The Last Magician

Motels and Madness

The grinding of the hinges vibrated through Jack’s teeth.

Pushing the door open should have been an easy task, but even with his shoulder against the warm surface it was as though he was forcing back a wall. When a gap large enough for both of them to squeeze through had opened, Jack allowed Amanda to enter before following her.

The door seemed neither rusted or obstructed by anything, but the exertion had drawn on the energy the sun had not drawn from him. The one saving grace for his trouble came from having a shelter from the glaring fiery eye above.

Jack slid through the opening after Amanda, narrowly avoiding the sharp edge of a nail sticking out of the door frame. He glanced back out into the barren street, unsure of whether he expected to see something or not, but finding nothing more than stillness and a rising heat. He was still sure that someone was watching them.

”What is it?” Amanda asked, casting her own inquisitive gaze out into the heat-streaked road.

”Do you get the sense that someone’s watching?”

”Maybe,” she replied hesitantly. ”Should we close the door?”

”After the effort it took to open, I don’t think so. Can you imagine how hard it would be to pull open?”

”Okay. Point taken. I suppose if anyone did want to be in that desperately they would use the windows anyway.”

”I don’t get the feeling they are desperate. Or dangerous come to that. They had enough time to attack us when we were out in the open if they wanted. I don’t see why they would want to wait.”

”They’d have to be really fucking crazy to try anything, don’t you think?” Amanda asked him, pointing to the rifle by his side.

”Maybe,” he said, still thinking of the missing shotgun. “It wouldn’t take anyone long to go crazy out there though. The heat would get to them if nothing else. “

Amanda held his stare briefly, then averted her gaze. She believed it would be quite easy to lose grip on reality in the constant dark fantasy that lay around them. Was it not a work of pure fiction to wake in a dead world with a dark veil hanging over your mind, and no trace of the cause?

She had always thought of herself as broad-minded, open to theories of other worlds and alien beings, but this was beyond even her far-reaching boundaries. She no longer sat in a darkened theatre, the huge projection before her, the booming Dolby enveloping her. There were no doors to walk out of if things became too scary.

This time it was real.

That fact got her in the gut every time she thought about it. It was happening to her. Watching it happen to someone else gave a sense of being immortal; no matter how bad the outcome, when the lights came on it all melted away. The monsters couldn’t reach out and touch, the deadly infection couldn’t infect and paralyse, the murderer could not sneak up with his chainsaw held high. It was voyeuristic with no danger of being caught and seeing all without paying for the knowledge. This time, though, she could be caught; they both could.

They could be hurt. They could be trapped

They could die.

We could go insane, she thought. If it hasn’t started already.

She had been jumping at shadows since her awakening. Everything was so strange, so uncertain. Then walking up to the Station she had been given a reason to doubt her sanity further.

A short distance from the Station, a vacant lot sat between the sporadic building remains. She had first seen the lot about the same time Jack had made the decision to make the Station their next port of call. There was nothing odd about it, nothing that filled her with any kind of ominous sense of dread. At least there hadn’t been until she viewed it a short time later.

The lot suddenly had an occupant.

“THE DUSTY ROAD MOTEL”, a badly painted sign proclaimed in large font letters. Underneath, on a crooked slat of wood, another line read, “LAST STOP BEFORE YOU DROP”.

The building had not been there before. She had seen the empty space at least twice as they walked. Yet there it stood, proud and very much there.

The Old West styled building dominated everything around it. Its sturdy appearance alone suggested not all was as it appeared.

Each section of wood that made up the exterior walls glistened as a newly coated outdoor timber should. Each pane of glass, not content with being intact and unscathed, sparkled as if just polished; even reflected her own slightly distorted image back at her.

It was so real, so dimensional as her Nan used to say about something large and present.

The sound of idle chatter drifted to her across the dirt and rubble, oozing from just beyond the hard, dark doors; not to mention an occasional ding of a desk bell, the slamming of doors, a shouted order for cases to be taken to rooms. If she walked closer she would smell the sweat of overworked staff, the smoke from the bar, the fatty stink of bacon, eggs and sausage seeping out of the kitchen.

Amanda turned to shout at Jack, but as she turned she noticed a movement from the corner of her eye.

The stony floor of the lot greeted her when she turned back. The Motel had gone...if it had ever been there at all.

Standing in the relative cool of the Police Station, Amanda could remember the unspoken words that had run though her mind. Had she really seen the Motel? Had some stray image from her mind strayed into reality?

There had been other questions; some general, others more specific. Had Jack seen the building? Had he seen anything at all? She could only find out by asking him; the question was how?

Did you just see that building just vanish? did not appeal as a practical question. Neither did the equally inane sounding, Did you see that? It wasn’t like she was asking if he had seen the cute bunny inquisitively observing them from a bush by the road, she wanted to know honestly whether he had witnessed the arrival and the vanishing of a solid, immobile, immoveable structure. It sounded crazy in her head, so how could she possibly allow the words to pass through her lips.

For the moment at least, the whole incident had to remain hers and hers alone. She knew she should be able to tell Jack anything. They had to trust each other, but would he trust her as much if he thought she was starting to fall apart?

The debate was over before it began. For now, she would keep the Dusty Road Motel to herself.