by Lee Hayton
Tyler stretched out his hand further, circling again. This time he faced the palm downward in case he’d been doing it wrong. The image of an instruction manual pulsed deep inside his brain. All that chased it away was the memory of intertwining snakes.
“Hey, guys!”
Tyler’s voice was so bright with optimism that even the desk clerk looked up at his call. “There’s something here, I can feel it pulling me.”
Wilma and Gary walked back, staring at Tyler’s outstretched hand and then the spot on the floor. Reaching out one delicate toe, Wilma tapped on the carpet. Apart from releasing a tiny puff of putrid air, nothing happened.
“And what?” she demanded. “Are we meant to burrow down through the floor?”
Tyler strode over to the reception desk. “Excuse me? What’s downstairs?”
“You booked into a room?”
“Maybe. Depends on what’s downstairs.”
Tyler stared at the man, mirroring his insolence until he shrugged and looked back at his monitor. “Downstairs is the basement. If you really want to visit there, I’m sure our janitor, Ralph, can give you a guided tour. Does fuck all else around here.”
Tyler waited for a moment, giving the clerk a chance to explain further. When he didn’t, Tyler slapped his hand down on the desk so hard it made the man jump.
“Where do we find Ralph?”
The desk clerk frowned and jerked his head at the elevator. “He’s downstairs in the bloody basement. Where else do you think he’d be? Do you want that reservation?”
“What time’s check-in?” Wilma asked.
“Two o’clock.”
“We’ll let you know after two o’clock, then.”
He shrugged, already entranced by the magic of the internet again. Tyler pressed the button for the lift.
“Do you really believe that Ralph, the janitor, is the keeper of the stone?” Wilma clearly didn’t. Her voice was dripping with contempt.
“I don’t know.” Tyler stepped into the elevator when it opened, pressing his hands against the walls in a quick reflex to ensure they were solid and not about to drop off. “Best plan we’ve got at the moment.”
“We could always give up on it,” Wilma said. “Take the stone back to the trailer park and turn it into the most spectacular place you’ve ever seen.”
“Until the daily hail of gunfire turns it back into a dump.” Tyler shivered. The more time that passed since the trials, the more they infiltrated his head.
The elevator doors closed, and the car jerked violently before beginning its downward trek. Despite only having to travel one floor, it took almost a minute before the lift dinged and began to slide open.
“Remind me to become a high roller,” Gary said, sidling out. “I’d rather stay at home than come on holiday to this.”
“That’s because my trailer park is awesome,” Wilma said. “If you’d opted for that dive park down in the southern borough, then you might have a different view.”
That was a scab over an old wound, and Tyler wasn’t man enough to pick it just yet. He stepped out and looked into the shadows. A bulb overhead glowed, but at forty watts it didn’t do much to penetrate the darkness.
“Hello,” Tyler called out, “anybody down here?”
“There’s a door down the end of the hall,” Wilma said, peering. She gave Tyler a shove between his shoulder blades. “Lead on.”
“Perhaps we should wait until he hears us.” Tyler’s sick feeling in the elevator had turned into a slow creep of dread. If he could hang back for a minute, that sounded good to him. Horror movies had once been the staple of his childhood. Venturing down a dimly lit corridor in the basement brought too many gory endings to mind.
“Man up.” Wilma gave him a shove again. “You don’t expect poor Gary to lead us, do you? You’re the one with all the magic.”
She twiddled her fingers and rolled her eyes.
“I can go in front if you like,” Gary said, staying exactly where he was. “If you need someone else to lead you into danger, that is.”
“Fine.” Tyler forced himself to walk one step forward, then another. Once his legs got the hang of it again, he took long strides. “Ralph? Are you down here?”
“Who the hell are you?” the voice boomed from behind them. Tyler jumped a foot into the air, his heart racing. When he turned, Wilma and Gary were edging backward, leaving him to face the music again.
“You the janitor?”
Ralph pointed at the name tag sewn onto his dark blue overalls, just above his job description. “Yeah,” he added, perhaps thinking that Tyler couldn’t read.
“The guy upstairs on the front desk said you’d give us a tour of the basement.”
“Eh?” The man’s face twisted into a deep frown.
“The desk clerk.” Tyler pointed at the ceiling. “He said you’d give us a tour of the basement.”
Ralph looked at each of them in turn, his gaze lingering until they all shifted their feet in discomfort. “This some sort of joke?”
Tyler sighed and closed his eyes. A headache thumped in his temple, keeping in beat with his heart. His body that had craved sleep an hour ago, now felt wired, like he’d snorted half a gram of coke.
“I know it’s a bit weird, mate. We just need to have a look around down here. Is that okay?”
“No.” Ralph reached into his back pocket, and Tyler stiffened. When he pulled it out into view, there was a cell phone in his hand. “Just a moment.”
He turned to the side as though that would hide him from view. After pressing a contact button, Ralph held the phone up to his ear.
“Fuck it!” he said after a minute. “The damn thing hardly ever works down here.”
“Who were you calling?” Gary asked. “We don’t want any trouble.”
“I was calling that dickhead on the front desk. I don’t know why he sent you down here, but I bet he’s laughing his ass off. You need to get out of here.” Ralph flicked his hand toward the elevator. “I’ve got to get back to work.”
“Can’t we just look around down here for a bit by ourselves?” Tyler asked. “Check-in isn’t until two o’clock, so we’ve got time to kill.”
“Not my problem. I can’t have guests wandering around down here, it’s out of bounds. If you hurt yourself, it’s me that’s out of a job.”
The stone in Tyler’s hand pulled him, aching to go down, down, down.
“Is there another floor below this one?” As the question left his mouth, the stone thrummed and grew warmer.
“Where did you say you’re from?”
Tyler shrugged. “We didn’t. We’re down here for the week from Los Angeles.”
Ralph frowned and shook his head. “Not what part of the country are you from.” His voice was filled with disgust and a tinge of wariness. “What organization sent you?”
“We’re not from any organization.” In the darkness of the basement corridor, the truth sounded like a lie. Ralph looked at them through narrowed lids, holding his hand out in warning when Gary shifted his weight from one foot to the other.
“You need to leave. I’ve already asked you twice. If you don’t go, I’ll call security to come downstairs and make you leave.”
Wilma stepped forward, making the man withdraw even though he towered over her by at least a foot. “You’re not going to call anybody. As you just said”—she nodded at the cell phone in his hand—“there’s no reception down here. Tell us what you’re hiding, then maybe we’ll leave.”
“I’m not hiding anything. You have no right to come down here and accuse me of things!”
“Come on,” Gary said. “Let’s go. This is silly. We’re obviously upsetting this man, and it’s not like we’re going to strike it rich in the bowels of this hotel. We need to get to the strip and set up some action.”
Tyler and Wilma turned to him in surprise, but he’d already walked halfway back to the lift.
“There you go,” Ralph called out. “Do like your friend
says and stop bugging me. And tell the desk clerk that he’s a dick.”
“What are you doing?” Tyler whispered as they stood back outside the elevator again.
“Just wait.”
The janitor moved back down the hallway and disappeared into an office. When the latch on the door clicked shut, Gary turned and crept down the corridor. He jerked his head at Tyler and Wilma for them to join him, then put a finger up to his lips in case they hadn’t twigged what was going on.
Around the corner, Gary poked his head back one more time to check that the janitor’s door was still closed, then hustled them further along. “There’ll be a staircase along here,” he whispered.
“How do you know that?” Wilma’s quiet voice was so different from her normal one that the effect in the dimness was eerie.
“There wasn’t a fire escape beside the elevator,” Gary said. “So, it has to be at the edge of the building. You can only build stairs in the middle or the edge. Otherwise, you’re wasting all the space.”
Before Tyler or Wilma could think of an exception, he pointed ahead with a satisfied grin on his face. “There you go!”
The exit sign was broken, but a plaque on the door showed a series of right angles leading down, the universal symbol for stairs. As he pushed open the door, Tyler tensed for an alarm. It opened silently. Whoever oversaw fixing up the lighted sign was probably in charge of setting the alarm. No doubt, that someone was sitting in his closet right now, having a break.
The stairway led up and down. Despite there being no notices on the elevator showing lower floors, Tyler was glad to see that the stone had known. Since it was the only thing that seemed to understand what it was doing, he held it out in front of him and let it lead the way.
“Can you stop doing that?” Wilma snapped at him. “It’s freaky. I preferred it when it was tucked away in your pocket.”
“It’s not freaky.” Tyler turned his hand over and looked at the play of colors over the stone’s surface. “It’s cool.”
“So not cool, dude,” Gary said. “Nothing that color could ever be cool.”
“I like it,” Tyler declared. “It reminds me of something healing.”
“Like Pepto-Bismol?” Wilma cackled with laughter.
The discussion became a moot point as they walked two floors lower. Whoever should have been taking care of the stairwell hadn’t bothered to replace the bulbs. The further they descended, the darker it got. Soon, Tyler could feel the pressure from the weight of concrete pressing on him. His breath grew short. The hotel was closing in from every side. He’d be no match for its block and steel.
“All the single ladies,” Gary suddenly sang in the blackness.
“All the single ladies.” Wilma joined in.
In an instant, Tyler’s mood lifted. They continued to sing as they delved deeper into the hotel. Four stories down, five, six. When they got to twelve, Wilma insisted on stopping so they could have a break.
“It’s all right for you two, with your adult-length legs. I feel like I’m trotting just to keep up.”
She pulled a packet of cigarettes out of her pocket and lit up. The glowing tip illuminating her face from the mouth up, so she looked like an evil pixie.
“I hope this doesn’t go down too much further,” she said, staring above her. “It’s creeping me out.”
Tyler nodded his head. “Me, too.”
Gary leaned against the wall. “What if this is a trap?”
Wilma inhaled a deep puff. “Why would it be a trap?” She breathed out a plume of smoke.
“I’m not saying that it is. Just”—Gary waved his hand around at the blank concrete sealing them in on all sides—“if it is, we’ve got nowhere else to go. We’re screwed.”
“We could run back up,” Tyler said.
“We barely managed to walk down, dude. I don’t think we’ll stand much of a chance at escape by sprinting back up. Besides, if the hotel sends out someone to follow us down…”
Gary trailed off, leaving the import of his words to settle over them like a damp cloud. Tyler leaned over and snagged the cigarette out of Wilma’s hand.
“Hey,” she called out, trying to snatch it back.
Tyler held it above her head, like an overgrown schoolyard bully. “Just one puff? Please. It’s been so long.”
Not waiting for an answer, he put the cigarette into his mouth. The entire unsmoked portion immediately fell away into ash.
“Thanks, asshole.” Wilma stamped her foot. “Remind me not to pass you any weed later.”
“You have weed?” Gary straightened up, and a smile leaped onto his face. “Where is it? Can we smoke it now?”
“No, you can’t smoke it now.” Wilma gave a sniff. “Certainly not before heading down these stairs again. I already feel like I’m tripping out.”
“It could calm us down.”
“It could make you paranoid,” Tyler said. He wasn’t sure how much of his retort was due to concern and how much to frustration.
If I can’t have any, neither can you.
They started downstairs again. As the three of them descended through the levels, the echo from their footsteps changed. The sound became darker, muffled, like a secret shoved in the back of a closet never again to see the light of day.
“All the single ladies,” Gary tried again. The basement of the hotel had swallowed up Tyler and Wilma’s enthusiasm for singing. When nobody joined in, he stopped, embarrassed.
After another ten levels, the stairs pitching at a steeper angle, each flight leading them further underground than the one before, a door blocked their path.
Tyler looked down at the stone in his palm, humming and glowing with energy. “Let's hope they have snacks down here. I’m starving.”
He knocked on the door.
Chapter Seventeen
Nobody answered. After another knock, Tyler put his ear flush against the metal to listen. A soft hum sounded, but whether that was from inside or just the flow of blood to his ear, he couldn’t determine.
“Just turn the handle and see if it’s unlocked,” Wilma said. Her voice was even higher than usual, reedy, thin. She shifted from foot to foot, winding up Tyler’s tension.
“It won’t be unlocked.” He turned the handle and fell inside a step to the accompaniment of Wilma’s derisive snort. Fair enough. He deserved that one.
The room was small and empty. When Gary drew the door behind him, Tyler leaped over to keep it ajar. “Just in case,” he said and laughed. The sound ricocheted off the walls and twisted into a moan straight out of hell.
“Good point.” Gary opened it wide until its handle banged into the wall. “Should I stay here? Keep guard and all that?”
Wilma turned to him with her eyebrow raised. “You mean, stay out here and protect us from an empty room while a small girl gets to go into the next one?” She jerked her head at the inner door, the only feature of the room apart from smooth concrete walls.
“It was just an offer.” Gary puffed his chest out, showing off his wounded pride. “I’m more than happy to stay with you two.”
“Big man.”
“Quiet!” Tyler put his ear up to the next door, again not sure if the sounds he heard were internal or external. Dread slowly filled up his legs, weighing them down like slow-drying concrete. By the time it tickled at the underside of his balls, Tyler could happily have split and run.
Then a snake slithered out beneath the door.
Gary leaped forward, crushing its head with one stamp of his deformed foot. He bent down and flicked the body out the open door behind them before Tyler had time to work out what had happened. A delayed shudder of shock ran through his body. Wilma stepped forward, elbowing him out of the way.
“Let me go first. Whatever’s in there, it’s less likely to attack an innocent little girl.”
Tyler gratefully fell back a foot, letting a child do his job, while he concentrated on wiping the heavy beads of sweat off his forehead.
The doo
r swung open. Inside, every miscreant that had taunted them since the day Tyler received the stone stood in open defiance.
Julius was closest. He held a gun in one hand and a flick-knife—the blade already exposed—in the other.
To the accompaniment of a slow clap, Tyler walked into the room.
“About time,” Julius said. “We were about to give up hope. Do you think this dank hole in the ground is where I want to spend my time when I’m in Vegas?”
His voice boomed around the large chamber, bouncing off the concrete walls. The room behind them could have fit inside this one forty times over. The ceiling stretched whole stories into the air.
“Where is she?”
“Where is who?” Julius taunted. “If you’re looking for someone in particular, you should at least address them by name.”
To his right and left, stood the same gunmen that had accompanied Julius on the first raid. The CPS lady stood further around the circle. After her presence, Tyler felt no shock at all when he saw his dad.
“I don’t know the name. I just know that someone here is the owner of the stone!” He held it aloft, hoping for attention. The men and women in front of him offered their weapons instead. A dozen barrels were pointed at him. In the corner of his eye, Tyler spotted a teenage boy with a can of tear gas at the ready.
Tyler called upon a hundred epic fantasy films. “Let me pass. I don’t want to hurt you.”
This time, it was more than Julius who joined in the mockery. Everywhere Tyler turned were sniggers and stares.
On his right, he felt Wilma’s shoulder brush against his arm as she crowded in beside him. To Tyler’s left, Gary did the same.
“There is someone in this room who is the rightful owner of the stone! Let them come forth now.”
A wave of “oohs” and “aahs” went around the armed circle, not in reverence but in further mockery. Tyler’s arm began to grow tired of being thrust into the air. He softened his elbow to give his muscles a break.
“If you force me to use the power of the stone,” Tyler intoned, “it won’t be pretty. Some of you already know all too well the harm that it can do.”