Joanshea: Thanks!
Time Made of Ice and Glass
You saw my pain, washed out in the rain,
Broken glass, saw the blood run from my veins.
But you saw no fault, no cracks in my heart,
And you knelt beside my hope torn apart.
- Mumford and Sons
"I'm going to see if they have food here," Chloe says.
"I'm not hungry." Aubrey is still sitting on the edge of her bed with her jacket on.
"I am," Chloe says, "And you haven't eaten at all yet today, so I think you should try to eat."
How can either of them try to eat right now? Aubrey finally scoots back to sit crisscross, and looks down at her lap.
"Take your coat off," Chloe demands gently and opens the door, "I'll be right back."
Aubrey shakes her head once the door closes and she's alone, burying her face in her hands as she crumbles. Fuck dispatch. Fuck the police. Fuck the fire department. Only Aubrey can prevent forest fires? No, Smokey the Bear is probably watching his habitat burn down, and Aubrey is pretty sure the fire department could be doing something about that too. She lifts her head and tugs at the zipper of her jacket, letting her coat fall to the bed behind her. She pulls off her gloves, scarf, and hat, and lays those neatly on top of it.
Unlike Chloe's things, Aubrey's don't just get strewn across the nearest hard surface. She folds her things inside her jacket, and places them in one of the dresser drawers.
This is quickly turning into the worst day of Aubrey's life.
She tries to look at herself in the mirror above the dresser to check her forehead and wipe the tear streaks from her face with her palms. The room light turns off, leaving her staring at the dark. Did she break a mirror? Walk under a ladder? What? She reaches beside her, feeling along the wall until she finds the light switch. It's down. She flips it back up, and the light turns back on. She places her fingers on her forehead and examines her hairline.
The light turns back off.
Aubrey slams her hands down on the dresser – Chloe's jacket softening the impact. She turns the light back on, and it turns itself back off again.
Great, just great, the hotel is haunted.
Aubrey turns it on again.
It turns off.
On.
Off.
On.
Off.
On.
Off.
Aubrey growls and starts flipping it on and off herself as fast as she can, trying to prove some sort of point. What point, she doesn't know, but she's going to prove it. Because Aubrey is not scared of ghosts. Is she scared of mice? Sure. Bees? Who isn't? Germs? Listen… Apparitions that want to save electricity by turning out the lights? No. That girl from The Exorcist who vomited pea soup holds nothing on Aubrey who once threw up all over the first three rows at an A Capella competition – and she wasn't even possessed, just nervous. So, this ghost or demon or curse that Creeper Craig from the tech department might have put on her after she told him to take his head out of his ass yesterday can join her list of things that can go fuck themselves.
"Aubrey, what are you doing?" Chloe asks, as she opens the door to come back inside, empty-handed, "I can see the light turning on and off from under the door."
Aubrey stops with her hand holding the light switch up. "Chloe," she says slowly, "This is going to sound crazy, but this town has a Poltergeist." It's not just the room, Aubrey decides. It's this entire place.
Chloe shuts the door. "We've had the Poltergeist talk."
Mhm, yeah, when Chloe couldn't sleep for a week after watching a horror movie, and Aubrey had to convince her that it was the cat knocking dishes off the counter at night, not an angry spirit.
"You don't even believe in ghosts," Chloe points out.
"I changed my mind." Aubrey looks at her, dead serious.
Chloe looks back at her – like Aubrey has lost her mind. She opens her mouth to speak, then closes it again for a moment. "That still doesn't explain what you're doing with the light," she apparently decides to entertain Aubrey's theory.
"The Poltergeist wants the light off," Aubrey explains, "And I want it on." She moves her hand, slightly worried that the light is going to stay on and make her look even crazier, but thank Satan that after a few moments, it turns off. "See?"
"Not in the dark, I can't," Chloe says.
Aubrey turns it back on and holds the switch again – her lower lip starting to tremble.
Chloe frowns. "It's probably some sort of technical problem, Aubrey." Since when is Chloe the logical one? "Please, come sit down. The lady at the front said she'd bring us some food leftover from dinner after she heats it up."
"No," Aubrey refuses.
"Let's say it is a Poltergeist," Chloe entertains her again, "You can't challenge a Poltergeist to a battle of wills. You're going to make it angry. Come sit."
Chloe can just watch her. Aubrey presses her hand harder against the light switch and straightens her back. "It's making me angry."
"It's not real."
"Then why do you care if I fight it?"
"I'm more concerned that you're trying to fight something not real," Chloe replies, "And…also that if Poltergeists were real, you'd pick fights with them."
"I am not the one who started this fight." But, like all fights, Aubrey will be the one to finish it.
There is a knock on the door.
Chloe gets up to open it, frowning at Aubrey the whole way there.
Aubrey sticks by her words, because even if she's wrong, which she probably is, the problem is a Poltergeist now, because Aubrey is never wrong.
"You're acting weird, Aubrey," Chloe informs her.
"You're weird," Aubrey shoots back, offended.
"Okay, well you're the one bickering with Casper right now…" Chloe opens the door to LeAnn and a tray of food. "Can you look at our light?" she asks her, "Before my wife tries to perform an exorcism on it? It keeps turning off, apparently."
Apparently?!
"Oh," LeAnn says, and walks inside. She places the tray on top of the dresser next to Chloe's jacket. "We did some remodeling, and whoever installed these new switches was supposed to come back with new ones. They were recalled for a manufacturing error, and half of them here are loose." She opens the drawer, and pulls out a roll of tape. "Sorry, I wasn't prepared for any guests in this room tonight." Aubrey moves her hand, and LeAnn tapes the light switch up, then hands the tape roll to Aubrey.
Aubrey's hands hang limply by her sides with it.
"Come see me if you need anything else," LeAnn tells them.
"Thank you." Chloe closes the door after she walks out, then looks at Aubrey with a clear 'I told you so' expression.
"It may have won the battle, but it hasn't won the war," Aubrey announces and throws the tape roll on top of Chloe's things as she walks to the bed.
"Are you done?" Chloe asks.
"No." Aubrey pouts and folds her arms as she sits down.
"Okay," Chloe disengages with her for now, and picks up the tray of food, "I really think you should try to eat something even though you're stressed. We might need strength to walk back to the highway in the morning."
Aubrey glances at the food with disinterest. But Chloe has a point. It doesn't look all that great though. The macaroni and cheese looks too cheesy, and Aubrey does not eat hotdogs. (Only on special occasions when there is a cookout.) This is not a special occasion. This is a traumatizing event.
Chloe places the tray in the middle of the bed, then lies down on her side and picks up a fork. She takes a bite and chews it slowly. "It's not bad." She pokes her fork into a few more macaroni, then offers it to Aubrey.
Aubrey tries it. It tastes how burning rubber smells. She makes a face and hands the fork back, forcing herself to chew and swallow.
Chloe edges a glass of water her way.
The water is so cold, it makes Aubrey's teeth hurt. She draws up her knees and rests her forehead against them.
"Do you wanna lay down?" Chloe asks, her mouth half full.
Aubrey shakes her head. It's bad enough to be sitting on this bed that isn't hers. Aubrey doesn't know when these blankets were last washed, or how well. She knows when her own bed set was last cleaned, because she cleaned it.
Chloe gets up and places the tray on the nightstand.
"Where are you going?" Aubrey asks and lifts her head.
"Right here." Chloe stops by the dresser and picks up her jacket. She carries it back with her, and moves to sit crisscross at the top of the bed with it. She pulls Aubrey across the bed, and helps situate her laying down, her head in Chloe's lap. "Close your eyes." She covers Aubrey up with her jacket.
"I thought you were hungry," Aubrey comments.
Chloe reaches to the side and picks up the fork, able to eat from where she is. Her other hand strokes Aubrey's hair, successful in grounding her a little bit – at least for a few seconds.
"What time is it?" Aubrey asks, starting to feel tired, not that she's going to actually be able to sleep.
Chloe reaches into her jacket pocket and pulls out her phone.
"It's 8:35."