Sometimes Johnny felt lost.
Not in the Hotel.
No.
He knew every nook and cranny in that places, could close his eyes and navigate the halls and rooms with his eyes shut.
At least, when he was younger.
Now he only got lost in his head.
It was like driving into the town you grew up in to find all the streets turned around. You recognised the buildings, you knew the people, but it was all wrong.
No one knew he was gone yet.
He'd ran out of the Great Northern and found his way to the hospital, clear over the other side of town. The flowers he'd found in a garbage bin outside.
He'd taken the card and thrown that away, but with a little fluffing out, the flowers themselves looked fine.
Meanwhile.
He stopped and cocked his head.
Tiny little sounds escaped his lips, like he was chanting or praying. Or maybe just repeating random syllables.
Sick more, sick more, sick more…. He muttered softly under his breath before hurrying on.
The girl on the bed…. The one with hair like a golden aura…. She knew.
She'd seen.
Unlike him though, she didn't remember.
Not many of them did.
Some blocked it it.
Major Briggs, he blocked it. Got it all mixed up with dreams but no! It's not dreams, the room, it's real, it's real as the floor under his feet.
The squeaking of his shoes on the linonium made him hesitate again.
It was like a switch in his head, tuned to varying frequencies, like a dog raising it's ears to the sound of a high pitched whistle. The dog doesn't always know what it means, but it knows it should pay attention.
He's here.
Johnny pressed himself against the tiled wall in terror as he saw him approach.
Saw him turn off onto another corridor before reaching him.
Was it too much to hope he hadn't seen him?
He closed his eyes and pushed his face into the slightly mouldy smelling blooms, humming to himself, lightly hitting the back of his head against the wall.
Something warm and feather like touched his hand.
Don't be afraid.
He shook violently, the cellophane in his hands rattling.
He can't touch you. You belong to the others.
He knew who was speaking, knew it was Laura, but he didn't want to look.
Didn't want to see her face
Amen.
Amen.
Laura knew the truth.
But she belonged to the black now.
When she had visited, they had sat together, sometimes in the blanket forts she helped him build, sometimes under the great wooden table in his fathers office, she'd talk anywhere he felt safe. She was the only one he could form actual words with, make sentences. He'd talk to her about the red room and her mouth would turn down and her eye's would fill with tears as she stroked his hair and whispered,
I know Johnny…. I know….
He'd press his fingers against the tears on her cheeks and she didn't have to say a word.
He knew.
Stop.
Stop remembering.
He had to find Audrey.
The machines that beeped and sighed around her bed scared him, but he took a deep breath and went in anyway.
She looked so tiny.
His little sister was always larger than life, an element like fire or water, something that swept in for good or bad, not always noticing the devastation left in her path.
But now she was here, more bandage than skin, both arms in casts, a tube down her throat.
Johnny lay the flowers at the foot of the bed and leaned over to kiss the tiny patch of skin uncovered over her cheek.
"I saw him Audrey. I saw him again. When you wake up, you have to promise me. Don't let his mask fool you. He'll catch you. He'll eat you. You'll belong to the black and no one will come for you….."
"Johnny?"
He looked up in a panic to see Dr Jacobi standing in the doorway.
"Johnny? Son. What are you doing here?"
"Doctor!... Doctor Jac-Jac-Jacooo.b.b.b.b.b.b..."
The tremors started up in his legs, running up his body until his tongue was paralyzed and all he could do was sink to the floor, hooting louder and louder, the echos bouncing off the walls.
