“You need a place to stay.”
“Well, yeah. I mean, there was a lot more murdering and burrowing and whatever, but, yeah, that’s… that’s pretty much why I’m here.”
Mark rubbed his forehead. “Fourth floor.”
“Really? That’s it? No arguing? I came up with a list on the way over. It’s very compelling.”
“Just go, Thor.”
Thor walked to the computer behind the counter and quickly created a keycard for room 401. As he pocketed the card and hustled to the elevator, the ringing in his ears—caused by the Hollow Men’s borers—grew higher in pitch, drowning out the lecture Mark appeared to be giving.
Not that Thor particularly cared what Mark was going on about, anyway. He assumed it was about owing him one, or no free rides, or humping the toaster oven or something. Thor really didn’t have the patience for it right now. He stepped from the elevator and began walking down the hall, desperately in need of a shower, a nap, and everything in the mini-bar.
Instead, Thor opened the door to room 401 and found a naked Catrina standing before him.
“That’ll work, too,” he thought.
“Holy fuck,” exclaimed Catrina, grabbing a comforter and covering up her naughty parts.
Thor frowned.
“Jesus fuck, Thor, close the god damned door!” the naked girl shouted.
“Why would I want to close the door?” reasoned the fully-clothed former god, laughing.
Catrina threw a remote control at Thor’s head.
“Come on, there’s no need for hostilities.”
Catrina threw a lamp at Thor’s head.
“Christ, Catrina,” he said, ducking swiftly. “I didn’t know you were in here, OK? Why are you in here, anyway?”
“Because you befouled my apartment, jackass,” she said. “I called a cleaning service and two of them died. Then the landlord found out and now the building’s being razed. I needed a new place to live, cheap, since my security deposit’s being put towards the funerals.”
She adjusted the comforter.
“I was about to take a shower and try and wash that nightmare away. Right up until some mannerless tool barged in on me and made me rethink my need to deadbolt the door, that is.”
She adjusted the comforter again.
“Why the hell are you here?” asked Catrina. “You look like shit.”
“My apartment now has a lovely view of the Hollow Earth. I needed a place to crash.”
“Well, why the fuck didn’t you knock?”
“Why the fuck would I knock? This floor’s been empty since I started working here. Besides, I’m not exactly thinking about my fucking manners, OK? I woke up in a hole, Catrina, a fucking hole, and I had to kill so, so many fucking Hollow Men… I think I might’ve committed genocide, honestly. And then… then I had to ride a giant mole… to… to the surface…”
Thor drifted off mid-sentence and his eyes glazed over. He wobbled slightly.
“Yeah, OK, I got it. Sucks to be you. 401 is mine, OK? Go get yourself another room.”
She adjusted the comforter again. It was proving to be less comfortable than its name implied.
“Down the hall or something,” she continued, “so we don’t share any plumbing.”
Catrina realized Thor wasn’t paying attention. He was staring at the mirror to the right of her. Apparently, the last readjustment of the comforter had readjusted a little too much.
“Fuck!” she said. “You fucking son of a bitch!”
Catrina grabbed the coffee maker with both hands and threw it at Thor’s head, completely losing control of the comforter in the process.
Thor fell to the ground with a smile on his face.
Twenty-One: There Are a Lot of Dead Acrobats for Some Reason
Chester A. Arthur XVII and Queen Victoria XXX sat in the car without speaking, their charred and decimated surroundings becoming more and more familiar with every passing mile. The CD player made a stilted ka-chunk as it shifted through each empty tray, eventually settling on the same dollar-bin disc that had been playing in an endless loop for the last eight hours.
“You know, this wasn’t a bad CD for a dollar.”
“Yeah, I kinda like it.”
The music continued to fill the car at a pleasant volume, and the two went back to sitting in relative silence: Chester A. Arthur behind the wheel, bleary-eyed and determined; Victoria staring out the passenger window in a wearied daze.
Chester A. Arthur XVII cleared his throat.
“Hmm?” asked Queen Victoria XXX.
“Huh? I didn’t…”
“Oh. Sorry.”
The silence descended again, not lifting until the pair finally reached their apartment parking lot.
“Kind of an uneventful trip,” said Chester A. Arthur XVII, shifting the car into park.
“Yeah,” agreed Queen Victoria XXX, stretching her back.
Chester removed the key from the ignition. The CD stopped playing. The engine sputtered and died.
“Made pretty good time, too.”
“We did,” said Queen Victoria XXX, “especially considering all the shit that went down after we got lost.”
“Ha, yeah,” said Chester A. Arthur XVII. “Man, those fucking…”
“Seriously. I can’t believe they made you marry…”
“I don’t… I’m really not ready to talk about that yet.”
“And then, when we…”
“And you had to…”
“Oh, god!”
“Yeah.”
“That poor horse.”
“Dude,” said Chester A. Arthur XVII, opening the door to the apartment and entering the kitchen, “we’re back. We got beer.”
“Lots and lots of beer,” said Queen Victoria XXX. “Get off your ass and help us bring it in.”
“My dear lady,” said William H. Taft XLII, walking into the kitchen from the living room, “my posterior has been aloft for quite some time.”
“That… doesn’t seem right,” said Queen Victoria XXX, tilting her head.
William H. Taft XLII was walking into the kitchen on his hands.
“OK, whoever’s controlling Billy needs to leave now,” ordered Chester A. Arthur XVII. “I’m not above injuring his body grievously.”
To reinforce his point, Chester A. Arthur XVII waved the two cases of beer he was carrying in a threatening manner.
“As you wish,” vibrated the vocal chords inside of William H. Taft XLII, “but I feel you should know, this was entirely his idea.”
Twenty-Two: The Hobo State
Will and Quetzalcoatl pulled up in front of a run-down bookstore in the middle of a bombed-out section of an abandoned town in a once-quarantined county in the middle of a state that was disowned by the government and handed over to hobos in the hope that they’d either stop being hobos or die.
Neither one had happened.
“This way,” said Will, leading Quetzalcoatl into the building. “Mind the broken glass.”
Instead, hippies, philosophers, English majors, and all manner of unemployable or otherwise destitute types flocked to the Hobo State. Some came to liberate themselves from the shackles of authoritarianism, others to peddle various illicit wares. Some simply adhered to more bohemian ideals. A few had gotten lost. None of them paid rent.
Will led Quetzalcoatl past empty, broken bookcases and across a floor covered with stacks and stacks of books and papers.
“This is our theater, our arena… our home,” he said. “Well, ‘ours’ in the sense that our collective resides here most often. We do not own the building, per se, but then ownership is such an… ethereal thing.”