Everyone Dies in the End #59

Todd

The arch led to a large, open dining room with a long dining table. Eight chairs surrounded the table; eight place settings adorned its dark wood. Eight? Todd asked about that and the mother turned to him, smiling. “Hope, Mister Todd, we always hope.” A curious answer he thought, but before he could speak further she continued to dark, wooden stairs rising from the edge of the room.

They followed her up the stairs and into a narrow, white hall that smelled a bit like fresh paint. Three doors led from the hall. The mother faced them and smiled. “Three rooms, just like those little bears.” She laughed and Susan joined her. Todd didn’t. The way he remembered, things didn’t go real well for Goldilocks.

“Seriously,” the mother added. “The rooms are pretty much the same. One for each of you. There’s a bathroom through there.” She indicated the door to her left. “You all freshen up, rest a bit, I’ll call you when dinner is ready. Is there anything that I can get you?” Her eyes rested on Todd.

Arty shook his head, Todd shrugged. “No thanks,” Susan replied. The mother nodded and smiled. “Well then I’ll go see to dinner.” She slipped by them and her chest brushed Todd’s as she passed, as unsettling as it was exciting. The three stood in the hall a moment longer, looking at each other, saying nothing. Then stairs creaked as the mother descended.

Susan spoke. “Bath sounds good to me. A bed sounds good to me.”

Todd smiled. It had been days since any of them had anything close to a bath and that had been a chilly hillside stream in North Carolina. The experience had been a trade off between his desire to wash the grime from his skin, and fear of freezing to death in the stream’s arctic water. They had taken turns, two watching the white Bronco, one bathing. Arty’s turn had been after Susan’s, and Todd thought it took a long time for the two to return to the Bronco. That was okay by him, it was obvious that they had it bad for each other. That thought lead to another. A guilty thought, a thought filled with bargains made with the enemy, betrayal, and how he had planned to leave the two for dead in Charlotte.

“Well?” Susan’s voice brought him back to the here and now. She was standing in front of him.

“Well what?” he replied.

“Well, you are standing in front of the door to the room with the bathroom.” She laughed. “Do you mind?”

He stepped aside, and Susan moved toward the door. Todd laid a hand on her shoulder. “I don’t think we should all punch out at once.” He looked at Arty who was leaning against the wall. Arty nodded. “Yeah, I hear you.”

Susan nodded “I know. I feel it too. This whole place is,” she hesitated, “strange.” Slumping against the plaster of the wall, she leaned her head back, closing her eyes. Todd let her be. She could sense things, feel things, that neither he nor Arty could. A heartbeat or two later she sighed and shook her head. Opening her eyes, she spoke. “It’s probably just the normalcy.” She gave the two of them a tentative grin. “That’s something we haven’t had much of lately.”

Arty nodded. “Maybe.”

“Maybe not,” Todd added. “Either way, I want one of us awake at all times, door open, listening, alert.”

“Sure,” Susan answered.

“You’ve got it,” Arty chimed in.

“But now,” her grin broadened, “a real honest-to-goodness bath.”

“I’m for that,” Artemis added as he pushed away from the wall.

She placed a restraining hand on his chest, her eyes playfully gleaming behind her spiky strands of dark hair. “My own bath, stud, I want to relax; I’ve had enough excitement for one day.”

Artemis rolled his eyes, but his lips curled into a smile. The grin softened the haggard, bearded countenance. God, thought Todd, he’s only a kid. He didn’t know how old Artemis was, Susan either for that matter. College kids, he knew that, but that could mean anything from seventeen to twenty-two. Youngsters to be sure. The thought spawned a laugh. Like I’m some old timer.

           “Have your bath,” he answered. “We’ll keep an eye peeled.” He grinned. The first in several days. “Just for the sake of peeling it.”