Ultimate Supernatural Horror Box Set (139 page)

Rubio, resigned and slumped, put his palm over the deck and closed his eyes. His dark complexion had gone pale and sweat beaded his forehead like jewels. The people in the room shifted uncomfortably.

“No good,” Rubio said after a strained moment.

Gelbaugh, without looking, held his hand out toward the ad man. “Sucker’s game.”

“Wait,” Rubio said. His shoulders shook, as if low-voltage electricity were flowing through him. Two women, who had been whispering to one another, leaned toward the table. The entire group had crowded together so that the air around the table had become stale and warm.

“I see a curving shape,” Rubio said. “An ‘S.’”

“Swords, coins, cups, wands, empress, priestess, sun, star, strength...have I forgotten any? Ah, yes, justice. That hardly narrows it down much.”

The man knew his Tarot, Wayne had to admit. Gelbaugh was well-read on any subject he sought to ridicule.

“No, no, this is a different card,” Rubio said.

“Something in the major arcana?”

“Are those the cards without Roman numerals?”

“Nice. Pretending ignorance.”

“I don’t know these cards well. It is not good to know the future.”

Gelbaugh winked at the ad man. “Especially if the future sucks.”

“The shape moves against a field of green.”

“Could be the sun,” one of the onlookers said.

“Shh,” said another.

“It’s not going to help,” Gelbaugh said. “Any guess has the same odds as any other.”

“Snake,” Rubio said with force.

“Ha. Your odds just went from long to zero. There’s no snake in the Tarot.”

“Snake,” Rubio insisted, his eyebrows lowering and his face setting in hard resolve.

“Final answer?”

“Snake.”

Gelbaugh turned the card, revealing an illustrated snake that curled up from a meadow and into a tree. It was done in the same art style as the other cards, though Wayne had never heard of such a card in the Tarot.

Gelbaugh’s grin had frozen on his face, as if he had tasted live worms and found them bitter. “A trick,” he said.

“No trick,” Rubio said. “Your deck, remember?”

“That card’s not part of my deck.”

Rubio turned the card over, face down. “The design matches.”

“I’ve had this deck for years. That card isn’t in it.”

Wayne wondered who would go to such lengths for a prank. Gelbaugh was genuinely angry, overlooking the fact that Rubio had made a correct guess. Or perhaps “guess” was the wrong word. The wizened Peruvian had delivered his earlier readings with a studied equanimity, but his insistence on the answer of “snake” had projected passion and pride and a little bit of fear. Now Gelbaugh owed acknowledgment but all he had was rage.

Gelbaugh drove the bottom of his fist onto the table top, shaking the remaining cards. “Someone’s been in my room,” he said. “I had the deck locked away.”

“Only the hotel staff has room keys,” Wayne said.

The ad man slapped Gelbaugh on the back and said, “Even Steven.”

“He cheated,” Gelbaugh said, furiously counting the deck. “There should only be 70 cards.”

“Maybe he changed the card with his mind,” said a woman in a rumpled silk jumper.

Wayne moved closer to examine the card as Gelbaugh picked it up. The wax had the same amount of wear as the other cards and was clearly not new. It matched the other cards in all other aspects besides its depiction. Wayne wondered what the snake would mean if it were one of the arcana. Probably would imply all the historic and psychological metaphors of serpentine behavior—temptation, poison, and cold-bloodedness, with the flip-side attribute of shedding old skin. And, of course, there was also the Freudian interpretation of male genitalia.

Cristos Rubio leaned back, weary and slumped. “Snake,” he whispered with finality.

“...thirty-seven...38...39....” Gelbaugh counted.

“He pulled it from the bottom of the deck,” someone said.

“I don’t trust either of those guys,” said another.

“Cristos helped me find my car keys,” said a woman who now stood over the self-proclaimed psychic as if she wanted to market his movie rights.

“...sixty-seven, sixty-eight, sixty-nine.” Gelbaugh touched the snake card, which still rested on the table. “Seventy. Somebody swapped one out.”

“It’s your deck,” Wayne said.

Gelbaugh stood, the Tarot cards in disarray in one hand. “All of you are in on it,” he said. “You, too, Digger.”

“Hey, you didn’t even sign up for a reading,” Wayne said.

Gelbaugh pointed an indignant finger at Rubio. “If you can read minds, then you know what’s coming.”

Gelbaugh grabbed the snake card and fled the room. Rubio smiled, and Wayne noticed for the first time that the seer’s head resembled the blunt, reptilian shape of the snake.

Chapter 17

Janey despised how shabby and cramped her suite was.

Or maybe it just seemed empty and was occupied by things beyond her vision.

She’d taken 226 at the end of the second floor as a fringe benefit, telling the owners she’d keep a better eye on the place if she were on site around the clock. She told herself she wanted to save extra money for retirement, but the real truth was that she had no real place in the world outside the hotel grounds. With the curtains drawn, old photographs gathering dust on the dresser, and the drab royal purple carpet beneath her feet, she could have been in a museum. Or a tomb.

The hunting groups occasionally passed in the hall, but they were much quieter than the usual convention crowd that drank and cavorted on corporate expense accounts. Janey found little comfort in the hunters’ mouse-like passage, as if they were nocturnal creatures who wanted to go about their business undisturbed. Though Janey had sold the owners on promoting the hotel’s supernatural reputation, the shrewd calculation now seemed silly. Dozens of adults were taking it seriously.

And Janey didn’t suffer fools gladly, most of all because she now felt like one. Chad and Stevie were cashing in their chips, and she’d never know if all her hard work would have paid off. This suite that had been her home for nearly half her life would join the rest of the inn under the weight of the wrecking ball. And beyond its walls lay a world she didn’t understand.

Janey found herself glancing into the shadows that clung to the corners of her bedroom. She’d never noticed how long and angular they were, or how they seemed to shift despite the fixed location of the bedside lamp. Janey’s paperback romance, which was so ordinary she couldn’t recall the title, couldn’t dull her into sleep.

She touched the phone, considering a call to the kitchen. The boys would be cleaning up, probably smoking marijuana with rock-n-roll blasting from their CD players. She occasionally placed a special order after hours, partly to check up on the progress and partly to flaunt her power. A couple of fried eggs would be just troublesome enough for both a cook and a dishwasher, a last command from a fading queen.

She dialed the kitchen, keeping one eye on the closet, thinking of young Cody’s suggestion that demons might live in the hotel. Obviously, it was the invention of an imagination fueled by comic books and science fiction, and probably a few sniffs of rubber cement, but the notion chilled her all the same.

“Yullo,” said a male voice she didn’t recognize.

“This is Janey. Just checking to see if the kitchen is still serving.”

“We closed it down 15 minutes ago.”

“Oh.” She affected a disappointed whine. “I was really hungry.”

“We could make you something. No problem.”

She gave a breezy, cheerleader giggle. “You’d do that for me?”

“Sure. Anything for you, Miss Mays.”

“Wow. Who is this, so I can be sure to put a check mark in your personnel file.”

“It’s me, Battle Axe.”

“What’s that?”

The voice grew deeper and sounded as if it had doubled itself. “The thing under the cellar.”

Janey sat up, letting the paperback fall to the floor. “That’s not funny. I’ll have you fired–”

“Two days, Miss Mays,” the strange voice taunted. “Let them believe what they want to believe.”

She recognized the line she’d delivered to Violet earlier in the day. So the hired help was gossiping. She’d have to clean house the hard way, forcing Violet to finger this impetuous cook before Janey bounced them both out on their asses.

But how had they known the hotel was closing? She’d not told anyone.

“You’re fired,” she said into the phone, barely controlling the tremor of rage in her voice.

“Fired by the forge below, Miss Mays. The sweetboy tried to tell you, but you only believe what you want to believe, right?”

No one else had been around when Cody had mentioned demons to her. She gripped the phone and glanced into the closet. The shadows had crept closer to the bed.

No, not possible
.

She was letting Cody’s imagination get to her. If she believed the shadows belonged in the corners of the room, then they had to stay there.

Paranoia. Pending change. Fear of the unknown.

It all boiled down to loss of control.

“I’m coming down,” she said. “You better be clocked out and gone or else I’ll have you arrested for trespassing. And there better not be so much as a teaspoon missing or you’ll be up for embezzlement, too.”

Embezzlement was a simple threat. She could alter the hotel inventory and hold any employee accountable: Violet for petty cash, Rosalita for sheets and towels, and this nameless crud for kitchenware. And just like an accused child molester was ruined whether the charge was bogus or not, an employee with such a black mark would never work in the area again.

“A little white lie never hurt anybody,” said the voice on the phone. Except the voice sounded like
voices
—a chorus talking in unison.

The shadows now covered the floor. Janey eyed the bedroom door. Even if she made it, she’d still have to cross the rest of the way to the hall. The floor no longer looked solid, the carpet roiling and undulating.

“Come on down, Miss Mays,” said the voices. “What are you waiting for?”

She let the phone drop onto the bed. The darkness on the floor was like an abyss of ink, and she expected the bed to sink into it at any moment. Instead, the ink began to rise like a tide.

Janey clicked the phone signal dead and punched the extension for maintenance. The phone rang twice, and then the line crackled.

“Maintenance.”

“J.C. Thank God.”

“Nobody’s ever said them words together before, Miss Mays.”

“There’s a leak in 226,” she said. “Hurry.”

“What kind of leak?”

Sewer? Water? A crack in hell?

“It’s staining the carpet,” she said.

“You know that boiler in the basement?”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“I think that’s the problem.”

“What’s that got to do with a leak on the second floor?” The leak was rising fast, at least a foot above floor level.

“It’s stored up a whole lot of dark over the years, and it finally blew a gasket.”

“When can you get here?”

“Oh, two days or so.”

 ”J.C.?”

“
That’s one of our names.”
The voices had blended together again. Janey cut the connection.

The dark, oily shadows were now a couple of feet from the bottom of the mattress. She imagined how cold the water was–
no, it’s a shadow, not water
–and what it would be like to wade across it to escape. Assuming the floor was still there beneath it. The shadows had also swelled out from the corners and were
closer
now, as if forming solid columns of darkness.

She was afraid of what the phone would do to her next, but she couldn’t release the handset. Risking her balance, she leaned over and reached into her night stand drawer. She tried to keep her eyes away from the darkness, but she couldn’t help glancing down. The shadowy sea robbed her of her focus, and she recalled that saying about staring into the abyss until it stared back. Finally she blinked and realized her hand was inside the drawer.

She felt past the paperbacks, vibrators, jewelry, and cigarette packs until she found the gun.

Its cool grip gave her comfort, and she drew the weapon into the room. It was a .38 revolver, simple to load and use, but she couldn’t remember if she’d put bullets in it. She fished several from the drawer and laid them on the night stand. One rolled free and fell into the black haze. It didn’t hit bottom.

Janey shoved a couple of bullets into their round slots inside the cylinder, and then clicked the weapon closed. She wasn’t sure what she would shoot, though. She played the gun around the room, hoping a real target would emerge. After all, what good would a bullet do against the absence of light?

The ink was now six inches from the top of the mattress. It made neither a gurgling sound nor the hiss of escaping air, and its silence was more terrifying than an odd liquid noise would have been.

Feeling a little safer with the gun in her hand, she dialed the in-house connection again. Rhonda was at the front desk, smacking and chomping her gum.

“Ya?” Rhonda said, in her usual distracted fashion.

“Janey here. Everything okay?”

Because if it is, then
I’m
the one who needs a little rewiring.

“One of the guests walked out of the bar and took a whiz in the potted plant, but other than that, nothing unusual for a Friday night with a special on Coronas.”

The shadow was lapping at the top of the mattress, its persistent tide working the edge of the bedspread. She smiled. This couldn’t be happening, because things like this were impossible. And in the world of Janey Mays, the impossible had no place.

And—

Drugs
.

It would be just like those vengeful, snot-nosed slaves to spike her coffee with LSD or Ecstacy or whatever mindblower the kids used these days. And that would make every cracked piece of the puzzle fit. Hallucinations, disorientation, paranoia, cold sweats, heart palpitations.

“Do you know what happens in two days?” Janey asked as a test.