Someone was knocking on the door.

Benno looked up. The giant heart beat out the seconds.

“You awake in there?” A child’s voice. A girl’s voice.

Benno stood on shaky legs.

“Hellooo?” Impatient knocking. “Wake up you lazy fuck.”

Benno approached the door, careful to step gingerly, not to give himself away. But his feet scrrrched on the coarse carpet.

“I hear you in there, idiot.”

Benno stared at the laminated fire-exit map. Just a moment of consideration and a hasty inventory presented a number of outcomes, none of which were any worse—or stranger—than the ones he’d lived with for seven years. There was something on the other side of this door that sounded like a child. Whatever it was, it would A) not be a threat to him, in which case there was no reason to avoid it, or B) it would attempt to harm him, in which case it would 1) fail or 2) succeed somehow—and wasn’t that, ultimately, what Benno wanted? The weirdness of the motel room and the floating heart aside, he had no reason to think that anything had changed: He could not die, he could not be hurt, and if he could…

He wiped his damp eyes and opened the door.

A little girl stood at the threshold. She couldn’t have been older than eight. She wore a blue dress with gold stars imprinted across it, her black bangs cut in a straight line just over her eyes—eyes that seemed older than the rest of her—and tied in the back with a ponytail. She wore sneakers and white socks. A normal little girl in every way—except for the dozens of tattoos across her body.

Skulls and crossbones, daggers, birds of prey, 1950s pinup girls with devil horns, bullets, a bottle with three Xs on it, an eyeball on her throat, illegible cursive along her jawline, an upside-down cross under her left eye. Her legs, her arms, her hands. From head to toe, the girl was inked up.

She cocked an eyebrow at Benno and twisted her mouth into a sneer. “You stink, dude.”

An intermingling of relief and additional confusion worked through Benno’s mind. He didn’t know who—or what—he’d expected to find, but it hadn’t been this.

He pointed back at the window, his hand trembling. “What is that thing?”

“Huh?” The girl looked past him. “It’s just the Coil. Don’t worry about it.”

“The Coil?”

The girl wrinkled her nose. “Did you puke? Jesus, man. It’s all over your beard. I honestly don’t even know what Edda’s doing anymore. This last batch of recruits have been a total bunch of fucking pussies.” She looked Benno up and down. “I mean fuck. You look like someone dragged you out from under a porch.”

Benno wiped at his mouth with a forearm.

“So are you, like, totally indestructible?”

Something clicked into place. “Is that why I’m here?”

The girl shrugged.

Benno touched his temple absentmindedly. “Bullets don’t hurt me. Nothing does.”

“Well if you think bullets hit hard, wait until you meet Isaac.”

“Who?”

“Anyway. My name’s Rose.”

“That’s my mother’s name,” Benno mumbled, as if to himself.

“Wow, fucking incredible.” Rose’s voice lilted with boredom. “I’m on newbie duty today so it’s my job to take you to the Haruspex.”

“The what?”

“Is that what you’re wearing?”

Benno looked down at himself. He wore only the boxers and dirty white t-shirt he’d gone to sleep in the night before.

“It doesn’t matter.” Rose turned and walked off.

Benno leaned through the doorway into a hallway with the same coarse, salmon-colored carpet as the room. There were doors—eight that Benno counted, including his own—each marked with a different six-digit number. A row of dim orange lights inset in the ceiling hummed faintly. The walls were lined with beige wallpaper imprinted with floral designs that appeared, as Benno squinted at them, to strikingly resemble vaginas, and their stems conspicuously to resemble penises.

Rose, halfway down the hall, glanced back. “They look like cunts and cocks, right?”

Benno scoffed, flustered. “Excuse me?”

Rose poked the wallpaper with a stubby finger covered in Roman numerals. “I think it’s intentional. Edda designed the Inn, and she’s really into Freudian shit like that. I mean don’t get me wrong, she’s a full-on fucking badass. But she’s always mind-gaming the shit out of people. Subliminal stuff. It’s just how she operates.”

“Who’s Edda?” Benno focused on not looking at the wallpaper.

Rose rolled her eyes. “I have tickets to an Ulver concert in an hour. I’m not gonna be late because of you. Now let’s go.”

She walked off down the hall and disappeared around a corner.

Benno lingered in the doorway. He could walk back into the room, close the curtains, lie down and try to fall back to sleep. He would wake up in his trailer. Certainly. He reached out and touched the wall, careful to avoid touching any of the vagina-flowers or penis-stems. The wall was solid. The wallpaper was delicately pitted. It felt as real as anything ever had. But it couldn’t be. Whatever was happening couldn’t be happening. It didn’t make sense… Then again, neither did surviving thousands of gunshots to the skull, poisoning, drowning, a train…

If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.

Rose’s head reappeared from around the corner. “Hey stinky,” she called. "Let’s get a fucking move on.”

Benno rubbed his face, smelling the faint, always-present musk of gunpowder and the sweet, sour odor of dried whiskey on his hands.

Here I am, he thought. Wherever this is, here I am.

He glanced back into the room and through the window at the enormous heart in the sky.

It bled and pulsed.

He pulled the door closed—numbered 266362—and followed Rose.

#

The hallways buckled and forked.

Every hallway was the same: Eight doors, each adorned with a unique—seemingly random—six-digit number, the same salmon-colored carpet, the same penis and vagina-looking wallpaper, the same dim orange lights. Hallway after hallway—Benno lost count after thirteen—one after another, onward and onward.

Benno jogged to keep up with Rose, who was always just about to turn the next corner when he rounded the previous one. Eventually she paused to let him catch up, her arms crossed and her face glowering.

“Are there people living in all these rooms?” Benno asked.

“They’re almost all empty.” Rose continued around another corner. “Edda built this place to accommodate an army or some shit, I don’t know. There are only seven of us right now. Eight including you.”

“Who are they?” Benno asked.

“For fuck’s sake.” Rose shook her head as she disappeared around another corner.

The Shining was one of Benno’s favorite movies. The last time he’d watched it was with his son, just a couple months before the accident. His son had been a bit too young; the bathroom scene had left him clutching Benno’s arm and asking a lot of questions. But it was the scenes in which Danny Torrance rode his tricycle through the Overlook’s labyrinthine hallways that Benno thought of now: The camera trailing at a perfect, ominous distance, with just enough leeway to let Danny disappear around a corner for a breathless moment before swinging around after him, a terrifying choreography, signaling the constant threat that something waited for him, and yet there was always nothing… until—

“Ah, shit.” Rose stopped in her tracks so abruptly that Benno nearly collided with her as he swung around a corner. She rummaged through a pocket in the front of her dress and produced a small, circular object, which she presented to Benno.

“What’s this?”

“It’s your Gemstoke. I almost forgot to give it to you because your nagging fucking questions are so distracting.”

Benno eyed the small, black glass disc. “What does it do?”

“Take it, man. You’re killing me.”

Benno picked up the Gemstoke. He was surprised by its weightlessness, and by how cold it felt on his skin. He peered at it, his eye reflected perfectly in its smooth surface. The were no seams, no markings, no textures of any kind.

“Press your thumb to the top,” Rose said.

“Which side is the top?”

“Both.”

Benno placed his thumb on the Gemstoke. A moment rolled by, and Benno was about to shrug, unsure what was supposed happen.

Then a Voice filled his ears.

SYNCHRONIZING TO SUBJECT…

A monotone, genderless Voice. The same Voice Benno had heard before he'd woken up in this motel.

SUBJECT ANALYSIS CONFIRMATION INITIALIZING…

NAME: BENNO LAWRENCE HAIM. AGE: THIRTY-THREE YEARS, FOUR MONTHS, ONE WEEK, TWO DAYS, SEVEN HOURS, EIGHTEEN MINUTES…

“I’m forty,” Benno mumbled.

SYNCHRONIZATION COMPLETE. SUBJECT IDENTITY CONFIRMED.

Benno blinked down at Rose. “What do I do now?”

Rose gave Benno a scrutinizing look. “Why are your hands shaking?”

Benno balled his hands into fists. “They’re not…”

Rose’s perpetual scowl dissolved. “That’s alright, man,” she said, her voice softer than it had been, her old eyes refracting the hallway’s bronze light. “I like to drink, too.”

Benno frowned “How old are you?

“Rude.” Rose’s scowl returned.“You don’t ask people their age. Don’t you know that?”

“Yeah, sorry.”

“And it’s none of your fucking business. I don’t show up asking you how much you weigh or why you’re an alcoholic.”

Benno lowered his eyes.

Rose sighed, and again her expression softened. “But yeah, whatever.” She pointed to Benno’s hand. “Just ask Gemma for a drink.”

“Gemma?”

“The Gemstoke. Gemma.”

Benno held up the coin-shaped thing. “How?”

“Press your thumb to it like you did. Ask for whatever you want.”

Benno placed his thumb to the Gemstoke.

INPUT REQUEST… the Voice said in his ear.

Benno glanced at Rose. “Um… I need a glass of whiskey?”

RUNNING…

The same whirring sound from Benno’s dream—or whatever it had been—only soft, almost pleasant. Then there was a shape, shimmering like a mirage at Benno’s eye-level, a gentle blurring of the hallway beyond. The blurring solidified, condensed, and formed itself into a glass tumbler half-filled with amber liquid.

“Grab it, dude,” Rose said.

Benno reached out and took the glass just as it started to fall. A few drops sloshed over the rim, speckling his hand. He brought it to his nose and smelled it. Whiskey. Not Jack Daniels, but similar. He hesitated, then drank.

At once—as they always did—his hands stopped trembling.

“Better?” Rose asked.

The empty glass vanished from Benno’s hand.

Rose scrunched an eye shut and tilted her head. “I’m confused. If you’re invincible, your body doesn’t break down, nothing can hurt you, blah blah blah—why do you get the shakes?”

It was a good question.

“I don’t know,” Benno said. “Maybe it’s psychosomatic.”

“That’s fucking sad.” Rose stuck out her tongue as if she could taste just how pathetic it all was. “Well, whatever you need, just ask Gemma for it.” She turned and continued down the hall, walking a bit slower now so Benno could keep up.

#

“What’s in here?” Benno asked, slowing as they passed a door—numbered 718843—on which someone had scrawled in black marker:

BAD ROOM

Rose continued straight ahead. “We’re almost there,” she said, leading him down another hallway, then one more.

They stopped outside a door at the dead end of the hall. Unlike the others, this door was aluminum, and there was no six-digit number. Instead of a doorknob, there was a crash bar.

“The Haruspex is through there,” Rose said. “Don’t touch it, and don’t let it touch you.” She turned and started away.

“Hold on,” Benno said. “I just go in?”

“Just go through the door.” Rose turned, her eyes mid-roll. “You know doors, right?”

“Yeah,” Benno said, feeling stupid and irritated.

“And remember: Don’t touch it.”

“Right,” Benno nodded. “Then what?”

“I don’t know, man. Do whatever you want. Go back to your room. Get drunk.”

Benno outspread his hands. “I’ll never find my way back to that room,” he said. “This place is a maze.”

“Ask Gemma,” Rose said, turning away. “When in doubt, ask Gemma.”

“Rose,” Benno called.

Rose turned again, her shoulders slumped with dramatic exasperation.

“I’m here because I’m… whatever I am. So why are you here?”

Rose eyed Benno for a moment, inscrutable, then grinned faintly, turned, and walked away.

Benno stood alone in the empty hallway. He picked absentmindedly at a loose elastic thread on the waistband of his boxers. The Haruspex, he thought, turning around to face the aluminum door. The Haruspex is through there.

How did he know that? How had he managed to find his way to this particular door in this particular hallway? And why? He’d walked from the room he woke up in, down hallway after hallway, and ended up here. He had a strange, fuzzy memory of something else… someone… but then it was gone.

He considered asking the Gemstoke—Gemma—for another whiskey… Where did he get this thing? Who had given it to him? He didn’t trust it. A simple little metal disc that materialized whiskey—that materialized anything a user requested—out of thin air. From what resources? With what engine? Benno used to teach the law of conservation of mass. Even his 8th graders would have been skeptical of a closed system that could output items without any input… And for that matter how did he know what it did? He’d seen it make whiskey, but he hadn’t seen it make anything else. Who had told him?

He rubbed his face. He was tired. He was in shock. For the first time in the better part of a decade he longed for his cramped, messy trailer. Things were simple there. Not easy, but simple. His trailer was for wallowing in despair. That’s what Benno Haim did. He wallowed.

He faced the aluminum door. He was supposed to go through. No one had told him. He just knew. Somehow he just knew.

I’m dreaming and this is what happens next, he thought, then took a breath, hit the crash bar, and stepped into darkness.