Strange Perceptions (24 page)

“Yeah,” I said. “Sleeping pills.”

He nodded. “I thought so. You find body?”

I shook my head in the negative. “I checked her in, but my boss found her the next day.”

The strange, thin man bowed and turned and left without another word.

How creepy. Was this old guy planning something similar to the old lady? That’s all I needed, some freak offing himself while I was working. And what was the deal with the caramel?

I shivered. The round clock on the wall behind me showed 9:10. I filled my mug with stale coffee and sat down to get some homework done.

I hated math and had avoided taking any math classes my freshman and sophomore years. Now I had three math classes required before I could graduate. I flipped through the pages of
College Algebra, Third Edition
, but my mind wasn’t in it. I kept wondering about unit fourteen. Finally, I could take it no longer and decided to go investigate.

I locked the office and walked to unit fourteen. Light showed through the curtains but they were pulled shut and I couldn’t see in. I listened at the door and heard voices inside. Must have been the television. I lifted my fist up to knock on the door, but hesitated. What excuse would I give for the intrusion? I sighed and turned to walk back to the office.

“Yesss?”

I turned. The old guy had opened the door and stood, neck stooped, in the door frame. He was naked, only a towel wrapped around his waist. His body looked like it hadn’t seen the sun in a century and he was so thin I swear his chest was concave.

“Sorry,” I said. “Just making sure you were settled in okay.”

“Going to shower.”

“Have a good evening,” I replied lamely and turned to leave. After a few steps I looked over my shoulder. The man had disappeared back inside the cabin.

My imagination may have been getting the best of me, but I couldn’t shake the idea that something strange was happening. It wasn’t just the weird man, but the trunk of caramel and the repeated reference to the suicide.

People are strange.

Actually, people are gross. Working the night shift, I seldom had to clean rooms, Joe cleaned up when guests checked out. But occasionally I had to launder the sheets and that’s one of the sickest jobs you can imagine. I’ve seen sheets so bloody you’d think a pig had been slaughtered on them. When I asked Joe about the bloody sheets he shrugged and said “shit happens.” One time I washed a pillowcase which was smeared with crap, as if the guest had used their pillow to wipe with. I didn’t even ask Joe about that one.

Back in the office I closed my math book. I didn’t feel like studying. For the millionth time I wished Joe had internet installed at the motel. After all, it’d be a perk for the guests and maybe he’d increase business.

The phone rang. It was unit fourteen. I picked up the receiver. “Office.”

“Help me.” His voice sounded urgent.

“On my way.” I dropped the phone and ran out the door, not bothering to lock it behind me.

I tried unit fourteen’s door, but it was locked. Damn. I forgot the key. I sprinted back to the office and retrieved the duplicate key and ran back to the cabin. Breathing hard, I fumbled the key in the lock and flung open the door. I stepped inside and froze.

The old man stood in the middle of the bed, using his cane to keep a strange creature back, poking at it like a lion tamer. The creature was a tiny, old woman—she couldn’t have been taller than four feet—and she was composed entirely of caramel.

The caramel woman turned and stared at me. Her eyes were missing. Just empty sockets. No light within. Yet she looked at me as if she could see without eyes.

I stepped backward, my mouth working but no sound coming out.

She advanced toward me. Her feet made a smacking sound with each step she took. Not when she put her foot down, but when she pulled it up. Smack. Smack. Smack.

I fell backward out the cabin’s door.

She continued advancing and reached out toward me, her arm stretching impossibly long. I screamed. But she wasn’t going for me, she was reaching for the door. She slammed it shut.

I scrambled to my feet and walked around in circles, trying to think. What could I do? What animated the caramel creature? Was it the ghost of the woman who took her life four weeks ago? One thing was certain, the man had lost control.

For a moment I considered going back into the office, locking the door, and hiding under the desk. Maybe I’d be safe until Joe came in. That was only what, another four or five hours? The wiser choice would be to hop in my car and head back to my dorm and leave this bizarre stuff behind me. I could turn on the
No Vacancy
sign and lock the office and call Joe in the morning and tell him I quit.

I decided to risk a glance inside the cabin and went to the window. The curtains were now parted enough for me to see inside. The old man lay on the floor and he wasn’t moving. She—or it, whatever it was—stood on his chest.

Without thinking I ran to the door, opened it, and rushed inside. I scooped up the man’s cane, which lay several feet from his body, and approached the creature.

Her back was to me and she twisted her head completely around, like Linda Blair in
The Exorcist
, and looked at me with her empty eye sockets. Her mouth opened unnaturally big in an inhuman grin.

I held the cane like a baseball bat and swung wildly. The cane imbedded itself in the side of her face and her head came off with a noise that sounded like a big, wet kiss.

For a long second I held the cane out with her head stuck to the end. I shuddered and threw it onto the bed.

Without the head, the body crumpled, falling across the man.

He moaned.

I rushed to his side and kicked at the caramel body. It didn’t budge. How could I get it off him? I didn’t want to touch it. Instead, I grabbed the man under the armpits and pulled him free.

On the bed the head melted into a pool of light brown goo. The body did the same, losing all form.

The old man got to his feet. “You sssaved me.”

I couldn’t speak. I just nodded.

“Usually,” he said, “they are polite.”

I found my voice. “What was that?”

He produced a pair of plastic gloves from his pocket and put them on while talking. “Miss Pottridge’s spirit. I gave her form through caramel.”

“Why would you do that?”

“She killed herself. Her spirit isss stuck.”

“Why would you do that?” I repeated.

He opened the trunk and carefully picked up the blob of caramel that had been her head. “I give them chance to speak. To help move on.” He dumped her head-blob into the trunk.

I wanted to ask how he did it and then realized I didn’t want to know.

He pulled a large chunk from the caramel pool on the floor and tossed it into the trunk.

I shuddered. “I can’t believe you gave me pieces of this caramel to eat.”

He shrugged one shoulder. “Wasss fresh.” He put another chunk into the trunk. “Sometimes even caramel is not enough for their pain.”

Without saying goodbye, I left his cabin and went back to the office. He didn’t bother me again that evening and Joe never mentioned the strange, thin man.

The following day I gave Joe my two week notice. He seemed surprised and asked me why. When I explained the incident Joe’s face went from surprise to disbelief to concern for my sanity. He didn’t believe me, but I doubt he’ll ever rent unit fourteen again.

To this day I still have nightmares, waking tangled in sweaty sheets, the image of the tiny, old, caramel woman lingering.

Three Wishes and a Bath

I would have to kill my mom for giving me the psychotic little mannequin.

Okay, not literally kill her, but she’d be getting a piece of my mind. The little mannequin was six inches tall and made from blonde wood. Its jointed neck, waist, arms, and legs allowed you to bend and pose the doll.

Harmless, right? No. The tiny mannequin was alive.

It was also a misogynist jerk. A royal pain in the
tuchus
.

Let me back up. My name’s Ellie Goldstein. I’m thirty-five, never married, and according to Mom, on the verge of old-maidhood. That’s why she gave me the mannequin last Sunday.

I usually go to my parent’s house in Skokie for Sunday dinner. It’s the only time I get to eat a home cooked meal. I live on junk food, or
chazerei
as Mom says.

Last Sunday I drove to my parent’s bungalow and parked in the driveway behind Dad’s Buick Estate. I don’t know what year his rust colored station wagon is, sometime in the eighties, but I swear the car’s so big it has its own zip code.

I went through the front door. The smell of Mom’s cooking filled the house. My mouth watered.

“Ellie is that you,” Mom called from the kitchen.

I hung my jacket over the closet’s doorknob. “Yeah Mom, what’re you making?”

“A lovely brisket. Gabe set it aside special for me, he did. Come I have something to show you.”

Oh no. A surprise from Mom usually meant a nice Jewish boy, a friend’s kid who Mom just happened to invite to dinner. I asked her to stop I don’t know how many times.

I ducked into the living room. Dad sat in his recliner, watching TV, his remote poised to switch channels the instant a commercial he didn’t like came on.

“Hey Dad.”

“Hey sweetie.” He looked at me for a second and snapped his head back toward the TV. “Oh no you don’t. Not that garbage.” He switched the channel.

“It doesn’t matter when you do that,” I said.

He looked at me as if I had a baby’s foot sticking out of my ear. “They have computers to track it. When viewership goes down eventually they take the stupid commercials off.”

We’d had this conversation more times than I care to admit. His TV still used rabbit ears. No way some evil television conglomerate tracked my dad’s viewing habits, but you couldn’t convince him.

“Ellie,” Mom called. “Where’d you go? I have something to show you.”

I hooked a thumb toward the kitchen. “What’s the surprise?”

Dad changed TV channels again and shrugged. “Some stupid doll to solve your problems.”

A doll? What problems? Oh no, not the
find-a-man-and-make-some-grandkids
discussion again.

“I were you,” Dad said. “I’d head out the back door.”

I rolled my eyes at Dad and went to the kitchen.

Mom’s a short woman, almost perfectly round. Her hair is died so shiny-black it’s obvious to everyone except her it’s fake.

“Oh good,” Mom said. “Sit.”

I pulled out a kitchen chair and sat at the table.

She placed a shoebox wrapped in a red ribbon on the table before me.

“What’s this?” I said. “it’s not my birthday.”

Mom sat in the chair next to me. “I need a reason to give my favorite daughter a present, do I?”

“I’m your only daughter.”

I untied the ribbon and opened the lid. Inside was the six-inch, wooden mannequin. “Uh, thanks.”

Mom reached into the box, removed the mannequin, bent it into cross-legged pose and sat it in front of me. “Darling, isn’t it?”

I eyed Mom, wondering if she needed to adjust her medications.

“Barbara Shellings gave it to me. Some
goy
, a Romanian gypsy or something, gave it to her. Cute, isn’t it?”

“Why do I need luck?” I asked.

Mom stared at me the same way she had when I was twelve and asked her what the
mohel
did with the part they cut off.

“Carry it with you,” she said. “and you’ll have the luck of a thousand people.”

“Thanks Mom. When do we eat?”