Fic: See Noir Evil (6/?)
Five: Dead Man Walking
He was dead by the time he reached the motel.
Had to be. Only dead people shuffled forward so slowly, so drunkenly, moaning and groaning like some zombie that just got its brains shot off by the gleeful cowboy character who winds up getting eaten when he runs out of bullets. There was no way he could be a living creature. There was no way he’d survived the endless trudging forward, step after step, sun beating down - or maybe just beating - on him. He’d died, surely, and now he was one of the cursed undead.
Tara urged him onward. She stood in front of the door to the manager’s office, a tiny white building with faded signs for coffee, color TV, and hourly rates.
“Almost there, Xander. Almost. Keep at it.”
“Ungh,” he grunted. He couldn’t quite manage, “Braaaaiiiins.” Still, he continued forward. He was almost there.
The manager spotted him as he got closer. He was a man in his late fifties, balding, graying, and dressed in polyester. He’d probably been wearing the same clothes for the last thirty years. He had thick glasses perched on the top of his head, with a thin pink cord that looped around the back of his neck in case they fell. The man scurried out from behind the counter when he spotted Xander and rushed to open the door for him.
“Hey, whoa. Mister, you okay? You need an ambulance or something?”
Xander blinked. Looked up at the man. He recoiled slightly when he saw Xander’s face; when he saw where his eye had once been.
“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” the manager whispered. “Mister, are you-?”
“Not any of them,” Xander rasped. He nearly fell over as the cool and conditioned air from inside swirled against his face.
“S-sit down,” the man said. He pointed to a simple wooden chair propped up against the wall. Xander looked at it. Stared at it. Then, slowly and carefully, he nearly collapsed into it.
“Water, Xander,” Tara said, by his side in an instant. “Ask him for water.”
“Water?” Xander repeated. “But I-”
“Water!” the man nearly shrieked. “Yes! Right! I’ll get water!” He turned quickly and scrambled behind the desk and fumbled with a half-full bottle of water.
“I thought I wanted a room,” Xander whispered to Tara.
“Shh,” she said, whispering back. “Rest first.”
The man returned with the bottle, handing it to Xander. Xander took it with shaky hands. Water.
It took every ounce of willpower he had not to gulp it all down at once. It took every moment of every memory he’d had in Africa to convince him to sip it slowly, to let the water remember how to exist inside of him. It had been so long.
He took one swallow, let it sit for a few seconds, then let a little more dribble into his mouth. He swished it around. It tasted slightly less like blood. He swallowed that and forced himself to pause before drinking any more.
“You in a car accident?” the man asked him. He was standing over Xander, bent over at the middle with his hands on his knees. His glasses were slowly sliding down his bald head. “Y-You know what happened to you, mister?”
“Yeah, I ki-”
“Xander!” Tara barked. “No! Don’t tell him that!”
“Huh?” he asked, looking to her in confusion.
“T-Tell him, um, your car broke down.”
“Car broke down?” he repeated. He felt sluggish and stupid. He didn’t remember his car breaking down. Maybe it had. He tried to remember when he’d owned a car. A long time ago.
“Oh, I knew it, I knew it! Get folks like you every once in a while. Road’s damn quiet most of the time, folks break down from time to time and they wind up here.” He seemed excited, almost gleeful, yet concerned all the same. “’Course, never seen one quite as beat up as you before. You want me to call an ambulance or somethin’? Your eye’s...”
He touched the spot above the scarring. “Missing. Yeah. Long time now.”
The man scrutinized Xander’s face a little more. “Yeah, guess that ain’t new. But uh, if I were you I’d keep that covered up. Give someone an awful fright, uh, you don’t mind me sayin’.”
“I don’t?” Xander blinked and licked his lips. They tasted more like lips than they had in weeks. He took another sip of the water. It was glorious.
“Tell him you don’t need an ambulance,” Tara whispered in his ear. Xander looked at her. Her face was directly next to his. He frowned a little. She had no breath.
“I don’t,” he said, then swallowed the words when they came out harsh and grating. He took another swallow of the water. “Don’t need an ambulance.”
“You sure, mister? Look all beat up. You sure you ain’t had an accident?”
Xander shook his head. “No. Not an accident.” Nothing accidental about any of it. Slow and deliberate.
The man looked skeptical. “There’s a doctor about two miles west of here. Doctor Morgan. Maybe she oughtta have a look at ya.”
He looked at Tara. She shook her head. Sadly, of course.
“No,” Xander said. His voice cracked as he spoke. “I just- I just want to rest.”
How true that was. How horrifically true.
The manager stared at him for a few long moments, seeming to weigh the situation in his mind. He chewed nervously on the inside of his cheek and then licked his lips. “I, uh, I got plenty of rooms, Mister. Nice ones. Not like some places. You can rest there, only uh, well, it’s a business, you know?”
Xander reached into the pockets of his stolen pants and pulled out a few fistfuls of paper scraps. Most of it was receipts, random notes and a few other meaningless bits of paper. There was, however, a twenty-dollar bill in there. He held it out in a trembling hand.
“That’s all I’ve got,” he said.
The man looked from the money to Xander and then back again. “Keep it. Don’t think I could rightly live with myself if I took it. My wife, she...She woulda wanted you to keep it.”
“Sounds like a nice lady,” Xander whispered. His wooden chair was a throne for a king. He felt he could sit there forever.
“Come on,” the man said. He reached down for Xander’s arm and helped haul him to his feet. Xander surrendered his throne with quiet reluctance. “I’ll give you room four. That’s the best one.”
“Oh,” Xander mumbled as the manager helped him stagger to the door. “Thanks, mister.”
“You’re welcome. And call me Marty. Marty Burke.”
“Xander. I’m Xander.” He bobbed his head towards Tara. “She’s Tara.”
“She?” Marty asked, frowning as they made their way slowly out the door and down the rows of large windows with large curtains obscuring the rooms within. “She who?”
“Ghost,” Xander replied. “Followin’ me around. Might be evil. I hope not. She was nice.”
Marty pursed his lips. “Come on, Xander. Let’s get you some rest.”
With Xander hanging off of Marty’s shoulder, the two of them made their way to room number four. Marty fished a ring of keys out of his pocket and fumbled with them for a time before he found the right one. Once unlocked, the door swung halfway open on its own.
The room was a motel room. There was one large bed, a cabinet, a small table with two chairs nearby, and a set of drawers with a cheap television set bolted onto it. A tiny bathroom was the only other point of interest. Xander nearly wept at the sight of it.
Instead of weeping, he made his way to the bed with Marty’s help. He sat down, leaned back, and closed his eye. He knew for sure he’d died then, and that heaven was a cheap bed in a cheap motel room.
“It’s okay now,” Tara whispered in his ear. “Rest now, Xander. Rest as long as you can.”
“Okay,” he murmured. “Thank you.”
“I’ll check in on you later,” Marty said. “Get you a little food. Some water or coffee or something. Just do me a favor. Don’t die in my room, mister. I won’t call the hospital or even Doc Morgan, but don’t die.”
“I won’t die,” Xander said, and he knew it was true. Dying was far too easy. It was far too peaceful. No, he had a lot more suffering coming his way. He opened his eye for what he hoped was the last time for a long while. Marty was there, standing in the doorway, looking nervous if somewhat concerned. Tara was by the bed, looking unsure of what to do next.
And there, shimmering out of the bright sunlight behind Marty’s silhouette, was a pristine angel. A gentle, beautiful young woman. She fluttered out of the nothingness and approached Marty, smiled at him, smiled at Xander. Then she pressed her lips against Marty’s bald head.
“Take care of him,” she said, her voice like the breeze. Xander fell asleep wondering which of them she was talking to.