Once inside, I was standing in the lobby of Beth’s “retirement” hotel. I noticed someone familiar standing at the check-in counter and, upon a closer look, saw that it was Bobby Fugate.
I kept my distance, curious as to what Beth’s dream version of her fiancé might do next. After a few moments at the check-in counter, he walked toward one of the hallways of rooms, toting a rolling suitcase behind him. I followed him, discreetly, making sure not to draw attention to myself.
About halfway down the hall, he stopped and took out a key. He opened the door and started to step inside. He glanced back at me and I pretended to dig out a key for one of the other rooms. He went in and closed the door behind him. I approached the room he had entered and saw that the number “6” was on the door. If Beth’s number sequence stayed the same that meant “Room 31,” which was her room in a previous visit, must be close by.
I went to turn the door handle but noticed that the door was propped open by the metal security bar. I heard low music coming from inside. It was “Let’s Get It On” by Marvin Gaye. I cautiously pushed the door open but couldn’t see Bobby. I could, however, hear him moaning on the bed. I stepped inside and carefully let the door rest against the metal security bar.
I stealthily crept along the wall and peeked around the corner, ready to make a run for it if necessary.
To my surprise and confusion, Bobby was naked, blindfolded, and lying on the bed. All around him were hundred-dollar bills. He picked up a handful of bills and rubbed them all over his body. As he did this, he rolled around on the bed in ecstasy, groaning louder and louder.
Once he was done with the first bunch of bills, he grabbed more and repeated the process.
Deciding I had seen enough, I tiptoed out of the room and quietly let the door prop up against the metal security bar again.
I walked a little way down the hall and, as expected, found a room with “31” on it. I knocked and, within a few seconds, Beth opened the door. She wore all black, including a small hat with a thin veil that covered her eyes. I heard somber organ music coming from inside the room. Through a crack in the door, I saw a group of people sitting in chairs in front of a closed wooden casket.
She sighed. “I thought you were the priest,” she said. “He’s running late.”
“Priest?” I probed.
“To give the eulogy, of course,” she said as if I had asked her if the sky was blue. “You’re Mr. Crawford. Aren’t you?”
“Yes,” I said, for a second forgetting I was wearing my normal face and not Bobby’s.
“Are you coming in or not?” she asked.
I hesitantly stepped inside, and she closed the door behind us. Among the group of people near the cast was an older woman dressed in the same black outfit as Beth. She started sniffling and then suddenly broke out into full-blown wailing. She got up from her seat and came over to us. Beth wrapped her arms around her and patted her back to console her. The woman buried her face into a tissue and blew her nose in an almost comical fashion.
“There, there,” Beth said. “It’s okay.”
The woman finally slowed down to a more controlled sob and released herself from Beth’s embrace. “Thank you,” she said, blotting her eyes with the tissue. She looked at me and forced a smile. “How did you know the deceased?” she asked.
“Me?” I said, trying to stall for an answer. Having no idea who the hell was in the casket, I chose a more generalist approach. “We, uh, were neighbors at one point.”
The woman began to speak but burst into tears again. “I’m sorry for your loss!” she eventually said and then wept all the way back to her seat.
Beth turned to me and motioned expectantly toward the casket. “Well?”
“Well what?” I said.
“Don’t you want to say your goodbyes?” she asked impatiently.
“Of course,” I answered, continuing to play along. “I’ll, uh, do that right now.”
“You’ll need to lift the lid,” she said matter-of-factly. “We had it open earlier but it got to be too much for everyone to bear.”
I nodded. “That’s understandable,” I said, seriously regretting having come into the room in the first place.
I moved toward the coffin with trepidation. I halfway expected to open it and have Beth’s demon counterpart leap out and try to choke me to death again. I stopped at the casket and turned to look at her. She repetitively rolled her hand in a circle as if to say, “hurry it up.” The others watched me with bated breath. I faced the coffin and braced myself. I slipped my fingers underneath the wood and slowly lifted the lid.
When I saw what was inside, I had to do a double take. At first, I thought it was a large, hairy raisin. But, upon closer inspection, I realized it was a cocoon. It was brown and bumpy, covered in a layer of translucent slime. It was about six feet by three feet and fit the dimension of the casket perfectly. Just when I thought things couldn’t get stranger, it started to pulsate rhythmically as if there was a heart beating inside.
The older woman who’d had an emotional outburst moments earlier rose from her seat, came over, and stood beside me. She was now eerily tranquil and collected. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” she said calmly.
“What’s in there?” I asked.
“Everything,” she replied. “The Alpha and the Omega. Heaven and Earth. It’s where I end, and you begin.”
“So, it’s alive?”
“It is in the process of becoming.”
“Then why do we have to say ‘goodbye’?”
“So, we can say ‘hello,’” answered Beth as she joined us. “But we can’t do that until the godforsaken priest gets here.” She walked away from the casket and sat down on one of the empty chairs. “I wish I knew what was taking him so long.”
“So, after the priest says a few words,” I hypothesized. “This…” I pointed to the cocoon. “…Being will transition to its next state?”
“You’re a regular Sherlock Holmes,” said Beth.
A sudden uneasiness came over me. The doctor I had met only moments earlier in Beth’s hospital room said she was holding on with everything she’s got. What he didn’t mention was that, on some level, she might be getting tired of holding on. If somehow the cocoon was a representation of her and its “transitioning” reflected her own desire to let go of the earthly realm, I needed to do everything possible to keep it from happening.
“Why don’t I go look for the priest?” I suggested. “He probably just got lost trying to find your room.”
She shrugged. “Whatever speeds this along,” she said nonchalantly.
“And to be clear,” I continued. “Your name is still…”
“Margaret Stevens,” she said with a look like I had lost my mind. “Maybe I should be the one to go look for the priest.”
“No,” I insisted. “You stay here. I’ll be right back.”
“Fine,” she said, crossing her arms like a defiant teenager. “But hurry it up, will ya? We don’t have all day.”
I nodded and stepped outside into the hallway. Complicating matters even further was the fact that Beth’s emotional state was affecting her personality. Not only was she still “Margaret Stevens” but she was also becoming more apathetic. If being Margaret was somehow helping her let go, I needed to hurry or else risk the possibility of her real self-disappearing completely.
I moved down the hall back in the direction of the main lobby area. Once I was there, I noticed there were more people than normal. There were at least a dozen standing in line at the check-in counter. I rushed to the front of the queue but was quickly pushed aside by a hairy, robust man wearing a loose-fitting tank top that said, “Give me a beer and I’ll see the light,” and cut-off blue jeans shorts that left little to the imagination.
“Hey!” he said in an almost comical husky voice. “Get to the back of the line, buddy!”
“I’m sorry,” I said, looking at the man behind the counter. “It’s an emergency. I was wondering if you’d seen a priest.”
“Sir, please go to the back of the line,” said the man. “These people have been waiting their whole lives to check in. If I were to answer your question it would be a disservice to each and every one of them.”
“Really?” I said. “In all the time it took you to say all of that you could’ve just answered my question.”
“Sir, don’t make me alert security,” he said, motioning to the half-human, half-alien “security guards,” or as Beth referred to them, Grilax and Grulax, standing near the front entrance.
“Alright,” I said, wanting to avoid getting thrown out again. “I’ll just find him myself.”
I turned away from the counter to see that the lobby was now full of people. Hundreds of men and women of all ages packed the room to the point where there was no room to move around. Every one of them was gravitating toward the check-in counter. I began to feel claustrophobic as they surrounded me at all sides. Complicating matters even further, I noticed a man dressed as a priest making his way toward the hallway leading to Beth’s room.
I tried pushing my way through the crowd, but it was no use. They were too strong a barrier. Then I remembered I wasn’t in the real world. I willed myself to levitate eight feet off the ground and float over their heads toward the priest. Since they were so focused on checking in, none of them even paid any attention to the fact I was hovering above them like some strange, otherworldly wizard. Once I was clear of the crowd, I landed safely at the end of the hallway.
The priest was already halfway down the corridor, so I ran after him. Right as he casually made it to Beth’s door, I caught up with him. He reached out to knock but I tackled him to the ground before he had the chance. He started to yell out for help, but I quickly covered his mouth and pinned him to the floor. He struggled to break free, but I held him down, all the while realizing how ridiculous such a thing would’ve appeared outside of a dream.
“You can go now,” I told him. “Your services are not needed at this time.”
He stopped resisting and looked at me curiously. Though his arms were restrained, his hands were free. He lifted a finger and pointed to Beth’s door. I shook my head. Next, he seemed confused. I removed my hand from his mouth, ready to cover it again if he started to scream.
“Are you sure?” he said. “I feel like I should go in there.”
“I’m positive,” I said. “It’s not the right time.”
He nodded. Before I could get up and help him to his feet, he began to shake beneath me. All of a sudden, miniscule pieces of him began to flake off from his body and float down the hall. His head was the last to go. He smiled at me as his face slowly dissolved into tiny particles that drifted away to join the others. Since there was nothing left to hold down, I stood up to watch as thousands of specks formed a large circle at the end of the hall, swirled around for a moment, and then disappeared completely.