by D. Gideon
“You asshole!” The woman shouted. “That was my last beer!”
“Jesus woman, calm your tits,” one of the men said. “Jay, bro, muzzle your bitch.”
“Shut up, Terry,” the other man, who must’ve been Jay, said. “I’ll get you some more beer. Christ. You on the rag or something? You’ve been a bitch all day.” He stopped and pressed his face up to Radio Shack’s window. On a normal day, we wouldn’t have been able to hear them. Just the sound from all of the rooftop air conditioners would’ve been enough to drown them out, much less the roar of all cars going by. Tonight though, with the power out and nothing making any sound, their voices bounced off of the storefronts and asphalt, carrying to us as clearly as if we’d been in an amphitheater.
“Screw both of you,” Terry said. “You’re outta weed, you ain’t got no air conditioning, and you’ve done drank all the beer I bought. Ain’t neither one of you done nothin’ for me, and I’m tired of your shit! You’re both losers!”
“You tell ‘em, girl,” Mel mumbled.
“Yeah? Well this loser is about to score you a sweet flat-screen, baby,” Jay said. “Look there. It’s just waiting for us to come in and take it home. Maybe that’ll cheer your crabby ass up.”
The first man, who I’d begun to think of as Beer Guy, pressed his own face up to the window, hands framed around his face. “Damn, man, that thing’s huge! We could put that in the basement and make ourselves a man-cave!”
“We gotta move before they see us,” Marco whispered. As quietly as we could, we started sneaking to the end of the building.
Terry was standing back, hip cocked and arms crossed. “How the hell you gonna watch tv with the power out? Idiots.”
We were almost to the corner.
“Are you dumb and deaf? The announcement said they’re working on it,” Beer Guy said. He straightened. “Hey man, you think the backup power for the alarms is still working?”
“Only one way to find out,” Jay said. “Find me a rock or something.”
Marco was out ahead of us, moving as quietly as a ghost. He stopped, looked around the corner, then stepped around it.
“When y’all get nabbed for B&E, don’t call me,” Terry said. “I’m takin’ my ass to 7-11. They’ve always got generators going.” She stepped down off of the sidewalk and started across the parking lot.
Mel turned the corner. I was right behind her and almost stopped when I saw that it wasn’t a true corner at all, but just an angled wall. Standing against the wall like we had been, someone could step around it and not be seen. But if you were any distance at all away from the wall, you could still see the person standing there just fine.
“Crap,” I heard Corey whisper behind me as he turned the corner and realized we’d still be in sight. We kept moving as quickly as we could.
“Hey! Hey guys! Look! It’s some college kid with a big-ass pack! Hey man, what ya got in there? You got any weed? I can pay you!” Terry called. We heard the sound of tennis shoes slapping the pavement.
“Them college kids always got the good shit! Catch that fucker!” The first man shouted. Two more pairs of shoes pounded in our direction.
“RUN!” Marco hissed, and took off.
We ran.
CHAPTER 20
Sunday, September 2nd
College Park, Maryland
Blood pounded in my ears and my heavy boots felt like sledgehammers slamming into the concrete sidewalk. Every step jarred me. I was almost able to keep up with Marco, who was surprisingly fast, but I wouldn’t be able to keep it up for long. My pack was too heavy for running any distance. Mel and Corey were at least twenty feet behind us.
“Trees!” I yelled, trying to point to the other side of the intersection we were coming up to. “Bushes!” It was all I could get out.
“We need people! Look for people!” Marco yelled back. He had lifted the bucket up and wrapped one arm around it so he could run without it flopping all over the place. We fled through the intersection without stopping. How could he talk in full sentences while I could barely gasp out two words?
Where would we find people? Police had ordered everyone to stay inside. An apartment building to our left had cars in the parking lot, but where there’d normally be people sitting out on their patios or walking to their cars, all was still and quiet. A restaurant to our right, usually full to bursting until 2am, was shuttered and dark.
“There! The hotel!” He yelled, pointing at a Quality Inn at the end of the block. It was much further than the parking lot lined with bushes I’d wanted to head for.
“Quit running! We just wanna talk!” Beer Guy called out.
“Yeah man, slow down! What ya ‘fraid of?” Jay yelled.
I risked a glance back over my shoulder. Either Mel and Corey were catching up to me, or I was slowing down. Jay and Beer Guy were only half-heartedly running, just a bit faster than a jog, and Terry was far behind them, walking. I looked forward and pushed harder. Maybe we could just outrun them.
“This…has gotta end…soon,” Mel gasped.
“Here, here, here!” Marco said, veering off of the sidewalk and up to a squat building in front of the Quality Inn. There was light inside. He turned and stopped, and slapped my back as I ran past.
“Get inside! Quick!” He said.
I hadn’t counted on the added momentum I’d have with a heavy pack on my back. I tried to stop just before I got to the doors, but slammed into them instead. Scrabbling for the handle, I pulled it open and looked back.
Marco was waiting for Mel and Corey. “C’mon, c’mon!” He yelled. They ran past him and he slapped each of them on the back of their packs like he’d done with me, then turned and sprinted with them to the door. We poured through the doorway into a well-appointed hotel lobby with a huge double-sided fireplace separating the check-in area from a lounge area. Behind the reception counter stood a wide-eyed clerk next to a battery-powered Coleman lantern. Marco spun and pulled the door shut, then reached up and flipped the latch on each of the double doors to lock them. Next he bent down and flipped the latches on the bottom of the doors, too.
“Sir, you can’t—excuse me, but you can’t lock those…Sir?” The desk clerk stuttered.
We panted for breath. Corey was bent over with his hands on his knees. Mel shuffled to an overstuffed bench and collapsed.
Marco dropped his backpack and the bucket on the floor, approached the desk and looked the clerk over. He spotted her name tag. “Cheryl, my name is Marco Vicente. I’m a student at the University. It’s nice to meet you. Do you have a weapon?”
Cheryl gaped. “A weapon? No, I—that’s against company policy! Why would I have a gun?”
“Not just a gun, anything,” Marco said. “A bat. A billy club. A taser?”
“No, of course not, no! Why…oh god, you’re going to rob me, aren’t you?” Cheryl said, backing away and covering her mouth.
Marco threw up his hands and crossed back to Corey. He started unstrapping the shovel. I walked over to the desk.
“We’re not here to rob you. We’re being chased by some bad people. We just need to be able to defend ourselves if they get in, that’s all.”
Banging on the door made us all jump. Beer Guy and Jay were there, beating the sides of their fists onto the glass.
“Hey, hotel lady, let us in!” Beer Guy called. “Those college kids stole something from us!”
“Unlock these doors or we’re calling the cops!” Jay yelled.
“They’re lying,” I said, reaching across the counter and grabbing Cheryl’s hand. “Look at us. Do we look like we’d need to steal anything?”
The two men outside grabbed the door handles and yanked on them, slamming the locks in the frame. They stopped for a minute, grinned, then kept doing it.
Boom, boom, boom.
Marco got Corey’s shovel unfastened and spun, walking right up to the door. He pulled the cover off of the shovel and held it up.
“You don’t want to come in here,�
� he said, not yelling, but loudly enough that they could hear him.
“You trying’ to tell me what to do? Fuck you, you foreign piece of shit. My brother died fighting foreign fucks like you!” Beer Guy slammed his fist into the glass again.
“I can’t call the police,” Cheryl said in a low voice. “The phones haven’t worked since Friday night.”
“I know. It’ll be okay. They’ll get bored and go away,” I said. I hoped so, anyway.
“You do not want to come in here. It will end very badly for you,” Marco repeated. He looked back over his shoulder and spoke low. “Corey, get up here with me. Try to look pissed. Ladies, get out of sight, please. We don’t want to encourage them.”
“Try to look pissed?” Corey said. He wriggled his shoulders out of his pack straps, then walked up next to Marco and crossed his arms over his chest. Corey didn’t have bulky muscles, but with his abnormal height and his glare, he could do intimidating pretty well.
“Mel, go around the fireplace,” I said. “C’mon, Cheryl. You too.”
“I can’t leave the desk-“ she started. I yanked her arm towards me and squeezed her hand.
“If they get in here and get past my friends, do you know what they’ll do to us? Is standing behind that desk more important than not getting raped?” She jerked her hand back and rubbed it, looking wide-eyed at the men on the other side of the door.
“Okay. Okay,” she said, moving to the end of the counter and ducking through a door there. I caught up with her and we squatted down behind the large stone fireplace.
“We need a plan in case they come through the door,” I said. I turned and dug through the front pocket of my bag. “All I’ve got right now is this bear spray. Is there a supply closet with cleaning supplies, anything like that?”
“Th-there’s a kitchen back there, through those doors,” Cheryl said, pointing. “The big building is all suites and conference rooms, so we have our breakfasts here. There might be something in there?” She sounded unsure.
“I’ll find something,” Mel said. She pulled the straps of her laptop bag and purse over her head and dropped them next to the fireplace, then added her backpack to the pile. “Gimme your flashlight, Rip.”
I pulled the flashlight from my thigh pocket and handed it to her. She snuck across the space between the lounge and the dining area, staying low. I heard the double doors to the kitchen swing, and then saw a light move around through the windows. I was glad the kitchen was out of sight to the front doors. I moved over and looked through the fireplace to see what was going on.
Jay and Beer Guy had devolved into throwing insults at Marco and Corey in an attempt to get them mad enough to open the doors. They were spitting out every racial slur they could think of, and in that respect at least, they had an impressive vocabulary. Terry had caught up to them, and was just standing behind them with her arms crossed, shaking her head.
“This is getting boring, gentlemen. We don’t have anything you want. How about you just go home?” Marco said.
“I’ll decide if you’ve got something I want, and I always get what I want,” Beer Guy said. “So how’s about you come out here and try to stop me from taking it?”
“Because I wouldn’t want to get low-life trash all over my clean boots,” Corey muttered. Marco tried, but couldn’t help a bit of a smirk.
“What’s so funny? What’d that fuckin’ ape say? You got something to say, orangutan? Come on out here and say it to my face!” Beer Guy shook the doors again.
“Beautiful Miss Terry,” Marco called out. “Would you please convince these gentlemen that this is a waste of their time? They could already be at 7-11 with a cold beer in their hands.”
Terry stepped to the side, looking a bit alarmed. Marco flashed her one of his knee-melting smiles.
She blinked a bit. “How’d you know my name?”
“Your husband Jay, here, used it just before he disrespected you by calling you a bitch,” Marco said.
“Jay ain’t my husband,” Terry said quickly.
“His loss,” Marco said, flashing that smile again.
Jay turned and looked at Terry. “Are you flirtin’? Are you seriously standing right there next to me and flirting with that sumbitch?”
“I’m not-“ she started.
“Bullshit! You think I’m stupid? You think I’m gonna put up with you standing right next to me and actin’ like some kinda whore?”
“You don’t deserve to be talked to in that manner, Miss Terry,” Marco called. “A beautiful woman like yourself deserves respect.”
Jay spun and slammed his fist into the door. “You shut your fuckin’ mouth. You ain’t got no business telling me how to treat my woman.” He turned back to Terry. “And you…you go home and wait for me to get there.”
Terry looked back and forth between Jay, who was pointing over her shoulder, and Marco, who shook his head. Marco clenched his hand into a fist and and then pointed from Jay to her.
Terry jutted out her chin. “I ain’t goin’ nowhere you tell me to, and I especially ain’t sittin’ around waiting for you to come beat me up,” she said. “Again.”
“Bro, I’ve been tellin’ you, you need to muzzle that bitch,” Beer Guy finally put in. “Teach her some manners. She’s making you look weak, like you can’t keep a handle on your woman.”
Jay stepped away from the door and pushed himself into Terry, puffing his chest up. Ignoring her protestations, he shoved himself into her again and again, forcing her back towards the sidewalk.
“You-“ shove, “will go-“ shove, “HOME!”
“Go, go, go,” Marco muttered. “Draw him away…”
“Fine! I’ll go home! And when I get there, I’m gonna burn the fuckin’ place down! See how big and bad you are when your ass is homeless!”
“Bitch, you fuckin’ touch my house, and I’ll-“
Terry pulled a lighter out of her pocket, waved it in the air, then turned and ran.
Jay took off after her.
“Two down,” I said softly.
Beer Guy swiveled his head between the doors and his retreating friends. He took a step away, then turned back, then turned to watch them again.
“You’re his roommate, right? You got anything in that house that’s gonna get burned up?” Corey called out. “Clothes, maybe some extra cash, a hidden stash of weed you ain’t sharing?”
Beer Guy’s eyes widened.
“Shit!” He spat out, then he was off and running, too.
Mel came through the kitchen doors with two huge chef’s knives in her hands.
“This is all I could get. I found a mop, but the damn handle wouldn’t break.”
“It’s okay,” I said. “They left.”
“For now,” Marco said. He walked back towards us, dropping the shovel onto Corey’s pack. Corey stayed at the door, watching. “We can’t assume they’ll stay gone, or that they even went that far. We have to proceed as if they’re out there waiting for us to come out, because they just might be.”
We stood up and came around the fireplace. Cheryl was quick to return to her spot behind the desk.
“I don’t understand this,” Cheryl said. “I’ve never had anything like this happen before. Why would they chase you?”
“Because they’re bored,” I said. “The power’s out, no one can do anything, they can’t go anywhere, and they’re getting cabin fever. The only thing that’s kept them calm to this point is thinking the power’s gonna come back on.”
“Well of course it’s going to come back on,” Cheryl said. “They’re working on it right now.”
Mel, Marco and I looked at each other. Marco gave a short shake of his head.
“Either way, what you’re seeing outside now are the opportunists,” he said. “The troublemakers who will take advantage of any situation if they think they can get away with it. That’s what those people were. No one on the street to stop them, take cellphone video of them, or call the police. We looked like easy target
s.”
“We are easy targets,” Corey said. “We need a gun.”
“The power’s out so you’re just going to go around shooting people? That’s crazy!” Cheryl said. “And I’m sorry, but unless you’re guests, you’ll have to leave. I’ve got enough on my hands trying to keep 98 guests happy with no air conditioning or running water. If those men come back, and you’re not here, they’ll leave. There won’t trouble. So you need to go, right now.”
“You think if we leave and you’re here all by yourself, they’ll just turn around and go home?” I asked, stunned. Hadn’t she just sat through the same thing I did?
“They won’t have any reason to stay, since they’re looking for you,” she said.
Marco held up his hands. “We’ll go. We need to go, anyway. Is there a back door we can use, in case they’re watching the front?”
“I saw another door in the kitchen,” Mel said. “We can go that way.” She walked to the desk and laid the knives down. “You need to keep these handy, girl. Just in case you end up being wrong.”
“More crazy talk,” Cheryl said. She grabbed the knives and stuffed them into a drawer behind the counter.
We all strapped our bags back on and started for the kitchen door. Marco stopped, adjusted the bucket handle in his hand, and tried one last time.
“Cheryl, I know this was all very stressful, and it seems ridiculous that it could happen again. But please, for your own safety, leave those doors locked. Don’t unlock them unless you’re sure it’s a guest that needs to get in.”
“Marco Vincent…no, Vicente. That’s what you said, right? A student at the university? If those guys come back and do any damage to the hotel, or there’s anything missing from the kitchen after you leave, I’m giving the police your name,” she said.
“You do that, darling. And I hope for your sake that you’re right. Take care,” Marco said.
I was waiting at the kitchen doors, flashlight in hand. “It’s useless,” I said. “She won’t listen.”
Marco nodded. “She has normalcy bias. Nothing bad can ever happen, because nothing bad has ever happened. C’mon. We’ll sneak out the back, and then you can lead us to your animal shelter.”