Burning Sky

by R. S. Scott

  “Thanks, Mitch.” Henry eyes me as Mitch walks off toward the elevators.

  “Henry, what are you guys really planning?” I ask.

  “I’d rather not say,” Henry says as he puts his phone to his ear and returns to the media room.

  “Bastard,” I say and walk back to my room then to the room adjacent. “Jess?”

  “Hey, Babe. I’m teaching little Rebecca here all about Pangaea and the first single-celled organisms.” She smiles a bright smile.

  “The feds are over there,” I say and point to the room across the hall. “Jess, if anything happens or starts happening, take Hailey with you and find Abel and stay with him, OK?”

  “I will,” Jess says and returns to her book and continues reading.

  I motion Henry aside. “I’m going downstairs. I can’t breathe in this environment, and, also, before I get drunk downstairs, who’s really in charge here?”

  “We are.” Henry says sternly.

  “Henry.” I lead him to the hall away from the rooms. “The woman I love and her weird best friend are in there, fully aware of what’s coming, but they seem fine with it. Why do they seem unlike themselves and fine with it?”

  “We’ve explained to them the risks and what might potentially unfold. They agreed to assist,” Henry says.

  “Who persuaded them to agree?” I ask.

  “No one forced them if that’s what you’re implying,” Henry returns.

  “Listen, Henry. The woman I love and her dear friend, Hailey, are not in that room. I don’t know who those two are. I have yet to meet them since Karen and I drove into town. Even Karen is acting like a pompous ass. She even ate fish. She never eats fish. It’s against her religion,” I say.

  “I don’t know what you are talking about, Officer Keller,” Henry says.

  “Is it you can’t say? Or you don’t know?” I ask.

  “Keller, we’re all here, we’re together, no harm done. What’s the problem?” Henry seems relaxed and confident.

  “No, Henry, we’re not all here…we…” I pause a long pause. “Henry, I’ll be downstairs.”

  “You can’t leave,” Henry says and pulls my arm.

  “Hey! I’m allergic to cats, not dogs but cats! Or did you not read that in my fucking bio. I can’t fucking breathe in there!” I jerk my arm away from Henry’s grasp. “And don’t ever touch me.” I leave the ninth floor and head down. “There’s got to be a bar somewhere here.”

  “IPA on draft and tequila, the good stuff please.” The chipper bartender winks and bee-bops away smiling. I stare down at the oak bar. I need to leave and leave quickly. With the girls, if they are who they look like they are, and with Karen and Rebecca.

  I’ve no idea what they are planning upstairs, but I don’t approve. I sip my tequila. The integrity and resilience of our group falters and falters badly. We are now divided. I gulp my IPA. We are divided and soon to be conquered like unruly sheep to be slaughtered. Like an army divided with its general off chasing a skirt, utterly convinced the resident commotion is unwarranted. I feel deception all around. I feel an uncontrollable madness shadowing every gaze. I feel a darkness inching closer as my soul covers its face.

  I wonder at the phrase from Henry, I’ve heard those exact words earlier in the buffet. Word for word, they are the same. How can two men utter the same phrase, word for word? We are not all together, and there is not a problem. There are multiple problems with applied solutions that will exacerbate those same problems. Why does it seem I am exempt from seeing the obvious as it would be discerned by everyone else? Perhaps it is I that is deceived? Perhaps they are all right, and I am in the wrong. Perhaps it is truly Jess and Hailey upstairs, and my paranoia has run amok. I gulp more IPA. I am quite thirsty.

  “Hey, Officer Keller,” Hailey says. “Vodka and cranberry, please.” She shoos-off the chipper bartender.

  “What are you doing down here? You’re supposed to stay up there,” I point to the hotel tower.

  “I came to hang out, with my new best friend,” Hailey says and cradles and hugs my arm.

  I look around. “Where’s Jess?”

  “No, you, silly,” she kisses my arm and tries to pull me over by my shirt pocket.

  “Hailey, don’t do that. Please,” I say and sigh.

  “You’re smart, Officer Keller, figure it out,” Hailey says and leans in and kisses my ear then engulfs my ear into her mouth. I feel her tongue and pull away.

  “Hailey, stop. Listen, you need to stop that shit. I’m serious.” I steady myself and sip my tequila. “I love Jess, I really do. I know we’ve all known each other for a while, but I belong to her. You understand that? I love Jess. I’m with her, so this needs to stop,” I say.

  “Well, Officer Keller. This isn’t about that slut of yours, that fucking bitch of yours. That timid, blond whore of yours. I don’t understand what you see in her anyway. She can’t even cook bacon without burning it,” Hailey says.

  I stop, and all seems still for but a moment, the air is calm with a rage building inside me.

  “She can’t even lick properly. I want you to do that. It’s you that gets me going. I want you to fuck me. Steve, fuck me,” Hailey says.

  I gulp my tequila.

  “It’s a pity that burger you bought me didn’t come with an extra burger patty, so unfortunate. I was really, really hungry,” Hailey says.

  I glare at the evil next to me, “Tracy?”

  “Who else, Officer Keller.” She smiles a sinister smile and sips her drink. “Vodka, mixed with tequila and Taylor’s home brew. Just so epic.” She sips again. “You can start a fire with it.”

  “So, you are Tracy but look like Hailey. Your deception is strong,” I surmise and gulp all of my IPA as well as my shot of tequila. “So, what did you do with the real Hailey?”

  “They’ll bury her in two weeks, or what remains of her. They just don’t know it yet, those poor bastards.”

  “You bitch,” I say and motion to the chipper bartender. “More tequila, please. Make it a double and another IPA.” She bee-bops away hoisting empty glasses.

  “Steve, listen. I’m not here to screw with things upstairs or your army of FBI guys with their fancy cameras and shit,” Tracy says.

  “What are you here for then?” I accept my double of tequila and another pint of India Pale Ale. “You’ve killed Hailey, or so you say.”

  “I didn’t kill her. It wasn’t me, honest,” Tracy says.

  “You are a brilliant liar, so why are you here?” I ask.

  “I’m here to make sure they succeed. Stupid white people can’t even accept the notion that maybe, perhaps, that there are other factors to factor in besides the obvious.” She smiles, “I’m half white, so I can say that.”

  “You sound almost like a person that already knows what’s going to happen.” I move her drink closer to her. “As if you can see the future. Drink up, Tracy. Translucent whore of mine, drink up.”

  She smiles a wide smile and gulps her drink. “Steve, you fucking pimp, you. Are you going to fuck me later?” She requests another drink from our chipper bartender. “A double please, thanks.”

  I gulp my massive shot of tequila. “Mas.” The chipper bartender bee-bops away with my empty glass. “Damn, she’s nice.” I gawk at the delicate curves of our bartender. “She’s small but so damn sexy.” I note my moral compass failing me.

  “Yeah.” Tracy drinks her drink. “She swallows, too.” Tracy smiles wickedly.

  “OK, you and her, up in my room, in twenty minutes.” I gulp my IPA and flip a fifty-dollar bill at the bar. “My room, and don’t be late, this isn’t Indian Time.”

  “Keller, you bastard. You know what’s going to happen up there. You’re such an amateur,” Tracy says.

  “Tracy,” I approach her. I pull her in by her jeans and hoist her up by her right buttock. “You can’t see everything, not everything.”

  “Yes, I can. Dad can, too,” she says and pulls away. “We both can.”

&n
bsp; “What you see can be no more significant than murky swamp water. You see what you want to see. Nothing more, nothing less. You’re the amateur,” I tell her.

  “You’re wrong, and I can prove it,” Tracy says.

  “You can’t prove shit to me. You have nothing on me, nothing,” I say.

  “Yes, I can prove it. One day you will let me, and I will,” Tracy says.

  “Alright then, bring it. Bring your shit. Come on, right here, right now, permission granted. Bring your premonition magic, hit me with it.” I offer the chipper bartender the rest of my change from the drinks. “Come on, hit me! You’re my slut now! You will do as I tell you!” I open my arms wide as I stumble backward toward the bar. Our chipper bartender seems anxious and is on the phone with urgent intentions. We make eye contact.

  At a blink of an eye, Tracy appears as herself with long flowing blond hair and a much taller physique. The entire room turns a blurry orange hue as our chipper bartender gasps and hangs up her phone. The room slows to a crawl. Minutes seem like hours, and hours decay into months. Tracy approaches, licks her left palm, and grasps my forehead hard. She then stares into my soul as its coldness feels like hot iron picks.

  She reaches into my past then into my future, at that moment she winces and turns her face. “Oh no, oh no.” She lets go and backs away.

  “Yeah, you’re an amateur. You’re full of shit. What did you see?” I paw for a near empty pint glass. “Shit.” I feel dizzy.

  “I saw him!” She stumbles backward to her bar stool then behind it. She slowly brings her finger to a pointing position. She turns pale breathing furiously. “I saw him. I saw our son, right there, our son, he was right there! Looking at me!” She collapses onto her bar stool and points past me to the adjacent stool. “Right there! He was right there!”

  Tracy Monroe sits, pale as a ghost.

  “You couldn’t have, you crazy woman,” I say and drink the last of my IPA and start down the hall to the hotel elevators. I shake with fright. Our son?

  “Steve! Steve Keller!” A voice springs out behind me. “Wait!” Tracy runs to my side as I walk on.

  “Tracy, what do you want from me? You have my Jess and now Hailey, what is it? You expect me to go with you at my free will and start doing shit by your side as one of your skin-walking arachnids? With your dad calling me his son? Fucking forget it! I’d rather die!” I say.

  “Please don’t go up there just yet, please.” Her pleads seem sincere.

  “Why can’t I go up yet? What do you know that you’re not telling me?” I ask.

  She stands fidgeting. “Can we sit and talk somewhere? Please?” We sit on chairs in the hotel lobby.

  “Why can’t I go up yet?” I ask. “You know something.”

  “I just want to talk to you,” Tracy says.

  “You’re lying to me again. Not your best virtue.” I try to focus as two Tracies appear.

  “You drunk? I think I am, too.” She smiles with dimming eyes.

  “Last time, why can’t I go up yet?” I ask again.

  “Stay here, please. You can go up in a few minutes.”

  “Why a few minutes?” I feel the tequila and IPA further dulling my senses. “Holy fuck, that stuff was potent.”

  “Not yet, please,” Tracy repeats.

  I get up and almost fall. “Whoa.” I steady myself. “I’m going up, screw you and your murky premonition abilities. And, screw your dad and his cobweb ways. Fucking spiders, I hate spiders.”

  “Steve,” she gets up and grabs my arm, trips and nearly pulls me to the casino floor. “Don’t go up there yet!” My arm hurts from her grip. She pulls me back to the hotel lobby chair.

  “Tracy, hell awaits upstairs, and you’re in league with it.” I climb back up from the chair steadying myself. “You want me to listen to your lying ways? Well, Simon is coming, a monster is coming, and chances are he’ll kill us all. So, fuck your premonitions and your fucking dad!” I start to the elevator.

  The elevator door opens with Tracy standing beside it, weaving side-to-side, drunk on vodka and tequila. “You can go up, now. Go to the hall then stay with the child. I’ll be over there.” She points to the lobby chairs.

  “Officer Keller! Our men on the ground claim there are some disturbances just north of the hotel tower.” Henry pauses. “Have you been drinking?”

  “I have been, Agent Henry.” I slap his right shoulder. “Hailey isn’t whom you think she is.” I slap his other arm. “We’re all going to die.” I slap his right arm. “Die a horrible death. Cheers.” I slap his left arm again.

  “Hailey? She’s over there.” Henry points toward the adjacent room. “This is a fine time for you to be drunk, Officer Keller. You can expect this to go on your record.”

  “Like I give a shit, Henry. Also, Henry?” I say.

  “What is it?” Henry asks.

  “The Archangel, Lucifer, fell, but there’s a whole lot of other archangels that remained,” I say.

  “Keller, lay off the booze. Give me your sidearm,” Henry commands.

  “I don’t have one. Listen, I mean what I said. Henry, listen. That was not an even fight, I’ve known that but never really realized that.” I note my slurring, “Wow, I think I’m way drunk.”

  “Keller, to the media room. Now,” Henry says.

  “It’s not an even fight at all, because there’s God, and there’s Lucifer. God doesn’t have an equivalent, but Lucifer does. That’s the Archangel Michael and Gabriel, just those two mentioned but still.” Henry leads me on. “So, Lucifer revolts but then gets his ass handed to him, gets kicked out of heaven. Not by God, but by Michael. God would have just worded his ass out of existence, so his equal would be the Archangel Gabriel. Because Michael was way too much a badass for him, just manhandled his ass and threw him out of heaven like a shooting star. How much of an ass whooping is deserving of a fall like a falling star? I mean that’s not even a fair fight. Michael just leveled Lucifer and threw his ass out of heaven like a bitch.” I make hand gestures. “So, there is no good in a grand struggle to defeat evil. It’s good kicking evil’s ass. You get that? Agent Henry? You get that? Do you see that?”

  Henry grabs my arm and shoves me into the media room. “He’s drunk.” He pokes me in my chest.

  “Ouch. What the fuck?”

  Karen pulls me close and glares into my eyes. “Oh God, what happened? Did you get drunk? I’m sobering up, and you’re drinking again? What is wrong with you?” She sniffs my flammable exhaling attempts. “Oh my God! Tequila? Really, Keller?”

  “I don’t think you are who you say you are, or look like you are, or seem like you are.” I point and poke at Karen’s forehead then her breasts. She grasps my finger and pushes me backward. I lift an imaginary glass of tequila. “Just saying.”

  “Oh my God!” Karen storms out to the hall. “Abel? Abel!”

  “By the way, Tracy Monroe is downstairs. I got her drunk so feel free to level her scrawny ass with a clothesline. She’s tall, and you have to aim a bit high. She’s working her premonition magic, but it’s soaked in booze. Go quickly and let her see her short-sighted ways of being Hailey. She’s in the lobby and knows you’re coming, so go quickly. Hustle.”

  “Hailey? She’s next door with Jess.” Karen glares into my one good eye.

  “Hailey is already dead.” I lay down on a nearby couch and close my eyes as the room spins and spins. “Or is dead, or is going to be dead, or might have been dead. I’m not sure, Tracy killed her, or is going to kill her, or might have already killed her, or someone else killed her, or that hasn’t happened yet or has already happened, or has yet to happen with the contingency of it actually happening, or something like that. Tracy is downstairs. Kill her, kill her now. I would if I could. She says she’s going to have my son. I don’t believe that lying bitch for as far as I can throw her scrawny ass. The thought of ejaculating inside that bitch is revolting. Sickening.” I look up to find Henry, Karen, Jeremy and a host of federal agents standing over me
. “May I have some water and coffee please?”

  “Tracy Monroe is downstairs?” Henry asks.

  “Yes.” I try to sit up. “Wow, that tequila.”

  Henry dispatches several agents and Salt River PD. “Take her into custody, the basement, quickly, tape her mouth shut. Don’t let her talk.”

  There is loud commotion from the media room camera feeds. I get up from the couch and sit in the hall. “Stupid, lumpy couch,” I say aloud to myself.

  “I see something!” A deputy points downward from the 9th-floor hall window. “Over there, ten o’clock, there he is!” He points furiously as Agent Henry also approaches the same window.

  “Get away from that window, don’t look directly at it, you idiots!” I blurt out.

  “Oh my God!” The deputy stands mortified. Then pulls out his weapon and pulls his head forward with his other hand. A loud bang rings out as the deputy shoots Henry in the head, then puts the pistol in his mouth and fires. He falls into oblivion with his weapon caught between his teeth. He drops next to a lifeless Henry. Chaos erupts as the screaming begins.

  “Jess? Where are you?” I stumble into the adjacent room. “Jess! Jessica!” I am flung violently onto the opposite wall by an unseen force. My mobility is hampered as a vicious cloudiness envelops my senses. My soul screams in terror. I dare not look upward as I crawl frantically along the far wall, “Jess!”

  A beast stands in the middle of the hotel room. Its countenance vast, its temperament violent, and seemingly as bright as the sun. A muscular form painted white with assorted medicine bundles around its neck.

  An attacker enters the room seemingly through the wall behind the beast. The attacker is smaller in form but hunched forward like a bear. Its face looks like a bear but with dark human hair on top.

  I hold my gaze upon the attacker as long as I can, “Chris?” I have to look away as my senses start to fail me. Strangely the tequila works as a mental barrier of sorts. I find Jess, I quickly cover her eyes as a vast commotion sets in behind me between the attacker and the beast. “Jess, don’t look!”