Ding.
Janice knew that doorbell better than the voice of her own mother. It was bright and loud and cheery and a pleasure to hear – as if what it signified wasn’t a pleasure enough in and of itself.
A new guest! A new visitor seeking shelter from the storm of the world under the generous boughs of wow that metaphor had gotten away from her but yes, a guest! A guest! A guest!
“Welcome!” she said happily as the guest hurried in out of the rain. “How can we assi-”
“Room for the night, door with a good lock, don’t ask questions,” said the guest, hurriedly brushing unmentionable fluids off her trenchcoat with one hand and clamping the other over an oozing tear in her left arm.
“Certainly, ma’am! Is that a gun in your pocket?”
“I don’t have to answer that.”
Janice’s eyes popped wide in shock. “Of course not, ma’am! I wouldn’t dream of forcing your privacy! But we do have rooms with gun safes.”
“I need it on my person at all times.”
“Of course, of course, of course. You’re in 48a, on the third floor.” Janice smacked the bell and Toby came around the corner, eventually. “Toby! Please take this fine woman’s belongings upstairs for her.”
“I don’t have luggage.”
“Toby! Please take this fine woman to her room.”
“I can find my own way.”
Janice put on her most concerned expression. “Ma’am, the Highview Hotel & Hospitality is among the oldest buildings in the city, and its architecture can be a little…esoteri- oh she’s gone already. Toby! Go back to whatever it is you were doing.”
Toby saluted and lurched back to her corner. Janice watched her go with suspicion: yes, she was a hard worker and never complained, but there was something ambiguously sarcastic about that. A proper employee should feel some minor level of detectable hatred towards their boss; anything less was worrying.
Ding. Ding. Ding ding ding ding ding.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” said Janice, spinning in place. “Welcome!”
“About time,” said the guest. “This place used to have some class. When I was young your grandmother would have NEVER let a customer get as far as the first bell, let alone the second! Sloppy. Sloppy sloppy sloppy. I knew you’d turn out this way, Janice Grace Fletcher, and I knew your mother would turn out that way too. Idle! Idle and superficial and unappreciative! Oh your grandmother did her best, but you can’t teach those that won’t listen, let me tell you what, and your mother never listened to anyone but herself, and you – well, that’s the one thing you ever learned from anyone! Ungrateful. Ungrateful whelps squandering the hard work of your betters, the lot of you. I’ve half a mind to never come here again but I owe it to your grandmother’s memory, my best friend, god rest her soul, never complained a day in her life even though a lesser woman would’ve stabbed you all to death in your sleep and called it justice. She could’ve done it, too; she was a dab hand with a cleaver. Lord that woman was the finest butcher in town, and did it while running a hotel full-time and raising the worst and most troublesome daughter ever created – at least, until YOU came along.”
“Will you be taking your usual room then, Ms. Hatskill?” asked Janice cheerfully.
“Mrs. My husband is dead but I’m not forgetting him, you insinuating, scheming little bitch. The insolence, the sheer gall, the unmitigated bitchery of you. Why I should claw your face off with hot pokers and call it mercy, the barbs and the taunts and the nastiness you give to me for nothing, you cold-hearted, vicious sack of pond scum in a dress.”
“And will you be having room service tomorrow morning?”
“Stop making fun of me! I won’t have it. I’ve done nothing to deserve this sort of treatment. The eggs should be over easy. I hate it when they aren’t.”
“Wonderful. Toby! Take Ms. Hatskill’s luggage upstairs.”
“I don’t trust that big lug with my belongings.”
Toby picked up Ms. Hatskill’s suitcase in one hand and Ms. Hatskill in the other and went upstairs, shuffling three steps at a time. The staircase was creaking more than usual; Janice knew she’d have to look into that. It would be expensive, but the last thing they needed was another Crash Tuesday. Word of things like that tended to travel unpleasantly far and fast.
Ding!
“Welcome!” she said. What a woolgathering day it was. “How can we assist you?”
“Room,” said what she was sure must be the guest because bears couldn’t talk.
If they did, though, they’d probably sound like this. Goodness, the poor thing was almost half as big as Toby.
“Certainly! For one night, or-”
“Number.” One paw held up a blurred photo of a woman in a trenchcoat.
“Oh! You’re staying with her, then? She didn’t mention a friend.”
“Not friends.”
“Oh my. Well, lips are sealed! We are very discreet in these matters, don’t fret. Here’s a key, and have fun!”
“Yes. Yes. Fun.”
Ding!
Oh there’d been another guest somewhere behind the last. A lineup! An actual, honest to goodness lineup, here at the Highview Hotel & Hospitality! It had been years since she’d seen the like, when that comic convention had come to town. “Welcome!”
“Sorry, didn’t mean to hit the bell,” said the man, who would’ve probably been invisible behind even an average guest. His extraordinarily bald head gleamed at chest height. “Reflex. I travel a lot.”
“Oh that’s perfectly fine, don’t fret. It’s like an old friend to me. Now, what will you be needing?”
“Room for the night, please. A suite, if one’s available.”
“Of course, of course, of course.” Janice fished the key out of the drawer and flipped it into his hand with one motion. “Toby!”
Toby took the last flight of stairs at a lunge, and the floor boomed. “Please take this fine gentleman to 50a.”
Toby didn’t say a lot, but her eyebrows rose. Still, she plucked the guest like an apple and was on her way before he could so much as ask questions.
Well. Well well well. To think she’d have Milo York, famed hotel reviewer, under her roof! No doubt trying to review incognito, clever thing. But Janice had a good eye for receding hairlines, and there was no disguising that dome, no matter the tricks.
Ding!
“Welcome!” she said, and she meant it even more than usual. What a busy evening this was.
“Hello,” said the police officer. “Ma’am, we have some questions for you. Do you recognize either of these women?”
Janice peered closely at the photos. “Why, they’re in 48a! Don’t tell me you’re staying there too? It’s only got one bed. Well, not that there’s anything wrong with that sort of-”
“Ma’am it’s a matter of life and death. Give me the keys.”
“Oh! Oh my. Here you go.”
The officer nodded and hurried up the stairs. Maybe they should get an elevator at last, budget permitting. Life and death! How exciting.
Ding!
“Welcome!” Oh, it was a couple. How cute. They were holding each other’s hands and everything oh goodness.
“Overnight, please,” they said as one.
“Certainly! Here’s 47c. It’s a suite, and if you need room service, don’t hesitate to leave word.”
“We are joyous,” they intoned. “Praise be matter. Praise be flesh.”
“Indeed, thank you,” said Janice. Religious types. Well, it took all kinds. “If you’ll wait a moment, Toby can take your luggage.”
“We travel unburdened of all inorganic material,” they told her. “Our weight is in our minds, ponderous and immortal, our minds are in our bodies, renewed and everconsuming. We go now.”
They went then.
Hmm. Toby wasn’t getting much of a workout tonight. Janice hoped she wouldn’t grow fat and lazy. Who would put the guests in their rooms? Who would bring room service? Who would pick up suitcases? Who would shovel? Her hands were too soft and small for such brute work.
Bong. Bong. Bong.
Oh dear.
The front desk phone was NOT the desk bell. It was solemn and deep and foreboding and it usually meant someone was unhappy. Unhappy enough to do something about it, no less, which was a real problem. In Janice’s experience, most unhappiness was happy enough to make you sit and sulk.
“Front desk speaking, how may we assist you?’
“My breakfast is late.”
“It’s 7:30 PM, Ms. Hatskill.”
“Who do you think you are, to dictate to me when I can and can’t take breakfast, you insolent little guttersnipe?”
“Well, normally you prefer it at 8:03 PM sharp.”
“Oh, so now I’m bound by tradition? I’m rigid and unimaginative? I’m predictable and boring? Is there no end to your rudeness? Get me the usual and make it happen in six minutes or I’m phoning all my friends to tell them EXACTLY what kind of granddaughter poor Eugenia ended up with.”
“Understood perfectly, Ms. Hatskill,” said Janice, and she hung up.
Well now. That could make things more difficult.
Bong. Bong. Bong.
Oh dear.
“Front desk speaking, how may we assist you?’
“We are troubled.”
Janice took a deep breath and ignored the trembles in her hand. “We’re very sorry to hear that. What seems to be the problem?”
“There are loud noises from the room next door.”
Oh. Oh MY.
“Oh dear. I’m sorry to hear that. We’ll send Toby up to ask them to keep it down. There’s a time and a place for fun, but it shouldn’t come at the expense of consideration for others.”
“There is great violence.”
“It’s not my place to judge, sorry,” said Janice. “We’ll get right on that. Goodbye.”
She hung up and felt her worry curdling into annoyance. The nerve of some people. Yes, there was such a thing as being too noisy, but it was none of their business what others did in the bedroom beyond its volume. Honestly.
“Toby!” she called.
There was a thump, and thud, and a crash, and Toby emerged through the nearest wall.
“Oh not AGAIN. Stop doing that!”
Toby regarded her with bland and totally false obedience.
“Oh, fine. Could you please stop by 48a and politely ask them to be a little quieter? Be apologetic about it; it’s not really their fault that they’re next door to a couple of prudish preachers. If they complain again we’ll just move the whiners.”
Toby indicated her understanding and backed through the wall. Sometimes Janice wasn’t quite sure how she managed to get around the building without using the staircases, but it certainly was faster, so she tried not to pry.
Bong.
Bong.
Bong.
Janice breathed. It took some remembering, but she got there. By the skin of her teeth.
“Front desk speaking, how may we assist you?’
“There’s… noises. Coming from the closet.”
Janice prided herself on her professionalism. She prided herself on her tight control of her temper. But she’d had to deal with Ms. Hatskill and three separate instances of the front desk phone that night, and she had real, human limits.
And besides, it wasn’t as if exceeding them produced real problems. She just got a little short, that was all.
“It’s fine,” she said. “Nothing major. Don’t make sudden movements or feed it. Goodnight, Mr. York.”
“What? But-”
Janice hung up. She was in no mood to tolerate Milo York’s feeble attempts at pretending he was someone else.
Bong bong bong “oh FUCK OFF.”
“Language! Your grandmother never swore a day in her life, not even the day her heartless bloodless whore of a daughter told her she’d taken up with a lout of a tramp and had already gotten pregnant out of wedlock, god rest her vile devil-spawned soul. I should expect such things from you, coming from sin as you did, but there’s no forgiveness for not at least trying to rise above your filthy origins, and I don’t deserve to hear such horrible things.”
“How can we help you,” said Janice.
“My breakfast is late.”
“It’s been three minutes.”
“What has service come to if it’s not early. The early bird gets the worm, we all know that, but do they ever tell the children these days what happens to the late bird? It starves. It starves and it deserves it, for its sloth, for its indolence, for its ingratitude for the joy of hard, harsh work scraping its soul clean of vile laziness and mortal frailty. Labour is the wire brush of eternity, I tell you what, and I’ll tell you again and again until it finally sticks, even if your mother never ever listened to me a day in her life. Nobody’s beyond reach, you know, not even-”
“Fuck off,” said Janice. “Fuck off fuck off fuck off fuck off fuck offfffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff” and she hung up and felt very happy again for the first time since she’d heard the front desk phone ring.
Toby wasn’t back yet. She hoped the guests were being tractable; Toby could be quite diplomatic when she had to be, but she was in no mood for more difficulties.
An unearthly screech came from the stairs, followed immediately by the two guests from 47c, grown vast and wormlike, undulating bonelessly from step to step and singing through their six mouths and watching with their twelve eyes and taking great steaming breathes through their single cavernous nostril that seemed to swallow light and choke the air to death with every inhalation.
“Hello!” said Janice. “What seems to be the problem?”
THE SOUNDS THE SOUNDS THE SOUNDS THE SOUNDS THE SOUNDS THE SOUNDS
IN
THE
SOUNDS SOUNDS SOUNDS SOUNDS SOUNDS SOUNDS SOUNDS SOUNDS SOUNDS
WALLS
“I’ve sent Toby upstairs to ask them to keep it down, so if you could please calm yourself, I promise it will all be fine again shortly. We apologize for the inconvenience.”
The guests slid over to the front desk, flowed themselves into a pillar of molten flesh that stretched up to the ceiling, and gaped wide their primary jaws before Toby fell through the ceiling covered in burning oil and landed directly on top of them.
“Thank you, Toby,” said Janice. “Oh dear. Those ladies are playing rough, eh?”
Toby nodded as she carefully extinguished each fire with her palm, one after another, making little hamburger hissing noises.
“Well, I think we don’t have to worry about warning them off again, now that this is sorted. Be a dear and dig a new plot out back, will you?” She tilted her head a little and listened through the gap in the ceiling. “Or maybe two. Just in case. My word that is a LOT of gunfire.”
Bong. Bong. Bong.
“One moment. Front desk speaking, how may we assist you?”
“The door won’t open.”
Janice sighed. “Mr. York, the key turns counter-clockwise until it clicks. It’s a very loud click, you’ll know it when you-”
“It’s gone. The door is gone. The door is gone and the floor’s going next. It’s just..nothing. There’s nothing there. Where the hell have you put me? What is this?”
“Mr. York… did you feed it?”
“What?”
“The voice from the closet.”
“It said if I didn’t it would come out!”
“Well, it was lying to you, Mr. York. I warned you. Goodbye.”
“Wai-”
Janice hung up and sighed, bone-deep, soul-hard. “Make that three plots, Toby.”
Bong. Bong. Bong.
“Front d-”
“Still no breakfast, no matter how nicely I ask, no matter how-”
“Four plots, Toby,” said Janice.
Toby raised all of her eyebrows.
“Yes, I know I’ve been optimistic about this before,” said Janice. She reached into the door next to the room keys and felt around for a handle, notched and battle-worn. “But eighth time’s the charm, right?”
Toby raised all of her other eyebrows.
“Try, try again?”
Toby’s eyebrows did a complicated little dance.
“Oh, come off it. Go dig some graves and wish me luck. Fuck, I hate the busy season.”