Coda

by Keith Knapp

You’ve got to be shitting me.

  There was no lock on the knob itself; the only form of security the door offered was a rusty old chain lock. Jody secured the chain, fairly confident these things wouldn’t be able to figure out the mechanics of a doorknob. Then again, stranger things had happened lately. Like weird dollar bills with her picture on it.

  The dog-thing attempting to decipher the doorknob growled as its claws scratched against the wood of the door and the metal of the knob. The shadow of its nose appeared between the tiny crack of the doorway, its nostrils opening and closing, taking in her odor. It breathed in-and-out, in-and-out. Deep long breaths.

  To either side of the flimsy door were windows sectioned by two thin pieces of wood in a cross-pattern. Even weaker looking than the door, Jody was sure that if the animals outside wanted in badly enough, they could easily get up enough speed and jump through those windows. She didn’t think they’d have any problem crashing through the glass with those enormous skulls of theirs. Were they smart enough to figure that out? Probably—one of them had already tried the doorknob, after all.

  Scanning the room once more, she saw nothing that could be moved to block the windows. She may have bought herself some time by locking the door, but not much. The dog-things would be in here sooner or later. If she wanted out, she would have to find another exit.

  A few feet past the filthy, broken and immovable desk pieces was a another doorway, leading to a hallway drenched in shadows. There had to be a back door out of this place, and if there was, that was the way. Jody moved through the threshold with the purpose of a teenager on a mission—which she of course was. A very important mission to not get mauled by weird looking dog-things.

  Swinging the door shut behind her, her fingers fumbled up and down the wall for the light switch that wasn’t there. But maybe there was a lock or a latch or something to at least keep the door shut, to keep the beasties out there at bay, if even for only a few seconds.

  Her eyes still hadn’t adjusted to the relative darkness of the hallway, but her hand eventually found it: a chain just like out front. It’d do. She locked it then leaned against the door and tried to catch her breath.

  You know what you need to do right now? You need to calm it down. Just calm it the fuck down.

  She could still hear them out there, clawing at the door, exchanging quiet little barks and ruffs. There was no way she’d be calming the fuck down. At least not until she was out of this town and away from whatever was outside.

  Enough light flickered through slots high on the walls to either side of her to illuminate the fact that she was now in the jail section of the building. Metal bars from floor to ceiling escorted a path to the rear, where Jody could just make out the outline of another door. Her hunch had paid off. Score one for Jody.

  A scent unlike any other entered her nostrils as she made her way past the cells. Pungent and bitter, she couldn’t place it. Parts of the odor were unmistakably due to the dirty and dusty nature of the building itself. Age has a smell. But just below that aroma was something else, something new to her.

  The interior details of the cells became more clear as her eyes adjusted, the little rooms appearing like magic. Each of the cells (there were eight in total) had a rotted cloth cot neatly nestled against the far wall. A metal drinking cup lay on the floor in the second cell on her right. The idea that the cup once held water reminded Jody that she hadn’t had anything to drink in days, and she suddenly discovered that her throat had become incredibly dry. It was like sandpaper in there.

  She went inside the cell nearest her. There was a small sink in the corner. Her mouth filled with saliva at the possibility of a drink. At least it was no longer dry.

  A cockroach, its sleep disturbed by her presence, scurried out from the dark recesses of a corner in the cell. She let out a gasp and the bug froze, regarded her with nothing more than a wave of an antennae, then quickly returned to its alcove in the shadows.

  It’s okay. It’s just a bug. Just an ugly, creepy, disgusting little bug.

  Shaking away a case of the ickies, Jody proceeded to the sink. She twisted the handle and put a hand underneath the faucet, ready for cool fresh water to flow into her waiting palm.

  The pipes in the wall bumped and a creaking noise began. It traveled from the front office through the hallway and into the cell she was now in. The old rusted pipes were having a real workout trying to fill her hand with water.

  A belch of air exited the faucet instead of water. There was another bump of a noise. Something clanked behind her. The pipes shook once more, then all was quiet.

  She turned around, intent on giving it a go in one of the other cells, when she saw what the clank noise behind her had been. It hadn’t been a pipe or faulty plumbing.

  The cell door had closed shut behind her.

  She was at the bars in two seconds. She pushed on them, shook them. They didn’t move. The cell was locked.

  “Hey!” she screamed.

  A sadistic sounding wind came from out of nowhere before the word had finished exiting her mouth. The wind whistled and blustered, huffed and puffed, threatening to blow the little sheriff’s office down.

  Running to the window and peering outside, her eyes barely clearing the bottom of the sill, she saw the building next door and part of the street. Dust devils spiraled down the road. Limbs from trees sailed across her field of vision. After a few seconds, the wind calmed to a breeze, then disappeared entirely as a tumbleweed rolled up the block.

  Jody prepped herself for another yell, this time directly out the window. She sucked in a breath, and-

  -the blustery weather outside returned, obscuring the possibility of someone hearing her.

  She yelled anyway.

  “Can anyone hear me?! Anyone out there?!”

  Her voice echoed down the hallway of cells and came back to ask her the very same question.

  Can anyone hear me?! Anyone out there?!

  “HEY!”

  HEY!

  The wind grew in strength.

  “FUUUUUUUUUUUCK!!!”

  FUUUUUUUUUUUCK!!!

  A current of air mockingly screeched between the bars.

  Then, just like before, the storm died down almost instantly. But it wasn’t really a storm; the sun was still out, no clouds had formed—it was just a sudden outburst of shitty weather.

  She moved away from the window to the cell door again and placed her hands on the bars like she had seen so many actors do in so many movies. Jody closed her eyes and rested her head against the bars, a tuft of her punk-red hair flowing out between them. The cool metal felt wonderful against her skin.

  When she opened her eyes again she was staring into the cell directly across from her. Resting on the cot, an open book on his (or her) chest, was a skeleton.

  The man (Jody just assumed it was male for no other reason other than to give it a sex—in all those westerns, never once had she seen a woman in jail) lay limp on the cot, his head facing the brick wall furthest from her. One arm had fallen off the bed and hung at his side, the points of his fingers touching the floor. She couldn’t see the title of the book on his chest, but he had been halfway through it when his time was up, the spine creased so that it lay open and face down on his torso. He’d died before he’d had a chance to finish it.

  Jody’s back hit the wall behind her, and that was as far away from the corpse as the cell would let her get.

  She thought about screaming again.

  The wind picked up.

  26.

  “Jack?”

  The prevailing winds forced Sophia to raise her voice in order to make sure he heard her. It didn’t look like he had. They were strong winds, but she didn’t think that’s what was causing his hearing problem.

  Jack Welling, who had been legally bound to Sophia Josephine Baker for two years, eight months and seventeen days, ignored his ex-wife. His eyes focused on the closet across the room, his world nothing more than what was behind that door.
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br />   “Sophia, baby,” he growled, “come out so we can talk.”

  Taking a sloppy step forward—he was ten kinds of drunk—Jack rested a hand on the overturned dresser. He looked down at his feet and shook his head, trying to shake loose some Budweiser-induced cobwebs from his brain. He cocked his head to the left, reading the cover of one of the fallen paperbacks as if it held all the answers for whatever was bothering him.

  Sophia watched all this with open-mouthed bewilderment from the doorway. So surprised was she by the mere sight of a man she was positive was dead, she missed the fact that this was her room. That was her dresser, her bookcase, her bed in the corner. The paintings on the walls—one of a boat coming into a harbor and the other of a lake with some ducks on it—were the same paintings her and Jack had picked out together when they bought the house.

  Jack took another wobbly step toward the closet (almost falling but somehow managing to stop that travesty), the same closet Sophia had hidden in the night Jack had come home a bit worse for the wear. When she heard her own muffled whimper escape from behind the closet door, she knew that she was somehow, in some way, watching history.

  Mike placed a hand on Sophia’s shoulder. She didn’t snap out of a hallucination or wake up (God she wished she could wake up but she knew she was already awake, wide-fucking-awake and this wasn’t another dream) or even take in a quickened breath; she just kept her eyes on the asshole slowly making his way to the closet door.

  “You know this guy?” Mike asked.

  So the others could see him, too. Sophia wasn’t sure if that comforted her or scared her more. It was probably a little bit of both.

  “My ex,” Sophia whispered.

  “What’s your ex doing here?” Jillian asked.

  Sophia hadn’t the foggiest idea what her ex-husband—or her old bedroom and all her stuff, for that matter—was doing in this place.

  “Hey, buddy. What’s with all the noise?” Mike asked drunken Jack from over Sophia’s shoulder.

  Ignoring the mechanic, Jack frantically stepped around the fallen dresser, kicking the paperback book to the side. His right foot caught on one of the corners of the dresser, prompting him to quickly shoot an arm out toward the wall to steady himself. Another spill to the floor narrowly avoided.

  * * *

  “Hey guy,” Mike said. “You okay?” He maneuvered through the maze of a mess—horror and romance paperback novels, a few old and weary notebooks, a stack of what looked like Led Zeppelin CDs—and approached the man Sophia had called Jack. Mike stood in front of him and stared into his swamp-like eyes. “You’re being awfully rude here, buddy. Just how wasted are-”

  Mike’s new buddy stepped forward and before Mike had a chance to move out of the way, Jack was in his face…then walked right through it. A shiver and a cold wave of what felt like a million ants passed through Mike’s body as Jack gave the ultimate impression of ignoring someone by walking right through him.

  Jack continued toward the closet.

  “Mike, get out of there,” Brett said. “I don’t like this place, Rach. Tell Mike to get out of there.”

  That was some good advice coming from the kid. Mike didn’t like this place, either. Not one fucking bit. When someone walks through you like they’re a ghost, that’s a place you don’t want to be.

  A ghost.

  Jack was almost at that closet door. “Get outta there, bitch,” he said.

  Sophia charged into the room and grabbed Mike by the arm, forcing him out of his peculiar daze. She pulled him out of the room before he knew he was even moving.

  Having successfully navigated the dresser, Jack was now at the closet. “I’m giving you one last chance,” he said to the door.

  Sophia pushed Mike into the hallway, reached behind her, slammed the door shut. Roscoe bumped his nose against the door and let out a whimper.

  “Keep the door closed and don’t let that man out,” she said. “He’s dangerous.”

  As if to prove her point, something ruptured behind the door. It sounded an awful lot like a closet door being ripped off its hinges—then a woman screamed. Sophia clasped her hands to her ears and shut her eyes.

  “Jesus I can’t be here anymore I can’t believe this is happening and I don’t understand any of this,” she spat out as she turned and headed back down the hallway.

  Everyone jumped back in surprise as a loud BANG-CRASH! came from inside the room.

  Roscoe slinked away from the door, which lead to a room he no longer wished to investigate. His head swiveled toward Sophia, who was high-tailing it down the stairs. His tail drooped between his legs, his ears folded, and he followed Sophia.

  Their eyes meeting, Mike and Jillian knew they had to go into that room and see what all the ruckus was really about. There was simply too much weird shit going on and they both wanted some answers, good or bad. Just one answer would be nice, like where they were.

  Jillian turned to Rachel. “Go make sure she’s okay.”

  Rachel cocked an eyebrow at the two. “What are you guys gonna do?”

  “None of us are to be alone right now,” Mike said. “Just go check on that lady.”

  “You’re going in there.”

  “Yes.”

  “Into the creepy room with the scary guy.”

  “Yes.”

  “You people are idiots.”

  Rachel turned and followed Sophia, taking Brett with her (who was more than happy to oblige), trailing Roscoe down the stairs.

  Another crash emanated from the room, followed by the sound of a woman’s cry, which quickly morphed into a moan.

  “Yes,” Jillian said. “We’re idiots.”

  They were in the room before the moan faded away to nothingness.

  It was empty, now just another member of the fifteen rooms that comprised the hotel. No dresser, no bookcase, no carpet, no drunken asshole.

  “Very confused idiots,” Mike said.

  Jillian pushed passed Mike and made a path for the window nearest the closet, the window the drunken man was closest to before Sophia marked the room as off limits. The window was closed, the glass intact.

  “If he bailed out the window,” she said, “he had the courtesy to slide it shut before he jumped.”

  The man had walked right through him. It had been like a current of static electricity from head-to-toe. Mike shivered, trying to get the feeling to go away.

  “You all saw that, right?” Mike asked.

  “What, the ghost thing?”

  “So you saw it.”

  “Kinda hard not to,” Jillian said as she picked a lone romance paperback up from the floor. She showed the cover to Mike. A Time in Love and Hell by someone named Stacey Becker. He had never heard of the book or the author, but he wasn’t much of a reader.

  “Okay, so that was the weirdest thing to ever happen to me,” he said.

  “If it makes you feel any better, it’s the weirdest thing I’ve ever seen,” Jillian said.

  “It does not,” said Mike as he made his way for the closet. But no one would be in the closet. There wouldn’t be a scared woman huddled in the corner shivering out of fear for her life in there. Mike knew this before his hand touched the knob, before he pulled the door open, before he forced his eyes open wider to get them to adjust to the relative darkness inside of the closet.

  He proved himself right as, when his eyes finally adjusted and the creepy ghost-caused static electricity feeling left his body, he spotted nothing more than hangers full of women’s clothes neatly hung, a shoe-tree of five pairs of shoes and two see-through plastic storage boxes—the kind you get at Target—laying side-by-side, filled with what looked like the knick-knacks a person collects over the years. So not everything in the room had vanished; they had one romance novel and a closet full of thing. Mike bent down, seized one of the clear plastic containers and pulled the box toward him.

  “What’cha got?” Jillian asked.

  Mike popped off the white plastic lid. “A box of stuff.�
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  Surely enough, inside the box was a mish-mash of belongings with seemingly no arrangement at all: an old and weathered paperback copy of L. Frank Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz; another paperback, Into the Darkness by John Whitley, a bookmark nestled halfway through it; a stack of loose-leaf notebooks five inches high, all looking like they had been written in and read through ten times each; a pack of Camel Lights.

  With his patented crackle of the knees, Mike got to his feet, taking the topmost notebook with him.

  “None of this stuff fits,” said Mike.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Or maybe it’s the stuff outside that doesn’t fit,” he said to himself.

  “You better start speaking English, man.”

  Mike crossed his arms. “This town, it’s old, like-”

  “-something out of an old west movie,” Jillian finished for him. “I know.”

  “But this room, it isn’t. Or wasn’t.”

  He flipped the notebook open to the first page. In handwriting that belonged to a child was the beginning of a journal. Mike wasn’t the prying type, even under these bizarre circumstances, so his eyes only glazed over some of the words: apartment, forget, mom, stupid, assignment.

  Inside the front cover in different handwriting—this one clearly of an adult origin—were the words

  Sophia Baker

  7th grade

  Mr. Kincaid

  “This is hers,” Mike said, his head rocking toward the door. “That woman, Sophie. This is her diary.”

  Now it was time to check out the second notebook from the stack. This one showcased a more adult-style handwriting. Mike caught such topical names as Jack and Jody as he scanned through the pages.

  “This must be hers, too,” said Mike.

  “This must be her room,” Jillian said. “Or was. Before everything disappeared.”

  Shutting the notebook, Mike said, “So what was her room doing in a hotel in the old west?”

  * * *

  Wiggling his hind-quarters, Roscoe tried to find a comfortable position on the couch between Sophia and the arm rest. She had positioned herself dead-center in the couch, which only sat two. Roscoe knew he was too big to sit in her lap—he had outgrown that luxury years ago—so he simply put a paw on one of her legs.