by Rex Clark
wake it up. As he sat waiting for it to boot back up, Rick saw headlights pass across the entrance, announcing the arrival of another car. Hoping it wasn’t another pizza, Rick stood and waited for the occupant to come into the hotel.
It took a while, though, as the car pulling in was a stretch HumVee and seemed to go on forever. Rick groaned to himself; this was likely to be either some self-important celebrity or some self-important businessman. Either way, Rick was already inclined to tell him where he could take his self-important ass if he was too demanding.
The person who stepped out, however, was neither of the above. It was a woman, tall, blonde, and not wearing a lot of clothes. She was followed by an athletic black woman, who was followed by a short, stocky brunette, and so on. A variety of women in degrees of undress piled out of the limo like porn clowns out of a Volkswagen, until there was a group of nearly fifty standing in front of the entrance doors.
The tall blonde leaned into the driver’s window, saying something to him and handing him a wad of money. She stepped back as the limo pulled out of the breezeway, and the women started walking into the hotel.
They milled around, looking over the lobby, and were none too quiet in their appraisal of the facilities. The blonde woman cut through the crowd and approached the desk.
“Hey, sugar,” she said to Rick, leaning forward and resting her ample breasts on the counter. “Where’s 519? We were told there’s a party there.”
“Wha- I mean, I’m sorry, ma’am, I-I can’t… I can’t just…”
She smiled at him with all the warmth of a predator sizing up its next meal. “That’s all right, honey, we can find it,” she said. Then she slipped a hand into her bra and retrieved a small white rectangle of stiff paper and handed it to Rick.
“If you ever wanna hang out,” she told him with a wink and a nod toward the card. Then she was gone, headed up the hall toward the elevators, the group of women following her. Several of them winked at Rick or blew him kisses, and one was thoughtful enough to show him her nipple piercings.
When they had gone by, he looked at the card in his hand. The printing on it was stylized calligraphy, so thin and spidery it was almost difficult to read. “’Hurricane’ Sandy- I’ll Blow You… Away,” it read.
Rick shook his head. “Thanks, Wistaprint. Now even the pros have business cards.” He went to drop it in the trashcan, but stuck it in his pocket almost as an afterthought.
He was considering whether to call the guest in 519 and either warn him that a platoon of prostitutes was on its way up there, or tell him that they all needed to get out, guest included, when the reservations line rang again.
Rick’s head swiveled slowly to look at the phone. His eyes traced the line of the cord until it stopped beside the phone, its clear plastic plug lying useless on the desktop.
Yet the phone rang.
Rick reached for it out of reflex, his fingers numb, his arm a million miles long.
“Thank you for-” His voice was flat and dull in his own ears, and it was immediately crushed by the bubbly, rasping speaker at the other end of the line.
“Five… Nine… teen,” it said, and Rick felt as though cold tentacles were burrowing into the pulp of his brain.
“I… I don’t think 519 wishes to be disturbed right now, sir,” he mumbled.
“Good,” the speaker intoned. “Then he has… received… my gift.”
Rick became sure that he wasn’t actually hearing words. The speaker was certainly making sounds, that much was obvious; but he grew increasing sure that they were sounds that the human mind couldn’t begin to comprehend, and what he was interpreting as speech were actually just images being pumped into his mind. His nose had started bleeding.
“It… would seem so, sir…”
“Then I… shall disturb him… no longer. However, I… require you… to give him a… message… for me.”
“Certainly, sir.”
The caller spoke each syllable clearly and deliberately, and as he did, Rick’s body shuddered and jerked. His nose was gushing blood, but the caller was unrelenting until he had finished.
“Now… repeat it… back… to me.”
Rick did, and his mind splintered.
“Very… good. You… will forget… that we spoke… until it is… time… to deliver… my message.”
“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir. Have a pleasant evening.”
Rick hung up the phone, shaking his head, flinging scarlet droplets onto the desk. He looked at them in surprise, then felt the wet stickiness on his lip. He reached up and wiped away a palmful of blood.
“The hell?” he muttered as he fumbled for a kleenex and wiped away the blood. Some had fallen onto his shirt, but had blended in with the dark fabric enough to go unnoticed. He figured he could wash it later.
The rest of the evening proceeded quietly. He plugged the reservations line back in around six, just to make sure no one found out he’d had it off for a good chunk of the night. Shortly after that, the elevator dinged and the prostitutes began filing out. Their faces were slack, their eyes empty. Several seemed to be having trouble walking; others had their hands pressed to their abdomens as if they were going to be sick.
The last one out was the tall blonde, “Hurricane” Sandy. Her scant clothing was torn, and her movements were slow and stiff. She winced if her thighs brushed together.
Outside, the stretch Hummer pulled around and the back door swung open on its own. The women climbed in one at a time, each with varying degrees of difficulty. Once they were all aboard, the car pulled away and disappeared into the brightening morning.
Ten minutes later, a man approached the desk.
He was tall and thin, immaculately dressed. His shaven scalp gleamed under the hall lights. His skin was so dark that it could truly be called black, and it made the white of his teeth stand out all the more when he smiled. His deep brown eyes glowed with a fierce wit. There was a solid gold pin on tie that was shaped like a pyramid; however, there was something off about the angles of the shape, just enough to hold one’s attention and fester in one’s mind until all other thought was driven out.
“I am checking out,” he said, and that baritone voice that Rick had come to loathe rolled out and echoed around the lobby.
Rick looked up into his face, and suddenly his body was spasming; his right hand twitched and flailed across the desk until it bumped into a letter opener lying beside one of the hotel computers.
“M-Message for you, sir,” he stuttered. His tongue was literally rolling up in his mouth as the words tried to push their way out.
“Oh?” the man said. He didn’t look at all surprised.
Rick spasmed again. His fingers closed around the handle of the letter opener and it rattled against the countertop.
“Iä Iä Cthulhu fh’tagn.” Rick spat out the words and jammed the letter opener into his throat, just under the jaw and angling sharply upwards. Blood flew as he pierced the jugular, raining crimson droplets across the front office and onto the man’s immaculate clothing. He slumped forward as all the strength fled from his body in that rain of blood.
The man grabbed him by the shirt collar as he fell and yanked him up until they were looking each other in the eye. He was smiling, and Rick found himself thinking that each of those white teeth was more like a gravestone carved out of ivory.
“Do you see what you have done to my suit?” the man snapped, shaking Rick’s dying body for emphasis. “Have you any idea what the cost to clean these clothes shall be? The service in this establishment is abominable! I demand my currency be refunded back to me immediately! I shall be writing a very harsh review of your business on the internet for all to see! You shall also compensate me for these clothes which you have desecrated!”
He continued shaking Rick as he spoke, but his face lost none of its frightening good humor. If anything, his smile grew broader as the flow of Rick’s blood slowed.
Gravestones, he thought again as the world narrowed down to that madd
eningly cheerful smile. The world fell away into darkness. What came after was far worse.