His hand moved directly from the switch to the handle, but it was locked. The handle didn’t even turn — he thought it felt like a decorative handle, it was so rigid. He kicked the door in frustration.
Stephen considered his options: go back through the hole, or find a way through the door. He looked up and realized he hadn’t considered the ceiling. He needed to find a way up there.
The ice machine had a door about halfway up and he thought he could use that to boost himself on top of the soda machine. It was even easier than he thought. In a few seconds, he sat on top of the dusty soda machine and pushed up one of the tiles. It took a second for his eyes to adjust. He saw bad news — the walls went all the way up.
He pushed up a few more tiles to verify that walls block him in every direction.
Stephen started to feel helpless again. He pulled himself together enough to prioritize his needs. He knew that he had to get out of the hotel, and to tell someone about Jack. His former friend had gone crazy, and needed help. For the moment, both of his needs seemed unattainable. Stephen pulled his legs up on top of the soda machine and felt his hope ebb away.
CHAPTER 23
Jack
Jack found himself back in the exam room, strapped down to the chair. Jack struggled clear his head, but he felt sluggish, like something held him just below true consciousness. Then he saw it — a needle poked out of his right arm and a tube ran up to a clear bag on a stand. Even in his diminished state Jack realized that this couldn’t be the same exam room that he had rolled Stephen to earlier. It just didn’t look right to him. The handle was on the wrong side of the door, as was the light switch.
A deep voice startled him — “Waking up?”
“Why did you drug me?” asked Jack.
“You’re not going to work out, Jack,” said the man from behind him. The man circled around the chair and faced him. Jack craned his head up to get a good look at the man he had pursued. He thought it must be another trick, this couldn’t possibly be The Management.
The man standing before Jack looked old — Jack figured older than his dad. White hair at his temples faded back over his ears. The man’s face was deeply lined, tanned, and his eyes were barely visible with the way the man squinted. His mouth was small and secretive, guarding large, tightly-packed teeth. He wore baggy clothes that barely disguised the extra weight he carried. Jack looked with open wonder at this small, ordinary man who had created these elaborate and challenging puzzles.
The man adjusted his stance and squared his shoulders with Jack. “In my day we listened to DJs on the radio. Everything was fine until you met one, then you spent the next few months trying to align the face with the voice,” the man said. “I suspect you’re having that same feeling right now.”
Jack shook his head. His head felt heavy, but his neck worked like a swivel and his head flopped from side-to-side.
“But don’t worry,” added the man. “You’ll only have to deal with this visual discrepancy for a matter of hours.”
“Why are you giving up on me so quickly?” asked Jack. “We can fix this.”
The man approached Jack, putting his weathered face within inches of Jack’s fearful expression. “Why am I giving up on you, Jack?” he asked, whispering the question. “Perhaps if you really think through the question, you’ll understand how illogical it is. There’s almost nothing that bothers me more than an illogical argument.”
The man backed away and turned his head slightly, looking over at the counter. “So, Jack,” he began in a normal tone of voice that ramped up quickly, “maybe I’ve given up on you because you TRIED TO KILL ME,” he ended with a scream.
“You’re upset because you didn’t see it coming, aren’t you?” asked Jack.
“There’s another bad question,” said the man. “After all, I sent a decoy out to meet you.” He paced around the foot of the chair. “You also brought a decoy. Mine performed perfectly, and yours kicked you in the face,” he smiled. “I would have enjoyed teaching you how to properly control a decoy. So, given the fact that I sent a decoy out to meet your well-aimed bullets, are you still inclined to believe that I didn’t anticipate that move?”
“I guess not,” said Jack. His efforts to coax his way out of this situation had, so far, failed. He needed to introduce another variable into The Management's equations. “But Stephen’s going to bring other people back here. You’ll be caught if you hang around.”
“You’re not thinking this through,” said the man. “I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt. It’s probably the drugs I’ve given you. They’re confusing you, aren’t they?” He leaned over and thumbed a dial on the IV bag shut. The drip stopped immediately. “It will take a while to wear off completely, but you’ll be a little more rational soon, I suspect,” he said.
The man continued pacing and recommenced his lecture. “Of course I took great care to make sure that Stephen cannot escape. I’ve got to admit though, he nearly has enough fortitude to make a decent replacement for you. He’s a little squeamish, but he seemed to go along with everything pretty well. Perhaps I could groom him.”
Jack decided to play his trump card. He had one piece of insurance set aside in case things went this badly. “I’ve written everything down, you know,” said Jack. “I’ve documented everything I could find out about the Vigue case, this hotel, and the connection to the disappearances in the sixties. That’s where you learned it, right? From that guy in Georgia?”
“You have indeed done some excellent research, Jack,” said the man. “It’s not too difficult to collect that kind of information these days though. Personally, I think that I had a much harder time doing that same research back in sixty-four. I had to spend weeks in the library, reading microfilms of archived newspapers. You, on the other hand, spent a few hours on some websites.”
The man walked to counter and opened a drawer below. He pulled out a yellow envelope and unwound the red string. He upended the envelope and dropped its contents into his hand. He looked at Jack — “You’re referring to this documentation, of course. I found it in the second drawer of your dresser, under your tee shirts. How did you expect this to help you, though? By the time your mom found this I would have been long gone.”
Jack exhaled slowly and considered his situation. This man had easily outwitted him at every turn. He had no leverage, and no course of action. He inhaled deeply and smelled his own tears welling up behind his eyes.
“Now if you don’t mind,” said the man, “I’m going to get some work done while we wait for Stephen.” He pulled a set of thick goggles out of a drawer and pulled them over his head. The goggles magnified his eyes enough so that his irises looked to be the size of nickels. The man pulled a rolling chair over to Jack’s leg and sat down on the edge. He looked up at Jack again and warned him, “This is going to hurt quite a bit, but it’s something I always do.”
He slid a portable tray up beside Jack and grabbed a knife.
“Hold still,” he said to Jack as he cut through his pants. He started the knee and cut a big patch of fabric out of the thigh of Jack’s jeans. “It probably seems a little backwards, but I always sign my work first. It looks so much better if done on a live muscle.”
CHAPTER 24
Stephen
He couldn’t stay on top of the vending machine, he reasoned. Stephen thought that if he went back to the crazy-man’s room, he might find another way out. But someone had locked this door on purpose — probably the guy Jack had killed — and the way out would require going back to that place. Stephen didn't want to confront all that yet. He would start with exhausting his other options.