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In Bruce’s experience, motels were the perfect place to disappear; they were amongst the few places that still took cash, were usually located in the middle of nowhere, and between the other clientele and the vacant look in the owners’ eyes, it seemed unlikely they’d so much as blink at any fake name that seemed too unbelievable. This particular collection of lost souls called itself the Safe Haven, built on a level and lonely stretch of Interstate 25, with only a few patches of shrubbery and the vague outline of a mountain in the distance to provide any sense of scenery. Its owner, a hairy and pot-bellied older man whose name was almost indecipherable through the heavy drawl in his voice, had quickly taken the small pile of crumpled bills Bruce had on him, tossing back a key and warning him to ‘not mess up the carpet’ as though that was the most amount of damage he could do.
If only the man knew what he could really do. The evil under his sunken eyes.
The room, if it could be called that, had qualities befitting the meager price of entry, with no-longer-white paint peeling from the walls in large chunks, and chunks of broken plaster fluttering down to rest either on the carpeted floor that was more stained than clean, or on the bedspread which could be compared to a used patch of gauze for all the marks and foul smells that lifted from the stiff and scratchy fabric. A quick look into the small bathroom that came attached confirmed a continuation of the theme, the sink marked with ugly black streaks and what appeared to be the beginnings of a fungal colony on one corner of the ceiling.
The only piece of the whole ensemble that was intact was the set of french doors that led out into some sort of enclosed ground-floor balcony, enclosed by a waist-high and crumbling wooden picket fence, planks shrunken and brittle from the constant battering heat. The windows themselves, though spotted with oily patches where previous tenants had placed their hands on the windows and kicked-up grains of sand, were still clean enough to catch the reflection of Bruce’s haggard face in the glass. Here he had already spent most of his time, slumped at his bedside and staring back at the faint milky outline of himself that stared back, gaunt and shadowed by the–
By the massive shadow behind him.
Bruce’s head snapped to look into the space behind him. Empty, save for more neglected walls and flickering light that accented everything with an under-glow the color of pus. Was it just his imagination, the conjuring of tired eyes and a weary mind? Was he just going crazy?
He looked back. Perhaps he was, because it was there again. Though the immensity of its shape did nothing to shadow his own bony frame, the manner in which it loomed over him was almost worse. Just the suggestion that such a thing could be right behind him was enough to prickle his skin. Bruce could almost feel the creature’s breath wafting against the soft skin of his nape.
“What do you want?” His voice came slowly, scratchy and light from the rawness of thirst and days without rest. He blinked, trying to focus his heavy eyes enough to make out something more than this silhouette, perhaps the beady eyes that sparkled with sickly nuclear light in their fleshy craters, perhaps the mouth lined with yellowed blades for teeth affixed in a rictus grin, perhaps even that terribly mottled skin, pulled paper-thin over obscene muscles such that they might tear open at any second, laying bare the fetid insides of that slouching beast. But nothing availed itself to Bruce, and instead all that persisted was the shadow of it, forever behind him, forever formless enough that his mind might replace it with greater horrors than could ever really exist.
“What do you want from me?” His voice was firmer this time, alight with enmity as he pointed an overgrown nail at the apparition before him. “Why won’t you leave me alone?!” A slight shift in the humongous shape, as if appraising him, or what of him there was to consider. “Answer me!”
It shifted them, or at least it appeared that way, a slightly stooping of its hill-like shoulders, bowing closer and putting the large box-like outline of its head by his ear.
“Hate...”
‘Hate’? This monster spoke of hate, when it had become the chiefest point of Bruce’s misery, the bomb strapped to his chest that sat there like a weight, tick-tick-ticking towards some eventual explosion he could neither predict nor prevent? It dared speak about hating him, as if he had ever done anything to deserve any of what his life had become? Bruce’s chest gurgled with fury, his breath turning ragged as his throat tightened and blood pounded in his ears.
“You… hate me?!” His eyes flitted about him, searching for something, anything which he could use to banish this devil on his shoulder. His prayer was answered when he sighted the perfect thing; a loose metal box of some kind peeking out from under the low-set bed, maybe a first-aid kit of some kind, but which might have been anything through all the scratches and dents which warped it beyond recognition. Bruce scrambled for the thing, fingers first closing around the handle which had detached at one end, but finding no suitable purchase instead settled for grabbing at the thinnest side of it. Hefting the box was difficult, his reedy arms trembling under the weight, yet he had strength enough to raise it over his head with a shout. “Go to hell, you monster!”
The streaked glass was no match for the bulk that came tumbling through the air towards it. The clear surface spider-webbed as the awkward metal shape came smashing into it, the sheet buckling and splintering in a rain of shards that littered down on the browned tiles of the small patio with crystalline tinkles and a dull thud. In that terminal second, the nightmare let its teeth show, bared in preparation of some interrupted roar as the image was smashed into a thousand useless fragments littered about Bruce’s feet.
But there was no reward for this breaking-apart, only the sickening rush of something sick and green firing up Bruce’s spine, stealing the strength from his legs and forcing him to his knees as he clutched at the side of the filthy bed. His head felt weighted, as though someone had scooped out his brains and poured cement into the open cavity, lolling to the side as he looked at himself in the few shards of glass which had chosen to explode inward; his already pale skin was a few shades away from going the color of paper, and a thin sheet of anxious sheet had rolled over his face. But worst of all, and also clearest in the faint images shown to him, was that light, that sickly green light, the mark of the beast, shining out from his own irises now.
Bruce’s hands fought through the tremors that possessed them, flying up to hide those horrid lights, covering up his shame as he silently, painfully forced his hoarse breathing to slow, head flipping from disorientingly heavy to worryingly light in the process. He couldn’t let them be seen, because wouldn’t that just confirm it all, that his life was over and all that lay ahead was pain, and that he only had himself to blame for it? Didn’t it mean that he deserved every bit of it?
It was impossible to say how long Bruce lay there for, curled in a fetal ball and now without even the strength to pull himself onto his small and dusty bed; time was unimportant in the thick and clammy haze of his despair. A night chill drifted in through the shattered window, which did nothing to help the cold sweat that had broken out.
By all reason, Bruce could at least move, muster the strength to clamber onto those musty and stained sheets and afford himself the slightest comfort. But he didn’t. He just lay there, among the odors and the sharp edges, staring out listlessly as that jagged new hole, that last broken vestige he had made, that final breaking of whatever good things he might find here, or there, or anywhere.