The Last Checkout

by Peter Besson

  Every person in the room considered, if only for a brief moment, the possibility of a different fate, other than the certainty of days numbered.

  The fidgety man raised his head. He’d done all the thinking he needed to do. “Now, if we do that, we can still check out, right?”

  Ansel shrugged his shoulders. “Yes, of course we—”

  “All I need to know.” He pulled a gun from his waistband, racked the slide, set the muzzle under his chin and squeezed the trigger. The pistol barked. Blood and brains erupted from the top of his head in a fountain of gore. The man toppled backwards and plopped to the ground, where he lay still, not fidgety anymore.

  The ringing in the room faded out after the deafening blast. The mild shock on most people’s faces turned fast to annoyance at the interruption. How vulgar, to make such a show out of one’s check-out. A few tsk-tsks were heard around the room. Bad form.

  “That was certainly a choice,” Ansel said. “An idiotic one, but a choice. But what if five minutes later, he’d changed his mind? If through some strange miracle, he had decided he’d much rather live, join the circus and shovel elephant shit for the rest of his life? We’ll never know.”

  In the back of the room, a cleaning crew appeared seemingly out of thin air. With practiced movements they unrolled a tarp, heaved the previously fidgety man onto it, zipped it up, and shook absorbent granules on the bloody stain, all in complete silence.

  “All I’m asking is that we have that choice. And that it not be automatically made for us.” Ansel sought the eyes of every single person in the room. “We can change things. Together. We have the authority. So I’m putting this before you now: Everyone in favor of non-restricted leave, please raise your hand.”

  The cleaning crew, finished, retreated, carrying the body bag between them. Leah, Olga, Henry, and the rest of the group glanced at one another, not sure what to make of any of this, caught between the death of the impatient and the promise of freedom no one had anymore, and had willingly given up.

  “Will the way I vote in any way influence the likelihood of me getting another drink right now?” Henry held up his empty whiskey glass.

  Ansel couldn’t stop a smile. “No, Henry.”

  “Well, then fuck. What do I care. Make it a yes.” He raised his hand. After a moment, another hand came up. Then another. Olga’s partial hand. And more. About half the room held up their hands. Ansel counted silently.

  Counted again.

  Once more.

  He was about to count again when from the back shadows, someone Ansel hadn’t noticed earlier stepped forward. Ansel recognized the gliding gait, the smooth displacement of air. Morton.

  He’d been listening in the back, watching with unease as the mood in the room had subtly changed from cold detachment to something approaching open sympathy. Now he wanted to step in before one more of these cretins decided to raise their hand. “You’re short. By one, if I counted correctly.”

  He was right. He was a smug asshole, but he was right.

  “Sorry, Mr. Grayson.” Morton checked his watch. “But if there’s nothing else, we should end our little gathering here—then you and I, we should talk about your arrangements, if that would suit you.”

  No, it wouldn’t, but Ansel had no choice.

  “Not so fast.” Ansel had thought he’d never hear that voice again, but there she was, standing in the open doorway, a brand new metal band blinking on her wrist.

  Nikki. Ansel’s heart stopped.

  “Ms. Forlan. I don’t think you qualify to—”

  “Oh, but I do.” Nikki waved a check-in form in Morton’s face. “I checked back in.”

  Ansel flinched as if he’d been slapped.

  “So here…” She held up a hand. “I vote yes.”

  Despite being angry at the stupidity of her having come back, at her willfully throwing her life away, again—and for what he wasn’t even sure—Ansel was still delighted to see her. He didn’t want to, but he smiled—no, he beamed at her, glad for the despair her arrival reignited, for the ache as his heart stretched once again, for the warm flood of joy and pain that coursed through his still-alive body.

  He looked out over the assembly in the room, at the hands still raised, but the one that truly counted, and from now on the only one that would, was right before him, and with a smile that threatened to hurt because it came from a very deep well of bliss, Ansel said, “Measure approved.”

  Morton’s face betrayed nothing. He’d spent most of his life cultivating an impenetrable poker face, as stoic as if he had nerve damage, but when he turned his head to look through the open double doors at Huntley, standing behind the concierge desk, he did so with utmost effort. And as he nodded to Huntley, to do what had to be done, he thought his head might snap off from the tension.

  Huntley swiped his hand across a large touchscreen embedded into the desk. A broad array of square buttons appeared, each representing a room with the number, a time display next to it, and below, a symbolic padlock. With calculated efficiency, Huntley touched the padlocks, their symbols clicking open.

  In the dining hall, everyone’s arm bracelet beeped, reset itself to 00:00, unlocked, and clattered to the floor. A stunned silence followed. People blinked, uncertain, until a slow realization dawned on them: They were free to go into a world previously denied to them, the world beyond eight hours. One by one, they got up; a few hugged, then they filed out of the room, still hesitant as to what they might do with this freedom most hadn’t had any hope of getting back.

  Ansel watched them leave, smiling in melancholy triumph, until he noticed his armband. It hadn’t opened, wasn’t laying on the floor. It was still very much attached to his wrist. Worse: The numbers counted down.

  Nikki followed his astonished look. Her eyes went wide. “Ansel!”

  Morton slid up behind him. As hard as he tried, he was unable to hide a look of smug satisfaction. Then again, he wasn’t trying that hard. “I’m afraid these changes do not apply to you, Mr. Grayson. It just so happens that whoever checked in after August 23rd, 2027—the date of the latest amendment to the charter of Hotel Terminus, Inc.—may come and go as they please now, thanks to your intrepid efforts. You, however, Mr. Grayson, have been gracing us with your presence for far longer. As it is, you’ll be the last scheduled check-out. In…” Morton glanced at Ansel’s wristband. “…in two hours and fifty-seven minutes.” Morton tried to fight a smile but allowed himself to lose that battle. If nothing else, Morton could witness Ansel Grayson check out. At last. “I took the liberty to adjust your balance to reflect your use of… the common area. As you know, nothing in this life is free, Mr. Grayson.” Morton took another second to take in the delicious shock on Ansel’s face. “Good day.” He turned on his heel and glided off.

  Nikki shook her head. “No. No no no no. That can’t be.” She turned in place, trying to find someone to help, to clear up that misunderstanding.

  But there was no one.

  She was alone. With a doomed man.

  “No.” She embraced Ansel vehemently, unwilling to let go. Thoughts tumbled through her mind, chasing another faster and faster without making the least bit of sense. “That’s impossible. Not now. Not now. There has to be—”

  And then the thoughts came to a stop, and everything became perfectly, inevitably clear.

  There was only one thing left to do. And no time to waste.

  “Yes,” Nikki said, then grabbed Ansel’s hand and pulled him out the dining hall, through the entry hall in the direction of the glass doors and the boundary separating Hotel Terminus from the rest of everything else.

  “What are you doing?” Ansel asked, but she just kept pulling. “No, Nikki… Nikki, stop!” She wouldn’t, but continued tugging at his hand as if guiding an unusually petulant child. “It doesn’t work. We won’t make… They’ll catch us.”

  She wheeled around, blistering anger flashing in her eyes. “No! At least we’ve got
to try. What are you gonna do? Mope around, wait for the clock to wind down, then see if you can finally bump yourself off? Stupid! You had your chances. It’s time for something else.” She smiled, an angry, wild, brave smile at the edge of tears. “What do you have to lose? Your life?”

  Her smile was infectious. So was her youthful anger, her desire to rail against the furies of fate, and her urge to break free from all constraints; Ansel felt it all at that moment, the raw, unrestrained, uncontrollable ‘yes’ of life itself—surging, tumbling—and he wanted to burst. He nodded at her and, as one, they pushed through the double glass doors into the open world with its sunshine and people and life outside a time limit.

  And they started running as fast as their feet would take them.

  Morton had been watching with dark joy as Nikki and Ansel burst from the hotel. Now he stepped forward, sidling up to Huntley, who had taken up his position behind the concierge desk, entirely unconcerned with their flight.

  “Make sure he’s here when his time runs out,” Morton said. “I’d like to check him out myself.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  FLIGHT

  Their feet pattered a crazy rhythm on the asphalt. It felt as if they were barely touching the ground, as though the planet had started spinning insanely fast and they had to run in place just to stay upright. They rushed around a corner and almost got trampled by the city’s population on its endless mass migration back and forth, everyone getting in everyone’s way on this vast conveyor belt of humans.

  “Taxi! Taxi!” Nikki yelled, pushing, elbowing her way to the edge of the street, waving her arms, but all her urgency was misplaced. Traffic had ground to a complete stop, with the yellow taxis frozen in the immovable stream of cars. “Fuck it.” She yanked on Ansel’s arm and dragged him down an alley, past trash cans and the people who lived off of them. The alley spat them out onto an even larger street, which only meant there were even more people crushing each other on their way to wherever they needed to go, which happened to be in Nikki and Ansel’s way.

  Nikki felt panic rise. There had to be something. Simply had to. “There!” She could have kicked herself for not thinking about it earlier. She fought her way through the tide of people that seemed determined to stop her from getting to the subway station. She thought about salmon and their mighty upriver struggle to spawn, only to ultimately die at the source, and quickly banished any more thoughts about fish or rivers or death or anything. All that mattered now was for them to find a train that would leave as soon as they got on it, and preferably wouldn’t stop until it reached the end of the world. They hustled down the steps, falling forward, crashing through people, a cascading spate of curses following them.

  Downstairs, the mass of people only got worse. Compressed by walls all around, the multitude of bodies pressed in, but, undaunted, Nikki barreled through until they reached a large illuminated map of the subway system with lines zig-zagging every which way to form a stupendously complicated piece resembling formal modern art. Nikki looked the diagram over and, with unerring determination, pointed to one line.

  “That one.”

  The only one clearing the tangle of the city, a straight blue line to the coast.

  Nikki grabbed Ansel’s hand and pulled him into a run, along a platform, up some stairs, down some others. She threw a frantic glance at the signage, did a quick turnabout because dark blue looked exactly like light blue under the faulty lighting thirty feet underground, but at last they reached their station and they could see, past the ticket gate, down the stairs, a train at the dark blue platform getting ready to pull out, the last stragglers piling in, and Nikki, without missing a stride, vaulted over the turnstile, and Ansel, so he wouldn’t fall, was right behind her.

  “Hey!” a Metro cop yelled. He’d been standing to the side, bored, cleaning his fingernails, when he saw the couple push their way through people and jump the gate. More relieved at the excitement than angry, he raced after them. “Hey! Stop!” It felt good being official and in pursuit; a welcome relief from pushing around drunks and bums. “Stop right there!”

  Nikki and Ansel jumped down the last of the stairs and bolted down the platform toward the open, waiting doors. Nikki shot through the doorway. Ansel, pulled along by her, had stepped halfway into the cabin when he was yanked back.

  The Metro cop had a hold of his arm.

  “Ansel!”

  Ansel was struggling to stay on the train, but the Metro cop put up a good fight to get him out. Ansel’s sleeve slid up, revealing his armband. The numbers racing to zero. Towards death.

  The Metro cop stared for a split second at the band before he realized what he was grabbing on to, what it meant for him to hold on to this stranger’s arm, or, more likely, to pull him back out of the train. Then the Metro cop saw the young woman staring at him, wild-eyed; he saw the terror, the desperation, the sheer immensity of this one moment, and he knew the decision was his.

  Live or die.

  Right now.

  And he let go. Even he was surprised by his decision, but he released the man’s arm and watched him tumble into the train into the young woman’s waiting arms.

  The doors swished shut.

  Ansel and Nikki stared at the Metro cop as the train gathered speed. The Metro cop stared back, and an understanding of sorts seemed to pass between them, an understanding that tugged at the deeper level of what it means to be fellow humans on this mad spinning globe tumbling through the universe.

  Then, with a loud whoosh, a tunnel sucked them up into the dark earth. Ansel and Nikki—shaking from adrenaline and joy, incredulous that they’d made it, laughing, crying—embraced tightly as the train rushed through permanent night.

  ***

  It wasn’t 4:15 pm, but still, Huntley felt the need to sit here in room 516, by the window, letting his gaze drift over the room. It hadn’t changed, not since yesterday at 4:15 pm, and it wouldn’t—not as long as he was employed at Hotel Terminus.

  Huntley didn’t have to wait long. Again, as she always did, Alena visited. Huntley could see her stepping out of the dark shadows and into the murky daylight. In his mind’s eye, she was always in her underwear, leaving wet footprints in the carpet. As she stood before him—the ghost of the young woman, so clear to Huntley but nothing more than motes dancing in light and darkness, an illusion of guilt—he felt her eyes on him, rueful eyes that had seen what lay ahead, for every one of us, and Huntley imagined he could see compassion and, he hoped for himself, forgiveness.

  Alena had been modest, even in death. She’d insisted on wearing her underwear in the bathtub. She’d stood by, waiting, shivering from fright, as he’d let water into the tub, carefully monitoring the temperature with a thermometer he’d brought to ensure it would be exactly 37 degrees Celsius—Huntley preferring the metric scale for absolute precision when it counted—and he wanted to make sure Alena would feel the least amount of pain possible. He’d talked her out of pills and poisons, not because he wasn’t competent in their use—he was, but he didn’t want her to meet death alone. He’d wanted to be there for her, to ease her into oblivion, to hold her hands and let her know and feel she was not on her own, that this was a transition we all had to make. He’d felt an overwhelming responsibility, and even if it was born of contrition, he had not cared.

  When the tub was full, he’d turned off the water and checked the thermometer again, almost hoping it wouldn’t read body temperature, but it had. He’d looked at her, standing in the corner of the bathroom, hugging herself tight, and he’d wanted to grab her by the hand and drag her out into the world, to find a safe place for her to be and rest, knowing an unjust thing had been made just.

  But it hadn’t been his call to make. His duty had been to walk over to the shivering girl, take her gently, ever so gently by the hand, as though she were a wild creature and any hurried move would startle her into flight, and lead her to the bathtub. He’d helped her step into the tub, every movement performed w
ith the meticulousness a sacred ritual demanded. She’d slid into the water, quivering despite the warmth, holding on to both his hands and not letting go for a long time as she lay in the water, Huntley kneeling by her side, looking steadily into her eyes. He saw the fear behind her eyes, like a frightened bird beating against a cage, with no way out. He’d held her gaze, her breathing had slowed, and the bird had settled at last.

  He’d had to tell her the time had come. She’d nodded through a constant stream of tears, herself on the verge of dissolving, but she’d turned her wrists upwards. Huntley had pulled them both underwater, had given her a quick, reassuring caress for her to keep them there, and then he’d taken out his straight razor. The sight of the cruel steel had made her flinch, but Huntley had soothed her until she willingly held out her wrists again. He’d explained to her he would cut lengthwise, and, the razor being as sharp as it was, she would notice only the slightest nick, if that, and her artery would blossom open and her blood would billow into the water in a red cloud but she would feel nothing. All she would do is get sleepy and close her eyes and drift off and it would be over. She’d stared at him with big blue eyes and then she’d given him the faintest nod, and before there was any time to think, Huntley had cut the first, then the second wrist, and she’d looked at him in surprise, as if she hadn’t thought he’d actually go through with it, and he wouldn’t have, given a choice, but there was none to give, and so he’d had to watch the dark red flower of her blood bloom and turn the water crimson. He’d seen her eyes gradually lose their light, and he’d grasped her hands and held them tight so she’d know he was there with her, in that moment, and then, as her head had lolled to the side and he caught it gently with his hand, and right before her eyes turned dull, he could have sworn he’d seen a glimmer of gratitude, and then she was gone.

  He’d held on to her hands for a while, and then he’d given them one last tender squeeze to let the dead girl know she’d been on this earth and that he’d been witness to her life and, now, her death. He’d gotten up, arms dripping red, and had watched her slide underwater and disappear in the scarlet waters. He’d gazed at the blood on his arms, dripping on the white tiles, and then he’d meticulously washed and scrubbed his skin until he could not feel her anymore. He’d called room service and had overseen the handling of her body, made sure she’d been moved with the appropriate care and reverence, and after they’d dried her body and placed her in a bag, he’d zipped it up himself and watched her being taken away on the service trolley. And as he’d stood in the bathroom, the last of the water gurgling down the drain, leaving red streaks on the porcelain, he’d taken the brushes and sponges out of the cleaning crew’s surprised hands, had ushered everyone calmly out of the room and proceeded to methodically clean the bathtub—taking his time, forcing his attention on every detail, every movement of his hands. Then he’d wiped down counters, mopped the floor, spit-shined the mirror, and, after the bathroom gleamed with antiseptic perfection, he’d moved on and cleaned the rest of the hotel room. Everything. He’d changed the sheets, dusted, swept, buffed, spot-cleaned her entire room, not because he wanted to erase her memory, but because he wanted to preserve the state it had been in before she was dead, as a sort of memorial to her and all life, as if all she’d done was check into the hotel and check out again the next day without leaving a trace behind, untouched by death, as millions and millions had done in hotels for ages. He’d felt it was the only way to honor a life that had been sacrificed on the altar of bureaucracy and unyielding inflexibility.