by Mark Lukens
Eugene and Beth grabbed Ray and helped him inside where he collapsed down on the floor, sliding out of the way as Carla swung the doors shut and blocked them with her body as both of the dogs hit the doors at the same time. They nearly knocked her off balance, and the doors opened again a few inches.
Beth heard the dogs snarling and scratching at the doors, barking ferociously. But she didn’t think about that, she slammed her body into the opening doors and helped Carla keep them shut.
But the doors weren’t locking.
“The stick!” Beth yelled at her. “Shove it through the door handles!”
Carla did, and it held the doors shut against the battering rams of the dogs.
For now at least.
“We could stack some of that furniture against the door,” Eugene said, breathing hard. But he looked at the furniture warily, like the thought of booby traps had come to his mind. And then he glanced at the refrigerator like maybe that might be a better idea, but he wasn’t going to suggest it.
Tony grabbed one of the six chairs from the table and he carried it over to the doors and shoved the back of the chair up underneath the door handles at an angle, wedging it there. That held the doors shut even tighter.
Beth helped Ray over to the table and he plopped down into a chair, still blubbering the whole time.
Tony, Eugene, and Carla watched the doors.
But the dogs stopped battering the doors and it was eerily silent outside for a moment. The only sound was Ray crying.
Beth crouched down beside his injured leg. “Let me see,” she told him as she gently rolled up his pants leg to look at the wound.
“I hate dogs,” Ray cried. “I hate ‘em.”
Beth saw the teeth marks on Ray’s calf, and some blood, but the wound wasn’t too deep. From a big dog like that, the wound could’ve been a lot worse. She had expected it to be a lot worse.
“They don’t look too deep,” Beth said to Ray, and then she looked at the others who stood by the door like they were still bracing themselves for another attack from the dogs. “Like the dog was just trying to warn him. Or just trying to hold him.”
“It was biting me,” Ray sobbed. “It was trying to eat me!”
Carla glared at Tony. “You couldn’t help him?”
“I was trying to get the doors shut to save the rest of our asses. It wasn’t my fault he couldn’t keep up with the rest of us.”
“Yeah, that’s about what I would expect from you.”
“Hey, I had to make a decision. And I made it.”
Carla walked away from Tony, back to the table by Beth and Ray. Ray was still crying, but he wasn’t as loud now.
“You don’t know me,” Tony said to Carla, and then he looked at the others. “None of you know anything about me. You don’t have the right to judge me.”
Carla and Beth locked eyes. “These dogs weren’t trying to kill Ray,” Beth told her.
“It sure felt like it,” Ray said, sniffling.
“They could’ve done a lot more damage if they’d wanted to,” Beth continued.
“How do you know that?” Carla asked her.
“We always had dogs growing up. And my husband, he … he knows a lot about dogs. We have some dogs. Rottweilers, actually.”
“What a coincidence,” Tony said and then looked at the double doors with the stick stuck through the handles and the chair wedging it shut. “I hope those doors hold.”
Eugene walked away from the group towards the refrigerator, his eyes focused down on the floor.
Beth opened one of her bottles of water and poured a little bit of it on Ray’s wound, cleaning it as best she could.
Ray winced.
“Uh, you guys may want to come and take a look at this,” Eugene said from over by the refrigerator.
Everyone except Ray hurried over behind the stack of furniture and crates to the refrigerator where Eugene stood, looking down at the wood floor.
Adam’s body was gone.
CHAPTER TEN
“Where the hell is he?” Tony whispered.
“Maybe he wasn’t dead,” Beth said in a low voice.
“No,” Carla answered. “He was dead. I’m sure of it.”
Tony walked away and ran his hands through his hair. He sniffed a few times, taking in deep breaths. “This is fucking crazy. They came in here and got him while we were out there.”
They all heard the sound of cellophane crackling. They turned to see Ray picking up the Fireball candy from the table, about to open it.
Eugene rushed at Ray. “Ray! What are you doing?!”
Ray dropped the candy back down onto the table, his eyes wide with surprise. “I … I was gonna eat it. It’s mine. I found it in my pocket.”
Eugene shook his head no like he was trying to communicate with a child. “No. You can’t eat it. It means something.”
“But I like Fireballs,” Ray pouted.
Carla, Beth, and Tony came back to the table and looked down at the objects from their pockets that they’d left behind on the table.
Eugene looked at them. “These things mean something.”
“What do they mean?” Carla asked.
“I don’t know, but whoever’s doing this, I think they’re playing some kind of a game. And these things we found on us are clues to the game.”
“How do you know that?” Tony asked, his eyes narrowing in suspicion.
“Why else would we have them on us? Why would they take all of our stuff and replace them with these things?”
Tony gave Eugene a wicked smile. “Yeah, it’s a game.” He looked at Carla and Beth. “Eugene knows so much about all of this.”
Tony looked back at Eugene. “How did you know to go over there and check by the refrigerator? You knew that Adam’s body would be gone, didn’t you?”
“Tony,” Carla warned. “Don’t start with this again.”
“No,” Tony snapped at her. “One of us is involved with this. I’m sure of it.” Tony’s eyes were on Eugene the whole time. “And I think it’s Eugene.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
It was starting to get much darker inside the hotel only fifteen minutes later. The sun had dipped well below the mountains in the distance and the eastern sky was turning dark with night.
The Rotweillers lay in the dirt street in front of the hotel, but they were alert, watching the doors, guarding them.
Tony peeked out through the frail curtains covering the double door windows.
“The dogs are still out there, aren’t they?” Beth asked him.
Tony turned and nodded. “Yeah. How do you know?”
“They’re well-trained.”
Tony eyed Beth, but he didn’t say anything as he walked back to the table where the others sat.
“Is Beth a suspect now because she knows about dogs?” Carla asked Tony.
“Fuck you,” Tony muttered as he plopped down in his chair. “She could be. So could you.”
“What about you?” Carla asked him. “How do we know you’re not the one? You’re always the one bringing it up. Maybe you’re trying to mask who the real mole is.”
Tony sighed and looked away from Carla, trying to ignore her.
Carla smiled at Beth—a small triumph.
Ray hugged his arms. “It’s getting cold in here.”
“So, what are we going to do now?” Tony asked everyone. “Sit here and listen to Carla run her mouth all night?”
“Why don’t you shut it for me?” Carla told him.
Eugene jumped in quickly. “What do you think we should do, Tony? You seem to have all the answers about everything.”
Tony got up and paced, it was like he needed to move, like he needed to do something. “Let’s look around again. Find something to make weapons out of.”
“You already looked around.”
“Yeah, down here. We didn’t check upstairs.”
“Yeah,” Eugene answered. “Booby traps, remember?”
Tony marched over to
the refrigerator. He picked up the stick they had used to pull the bottles of water out. He walked past the table to the set of steps leading upstairs.
Carla watched him. “What are you doing?”
“Something besides sitting around,” he said over his shoulder. He stopped at the foot of the stairs, the stick in his hand.
Carla stood up. “Maybe he’s right,” she said to the others. “Maybe we should see what’s up there.”
They all walked over and stood behind Tony who still hesitated at the foot of the stairs. He seemed to have lost a little bit of his nerve now that he stared up at the stairs ascending into darkness.
“What are you waiting for, fearless leader?” Eugene asked him.
Tony snorted in a huge sniff and shook his head. “Nothing.”
Tony whacked the first step with his stick, and then gingerly set his foot on it, testing it, lowering more of his weight down onto it. Then he tapped the second step with the stick before stepping onto that one with his foot.
“God, this’ll take all night,” Carla said and brushed past Tony. She hurried up the stairs leaving Tony and the rest of them behind.
“I guess it’s safe,” Tony said and followed her.
Beth and the others followed Tony up into the gloom.
They gathered in the wide hallway upstairs. Doorways to rooms lined both sides of the hallway which ended at a far wall.
Carla went to the first doorway and peeked inside.
The room was nearly empty except for an old, stained mattress in a corner. There were a few small piles of debris, but nothing else.
None of them entered the room. They made their way down the hall to the next door which was wide open, the floorboards creaking under their weight.
The next room was empty except for more junk against the far wall underneath a window that looked out onto the flat roof of the next building. The junk consisted of bits of wire, pieces of scrap wood, a small piece of metal pipe.
Tony and Carla entered the room first and they walked towards the window. Tony eyed the junk on the floor, looking for anything that could be useful.
Eugene, Beth, and Ray entered after them.
A closet door caught Eugene’s attention—it was halfway open. He walked towards it and pulled the door open, ready to jump back if anything popped out at him. But nothing jumped out—the only sound was the hinges squealing in protest.
Eugene stood there for a few seconds in the open doorway, looking down at the closet floor in shock.
“What the hell?” he said.
CHAPTER TWELVE
“What is it?” Tony asked as he and Carla hurried over to Eugene, huddling behind him, trying to see what he was looking at down on the closet floor.
Eugene squatted down in front of the doorway to the closet, and he was about to reach his hand inside …
“Eugene, stop!” Carla yelled.
Eugene pulled his arm back and looked up at Carla who hovered over him.
“It could be a trap,” she said.
Eugene looked back down at the floor inside the small closet which was covered with wallets, purses, jewelry, packs of cigarettes, money clips, cell phones, pagers, and other personal items.
“Holy shit,” Tony whispered. “I told you we’d find something up here.”
“I guess we’re not the only ones who’ve been here before,” Beth said.
Eugene was about to reach into the closet again, but this time Tony’s voice stopped him.
“Maybe Carla’s right. This could be some sort of trap.” He handed Eugene his stick. “Here, use this.”
Eugene took the stick and jabbed it into the pile; he raked the stick back towards him and pulled out a wallet. He grabbed the wallet and opened it, rifling through it.
“What’s in there?” Carla asked Eugene.
Eugene pulled out a driver’s license and read it aloud. “Howard Franklin. From Arizona.” He tossed the license on the floor and looked through the rest of the wallet. “No money. A picture of his wife and kids, I guess. Two credit cards. A triple A card. A library card.”
Eugene tossed the wallet aside and reached into the closet.
“The stick,” Tony hissed.
Eugene glared up at Tony. “This isn’t a trap. They wanted us to find this. They wanted us to see this.”
He turned back to the closet and grabbed another wallet and opened it. Again, he read the driver’s license. “Eric Gomez. Born on March sixteenth, nineteen eighty-five. From California.”
Eugene tossed the wallet aside and grabbed a small Coach clutch purse. He found the driver’s license inside and read this one aloud. “Wendy Mason. Texas.”
Tony ran a hand through his dark hair, sniffling. “Shit, that’s a lot of people.” He shook his head in disbelief. “All of those people couldn’t have been here in this ghost town. No way, man—that’s not possible.”
Carla squatted down right beside Eugene and she plucked a cell phone from the pile. She pushed the buttons, but nothing lit up. She turned the phone over and opened the back. “No battery,” she told them.
“What a shocker,” Eugene grumbled.
Carla tossed the cell phone back into the pile, and she grabbed a pack of cigarettes. “Ooh, cigarettes. I bet I know who would want one of these.”
Tony snatched the pack out of Carla’s hand with lightning speed.
“Hey!” Carla said.
“Too slow, sister. You see a lighter down there somewhere?”
Carla looked through the pile and found a lighter. She flicked it a few times, but it didn’t light. She shook it. Empty. “It doesn’t work,” she told Tony.
Tony sniffed at the pack of cigarettes, inhaling deeply. Then he looked back down at Carla. “Look for another lighter in there.”
Carla got to her feet and smirked at Tony. “Look for it yourself.”
Beth walked away from the closet—it was too crowded for her. She walked over to Ray who stood by the one window in the room that looked out onto the flat roof of the building next to the hotel; the flat roof lay three feet below them outside the window. Beth could see the buildings on the other side of the street in the darkening gloom from this window. She could just barely see a flash of white from the church steeple at the end of the street, but the other buildings were blocking most of the view of the church.
“You alright, Ray?” she asked him.
Ray nodded, still staring out the window. “I just don’t want to be here anymore.”
“I know. We’re trying to get out of here.”
Beth glanced back at the others, watching them as they picked through the contents on the closet floor.
Carla backed away from the others. “It’s getting dark.”
Eugene and Tony continued sifting through the items.
Eugene stood up, giving up on the search through the items. “There’s nothing in there that’s going to help us. No working lighters. No cell phones. Nothing.”
“Come on,” Carla told them, practically ushering them away from the closet. “I think we need to get downstairs and make some kind of sleeping arrangements while we can still see.”
“Who the hell’s going to be able to sleep,” Tony said.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Hours later Carla and Beth sat against the wall in the nearly pitch-black darkness of the hotel lobby. There was some small amount of light coming from the stars and half-moon outside in the night sky, but it wasn’t penetrating the hotel lobby too well.
Earlier they had pulled off some of the white sheets and canvas tarps from the piles of furniture at the back of the room. They were worried about booby traps, but they had to take their chances. As the darkness fell, the temperature dropped as well.
The men spread out the canvases and sheets on the wood floor near the table and chairs. Beth and Carla took two of the white sheets and sat against the wall where the steps led upstairs. They had all agreed to sleep in watches, and Beth and Carla took the first watch. After a few hours they were
supposed to wake up Tony and Eugene.
Tony, who had wondered earlier who could sleep in a place like this, was sleeping soundly; he was just a black lump in the darkness rolled up in a canvas tarp. Eugene and Ray had more clothing on to protect them from the cold and they just lay on sheets of canvas. Ray was snoring loudly.
Beth took a small sip of water. She was on her last bottle of water, and she wanted to conserve it.
“Your husband do that to your face?” Carla asked Beth.
Beth looked at Carla and she could just make her out in the darkness beside her.
“Yeah,” Beth finally answered.
After a long silence, Beth turned to Carla. “Sorry. I don’t ever talk to anyone about it.”
“Suit yourself,” Carla said. “If it was me, I’d wait for the bastard with a baseball bat and catch him in the knees. Then I’d beat the shit out of him until he didn’t move anymore.”
“Yeah, I wish I could.”
“Too scared of him?”
Beth didn’t answer.
“Why don’t you leave him?”
Beth still didn’t answer. She could hear Carla shifting in the darkness, maybe sitting up a little, getting closer to her, Beth didn’t look at her to find out.
“Don’t tell me you still love this guy. I don’t want to hear that shit. I’ve heard that too many times before.”
“It’s complicated. I’d love to leave him … it’s just that … it’s just not that easy.”
There was a long moment of silence.
“Where are you from?” Beth asked just to change the subject.
“L.A. Grew up in a bad area. Fell in with a gang. Easy to get in, not so easy to get out.”
Beth nodded in the darkness, but she had no idea what life in a street gang would be like.
“I moved out of L.A.” Carla continued. “Went to stay with my aunt in San Diego. I wanted to start over.”
“Don’t you ever worry about your … I mean the gang looking for you? Finding you?”
“Sure. But I’m not going to let myself live in fear the rest of my life. I won’t allow them to do that to me.”
Again they sat under the blanket of darkness in an awkward silence. Beth listened to the heavy breathing and snoring from the men. She tried to pick out each man’s breathing, trying to make sure they were all really asleep.