The Other Room

by James Everington

  The Other Room

  Weird Fiction by James Everington

  Copyright © 2011 by James Everington

  Cover Design © 2011 by James Everington

  Cover Photography © 2011 by Neil Schiller

  These stories are works of fiction. Names, characters and incidents are either products of the author's imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from the author.

  The author asserts the moral right to be identified as author of the work.

  Home Time first appeared in Morpheus Tales issue 11.

  www.morpheustales.com

  A Writer's Words first appeared in the Shade City Press anthology The Psyche Corrupted.

  http://shadecitypress.proboards.com/index.cgi

  Thank you to friends, family, and anyone who has ever recommended a good book to me.

  Especial thanks to Sarah.

  The cover photograph was taken by Neil Schiller. Neil's an author too, and a good one. Check out his short story collection Oblivious.

  www.neilschiller.wordpress.com

  For more info, visit me at www.jameseverington.blogspot.com

  CONTENTS

  The Other Room

  Home Time

  Some Stories for Escapists #1: The Werewolves

  First Time Buyers

  Schrodinger’s Box

  The Watchers

  Some Stories for Escapists #2: The Plague

  The Final Wish

  A Writer’s Words

  Some Stories for Escapists #3: The Haunted House

  Red Route

  When The Walls Bend

  Author's Notes

  The Other Room

  Waits exited the lift and walked along the hotel corridor to his room. The first day of the residential training course – all buzzwords and jargon – had left him weary, but he knew he had hours before he could expect to sleep. He hated hotel rooms. He knew what it would be like - he'd call Teresa, to get it over with, then flick through the TV channels all night, resisting the lure of the mini-bar and the adult films; the thought of his co-workers finding out he'd put porn on expenses filled Waits with shame, even though he'd never done so. But what was the alternative? He knew no one else on the course, and he didn't want to sit alone in the hotel bar all night.

  He reached his room and fumbled his card from his wallet – the hotel didn’t use keys for rooms but swipe-cards – and stuck it in the slot. The light clicked green and he entered. His left hand groped for the light switch, but couldn’t find it – no matter, the room was still light.

  Waits was used to staying in hotel rooms with his work, and so he didn’t immediately notice what was wrong. The walls and carpet were the usual hotel colours, the usual non-descript reproduction painting was hung over the pointlessly double bed. Suicide-proof windows that you couldn’t fully open. To his right, a door to the bathroom; to his left the open wardrobe in which his spare suit hung. His suitcase was underneath. (Waits travelled light and had little to unpack.) The dirty coffee cup on his bedside table that housekeeping still hadn’t cleared away...

  But it was all the wrong way round.

  It took Waits a few seconds to convince himself of this, but it was true. Yesterday after he had checked in, he had gone up to a room identical to this except it had been on his left where the door to the bathroom had been. He had hung his spare suit, identical to the one he was wearing, in a wardrobe on the right hand side of the room, then shoved his suitcase underneath it. Now everything was reversed, as if he was looking at a reflection of his hotel room in a mirror (somewhat oddly, the rooms in this hotel had no mirrors themselves – this had struck Waits as strange when he had noticed, but for a middle-aged and married man such as he, it had hardly seemed important). Without thinking, Waits dropped his left arm, still fruitlessly searching for the light switch on the wrong wall.

  He pulled out again the pass-card for his room which the hotel receptionist had given him. But they were purposefully blank, in case guests lost them or had them stolen. For this very reason Waits had memorised his room number – 224.

  Slowly, he turned and opened the door behind him: the number on it was 222. He was in the wrong room, the room next door to his own.

  Impossible! Waits thought. My pass-card worked! And that’s my spare suit, my suitcase, my magazine on the desk... But still, he left Room 222, and hoping no one would see him, tried his card in the slot for 224 next door.

  The light clicked green.

  Cautiously, as if not knowing what he would see, Waits opened the door. Whose room...? he thought. He saw normal hotel colour walls, normal hotel colour carpet... To his left a bathroom door, to his right an open wardrobe... His left hand reached out and found the light switch first time. Housekeeping still hadn’t cleared up his dirty coffee cup... With the air of someone expecting something to leap out at him, Waits stepped forward into his room. He jumped as the door swung shut with a bang behind him. After being in 222, he felt like an intruder, here in his own room. He checked the wardrobe – his spare suit was hanging in it, his suitcase safely below it. He went through the door to his left, and his toothbrush and razor were where he’d left them on the sink. He flicked through the magazine on the desk: the three answers he’d managed to get in the crossword the previous night (INERTIA, PERSPECTIVE; COUSCOUS) were filled in with his own hand. The strange, tight feeling Waits had in his chest began to loosen.

  Maybe he should complain – if his pass-card opened the room next door, did that mean the man staying next door could come in here (he assumed it was a man, from the suit)? Did all the cards work for all the rooms? He started to doubt himself about the identical suits, the identical suitcases – after all how many business men like him must have the same off-the-peg suit (Waits was hardly a bespoke person)? And it had been slightly dark – all he’d really been able to see was a navy blue suit hung in the same space (albeit on the other side) to where he’d hung his. Same with the suitcase. And the person next door had had a coffee in bed the same as he had, and left the empty mug in the same place, and if housekeeping hadn’t cleared Room 224 properly, it was hardly surprising if 222 next door wasn’t tidy either...

  Forgetting slightly, and wanting to avoid a confrontation with the hotel staff, Waits turned on the TV. But still...

  Waits decided that he would raid the mini-bar later, regardless of the consequences to his own wallet.

  ***

  He had another drink after arguing with Teresa. ‘Argument’ wasn’t quite the right word for the short, overly-polite conversation he’d had on the phone with his wife, but Waits couldn’t think of another. Waits had briefly described his day, but knew she hadn’t been interested – hadn’t been interested for years. Thought his job was a dead-end. She had been at her sisters, babysitting again – but Waits had had no desire to repeat that conversation.

  Still drinking, he kept his mobile phone in his hand – flicked through his magazine, pretending he didn’t know what he was looking for. The ads for phone-sex were in the back. The part of him that told him this would be a bad idea had no answer to the part of him that asked what else could he do alone in this hotel room with hours before he could sleep. He dialled, entered his credit card number.

  After an expensive preamble, a menu system gave him the options: chat to blonde girls; chat to brunettes... Approaching mid-life crisis as he was, Waits pressed 5 for teenage girls. It took an age to connect. He wasn’t expecting that they’d be a real eighteen or nineteen year old on the other end - but they could at least put some ef
fort into it, he thought. The voice that answered sounded deep with age – she sounded like she’d lived the same number of years as Waits himself and had chain-smoked her way through every one of them. Waits could barely even understand what she was saying – the thick Scottish accent and poor connection didn’t help. He asked her what she was wearing, and she shouted something like she was telling off her kids in the background. Maybe she was. Initially quite excited, Waits could soon think of nothing but of the money he was pissing away.

  With a snarl of frustration he hung up, threw down the phone. He had the somewhat obscure thought that, while he wouldn’t have wanted Teresa to find out he’d had phone sex, he certainly wouldn’t want her to find out that he’d failed at it...

  It was only then that he noticed the sounds coming from the room next door.

  Waits moved closer to the wall separating him from 222. It struck him as terribly unfair – he had been unable to even wank, while the guy next door was achieving the real thing! Waits had little imagination (hence his need for the phone line in the first place) but listening to the cries of the woman next door he pictured the kind of young girl he’d requested on the phone. It’s not fair! he thought again. He’d been in that room himself just a few hours earlier. He raised his hand to slam against the wall in protest at the unrelenting noise, but another uncharacteristic flash of imagination stopped him – he imagined banging on the wall and the man next door pausing briefly, looking up and grinning almost savagely before continuing... Looking up, with Waits's own face.

  ***

  Waits went to bed finally; dreamt. The noises continued. No, no, no, he thought eyes closed, they can’t still be...

  ***

  They still can’t be – Waits was furious. Why should that guy keep him awake, why should that guy get all the luck? Waits had already convinced himself that the man in 222 was more successful in every sphere than him, and not just in his exploits tonight. He dressed himself hurriedly, for some reason in his spare suit from the wardrobe (am I still dreaming? he thought) and left his room, making sure his key-card was in his hand. For some reason out in the corridor he couldn’t hear any noise at all from Room 222 – the whole hotel seemed dead with sleep. Waits paused for a second in silence, before inserting his key-card into the slot for 222. He held his breath, wondering what he was doing.

  The light clicked green.

  He cautiously opened the door – Room 222 was silent, dark. Waits stepped in. He reached out with his left arm before remembering the light switch was on the right.

  There was a voice of muffled complaint at the light, but no real anger. There was a girl lying in the tangled sheets of the double bed. Waits couldn’t see the man anywhere. Am I still..., he thought as he took the girl in – her sleepiness, her tousled hair and unmade up face made her look even younger. Yawning, she looked at him with no surprise; she mumbled something sleepily as if she knew him.

  “You’re all dressed up,” she said smiling. “Was that because I said I liked you all smart like that?” Waits looked to his right, no left, saw that the wardrobe in this room was now empty, the suit no longer hung from its hanger. Why be surprised, he thought, when you’re wearing it? But no, he told himself, that isn’t... He moved forward, looking in the bathroom – the man wasn’t in there either. There was nowhere in the room for him to hide – where’s he gone at this hour, Waits thought. And why hasn’t that girl realised yet that I’m not him?

  He took a slow step towards her; she smiled invitingly. It was a false, paid for smile he realised. “So you’re in your nice smart suit,” she said. “How do you want me?” It’s a dream after all, he told himself, why expect a dream to make sense; to be like your own real life? But I woke up, he told himself back, this isn’t...

  The girl was still smiling.

  Suddenly he felt afraid – Waits couldn’t have said why. But something wasn’t right, something was off-key... Not running, almost politely and with genuine regret, he backed away from the young girl, left the room. Hurriedly he used the swipe-card on his own door, half afraid that he wouldn’t be let back in...

  The light clicked green.

  As soon as he was back in 224 he could hear the sounds again, the excited whisperings coming through the wall. They can’t still..., he thought; I just left there... He got back into his bed, and still the fucking noises from next door carried on. But no one was in there but me and her! he thought. And again, that it wasn’t fair. But he’d been there, if he’d stayed and gone to her, then the noises would have been him... Despite how aroused he was, Waits managed to fall asleep; or to sink deeper into sleep, if indeed he had been dreaming.

  The next day was the last day of the training course and he checked out of his room early.

  ***

  By that evening, the events of the previous night seemed unreal to Waits. Scenes from someone else’s life spliced into his own. Now he was back in his house with Teresa. She was watching some show about relocating to the country. She always seemed to be watching some show about relocating to the country, or another country, another continent.

  “They’re just adverts, these shows,” he’d said to her once. “Adverts with advert breaks in the middle, for things you don’t need...”

  “You always say that,” she’d replied, not taking her eyes from the screen. “You always say we don’t need things just because we can’t afford them.”

  She thought he should have been promoted by now, Waits knew, thought that if he couldn’t provide her with what she really wanted (and he couldn’t, the doctors had been quite clear) then at the very least he should have applied himself at work, so they could have a new house, new car... Waits wanted to tell her that he didn’t care about such things, money and promotion, that he was happy as he was. Except he wasn’t.

  “I think I’ll go up,” he said. “Bit tired after that hotel. Looking forward to getting into my own bed...” He knew that if she said she was coming up too, there was a reasonable chance they’d make love. “Okay,” Teresa said, not taking her eyes away from the refurbished kitchen of an old Victorian cottage. Waits went up slowly, delaying getting into bed alone, knowing he wouldn’t sleep, but lay there thinking about young girls in hotel rooms the exact opposite of his.

  The next day he was called into the manager’s office at work – it had been the managers idea to send him on the training course and he wanted feedback. Waits listened as the rest of the staff chirped their approval, even though they’d not even been on the damn course. He felt tired and out of sorts – coming back to work after a gap, even a few days for training, made him realise how artificial, how unnecessary it was that he be in this office; how his life wasn’t preordained to be like this, and that the problems he spent his life worrying about could have been someone else’s entirely... He was listless and not quite settled back in, and so when he gave his opinion on the course he was surprised to find he told the truth:

  “It was all just common-sense,” he said, “just with a few pieces of jargon and pointless acronyms. No one’s going to come back and do anything different after it.”

  His boss and co-workers all looked slightly surprised – whether at his opinions, or just the fact that it was the most forthright thing Waits had ever said in the office he didn’t know. But later his boss spoke to him in private, and said he had been impressed.

  “You told the truth,” he said. “Fancy trying out another course for me, see what you think? Be my guinea pig?”

  “Huh?” Waits said. The boss being complimentary was unexpected.

  “There’s another course – might be useful for the rest of them, might not. I’ll let you try it out – give your opinion. It’s at the same hotel – have my PA book you a room.”

  “Oh it’s all right, I can do that myself,” Waits said.

  ***

  “Room 224,” he said, and although the receptionist on the telephone was surprised at a customer demanding a specific room when they were all identical, she had no rea
son to refuse.

  ***

  The light clicked green.

  The room hadn’t changed in the week he’d been away. It was hard to imagine anyone else had even stayed here – maybe just carbon copies of Waits. He unpacked, although all this really consisted of was hanging up his spare suit, taking his next day’s shirt and a magazine from his suitcase, and putting his razor and toothbrush in the bathroom.

  Still no mirror, he noticed.

  He put the TV on, flicked through the channels, and part of him knew he had it on louder than he needed. To drown out any noises. But as far as he could tell, 222 next door was quiet.

  It was early on Sunday evening – the course started Monday AM.

  Bored, he went to the window, but it still didn’t open more than an inch. Do they think we’re all going to kill ourselves? he thought. He had hours to kill, he had told Teresa he was leaving early “in case of traffic”. Now Waits sat on the end of the bed, drummed his fingers on his thigh. He turned the TV off; cocked his ear. He couldn’t hear anything.

  I’d only be checking, he thought. Chances are the light will be red – they’d have reprogrammed the cards; it wouldn’t even be the same card... I’ll just be checking that there’s no longer an issue; no chance anymore some stranger could get in here and steal my... Steal my identity, Waits thought vaguely – identity theft was all over the news, although he didn’t really understand what it was. Even if the door clicked open, chances are there wouldn’t be anyone even staying in 222, never mind anyone present. And even if there was it wouldn’t be him; wouldn’t be her. Wouldn’t be him who had hired that girl. Who he had dreamt anyway. (Waits had convinced himself the girl had been an escort, although this did little to ease his feelings of inadequacy – he was just as envious of a man that would dare hire a prostitute as he was of one who could pick up girls in bars.)