Then he remembered Kawaguchi on the television. That had been real. There was a sickening logic to everything now. Suppose that he’d typed the first chapters of the detective story while he was drunk, and the machine, as preposterous as the idea was, had made his words into reality. It was irrational, and yet it eerily made sense at the same time.
He considered an alternative explanation as a pit formed in his stomach.
Am I going crazy?
He didn’t feel like he was insane, but did any madman ever know that they were crazy? Wasn’t that a part of the sickness, thinking that you were fine? Wasn’t it like a dreamer in a dream believing they were awake? How does one verify reality within a dream? How do you check to see if it’s real?
As the ambulance doors slammed shut and the vehicle sped off with its teenage occupant, something stirred within Gavin. He needed to do something, but what?
For the first time in longer than he could remember, Gavin didn’t know what to do. By his very nature, he was a person of action. Being frozen by indecision wasn’t who he was, but he only stared out the sliding door, dumfounded. It was as if he were an actor who’d forgotten his lines and the entire play had skidded to a halt.
Should he follow the ambulance to the hospital? No, it was too late for that, but he could certainly find out where they’d taken the boy. He could check on him, but how would he explain being there to the boy’s parents? “Hello, I made your boy go into a seizure with a magical typewriter that I stole from some gypsies.” That sounded even more ludicrous than it was.
Gavin tore open the pack of Nicorette gum on the dresser and shoved two pieces into his mouth.
“I could just tell them that I saw the boy fall and that I was concerned about him,” Gavin said to himself. It was true, after all. He’d just leave out the crazy parts. Nobody needed to know those bits.
Still feverously chewing the gum, Gavin lit another cigarette. The crowd on the ground level began to disperse. It felt good to have a plan. He could sort all this out later.
As the last spectator moved out of Gavin’s view, he formed an even better idea. He’d visit the kid, and while he was there, he’d toss the antique typewriter in a hospital dumpster and be done with it. Let it end up wherever they store medical waste. It didn’t matter to him. He’d be in the clear. Supernatural or just two remarkable coincidences—either way, it would all be over.
Gavin unlatched the sliding door and approached the machine. He stopped as he reread the command at the top of the page.
DON'T LEAVE THE HOTEL AGAIN.
He nearly swallowed the wad of gum. No, he was confined to the resort at least until he learned how to work this thing, whatever it was.
After a minute or so, he had an epiphany, which he whispered to himself. “If negative statements result in bad things happening, then what if I type something good?”
He inched forward, deciding he would write a line—maybe even an entire paragraph—about the boy getting better. He rationalized how a butcher knife, wielded as a gruesome instrument against a victim, could also be used to trim pork chops. “It’s all in how you use it,” he mumbled, trying to convince himself.
Gavin flicked the half-finished cigarette to the side and psyched himself up to touch the keypad. Would it burn or shock him? He was willing to endure a little pain for the sake of the kid.
He cracked his knuckles. He’d need to pay attention to the shift regulator to type correctly on the first attempt. This was especially important because if it did zap him again, he didn’t want to tough it out any longer than necessary.
Gavin’s hands hovered inches above the keys.
He felt clammy, and his heart pounded as if he were on the verge of a heart attack. What if he made it worse? What if merely typing something more about the boy moved him into greater jeopardy?
Stupid kid. Why was he riding around in the parking lot, anyway?
He wiped his sweaty palms on his pants and then returned them to the ready position above the keys. It was up to Gavin to work this out. He must set it right to fix what he’d broken in the bratty teenager.
It felt like a game of chicken with a semi truck with him in a Subaru. He couldn’t afford to type the wrong thing, but something had to be done. At the last second, he impulsively decided to perform an experiment. Eighteen rapid strikes later, his test phrase displayed in eerie burgundy letters.
THE WOMAN LAUGHED.
Gavin read the line aloud. While the keys had been warm against his fingertips, he hadn’t been burned. He resisted the urge to touch the text this time as the characters darkened on the page, noting that the change happened much faster than before. He also noticed the absence of the lavender smell that he’d expected.
He’d typed the most innocuous phrase he could think of. It was completely safe and had no connection to the bike boy.
Gavin waited, pausing to listen for screams or sounds of chaos. As expected, everything was otherwise peaceful. There was no activity from the lot below. He sighed in relief, though his heart thumped wildly. Now he only needed to type something to help his accidental victim.
His hands hovered above the keys as before. It took a minute for him to will himself to touch it again.
As he reached to type, a noise from within the suite startled him. Gavin jumped back from the machine and folded his arms. The jolt of adrenaline forced a gasp from him. The front door of the suite was still closed.
What was that?
After surveying the area, he realized that the mechanical click and brief churning sound was the suite’s laser printer starting up.
“Argh, crap! Nearly had a heart attack.” He moved to the desk.
Seconds later, the printer delivered two sheets to the document tray. Gavin snatched them up and scanned them for any new information that the concierge might have discovered. There wasn’t any. It read just as Thad had told him: his bill for HWBG—Hungry Waters Bar and Grill—applied to his room at 9:47, a room service delivery at 11:19, meal containers picked up at 12:43, and a footnote about a disturbance on the seventh floor around 11:24, which he assumed to be about his typing.
There was a friendly note at the bottom.
It’s an honor to have you writing here in the Droverton Resort. I’m looking forward to reading your new book.—T. Williams
It was easy to guess that the T was for Thad. He crumpled it up.
“Thaddeus. Who names their kid Thaddeus? That’s even worse than Theodore.”
After Gavin reread the printout, he tore the sheets into thin strips and tossed them in the trash with the wad of stale gum. He didn’t need Thad to help him investigate. The answer was clear to him now. Gavin was certain that no one had visited his room while he was unconscious. It had been him, though he didn’t understand how his typing had killed the girl.
His stomach knotted up. A wave of nausea overtook him, forcing him into the bathroom. Then the moment passed, and he knew what he had to do next. It was the only thing to do.
With tears streaming down his face, he moved to the suite’s safe. He entered the code that he’d designated, the same code he used for everything—his and Josephine’s wedding anniversary. A few electronic chirps later, a metal click allowed him to slide the panel open. Gavin delicately withdrew the opening chapters. The long scroll of paper quivered in his twitching fingers.
Why? Why is this happening to me?
He bit his lip as he crumpled the paper and shoved it into a metal ice bucket. It overflowed the container, looking like the leaves of an exotic plant spilling over the sides of a flowerpot. Wiping away more tears, he grabbed his new lighter.
Gavin had the presence of mind not to burn it in the room and set off the sprinkler system. No, he’d had enough fire alarms and sprinklers from the day before at the bookstore.
He should have stayed there and waited. He should have never taken the device from the Hungarians. All of this would have been avoided.
He would end it now and destroy the infernal d
evice once and for all. He’d erase every trace of it, including this.
Gavin placed the metal container on the far end of the balcony, away from the antique, and lit the protruding ends of the paper on fire.
“Are you happy now?” he screamed at the device. “Huh? Are you? Are you happy now?”
A woman pushing a stroller in the lot below sped up, no doubt thinking he was addressing her.
“Pffft. Hell’s bells. This whole place is going to think I’m going nuts.”
Watching the flames in the ice bucket, he said, “Who knows? Maybe I am.”
Flakes of black ash lighter than air floated about the container, making playful somersaults before falling back into the fire. The bitter smell filled his nostrils, and fumes stung his eyes, but he didn’t blink. Gavin stared at the ruin of his first substantial writing since his divorce. His return to greatness had been short lived. While he watched, he deleted the snapshots of the story on his phone.
When the flame finished devouring the sheet, he looked over to the machine with hatefulness beyond anything he’d ever experienced. Something primal awoke within him. If not for resort guests routinely exiting from below his balcony, he’d have thrown it over the edge and broken it into a million pieces. But he couldn’t take the chance of hitting someone and bringing a nice manslaughter charge against him.
Moving at a snail’s pace, he approached it.
The length of paper flowing from the top waved like a sail in a breeze, the lines about the boy on the bike and the woman laughing swaying in the wind.
Gavin had an idea—an admittedly bad idea, but something he had to try.
He leaned in to light the top of the paper scroll with his lighter. The device began typing.
YOU DON'T KNOW ME YET, BUT YOU WILL.
I'M COMING THROUGH.
His rational mind kicked in. This was impossible. After a few more unsuccessful attempts to catch fire to the paper, he decided on a different approach. Tucking the lighter in his shirt pocket, he reached for the sheet, ripped it free in a fury, and leapt backward.
With his back pressed along the outer wall, he folded the jagged sheet into quarters and threw the paper into the metal bucket. Expecting the ashen stench of burning paper, he was surprised by the sweet smell of lavender.
A gust of wind knocked him to his knees. But, to his astonishment, the gale didn’t extinguish the fire. The contents of the bucket smoldered as before.
All went quiet on the balcony.
Bird sounds in the distance carried on the breeze as if it were a normal July afternoon. He wiped his brow and let out a sigh as tiny embers flickered in the bucket.
The embers crackled and began to form an unnatural flame. Gavin felt cold as his eyes were transfixed on the image before him. Within the small, flickering flame, he saw the image of the little girl, the same vision of the child at the kitchen table playfully tapping on the antique typewriter. His eyes watered, but he was helpless to close them as the image of the girl transformed into a woman of twenty or so.
A jolt of fear shot through him. He knew this image. This was the woman in yellow from his dream. The image grew, first to the size of a doll, then double.
A paralyzing fear gripped his heart. The realization that something otherworldly was happening to him was almost more than Gavin could handle. The apparent alternative was equally as grave—if this weren’t actually happening, then he was losing his mind.
As the image in the fire grew to nearly full size, Gavin shuffled past the table with the typewriter. He slammed the sliding door, nearly shattering it, and locked it. The woman of the fire was gone—for the moment.
His cell phone clamored for his attention, rattling impatiently on the nightstand. He unplugged it from the charger and returned to his post at the door. Still nothing.
“Hello?” Gavin whispered, his eyes shifting from the typewriter to the nearly extinguished fire and then back to the device.
“Hey, I’ve been trying to get ahold of you,” Josephine said. “Why haven’t you been answering my calls?”
“Jo, I’ll have to call you back.”
“But, Gavin, I need to—”
“I’m in the middle of something here. I gotta go.”
“Why do you sound out of breath? Everything okay there?”
“No, I mean… I don’t know. Look, give me five minutes. I’ll call you back in five minutes, okay?”
“But Gavin, you—”
He hung up, lit another cigarette, and waited.
Seven
FOR SEVERAL MINUTES, HE PEEKED FROM BEHIND THE DRAPES at the machine’s last message:
YOU DON'T KNOW ME YET, BUT YOU WILL.
I'M COMING THROUGH.
He chided himself for not burning that, too, but what did it mean? Who or what was coming through? And why? Why did it want him?
He was still trembling from seeing the image of the woman in the fire. Was she the one typing? Was she attempting to communicate with him?
He had to put an end to this. He had to stop this before his mind snapped in two. Whatever this was didn’t matter. It was time he got rid of it.
Tiptoeing out the front door of the suite, he hung the plastic “Do Not Disturb” sign on the door. For good measure, he also took the signs from two other rooms down the hall and hung them on his door handle as well. “Can’t be too safe.”
On the ground level, Gavin made his way across the lobby to the concierge stand, annoyed that Thad wasn’t in sight. A woman in her early sixties with a short, mousy hairstyle looked up to greet him. Her smile pushed her cheeks high, almost obscuring her eyes. “May I help you, sir?”
“I’m looking for Thad.” He remembered the name at the bottom of the printout. “Thad Williams.”
“I’m sorry, sir. He left a few minutes ago. Is there something that I may help you with?”
He pointed at her nametag. “Vicki?”
She nodded. “Yes?”
“When is he coming back?” He motioned to the break room. “Is he back there? ‘Cause it’ll only take a minute for me to get what I need.”
She was already shaking her head. “I’m sorry, sir. Thad’s gone for the day. He worked a double and won’t be back until Tuesday. Would you like me to take a message for him?”
Scraping at the stubble on his face, he answered, “No, nothing like that. I need a big box. The size of box that something like a microwave would come in.”
“Yes, I see,” she said, thinking for a moment. “Your best bet is from the HWB Grill. That is, if you don’t mind it smelling like produce. Otherwise, we could order a special shipper from FedEx. They’ll deliver in the morning around—”
“No, no, I’m in a hurry. I need it today. I don’t care what’s been in it or what it smells like. It just needs to be the right size.”
“Understood. I’ll send a message to the manager on duty at the grill to let ‘em know. Who should I say is coming?”
“Mr. Curtis.”
Her face lit up even more. “I heard that you were staying with us, and the entire staff knows not to interrupt your writing for any reason.”
He nodded out of reflex.
Taking a notepad and pen from the drawer, she said, “Normally, I would never do this, but my grandson, Dylan, is such a big fan of the movies, and he’s getting into the books.”
Gavin stared at her. With everything he was going through, she was going to make him sign something? He didn’t have time for this.
“Look, I really have to—”
“He was in line yesterday at the bookstore, but there was a fire that forced everyone to evacuate before he could meet you.” Her smile was infectious.
Well, he was Gavin Curtis, after all. He rubbed his temples and then autographed the pad with liberal flourishes, to Vicki’s delight. “Thank you so much, Mr. Curtis, and ask for Christy at the grill.”
The lobby was a frenzy of activity. New arrivals scurried like ants to make a 3:00 p.m. check-in. The noisy clusters of guests s
eemed eager to jettison other family members in order to maximize their time at the resort’s golf course, waterpark, or day spa.
Gavin navigated through the swarm of people to the bar and grill where he’d spent the better part of the night before. Returning to ground zero of his epic hangover didn’t appeal to him. Even though the after-effects were lifting, the very thought of booze made him queasy.
He was anxious to get the machine out of his room. It wasn’t clear how, but it was apparent that the machine had some connection with the “ghost woman.”
Get rid of the typewriter, get rid of the woman in the yellow dress.
He’d get the box and be done with it and leave this town for good… except he felt peckish. The last thing he needed to do was to drop the thing due to being weak from low blood sugar levels. He decided to get a sandwich or something light on his stomach. He would have ordered room service, but he didn’t want to risk the safety of the hotel staff with the antique. Who knew what that thing was capable of? He remembered the bicycle boy. He thought of the dead female dancer on the news. He thought of the threatening message it—or she—had typed—”I’m coming through.”
As he reached the doorway of the grill, his shirt pocket vibrated—he had a call.
“Hey, it’s been more than twenty minutes,” Josephine said. “You told me you’d call back in five. Where are you at?”
“Yeah, I know. I’m at the resort. Sorry, I’m just a little preoccupied today.”
What an understatement.
“I’ve called you like a dozen times since yesterday. Mr. Hastings said the fire department came on site—that everything was going great, that you even gave some speech or something, and then the fire alarms went off and you disappeared. Are you okay?”
Gavin stroked the high gloss of the faux-wood cabin siding. He guessed that the décor was intended to make it appear as if a lodge had miraculously appeared on the side of the hotel. “Yeah, I’m all right now.”
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