calebredding (calebredding) wrote in horror_story, @ 2012-09-21 12:29:00 |
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Entry tags: | cj, complete, cycle001 |
WHO: CJ and Hotel Staff NPC's
WHEN: Wee hours of the morning, before dawn
WHERE: The Basement
WHAT: CJ Investigates
WARNING: Language, Violence, and more
This was so fucked.
All CJ could hear in his head was that animal-like scream, cut short by whatever was making noise in the basement. It wasn’t even muffled by the walls or distance, not in his head anyway. Since doing his best to help Tatum clean up their room to the way it’d been when they arrived, there was no sleeping for him that night. Even if he laid there in the dark on his covers, staring at the wall that hadn’t moved. Then that scream...
Tatum was as much a wreck as he felt like being, which in a way had kept him calm. But after a half hour of fighting what felt like a fever brought on by growing anxiety about just what they should do when the police arrived, he finally realized the heat wasn’t in his head either. Nothing was just in his head in this place, and that was goddamn terrifying. When CJ popped his head out the door to the hotel hallway looking for the cops he’d anonymously called after the scream, the coolness hit him like a wave. Their room was an oven. Shit, as they say, had gotten real, and he was going to tear himself to pieces if he sat still any longer.
That’s why he found himself at the kitchen window again, a quarter to five in the morning. No sign of any police in the dead-as-nails lobby; the storm was probably delaying them. Or the hotel staff was delaying them - Caleb put as much weight into that theory as any. He’d told Tatum to stay in their room (with the window open so she didn’t wilt like a daisy in a campfire), partly because of his old, smart habit that always made sure somebody knew where he was going incase a deal went south. Another part of it was genuine concern for the girl he very much equated to the likes of his baby sister.
He was going to see if he could find whoever made that scream, and he’d show all the past nay-sayers in his mind that he wasn’t crazy. Well--maybe a little crazy, but he still had a purpose, damnit. He wasn’t the deviant low-life his siblings took him for. He could do this, and if he couldn’t? Tatum knew where he was.
----
In the kitchen, the troll-like chef was just finishing cleaning up. The bar had closed at 3am, so and since then the only orders had been for room service. People rarely ordered room service at that 4:45 am. Usually, those calls started coming in later in the morning, from people too lazy to hoof it down to the restaurant for breakfast. He looked a bit edgy. Nervous. It had been a busier night than expected, and a lot of shit had gone wrong over the last four hours, since he'd started his shift.
He had to stay nearby in case a call for food came down, so after he was done loading the dishwasher, he wiped a dish towel over his face and found his chair. This time, however, he had a book in his hand instead of potatoes, and he was leaning back a bit instead of hulking forward over his work. The book was a Dean Koontz title, one of the many one-word throwaway novels, and he was thinking he might get a couple chapters in before the breakfast rush. On another night, he might have napped, but he'd been specifically told to stay alert for guest orders.
----
Shit. He’d had a feeling the big cook would still be lounging in the kitchen, considering it was open all night - weird for a podunk place like this - but there’d always been that little hope that maybe he’d catch him on a bathroom break. Fucker looked pretty settled in, too. CJ worried on his bottom lip, and eased back against the bar wall, away from the window. Thinking.
The phone in the bar. CJ pushed off the wall and slipped behind the bar, plucking the old-style landline up and tucking it between his shoulder and ear. Zero was always the front desk, right? He only hoped the computer system hadn’t been totally upgraded. He didn’t think so.
“Yeah, hi... front desk?” Keeping his voice low and tired enough to be convincing, he went on: “Could you send a shrimp cocktail and a bottle of your cheapest white wine to room 215? Thanks.” Two-fifteen was the only other room CJ remembered as definitely having been occupied.
---
It took a little time for the chef in the kitchen to make the order, and he grumbled considerably to have to do so. Trust some drunken storm refugee to prove him wrong about food orders after a certain hour. At least it wasn’t a particularly complicated dish. It meant breaking out the pre-cooked shrimp. It also meant trucking out to the bar to pick up a bottle of wine, since he didn’t feel inclined to go down to the wine cellar. Then he’d have to find a fucking server or bellhop to deliver it upstairs, which was going to be somewhat difficult given the recent excitement and the graveyard staff.
After debating the pros and cons of just trekking the food up, himself, the cook went off with the covered tray... in search of a bellhop. He knew his own temper, and the temptation would be too great to pound on the door and yell at the guest for making the late-night order.
---
Just like before, as soon as the big guy in the chef coat pushed through one swing-door into the bar, CJ pushed through the other, slipping into the kitchen. His boots may as well have been full of pins and needles, both by how quick and ginger the steps were and the spike of nerves keeping his skin hypersensitive from head to toe. He kept an eye on the door the chef headed through and half-bent at the waist, he made for the pantry door. But not before grabbing one of the displayed Ginsu knives magnetically clinging over the grill. Sometimes that trusty pocketknife just didn’t feel completely adequate.
---
Like before, the pantry panel had been left just ever-so-slightly ajar, making it easy for CJ to slip through. The naked light bulb at the bottom landing was still blazing, looking all but inviting. As it had been in the hotel room, the temperature down here was quite warm, and the machine noises got louder with each step down to the basement level. There was also a very distinct chemical smell.
Bleach. Powerful, pungent, unmistakable. Good old sodium hypochlorite, in quantity enough to assault the senses from through a closed door, or, rather, panel. Like the pantry, this wall panel was tall and large enough for a man standing to walk through. The interior latch was also large and obvious, though it wasn’t necessary as that door was also slightly ajar. Peering through it revealed a steam-filled laundry room. The machinery groans and growls were from the very large, outdated washers and dryers. A vat specifically intended for boiling large quantities of sheets to disinfect them was largely responsible for the heat.
It would have been a relieving find. All very par for the course in a hotel that seemed to be trapped in another time, many decades past. However, the chemical smell wasn’t coming from the soup of sheets or the washing machines. The entire floor was freshly bleached, still damp, in fact. The mop was leaning against a nearby wall.
As CJ watched, a person came into view. A middle-aged man wearing a service uniform. One of the maintenance crew. He was speaking to someone else in the room. “Just seems... iunno. Premature.”
“Better safe than sorry,” a younger voice answered, from out of sight. “They say someone got into the tunnels. Nate said someone left their fucking lunch in there or something. He found a bag of chips on his tour round.”
“Nate’s full of shit,” the older man huffed, though he didn’t look entirely convinced of that. Why would anyone lie about finding a bag of chips in the passageways? It was too random.
“Doesn’t matter if he is. Too many people here. Gets everyone antsy. So Shirley made the call.” A thoughtful pause, and then, “Now we gotta find a new girl.”
---
As if his stomach wasn’t already churning from the fumes, listening to the conversation was making him clench from gut to throat. Nevermind the fact that he hadn’t even thought about the chips he’d somehow abandoned; in his mind, that last sentence uttered through the steam may as well have been instructions to snatch one of the guests and murder them with an axe. This was just way too fucking creepy, and now he had shit to actually tell the police when they showed up.
Fingering the filet knife’s handle, CJ backed up a few steps. No way was he going in that room, not even if it had been empty. He’d bring the cops down there; they’d have guns and some semblance of authority - useful at least in establishments. And numbers. CJ was determined, but he wasn’t stupid. Continuing on alone was not an option, so he pivoted hard to head back to the pantry.
---
The kitchen troll normally wouldn't have checked down the steps. He avoided the basement level most nights. However, the open panels were letting the heat from the laundry room into his pantry, and that was a pet peeve of his. Also, the reason everyone was on edge was because someone had supposedly gotten into the tunnels, which wouldn't fucking happen if the panels were left closed. He'd been expecting to bitch out the two in the basement for negligence, and maybe push on through outside for a smoke, while he was out of the kitchen anyway (banking on the idea that lightning wouldn't strike twice with another pre-dawn shrimp cocktail order). So when he got to the bottom step, he was just as surprised to see CJ as CJ was to see him, if not more so. So he can be forgiven when he bellowed, not an insidious threat, but rather an indignant, "What the fuck?"
While not known for fast recovery skills, kitchen-dwelling trolls were quite capable of blocking narrow passageways, and he thoroughly blocked CJ's path. That much, he did right. His eyes - wide at first - narrowed considerably, before he raised his voice to alert the other two men in the laundry room. "Hey! Found the fucking wall-rat!"
---
The only word recognizable in the alarmed chaos suddenly struck in CJ’s head was Fuck. Before he realized it he was moving, whirling around in the narrow hall to go exactly the place he very much did not want to go in the hopes of an exit. Slim hopes, but it was better than rolling with the tank in a chef’s coat. For that split second, he had forgotten the knife in his hand.
But he remembered it when his retreat was blocked by the two men he’d been eavesdropping on, plugging him in the tunnel like a rat in a cage.
“This is fucked!” he shrieked, his voice cracked on the pitch and brandishing the Ginsu at the two men, then the chef, pressing his back to the hallway wall. “What the fuck--! Stay the f--GET BACK!”
---
Eyes widening at the knife in the guy's hand, the troll cook lifted his hands up to show that he was unarmed, even though CJ wasn't even looking in his direction. The older maintenance man did no such thing, keeping his own hands down and casual. While he was cornering CJ, he wasn't lunging forward to grab the guy. He was probably in early fifties, and he looked tired, if anything. "Kid... you need to stop yelling. You're gonna bring her down here."
Beside him stood a disheveled bellhop who was probably no older than eighteen or nineteen years, and mostly just looked scared. His eyes kept darting away, looking at something behind them. Whatever he was scared of, it wasn't the Ginsu knife. "Fuck, fuck, fuck..."
"Shh," the older man frowned, and looked at CJ with a furrowed brow. "You the one left a bag of chips in the walls, kid?"
---
“Who’s her?! What the fuck are you doing in this fuckin’ place?!” CJ wasn’t about to calm down. He knew what he saw, he knew what he heard - what Tatum had heard, too. He wasn’t making this up in his head, and these people weren’t figments of his haywire imagination. At least he hadn’t snapped and started lunging. As deep the hot-water he could sense himself being in at the moment, he wasn’t about to add manslaughter to the list.
“Just back off man,” wild eyed, he set the tip of the knife in the oldest guy’s direction - his open hand a stop-sign for the chef as he switched frantic looks between them. “This shit ain’t right. Let me outta here-now!”
----
"Son... you came down here." The old man shook his head, and snorted. He sighed, and exchanged a look with the large cook. Neither of them were exactly in their prime, but the cook had considerable size, at least. The older man was broad-shouldered, but also soft in the middle from too many nights spent in the bar. Neither of them wanted to be stabbed by a drugged-out kid with a knife. "We didn't bring you down here."
"He's crazy," the bellhop suggested, apparently remembering he had words in his vocabulary other than fuck. "Fucking addict or something. A fucking psycho."
The old man wasn't taking his eyes off CJ, but he did stop closing in. "Are you a psycho, kid? Do you know Shirley? Did she send you down here?"
---
“I am not a fucking psycho!” CJ yelled back at the bellhop, pointing the Ginsu at him now. Just for added emphasis, you know. Just a shrieking, blue-haired idiot who thought it was a good idea to investigate in the walls of a fucked up Twilight Zone hotel brandishing a very sharp knife. Nothing crazy about that at all.
“And who the fuck is Shirley?” he continued desperately, though his voice was losing volume. “I heard--I heard the girl crying. She was down here - what the fuck did you do? Why were you in the goddamn walls?” Caleb’s focus was back on the skinny kid who called him a psycho. “And in people’s rooms. That’s fucked up, man - this is all fucked up!”
---
Although CJ was looking at the bellhop, it was the older man who answered. "Yeah, there was a girl," he told CJ, calmly, as if they were just having a conversation about the weather and the younger man wasn't scared out of his mind or holding a knife. "Until someone left food in the walls. It is all fucked up, though. That's a true fact."
While CJ's attention was divided between the kid in the bellhop uniform and the older man, the large cook made his move. Not being any kind of hand-to-hand combat expert, the man just bolted forward, hoping to slam the kid's head against the wall or otherwise force him to the ground with his own sheer bulk. The theory being that the knife wouldn't matter so much in the hand of someone concussed. It wasn’t the worst theory in the world, but the older maintenance man did throw in an attempt to grab the arm with the knife outright after the troll lunged forward, just to weigh the dice in their favor.
---
Perhaps being in the bowels of old murder hotels with possessed staff members wasn’t on CJ’s list of past experiences, but he’d definitely been in more than a few street fights, and he’d chalk at least half of them up to being sucker-punched or surprise-lunged, at least enough to catch and recognize the quick movement in the corner of his eye as a threat. Didn’t hurt that he was already expecting a fight. But there was another certainty working against Caleb; he was never very good at fighting.
Feeling the chef’s massive paw fist in his hair let loose a loud scream of protest, fight, and fear out of the skinny ‘psycho’. He twisted hard by instinct, both trying to fend off the attack and wheel away from it. In the process he felt pressure hit the blade at a sure but awkward angle. The old man yelped and the pressure on CJ’s wrist released, and right before galaxies of stars exploded in his head from it hitting the cement wall, another gruff yell banged around loudly in his ears.
Something warm and wet slicked down his hand and made his shirt sleeve cling to his wrist, but everything Caleb knew after the blow was a fog of senses. The movement around him was distant and detached, and he felt the ground move under his boots. Another hard hit jarred his brain; his head hitting the cold, chemical smelling floor. And then, nothing but black.
“Fuck... Fuck....” The bellhop was back to just repeating his favorite word. “Alan? You okay, man?”
“No, asshole, I’m bleeding! Jesus Christ...” The older man tentatively pulled his hand away from his side. Blood was soaking into his uniform, his shirt underneath the uniform. The kid was right. Fuck was the appropriate term. They’d just mopped the floor, too. “Shit, I probably need stitches.”
The troll chef retrieved the knife, and frowned at the skinny fucker knocked out on the floor. Who the hell dyed their hair that color, anyway? Must be some kind of club kid. He bent down to examine the prone form, picking through the clothes to see if there was any wallet, or a room key on the younger man.
He found several ‘custom’ pockets sewn and sometimes stapled into the lining of his thrift-store leather jacket. Some contained wads of cash adding up to forty-seven dollars total, a blue glass pipe, a bag of white powder (presumably cocaine), and a needle-kit. Also a few random pills of different shapes and colors, an old but decent quality pocket-knife, and a chained wallet with a number of weathered business cards, folded pieces of paper with nonsensical writing, and a dead pay-per-month cell phone.
"No key..." The cook huffed, picking through the wallet, trying to find some ID. This was a successful endeavor, but there were too many of them, and none of the matched. "This kid's got a bunch of fucking names." He peeled a twenty off off the wad of cash and put it all back in place. "Really is drug addict. We got time to boil 'im? I gotta get back upstairs."
"I gotta get to the fucking emergency room," the older man snapped. "...Drown him in the mop bucket. Dump him in the pool."
That was a directive the bellhop understood, and he went to get the large bucket while the troll cook hefted the skinny unknown up to his knees. He would have preferred getting rid of the body the right way, but there wasn't time. Dawn would be breaking soon, and he needed to be upstairs for the breakfast rush. Keeping the unconscious young man's arms bent behind, the cook forced his head into the tepid, soapy water of the bucket. The bellhop stood at the ready to help in case the stranger came to and started thrashing.
By some ironic kick of survival instinct, the second bleach heavy water shot into his lungs, CJ was awake, if not on an entirely conscious level. By the desperate jerk of shoulders, heavy kicking boots and a muffled scream, he was more animal instinct (and sheer panic) than man. In his pain-racked mind was the fire in his chest caused by chemicals and water and absolutely nothing else besides the need to expel and breathe. But the concussion was his mercy. Fifteen seconds of absolute terror and torture until the stillness began to settle, and the last bubbles butterflied from the corners of a limp mouth. And open eyes that saw too much, now saw nothing.