Submission by Amana Hill
“Don’t move! Don’t you do it you!”
I unclasped the knob and jolted back having seen the gun point blank between my eyes. Upon instinct, I groped behind my back for my gun holster; I found confidence in the solid assurance of the cold metal handle of my pistol.
Intense, wild eyes expanded in front of me as the distraught countenance of a woman appeared behind the wrenched open door. Redness ringed her tired rims. Her eyes were pairs of broken ice floating on a lake of tears; pale blue orbs stared off dejectedly into space. Hardened. Dead. Her sallow cheeks sunken in. Her skin was pale as moonlight. The only warm color she adorned on herself was scarlet red lipstick — the femme fatale type. Not an age revealing wrinkle lay anywhere on her youthful face. Her hair fell in bold blonde billows at her thin pointed shoulders. She was stunning, a real southern belle. I just couldn’t think of how she ended up in all this mess. “Okay now. Calm down. J-just calm down,” I urged, voice shivering with the arctic breath flowing from room 312.
The woman moved two paces forward, her feet soundless upon the ground. She pressed the cold metal barrel to my forehead, her twitchy finger shaking on the trigger.
“Git in here,” she demanded, voice cracking.
“Alright.”
“Wait!”
I closed my eyes, feeling the pressure of the barrel intensify. At that point, I wasn’t sure whether her trembling hand shook the gun more than my own shaking. She had me cornered. I hadn’t thought to call for backup. I hadn’t had the time to.
I was in room 305 when the gunshots echoed through the hotel. The screaming was terrible. A bunch of people bellowing and hollering, shaking the foundations like the walls of Jericho. I couldn’t make out what the situation was, not from the hectics. I was only a rookie officer, young, ambitious, and eager to rise in ranks. See, my father was town sheriff down in Kentucky. I planned to be like my old man, but better. I saw to it that nobody could say I didn’t
earn my own and moved out here to New Orleans, Louisiana. Now was the time for me to prove just that. It was just that, the moment I heard the shooting, I was off duty, buttoning up my shirt, recently finished with a little liaison with my old gal Carol. Problem was she wasn’t my own gal, really. She was Mayor Blanchard’s wife. Never minding that the girl was too young for that old hog anyways, I had been trying to find ways to cut her off. She weren’t gonna bring me nothing but trouble in the long run. There wasn’t no way in hell I’d get to become sheriff if a nasty scandal like that got out. Mayor Blanchard would see to that.
That was my main concern back then: becoming sheriff. I hadn’t the slightest clue when I came upon room 312 that my life, how I understood the world, my beliefs, all would change. All in the blink of an eye.
“Put your hands up. Both of them,” the woman demanded gruffly.
“Why don’t we-”
“I said up,” she shrieked.
I complied, rose my hands as high above me head as far as I could stretch them.
“C’mon.” She walked backwards, hand gripping my collar as she dragged me in her room, slamming it shut after.
“There’s only two ways this can end,” I told her.
I heard her walk up behind me, fast and angered stomps causing me to flinch.
“What’s this,” she demanded, yanking my gun from my belt holster. “Tryin’ ta kill me, huh?”
“N-no. I…”
“Git over there,” she sneered.
I swore I heard the devil in that woman. Shivers ran lightning rounds up and down my spine. She gave me a startling leer; her blood shot eyes glowed a bright red. I swear I saw them glow. Wanting nothing but to get as far away from her as humanly possible, I stumbled back. My ankle hit the back of something hard. I stupidly fell onto the green single sofa chair in the middle of her room. She cracked a smile; she relished in my fear, fed off of it.
I sat there, labored breathing pushing up and caving in my chest. I kept my eyes on the woman wielding two pistols, one of them mine. She paced from one side of the room to the other,
her blinding white summer dress sashaying around her skinny legs like a twirling flower. There came a lull in her movements. I thought she went catatonic. Not a muscle on her face twitched. Then, out of nowhere, she crouched down low, covering her ears, guns pointing outwards on both sides of her head. She mumbled softly; her lips moved speedily to get out the jumble of words. I slumped in the chair, absolutely terrified. My legs were unknown to me; I lost all feeling in them. I thought for sure she was putting some curse on me. Her murmurs grew louder by the second. I started to make out what the hell she was saying.
“I-I keep doin’ it ta ya! I keep shootin’ ya,” she screamed at the floor. “I can’t! Make it stop! Make it stop! Let me die!” She dug into her hair, undoing the curls, tearing out blonde strands with violent tugs.
“Ma’am,” I called, throat drier than the Sahara desert. My tongue felt like a shriveled slug in my mouth. “Please. Why don’t you…Stop this now.” I start to feel my legs kick back to life. Adrenaline pumps in. I glance at the door and rise.
“Stop it!”
I drop my ass right back down where it was.
The woman sits on the floor, crossing her legs like she’s in kindergarten.
“Alright!” I throw my hands above my head. “Don’t…Don’t go hurting yourself.”
She grew quiet. Her silence was the most disquieting part of being in the room with her.
“You’re bleeding,” I told her, looking at the blood leaking under her. On her stomach, her blood blossomed in the fabric. The red consumed the virtuous white. “You need a doctor. You let me out, I promise I’ll get you one. Nobody’s gotta die.”
“He’s dead!”
“Who?”
She refused to answer.
“Well, w-who damn it?”
The woman lifted her head which slightly wilted on her long neck. Broken, destroyed, shattered: that’s what I saw in her eyes. I don’t know how, but I felt my heart breaking with her. I ain’t never been an empath, never grew up soft. My father made sure I was never doted on by the
women in my family. But that woman did something to me. Right as she shed her first tear, I felt my own seep out of my eye and roll down my cheeks.
“What’s your name,” she asks me, seemingly calmer after her short cry.
“Officer Benoit,” I wiped my face with my sleeve. “Benard,” I sniffled. I instantly try to deepen my tone; I hope to reestablish myself as a man after crying infront of that woman. “My names Benard.”
She smiled. “Greta.”
“Greta. Who’d ya kill?”
Greta’s makeup ran murky rivers down the side of her face. She bent her knees to her chest and folded her arms around them. “I loved that man. That stupid, stupid man.”
“Your boyfriend, is that right?”
“I woulda married him someday.”
“Your fiance?”
“If he asked. I’d da said yes.”
“What’d he do?”
Greta looked at me sharply.
“If you don’t mind my asking,” I added. I figure the longer I got her talking, the more time I bought for more law enforcement to arrive and secure the situation.
“You’re handsome, know that? Asking questions. Good Kentucky boy. Gonna go far, huh?” She scratched her head with the barrel of the gun she grasped so hard in her hand. “Kentucky? You from Kentucky, ain’t you?”
“Yes, I am. Accent give it away?”
Greta slowly shook her head no.
My friendly smile faded. Greta watched it wilt as her ear to ear leer bloomed.
“Y-you g-gonna l-let meh go?”
Greta stumbled to her feet. More blood raced down her white legs. Her arms are covered in it too. She looks to have bathed in blood. I watch in horror as thick, crimson liquid built up in her mottled scalp, dripping down the bridge of her nose, her ears, and her busted lip.
I recoil in my seat. My nails dug into the sofa armrest.
Greta stalked towards me. Her stride hitched everytime her bones cracked underneath her; the sound produced popping similar to a truck driving over gravel. Her bony shoulders jerked with her movement. Unnaturally, her knees broke inward and rubbed against the other. She balanced herself on her two big toes which were turned inwards with her knees. Her pelvis was groutesgly misshapen, protruding jarringly from the skin of her waist. I didn’t see how in the hell she could even walk.
“G-g-greta…”
Greta released a blood curdling scream, something louder than a banshee.
A huge rush of air took the room by a storm. The strong gust sent objects into flight; letters swirled about my vision, scattering everywhere. I heard a couple of vases smash on the floor as the whole room shook. Rhythmic thudding ensued as the tremors knocked room 312’s books off the shelves.
Greta’s deformed state allowed for me to make a run for it. I jumped out of the chair and opened the door so fast, I almost tore it off its hinges. I dipped down the hall, not daring to look back. Everything strangely became distorted. I couldn’t make nothing out. Nothing made sense. All of the rooms read either 312 or 305. The walls stretched and contracted as if it were alive. Sonorous screams struck my ears every time I ran passed another room 312. Each one was more distant than the other. The floor beneath my feet wobbled like a propagating wave, throwing me off balance.
At the end of the labyrinth, I heard the screams and shouts of more people, the ones I heard earlier. The commotion, the terrified cries shrilled louder and louder like a gothic chorus; their breaths were hot in my ear, willing me to push forward. I did just that. I busted down the door.
A crowd of hotel patrons mixed in with staff in uniform stood in circle; they observed a single person lying in the middle. I ran down the steps and pushed past the people congesting the lobby. No one would budge for me; they were too busy observing the spectacle. When I finally pushed past the last stubbornly placed bellhop, I gazed at the individual lying in his own dark pool of blood. His fingertips dipped in the red spring, curling according to the lack of command by the brain. The man was clean shaven, square jawed, and he had a single bullet hole through
the forehead. By the looks of it, the bullet entered through the back. The dark, gaping hole seeped excess blood, fully drenching the side of his face pressed to the floor. His lips were blue, blue like his wide cold dead eyes.
I shivered. Looking at the poor soul was hard. I wondered how everyone could just stand there idly and gawk at him like he was a part of some freak show. A life wasn’t supposed to be treated like that.
“What did the poor bastard do to deserve that,” I asked no one. I was talking to myself. No one cared to tell me anything, and I was an officer on the scene!
“Care ta know?”
I jumped back, seeing Greta in her white dress hovering above us all.
“Run, Yall!” I shoved someone, hoping that would get the stampede going. “Run!”
Greta threw her head back in malicious laughter. “They can’t hear you.”
“Run! Run! She gon’ kill yall!”
Greta cocked her head, curious. “You ain’t remember what he did?”
Pushing them to no avail, I stopped, realizing I had no choice but to listen to that murderous woman.
“What the hell you want?! You wanna kill me? Go on and try it!”
Truth be told, I was terrified of that woman, whatever she was. She lowered herself to the ground, beaming her beautiful southern belle smile. Greta revealed a hand-held mirror she had hidden behind her back.
“That bastard deserved everything he got.” Greta handed me the mirror.
I hesitated at first but took it eventually.
“He cheated on me. Dat bastard cheated on me with the mayor’s wife.”
“What? The hell you talking about?!”
Greta crossed her arms. “Bernard Benoit.”
“But I’m… I’m Bernard…”
Greta cruelly ripped the mirror out of my hands and shoved it in my face. I saw not myself. I was the man lying lifeless in his own blood, surrounded by probing eyes. Bernard Benoit was dead. I was dead.
On June tenth, nineteen fifty five, Greta, my girlfriend of three years spent the night in room 312 to spy on me; she suspected me of cheating and she was right. I was. I carried on with the mayor’s wife for a good year and a half. At exactly 8:05 AM, I found out about Greta hiding in room 312. I confronted her. I told her to get lost. I told her to scram. She followed me down to the lobby, screaming, crying, and carrying on like usual. I didn’t think nothing of it. I never did. I was looking out at the morning traffic, admiring New Orleans through the transparency of the glass door exit. I remember now. I took a deep breath. I didn’t hear the gun cock, but I can now when I think about it hard enough. She cocked the gun, raised it to the back of my head and pulled the trigger. Red and pink fleshy chunks blasted against the glass. New Orleans as I knew it was red, red with my blood. I died instantly. At 9:15 AM, after barricading herself in room 312, she jumped out the window, doing away with herself.
We’ve been in limbo ever since.