A lot had changed in twenty-five years, not the least of which was his wife and two kids, and he believed in his heart that it would be enough to dissuade him from making a bad decision. Still, that old saying, whatever happens in Vegas ran through his head, and he knew that if he did decide to go there, no one would ever know about it.
The message was as he suspected, her asking when he arrived on Sunday, and he hit the power button, sliding it back into his coat pocket without sending a response. He’d have to consider it when the cold weather wasn’t making him wish for the warmth of someone next to him, giving him crazy thoughts he wouldn’t even consider if he were back home, rather than half-way across the country from the woman he loved.
He noticed that the Subaru they were renting had just pulled into the parking lot, and he wondered where one of his coworkers had gone off to. Richard liked to go to the gym before work in the mornings, as well as to pick up a coffee from the local java shop, but rarely went out at night, preferring to turn in early. So it had to be Evan, probably out getting dinner.
Personally, he didn’t have the funds to eat out all the time, but Evan didn’t have a wife and kids at home to feed, and liked to party whenever he could. He took a puff of his cigarette, watching as his coworker climbed out of the driver’s seat of the car, shock filling him as a woman stood up on the other side as well. What the hell was Evan up to? He couldn’t take her up to his room, Richard wouldn’t hear of it.
Evan was in his twenties, had short red-brown hair, wide cheekbones, and was wearing a black heavy metal shirt and jeans. He had on a thin black coat, which didn’t look to insulate a whole hell of a lot; how was the man not freezing to death in this horrible windchilled city? Thicker blood or not, that shit was crazy.
His date was an older woman, early forties, with long straight black hair, heavy black make up, and an outfit more fitting the weather; black pants, brown vest, and a coat with a thick fur lining to it. Her eyes drifted across the parking lot and slowly made their way towards him, fixing him with a stare and cracking a smile. She said something inaudible to Evan, who turned and looked his way. His coworker’s response was mysterious, but the shrug of the man’s shoulders told him enough, he’d been explained away.
That’s fine, you’ll have to explain yourself to Richard. Glad I won’t be there to hear it.
Unless it waited until the car ride to work in the morning. That would-be hell. An hour of listening to Richard rant might be slightly better than the satellite radio channel he’d been forced to listen to, but only as much as cat yowls versus nails-on-chalkboard could be. That comedy station he was forced to listen to just wasn’t funny and really got under his skin. He’d rather listen to Death Metal, and that was saying something.
He thought of snubbing the last of his cigarette and ducking inside before they got there to avoid a conversation he didn’t feel like having, but the woman’s eyes seemed to suggest otherwise, her smile overly seductive, as she stepped towards the door with a smoothness well-practiced and executed.
You need to calm down.
His heart rate picked up as they approached, and he couldn’t for the life of him figure out why, she wasn’t a super-model or anything. She was attractive, but he’d seen far better in his life and none had ever made blood rush south so quickly. “What’s up?” he managed, as Evan drew near, his date’s hand holding the crook of the younger man’s arm.
“Splurged and got a room for the night,” Evan grinned.
“And you got one here? I’m sure there were better hotels to choose from in the area,” he snarked. The Extended Stays were nice when it came to having a kitchen to cook in, but other than that, they really strained the limits of suitable accommodations.
“Not when I have to get up for work in the morning. Well, might get up. I’m suddenly feeling kind of sick,” Evan grinned at his date.
She gave him a knowing smile, “you want to invite him up? He might be fun.”
Evan’s eyebrows raised, then looked back in his direction, “how bout it? You want to come hang out for a while? I’ve got beer.”
He didn’t know what he was being asked, if his mind was just making it out to be more than it was, but he went with his first instinct and said, “that’s okay. I haven’t eaten yet and if I don’t soon, I’ll be a cranky bastard. Hypoglycemia and all.”
“We’re ordering pizza. Come on, it’ll be fun,” Evan smirked, though from the look in his eyes, he really didn’t believe it. The two of them hadn’t really hit it off, and though it was friendlier between them than the others, age difference and upbringing kept causing slight rifts in their conversations.
She smiled then, a forked tongue licking her lips, and his mind instantly went blank. Evan had shown him a video earlier that morning that involved a forked tongue and a penis, and he just realized who they belonged to.
“I’m good, but thank you,” he told them, suddenly aware that he had an image of his coworker’s dick seared in his mind and he might not be able to dislodge it any time soon.
That was just awesome.
Evan nodded, then opened the door for his date. “If you change your mind, we’re in room 356.”
I won’t.
“Okay. Have fun.”
“Oh, we will,” she told him in a low-seductive voice, winked, then stepped in behind his coworker, quickly disappearing from sight and breaking the spell she had been weaving over him.
“Holy crap,” he uttered, hands shaking as he brought out another cigarette and used the smoldering end of the first to light it. Tossing the dead one into the parking lot, he decided to move away from the building, out of line of sight with the door, just in case they came back and tried to renew their offer; he might not be able to resist her if they did.
It wasn’t that he wanted to be involved in anything like that, but some part of him got into that kinky shit, and that woman was definitely on the kinkier side of things. He remembered Evan talking about chatting with a dominatrix on Tinder, saying that they had plans for the weekend, he didn’t realize that the man wasn’t just boasting or bragging like men do sometimes and actually meant it.
I guess she needed it sooner than Friday.
Or Evan did.
Okay, that’s a mental image I’m not going to get out of my head.
His phone went off. He brought it back out, his legs moving and warming his body as he walked around the side of the hotel, his need for a distraction making his mind go places that they earlier would have resisted. Missy was asking after him again. Before he could stop himself, he told her when he was landing, but that he would be with coworkers, making the drive from Houston to Huntsville and there really wasn’t a way to hang out before they left.
Missy: that’s okay, I can come up there next weekend and we can get a room.
Crap.
His fingers typed okay before his conscience could resist, and hit send.
What the fuck am I doing?
He didn’t prescribe to the younger generation’s belief that monogamy was dead, that Mankind was not meant to latch onto just one person for the duration of their lives, that they were meant to spread the love; that was flower child crap born out of the 70’s, and not very original. No, he was brought up by a small-town family, and the values instilled upon him were very firm on the subject. No member of his family had ever been divorced, marriages lasting over forty years common, and the idea of stepping out strictly taboo; likely to get you cast out and made into a pariah.
Yet, he had been on the road for months, would be for another two, and he was getting tired of using lotion while taking a shower.
Only six more weeks, then I’ll be home.
Or other jobs could come up, and he’d be gone for even longer than that. That was common this time of year, the jobs lining up quickly over the summer and petering out towards Christmas. If he wanted his kids to have a nice holiday, if he wanted to not stress about money while home in December, he needed to work as much as he could and ba
nk up.
Feeling guilty, he opened up his text message app and sent his wife an “I love you.” She was sleeping and wouldn’t get it until she got up for work, but he needed to send it anyways, his conscience unable to allow him to do anything otherwise.
Even if they got a room, that didn’t mean they had to do anything other than watch movies all weekend. Surely that didn’t mean they had to have sex, that he had to cheat on his wife, right?
Yeah, keep telling yourself that. You don’t believe it for a second.
Damn.
Chapter 2
I
His alarm was going off.
Groaning, he reached over and slid his finger across the screen, one eye open and straining to adjust to the light coming from the kitchen. Jerry had gotten up, made coffee, and stepped outside for a smoke. That was good, he hated having an audience when he first woke up, especially that of a complete stranger. Why had he signed up for this job again?
Five-thirty was way too early to be getting up. If he was at home, he’d be going to bed right about now. It was the one thing that was a true pain in the ass about this job, the early rising and working with only half his brain awake. No matter how much caffeine he drank, his body wouldn’t start functioning properly until after noon, years of conditioning fighting him every step of the way.
Let’s face it, when you lived in the desert, the best time to go anywhere was in the middle of the night. Which was one of the main reasons a lot of the stores and fast food restaurants were open twenty-four hours. No one wanted to be out in one-hundred-fifteen-degree weather unless they absolutely had to. He never liked big cities, he hated living in Mesa even more. It was way too populated and confining, it took forever to get anywhere, but on the bright side, there were plenty of places to shop once the sun went down.
He rolled out of bed, thinking of the one time he went to a Wal-Mart in Palm Springs and stood at their front entrance in shock, not understanding why the double doors were locked. Then he saw the sign, announcing they opened at seven am. Until that moment, he had thought all Wal-Marts were twenty-four hours, not realizing just how different other parts of the country were, as he rarely had the occasion to find out before now.
Hell, he had worked for Target and never knew they had a two-story building until he’d walked into the one across the street from this hotel. Day after day, he found out just how different his home was, and it made him miss it that much more. And that wasn’t taking into account just how different the countryside was. He was not accustomed to seeing so much green and found himself missing the brown tones of his home the longer he was on the road. Even the buildings were built differently, other construction materials used than he was used to, giving it the feel of being in another country, not just a few states over.
Well, okay, Chicago was more than that, but still.
Washing his hair, he reached down for his container of soap and noticed that it was full of water. “Oh, you motherfucker.”
Jerry had gotten into his soap container.
He made sure that he drained the thing before closing it up and the bar was now a lump of mush, a stray gray hair intermixed in it, and his stomach turned. “I’m so gonna kick your ass,” he growled, draining it, then tossing it onto the corner of the tub, unable to even think about using it. Later on, he’d open one of the hotel bars of soap and put it in the shower or go buy another bar. That was just gross.
Brushing his teeth, he paused to listen for the TV, one of the things Jerry was in the habit of turning on when he came back in, but all was silent. “Good, have another smoke Jerry.”
He needed time to calm down.
Who gets into another man’s soap and washes their body with it? Was this a damn prison shower? Maybe he should put a rope on the damn thing—
Grabbing his clothes from the bathroom counter, he slowly put on his blue polo, stretching his arms out in the process, feeling the cramps protest his movements. They were still sore from the kayaks the day before, as well as the anchors he’d been forced to move after that. He was definitely feeling his age. Buckling on his belt, he reached down and checked his phone, his wife had lunch an hour before and had texted him while he was sleeping.
She loved him too.
Yeah, that didn’t help the guilt; guilt for something he hadn’t even done yet.
Missy had sent a picture, but he didn’t open messenger to view it; he wasn’t in the mood this morning. Walking from the bathroom he noticed that Jerry still hadn’t returned, and it was nearing six; almost time to leave. Well, maybe he was just going to stay down there til they left, already ready to go. That was fine with him, the silence was not something to be taken for granted.
But why had he made coffee if he wasn’t going to come back up to drink it? He knew that I don’t drink that shit. No use speculating, what would be the point? People forgot things like that or changed their mind. He wouldn’t be cleaning the overheated pot later, so it wasn’t his problem.
He grabbed a protein bar from his bag and put it in his pocket. He had his box knife, a screwdriver, and his vest. All he needed was the lunch he’d prepared the night before, so he went to the fridge, snatched it, then looked about the room to make sure he had everything.
The beds weren’t made, and the maid wouldn’t be coming in til the day after, the Extended Stay only giving room service once a week. Jerry’s pile was up against the window, the man taking the other half of the room and making it a nest of sorts. His own stuff was neatly packed and positioned on his side of the bed out of sight, just the way he preferred it. Chaos drove him nuts.
Not sure that he had everything, but unable to think of anything he might be forgetting, he closed the door quietly and began walking towards the nearby stairway. He could take the elevator, but they were only on the second floor, and the time it would take to walk down there just wasn’t worth the hassle. He would want a smoke before hopping in the car anyways, and Richard wasn’t the type to wait until you finished before wanting to take off.
The handle on the door was cold, and he winced as he opened it, the chilled wind striking him in the face. Gritting his teeth, he stepped through the doorway and reached in his coat pocket for his pack of cigarettes. Fumbling one into his mouth, he cupped his hand and lit the end, taking a heavy drag and letting the smoke fill his lungs. “Fuck, it’s cold.”
Sticking his hand back in his pocket, he tried to flex and warm it, his eyes taking in the early morning light and the quiet street before him. Traffic hadn’t picked up yet, but given another half an hour or so, the cars would start to pile up as people headed into work and their daily routines.
Walking around the corner of the building, he glanced over the parked cars for any sign of where his coworkers would be; he was rarely the first one down despite the nicotine fixation. They had one rental car to split between the four of them, and Richard rarely gave out the keys; he was a control freak of the first order and trust was rarely given.
He had gotten most of his groceries at the Target, and luckily hadn’t needed to go anywhere else or he might never have gotten the chance. He had only left the hotel one other time since arriving in Chicago on personal business. The previous Saturday morning he had been determined to see something while he was here, make some memory of his stay outside of work, and had taken the elevated train downtown to the Natural History Museum by the lake.
That had been well worth the hassle of public transit. Arizona had a lot of things; a natural history museum wasn’t one of them. Dinosaurs had fascinated him since he was a child and the largest T-Rex skeleton in the world was standing in the front lobby. That, combined with all the other fossils and Egyptian exhibits, had made it the best forty dollars he’d spent in a long time.
The walk back felt long, he hadn’t had anything to look forward to but a long ride back to the airport and the bus he’d have to take to the hotel. Yet, riding the train did provide the added bonus of giving him a view of the city from a place other than the i
nterstate, bringing up memories of watching the Fugitive as a kid.
His mind had kept recalling Tommy Lee Jones’ lines as he had ridden south, “then you can explain the difference in the sound of an elevated train as opposed to a train that’s running along the ground. You must have ears like an eagle, play that back, I wanna hear the sound of an elevated train.”
It wasn’t March, the river wasn’t dyed green, but hey, you took what you could get.
He couldn’t see any sign of Jerry or Richard, and the car wasn’t where Evan had parked it the night before. Did they leave him behind? Why would they do that? It wasn’t like Jerry couldn’t have come up to get him. It made no sense. Even if Richard was running late, his roommate should have been there waiting with him.
Confused, he began walking towards the other side of the hotel, thinking that maybe Richard had parked over there for some reason and not wanting to get yelled at for just standing there waiting. He tapped the end of his cigarette to get rid of the dangling ash and rounded the corner, eyes scanning as he went for any sign of his coworkers. To his relief, it didn’t take long to find one of them. Jerry was standing twenty feet in front of him, his head cocked to the side, his back towards him, hands on the window of a car, peering intently inside.
That wasn’t their rental car, what the hell?
“Jerry!” he called, not sure what his coworker was doing, but getting an uneasy feeling just watching.
The older man was in his fifties, around four-foot-ten, and at least two-hundred and fifty pounds. The round body twisted oddly in his direction and Kyle’s breath caught. Jerry’s chest was covered in blood from a nasty wound in his throat, chunks of flesh hanging off like some sick Halloween costume, eyes swiveling in their sockets as they trained and focused on him.
The Rotting Souls Series (Book 5): Charon's Vengeance Page 2