Motel Wizard - Part 2
Short Story
Since you’re all reading this as a WIP, feel free to leave a comment! The more I work on this the more it’s shaping into something longer, instead of a short story. Novella? Not sure. Guess we’ll see!
With Pull Me Under, the work was totally completed before I posted any of it, but with this, you’re seeing it form “live,” which I think is pretty neat!
If you haven’t read Part 1 yet, click the link above!
Part 2
Blue rock, floating through a pink aether, laughter from a deep chest unseen. Kollun, Kollun! it bellowed. Throw down your dagger, for it is useless here, and insulting. Where do you go, and from whence do you come?
I shall not throw down my dagger, for it is fated to pierce the veil.
Fool! You are moulded of dry clay, and a great breath may cast you from my throne.
Show yourself! So your blood upon my blade may hasten the unveiling!
The rock shook, white beams jutting from new fissures, and a great briny stench followed. The bellowing turned to laughter, the pink shifted red, and Kollun gripped his dagger tighter as his feet slipped on festering rocksweat.
***
“So, how’re you doing?” It was Miranda, and Colin was experiencing his first telephone call. “Did you get a good sleep?”
“I slept wonderfully.”
“That great, eh? Listen, you hungry? I can bring you breakfast.”
“It would make my morning,” and he meant it.
He dressed in the clothes Bill spoke of. Brown, green, and white striped jeans, wide at the ankle and tight at the knee, five silvery buttons facing out, and a tight white t-shirt with a faded picture of the sign outside, a pleasant half-sun and big curving arrow.
Sunset Motel
Color TV
Air Cond
Daily Weekly
Low RatesBill arrived first, looking and sounding as he had when Colin first walked into the office. He gave Colin instruction on what to clean that day, and it was such a convincing disguise, Colin almost forgot who he was really speaking with. There was yelling coming from the unit next door, and Bill was off to enquire about it.
Miranda arrived an hour or so later, with a brown paper bag and an enormous smile. “Nice get-up, you’re dressed like my dad back in the day. A man out of time! Well, at least it’s clean. And no offence to Bill, but it matches the decor.”
She looked around the room to find a spot to place the bag. On the bedside table, she decided, next to the telephone and lamp. She reached inside and pulled out something in a paper wrap. “I’d like to be a social worker or a therapist or something one day. I hope I’m not being pushy or anything. But you looked all… messed up yesterday. Not like, messed messed. But like… Lost, and, you know. Sick. Was I right?”
“Yes, quite right.”
Round bread, egg, bacon, a square of something cheese-ish.
“Small town, though. I’d have to move away and that’s kinda scary. But it’s different for you. You aren’t scared of travel at all, are you? Bet you’re like ‘I’ve been ever-y-where, man.’”
“I haven’t been everywhere,” he said after a swallow. “And travelling can be very difficult, and frightening.”
She sat on the bed, it squeaked. On her wrists were strange bracelets, she played with some beads. Her eyes were still powdered in blue, downcast as she examined her jewellery. “Well, I better go. Enjoy your breakfast.”
Very strange young woman.
***
It had been two weeks by Bill’s guess, but much longer when added up with all the routes Colin had journeyed through. The book had disintegrated after the first jump, and all Colin had to go by was a memorized set of numbers marked on the spine in a long-lost tongue. Colin cursed at the fragile construction of his master’s notes—though most were scatological jokes like some sort of prank to play on a translator, and half the illustrations were by memory and completely misleading. There was a drawing of trees, a set of six, and there were six distinctly tall pines poking up behind the office’s gabled roof.
An old man sat in front of unit number twelve, in a red reclining chair. He wore sunglasses and shearling slippers. Not much else, an immodest dirty-white getup of underthings. Colin swept in that direction, until the old man whistled, waved him over, and Colin left the broom leaning against the wall at number ten.
“She left me for a German.”
“A German what?”
“The only woman I ever loved, and she ran off with a damn kraut. You know he was only here ‘cause of the POW camp. Should’ve hung the nazi sonofabitch. I once killed a bear with nothing but a tent pole.”
Colin really didn’t understand what prompted the sad facts about the old man’s life, so he said “Have yourself a good morning” and made to turn, until he noticed an odd shape under the chin. The screaming from number seven began again—the old man shook his head—the lump moved like a membrane, an egg without a shell.
“Tell Bill to come by,” the lump said.
The lump?
Colin took the broom in hand again and continued sweeping, three pushes or so he’d glance again at the old man, but all he did was sit in his chair with a cigarette ashing between his fingers.
By noon the chores were done, and it was far too hot to do anything but lay atop the bed and bask in the loud air-conditioned breeze. And it drowned out the problem in number seven, which was even better than the controlled temperature, until the pounding started along the wall.
The phone rang. It was Bill, from the office. “He’s looking for a spot to cross.”
“He’s going about it very poorly.”
“Doesn’t know any better.”
“I thought I was your only student?”
“He’s a legitimate loony tune. I haven’t taught him shit.”
“Maybe you should.”
Bill grunted. “I definitely should not. I’m considering retirement.”
“You retired thirty years ago.”
“Two weeks ago. And no, I didn’t. I got stuck.”
“Go pound the walls. Have him join you. I need to sleep.”
“Laziest, brewed up—”
Colin hung up on his master, and counted the wall hits between pauses. There was no rhythm.
It sees me! It sees me! I know it does, and it laughs!
Yes, it laughs! The little imp! I laugh right back—Ha! Ha!—every time you speak to me! How do you like it?
Screamer in number seven was infiltrating Colin’s sleep, so he gave up on napping. The pounding resumed in earnest, so he dialed zero to reach the front desk.
“Who’s laughing at him?” Colin asked.
“No one. Miranda found him swearing at the devil and since he had nowhere better to go I took him in.” Click.
The door to number seven was slightly ajar, so Colin brought to mind his dagger, thumbed his broken ring, and pushed the door open with his toe.
The bed was stripped down to the mattress, every drawer available was pulled out and thrown on the floor. The black glass box was turned away from the bed. Something was rotting, the fruit fly swarm was audible, the shower was running, and there were four brown hand prints on the wall. “Hello?” Colin asked the room. Movement from under a twisted bedsheet, like a caught animal.
“Ha! Ha! You found me?”
“I’m concerned about the banging.”
A pale, gaunt face appeared from beneath the sheet. His hair was black, and so tangled if someone were to try and comb it, they might as well just shave it off. A patchy beard, and red sacks under his eyes. But he smiled, which was more unnerving than if he had threatened Colin’s life.
“I saw you talking to him. See this?” He pointed to a mole on his nose. “They fitted me with a camera, but I’ve got the goddamn courtesy to stick a band-aid on it when I walk around. That old bastard, he doesn’t know, he doesn’t know what he’s got. The Imp-Sack Man! He’s getting taken for a ride! I just want out of here.”
“Well, you won’t get out of here through that wall. What’s your name?”
“Darrell.”
“Can the camera see me now?”
It was quiet between them, several breaths. “No. It doesn’t record you. Sees right through you. Like a mound of mud.”
My novels:
Pallas - Scifi with a pinch of horror
The Highwayman Kennedy Thornwick - Flintlock/Literary Fantasy
And my completed serial, here on Substack: Pull Me Under - Fantasy