The Eaton

by John K. Addis

  Sam shot Vaughn a look of panic. He had looked at her. Hell, half the guys in here must have looked at her. But Vaughn was calm, and he placed a gentle hand on Brooke, then Katherine, and they turned back to him.

  “We’re in this together,” he whispered. “Together, we’re strong. The guy shot a hole through a glass door that everyone outside must have seen. Cops will be here in two seconds. We’re in this together, and we’ll get out together. We’re strong, he’s weak. A gun doesn’t change that. Okay?”

  Brooke and Katherine, who had been both been shivering as if they had been locked out in the snow, began to take deeper, slower breaths. They turned back to the crazy man on the other side of the dance floor, but did not look him in the eye when his gaze passed over them. With any luck, given the distance and the chorus of sobs and crying around them, Jimmy hadn’t heard Vaughn’s whispered pep talk. But Sam had, and it calmed him down as well. Vaughn’s logic was sound. They would get through this. And it did a lot to allay the feelings of helplessness to know they were a team.

  “You!” shouted Jimmy, and Sam froze. The maniac seemed to be looking right at him. But then, mercifully, an awkward, overweight man crouching in front of Sam said “Me?” and Jimmy nodded with solemnity, motioning the man to approach the panicked young woman. Sam's heart was racing, but he had never been so relieved in his life. Thank God, Sam thought, and then felt a pang of guilt for feeling joy at someone else's misfortune.

  The chosen man was nervous and sweating, but Sam thought he carried himself with a surprising amount of dignity given the situation. He didn't sob, and he didn't protest, but simply walked toward the psychotic man with the gun and awaited instructions.

  “You noticed my girl?” demanded Jimmy.

  “Sure,” was the man's honest response. “She's beautiful.”

  The terrified woman couldn't hide a hint of a smile. Jimmy didn't notice.

  “Ever seen her naked?” Jimmy pressed.

  “No, of course not,” the man stammered. “I've never even met her, not really.”

  “Not really?” said Jimmy, holding the gun to the man's head. “Explain that.”

  “Well,” gulped the man, “I said I liked her hair.”

  “And what did she say in response?”

  The man looked down in the direction of his shoes. “Well, I'm not sure that she heard me.”

  “She didn't respond to you at all?”

  “No, sir,” said the man, his voice growing weaker. He looked up to see a pitying expression on the tattooed woman's face. She had heard his compliment, but she had looked at his face, his plump body, found him unworthy of a response, and had walked past him without a second thought.

  Jimmy's anger seemed to subside a bit, observing this pathetic man. His eyes darted about the room, unsure what to do next. But then something seemed to snap inside him, and the rage flooded back into his face. He raised the gun to the fat man's head.

  “But you wanted her to respond to you, didn't you? You thought about what it would be like to hear her thank you, maybe let you buy her a drink, where you could then impress her with your incredible personality, am I right? Cause that's all you have, isn't it, you fat piece of shit? I bet you have a great personality. You'd almost have to have a great personality if you wanted to get laid at all, am I right? Answer me, damn it.”

  “I…suppose that's true,” the man said miserably.

  Jimmy's eyes sparkled in triumph. He was giddy now, so excited to speak that he stuttered.

  “Then…then you did want to fuck her, right? You saw her body, in those little slutty clothes, and you thought, if only she'd see I'm a really nice guy, she'll suck my little dick. Right? Am I right?” Jimmy was trembling now, and the man couldn't keep his eyes off the barrel of the gun in front of his face. Beads of sweat covered both men's foreheads, and the room had grown as silent as a stage. “And you know what? You were right. If she had talked to you, she would have gone home with you. Or sucked you off in the parking lot. Or fucked you in our own bed like she did with this bloody motherfucker right here.” He gestured to the bleeding man on the floor and spit in his direction. “So tell me, if you wanted to fuck her, and she would have fucked you, then what's the difference between you and this guy? So I think it’s time to blow your brains out right now and get on to the next asshole.”

  The fat man's eyes went wide. He could see that Jimmy was serious. And he had nothing to say. His skin went white. He knew he was going to die.

  In the theatre of his mind, Sam was entertaining a heroic bid to save the poor man. He would stand up, as heroes do, and say “leave that man alone, Jimmy!” Jimmy would be flummoxed, and the overweight man would walk off to the side, safe, and Sam would take his place, challenging him on behalf of the innocent others. He would say something like “put the gun down, my friend, and no one has to get hurt.” Or, maybe, he would challenge him another way, saying “yeah, I fucked your girl—what are you going to do, kill me?” and then knock the pistol out of his hand and wrestle him to the ground, to cheers from the crowd. Sam was so convinced that he was about to act that he at first thought it was his own voice saying “come on, stop this shit.”

  But it wasn’t Sam’s voice. It was Vaughn’s. Sam had only thought, while Vaughn had acted.

  Vaughn stood up and stared the maniac down. Jimmy, who had been a fraction of a second from shooting the man in front of him, lowered his gun a bit, unsure whether to keep it pointed at his original target, or to turn the gun on this new man instead.

  “Who the fuck are you?” squealed Jimmy, in a furious voice which Sam thought was starting to sound like Bobcat Goldthwait.

  Before Vaughn could answer, Jimmy's head exploded into a wet, red shower of gore, as if explosives had been placed around his neck. The crowd reaction was dumbstruck silence followed by a wail of screaming unmatched by the heaviest of metal concerts. No one could figure out what had happened for several seconds, which felt like minutes, until Jimmy's headless body fell forward, his strings cut, revealing the Venue A staffer with a smoking shotgun behind the falling red snow left by Jimmy’s brains.

  Just then, as Vaughn had predicted, cops burst through the door of the establishment, weapons drawn, causing more chaos than comfort among the panicked patrons, until time returned to normal speed, and everyone was able to breathe. The bad guy had already been vanquished, and the people were safe.

  Sam, Katherine, and Brooke stood up from their crouched position of safety behind the three-inch metal tube that held up the cocktail table. They cried, they smiled, they hugged, and they exchanged the meaningful glances of those bound forever by a life-altering event. Sam was so relieved, he wasn't even hurt by the girls' extra hugs and kisses for Vaughn, who had been their anchor to sanity during the last few minutes of hell.

  Not a lot was said on the drive back to Lansing. While they spoke of the crisis cementing their friendship in the following days, Sam and Katherine broke up less than a month afterward, and Brooke and Vaughn never had a second date. Venue A shut its doors, at first temporarily, then for good.

  After a short time apart, Sam and Vaughn began to hang out again. At first, they just talked about how messed up the experience had been, but soon talked of other things, and then, as good friends are apt to do, began talking about everything. They shared stories from childhood. They talked about girls. They even started talking again about someday owning a bar, since despite the shared trauma, their determination to create a place of fun and joy wasn't destroyed by the jealous bastard whose head had exploded in front of them. The only change to their plans was in its proposed location. “Maybe a smaller town club would be okay,” Sam had said one day. “Small, but great. Somewhere…safe.”

  In The Eaton, it seemed Vaughn was having the same memory, for after another shared smile with Sam, he took Janet’s arm and said, as he had then, “We’re in this together. Together we’re strong.” And as it had then, somehow, these simple words seemed to hel
p. A quiet dignity was restored to Janet, and she raised her head a little higher, as if she were no longer ashamed of her moment of weakness. When you lived and worked alone, as Janet did, there was no one to lean on when times were hard. But in a group, you didn’t have to be strong every moment. The weight of life could be spread around. She had almost forgotten, single so many years now, what such companionship was like.

  “Here, I’ll take your purse,” Sarah offered. Janet handed it over with gratitude, another weight lifted. She was ready for the stairs now, and Sarah helped Janet steady herself against the makeshift pool cue crutch.

  The search resumed.

  At each floor, Sam opened the door to the hall, shouted Al’s name, waited several seconds in silence, and joined the team for the next set of stairs. There was never an answer, and never anything out of the ordinary.

  The stairs fanned out a bit into a short hallway at the lowest level, with the larger, more ornate door to the lobby positioned further down than the other floors, reflecting the first floor's unique floorplan. When they reached the door, Sam hesitated, concerned that if Al wasn't on this level, they had nowhere else to search.

  “Gonna open it?” Janet asked dryly.

  “Yeah, sorry,” Sam said. He took a breath, turned the knob, and went through, followed by a limping Janet who was still somewhat leaning on Sarah. Sarah turned behind her to Vaughn, the last of them in the stairwell.

  “Hey,” she said to him as she passed through the doorway into the lobby. “Before we get too far, can you grab your DJ lights from outside the maintenance room a floor up?”

  At first Vaughn said nothing, and Sam thought his friend might be nervous to run up there by himself. Before Sam could offer to accompany him, Sarah added: “We might need them down here, and you’re the one that said there’s nothing to be afraid of.”

  Vaughn nodded, and shot Sarah a small grin. “Alright, I’ll be back in two seconds.”

  “Thanks man!” Sarah replied with a smile, continuing through the doorway as Vaughn sprinted up the stairs.

  The moment Sam, Sarah, and Janet were safely into the lobby, however, Sarah pulled the keyring from Janet’s purse, found the “Stairwell” key they had used hours earlier, and locked the door as fast as she could.

  Sam was incredulous. “What the hell are you doing?”

  Sarah spun around to her boyfriend, glaring at him. “Dammit, Sam, that’s not Vaughn.”

  Through the door, they could hear him coming down the stairs, accompanied by the sound of clinking metal tripods.

  “Sarah, give me the keys,” Sam pleaded. “He’ll be trapped.”

  “It’s not him, Sam,” she whispered, her eyes fierce and determined.

  They heard Vaughn setting one of the lights down so he could open the stairwell door.

  “How the hell do you know that,” Sam whispered back.

  They heard, then saw, the doorknob shake, unable to turn.

  “Because,” Sarah insisted, “Vaughn didn’t come with us in the tunnel, remember? So how the hell would he know that the tunnel just stopped?”

  twenty

  Oliver's heart was throbbing in his lower abdomen. A third person, Clyde Bernero, had just stood up at the banquet and announced a supernatural sighting, and the murmurs from the crowd had developed a nervous, uneasy energy. He overheard snippets of conversations, and uncomfortable utterances of “haunted hotel,” “too close to hell,” and “we should leave right now.” Some of the crowd seemed intrigued and fascinated, wanting to hear more stories from those who had seen or heard disturbances. But others seemed close to panic, their eyes flitting around the room, expecting a demon to burst through every wall seam.

  As the mood continued to darken, Oliver caught the eye of Jonathan, who was listening intently to the current story, making frequent notes in his journal. Christ, Oliver sulked. Does he have to record this too? Oliver considered walking over to Jon's table and asking him to stop, but realized that would be perceived even worse than keeping quiet and pretending this was all normal and expected. His only chance at preventing a mass walkout would be an appearance of nonchalance and absolute, unwavering confidence.

  When Clyde sat down, and before anyone else could begin, Oliver stood up.

  “Gentlemen, ladies,” he began. “There is a reasonable explanation for all of this, and I assure you no one is in any danger.” Oliver walked to the front of the dining hall, smiling brightly, a spring in his step, as if giddy to at last reveal an exciting secret to the assembled. He would have just one shot at this.

  The expectant crowd grew silent, and all eyes were on the young, handsome, wealthy investor.

  “As some of the construction crew discovered early on,” he lied, “there are indeed some special, almost magical properties of these magnetic mineral springs, especially when one is so close to their source. My friends, we have been documenting all occurrences of hallucinations, and are confident it's related to the adjustment period for new arrivals. Those of us who have been down here for days or weeks are completely immune to the effects, as you will likely be by tomorrow. There is nothing real about these apparitions. They are not harmful in any way. Just as some of our finest modern medicines which contain opium or morphine can cause temporary visions, so too do the medicinal properties of the mineral springs confer similar effects. And, just as the human body becomes accustomed to opium or morphine when used in a medical setting, allowing their healing effects to function as their side effects decrease, so too will you be free of the hallucinations after a short time, while the restorative and rejuvenative powers of the baths continue to work their wonders.”

  Oliver looked around, and saw an increase of nodding, approving heads among the skeptical stares. He continued.

  “My friends, I would not remain down here if I thought there was any chance of danger, or any ghostly presences, or any long-term ill effects of the mineral baths. I myself saw a hallucination more than three weeks ago, and could have sworn my grammar school teacher was lecturing me about my mathematics.” There were some smiles at this, and even a few chuckles. “Tis true! All two hundred pounds of her, staring me down as sternly as ever, a ruler in one plump, sausagey hand and my poorly graded homework paper in the other.” A few people laughed. “But I didn't leave. I know better than to believe in ghosts or monsters, as I suspect you know better. And I know there can't be any lingering effects, as these are the same, safe mineral springs which have delighted Eaton Rapids visitors for more than fifty years. We're just closer to their source, and that's all. The powers are more concentrated. But, my dear guests, that is why this hotel is destined to be such a success, and why we are all so lucky to be here together.”

  There were some nods of approval now, and the murmuring returned with a brighter tone. But a few didn't seem to buy it.

  “Excuse me,” said a voice from the back. Oliver recognized him from the floor with the flies, and suspected what he was going to say. “There were several of us that saw the same thing: a door covered in thousands of black flies. Are you saying we all had the same hallucination?”

  Oliver was prepared for this. Although the three people who had spoken of their visions so far had been alone at the time, the joint delusion was indeed harder to explain. Oliver was about to offer his theory on the matter, when he was preempted by a woman at one of the front tables.

  “Folie à deux,” announced a confident voice from the back. Heads turned to see Dr. Hernietta Carr rise from her seat and smile at the assembled guests. “It's a syndrome discovered recently by Dr. Charles Lasègue in Paris. We studied it in London.” Dr. Carr was known to some of the guests, for most had never met a female doctor, much less a female psychiatrist. She had even studied under Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell, the first woman to receive such a degree in the United States. “It means,” she continued, “quite literally, a shared psychosis. There have been numerous documented cases of multiple individuals sharing the same vision or hallucinat
ion.”

  The man was skeptical. “But how?”

  “It comes from the power of suggestion,” she continued, folding her hands in front of her body in the manner of a lecturer. “When multiple people are susceptible to visions at the same time, one person might see something, identify it out loud, and another is convinced that they, too, are witnessing the illusion. It would explain your flies, would it not?”

  Oliver was relieved, though he tried to maintain a neutral expression. He had planned to propose a similar idea, that perhaps one person had the hallucination and planted it unintentionally in the minds of others, but it sounded much more believable coming from Dr. Carr, who had a medical-sounding term to describe the phenomenon. She couldn’t have offered a better, more timely explanation if they had coordinated in advance.

  “Thank you Dr. Carr,” Oliver said, with clear gratitude. She bowed in response and returned to her seat. He made a mental note to have a bottle of French wine delivered to her suite that evening.

  Oliver turned back to the questioning man, and tried to avoid looking triumphant.

  “And as some of you know,” he continued, denying the man a follow-up question, “we are also joined by Dr. Alexander Winchell, the famed professor from New York City, who is doing research on the mineral springs themselves, and who more than thirty years ago published the first proof of Eaton Rapids water’s ability to impart magnetic properties onto non-magnetic metals.” He gestured toward an ancient man of at least 80 years of age, who remained seated at his table but offered a kindly, labored wave and a smile. His wife beside him, at least 70 herself, didn’t seem to notice the attention paid to her husband. “His research represented the definitive medical evidence that these springs could cure erysipelas, gravel, salt rheum, sciatica, neuralgia, dyspepsia, and nervous debility. So is it so hard to believe that such magical water might, too, have the power to impart an unwanted hallucination? My friends, I am indeed sorry if anyone has been frightened or inconvenienced by these tricks of the mind, but it seems a small price to pay for a longer, healthier life, wouldn’t you agree?”