The Nightly Disease (Serial Novel)

by Max Booth III

  The next day I sit on my porch and read about owls on my iPad. I had to take a rest from the bulimia forums. Too many unexpected photos kept popping up and seriously got me debating a conversion. I know this owl obsession is unhealthy, but I can’t just forget about it. A girl was killed by one of these fucking things. That isn’t in my head. Her death is as real as the thin line of blood streaming down my nostril. The more I read about them, the more innocent they appear. I’m not inputting the correct key words. These results are too safe. Something’s hidden here, something buried beyond the bullshit facade of Google’s page one.

  I continue digging. If this were an actual shovel, my hands would be raw and blistered. Owls aren’t exactly known for killing human beings. Sometimes they’ll attack joggers, but never anything too serious. They’re more likely to pick up a small dog in someone’s backyard and chow down. But no people have been killed. Except for Mandy 2. Why her? What the fuck happened that night?

  Birds typically get aggressive when they feel their young is in danger. It’s possible Mandy 2 got her hands on a baby owl, tried to pet it, maybe dressed it up in tiny owl clothing, and the mother owl got offended. Took one look at her precious baby and went berserk. Broke Owl Code and murdered a human. Now all the owls in the world are freaking out because the truce is gone, human blood has been spilled. First an owl eats a woman’s face, then a night auditor gets mugged. How many more seals need to be broken until the apocalypse gets in full swing?

  I search “owls eating humans” online and come across a series of graphic anime illustrations depicting young boys receiving oral sex from anthropomorphic owls. I close out of the browser, but not quick enough for the NSA to now surely be on my trail. To throw them off track, I enter in one of my favorite porn URLs and click on a video that doesn’t seem as disturbing as owl-on-human sex—which can sometimes prove to be quite the challenge. I go back inside the apartment before cranking up the volume.

  If Hobbs doesn’t get me, at least the government will have a chance.

  Part 9

  Sometimes my mother calls and asks how I’m spending my time in Texas and I just don’t know what to say. You can’t tell your mother you spend the majority of your days and nights either eating, sleeping, or masturbating. I could have done all that back home. You can’t tell her you work at a job you hate with guests you wish were dead. You can’t say you fantasize about murder more than Ed Gein. You can’t tell her some redneck’s planning to murder you because you stole his wallet, which you then lost after being mugged by some chick in a ski mask.

  So what can you do? Me, I clear my throat and tell her I’m furthering my education, which is a bigger lie than the existence of a happy night auditor. I can’t afford community college with my current wages, plus student aid denied my application thanks to my father earning too high of an income. But I don’t want his help. Asking him for help proves I can’t make it on my own. I don’t want to need my parents. I don’t want to be like my older brothers and still live at home in my thirties. I don’t want to be useless. I’d tried explaining this to the student aid counselor who rejected my application. Like she gave a shit.

  “I don’t even live in the same state as my father. Why does he still have to be a factor in all of this?”

  “You’re only twenty-one,” the lady said over the phone.

  “So fucking what?”

  “Please don’t take that language with me. I am trying to help you.”

  “Is that what you call this?”

  “If you want us to void out your parents’ financial information, you have to provide a valid reason.”

  “I’m a legal adult and I live alone. What more of a valid reason do you people want?”

  “What do you mean, ‘you people’?”

  “What?”

  “I will not tolerate racism, sir.”

  “We’re on the phone. I have no idea what color you are.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Well? What reason do you want?”

  “Maybe if your parents abused you as a child or abandoned you, then we could reconsider.”

  “Wait. Are you seriously telling me the only way I’ll receive any student aid is if my dad used to hit me?”

  “It would certainly help, yes.”

  “Okay, fine, he used to beat the shit out of me. Guy broke my nose about twenty times over the years. Real cold-hearted bastard, that one.”

  “Sir, is that true?”

  “…No.”

  So, yeah, I lie to my mother when she calls. But it’s only to hide the truth that my aspirations for a college degree are credited to her and my father’s lack of childhood abuse. She wouldn’t be able to handle that kind of guilt.

  On my second day off, my mother calls to tell me my older brother is having trouble with his wife and has moved back in with my parents for the indefinite future. This is not news. My brother moves back home every few months. It is a part of his cycle.

  “You should make him live on the street,” I tell her, lying in bed. The ceiling spins and distorts my vision.

  “You don’t have to be so nasty,” she says, although I know a secret part of her agrees.

  “Well, Mom, he doesn’t have to be so pathetic and helpless, now does he?”

  “Isaac, that’s enough.”

  I stand up and walk into the kitchen, yawning. “I’m sorry. You just caught me when I was asleep.”

  “Are you still working at…that hotel?”

  “Mom, you know I am.”

  “Such a shame. No boy as young as you should be spending his nights working. You need to get out and have fun. You shouldn’t have to be worrying about bills right now.”

  I start brewing coffee as she lectures me. Her words quickly grind deep into my nerves and I lose my patience and pop open a beer instead. Halfway through the bottle, she abandons the concept of me randomly hopping on a plane to Indiana and asks what’s new in my life. I make up some bullshit about a tough college test coming up that’s stressing me out.

  “What is the test about?”

  “Owls.”

  “Owls?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What kind of class is that?”

  “Uh. Ornithology, I guess.”

  “Ornith-what?”

  I finish off the beer. “Ornithology.”

  “What on Earth is that?”

  “You know. The study of birds. Owls and all that.”

  “What made you want to take a class about birds?” She almost sounds disgusted.

  “I don’t know, Mom. What’s wrong with birds? Jesus Christ.”

  “Nothing’s wrong with birds. You just didn’t tell me.”

  “Well, I am now, okay?”

  “To be honest, I’m surprised you would be interested in owls at all. After what happened when you were a kid.”

  The coffee pot finishes brewing and begins beeping at me. The sound matches my sudden rapid heartbeat. “What are you talking about, Mom? What happened to me when I was a kid?”

  She laughs. “Don’t act like you don’t know.”

  “I’m not acting.”

  “What, you’re going to tell me that you don’t remember what happened at that field trip you took in kindergarten?”

  “That’s what I’m telling you, yeah.”

  “I find that hard to believe.”

  “Humor me.”

  She pauses before answering, maybe regretting she’d even mentioned anything in the first place. “It’s not even that big of a deal.”

  “Mom.”

  “You really don’t remember going on a field trip to the Lincoln Park Zoo? All you wanted to do was see the owls. You talked about those things for weeks before the trip.”

  “I don’t remember ever talking about owls.”

  “Yeah, they were like your favorite things in the world for a while there. You had the owl lunchbox, the owl backpack…”

  “What happened at the zoo, Mom?”

  “You were attacked.”r />
  “I was what?”

  “Attacked.”

  “By…by owls?”

  “It was a very upsetting day for you.”

  “How was I attacked? This doesn’t make any sense.”

  “I don’t know exactly. It’s not like I was there. But from what your teachers and the paramedics told me, you had wandered away from your chaperone and somehow managed to sneak into the owl habitat. No one noticed until you were screaming for help. The zoo workers found you covered with them.”

  “Are you fucking serious?”

  “Isaac!”

  “I’m sorry, Mom, but seriously, what the fucking fuck?”

  “Isaac, watch your fucking language!”

  “Why don’t I remember this? Why don’t I have any scars?” Sometime during the last five minutes I had drank a second beer. I open a third one without putting too much thought into it. The coffee can wait.

  “You weren’t really injured. I mean, they scratched you a little bit, but nothing too serious. They mostly just…I don’t know, I guess perched on you.”

  “Perched on me?”

  “…Yeah.”

  “But why?”

  “Maybe they liked you. I don’t know. But it really disturbed you. You had to take therapy for a while there.”

  “I was in therapy?” I finish off the third beer and reach inside the fridge for another, but there’s none left.

  “Only for two months or so. How can you not remember any of this?”

  “I’m not sure I believe you. Are you positive this didn’t happen to James?”

  “No, Isaac, I know what happened to my own sons.”

  “Then why don’t I remember any of this?”

  “I don’t know. I guess the therapy worked. The guy told us it was best not to talk about it—to make it feel like a dream you had, that none of it was real.”

  I walk into the bathroom, no longer listening to my mother. My nose throbs from where the bulimic girl punched me the other day. When I look into the mirror, I anticipate a swollen, black and blue nose. But it’s not even my own nose in the mirror. It’s been replaced by a small, pointy beak. And my face has flattened to an impossible smoothness, like a cartoon character who’s been flattened by a steamroller.

  An owl. I am an owl.

  Hoot hoot hoot. Hoot hoot.

  “Isaac, are you still there?”

  The mirror ripples like it’s water and, when it finally stills, my face has returned to normalcy. But I don’t trust it. This mirror is a liar.

  “Isaac? Hello?”

  “I gotta go, Mom.”

  Part 10

  Time doesn’t always travel at a consistent speed. Our mentalities control the accelerators. The same way a pot of water only boils if you aren’t looking at it. If there’s something important and exciting coming up in the future, something you’re actually looking forward to, then the time is just going to drag and drag. You look at the clock, go do something, and five hours later you look at the clock again and it turns out only three minutes have passed. But, say, something’s coming up that you are absolutely dreading, something like a pissed-off hotel guest waiting to shove a switchblade up your asshole, well, then that time is going to pass like gravity swallowed up by a black hole.

  And that’s exactly what happened to my three-day weekend. Swallowed by a black hole. Erased by the shadow people.

  I pull up to work at ten ’til and just sit in my car until 11:00 hits. I’ve done a mildly convincing job of telling myself everything is in the clear, that last week I had allowed paranoia to overcome logic. Hobbs had just been pissed that he’d lost his wallet. He didn’t know I’d been the one to take it, and even if he does know, there’s not shit he can do about it. The asshole switchblade threat had been all talk. A bunch of macho man bullshit used as audible lube to stroke his dick. I’ve been interacting with Hobbs for over a year now and he’s never come across as anything less than a miserable drunken coward who likes to run his mouth. I’m not a good fighter or anything, I’m out of shape and I easily bruise, but I like to think I could put that fucker in his place if it comes down to it. I’m pretty sure he’s some kind of shoe salesman.

  I’d throw down with a shoe salesman.

  I’m not above kicking someone in the balls.

  Before going inside, I stop by the trashcans and glance at the TripAdvisor owl logo on the front door.

  “This is all your fault.”

  Hobbs is still at the hotel. It’s the first thing I check when I make it behind the front desk. I ask Yas if he’s been hanging out in the lobby or the dining area tonight, but she hasn’t seen him all evening. I still can’t decide if that’s a good sign or a terrifying one. That guy’s always down here, talking about what the queers are doing to the soil.

  Maybe he’s just gotten drunk enough to pass out. Or maybe Brenda’s with him. The last few times he’s stayed here, she’s been mysteriously absent. Which is odd, since the reservation is always in her name, considering she’s the associate and thus is the only one allowed the cheap rate. I still don’t understand why we allow him to check-in without her presence.

  The phone rings and my heart nearly stops cold.

  Not Hobbs. Just George.

  “Where the hell have you been, man? I’ve been trying to call you all weekend. What happened to you on Thursday? What the fuck?”

  “Good evening to you, too.”

  “Well?”

  “I called in sick on Thursday. Couldn’t handle it anymore. All the shit had gotten to me.”

  “You all right now?”

  “What do you think?”

  “Is that drunk asshole still at the hotel?”

  “Yeah, plus…there’s something else.”

  “What?”

  I hesitate before speaking, feeling a migraine returning. “When I called you on Wednesday, I think maybe he heard me talking to you.”

  He responds with laughter.

  “Oh, fuck you.”

  “You’re screwed.”

  “Asshole.”

  I replace the phone into the receiver just as a tall man in a straw cowboy hat strolls into the lobby. The spurs of his boots clang against the floor. Typical Texas asshole.

  He nods at me and tips his hat, says, “Howdy,” and sits down on the lobby sofa. He pulls out a cell phone and begins fucking around with it, not caring whether I say anything back to him or not. I’ve quickly grown to loathe cell phones. They’re too addicting. Every five minutes I reach into my pocket to take it out and play with it. They’ve replaced the heartbeat with biggest necessity. The thing that kills me the most is when guests come to check-in to their rooms and they can’t even stop texting to look me in the eyes as they throw their information on the front desk. I’m not even human to these fucking pissants. I’m toxic garbage. I’m just another machine designed to jerk them off at their earliest convenience. I’m the self-checkout robot guzzling their cum as they aimlessly play Farmville or Trivia Crack or whatever other dumbass game is currently consuming the hive mind.

  The cowboy doesn’t seem familiar, which means he’s probably going to want a room. That or he’s waiting on a guest to come down. Or maybe he’s staking the joint out long enough to determine there’s nobody here but me, then he’ll signal the rest of his cowboy gang in to murder me and clear out the cash register. Well, I got bad news for them: I’m already dead and there isn’t even three hundred dollars waiting for them here.

  I pick up random documents and pretend they hold some kind of significance, and maybe they do, I honestly don’t know, I’ve never bothered to actually learn the duties of the audit shift. It’s an easy enough job to fake—at least, until something goes horribly wrong.

  When I look back up from the documents, the cowboy’s standing in front of me, smiling his clean shaven face at me.

  I jump back a little and he laughs. “Didn’t mean to scare you there, buddy.”

  “It’s all right. I’m easily startled. How can I help you?
”

  “My brother’s staying here. I was hoping you could tell me what room he’s in. I want to surprise him.”

  I force a frown. It’s harder than it seems. Painful, almost. “Sorry, I wouldn’t be able to tell you any guests’ rooms. It’s hotel policy.”

  “Even if he stays here all the time?” All this time, he’s still looking at his fucking cell phone, jacking off the touchscreen with his thumb.

  “Um, well…who’s your brother?”

  “John Hobbs.”

  I choke for a moment but he doesn’t seem to notice.

  “Hobbs, you say?” A part of me’s convinced I’m hallucinating. Hearing stupid crazy shit. Like I always seem to do on this fucking shift. But another part of me knows this is for real. Of course it is.

  The cowboy nods. “Uh-huh. Stupid sumbitch’s got somethin’ that don’t belong to him. I reckon I come to take it back.”

  “I’m sorry, but I can’t tell you what room he’s in. I can give him a call, though, tell him you’re down here.”

  The cowboy ignores me, keeps messing around on his cell phone. “The damnedest thing, about the object that belongs to me. When I asked him about it the other day, he claims it was stolen. Says there’s this fat little asshole who works overnight at the hotel he stays at, says he’s the one who took my little somethin’.”

  The cowboy looks up, possessing the kind of smile villains in horror movies wear. “You wouldn’t happen to know anything about that, would you?”

  There is nothing left to say. Even if I wanted to talk, there’s not enough oxygen traveling through my lungs to produce anything coherent. I turn around and bolt into the back office. The cowboy shouts for me to stop and scrambles over the front desk, but I’m already out of the back office and running through the laundry room.

  Something heavy smacks against the back of my head and for a brief moment the universe is a derailing rollercoaster, then my vision clears and I’m on my back, staring up at the cowboy and John Hobbs, who’s holding an aluminum baseball bat.

  Fucker must have snuck in from the back exit of the elevator, the same way all the housekeepers get into the laundry room with their cleaning carts.