“Just this,” Mallory said, hiking the Jansport higher on her shoulder. The old woman narrowed her eyes in disapproval.
“We prefer not to welcome transients,” she said sharply.
“Transients? I’m not a transient.” She shifted the weight of the bag. “I’m…just an efficient packer.”
The old woman made a strange sound in the bottom of her throat and slid the ring of keys across the counter. “You’re in Room 205. Up the stairs, down the hall, to the left. The linens are fresh. The washroom’s at the end of the hall. Don’t make a mess of it. Any questions?”
“Which key is it?” Mallory asked, picking up the ring.
Mrs. Roach straightened her back. “All of them.”
Mallory furrowed her brow as she did a quick count. “There are…seven keys on this ring.”
“And there’s a piece of chalk on your desk, with instructions on how to draw the protection runes.”
Mallory tilted her head. “Did you say protection runes?” she asked.
“Draw them right, or they’ll be less than useless,” she said. “Or don’t draw them at all. Makes no difference to me.”
“Seven keys and a chalk drawing. Sounds a tad like overkill.”
“Overkill is precisely what I’m trying to avoid,” the old woman replied. “There’s no telephone in the room. If you need anything, you’ll have to come down here and ask for it. Lights out by 10:00, please. It’s in less than an hour.”
Mallory snorted. “I think your clock might be fast,” she said, glancing down at her wristwatch. “It’s only…” She stopped mid-sentence, and her eyebrows knitted themselves together in confusion. Her watch marked the time at ten past nine…but how was that possible? She’d sat in the diner for no more than half an hour, and the sun had just set when she reached Anomaly Flats. At this time of year, that should put her at 7:00 at the latest. “Huh,” she said, more to herself than to her host. “I must’ve lost track of time.”
“See that you find it again soon,” Mrs. Roach snapped. “Check-out is at 11:00 am sharp. If you miss it for any reason, you’ll be charged for a second night.”
Mallory rubbed her forehead with one hand and jangled the keys in the other. Her body seemed to tilt and swim with disorientation. She was usually so good about time…how had it gotten away from her? “11:00. Got it. Thanks.” She turned and headed up the staircase, into the flickering gaslight flames of the second story.
The old woman’s lips curled into a smile as she watched her go.
Chapter 4
The second-story hallway of the Roach Motel was tidy, and clean, and utterly disturbing. Mallory couldn’t quite put her finger on it, but something about the hall seemed off somehow. Maybe it was the flickering lights casting harsh, wavering shadows that stretched across the walls. Maybe it was the two orderly rows of doors, standing strong and solid, like silent sentinels. Maybe it was the fact that there was nothing but emptiness behind those doors, and she was alone in a new and unsettling house in a new and unsettling town.
“Or maybe it’s the fact that the carpet is ugly as shit,” she muttered aloud.
It was dark brown, which was the main source of awfulness. But it wasn’t the only source. Mustard-yellow paisley dotted the brown plush runner, and threads of pale pink were inexplicably woven in throughout the pattern. The flickering lamps did all they could to hide the awful thing in shadows, but Mallory couldn’t help but think that the flames might be of better use setting fire to the whole carpet and ridding the world of its hideousness altogether.
Room 205 was located halfway down the hall, on the left. There was nothing particularly notable about the door; it was solid, surely, with a small brass number plate. It held only one keyhole.
“Of course,” Mallory sighed, staring miserably at the seven keys in her hand. “Because why not?”
She picked out the right key on the third try, an old-fashioned thing with rectangular teeth and a bow that was molded into a flourishing brass wreath. It fit snugly in the lock, and it took a bit of coaxing, but soon the key turned, and Mallory opened the door to her room. It was modest, but it appeared comfortable enough. It contained a four-poster bed that looked as if it should be draped with some sort of linen, but instead, the posts stood empty and naked. That was fine with Mallory; she was prone to claustrophobia anyway. There was also a nightstand, a dresser, and an armchair that looked stiff and uncomfortable. It sat next to a window with plain lace curtains overlooking the unremarkable side yard of the house.
Mallory breathed a sigh of relief. After the day she’d had, she’d half-expected the room to be coated in moss or writhing with worms. Instead, it appeared recently cleaned and properly made up, and that was somehow refreshing.
She set the keys on the dresser, tossed the backpack onto the bed, and did a quick search of the room, hoping to find a safe. “No such luck.” She picked up the backpack and tucked it under the bed. “You stay down there,” she warned, “or we’re going to have problems.”
Exhaustion crept in on her, so she tested the bed. The springs creaked a bit when she sat down, but the mattress was firm, and it would serve for a decent night’s sleep. “One night,” she reminded the flower-patterned wallpaper. “I’ll be fine here for one night.”
Even though she had no pajamas to change into, she decided to freshen up before bed. She grabbed the ring of keys and started for the door, heading for the washroom.
That was when she saw them—the seven individual locks.
Mallory frowned. “Now where did you come from?” she asked. She opened the door and inspected the other side. Seven separate locks now ran in a vertical line above the handle. Mallory shook her head and sighed. “I’m losing my mind.”
It wasn’t really all that surprising, under the circumstances.
She stepped into the hall and closed the door behind her. Then she locked just the one lock—the one nearest the handle, the one made to fit the old-fashioned key…and she wasn’t entirely sure even that one was necessary, considering that it was just her and Old Lady Roach in the house. If her bag went missing while she was out, there wouldn’t be any great mystery as to who was responsible.
She swung the keys on the ring as she trod down the awful carpet, whistling a tuneless little nothing and making a mental list of the things she’d do when she finally reached Lenore’s place.
A bath first, with bubbles. Fancy bubbles. The fanciest bubbles Canada’s got. And a bottle of something expensive. Champagne, probably. Or Scotch. Or Champagne and Scotch. A bottle in each hand. Yep. Then, a feast. Not a dinner; a fucking feast. The main course should be something endangered. Bluefin tuna or a Bengal tiger. A Bluefin tuna stuffed inside a Bengal tiger. And roasted over rain forest wood. After that—
Her thoughts were interrupted by a loud WHUMP! from the door to her right.
Mallory jumped and threw herself back against the wall. She gasped, clutching at her heart. “Hello?” she said, but her voice caught in her throat, and the word died as soon as it left her lips. She summoned her courage and said, louder, “Hello?”
She crept closer to the door. She could hear nothing but the buzzing in her own ears. Must’ve been a tree or something. Outside. She eyed the door suspiciously. Room 210. “There’s no one else here,” she reminded herself. “Just Mrs. Cockroach and me.” She placed her palms against the door, leaned forward, and pressed her ear to the wood.
WHUMP!
Something slammed into the door from the inside, rattling the thing in its frame.
Mallory screamed. She sprinted to the washroom and slammed the door behind her. She turned the lock and leaned back against the wood, shaking and panting and wiping sweat from her palms. “Holy hell,” she whispered, trying to catch her breath. “Come on, Mallory. Get a grip.” So Mrs. Roach had lied about the hotel’s occupancy. So what?
It was weird, but it wasn’t a big deal. “I’m just going to murder her, is all.”
She shook out her hands and stepped up to the pedestal sink. The mirror hanging above it was a simple oval, big enough for her to get a full view of herself. “Woof,” she sighed, dragging her hands through her hair and pulling at the dark circles under her eyes.
“Life on the road does not agree with you,” said mirror Mallory.
“Shut up,” said Mallory.
She noticed a bump on her forehead, just above her right eye…but she couldn’t remember how she’d gotten it. “Stress is eating my brain,” she decided. She touched it gingerly. It only hurt a little, and it didn’t look particularly irritated. She counted that as a win. Then she turned on the sink tap, and brown water spurted out of the faucet.
She sighed again.
She waited for the pipes to clear, rolling a rubber band from her wrist and tying her hair back, inspecting for grays along the way. There were more today than yesterday—no doubt about it. She grunted and closed her eyes, then leaned over and splashed a handful of water over her face.
Tap water had never felt so good.
With the first splash, she forgot all about how a sky full of twinkling stars almost became an accessory to her death. With the second, the memory of waffles and mass poultrycide melted completely from her brain. With the third, even the thoughts of a door with seven locks and a mysterious thumping from a room that was supposed to be empty seemed to drift off into the ether. After a few more rinses, she was just Mallory—driven, lovable, crazy old Mallory, out in the world, just a step or two removed from her regularly-scheduled life.
Then she opened her eyes and saw a cockroach squirming out of the drain, and that pretty much ended the fantasy.
Mallory jumped with a cry of disgust and instinctively pulled the stopper closed. She pulled hard; the metal plug slammed down against the drain, slicing the cockroach in half.
“Oh, God, I’m gonna puke.” She threw a hand over her mouth, hurried over to the toilet, and threw open the lid. But the vomit didn’t come. It seemed to lodge itself somewhere in the upper parts of her soul, her nausea burning through her chest and souring the further reaches of her stomach instead. “Well, I just want to die,” she decided.
The water was still running. As she reached over and turned off the faucet, some part of her—some sick, twisted, sociopathic part—wanted to see the half-roach drifting in the pool of water, if for no other reason than to lord her dominance over the recently-murdered pest. A nuclear blast couldn’t kill a cockroach, but Mallory Jenkins could. There was a special sort of pride in that.
She steeled her roiling insides and took a deep breath. Then she turned and looked down at the half-roach as triumphantly as she could. Her glory was slightly dampened by the fact that the half-roach was still moving. No…not just moving; squirming. It writhed through the bowl of steaming water, curling and uncurling and thrashing softly in the depths. Mallory’s eyes grew wide with fascinated horror as she drew nearer the disgusting scene to get a better look. With her chin just a few inches from the surface of the water, she realized that the thing she’d sliced in the sink wasn’t a cockroach at all.
It was something else entirely.
It was small, and black, and shaped almost like a cone. It seemed smooth and slippery, except for the underside, which was pocked with tiny circles that seemed to be able to grip the smooth, sloping sides of the sink bowl. It looked like the arm of a small, black starfish.
“Not an arm,” she whispered, peering down into the water. “A tentacle.”
And even severed from its host, the slimy little thing was still alive.
Mallory threw open the door and half-ran, half-stumbled back to her room. She plied the lock with shaking hands, threw herself inside, slammed the door shut, and managed to lock all seven locks in what was probably record time, under the circumstances. Then she gripped the doorknob and gave it a good twist. Thankfully, it held fast, as if cemented in place. She pulled and shook and heaved at the door, but it staunchly refused to budge. There were seven large, metal bolts holding the thing in place. It would take a hell of a lot more than a thump of a tentacle to burst through the damn thing. Even so, she decided not to take any chances. She rummaged through the dresser until she found the piece of white chalk resting atop a handwritten note on Roach Motel stationery. The small, tight scrawl at the top of the page read, “Elder Futhark Protection Symbols.” Mallory didn’t typically go in for the occult…but she didn’t typically go in for tentacles slithering out of sink drains, either. She sketched the provided runes onto the door, three concentric circles of esoteric nonsense just below the peephole.
She backed away, chalk in hand, and considered her work. “Just one night,” she reminded herself, her voice trembling. “You can survive anything for one night.”
She closed the curtains and was about to climb into bed when she noticed something she hadn’t before: a bottle of wine stood innocently on the nightstand, though Mallory was certain it hadn’t been there when she’d arrived. She picked it up and inspected the label. It boasted an illustration of a silver flying saucer sucking up an oversized bunch of grapes in its tractor beam. “Neptune Norton,” Mallory read. “U.F.O. Vineyards.” According to the fine print, U.F.O. stood for Unidentified Fermented Object. The bottle was tied off around the neck with a small tag that read, Welcome to Anomaly Flats. Enjoy a little local flavor. It claimed to have a surprisingly high alcohol content—18%, which Mallory decided might be just enough. She peeked beneath the bed to make sure the backpack was still safe and sound, then she climbed into bed, fully clothed, and screwed off the cap. She propped herself up on the pillows, clutched the blanket to her chest, and took a few slugs of Neptune Norton straight from the bottle. It tasted like cherries and plums and oak and tar, and it made the tips of her ears tingle with warmth. That’ll do, she thought.
Between the exhaustion of the day and the wine in her hand, it wasn’t long before a bone-weary sleepiness crept in on her. She scooted down into the sheets and lay back against the pillows. She tried her best to block out the last 24 hours and to focus on the next: waking up, checking out, getting her car fixed, leaving Anomaly Flats, and chalking it all up to a particularly lucid fever dream.
Yes, she decided, tomorrow will definitely be better.
Chapter 5
Mallory awoke with a start.
Watery sunlight filtered in through the curtains, and despite the extremely convincing nightmare she’d just woken up from, when she looked under the sheets, all her various parts and pieces were accounted for, and she was one whole Mallory.
She glanced over at the nightstand and, with no surprise at all, saw that only a few inches of Neptune Norton remained in the bottle. She yawned, and she stretched, and she said, “Ah, what the hell,” as she picked up the bottle and finished it off.
She groaned her way out of bed and rubbed some life into her cheeks. Between the wine and the sleep, her breath was a horror. But she hadn’t packed a toothbrush (“Because who has time for necessities, dummy?” she chided herself), and even if she had packed one, returning to the washroom was completely out of the question. The world would just have to deal.
She grabbed her backpack from under the bed and unzipped it to make sure she hadn’t been robbed by phantoms in the night. Everything was accounted for. She closed it back up, slung it over her shoulder, and grabbed the ring of keys. As she made her way to the door, she noticed that the entire first circle of Elder Futhark runes and part of the second had faded into a smear of chalk dust, as if something had been rubbing away at them with its sleeve while she slept. “Good riddance,” she muttered, emboldened by the daylight, or maybe the alcohol. She smeared the rest of the runes with her hand, unlocked the seven locks, stepped into the hall, and ambled down the stairs. She didn’t bother to close the door behind her.
“Eventually,” Mallory said. “You have squids in your drains.”
The old woman snorted. “Squids, yet. They’re not squids, girlie. They’re something else entirely. And they keep the rats away.”
“Well, one of them lost a finger.”
“It will grow back.”
Mallory shook her head, bewildered. Morning wine or no morning wine, this was too much. “You have something with tentacles living in your plumbing, and you’re totally fine with it?” she demanded.
Mrs. Roach narrowed her eyes at her guest. “There are worse things in the world than tentacles.”
“No—there aren’t…that’s the point! There is nothing worse than a mutant squid living in your walls!”
The old woman smirked. “You must not be from Missouri.”
“I am from Missouri,” Mallory said stubbornly, “the part of Missouri where weird-ass shit comes in the cable package and not in through your front door.” She slammed her backpack down on the counter and pulled out her wallet. “How much?”
“Will you be staying another night?”
Mallory stared at her. “Are you kidding me? I’d rather eat your hemlock.”
“Be careful what you wish for,” the old woman said, her papery voice rustling across the desk. “Your bill is thirty dollars.”
“Any breakfast recommendations?” she muttered, pulling a few bills from her wallet and tossing them down, along with the keys.
“Try the Nite-Owl Diner.”
Anomaly Flats Page 3