Little Agatha disappears up the spiral staircase when we get inside the hotel. She doesn’t say anything, just runs up the stairs, her little red shoes clacking loudly against the polished wood floor. I watch her go upstairs, wondering what kind of people her parents must be. People of means don’t usually raise such strange children.
Scabs is standing behind the counter in the lobby. He’s picking at his face, popping pimples and tearing blemishes, oblivious to everything around him, save the music playing from his old record player.
“Watcha playing there, Scabs,” I ask, pulling my work jacket from my bones. It’s never really cold enough to really warrant wearing, but I like the old beaten thing. It makes me feel safer somehow, like I’m wearing armor on the battlefield. I wonder, for a moment, about those boys who fought in the Great War, and if their jackets made them feel the same way.
“Huh?” Scabs eyes take a moment to focus as he comes back to the present. “Oh, this is Robert Johnson,” he says, a smile creasing his face. Scabs loves to talk about his music; only thing that really seems to make him happy these days. “He’s got a way with words that’d make you wanna cry tears of joy and sorrow all at the same time. I heard he sold his soul to the Devil to play such fine music.” He turns the volume up, flooding the hotel with Johnson’s guitar and voice.
“Now, she is a little queen of spades, and the men will not let her be.” Johnson’s voice, guttural yet melodic, like the wind through a gnarled tree trunk, serves as background to Scab’s scratchy belting. Sounds the way I imagine a leper’s singing voice would, falling apart as it crashes into your ears. Still, it’s hard not to tap my foot to the bluesy beat.
“Everytime she makes a spread, hoo fair brown, cold chill just runs all over me.”
“What you think of our guests?” I ask Scabs. He’s bobbing his head back and forth and snapping his fingers.
“What of them?” he says between verses.
“Where you reckon they come from?” Scabs shrugs his shoulders. He doesn’t miss a beat.
“Don’t know,” he says, “but I think they know the boss.”
“You reckon?”
“Yeah, he brought them to the room next to his study. Wouldn’t let me do so much as bring their luggage up. Said he’d do it himself. Never seen the boss take such interest in people and I’ve been around here for quite some time.” I nod my head and listen to the song slowly die off to silence.
“Wasn’t that Agatha’s room?” I say. “The one he brought them up to.”
“Yup,” he replies. Our conversation disappears into the quiet lobby walls. Scabs fiddles with his record player and flips the album over. Soon Johnson’s crooning fills the room once more, glossing over the discomfort that had found its way into my gut. I leave Scabs to his blues and walk to the back of the hotel, towards the kitchen. He doesn’t seem to notice.
The boss likes art. He hangs the stuff all over the walls. There is no particular theme that I can see, but then I’m not that smart. There are some pieces made by guests of the hotel, others that are hundreds of years old, bought at auctions I’ve been told. He’s always adding to his collection. Seems every time I walk around I see something new, hanging from the walls. There are so many paintings, in fact, that it’s hard to see the cracked and cobwebbed walls underneath. I used to think that he put them up there to hide those cracks, so guests wouldn’t be uneasy seeing the walls crumbling ‘round them. But the boss don’t have that simple a mind. Everything he does serves more than one purpose, even if that purpose ain’t clear.
***
“What do you think of my new piece, Zeke?” he said to me a few weeks back. I was sloshing my way towards the laundry room, having buried six bodies that day. The swamp clung to me like tree sap.
“I don’t think much at all, boss,” I said.
“That hardly sounds true,” he said. He wore a large fedora that shadowed his eyes most times. Still, I could feel him staring my way. “Have you ever heard of Bosch?” he asked, looking again towards his new painting.
“No, sir,” I said, stepping closer. He had hung the painting next to the entrance of the servant’s quarters, which was mostly empty now. I had buried the maid earlier in the week, the concierge days before that.
“It’s a reproduction,” he said, frowning slightly. “Still it retains most of the splendor and magnificence of the original. I saw it in Berlin, when I was young.”
The painting was quite large, consisting of five circular wooden panels. Four smalls ones were placed in the corners with a single large panel in the center.
“It’s called The Seven Deadly Sins and the Four Last things,” he said. “See here…” He pointed to the center panel. “…are depictions of the seven deadly sins: pride, wrath, gluttony, sloth, envy, avarice and lust.” He circled his finger ‘round as he got to each section.
“And here,” he continued, moving to the four outer panels, “are the four last things. These are the last things to happen during Rapture.” The first panel he pointed to was in the upper left corner. In it was a sickly man in a hospital bed. “Death.” He moved to the second panel on the right. There was a man floating in the air, angels floatin’ all about him. “Judgment.” He moved his hand down to the panels below and pointed to the last two panels. “And these are Heaven and Hell.”
“That looks a lot like our swamp,” I said, pointing to the panel of Hell. The colors were muted and the sun was absent from the sky. In the background were the remnants of buildings. People were being tortured. Everything looked burnt.
“Yes, Zeke,” he said, smiling. “It does look like our swamp.” He walked away, leaving me to stare at that awful painting, contemplating its real meaning.
***
I stare at that painting now. It’s been moved from its original spot and now sits just outside the kitchen. The boss likes to move his art around every couple days. Keeps Scabs real busy when there aren’t any guests around. Now that painting is next to the back door in the kitchen, as if to suggest while within these walls we’re all nothin’ but sinners and to go out through that door into the swamp is to endure Rapture.
There are strange cooking smells in the kitchen today. A pot’s boiling over on the stove, the lids buckling from bubbles. Next to the stove on the counter a chopping block has a few skewered meats on it. From the looks of it, it seems like we’re having some swamp varmint tonight. The small fury pelt’s been discarded just a little ways away from the block. The skinning knife’s still bloody, havin’ been jammed, point first, into the block. Next to it is the butcherin’ knife, likewise stuck into the block. That’s not good for the knives. Makes them blunt and chips them up. You’d just tear the meat up using those tools.
Brown, wilting herbs hang from hooks above the counter. Their leaves haven’t been plucked yet, so they look like little stickmen being bled out, bodies and limbs limply reaching for the earth below. The smell is stale and fills the kitchen, coming together with the smell of rancid swamp varmint. Still smells better than most days, though. Usually we aren’t allowed to use them herbs.
Miss Charlene, the cook, is nowhere to be seen. Not like her to leave the kitchen be with a pot on. I walk towards the other side of the counter to turn the stove off so she don’t burn the place down and I see why she wasn’t tending that pot. Poor Miss Charlene’s on the ground, a pool of blood expanding below her head.
“What happened, Miss Charlene?” I say, swooping down next to her. I grab her hand in mine and slide her head under my arm. Her blood seeps through my shirt making my arm feel warm and wet.
She’s got no words for me, only gurgles and spattering. Her tongue is loose in her mouth and her eyes are up, looking at her brain.
“Scabs!” I yell, knowing he won’t hear me. He’s still listening to his blasted music in the lobby. I try to sit her up, but Miss Charlene is a bulky lady and her body is nothin’ but dead weight. I try pushing up with my feet, but they slip in the bloody pool and we both come crashing down into each other.
“Scabs! Someone!” I yell.
“Is shy dying?” I turn my head and see little Agatha standing by the counter, her hands folded behind her, looking on tippy toes over my shoulder.
“I don’t know,” I say trying to regain my footing. “Hand me that towel.” I point to a damp washcloth by the wash sink. Little Agatha nods and slowly retrieves it for me. “Now go get someone.” She nods again and skips away. I wrap Miss Charlene’s head in the damp towel and cradle it in my arms. I try to pull her along the ground towards the door, kicking with my feet, but this proves difficult.
“I wish you weren’t such a large woman, Miss Charlene. No disrespect or anything, but you’re making this hard on me.” I manage to get a few good feet closer to the door when it opens. Scabs is in the doorway with little Miss Agatha peering round his gangly legs from behind.
“What the hell happened to her?” he says, walking towards Miss Charlene and me.
“Don’t know. Help me get her to the couch in the lobby.” We struggle a bit, our backs straining to lift her weight. I got her by the shoulders, Scabs grabs her thick ankles, like hams, and eventually we get her over to the daybed in the lobby.
“Reckon we should get the doc,” I say, wiping my brow with my bloody sleeve.
Scabs nods in agreement. “Car’s in the shop though. How we gonna get the him?”
“Are the phones workin’?”
“No. Lines been out for the past week,” says Scabs. “Boss says it’ll be out for a while longer. Something to do with the cables fallin’ down.”
“Well, then I reckon you should get to running,” I say and pat him on the shoulder.
“What? Why I gotta go?”
“’Cause you’re faster than me and my knees lock up when I run to long.” I pat my knee and look down at Miss Charlene. Little Agatha’s standing close, staring at her. She’s quiet. “I’ll watch over her and tell the boss. Unless you want to tell ‘im.” Scab’s face goes a shade whiter and he backs towards the door.
“Naw, I’ll just be headin’. Should be back first thing in the morning then.” I nod and watch Scabs scamper through the door.
“She’s going to die, isn’t she?” Little Agatha is standing over Miss Charlene, gently wiping her hand over her brow. She looks like a little nurse with her apron.
“I don’t know,” I say, but that’s a lie. I’ve seen this before. She’s got the sickness just like the others before her. Soon her skin’ll be blisterin’ and her flesh will rot right off the bone. She’ll smell like spoiled eggs and vinegar. Then she’ll start to scream, but that won’t last long as blood fills her lungs. She’ll drown that way, and then I’ll bury her, simple as that.
“It’s okay,” the little girl says. “She’ll be in heaven soon.”
“You think?”
“Yes.” She turns her little head my way. “It’s better there. She’ll be happy. Everyone is happy there. My mommy says so.” I think about that painting. Heaven didn’t look much; a couple of angels kneeling down praying. It looked like church. I never much liked church and if that’s heaven, then it doesn’t seem like a place I’d want to hurry off to. Not sure if Miss Charlene would want to hurry that way either.
“Is that right? Well you’re mom doesn’t look like a very happy person.” I say. “Hell, none of your ilk looked too pleased to be here.”
“That’s not my mom.”
“No? Well who is that you’re with then?”
“Mr. LaFluer’s friends. They picked me up from the foster home.”
“What?” There’s a noise from above, sounds like something dropped. I Gotta tell the boss about Miss Charlene. “Wait here.” She nods her head and I walk up the stairs to the boss’s room. My mind is spinning. What does the boss want with little Agatha? I get to his door and knock the way he likes me to, three quick raps.
“Yes?” His voice is barely audible through the thick wooden doors. Most of our conversations have been made this way.
“It’s me, boss,” I say.
“What is it, Zeke.”
“It’s Miss Charlene. She’s got the sickness.”
There’s silence for a moment. “Boss?” More silence still, then the door opens. The boss stands in front of me for a moment, eyeing me from under the shade of that hat of his. He nods for me to follow him and I do. We walk to his desk. He sits down; I stand in front of him waiting.
“I need you to do something, Zeke,” he says. “I need you to get something for me.”
“Will it help, Miss Charlene?”
He pauses a moment. “Yes.”
I nod. “O.K. boss. Where you need me to go?”
“I need you to go to Petro City.”
The pit town, boss?” He nods and places a small sack on the desk in front of me.
“Bring this to a man named Roth. He’ll have a package for you. Bring it to me.”
I nod and pick up the small sack. It’s light and feels delicate in my clumsy hands. I place it in my pocket and start towards the door. “How will I find this man?”
The boss smiles and leans back in his chair. “When you get to the pits just say his name.” A shiver goes down my spine. “He’ll find you.”
Id10t Savant 