by R. E. Vance
“Ladies and gentlemen, due to the Nakatomi Corporation's legacy of greed around the globe,” the leader spoke with a heavy German accent, “it is about to be taught a lesson on real power. You will be witnesses. If our demands are not met, however …” There was a sigh. “You may become participants instead.”
He pulled out a notebook from his jacket and checked his own scribblings, like a lecturer might before giving a grand oration. “Now, where is … 'Takagi'? Where is …” He paced about, looking the Others up and down. “… the man who …” He stopped in front of an oni—a Japanese Other who looked like the love child of a Western Devil and an ogre, complete with red skin, horns and over-pronounced lower fangs. “… used to be in charge here? Ahhh, Mr. Takagi, it is a pleasure to meet you.”
“Who, me?” said the oni.
“Indeed.” The German terrorist wannabe snapped his fingers twice. Instantly three of his henchmen grabbed Mr. Takagi and escorted him downstairs.
↔
I snatched the hotel phone off its cradle and tried to call for help. The line was dead.
So I did exactly what any man in my position would do. I grabbed the gun that just happened to be on the dresser and headed out the door (only briefly considering that perhaps this wasn’t what just any man would do).
I needed to get to the basement, and fast. Using the stairwell was out. Too open. Too easy to be spotted. The elevators would have been a good choice, of course—if they weren’t one of those glass capsules that also looked out into the foyer. Being in one was my equivalent of being a fish in a barrel. I might as well deliver myself in a nice bow and call it quits.
With those two options out, that only left me one choice: the back stairwell.
↔
I snuck out of the room and toward the back stairwell door. Opening it as quietly as I could, I briefly wondered exactly when we installed a back stairwell. Best to my knowledge, there were two exits—main stairwell and elevator. As for this interior stairwell … was it new?
Another barrage of gunfire. I didn’t have time to ponder the architectural merits of the Millennium Hotel. I walked in and, barefoot and cold, I silently made my way down the stairs.
I got three flights down and into the basement, where I heard the German speaking again. “Mr. Takagi, I am going to count to three, after which there will be no ‘four.’ What is the combination?”
From the stairwell door, I could see that the oni wore a perplexed look. “Combination? I don’t know any combinations. I’m a janitor. I work at Paradise Lot’s library. We only have keys. I don’t know what I am doing here.”
“One.”
“I don’t even own a tuxedo.”
“Two.”
“You have to believe me.”
“Three.”
“Please.”
“Very well, Mr. Takagi. We’ll have to do it the hard way.” Without hesitation, he pulled out his gun and shot the oni in the head.
I recoiled in the stairwell, and the noise of the slamming door reverberated along its hollow corridor. “Damn it,” I muttered. They heard that for sure.
I ran up a flight of stairs and in through the second level basement floor. I expected to be in the kitchen, but wound up in a room filled with cubicals that were separated by glass. Now I knew the Millennium Hotel didn’t have a room like this.
But I couldn’t dwell on it. Two of the German man’s cronies ran in after me, releasing a barrage of machine gun fire. Not a single one hit me. A miracle, given how they were literally spraying the room with bullets. But they did hit the glass dividers, which wasn’t good considering that I was barefoot. But again, a miracle: I didn’t step on any glass.
Throwing myself against the back wall, I held the gun against my chest and considered my options. But before I could even catch my breath, I heard the crunching of glass under heavy boots as the terrorists started to flank me.
Their aim may have been off when I was running, but I couldn’t count on being lucky twice. I had no choice. I got up and ran across broken glass in bare feet, shooting at them as I did.
Glass shredded my feet, but I ignored the pain, shooting at the two bad guys. BANG! BANG! BANG—
Silence. I stopped shooting and hid in a cubical, under the desk. There was no noise. I looked around the corner and saw the bodies of both terrorist. They were dead. Not only was my aim true, and theirs wasn’t, but I managed to take them down and still preserve over half a clip of bullets.
“What the …?”
I’d been in a few gun-fights in my day. Hell, when I was in the Army, I was one their best shooters. But even on my best day (and my enemies’ worst) I never shot like that. Today, I wasn’t just good. I was amazing, and imbued with so much luck that I might as well have had a horseshoe, rabbit’s foot and a box of Lucky Charms cereal all shoved up my—
“Where did he go?” I heard a terrorist cry out from the stairwell. I could see flashlights strobe-lighting outside the room. They were coming in.
I ducked down to figure out my next move. It was then that I noticed that my feet were bleeding—which was weird, because the pain should have told me earlier.
The glass had cut the soles of my feet. But instead of feeling the intense pain usually associated with multiple (and deep) cuts, I barely felt anything at all. I mean, I felt my feet—they were bloodied, and the skin was tattered, but I should have been in agony. Instead, they felt like I had merely walked barefoot on a rocky beach.
Either I was in shock or—
“This way!” More terrorists approaching. As I assessed my options, a man-sized vent next to where I was sitting popped open. Apparently a stray bullet had hit it in just the right spot.
I could crawl in, or I could stay out here and fight.
No choice, really.
Feet bleeding, I crawled into the vents. I needed to get to Holly—she was my wife, dammit—and the air ducts were the only way to do it.
End of ACT ONE
“Not bad, Action. You definitely got the ball rolling,” said Story.
“ ‘Got the ball rolling’? I did more than that. I set up the whole damn thing. Romance, action … our hero thinks he’s losing it, fantastic material for Horror. If I don’t win this night, it’s because I gave you guys so much material to work with that—”
“What about me?” clicked Sci-Fi. “Where’s my set-up?
“And me?” moaned Erotica. “They were alone in a room and they didn’t even kiss. If that were me they would have done a hell of a lot more than—”
“We’re in a building miles away from a cow,” drawled Western. “You think you got it bad, you harlot, try walkin’ in my boots.”
“OK, OK!” Story lifted her arms to silence the room. “We’ll take your protests into account when judging the story. For now, let’s keep moving. Horror.”
“Yeeesss …?” slithered the genre.
“You’re up.”
“Indeeeed … Indeed, I am.”
ACT TWO
ALIEN(ATED) minus the ALIEN
By HORROR
and told in Third Person Present Tense
Jean-Luc shuffles through the vents, painfully aware that no ventilation system should work like this. For one thing, the hotel is not big enough to warrant such heavy-duty ducts. For another, the aluminum pathways go on seemingly forever.
What is happening? he thinks. Am I losing my mind?
He looks at his watch. A quarter to eight in the evening. Not good. The terrorists have cut off outside communication, so if there is any hope of someone coming by and seeing what’s happening, it won’t be until the morning. There are still hours to go.
“That’s just fine,” he mutters to himself. “I’ll just have to deal with them myself.” He does not say everything he is thinking, though. If he were being honest, he would admit he doesn’t really care about the terrorists. All he cares about is saving Holly.
Several off-shoot vents branch out from the main line. He swears under his breath
. He is crawling inside; he has no idea which way will lead him to the main area where the hostages are being held. He’ll have to do it from memory.
“OK,” he groans. “I was in an office area behind the kitchen. The hostages are being held on the main floor, so that means … I have to go up one level and then head toward the center of the building.”
He looks for an up vent and, sure enough, there it is. He labors up the air duct. The air, for some reason, is perfectly still, and the sweat is already pouring into his eyes and obscuring his vision.
“The center is hollow, so I should find a vent that will be at foot level or …” But as soon as he reaches the top and wipes the sweat from his eyes, he sees that his reasoning doesn’t hold. The level he’s crawled up into is just as sprawled out and complex as the floor he just left.
“Am I below the lobby?” he wonders aloud as he crawls forward.
He takes a turn, then another one. Everything looks the same. Up and toward the center, he reminds himself. He takes another turn, then another.
He hears a twack-twack-twack sound from far off. The noise sounds like a muffled explosion or a silenced gunshot … and then it hits him.
The terrorists are killing hostages.
Twack.
Bullet to the back of the head.
Twack.
Another body falls.
Twack.
Images of Holly’s perfect smile dance in his imagination—her perfect smile, destroyed as a bullet burrows its way from the back of her head all the way through to the front.
“Holly … oh god, Holly. I can’t be too late.”
Jean-Luc starts to cry, first low-grade moans, then full-fledged tears. He is paralyzed by the thought that Holly is dead. He doesn’t know what to do. He sits like that for a full minute before he wipes away his tears and in a defiant voice, proclaims, “No. That’s just your imagination running wild, Jean-Luc. Holly is fine. I’m sure of it.”
He pushes forward, determined to get to Holly before the next muted gunshot. But he doesn’t know where he is or how far he must go. In his panic, he crawls and turns, turns and crawls. He has to find the center. Then up. But this place just goes on and on.
Twack.
He finds another vent that goes up. Standing, he looks first to the right, then to the left. This new level is identical to the one he was just crawling in. Still … it is up, and he can't waste time deliberating. Now all he has to do is find the center.
Twack.
It is dark and the metal is cold to the touch—a blistering chill that is only worsened by the sweat that now freely drips from his body.
He crawls forward and up and forward again … and still he cannot find where he needs to be. Frustration is growing within him. This is an endless maze, he thinks and, looking at his wristwatch, his heart stops cold.
He has been crawling in this place for over two hours.
Twack.
“No, no, NO!” he yells in frustration.
He finds another vent above his head—another level to climb up into. And this new level looks exactly like the last one, but at least he has gone up, and up is where he needs to—
What he sees stops his thought dead, for right in front of him is a trail of blood … skid marks that look like someone with bloodied feet had just crawled by.
His feet are bloody and—
“What the hell? I’ve only been climbing up, how is there blood on this level?”
But he can’t afford to waste any more time. Touching the blood, he writes the number 1 on the side of the vent before moving on.
More frantic and frustrated than ever, he propels himself forward then left, right and finally up again. Another trail of blood greets him there … and beside it, clearly visible on the wall, scrawled in his unmistakable messy handwriting, is a number.
A number he had written earlier.
In his own blood.
He looks at his watch. This time it reads nine o’clock.
He’s gone back in time.
Or his watch is broken. “That’s it,” he reassures himself. “My watch is broken.”
Twack-twack-twack.
Another three shots—was one of them Holly? Damn it, he thinks.
Damn it.
Damn it.
“DAMN IT.”
Twack-twack-twack.
With tear-filled eyes, he crawls on. There is nothing else for him to do.
On and on, he crawls.
On and on.
And on.
And—
End of ACT TWO
“What? That’s it?” asked Sci-Fi. “I thought for sure you’d have a monster in there with him.”
“No …” Horror said in a low, menacing growl. “True horror is being helpless. It is tragedy—perceived or real. It is frustration and regret that tortures the soul. Monsters in the dark and things that go ‘Boo!’ are cheap tricks that, at best, startle the audience. I seek to terrifyyy …”
The other muses stared at Horror in horror.
“I don’t know what’s more terrifying,” Action said, “you or your stories.”
“Either way … I win.”
“We’ll see about that.”
“Still, I would have liked more time. Couldn’t build the anticipation. And there was no payoff … no,” Horror sucked air through his lips, “evisceration.”
“You did enough,” said Story. “We could all see where you were going. Erotica … you ready?”
“Oh yes …” she purred.
ACT THREE
EYES WIDE OPEN and SHUT
By EROTICA
and told in Third Person Past Tense
Jean-Luc crawled forward another three feet before he felt the aluminum beneath him crackle. With the crack! and the ripping of thin metal, Jean-Luc fell through the vent and onto a plush, king-sized bed. He joined several “hostages,” all laid about on the mattress and around the equally lavish suite. They were tied up, but only a little, because even though loose rope bound their feet, they could still walk. And as for the handcuffs that held their hands together? Well, nothing bound their fingers.
Jean-Luc looked at the host of bodies. Amongst them was a naked nymph who winked at him from where she sat on the carpet, three naked sirens who called to him from the corner of the room … and on the bed lay Astarte, the succubus. She was in the arms of a sphinx, an Other whose feline curves knew only one riddle:
What burns and gives life at the same time?
Desire.
“Astarte?” Jean-Luc said, his manhood bulging in his tight cotton trousers. “Is this really the time?”
The succubus looked up from her current coupling and in a husky voice that oozed desire, groaned, “No … now is not that time. Not at all. But then again, it may be the only time we have.” She reached for him.
“What … what are you doing?”
“What I always do, Jean-Luc. Face danger with—ohhh, yes,” she groaned—the sphinx had apparently licked her in just the right place as she spoke, “—pleasure.”
“But the hostages … I mean, this is odd, even for you.”
“I know … it is, but look at all these scared Others. This could be their last day on Earth.” To this several Others gasped in mock horror. “Better to spend it in the throes of passion than the grip of fear, don’t you think?”
The sphinx literally purred in agreement as she teased Astarte’s—ahem—nose with her tail.
Jean-Luc found himself also agreeing. At least the part of him that understood desire … the part of him that had needs.
He started to roll toward Astarte and her feline companion. “No, this is wrong,” he moaned. “I’m not interested in …” But desire overtook him and—
“Ahhh, crap!” cried out Jean-Luc, desperate to escape Astarte’s allure. “Not this again!” He shook his head three times before flinging himself against the hotel room’s door.
The momentum of his manly girth forced the door open, and with a heavy breath, he foun
d himself out in the hallway.
End to ACT THREE
“Hey,” complained Erotica. “No fair. He resisted Astarte, the great succubus.”
“Done so before,” said Western. “Many times.”
“He has?”
“Yes, he has,” clicked Sci-Fi. “Didn’t you read the dossier?”
“Dossier?” Erotica moaned. “I started to, but then I got distracted with—”
“Erotica, focus!” said Story.
Erotica pouted. “No fair. I didn’t get to use all my time. If I had known, I would have never had him fall into her room. I would have—”
“Totally fair,” said Action. “You should have read the dossier.”
“Stop your whinin’,” growled Western. “You had just the same information as all of us. You were just too eager to get into his britches to do your due diligence. Now shush your mouth.
“It’s my turn.”
ACT FOUR
TOMBSTONED
By WESTERN
and told in Third Person Omniscient Present Tense
Jean-Luc expects to be thrown into his hotel’s hallway, but instead of carpeted floors he now stands on old, creaking wood. What’s more, he is not gripping the metal railing—instead his hands clasp an old wooden banister, worn down by years of sweat and splintered into submission by calloused hands.
He is no longer in his hotel. He is in a saloon, looking down at the bar.
Strewn about are the hostages, all hogtied and gagged and lying in sawdust and rat pellets. Their eyes bulge with fear of what is to come should their hero fail.
All are hogtied save one—the damsel Holly, who sits unwilling on the lap of the German terrorist. Her dress is compressed against her bosom as she is forced to straddle his knee.
“How good of you to join us,” he drawls—his German accent is long gone. “Sheriff.”
“I’m no Sheriff,” Jean-Luc starts to say, but in fact that is exactly what he is. Sure enough, his hand touches the lapel of his worn-leather vest and he feels the heavy burden that is a five-point metal star of justice. “I guess I am,” he mutters to himself. There’s nothing left to the matter, so he starts down the stairs.