Checkout #2
He pointed toward the loading door.
A sheet of white paper had been taped to the glass.
CHECKOUT CREWLOAD-IN: 6:30GUESTS: 10:30LAST CALL: NEVER
The OFF CAMPUS logo appeared beneath it.
Avery crossed the pavement and pulled the paper free.
It was their exact design.
Cass had made it three days earlier.
“Did you print this?” Avery asked.
Cass came beside her.
“No.”
“Tessa?”
“I sent the file to the print shop, but we haven’t picked anything up.”
Malik looked at Felix.
He shook his head.
“Don’t look at me. My pranks have production value.”
Nina took the paper.
The design had been printed on heavy matte stock. A faint red smear crossed the lower corner.
She rubbed it with her thumb.
“Paint.”
“Probably,” Maya said.
Nina looked at her.
“You don’t sound convinced.”
“I’m deciding what kind of evening I want.”
Felix held up the caretaker’s key.
“We can stand outside becoming the first scene of a documentary, or we can discover the print shop delivers to abandoned hotels.”
He unlocked the loading entrance.
The door opened into the kitchen.
Dust lay across the tile except for a narrow path leading inward.
Avery stopped in the doorway.
“Someone’s been walking through here.”
Felix looked down.
Shoe prints crossed the floor. Some were small enough for teenagers. Others had been made by work boots.
The prints overlapped until no single trail remained clear.
“The caretaker checks the building,” he said.
“When?”
“Sometimes.”
“You never met him here?”
“I met him at Morrow’s.”
“What was his name?” Malik asked.
“Hollis.”
“First name or last?”
Felix paused.
“He made it sound like both.”
Nina stared at him.
“You rented an abandoned hotel from a man whose full name you don’t know?”
“I did not rent it. I made a charitable donation to Hollis’s personal financial recovery.”
“How much?”
Felix looked toward the ceiling.
“Define much.”
Nina closed her eyes.
Tessa stepped between them.
“We can litigate later. Ballroom powered by nine. Bars stocked by ten. Fourth floor blocked before guests arrive.”
She looked at Avery.
“Service panel?”
Avery nodded.
“Jude, Malik and Cass unload sound. Nina inventories liquor. Maya, check bathrooms and first aid. Felix, doors and staff access.”
Felix saluted.
Tessa turned toward the corridor.
“I’ll walk the rooms and mark installations.”
Avery said, “You shouldn’t go alone.”
Tessa glanced back.
“Are you volunteering?”
Jude had already opened the box truck.
Avery hated herself for noticing.
“I’m doing power.”
“I’ll take Cass.”
Cass raised her camera.
“I’m unloading.”
“I thought you wanted B-roll.”
“I do now.”
She followed Tessa into the corridor.
Jude watched them leave.
Avery watched him watch.
He caught her looking.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“Good talk.”
He lifted one end of a speaker cabinet.
Avery took the other.
They carried it into the ballroom.
It occupied most of the first floor.
Tall windows overlooked the reservoir. Dust-covered chandeliers hung from a painted ceiling where water damage had opened brown flowers across the plaster. A broad staircase split at the landing and curved toward the mezzanine.
The front desk sat beneath it.
An old brass bell remained on the counter.
Felix struck it as he passed.
The sound carried through the ballroom and into the dark corridors beyond.
Maya looked at him.
“Don’t.”
“It’s a bell.”
“You’ve watched too many movies to pretend that was innocent.”
Felix struck it again.
Somewhere upstairs, another bell answered.
The second ring was quieter.
Everyone stopped.
Felix’s hand remained above the desk bell.
Malik looked toward the mezzanine.
“Was that an echo?”
“No,” Jude said.
Felix smiled.
“It’s the Night Clerk.”
Maya picked up a folded table leg.
“Do it again.”
Felix rang the bell.
They waited.
Nothing answered.
Tessa’s voice came from the upper corridor.
“Stop playing and unload.”
Felix looked disappointed.
Maya lowered the table leg.
Avery carried the speaker toward the stage mounts.
She did not look at the corridor beneath the stairs.
They worked for two hours.
Generators went outside the loading entrance.
Avery and Jude ran cables through the kitchen and into the ballroom.
Malik assembled the sound system. Nina built two bars from folding tables and old hotel doors.
Maya inspected the bathrooms, declared half biological weapons and placed OUT OF ORDER signs across the worst.
Felix explored the staff corridors and returned wearing a burgundy bellhop jacket.
It fit tightly across his shoulders.
“Tell me this isn’t destiny.”
Nina looked at the tarnished buttons.
“Tell me you found that hanging up.”
“I found an entire locker room.”
“When was it last washed?”
“Before we were born.”
He put on a matching cap.
Maya backed away.
“No.”
“You don’t like it?”
“I hate it.”
“That’s the theme.”
“The theme is haunted hotel. That makes you look like you died here.”
Felix bowed.
“At your service.”
He lifted the brass desk bell and carried it onto the dance floor.
Tessa and Cass returned with room numbers written across their arms.
Tessa pointed toward the mezzanine.
“Second floor is Freshman Funeral. Rooms 201 through 208. Cass has the photos.”
Cass patted the archive case.
“Third floor is Red Room and Black Valentine. No bedrooms open, just corridor installations.”
Maya’s expression changed.
Tessa noticed.
“We’re not using the bathroom footage.”
“What bathroom footage?” Malik asked.
“No footage,” Maya said.
Cass looked toward her camera.
“The recovery room is abstract.”
“Nothing about that night was abstract.”
“We talked about this.”
“You and Tessa talked about it.”
Tessa crossed the ballroom.
“We can cut it.”
Maya laughed once.
“You already built it.”
“It’s paper, lights and photographs.”
“Of me?”
“Of the party.”
“The party where I stopped breathing.”
Felix removed the bellhop cap.
“May.”
She turned toward him.
“You don’t get to do the voice.”
“What voice?”
“The one you use when you’re trying to make a disaster charming.”
Felix did not answer.
Avery saw the bruise-colored history pass between them.
Felix had found Maya in the bathroom at Red Room sophomore year. He carried her half-dressed through a kitchen window because someone shouted that police were coming.
Maya spent nine hours in the emergency department.
Tessa told everyone she had food poisoning.
Cass deleted the photographs.
Jude removed the drugs from Maya’s bag before hospital staff could find them.
Avery stayed at the party and helped move the speakers.
They had all participated.
No one had discussed it together since.
Tessa said, “We’ll remove the installation.”
Maya looked at her.
“Not because I’m embarrassed.”
“I know.”
“Because none of you get to make it beautiful.”
Tessa nodded.
“All right.”
Cass crossed one of the room numbers from her arm.
Felix looked at Maya.
“I wasn’t trying to make a joke.”
“You usually are.”
“Not then.”
Maya’s anger softened without disappearing.
“I know.”
Felix put the cap back on.
The moment closed badly, which was how most things closed among them.
Avery returned to the cables.
Jude followed.
“You knew about Tessa and me,” he said quietly.
Avery kept her attention on the power strip.
“I knew one of you would eventually get bored enough.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the only one you need.”
“It started two weeks ago.”
“Congratulations.”
“We aren’t together.”
“Then congratulations on doing less.”
Jude crouched beside her.
“I didn’t want you hearing it from somebody else.”
“I heard it from your hand.”
“That wasn’t supposed to happen in the van.”
“Where was it supposed to happen?”
He looked toward the staircase.
Avery pulled the cable harder than necessary.
“You don’t owe me an explanation.”
“That sounds like you want one.”
“It sounds like we broke up eight months ago.”
“And slept together three weeks ago.”
Avery looked at him.
He lowered his voice.
“That mattered to me.”
“It mattered for forty minutes.”
“That’s cruel.”
“It’s accurate.”
Jude sat back.
Avery wanted him to argue.
Instead he said, “Are you sleeping with anyone?”
She laughed.
“Why?”
“Because I asked.”
“No.”
“Do you want to?”
“Not with you.”
He absorbed that.
She felt briefly powerful and immediately worse.
Tessa called from the mezzanine.
“Jude, I need sound upstairs.”
He stood.
“Of course she does,” Avery said.
He looked down at her.
“Fuck you.”
“You tried.”
He walked away.
At nine-fifteen, they ate cold pizza in the hotel kitchen.
The ballroom lights were operational. Red bulbs washed the walls. Cass had hung old party photographs along the mezzanine railing. In them, everyone appeared younger, wetter, thinner, drunker or more convinced they would remain together forever.
Nina checked her watch.
“The shuttle leaves campus at ten.”
“Location message goes at nine-forty-five,” Tessa said.
“Felix already posted it.”
“I deleted it.”
“After eighty-three people saw it.”
“Only forty-three are invited.”
“Then forty other people know where we are.”
Felix raised a slice of pizza.
“Publicity.”
Nina pointed at him.
“You are going to die because you mistake consequences for branding.”
He took a bite.
“Put that on my memorial shirt.”
Maya opened the refrigerator.
The light came on.
She stared inside.
“What?” Avery asked.
“There’s ice.”
Several hotel ice buckets had been stacked on the shelves. Each was full.
Water had begun collecting beneath them.
Malik stood.
“We didn’t bring those in.”
“No,” Nina said.
“The caretaker?” Tessa asked.
Felix shook his head.
“There’s no building power except what Avery connected.”
Avery checked the refrigerator plug.
It disappeared into an old wall outlet.
The motor hummed.
“That circuit isn’t on our generator.”
“Could be an old backup,” Jude said.
“For nineteen years?”
Tessa removed one of the buckets.
A black plastic key tag lay beneath the ice.
ROOM 413 had been stamped into it in silver.
Felix smiled around his pizza.
“That is good.”
No one else smiled.
Tessa turned the tag over.
Something had been scratched into the back.
SEVEN CHECK INSIX CHECK OUT
Malik counted the room.
Avery, Tessa, Jude, Cass, Nina, Felix, Maya and Malik.
Eight.
Felix swallowed.