INDELICATE INCIDENTS: 28-29
Negotiations, torture, and family road trips through hell.
28.
‘You need to calm down,’ Grady hisses. He looks over my shoulder at the demon. She’s standing on the edge of the salt circle, smiling madly at nothing. At least nothing I can see.
‘I am very calm,’ I say. ‘Demons hate holy water, right? Are we near any churches?’
‘Frank-’
‘You’re right, too complicated,’ I say. Tap my fingers against my chin. ‘Do you think a knife would work? Or does it have to be a special demon-killing knife?’
‘You went from asking to torture alarmingly fast there, you do realize this?’ asks Grady. He folds his arms across his chest. Leans back against the cement wall.
‘She’s not going to help without some incentive,’ I say. ‘I’m providing an incentive.’
‘No,’ says Grady. ‘We are not torturing her into helping us. I don’t care if she’s a demon. That’s where I draw the line.’
‘Then what do you suggest?’ I ask.
‘She has to do what I tell her,’ says Grady. ‘I was just being nice.’
‘I could run upstairs and get my knife collection,’ I say. ‘Do we have a car battery?’
‘You’re not allowed to watch any more gangster movies,’ says Grady. ‘No torture.’
I roll my eyes. Stupid asshole.
‘Let’s start easy,’ he says. ‘I’ll talk to her.’
The demon sits in silence on the plastic table. Glares at Grady. He folds his hands behind his back. Walks around the circle with a lazy, confident stride.
‘Whenever you’re ready to talk, let me know,’ he says in a friendly voice. ‘No pressure.’
‘Eat the shit of a rotten hyena,’ says the demon. ‘I’m going to peel your skin off layer by layer. Reveal the cancer inside you.’
I dig my nails into my clenched fists and look away. The demon looks at me while she talks.
‘Not yet, then,’ says Grady. ‘I get it. You’ve been through something, and it’s my fault. But you’re here. We need you, and I won’t send you home until you help us.’
‘Just force me, you fucking ape,’ says the demon. ‘You put a goddamn leash on me for a reason.’
‘I’d rather not drag you around by it.’
‘Tough shit.’ The demon jerks her head in my direction.
‘She wants to torture me.’
‘They,’ I say.
‘They want to torture me,’ she corrects without missing a beat.
‘I don’t want to torture you.’
‘I’m not groveling at your feet in a bid for my freedom,’ she says. ‘I’m not begging you for the freedom that is rightfully mine. If you’re going to be my jailor, do it. Don’t pretend to be my friend.’
‘Fine,’ says Grady. He stops in front of Ish. ‘So here’s what’s going to happen. You are going to help us find a man called Jakob Thompson. You will not try to escape. You will not hurt anyone unless I say. In return, no one-’ he glances at me ‘-will hurt you.’
‘I don’t have to agree,’ she says. ‘You can force me.’
‘You don’t,’ he says. ‘But this is me asking nicely. Please don’t make me be an asshole here.’
‘You’re already an asshole,’ says the demon. She looks between the two of us. Her head keeps tilting to one side.
‘I have demands,’ she says. Grady nods. ‘I will not be harmed in any way. You will provide me with food and protection. You will not command me beyond the bounds of the task you wish me to help with. You will let me go the exact fucking second we’re done.’
She takes a deep breath. Stops. Exhales slowly, a look of wonder on her face. ‘Well that’s new.’
‘In exchange, I will help you find the person you seek,’ she says. Grady opens his mouth. ‘And I will not cause any harm to either of you.’ Grady looks at me and raises his eyebrows. I nod.
Besides, it’s going to be dawn soon. People have laundry to do.
‘Deal,’ says Grady.
‘Them too,’ she says, narrowing her eyes at me.
‘Fine,’ I say. ‘Whatever, I promise to follow the rules.’
Good,’ says the demon. ‘We have an accord.’ Her lips pull back in a hideous grimace. ‘But remember, I did not ask to trespass upon your world. You brought me here. I gave you a rare opportunity to walk away unscathed. You could have let me go.’
Grady is looking at the demon the way he looks at particularly vicious computer viruses.
‘We can’t keep her down here forever,’ I say. ‘Let her out.’ Grady’ eyes land on the neat salt circle.
‘If I did everything right, we should be fine,’ he says, more to himself than me.
‘Should,’ I repeat.
Grady shakes his head to clear away the cobwebs. Looks down at the ring of salt. It’s about an inch thick. He kicks some aside, breaking the circle.
The demon chuckles. Steps over the broken circle. She spreads her arms and spins around slowly.
‘You two are precious,’ she says. ‘I wonder who will watch the other die.’ She raises her spindly arms.
Grady pushes me behind him.
The demon laughs. Drops her arms to her sides.
‘Relax, I’m just fucking with you,’ she says. ‘Call me Ishmael.’
29.
‘This place is cool,’ said Jakob in hushed tones.
‘It’s certainly something,’ I said.
It was the oddest hotel I’d ever seen. The angles were slightly off in a way I couldn’t define. Made me uneasy. The structure felt unsteady. The slightest wind would send it collapsing like a badly-built house of cards.
Something was wrong with this place.
I pressed my hand against the side of the building. Felt solid, made of cement and stone and brick. There was nothing to suggest it was anything other than a regular building. I squinted. Tilted my head to the side. The building seemed to shimmer and shift just beyond the edge of my vision. I looked away. Fought down a swell of nausea.
‘We should go somewhere else,’ I said. Jakob frowned at me.
‘Why?’ he asked. I shrugged, shifting my bag to my other hand. My back ached and the idea of getting in the car made me want to smother myself, but I would.
This place scared me.
‘It feels weird,’ I said. ‘You know what I mean?’ Jakob gave me a dubious look.
‘No, I don’t know what you mean,’ he said. ‘It’s a hotel.’
‘I don’t like it,’ I said lamely. We should keep going.’ Jakob clasped his hands together and dropped to his knees in front of me.
‘Come on,’ he cried. ‘This place looks like it might be clean. Just let me have sheets without mysterious stains.’
‘Jakob,’ I groaned. ‘I’m sure we can find somewhere else.’ He shook his hands at me.
‘Please,’ he said. ‘I’m begging you. Literally on my knees. If I have to get back in the car and listen to your gloomy music I’ll throw myself out the window.’
‘My music isn’t gloomy,’ I said. Struggled to keep my face straight before it broke into a wide grin. Jakob jumped up, delighted.
’No take-backs!’ he whooped. He ran ahead of me, backpack thrown over his shoulder.
I felt the smile leave my face as I looked up at the hotel again. The cracked, worn facade leered at me. It offered no answers.
There were eyes on me. Unkind and hungry.
I looked around. There was no one but me in the empty parking lot. Cars raced by on the highway. The asphalt shimmered in the heat.
Footsteps behind me. Fast and light.
I whipped around. Wished I had a knife. A gun. Something heavy in my hands.
Nothing. I took a deep breath.
Must be imagining things again.
Still uneasy, I carried my bag up into the motel after Jakob.
As soon as I entered the building, I knew I’d made a mistake. The entryway yawned and shrank before us. A mirror tilted. A carpet realigned. A picture hanging at a slightly different angle. Steps where the floor had been flat.
There was a sense of impermanence to everything. Low wood tables covered with odd figurines that seemed to sway and undulate. Pillars stretched up to a ceiling at once cavernous and so close I could reach out and touch it with my fingertips.
I wondered if this was some sort of delayed trauma response. I knew there were a lot. This was probably one of them. I should look them up. For Jakob. Anything I was going through must be worse for him.
Trauma explained things
Or it could be the sleep deprivation. Exhaustion was gnawing at my eyelids. My body felt heavy and sluggish.
I hadn’t slept through the night since The Incident. Was averaging about three hours. If I was lucky. Before the screaming woke me up.
The decor wasn’t helping my mood or my sense of balance. The colors were brutal and ugly, black and brown everywhere. From the cigarette ash-stained carpet to the slightly off-balance ceiling, every color reminded me of death and decay. Of black sludge against brown dirt. Of dried blood. Cheap sneakers covered in gore.
I approached the desk. A pencil-thin man with a pencil-thin mustache gave me the biggest smile I’d ever seen on a human being. I hadn’t known faces could twist like that.
‘Checking in?’ he said in a bright voice. I nodded.
‘This place is wild!’ Jakob called out as he circled the room. He peered at the knick knacks on the tables. ‘It’s so weird.’ He picked up an ornate envelope opener and twirled it between his fingers. ‘Look at this.’
‘Put that down!’ I hissed.
‘Checking in?’ the man repeated in the exact same tone and cadence.
‘Yes, one room, two beds please,’ I said. ‘One night.’
Bed. Sleep. Right.
‘I sincerely and truly hope you enjoy your stay,’ the man said with such earnestness I had to look away. I rubbed the back of my neck.
‘Um. Thanks,’ I said. Paid for the room. Ushered Jakob down a tilted hallway. The walls bent at broken angles. The pictures on the walls slid along as we walked. I kept expecting the carpet to fall out from under me and send me tumbling.
Jakob appeared not to notice any of it.
‘Is it just me or do you feel sea-sick here?’ I asked. Jakob gave me a blank look.
‘No,’ he said. ‘It’s just you. How can you be seasick on land?’
‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘You don’t see anything weird? Nothing?’
‘Are you kidding me?’ Jakob laughed. ‘It’s awesome here. This place is like a museum or a movie set.’ He snapped his fingers. ‘That’s it! It feels like a horror movie.’ He ran his fingers along the wall as we walked.
‘Which is a good thing how?’ I asked.
‘You never read ‘The Shining’?’ asked Jakob.
‘’The Shining’ was a book?,’ I asked, distracted. I could smell something as we turned down another hallway. The scent was faint but familiar. Something floral. And another scent, this one less enticing.
‘Do you smell cat piss?’ I asked. Jakob stopped walking and made a big show of sniffing the air. He looked at me with a raised eyebrow.
‘I smell cleaning products, not cat pee,’ he said. Took another deep breath and smiled dreamily. ‘Oh, I missed you, lemony fresh cleanliness.’
I shake my head. Try to breathe through my mouth. The odor is overpowering now, drowning out any attempts to hide it beneath fake flowers or clean sheets.
‘I swear to god I smell cat piss,’ I said. I pulled my shirt up over my nose. ‘It reeks. You don’t smell it?’ Jakob looked at me.
‘Are you having a stroke?’ he asked.
‘I’m fine,’ I said. ‘This hotel isn’t clean.’
‘You made us stay at the place with the stained towels, but this isn’t clean?’ Jakob laughed, skipping ahead of me down the hall. ‘You’re nuts.’
I trudged along after him. Every step made me wish we were back in the car. It felt like someone was walking right behind me, only to disappear the second I looked around. I realized I was being stared at.
‘There’s a cat,’ I said ‘Right there. I told you I smelled cat piss.’ I pointed at a tiny black cat prancing down the hallway. It trotted by me without even a glance. ‘They have animals just running around. It’s unsanitary.’
‘I’m sure it belongs to someone, Frank,’ said Jakob. ‘It’s not like it’s a rat or something. Calm down.’
‘Whatever,’ I said. Didn’t have the energy to argue.
We stopped at our room. The door looked suspiciously innocent. I opened it. Jakob shouldered ahead of me with unbridled enthusiasm.
‘Cool,’ he said, delighted. It was the happiest I’d seen Jakob since I’d first arrived home. Over a clean fucking hotel room.
My chest ached.
I stepped inside after him. There was a pervasive sense of black in the room. Black sheets on black bedposts. Black patterned wallpaper. Black carpeting, washed so often it was starting to look a very dark grey.
Even the bathroom was sleek and black, if worn and aged.
‘This is like the Addams Family,’ I said, sitting on the bed. It was comfortable. I bounced on it a few times. Didn’t trust it. Still felt like I was being watched.
At least the smell of cat piss was gone.
I got up and turned on all the lights and lamps. Jakob watched me from his perch on the other bed.
‘What are you doing?’ he asked.
‘It’s too dark in here. I can’t see.’
‘Um, yeah it’s dark,’ said Jakob like I was a fucking idiot. ‘Everything is black. It’s cool. Do you think they have rooms in different colors? Like ‘The Mask of the Red Death?’’
‘The what now?’ I asked.
‘Never mind,’ Jakob said. ‘Guess you’re not a big reader.’ Said it like an insult.
‘I have a headache,’ I said. ‘I need a nap.’
I laid down on the sleek black bedspread. It felt slippery, almost wet. I ran my fingers over it, fidgeting. The cool, sleek fabric against my bare skin made me shudder.
Jakob bounced on the edge of his bed for a few minutes. I could hear him rifling through his backpack, picking things up and discarding them. There were a few loud, pointed sighs. Finally, he spoke.
‘Frank.’
‘Yeah?’
‘Can I go look around?’ he asked. I raised my head from the pillow.
‘Look around at what?’ I asked. I waved my arm at the door. ‘They might have an ice maker, if you’re lucky. Do you need to explore an ice maker?’
‘Frank, come on,’ said Jakob. He jumped on his bed and began bouncing up and down in earnest.
‘Stop it,’ I said with no heat in my voice. Bedsprings squeaked in a soothing melody.
‘This place is so weird,’ said Jakob as if I hadn’t spoken. ‘Did you see the guy at the front desk? He looked like someone from a haunted house.’
‘Don’t bother anyone working,’ I said. ‘And don’t say mean shit - crap - about how people look.’ Jakob rolled his eyes. Kept bouncing.
‘Frank,’ he said, drawing my name out over multiple syllables. ‘Come on. We passed like fifty hallways. One of them has to lead somewhere interesting. We’ve been stuck in the car for years and years now and all my hair is going to turn white before we finish driving and I’m bored and I haven’t had fun in centuries and everything sucks and-’ I raised my hands up over my head in defeat.
‘Stop’ I said. Jakob stopped bouncing. ‘‘Get your sneakers off of there.’ He removed his feet from the covers. I sighed. ‘Fine. You can go explore for a little while.’
‘Yes!’ He sprang off the bed.
‘But!’ I raised one finger. ‘Stay on the hotel grounds. Do not leave this building. Do not bother anyone. Not the employees, not the other guests. Okay?’
‘Yes,’ he said. Did the Scout’s Honor gesture across his heart. He never got to be a Boy Scout. ‘I promise.’ He was on his feet, already moving towards the door.
‘And I want you back here in an hour or I’m reporting you missing,’ I said. ‘I’ll call the cops and everything.’
‘Deal,’ said Jakob. He beamed.
Still, I hesitated as he opened the door. Wasn’t ready to let Jakob out of my sight for any real length of time.
If I didn’t watch him, he might disappear.
‘You could watch TV,’ I suggested. ‘You can pick whatever you want. I won’t mind. Won’t even complain about the noise.’
‘Nah,’ said Jakob. ‘I want to stretch my legs.’ He gave me an appraising look. ‘And you need to sleep. You look rough.’
‘Thanks,’ I said. He gave me a big grin and saluted.
‘See you in an hour.’
Then he was gone.