1. “Please Enjoy Your Stay”

Hotel Icarus

 

1. “Please Enjoy Your Stay”

 

          The telephone on the nightstand next to the bed rang and woke him from a deep sleep. He opened his eyes and stared at the dark and unfamiliar ceiling. There was a ceiling fan that was spinning slowly. It was too dark to see what the fan was made of, nor did he really care. He just wanted the phone to stop.

          He reached for the phone with his left hand. When it didn’t find it, he sat up and leaned over to turn on the lamp. When he pulled the chain an eerie yellow light illuminated the nightstand, but not much further than that. An old phone sat just to the right of the lamp. He leaned a little further and grasped it firmly.

          “Hello?” he said as he placed the receiver to his ear. There was no one on the other end of the line, or if there was, no one was saying anything. “Hello? Who is this?” No one replied to him. “Hello!” He was starting to be a little irritated. Who would call him at this time of night and not say anything?

          What time is it? He placed the receiver back on the hook and proceeded to look for an alarm clock. There wasn’t one. Why did he feel like that there should have been one?

          He looked back at the ceiling fan and tried to remember where he had seen it before. He hadn’t. Looking down at the bed he was in, he found that he didn’t recognize it either. The sheets were white and the blanket on top of it was a faded black. They could be anyone’s sheets. They weren’t anything special; they didn’t feel like they were made out of any special fabric or anything.

          A nagging voice in the back of his mind told him that he should go back to sleep and that everything would be fine in the morning. As much as he wanted to believe the voice, the fact that nothing around him was familiar set him on edge. Was he staying with a friend? He couldn’t remember which friend he would be staying with… he couldn’t remember any friends at all… he couldn’t remember anyone… he couldn’t remember.

          He couldn’t go back to sleep with so many questions in his mind. Where was he? How did he get there? Did he come here with someone? Why didn’t he remember arriving? You just need to calm down and think, he thought to himself. Just get a hold of yourself…He wanted to address himself by name, but he couldn’t remember what his name was. Who was he?

          Did he bring anything with him? He jumped out of bed and ignored how old and thin the carpet beneath his feet felt. He slowly wandered away from the low light of the lamp to find a light switch. Scanning the floor with his right foot, he slowly moved to the foot of the bed. He kept his right hand on the bed so that he’d have something to fall on just in case.

When he reached the end of the bed, he saw that there was a small table a few steps away. The table was very poorly lit, but from the dark shadows, he was able to tell that there was something tall resting on the table top. It looked like it was another lamp. He found it to be so and turned it on. The light was a little brighter than the lamp on the nightstand and was able to get a better view of the room.

The room didn’t have much to offer. There was only a bed, the nightstand, the table he was at, and an old chair positioned by the window. The curtains on the windows were closed with only their harsh blackness for a view. The wallpaper was striped with black and white vertical lines. There was a small hallway that he assumed led to the bathroom and the front door to his left. On the wall behind to the table hung a large ornate mirror that had silver lions as its border. The mirror sent a disconcerting chill down his back.

What the hell is this place? It looked like some kind of strange hotel room. That could make sense, but he couldn’t remember checking in. He couldn’t remember where he had come from or where he might have been going to.

Luggage. Did he have any luggage with him? He looked around the room for any signs of suitcases or clothes. There wasn’t anything on the old chair. There wasn’t anything underneath the table. He walked back to the bed and got on his knees to look underneath it. There were no suitcases there.

What kind of person checks into a hotel and doesn’t have luggage? What reasons could I have to be traveling so light? He couldn’t come up with any answers as he got back to his feet. He simply turned away from the bed and headed towards the bathroom.

Darkness greeted him when he walked in. He searched the walls to his left and right for a light switch, but he didn’t find one. Something told him that he did not want to be in there in the dark for very long. Stepping back into the main room backwards, he wished that he had had a flashlight. The next best thing would be one of the lamps.

He walked back over to the table with the bigger lamp. After making sure the extension cord would be long enough to reach the bathroom, he lifted the lamp. It was then that he found a small piece of paper that had been resting underneath it. He picked it up and read the hand printed lettering:

Dear Guest,

Welcome to the Hotel Icarus. We hope that you are enjoying your stay. If you have any questions, please contact Guest Relations.

He noticed that there wasn’t a number to contact said Guest Relations. At this point, he didn’t care; he was just glad that he could put a name to the place he found himself, though he had never heard of it before. Now, the next order of business was to find out who he was. He was still convinced that the answer maybe lay in the bathroom.

He carried the lamp as far as the extension cord allowed, which was right up to the bathroom doorway. The light shone on the small toilet, the bear claw bathtub, and the thin pedestal sink. Above the toilet was a rack holding several black and white towels. The floor was covered with black and white checkered tiles. If there was an electrical outlet in there, he wasn’t seeing one. He needed more light.

He left the lamp on the floor and walked over to the window. He didn’t know why he hadn’t thought of opening the window sooner. He might have had a better idea of where this place was. He pulled the curtain open and saw… nothing. There was nothing but pitch black outside. It would have been fine if the sky had been dark because he had just assumed that it was night out. He was startled to find that there was no sky. There was no ground. There was only black and more black; black that went on forever. He strained his eyes for any sign of landmarks: a road, a street sign, a blade of grass, anything, but found none.

The air caught in his throat as he stepped away from the window. It couldn’t be. It just couldn’t be. There had to be something out there! There just had to be! Rushing back to the window, he tried to open it, but there were no latches, no knobs, no anything; just a pane of glass.

He felt panic wash over him. He began to pound on the glass in the hopes that it would break. He pounded it until his fists hurt, but the glass showed no signs of weakness. He couldn’t take staring out into nothing anymore and closed the curtain.

He stumbled backward onto the bed and tried to catch his breath. He grabbed handfuls of the blanket and closed his eyes. This isn’t happening! This isn’t happening!  It was just his mind playing tricks on him, right?.

He suddenly felt the urgent need to talk to someone, anyone about this. He rushed over to the phone and picked up the receiver. He went to punch in “0” for the operator when he saw that there were no numbers on the base. How could this be? What kind of a phone was this?

“Hello? Hello?” he shouted into the receiver. There was a gurgling sound coming from the other end. “Hello? Is there someone there?” Only the gurgling replied. Then he felt something wet touch his ear. He pulled the phone away from his ear to see a thin black substance leak out of the holes on the earpiece. He dropped the phone on the floor and backed away. The black liquid continued to seep into the carpet, giving it a fish like odor.

“What the fuck is going on?” he screamed. He ran past the bathroom, kicking the lamp, and reached the front door. He went to open the door, but the doorknob didn’t turn. “What?” He tried the doorknob again but it refused to budge. Commanding it to open, he yanked on door but it did not. He leaned down and further examined the dirty silver knob and saw that there was an old fashioned keyhole underneath it. What kind of hotel locks their guests in from the inside?

Hysteria threatened to take over him, but he wanted to think things through first. If he was locked in from the inside, that had to mean that the key was somewhere in the room with him, he hoped. All he had to do was find it.

He ran back over to the nightstand and opened the first drawer. Inside was a black bound book that he assumed was the bible, but there was nothing printed on the front. He picked it up and opened the pages. There were no words inside; just a blank book.

He was about to drop the book back into the drawer when he saw that there was something else in it. There was a dark metallic object sitting there. He reached in and touched it. It was an old key. Well, that was easy, he thought. He wrapped his fingers around the key and tried to pull it out, but something had grabbed his hand and tugged on it! He cried out and immediately pulled on his hand. Whatever had held onto him let go and slid back into the dark drawer. His hand felt cold like it was dead. He blinked in disbelief as he watched the drawer slide shut on its own. He shuddered as the cold in his hand spread up his arm until it reached his shoulders. The cold chill lasted for only a moment before it faded.

He didn’t waste any more time getting the old key to the front door. He stuck it in the keyhole and hoped for the best. He turned it to the left and pulled on the door. It remained closed. He didn’t despair. He turned the key to the right and tried again. The door remained closed.

That can’t be right! He jiggled the key with conviction, but the door was not any more convinced to open. Why would there be a key in the room if it didn’t work?  

He pulled the key out of the lock and examined it. Was it broken? Why wasn’t it working? For the first time, he noticed what colour it was. The key was gold; the lock on the door was silver. Did that matter? Did he have to find the matching key? Would he find it in this room? What kind of a place was this?

He stood back from the door and continued to stare at the key. If this wasn’t the right key for the door, what was it to? So many questions, so little capacity to really care. All he wanted was out! If he had to tear the room apart looking for the stupid silver key, then that was what he was going to do.

While he was loathed to, he opened the two other drawers of the nightstand and made sure to keep his hands out of its reach. The dim light from the lamp above showed that there was nothing important in them. There was a dark corner in the back, but he didn’t really feel like reaching his hand in there to check for anything.

He looked every place the light dared to touch but couldn’t find any sign of the silver key. He sat down on the bed with his head in his hands. He was locked in and there was no hope of escape. There was no one he could call, even if he could remember someone he knew on the outside.

Just then, a light flickered on in the bathroom. He slowly brought his head up and looked in its general direction. It was the only place he hadn’t looked yet. Maybe he could find some answers in there.

He stood up and walked into the bathroom. He was able to see that the décor had somewhat changed from what they were moments ago. The pedestal sink had changed into a nice black and white marbled counter with a sink. Right above it was a wide mirror that covered the wall. Lying next to the sink was a neatly folded black and white hotel uniform.

“What the hell?” he asked out loud. He picked up the uniform and looked it over. There was a black coat with two rows of white buttons and a name tag in the upper right hand (his left hand side once he put it on) that read: Dresden. The pants that made up the other half of the outfit were white and pleated. He didn’t know if he actually was a guest or was about to report to work. It didn’t really matter to him because he had gotten two things from this uniform: a name and the very much sought after silver key that was hidden in one of the pants’ pockets.

He changed out of the black pajamas he had been wearing and into the hotel uniform. In the back of his mind, he thought that putting the uniform on might trigger a memory of something, but no such luck. Now he was just a guy named Dresden wearing a bellhop uniform of some kind. No new developments.

He reached into his left pocket and pulled out the silver key and felt relieved. He hoped that this would finally grant him his freedom. He planned to find the first available person and find some answers.

He looked at himself in the mirror for the first time and didn’t know what to think. Was he a good looking man? He couldn’t tell because he didn’t have any base for comparison. His brown eyes, black hair, and light brown complexion stared back at him as he examined himself. “Nice to meet you, Dresden,” he said. He made a hand shaking gesture at his reflection. “What’s a guy like you doing in a place like this?”

The light turned off as quickly and mysteriously as it had come on. That was his cue to leave. He didn’t want to be left in the dark. He exited the bathroom and went to the front door. He stuck the new key in the lock and turned it to the right. The lock clicked and the door opened. He didn’t know what was on the other side, but he preferred it to being locked up in the room… but not for long.

 

 

 

Dedicated to the memory of John Sator

No Comments Yet

No comments yet.

Comments RSS TrackBack Identifier URI