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Who Lodges At The Hotel Now?
Dan Herrick

I sit at the cafe across the street from the Hotel, watching it. The great brick structure gives the appearance of quiet strength regardless of its dilapidated condition. Its fortitude contrasts with its material corruption, yet they seem to blend rather well. The building endures. The night sky behind and around it seems to shroud the structure, making it into a lurker behind the streetlights. Sighing, I stretch and push the mug away from me, rising from my table. It is time.

After crossing the street, I walk quietly down the alley, broken glass crackling under my feet, routinely alert for eyes that might be watching me, waiting to call the police and report a trespassing. I see no one, so I take a quick right into the alcove. I am faced with three steel doors. Out of habit, I try each one to see if it is unlocked. No luck, even though at times I have found them open. I turn to the pipe. Looking around again cautiously, making sure no one is coming down the alley, I walk to the pipe. No sense putting it off any longer. I grab the pipe with both hands, hauling myself up until my feet can rest on the glass front of the meter there. Quickly I climb to the top, where I can reach over the top of the brick wall and pull myself over. I am on top of what I call the "lower roof", one story up. There are brick walls on three sides of me as I face south. The east one, I know, leads to the other building next to the Linden. Again, habit prevails as I scan the east wall for broken windows where I could possibly enter. None, but at least the windows (two of them) aren't boarded up. Wait, one is, halfway. So I could probably manage to get in if I wanted. But I don't want to. I want the Linden. It's been so long...

I look to the south wall. Four large windows look out at me - blindly, as they are completely boarded up. Very securely, too, from what I remember from trying (unsuccessfully) in the past to gain entry through them. The one on the left was the one I had always entered through years ago, back when I used to find myself inside the Linden quite a bit. I know I'd have no luck trying to get in here since I have no tools of forced entry with me. I do, however, have another way inside. I look to the west wall. On it at my (second story) level are three windows, plus an alcove with a window and a door. The windows are all securely boarded, just as I remember. The door, I know from experience, is securely locked from the inside - plus there should be a board propped inside so that it cannot open (it opens to the inside - I've unlocked it from within before). I walk across the lower roof, which creaks alarmingly until I stand within the alcove, before the door. The bottom edge of the door is at neck level, so I hop up to the doorstep. Perched precariously on the stone ledge that's just the length of my foot, I rest against the heavy wooden door. I've been in this situation many times before; being up atop the lower roof, wondering how to get in, trying to pry a wooden board off a window in vain, and then realizing that I cant get in. I've even tried slamming into the door and knocking it off its hinges, to no avail. But this time is different. I know how to get in - I have the key, so to speak.

I straighten up, face the door, and knock sharply on the door once, twice, three times. And wait.

Several tense seconds struggle past, and I begin to feel foolish. This WAS a ridiculously simple plan anyway. Knock on the door indeed. Just because I'd never thought of it before, it seemed the perfect idea. Far too easy-

I hear, inside, a heavy wooden board clatter to the floor.

That would be the propped board, I think to myself, and then my heart leaps to my throat. I try to control my sudden panic, thinking: the force of my pounding on the door knocked it loose, it must've been ready to fall anyway -

A loud click from the doorframe as the bolt withdraws into the door.

Suddenly I am perfectly calm. I wait in icy composure for the door to swing open of its own accord.

It doesn't. A minute, two, crawl by. I realize then that I must open the door. Calmly, I reach to turn the knob. Strange to see my hand shaking. I twist the knob quickly, fling open the door. It stops dead halfway open. I freeze for a moment, then shove it. No good, it is stuck. Trembling slightly, and hating myself for it, I squeeze through the door and enter the Linden hotel, second floor.

It is, of course, pitch dark inside. I fish in my pants pocket and find the small white candle I had put in there, along with my zippo lighter. I light the candle and view my surroundings - barely.

It takes me but a moment to get oriented, I know this building oh so well. Automatically, I close the door behind me, bolt it. My feet hit the board lying in the hallway, sending it clattering against the wall. I cringe until the noise stops. Get a grip! I silently admonish myself.

I begin to walk down the short hallway using the candle to help me avoid debris on the floor. Ahead of me is the drop off where a stairway to the first floor used to be. Careful! I take a right, wander through the two connecting rooms and look out a window onto the street. No one around. Well, they wouldn't have seen me anyway. I retrace my steps, pass the drop off, take a left, a right, a left, pass two gaping dark doorways, a right, a right, and I am at the main staircase. I look up to the top of it, and smile. Not yet. For the next few minutes (or is it hours?) I wander through the second story rooms, remembering being here before, with my friends, before we were driven out. As I walk into a room, my foot scuffs the edge of a large hole in the floor, and I stumble, but catch myself before I fall through it to the broken floor below.

Oh no, I grin to the darkness, you won't get me that easily!

I wander to the next room and succumb to the urge to sit and rest my back against a wall. The candle is nearly halfway burned down by now, but I have four others like it. I don't feel, however, that I will need them all. I can feel the Presence stirring. Before, it took all of us some months before it awakened fully, but it had been sleeping for some time. Now, however, it has had an uneasy rest for the last three years, at least, and it should not take long for it to awaken fully. This will be the last time I awaken it, one way or another.

Is this what I truly want?

My idly roving free hand picks out a familiar object from the debris on the floor. I hold it up to the light of the candle, and nearly drop it in surprise. A ring. To be exact, MY ring, lost three years ago, here. Impossible that I would find it now, after searching so hard for it before.

I slip it on my right-hand index finger, where it used to reside. Then I stand up and walk through the only dark doorway I haven't yet passed through on the second floor. Straight ahead of me are the back stairs, a small and narrow set of winding stairs that lead up to the third floor. I ascend, and after fifteen steps it makes a 90-degree angle right-hand turn. Ten steps later it does the same thing, and another ten steps and I should be at the top of the stairway, on the third floor. I reach the tenth step, and ahead of me is a blank wall.

I stop, astonished. This wall should not be here! I push on it, but it is definitely solid. Nervously, I quickly trot down the steps to the bottom, only to find what I halfway expected - another wall. I am trapped on these stairs!

Dammit, no! I race back up the steps, only to be stopped by the wall - only it is now at the second turning instead of at the top. I feel anger now, and desperation - the desperation of a trapped animal. I pound on the wall, even kick it once, but it does not yield. Angrily, I whirl around - and nearly hit the wall behind me. I am now surrounded by walls on all four sides, with three steps in between. Trapped. No!

"I will not be held!" I cry aloud to the ceiling more than ten feet above. So swiftly that I cannot react, the three stairs I am standing on vanish. I fall straight down into darkness, and my candle tumbles out of my grasp and goes out. I land with a solid thump, jarring my left knee, hitting my head against a wall, and sprawling on the hard wooden floor. I lay there stunned for a few moments, then slowly sit up, testing my body for anything broken or sprained. I am lucky - there seems to be no damage other than my knee, which aches moderately. I reach into my pocket and bring out my zippo, which I light. It illuminates the room I am in, barely, enough to see that I am alone in it (which relieves me immensely) and that it is a very small room. The stairs descend above my head to merge with the floor on one side of the room, and there is a huge jumble of scrap wood which makes up the wall next to it. The other two walls are just that - walls. Sighing, I begin to remove pieces of wood from the jumble, causing small avalanches and clouds of dust to arise. Finally I am able to kick the wood outward, making a space large enough for me to crawl through. I emerge into a far more spacious room, and I illuminate it with a fresh candle. I exit the room through the only door, and walk to my left, then left again to where the stairs should be, but there is only a wall. Taking a deep breath, I turn around and stride through two rooms and a hallway before I stand at the bottom of the main staircase. I step onto it and begin to climb. After about the sixth or seventh step, a noise from above warms me and I throw myself to one side, just as a sizable portion of the high above plaster ceiling lands where I had been standing a split second before. The plaster shatters as it hits, showering my booted feet.

"So that's the way of it, is it," I growl, and then stamp my foot into the wall with such force that a few more plaster bits fall from the ceiling. The blow leaves a mark, in fact my entire footprint on the wall, and it seems to glow slightly, but that could be the candlelight.

From somewhere far away and high above, it seems, I hear faintly a very low pitched, long growl.

The hairs on the back of my neck standing upright, I hurry up the rest of the stairs. At the top I am suddenly at a loss with which way to go. Of course! I walk along a short corridor and enter the first room on my left, the only one with a door (which is open). The Fire Trap Room.

As I enter, I am struck with nostalgia - the room is exactly as I left it. The bench by the window, the sheets on the walls, the melted remains of candles on the bench, the mostly burned remains of sheets (our version of cheap curtains) on the window. I take a couple steps toward the window, and suddenly the sheets billow out as if there was a huge gust of wind (the window has always been broken), and the door slams shut. I whirl around and run to the door. I try to open it, but it will not budge. Then I am overcome by the distinct smell of cloth burning. I turn around and see the sheets on the window blazing. They cannot be on fire, I think, there was no flame near them. Confidently, I walk to the window, prepared to thrust my hand into the imaginary flames and shatter the illusion. But as my hand touches the flame, I am burned! I withdraw my hand hurriedly, and then manage to pull the curtains down and stomp the flames out on the floor. Breathing a sigh of relief, I look at the door. No, I won't even bother. Time to start playing by MY rules. I climb onto the bench and exit through the window. Emerging onto the roof of the second floor, I walk to the next window over and prepare to enter when I notice something. Rather, the absence of something. There is no wind, not even the slightest breeze.

I linger on the rooftop for a few more moments, listening to the faint noises of the living city. The low hum of the traffic on College Avenue a block away, the laughter of two drunk men walking through the alley, a far-away police siren. I feel a pang of sadness, for the vast distance that separates me now from the outside world. Then, I turn to the open window and jump down into the room.

The first thing I notice is the utter silence; as if a door had been slammed shut, blocking the noises of the outside world. The second thing I notice are the walls - rather, the artwork on the walls. This is, I recall now, the graffiti room. My friends and I had painted, markered, and crayoned this whole room so that hardly any white showed on the walls. I look at the various drawings: a huge red valentine heart, a peace sign, a dragon, a clown. And words, many words. Then I see the names, below the words, "Sign in here!", on the wall to my right. Why did they have to sign their own names? Shaking my head in regret, I open the door to the hallway.

I see the hallway filled with blood... a veritable river of blood, flowing through the hallway, the floor not even visible... an occasional splash sounds as I stand watching, transfixed... my instinctive response is to assume it's a fish, and I chide myself for such a ridiculous thought. A fish, swimming in...this? And then I see it, a fish rises above the water (blood) level, a fish with a human face, and it GRINS at me. Before I can even think to be horrified, it begins to laugh at me, a nasty screechy laugh that echoes eerily off the walls and the blood. The horror strikes me then, and even as that works its will upon me, I realize that the fish is not laughing, but screaming... I turn and slam the door, even as the fish sinks beneath the surface. A few more minutes pass before I dare to open the door again, and when I do, all is normal. No blood, no fish, just plain faded green carpet. No trace of blood, even, discounting the brownish stains on the walls... high water (blood?) marks, obviously, staining the wallpaper. And discount them I do, thinking them, perhaps, the result of some flood in the past. Then I realize that I am on the third floor...

I lean back against the wall, feeling the need for support. Something tells me to look up, and I see him. He stands at the other end of the hallway, facing me. His skin has a faint bluish cast to it, almost the blue of the recently drowned, and glows very slightly. The leather jacket (worn open, like mine) he is wearing is an oily, inky black color, and the jeans are faded, ragged. He stands there waiting for me, and it is his face I am drawn to. Or rather, my face.

I am looking at myself, copied in every way.

But not exactly myself - a warped image. As his hands twitch slightly, it seems that I see an old man's hands, then I see that they are normal hands... normal glowing blue-tinted hands, that is. But his face. He grins at me, but the teeth are cracked, with a few gaping holes. His whole face is WRONG, warped, misshapen. Cracked is the best way to describe it. My eyes water looking at it. The grin, I see, is more of a rictus of pain than a grin. But the eyes! Black pits, both. I will not dwell too long on the eyes.

He speaks. A horribly discordant sound it is, hardly bearable. And yet I make out the word.

"Welcome," he says. His tongue, I see, is overlarge and bright red, and is split, oozing dark red liquid.

He begins to walk toward me. His gait would be amazing to behold, if it wasn't so terrifying. He seems to walk brokenly, jerkily, like a puppet badly controlled. And at the same time I know he walks with grace, I can see that too. He is also quick. I turn and practically dive inside the graffiti room, and race to the window. The window will not open, no matter how I push and pull, or smack the frame with my hand. And when I hear a light footstep at the doorway, I punch and pound on the glass itself as hard as I can. It will not break. It is then that I turn and face the abomination of myself.

He stands in the doorway, grinning. He then advances with his unnatural walk and stretches out a hand to me. I stare at the hand, entranced almost. The hand has a rusty ring on it. As I watch, he brings up his left hand, which has long metal serrated claws on it. They look far too sharp. A sudden thought flashes through my head, and I reach inside my jacket and bring out the small object my hand finds easily. I absently caress the tiny glass jar, full of beads and well worn. Then I throw it, with all my strength, not at him, but the wall next to him. The jar shatters, and little yellow beads spray all over him. He screeches (the sound makes me flinch) and drops to his knees, lowering his head and covering his face with his hands. But only for a moment. Then he looks up, removing his hands. He no longer grins, but sneers. In that moment, I execute the most perfect kick I ever have in my life, pivoting on my left heel and striking with my right booted foot. It connects with him squarely on the forehead, and his head is snapped back, accompanied by a sharp crack as his neck breaks. His body falls over backwards, and becomes tangled on the floor. Just after my foot sets itself back down on the floor, the room trembles, as if the building had been picked up and dropped back down. I barely keep my balance. Trembling, I make my way to the door, carefully avoiding getting near the body stretched out on the floor. When I stand in the doorway, I pause, hearing something. Then I whirl around, seeing on the floor, the body of my counterpart begin to lift itself up from the floor. He is already on his hands and knees, but his head hangs down limply. Yet I see the grin on his face.

Quickly I turn and run. I race down to the end of the hallway and bring out my knife from a jacket pocket. Holding it in my sweaty hand, I stare down the hallway, waiting for him to emerge from the room. A few very tense minutes pass, and I become confused. Why hasn't he come out yet? Then the hand with the rusty ring on it grasps my right shoulder, and I have time for one thought ("The window!") before the left hand, the one with the steel claws, steals around my left side and rests against my belly. Desperately, I lunge backward, impacting his body, as the claws start to gouge out my stomach. As I hit his body, I bend forward sharply and with both hands, grab his head and throw him forward, over my back. I have dropped the knife, so I pick it up, but by then he is up again, scurrying towards me. I whip the knife at him, overhand, and it implants itself perfectly in his chest. But he doesn't even pause. I back away quickly, around a corner, throwing things in his path, a table, half a chair, a box, anything I can get my hands on. He stops, (grinning at me, always grinning!) and pulls out the knife with his right hand. It clatters to the floor, and he contemptuously kicks the trash out of his way and advances. But I am around another corner by then, racing to the only other room with a door on its frame. I manage to get inside, and slam the ill-fitting door, which breaks the top set of hinges.

He impales the door with his claws, and has to wrench them free. Then a few impacts on the door I am holding shut (it has no lock) which I assume to be him trying to shoulder open the door. He tries kicking the door a few times, and on the last one the bottom hinges break. He hears this, laughs his horrible laugh, and stabs the door again. Before he can wrench his claws free, I shove against the door with all my strength, flinging him and the door across the width of the hallway and slamming him into the wall. He goes down, the door on top of him, and I run away through the hallway, and down the main stairs. Then, after a couple of turns, I pass by the drop off where the stairs were removed, stop dead in my tracks, and begin to turn around, as I realize this hallway leads to a dead end. But he is nearly caught up to me now. I grab the first object I see, a wooden board, and use it as a club, fending him off. He lunges toward me, and I sidestep and smack the board into his side, sending him sprawling against the old bannister of the missing stairs. He catches himself before he falls in, but I swing the board around and it connects powerfully with his head, making a sickening crunch as his head is mashed between the board and the bannister. Again I smash the board into him, and this time he goes over the edge, making one last attempt to slice me with his claws. The claws rip into my jeans, but not my flesh, and he falls into the pit. From below I hear a quick scream, screeching and discordant, then silence. He is gone. I walk away a few feet, then sit down with my back against a wall and simply breathe for a while. Examining my stomach, I see that his claws just scratched my skin a little, and it has already nearly stopped bleeding. Lucky.

A drop of my blood falls to the floor. As I watch, mesmerized, the droplet seems to expand and at the same time is absorbed. It expands across most of the floor in this hallway, and then is completely diluted and absorbed. I look at the floor, and it seems to be a bit red-tinged, but that could be my imagination. Still, I hesitate to walk across it, but I do. When I step foot onto the nearest affected board, my booted foot seems to stick slightly, and I can faintly hear a squishing ripping sound, as if something was sticking to the bottom of my boots. Hurrying past, I continue upstairs. This time I mean to go ALL the way upstairs: The attic has never before been explored, not by me or anyone I know.

On a wall (I have just come this way) I pass there is now written something in what appears to be spraypaint. The wall reads "I am not to be denied". I touch it, the spraypaint is completely dry, but I passed this way just a few minutes ago. I manage a dry chuckle, and mutter to myself, almost out loud: Neither am I, my friend, neither am I.

I come to the hallway which leads to the attic entrance. Each of the five rooms leading off to the side has a door of impenetrable darkness. No matter - I seek only one door, the one in the ceiling. As I stride down the hallway, the baseboards along the sides seem to be undulating, writhing. It is as if the whole building, minus the floor upon which I walk, is shivering. The ladder lies on the floor, partially propped up against a neighboring wall. I reach for it, and grab one end. HEAT! It is hot, hot enough to burn me. I snatch my hand away. It is burned, but not badly. Shaking my head, I reach into a pocket and pull out a pair of black leather gloves. Putting them on, and wincing as the leather touches my burned flesh, I pick up the ladder again. I can feel no heat now, though I think my gloves would only have lessened the heat if it were truly there. Propping the ladder again the far wall, I begin to climb. Twice, as I ascend, the ladder trembles as if shaken from below. I can but hold firmly as it does this. Soon I am at the top, and I push against the opening covering the entrance. It does not budge. I push harder, throwing my shoulder into the effort, and still it moves not. Bracing myself against the ladder, I awkwardly strike the door with my hand. No shift in the seemingly flimsy piece of wood covering my only way up. Once again I try, putting all my effort into smashing my hand against the door. This time, it flies open, and a great wind begins, as if I had opened an airlock. At the same time, I hear a crack from below and see (as I am looking downward) that the floor below has broken from the strain. I feel myself begin to fall for a second, then the wind reaches for me. It is so strong that it sucks me straight up into the darkness of the attic.

I enter the attic completely out of control, scraping my body against the side of the entrance, flying through blackness, careening off of unseen hard surfaces, slammed against the ceiling or wall, then left to drop to the floor. I collapse in a heap and my head strikes hard wood. As the pain ceases, I roll over and nearly fall through the attic entrance. I look down through it. Not only had the floor just below given way and fallen through, but the floor below THAT had collapsed as well. The ladder is nowhere to be seen, and I contemplate a fall of thirty feet through jagged cracks of broken wood and plaster. Amazingly, the attic door cover is within reach. I take it and cover the hole, blocking off the light so my eyes can adjust to this darkness, then I stand.

As before, I hear a slow, deep growl, as if from an animal. Though it sounded very far away last time, now it sounds as though it comes from all around me. It is loud, and it fills me and flows through me, leaving an oily stain in my blood and an icy fist clamped around my heart. I rub my ring reassuringly, then take two steps forward. I do not walk any farther, though. My legs feel heavy and almost stuck, like I'm slogging through thick mud. My eyes have adjusted somewhat, and I see ahead of me a form begin to coalesce from the deeper shadows. It swirls and then flows together, but I cannot see it clearly.

"It is you, finally," I say, or think I say. It may have been the manlike figure in front of me who spoke.

"It doesn't matter." What, do we really think that alike? "What did you expect?" I expect to finish this. {laughter, soft and sibilant, and dark, dark, dark}. "It is only the beginning." NO. It will end NOW.

"NOW!" I cry, and reach behind my back to grasp the end of the heavy wooden staff I know is not there. I know it is not there because I purposely left it behind, and did not carry it. Disregarding this, I draw it from behind me and with both hands grasping it, bring it down to thump resoundingly against the floor. There is a flash of darkness, and I twitch violently, but my legs are at least free. I toss my head back, eyes closed, and smile, and as I do this a soft light blossoms just behind and above my head. For years, for all my life I have hoarded this energy, this strength. I am filled with vigor; my power enters me like a lightning bolt. I am at my most potent, and I gasp to know my might. I open my eyes and look upon my adversary.

He stands before me, as substantial as the hot wind which emanates from him. He is clothed in white robes, and his skin is jet black. He smiles in return... his face is radiant, an exquisite tribute to angelic beauty. "Now you see me," he utters in velvet tones, his voice like a song. He removes his hands from his sleeves, and they bear long claws. "Destroy me if you will." He beckons, and as I raise my non-staff to guard position, I say to him: "I will it."

Words forgotten, we leap to each other.

EPILOGUE

I sit now in the cafe across the street from the Linden hotel, sipping a hot drink and leaning back in my chair. As I raise the mug to my lips, my ring winks at me in the sunlight. The people pass by, and we are oblivious to each other. For the moment, I am focused on the building. I recall the final battle between myself and my ancient enemy, in the depths of that structure. Sighing, I relax, content for now with the realization of my victory over him. After so long, it is over. We are apart, and he lies trapped inside the Linden, languishing in his defeat. I flex my fingers, liking the feel of it. I am satisfied in my success, but now I have work to do. Many things must I accomplish, and soon; this tangle I had with him has kept me behind in many things. Still, I do have mine old enemy to thank; if it wasn't for his persistence in confronting me, I would not be where I am now. He had to enter my abode, and challenge me. I thank you, nemesis, for that and for the use of this body, once yours and now entirely mine. I hope you enjoy your resting place, there, trapped in that crumbling edifice. I did not. But now I am free, and I walk the earth once again. Fare well.

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