The Eaton

by John K. Addis

  Sam knew he loved Sarah. He knew they were right together. But it was impossible to look down into Kedzie’s beautiful blue eyes, smell the sweet fruit from her perfume, feel her hand softly resting against his body, and not remember every detail of that one amazing mistake, and want her all over again. Only this time, he imagined a scenario in which she would come on to him again, flirting wildly, biting his earlobe like she had a few months ago, but this time he would say “no, no….I’m taken…it isn’t right…but you’re great, though. You’re really great.” And he’d leave her apartment with nothing more than a peck on the cheek, the faithful, valiant, virtuous hero. He’d imagine her either sobbing with what might have been, or better yet, fantasizing about him long after he left. Oh, that would feel good.

  “Alright Kedz, you said the exact same thing to me last time we talked about it. I believe you.” He gave Kedzie’s left hip a mildly inappropriate squeeze, before he added “come on” and led her across the hall.

  “There you are,” said Sarah as they arrived, holding two hand towels, one of which she had dampened with warm water from a nearby faucet. Observing a mild look of surprise on Sam’s face, Sarah explained: “yeah, running water—neat, huh?”

  “Well hang on,” Kedzie protested. “There’s no way I trust that water.” She motioned to Al. “Can’t you use some of that guy’s booze instead? It’d be more sterile.”

  Sarah looked at Al. He shrugged and offered his flask.

  Kedzie hopped up onto a nearby countertop and lifted her bloody shirt. Sarah dabbed some of the alcohol onto a new towel and began to clean the small wound. It had already stopped bleeding, but had made a bit of a mess on her bare stomach.

  Vaughn and Al were busy looking at a row of large tubes on the far wall. “Pneumatics,” Sam heard Al explaining. “See, they could fill one of these canisters here with a couple towels, bed linens, you name it, and then they put the container in here, and the air pressure moves the canisters up to the different floors.”

  “Oh, like those weird tubes at the drive-up banks,” Vaughn responded, understanding. “Only bigger.”

  “Exactly.”

  Sam was going to ask a question about this, but his gaze wandered over to Janet, who was staring at Kedzie, and looking increasingly uncomfortable. The corners of her mouth arched downward, and her color was off.

  “Hey Janet,” said Sam. “You feelin’ okay?”

  Sarah was drying Kedzie’s abdomen with the second towel, and was pulling her shirt back down to make sure the stain had dried. “Well,” Sarah said, “if you soak the blouse later, I think you’ll be good. It’s not much blood.”

  “Yeah,” responded Kedzie, looking down at her shirt. Then, snapping her eyes up to meet Janet’s gaze, she said, quite decisively, “it’ll be fine. I’m sure it will come out in the wash.”

  The energy in the room shifted, and Janet turned white. She took a step back, bumping into a wheeled cart and knocking over a tin of powdered detergent.

  Sam inched toward her. “Janet? What’s wrong?”

  Janet looked around in a panic. Her mind became cloudy and her vision blurred. “I’m going to be sick,” she said, covering her mouth with one hand. She noticed a large “Soiled Linens” container to her right, ran over, and lifted the lid, opening her mouth wide to vomit into it.

  But her mouth just locked open instead. She stared into the can for several long seconds, then screamed.

  She fell backward, and Vaughn stepped over to catch her, helping her fall to the ground with as much grace as possible. Sam ran to the canister instead, and looked in to see for himself what was wrong.

  Inside, there was a crumpled, two-foot pile of white bedsheets, each stained with deep, red-brown splotches. In particular, the sheet on top looked like it had been soaked with the stuff.

  Al peered in as well, then met Sam’s gaze.

  “Oil?” Sam offered.

  Al considered this for a moment, then slowly shook his head “no.”

  Vaughn was comforting Janet on the floor. She was sitting upright, but trembling. Sam knelt down to her, placing a hand on her arm.

  “Janet, it’s alright. Al thinks it’s just oil, not blood or anything.” Sam shot a look to Al, making sure he stayed silent. “It’s not scary, it’s fine.”

  Janet looked up at Sam with intense, quizzical desperation. Her eyes darted back and forth between his own, searching for answers, or at least something that would make sense of what he had just said.

  “Really,” Sam insisted. “It’s just dirty sheets.”

  Janet blinked, bewildered. “Who gives a damn about the sheets,” she responded through tears. “What about the dead fucking baby?”

  eight

  Sam and Sarah couldn’t convince Janet to look inside the bin a second time, so they tipped the container over and spread the dirty linens on the floor before her. At first, Janet still thought she saw an outline of an arm, or a head, and came close to screaming again. After staring at the sheets for several long seconds, however, she began to calm down, acknowledging that what she had seen must have been an illusion.

  “It’s okay,” consoled Al. “Hell, Sam here thought he saw a mouse, and his scream was girlier than yours.”

  Sam narrowed his eyes in Al’s direction, as if to telepathically convey the message I did see a mouse, you bastard, but Al shrugged in response, either not receiving the transmission, or choosing to ignore it.

  “I could have sworn there was a tiny body in there,” Janet said, still in a bit of a trance, as if recalling a dream. “I’m not good with blood. Not at all. And I just knew I had to throw up, watching…you know, and…” Janet stammered a bit, having trouble meeting Kedzie’s eyes across the room. Kedzie had one hand held protectively over her abdomen, and Janet realized she must have scared the poor girl. “I’m sorry, Kedzie,” she said at last. “I truly don’t know what came over me.”

  Something about the way she said this last part stuck Sam as odd, and he had a thought that Janet perhaps did know, at least partially, what had come over her. There was a strange tension between Janet and Kedzie, considering they had only recently met, and Sam was certain it had something to do with Kedzie’s pregnancy.

  Sam thought back to something Janet had said during their first meeting about the property, many months ago. She had asked if he wanted a family—specifically, if he wanted children. He had told her things with Sarah had been getting serious, but he wasn’t sure about her views on kids. When he asked, as tactfully as he could, if Janet herself had ever wanted children, she had paused, offered a sad smile, and said “only for a moment.” At the time, this had awakened a childhood memory of eavesdropping on his mom consoling Janet many years ago. He didn’t understand the conversation as a kid, but he knew Janet had been pregnant, and then she wasn’t. He remembered his confusion at the idea of “losing” a baby, and believed Janet must have been quite careless. In fact, Sam was even going to offer to look for the child, but changed his mind, as he shouldn’t have been spying in the first place. As Sam thought back to the memory now, he realized for the first time that the miscarriage must have been a factor in her subsequent divorce. It involved something her husband had done, or maybe said…but he couldn’t remember.

  Sam noticed Sarah had sat down beside Janet, placing a reassuring hand on her shoulder. “It’s okay,” she said. “This place is a little spooky.”

  As were, Sam thought, the stained sheets. Baby or no baby, the sheets didn’t seem to tell a happy tale. Vaughn gave voice to the lingering thought in the air.

  “So, The Eaton closed its doors days after opening. And it never reopened, and no one talked about it afterwards, at least not enough for it to even become a local legend.” Vaughn glanced down at the sheets, then at Janet to make sure she was comfortable with his discussing the matter, and continued. “In fact, it seems the last guests left in such a hurry they didn’t even bother checking out. So what in the hell happened?”


  Al, who had been leaning against a wall of pneumatic tubes, cleared his throat.

  “This doesn’t change the plan,” Al said. “We still need to go floor by floor and see what we can find. Maybe we’ll uncover more evidence, and maybe we won’t. But there’s still a lot to explore.”

  Sam turned to Janet. “It’s okay if you want to take off,” he suggested. “I’m sure you can come back another time.”

  Janet shook her head, and seemed to regain a level of composure. “No, no. I’ve already let my little panic attack waste enough time, and I’m not letting you go through this place without me.” She got to her feet and brushed dust off the back of her skirt, glancing around at the room as if satisfied it served no future purpose. “Let’s go.”

  “Are you sure?” asked Sam.

  “Of course,” Janet replied as brightly as possible. “Besides,” she added, holding up her purse, “I have the keys.”

  *

  As it had on the maintenance level, a few dim lights illuminated the third floor hallway, and a light switch panel found near the elevator turned on the rest. More than anything the group had seen to date, this floor was more reminiscent of a standard hotel, with neutral tones for the carpet and paint, and a symmetrical layout of four rooms to the left, and four to the right, each with a large brass room number plaque affixed on the corresponding mahogany doors. A narrow door at the end of the hallway led presumably to the staircase they had observed on the other levels. After some hesitation, they picked the closest numbered door on the right, and opened it.

  The room was empty, and immaculate. It was also small by today’s hotel standards, and Sam was disappointed that the rooms in his new luxury hotel might not be as luxurious as he had hoped. There were classy, tasteful furnishings, and some nice Victorian flourishes on the door molding, but otherwise it paled in comparison to the grandeur of the foyer and ballroom.

  Al could sense Sam’s mild disappointment. “You know, this actually would have been considered a pretty high-end room when this was built,” he assured him. Al motioned to the open door on the far wall. “I mean, look—that’s a private bathroom.”

  Sam walked over and peered inside. It contained a toilet and sink, and a shelf for linens, but that was it.

  “Not sure I could rent this room without a shower,” Sam said.

  Al laughed. “Sam, you forget why people would want to come here. The baths are two levels up.”

  Sarah opened the top drawer of a dresser across from the bed. It was empty. “What, no Gideon Bible?”

  “A little early for that,” Al answered. “Try the others.”

  Sarah tried each of the remaining three drawers, but all were empty.

  Vaughn sat on the edge of the well-made bed, and bounced a little to test for springiness. It sagged in a lopsided fashion, but he imagined this may have represented the best in mattress design at the time. He glanced up at Sam. “Maybe this room hadn’t been rented yet.”

  “Maybe,” shrugged Sam. “Want to check the rest of the floor?”

  “Hell yes,” said Al.

  They exited the first room. It would have been easy enough to split up to search the other seven, covering more rooms at a faster pace, but an unspoken acknowledgement of the growing creepiness of the situation kept them in a group. One by one, they searched the remaining rooms, which were more or less identical to each other. None contained anything of interest, except the last room, which contained the only bed they had found unmade. It gave everyone a bit of a start, as if they had intruded on a living resident, and even Sam stepped back into the hallway for a moment upon viewing the oddity. But even this room, like the rest, had empty dresser drawers, and was clean in every other regard, save the turned back comforter and sheet.

  “Anyone see the maid service door hanger?” joked Sarah.

  “If they all had been like this,” Sam mused, “it wouldn’t be so weird. But why one? Why this one?”

  “How’s your place at the moment,” asked Janet.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Are all the rooms clean?”

  Sam thought about it. “Yes, I think so.”

  “Is the bed made?”

  Sarah laughed, adding that “Sam never makes the bed.”

  Janet crinkled her nose. “Bleh. I can’t stand coming home to an unmade bed. I’d rather be late for a house showing then leave before making the bed.”

  “How delightfully OCD of you,” remarked Sam.

  “So after an apocalypse,” Janet continued, “if visitors from the future were to view the contents of your apartment, do you think they’d ask the same question? Why the rest of the home was clean, but only the bedroom was left unkempt?”

  Vaughn seemed uneasy. “Do you think an apocalypse happened here?”

  “No, I’m not saying that. I’m just pointing out it’s impossible to form opinions or judgments on this sort of observation. If I were to die today, for example, and the police or my family or whoever was going through my place, do you know what they’d find? Branches. In the kitchen.”

  Sam cocked his head. “Branches?”

  “Yep. About a dozen skinny branches taken from the old tree in the back. Right there on my kitchen table. And do you know why I have a dozen branches on my kitchen table?”

  Nobody hazarded a guess.

  “Exactly. You have no idea. You can’t even speculate. And I’ll tell ya, years after my death, when my family would gather around and talk about me—which would happen, by the way, I’m very memorable—someone would bring up ‘the branches,’ and they’d all offer opinions, and they’d debate opposing theories, and they’d never guess the real reason. Because it doesn’t even matter.”

  Vaughn nodded. “I have a dress shoe sitting in my bathroom sink right now.”

  Sarah chuckled. “Just one?”

  “Just one,” Vaughn confirmed.

  “Where’s the other one?”

  “I donno. Probably on the floor in my bedroom.”

  Sam had a guess. “Did you step in dog shit or something?”

  Vaughn laughed aloud. “That’s really close, Sam! It was someone’s vomit in the hallway of my apartment building.”

  Kedzie made a face. “You need new neighbors.”

  “Yeah, well. College town.”

  Sarah shook her head. “Wait a minute, that one’s not too hard to figure out. But kitchen branches?”

  Janet grinned. “I’ll give you a hint: I have a gas stove.”

  Al was growing impatient by this pointless conversation. “Come on guys, we have eight more floors to cover.”

  Sam was a tad amused by Al’s frustration. “Nothing weird at your place, eh, Al?”

  “No. Can we go?”

  “Sure, sure, we can go.”

  They began to file out of the room, with Al taking the lead.

  Sam was the last to leave. For some reason, he had an impulse to face the interior of the room as he was closing the door, rather than shutting it absentmindedly behind his back. This may have been a mistake, as Sam could have sworn he saw a shadow move across the bed, just for a moment, as he eyed the shrinking sliver of view before the door closed.

  nine

  The second floor of single rooms was so identical to the first that if their elevator had possessed a solid door, instead of a see-through cage, Sam would not have believed the elevator had transported them at all. Kedzie had suggested they try the stairs, but Vaughn objected, as he was still lugging around the two battery-operated lights, and insisted they were “heavier than they looked.” No one wanted to separate from the group.

  The first room had been occupied. There were men's and women's clothing in the armoire, and luggage by the foot of the bed. Three hard-bound books were on the nightstand, along with a pair of earrings. Sarah picked one of the earrings up and examined it in the light.

  “Real diamond, I think. These are nice.”

  “Well I should hope
so,” observed Kedzie. “I don't think they had cubic zirconia back then.” After a second, with a sly smile, she turned to Sam. “Maybe you should compare it side by side with the zirconia engagement ring Sam has in his pocket.”

  Sam felt himself turn white, but tried to cover it up. “Very funny, Kedz,” he said with a laugh that sounded forced to his ears. He glanced at Sarah with what he hoped was nonchalance, but he could not read the coy expression she shot back at him.

  “Do you think I should take them?” Sarah glanced around the group to see if there were any moral objections. The group responded with a communal shrug. Sarah smiled broadly and put the earrings in her pocket. “Thanks, Sam!”

  “Anytime,” Sam offered. “I had them placed there, you know. It's one of the reasons I bought the place.”

  “How thoughtful and romantic you are,” Sarah purred. “I'm a lucky girl.”

  Kedzie made a face. “And I'm going to barf. Where's my jewelry, Sam?”

  “I'm sure we'll find more treasures along the way,” Sam reassured her. Then he thought for a moment. There might indeed be all sorts of valuables in the hotel rooms, but some may have historical significance. Things would need to be cataloged. There may even be a need to place certain items on display in a museum. It was possible that there were people of note who stayed here during the hotel's brief run, and surviving descendants as well. What would be the legal issues surrounding property thought lost a century earlier? Did the great-grandchildren of The Eaton's occupants have a legal claim of inheritance? Sam had no idea.

  As if reading his thoughts, Janet suggested a compromise. “I'm not exactly sure that everything we find here becomes Sam's just because he owns the building. In cases where a seller forgets items in the home, they don't automatically become the buyer's property. But it's something we can look into. I'd say there's no harm for now in taking souvenirs, but don't sell anything on eBay just yet.”