Where Stars Won't Shine

by Patrick Lacey

  Something smelled horrid as Ivy neared the door. She covered her mouth and spotted something in the bushes to her right. She couldn’t make out details but the thing had been dead for a while now. Flies buzzed happily over the carcass.

  Assuming, of course, the carcass was there to begin with. She couldn’t be sure.

  She sped through the front doors, not breathing until she was inside, though the air wasn’t much better. It wasn’t as foul but it wasn’t exactly refreshing either. The place smelled of mold and must. The carpet was stained and had long since lost its bounce. The pattern was lost on her, some paisley design that seemed to defy logic.

  She assumed she was alone in the front lobby. No one else was dumb enough to come to this cesspool. But when she looked toward the front desk she spotted the man and woman from the rest stop.

  The man with the evil eyes, she thought with a shiver.

  He pressed the small bell on the counter over and over. “Come on, will you? We’ve been waiting out here for ten fucking minutes.”

  The girl squeezed his arm but he batted her away. “It’s okay, Zeke. They’re probably just busy.”

  “Busy?” He spun around, his hand pointing in every direction. “Amy, this place doesn’t exactly seem hopping, does it?”

  “Maybe they’re on break or something. Here, come sit down and relax. You’re exhausted. We both are.”

  “Speak for yourself. This is my Disney World and I’ll be damned if it’s ruined because of shitty service.”

  From off to the left, another voice spoke. “Why don’t you give them a bad Yelp review?” The man, perhaps mid-thirties, with hair and a beard that were prematurely graying caught Ivy’s glance and rolled his eyes. “Hope you’re not in a hurry.” He laughed but she could tell it was forced. He was on edge, looking around every few moments as if he’d find someone watching. On the carpet, in between his feet, lay a large trash bag. He caught her staring and tightened the top, obscuring her view of whatever lay within.

  “That’s okay,” Ivy said. “I can wait.”

  The man at the counter—Zeke—watched her as she approached. “I’m happy for you, lady. But I’m here on business and I’d like to get started.”

  “Business?” Ivy said. “What kind of business would take you to Marlowe? If you don’t mind me asking?”

  He opened his mouth but the girl—Amy—beat him to it. “He’s a writer—a journalist. He runs a website about serial killers.”

  Zeke smiled. His cheeks turned red. “It’s nothing really. Killwithathrill.com. Maybe you’ve heard of it? Especially considering where we are.”

  Killwithathrill. She spun the words around a few times before she pinpointed them. From her purse she pulled the book she’d bought back in Oregon. “Your little website is in here. I read all about it this morning.”

  His face beamed, a kid learning he’d won a contest. “In Williamson’s book? No way! The guy knows his stuff, interviewed me a while back, but I didn’t think I’d make the cut. Figured he’d just focus on Tucker and his family and the—”

  “Victims? The ones that bastard slaughtered, you mean? Most of them in this very town? You’d think he’d talk about them but this hack focuses more on the killer. It’s like Tucker’s a superhero instead of psychopath.”

  “Lady, call him what you want. But that psychopath has thousands of fans and he’s paid my rent for the last few years.”

  “Fans?” She opened the book and, with all the strength she could summon, tore off the cover and several pages before slamming it on the counter. “Here’s what I think of his fans. You must be one. I heard you talking about him back at the store like he was Elvis.”

  His face switched gears. Those eyes, the ones that seemed to belong to someone else, peered toward her. They were equal parts hypnotizing and sinister. “I’m much more than a fan. That’s why I’m here.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Ivy said. She tried to sound brave—emphasis on tried.

  He smiled. “You’ll see soon enough.”

  Amy stepped between them. “Okay, I think everyone’s had a long day and we all need to relax.”

  From behind the counter, a door Ivy hadn’t noticed opened.

  And out stepped what looked like a ghost.

  The girl was no older than twenty-four but she was in rough shape. Her skin was dry and leathery, dark like ash. Her eyes were cavernous and sunken back into her skull, with bruise-like bags circling them, the mark of an insomniac. Her hair had been pulled into a ponytail in a hurry. Several oily strands hung loose.

  Around her neck was a red scarf. The longer Ivy looked, the more she suspected it hadn’t always been that color. It was stained, moist, like the skin underneath was seeping.

  Ivy closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and opened them again.

  The girl was still there and she looked just as dead.

  “I’m sorry about the wait,” she said from behind the counter. “As you might expect, we don’t often have visitors these days.” She looked toward Zeke and tilted her head. “He’ll be so glad to see you’ve arrived. All of you in fact.” She surveyed the rest of the group.

  “What the hell’s that supposed to mean?” the man with the bag said. “I don’t have a reservation. I’m … meeting someone here.”

  She avoided the question. “My name is Annabelle and I hope you’ll enjoy your stay here. If you need anything—anything at all—don’t hesitate to ask. Just know that it may take a while. We’ve been working with a ghost crew as of late.”

  “Hey,” Zeke said, staring toward the girl. “Don’t I know you from somewhere. I swear I’ve seen you before.”

  She reached out and touched his hand. He tensed, then eased up. There was something distinctly erotic about his reaction. It was not lost on his girlfriend or wife or whoever she was. Amy sneered.

  “Yes,” Annabelle said. “I think you do.” She cleared her throat, though her voice was just as raspy. Amy got the sense that she hadn’t spoken in a long time. “Now if you’ll just give me a moment, I’ll get your room keys and you’ll be on your way.”

  She turned and fumbled through the rack of keys behind her. The hotel’s business practice matched its ancient appearance. There were no computers in sight. Or room cards for that matter. Instead there were elegant keys arranged in numerical order. She grabbed three—106, 107, and 108—and set them down on the desk.

  The man with the bag eyed the keys suspiciously. “You mean to tell me we’re all staying next to each other?”

  Annabelle nodded. “Isn’t it wonderful?”

  “Wonderful? You said there wasn’t anyone else here. So why the hell would you put us so close together?”

  Just like Jacob across the street, Annabelle’s face turned quickly from that of an angel to that of a devil. “Mr. Roberts, I did not say you were the only guests tonight. I simply said we don’t see new guests all that often. Take your key, Ethan, and your bag too. That’s why you came here to Marlowe, isn’t it?”

  The man—Ethan Roberts, apparently—dropped the tough guy veneer. His mouth hung open and he looked just as scared as Ivy felt. “How did you know my name?”

  “Like I said before. He’s been expecting you.”

  “He?” Zeke said, cutting in. “As in—”

  “Now if you’ll excuse me,” Annabelle said. “I’ve some business to attend to. Do you need help with your luggage?”

  Ivy looked around at the group. Ethan had only his mystery bag. Amy carried one suitcase, Zeke two, and Ivy hadn’t brought anything aside from her purse.

  “We’ll be fine,” Amy said with a smile, trying to ease the tension. It was a lost cause.

  Without another word, Annabelle turned around and made her way back through the door. On her way there, the scarf came loose and, for a moment before she vanished, Ivy spotted an incision that wrapped around most of her neck. White bone peered from within the red, her spinal column, which had been partially snapped.

  Ivy wiped awa
y sweat. Just as in Jacob’s Pub, this wound, this blood, seemed different than from her visions. It seemed real.

  She spun around and saw Ethan wearing what she thought was a similar expression. Something akin to fear.

  Zeke and Amy were already on their way to the elevators, their key in hand.

  Ivy made to ask Ethan if he’d seen the blood but he grabbed his key and hurried along, taking the stairs.

  Which left Ivy alone in the lobby of the Hotel Marlowe. She looked at the torn book, still sitting on the front desk, and forced back a wave of nausea. What was it that Annabelle had said earlier? Just before she’d cut Zeke off, she’d said something like—

  He’s been expecting you.

  EIGHT

  IN THE STAIRWELL, Ethan stopped long enough to read the note Andrew had left in the glove compartment of the stolen car. It read Hotel Marlowe, room 107.

  The number matched that of the key he held but it still didn’t sit right with him. He wasn’t even sure who he was meeting tonight. Andrew had only told him the drop-off would be here at eight o’clock. Ethan looked at his watch and groaned. The damned thing had been fine earlier. In fact, he set it this morning, when sleep had evaded him as it did every morning since Lisa’s diagnosis.

  Now, the minute and second hands spun in opposite directions. He tapped the screen with his fingers but it did nothing. He couldn’t remember what time he’d crossed into Marlowe but he hoped he wasn’t running late. He couldn’t botch this thing. There was too much at stake.

  He imagined Lisa’s face this coming Christmas as she stepped into the living room and saw a bare tree, void of any presents. Or, even worse, the piles of medical bills climbing to such a height, his entire family drowned in them.

  Ethan shook his head and took the stairs two at a time. There was a tear in the bag, growing quickly. He could see some of the boxes and bottles within, the painkillers painfully obvious within the hole.

  He reached the second floor.

  Zeke and Amy were entering their room, arguing about something. Ethan couldn’t make out the couple’s words. Judging by their voices, Amy was scared of whatever Zeke said. The latter, Ethan had noticed, walked around like the world owed him something. It was the same stroll loan applicants used at his day job. A walk of entitlement he saw on a daily basis.

  Although there was something else about the guy, wasn’t there?

  Something that made Ethan’s stomach squirm just looking into his eyes.

  When they were gone, Ethan stepped into the hall, readied his key, and stopped short at the door.

  The other woman came out of the elevator and walked toward her room, on the other side of Zeke’s. She nodded toward the bag. “Need help with that?”

  He turned it so the tear wasn’t visible. “I’m fine.”

  She faked a smile. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to intrude.”

  He nodded, didn’t offer his name. Annabelle had offered it for everyone in the lobby.

  Ivy inserted her key, turned the knob. “Can I ask you a question?”

  Ethan tensed. “If it’s about the bag or why I’m here, then no.”

  She shook her head. “It’s nothing like that. It’s just … that girl downstairs? You saw it too, didn’t you? When her scarf came off?”

  He swallowed. “I saw something. Looked like an old scar, maybe a tattoo.”

  “It was more than a scar. It was bleeding.”

  Ethan shrugged. “I guess maybe it was. I didn’t stick around long enough to notice. Now if you don’t mind …” He held up his key.

  “Not at all. Good luck with … whatever you’re here for.”

  He nodded. “Yeah, you too.”

  Another fake smile and she was in the room and closing the door behind her.

  Ethan moved quickly, not just because he was so close to the drop-off but because he didn’t like being alone in the hall. The shapes from earlier swam on either side of him. They seemed closer now. He was certain if he looked quick enough he’d see something standing there. Something tall and frail and skeletal.

  Something a lot like Tucker Ashton.

  He opened the door. It was dark inside. He fumbled his way around, feeling for the lamp, until he found the switch and flicked it. Bright light washed over the room and for a moment he was blind.

  And in that instant he swore he saw someone sitting in the chair across the way, just next to a desk that looked straight out of a private investigator’s office. He covered his eyes and dropped the bag. “Jesus, you scared the shit out of me. I’m Ethan. Andrew’s brother? Not sure if I’m late but can we get this over with? It’s been a hell of a day.”

  The figure in the chair did not answer.

  Ethan rubbed his eyes and opened them slowly. When the trance wore off, it was replaced by shock.

  The chair was empty, though the cushion was indented. He searched the room but there weren’t many hiding places. The layout was simple: a bed, a side table, the chair, desk, and a mirror in which he saw his own frightened reflection.

  The bathroom then. The guy had gotten spooked. Ethan didn’t blame him. Sitting alone, in this room, in this hotel—it was enough to make his skin squirm.

  He opened the door. The bathroom was cramped and moldy and empty.

  Ethan leaned against the wall for a moment, the room doing laps around him.

  He was exhausted, on edge. The chair and the room had been empty all along. His mind was playing tricks. Being back in Marlowe had a certain … effect on him. There was a rational explanation for all of this. He need only to search his mind to find the answer.

  The wrong room. That was all. He’d read the slip of paper incorrectly.

  He unfolded it again but the words and numerals hadn’t changed.

  He tossed the bag of pills onto the bed, covered them with the blanket for good measure. For some odd reason, the bulge beneath the fabric seemed humanoid, like there was more than just drugs under there.

  He hurried back into the hall, locking the door behind him, and sped downstairs. By the time he reached the front desk, he was winded. Not to mention dehydrated. When was the last time he’d eaten or drank anything? He’d been much too nervous this afternoon, psyching himself up for the heist. Now his stomach gurgled despite his nerves.

  He rang the bell but it went unanswered this time. He could see light spilling from underneath the office door and something like a pair of feet standing just on the other side.

  “Fuck this,” he said as he grabbed his cell and dialed Andrew. And waited for a dial tone that never came. He looked at the screen and nearly tossed the thing. It was malfunctioning somehow. He’d been due for an upgrade for months now. Alexis had been on his back about getting a new one. It would fail the moment he needed it most, his wife had said. That’s how these things worked.

  There were countless pixels of varying colors and shapes and every few moments it seemed they were ready to form some shape.

  He scratched his stubbly cheek and tried to think. Everything about this night seemed wrong. Not just in the failed robbery sort of way. It was deeper than that, less tangible.

  It was this place. Marlowe was getting to him in a way he couldn’t quite comprehend.

  He studied the slip of paper for the third time, and though he should’ve been shocked to find an entirely different address, some part of him had actually expected it.

  There wasn’t a man in his room upstairs because he was at the wrong hotel.

  Holiday Inn, Revere, Room 201.

  He crumpled the paper and tossed it to the floor, where it scuttled along like a spider.

  “Mind if I join you?” the woman said, the one here alone, the one who was transfixed on Annabelle’s scar. Or maybe it had been an open wound.

  Ethan sat in the lounge at one of many tables gathering dust. He waved to the seat across from him. “Be my guest.”

  She eyed his drink—whiskey sour—and looked around.

  “Don’t bother,” Ethan said. “The bartender see
ms to have checked out.”

  “Then how’d you …?”

  He sipped and winced at the burn. “I felt entitled on account of the service thus far. You won’t tell on me, will you?”

  Something like a smile crept across her face. “Only if you don’t.” She made her way to the bar and poured a generous amount of rum with a dash of coke into a glass. By the time she came back, her glass was nearly half empty. “I’m Ivy,” she said between sips. “Ivy Longwood.”

  “Nice to meet you, Ivy. I’m Ethan.”

  She nodded. “I know. And so did the girl at the front desk. Which seemed to surprise you a great deal. What brings you to Marlowe?”

  He shrugged. “She did seem to know an awful lot about me, didn’t she? I’m just passing through. Haven’t been here in a long time. Figured I’d catch up on some memories.”

  “You’ve been here before then?”

  “I used to live here.”

  She nearly spat her drink out. “Come again?”

  He pointed to the rear of the hotel, past the front desk and the sealed door, past the back entrance and toward the streets beyond. “Keep going that way for five or so minutes and you’ll wind up on my old street. Skyview Terrace. I’m not sure if the house is still there. Like I said, it’s been a long time.”

  “Were you … I mean did you live here when it happened?”

  “It being the massacre?” He shook his head, took a much bigger sip. It didn’t burn so much this time. “My family and I moved when I was younger. Tucker wasn’t a killer then. At least I don’t think so. I tried my best not to watch the trial. It hit too close to home, so to speak, but I did hear that bastard might’ve already had a few victims before he left home. Wouldn’t surprise me. He always had this … look on his face, you know? Like he was thinking terrible things. In hindsight, he probably was.”

  He thought of that look now. Despite how tired he felt, his mind brought him readily back to his childhood. He was ten again, playing Frisbee with the neighborhood kids in a field off River Road. Dave and Tim and even Andrew (before he grew too cool and long before he was a felon). Standing to the side, watching them play, was a fifth figure. Tucker did not beg to be let into the group, and they wouldn’t have let him even if he’d asked. Instead he watched and waited and, perhaps, plotted.