John's Lawn

Thea’s eyes stung, watering at the incandescent bulb in front of her. Wiping the tears away, she found herself staring up; looking down, she found a man seated at a desk, calmly waiting for her to speak. Passing a glance at her surroundings, Thea found neat and polished oak furniture sitting atop well maintained rugs which laid atop oak floors a diamond inspector could traverse the entirety of and not find a single nick or scuff. 

On either side of the clerk sat coat racks. Past the racks and the desk sat two hallways, one which climbed up, curling in on itself so tight it could be mistaken for a set of hallways. The second slunk down into the earth, carving paths down to the core not unlike an anthill.

“I’m sorry, this is a hotel right?”

“Yes madame, are you looking to procure a room?” The man repositioned his glasses in practice, holding immaculate posture even with the strange palming gesture. Some might say he would be shot if he was anything but perfect, but those people would be wrong. The clerk was happy, relaxed, content, leading one to presume he slept tucked in with arms at either side of him. He might dream of working at that hotel, waiting for the next passerby to enter his establishment needing a night’s rest. These people too, would be wrong. The clerk, Liam, as he was known, slept on his left side, he’d heard some years back that was the healthiest position for his heart. Assuming he did dream, no one could guess what those dreams held. He kept them to himself.

Another might proclaim he has a fitted suit for each day of the week, each one the same charcoal with a white under shirt that he took to the dry cleaners early each morning to make sure they were as flawless as his jawline. This assumption too, is wrong. He carried eight fitted suits, each one a different shade of black, all except the eighth which was a pristine white that he wore to the dry cleaners. Once they’d all been cleaned, he’d head home and change into his Monday garments to get his day started.

The only thing expected about Liam would be his morning routine. He woke at four in the morning without the aid of an alarm. He would get out of bed with his flawless posture, make his bed, then head to the bathroom to shower, floss, and brush his teeth. He would part his neat hair; shave his neat face with a his sharp straight razor, and get dressed just as sharp. By five he had breakfast prepared, sometimes soup with salad and toast, other times he indulged in two eggs as well. By five thirty, he would be at his desk, waiting patiently.

“I think so.” Thea replied, “I’m tired.”

“Of course, will that be cash or card.”

Thea reached in her pocket but found she’d misplaced her wallet, checking again, she found her keys were also missing. She reached for her purse, but it too was gone. A spike of fear jumped in her chest, one she was too exhausted to act on. In a brief spurt, she glanced the room once again, but her belongings were left unseen in the pristine waiting room.

“I can put it on your tab if you would like.”

She looked back at the man, “No, I can’t do that.”

“Truly, it’s okay. I have a spare room for situations like this. It’s dingy, not fit for my usual clientele. No matter what I do I can never seem to get it right. If you’ll have it, I will only charge you half. Pay whenever you can.”

“You would do that for me?” Thea asked, the concern of her belongings still prodding at her. Had she left them in the car? Or was it a taxi she came in? Thea couldn’t recall exactly, she was too exhausted.

“Of course. What’s the point in owning all of these rooms if I can’t give someone a place to sleep? As I said, the room is a bit dingy, but you have my word that it is clean, simply not well maintained.”

“I… don’t know where my purse and wallet went.”

“Of course, we have a phone if you’d like to use it.” Liam gestured at a rotary phone on the left wall between two windows.

“Thank you.” Thea approached the phone, her steps muffled as if she’d left her shoes wherever her purse was. Down the well-lit hall to her right, a light flickered, her head swung to see an ancient grandfather clock at the end of the hall. The weights strained and pulled at one another, up and down, ticking the second hand ever-so closer to its final hour.

She looked back to the phone, finding it already in her hand. Reaching up, she set a finger in the ‘9’ slot, she dragged it, clicking all the while, until it met the finger-stop. Thea followed with two ‘1s’ and waited for the ringing. It rang once, then twice, then, “9-1-1, what is your emergency?”

The operator asked questions, Thea answered questions, and before long the call was over. She didn’t recall much of the conversation, she’d been distracted by the grandfather clock. Some of the questions she didn’t have an answer for, but still came to her, those were the answers she couldn’t recall. When she tried to remember, a hum resonated through the air, vibrating the air in her lungs, and making her cough, and so in time, she gave up, admitting she needed sleep more than her memory. 

Setting the phone down, she turned back to the clerk, “It sounds they’re taking your possessions quite seriously. That’s wonderful news.”

Approaching the desk, she found a key already sitting in front of Liam. ‘ROOM: MB-0’ dangled from the blunt end of the key. “And the payment?”

“As I said, worry about that when the police find your belongings. Now if you’ll follow me…” Liam stood, his form tailored as he left the desk behind. He walked past Thea, “This way.”

She grabbed the key and followed him to the entrance. “Is the room outside?”

He turned back to her with an eyebrow raised, “That would be absurd. It’s right through here.” Beside the door she thought she’d come in through was a sign. ‘MB-0,’ it read. “It’s the only room on this floor.”

Thea proceeded toward the door, inserted the key, and unlocked the door. Inside was a tidy, but unfinished room. Paint chipped just above the floor. The hard wood was unpolished but smooth, and the light was dimmer than the rest of the building. The bathroom to her right sat open, light on. The bed at the back of the room sat front and center, waiting for her. “I can sleep here?”

“Well I can’t have you sleeping in the lobby, and certainly not out in the rain.” He said, turning in one smooth motion to leave, “I must be off to bed. If you need anything, my night clerk should be in soon.” Liam left Thea to her room. Before she could ask anything else of him, he was gone.

Taking one last look behind her, she entered. Her hand released the handle just as the door closed, and she quickly locked it. Thea wandered the room, passing glances over each object. The coat rack to the left of her bed sat splintered; a rough end table sat at the other side of the bed, wielding a stained lamp and book; an old oil radiator sat a few inches from the wall, paint cracking here and there. The chest at the foot of the bed was fine, short of the greening copper bands that wrapped it.

Eventually, Thea found herself in the bathroom. The mirror was stained at the corners. The tile floor was shiny, pristine, slight of the moldy crevices between the tiles; a clean shower curtain hung, protecting the floor from anymore water damage; and the ceramic tub, while overdo for replacement, was held together alright with no shortage of patchwork.

Thea ran the water, it was steaming right out of the pipes, so she turned the heat down before pulling the plunger, and hopping in the shower. Her clothes and shoes sat idly on the toilet, awaiting her return.

Eyes closed, Thea rubbed conditioner into her scalp, letting the water drift down her back, coasting over goosebumps like pebbles in a creek. With a hefty sigh, she leaned her head back into the stream, her long hair lapped up the water, falling into a dense forest of strands. Running her fingers through the forest, a thumb brushed a branch. She froze, looking to her left. Through the curtain, a tall, lanky shadow stood still as a stick bugs catching sight of a bird. The figure, which surely couldn’t be a human-sized stick insect, made no move.

Slow, to follow the stick’s lead, Thea reached for the curtain and yanked it back. The empty bathroom was silent, short of the water still pattering against her skin. She looked behind her to find a grab bar with several strands of her hair dangling from it. With a cold shiver, raising new goosebumps, she finished rinsing with the curtain open before jumping out and drying off.

She slipped her clothes back on carefully, keeping her eyes trained on the door. Shirt in hand, Thea took a sharp breath and threaded it over her head in half a second. She shook her head, chuckling to herself. Even with the laugh, her skin prickled. It was stupid, of course. Thea knew she was the only one in the room, but the bathroom walls breathed down her back, leaving her shivering in the warm, humid room. Had she left the door open? She couldn’t remember closing it, but she’d never left a bathroom door open in her life. Had she?

Crossing the border to her room, she looked out at her temporary home. The radiator, the end table, the chest, the nightstand, the bed. With another shiver, Thea looked over the radiator, the light was on so she hurried over to it, holding her hand over the open grills. It was hot, but not enough to warm the room, so she turned the heat as high as it would go and hovered her hands over top of it. Hands together, rubbing against one another, she looked out in front of her. A window with pulled curtains sat, gathering condensation. Two droplets raced each other down the window, but one stopped, and the other continued on, leaving the other behind. Thea stared until her eyes blurred over. Turning away, she wiped her tears away.

“What the hell?” Thea whimpered, plopping face first into her bed. The tears flowed unfettered, coming in spurts. In time, she rolled to her back, feet dangling off the bed. The incandescent bulb overhead wasn’t blinding, but she still reached a hand up to blot it out. “What’s wrong with me?” She whimpered again, crawling into the covers and letting the comforter consume her. Finally, she let out a vibrant, exhausted sigh, and the tears stopped. Her muscles relaxed. Briefly, she considered turning out the light, but she was too comfortable, too tired, too…

Thea’s mind drifted, slowly leaving her behind. But something kept her tethered. Why was she at the hotel? It nagged at her. She’d been prone to forgetting things. At work, sticky notes littered her desk to remind her of important dates. Even the calendar didn’t work because she would forget to check it. She always kept sticky notes in her back pocket, it was the one thing she did remember. Why not this time? She would’ve left a note in one of her pockets, to remind her if this was a business trip, what the business trip was about. But instead…

A creak sent her upright, looking for the source. No one was there, even the bathroom was still closed. Or… had she closed it? She couldn’t remember, but she was pretty sure she shut it behind her. The creak hadn’t come from over there anyway. It was to her right, but there was nothing different there. No one standing over her, nobody looking in through the window, just a repetitive tapping coming from nowhere.

Thea pulled herself out the right side of bed and wiped her face dry again when a knock came from her door. She looked at it, halting. Waiting for another knock, she found her finger tapping her thigh, metronomic tapping, her heart sped to meet the sound, but it followed just out of suit, staying just out of reach. A cool breeze flowed down her back and she turned to look, finding nothing; it tangled her intestines, tightening them around her stomach.

Another knock brought her back to the door. As if the space dragged itself to her, she was in front of it, hand outstretch. Glancing behind her, the bed was in the right place, sitting beside the end table, behind the chest. With a blink she was face to face with the door again. She took a stuttered breath, then grabbed the handle, pushing it open.

The lights beyond were dim, perhaps to not blind any guests leaving their rooms in the middle of the night, but there was no one at the door. Ahead of her, there was no desk, no couches, no phone. To her right however, there was a single ancient grandfather clock, ticking faster than the second hand, the weight swung out of rhythm with both.

Unsure why she’d opened the door to begin with, she made to close it.  Thea jumped back, falling on the ground beyond the threshold of the frame. The coat rack rolled on its base like a dreidel out of momentum. In a moment where no sense could be found, Thea wondered if the coat rack was responsible for the breath on her neck.

Thea jumped up, slamming the door shut. After a breath, she laughed at herself, twisting the knob. Twisting the knob. TWISTING THE KNOB! She looked down and the handle was gone. The door sat, waiting patiently for the bore hole it so adamantly deserved. It was a beautiful oaken door, it deserved a handle, it was made to have one. Why? It asked her. Why have you taken my handle? Of course, she’d done no such thing, and doors don’t speak; this was simply how Thea felt it was judging her.

With no means of getting to her room, Thea ran past tables, candle tapers, and paintings, down the descending hall in search of night staff. She passed hundreds of paintings before finally, her jog turning into a sprint, she neared the brighter lighting at the end of the hall. I must have misremembered. She thought. We must’ve gone down one of the halls. The incandescent bulbs were in sight, she was only a few paintings away when something caught her sight. She stopped, looking at the art that halted her advance. Rough, straight, black brush-strokes. There was no pattern to them, they filled the white canvas, layering over each other in parts, completely separated in others. In the dim light, one of the intersecting joints twitched and she stepped back, waiting for it to jump out at her, but the painting was steady, unchanging. With a gulp, she finished her walk down the hall, eyes darting around side to side until she came to the waiting room.

The room was just as she remembered it save for three missing items: The clerk, a couch, and table. An exit and a phone remained, to her relief. She would call a taxi, have them take her somewhere. Maybe it would be whoever brought her here and they’d bring her things. She ran to the phone, picked it up, then hesitated. What was the taxi’s phone number? Thea checked her surroundings for a phone book. There had been one on a nearby table, but it was the same one that had vanished. Looking over the whole room, it hadn’t been left anywhere, but a thought occurred to her and she ran to the desk, searching the cabinets up and down until she found it. Dragging the yellow-pages to the phone, she opened it to the ‘Taxi’ section and found a name that looked familiar, then grabbed the phone and dialed.

The line rang… and rang… and rang. “The number you are trying to reach is not available–.” She hung up and tried another one, “The number you are trying–.” Another company, “The number–.” A fourth, a fifth, a sixth. On the seventh, a male voice answered, “Hello?”

“Oh thank god, I’m loo–”

“The other clerk isn’t coming in.”

“P-Pardon?”

“The other clerk won’t be in tonight.” The line went dead.

Thea turned slow, observing every inch of the dim waiting area. It was overdo for a sweep, the fine polished floor was scuffed and scratched, even the desk she’d just been at was in need of dusting and a fresh coat of paint.

She dropped the phone, giving the desk another look over. There was a hand print where she’d held on while looking for the phone book. On the customer side, someone had swept a small patch only an inch from her hand. Looking back at the exit, she couldn’t see past the glass door. The exit sign over top flickered and she stepped back, bumping into the desk. Jumping, she ran back to the phone, dialing 9-1-1. It didn’t ring, there was no dial tone, only a constant tapping from all around her. To her right, a new sound emerged like tearing velcro. Her gaze turned to the sound to find a fuzzy image. In the lightless hall, something splattered against the ground. Eyes like a hawk, she stared at the writhing object. With each twitch, the light overhead flickered. Slowly, the creature stood, limbs jutted, appendages extended from each in a disorganized mess of stiff, inky black protuberance that had no body to tie them together. It fell over its own weight and Thea ran, sprinting down the descending hall.

She ran, legs flailing under her straining ankles until she fell over herself. To her left, a chair collapsed into itself, reemerging as a mess of addendum, not even the seat to connect to. It dragged itself toward her, making no sounds but the screaming of the floor under it being torn from the nails holding the boards down. She crawled, kicking away until she once again found her footing and pulled herself up. Pushing her crooked ankles against the splintering floor, she found herself at another turn and rounded it, passing her room ‘MB-0.’ The door was gone, along with her care for what lay beyond it. She pushed, rounding the next hall. Down and down, velcro ripped behind her, furniture crashed to the ground. Everything clattering, scraping, gnawing, squealing was consumed by an overwhelming tapping, faster, faster until it blended into one sharp whine. She collapsed once again, this time at the phone. Everything else left in the room was a cluster of limbs reaching out to her, yearning, needing to pull her in. 

Tears and other fluids pooling underneath her, Thea grabbed the hanging phone, pulling it to her ear. She screamed, begging for anyone to come through and help her, that she was at a hotel, “Liason” was the name of it, but she couldn’t find her way out and ‘Please, God, send help!’ When she stopped screaming to breath and cry and breath, something did come through, a siren, one that blended with the all-seeing whine. An amalgamation grabbed her leg, then the other, then her arm. Her free hand reached up as she was engulfed until everything went dark.

Through the darkness, a red light flickered ‘EXIT.’ She closed her eyes but it shone through, fading into blue, before coming back to red. It rotated through this cycle until Thea once again opened her eyes. She wiggled her fingers, her elbows bent, but her legs were dead weight. Pulling, the light brightened. She pulled again, releasing then outstretching her arms once again. She pulled, dragged, and rested. With enough time, she found herself at the door. Staring up at it, Thea shivered. A whimper escaped her and she gulped, looking down at her illuminated left hand. Metal glistened from her ring finger and her head fell flat, staring at the ring. Tears coasted down the side of her face as she closed her eyes. In one final strain, she pulled herself forward with her right hand, the door now within reach. With her left hand… she pushed open the door.

“We’ve got a pulse!”

“She’s still alive?”

“Miss can you hear me? Try not to move.”

Voices bombarded Thea. Looking down at her broken body, she still couldn’t remember what happened. She couldn’t move anything but her head. But with what little strength she had, Thea searched her left hand to find a tan-line where her ring used to be, a ring she’d worn for just a few short years. Some part of her wished she was dead, to not have to deal with the consequences of her actions, to not have to deal with her clerk not being in anymore. Even still, she clenched her fist into a loose grip and stared up at the roof of the ambulance and closed her eyes.