.
“Something’s happening,” she says. “Isn’t it?”
“It’s probably from the storm.”
“Do you really believe that, Ron?”
-17-
They walk up a side street lined with quaint Victorians buried under loads of powder, not a light in operation as far as they can see.
Ron opens the gate of a picket fence, and they trudge through snow to the front porch.
“What are you gonna say?” Jessica whispers.
“Tell them the truth. We need help.”
He grasps the brass knocker, raps it three times against the door.
A moment passes.
No one comes.
“Let’s try another house,” Ron says.
They try five more on that street, three on the next one over, but despite the vehicles in the driveways, proximate tracks in the snow, and other signs of habitation, every house they approach stands vacant.
-18-
Ron’s watch beeps 11:00 p.m. as they come to the corner of Main and 12th, he and Jessica both shivering, the snow still dumping, and little to see but the impression of buildings and storefronts with the streetlamps out.
“We’re gonna die if we stay out here,” Jessica says, her teeth chattering.
Ron looks up and down the street, well over a foot of snow now on the pavement, the tire tracks completely covered, just a smooth sheet of snow across the road, the sidewalks, everything.
“Ron?”
A block down, on the outskirts of perception, he thinks he sees movement—figures draped in white.
“Ron! I’m freezing to death standing—”
“I have an idea.”
They cross the street and start south down the sidewalk.
“I can’t feel my feet, Ron.”
“Then you’re lucky. Mine are burning.”
Four blocks up, they cross 8th, and Ron stops under a canopy with “Out There Outfitters” in block letters stitched into the façade of the canvas, the snow having blown against the cloth, covered most of the words.
“Why are we here?” Jessica asks.
“If we don’t get out of the elements, we’re going to die. I figure it’s better to break into a commercial space than a private residence, right, counselor?”
She stares at him like he’s lost his mind.
“Honey, you got a better idea?”
“No.”
“Then keep a lookout and pray this place doesn’t have an alarm.”
Ron lifts the chrome, cylindrical trashcan topped with a little cigarette butt-filled sand pit over his shoulder and runs at the storefront glass. The first strike sends a hard recoil back through the trashcan, which flies out of Ron’s grasp and smashes into the snowblown sidewalk, the glass still intact, unblemished. He lifts the trashcan and goes at it again, the next impact causing crystalline-shaped fractures to spread like a virus through the tall window. This time, Ron steps back and hurls the twenty-pound trashcan at the cracking glass.
It punches through, the window dis
integrating.
Ron and Jessica wait ten seconds, eyes locked.
She says finally, “No alarm.”
“Or maybe it’s disabled ‘cause the power’s out.”
-19-
They climb down out of the storefront and walk past the cash register. Up ahead, a group of figures congeal Ron’s blood and he freezes, lets out a tiny gasp.
Jessica says, “What is it?”
“Nothing.”
Just a trio of mannequins outfitted in fly-fishing gear.
They move on past the display cases containing rock climbing hardware and an array of ice axes.
Against the back wall, mummy bags dangle from the ceiling, flanked by dozens of external and internal frame backpacks.
They pass through a rear doorway into a dark, narrow hall. Jessica tries the door to the bathroom, but it’s locked.
“Damn.”
“You gotta go, babe?”
“Yeah.”
“You should squat right in front of the cash register.”
“You’re a child, Ron.”
They head back into the store.
“There it is,” Ron says.
“Where?”
The darkness makes it nearly impossible to see, but in the middle of the room, between racks of overpriced Patagonia shirts and Columbia down jackets, a diorama has been constructed—dormant campfire ring, mannequins in sandals and tank tops cooking dinner in a camp stove, their backs to a two-man tent.
Ron and Jessica untie their shoes and strip out of their wet jackets and pants and crawl into the tent, into the sleeping bags, zip themselves up.
After several minutes of intense shivering, Ron notes the return of warmth—the electricity of pins and needles in his extremities, the burn of mild frostbite on his cheeks.
“You getting warm?” he asks.
“Little by little.”
He scoots his bag toward Jessica’s until he feels her breath in his face.
“How’s the pain?”
“Quit asking.”
“Sorry, I’m a doctor, it’s in my—”
“You’re a plastic surgeon.”
“Ouch.”
“I didn’t mean that. I’m just in a ton of pain here.”
“You think this is one of those experiences we’re gonna be able to look back on and—”
“Are you kidding?”
