You Can Check Out Any Time You Like - Picfic challenge, 15th September

[otherhawk.livejournal.com]

Eh, apparently I got into the Halloween spirit a little early. And this has a very slight crossover with The Stone Tape, which is also slightly anachronistic.

You Can Check Out Any Time You Like...

The echoing of their footsteps across the gleaming white marble floors was the only sound apparent. Napoleon found himself checking his gun frequently, as if to confirm it was still there. Immediately it was obvious something was wrong here; a cup of coffee lay cold and abandoned on the table, luggage was piled in front of the desk as though the owners had simply stepped away for a moment, and the bell hops trolley stood empty, half blocking the elevator door. Everywhere there were signs of human life and yet actual humans? Not a trace.

Illya picked up a clipboard and pen from behind the desk. “This is half filled in,” he reported. “Apparently a Mr and Mrs Van Byuren were checking in.”

Napoleon checked the luggage tags. Yes. That matched. “It's like the Marie Celeste,” he said, his voice low and who was he afraid would overhear them?

“People don't just vanish into thin air,” Illya stated with just a ripple of uncertainty.

He looked around. “Sort of flying in the face of all available evidence there, pal,” he said wryly. “Come on. We'd better check this out further.”

Their attention had been brought to this place – a luxury resort on a lonely island near Mauritius – by the discovery that THRUSH appeared to be using it as an R&R centre for operatives in high favour. Monaghan had been sent in, primarily to plant as many bugs and tracking devices as he could, and the operation had appeared to be a complete success up until his final communication.

“Nothing new to report, I – wait! Something's happening....something's wrong! I can...I can see...No! Oh, God, no, get back! Get away - “

The sheer terror in his voice had made Napoleon shudder. After that, the line had gone dead. And according to Section IV, subsequent attempts to reach him indicated the communicator had been destroyed. What's more all attempts to reach the resort by conventional means – phone, radio – had been met with silence. It was as if the place had ceased to exist and now Napoleon could see why.

“According to the plans there is a security office through there,” Illya said, pointing through the screen doors and towards a low building on the other side of the courtyard. As good a place to start as any. The heat of the sun hit them as soon as they stepped outside and the light flickered merrily over the deep blue water of the pool. Dotted here and there were abandoned towels, sandals, drinks, a book or two beneath the trees....in this weather, in this size of hotel, he would have expected to see dozens of peoples out here. Where were they?

The door was locked but that didn't give Illya pause. The building was empty too, but there was a bunch of monitors all showing static.

“There does not appear to be any physical damage to the system,” Illya said after a moment of careful examination. “Someone may have planted a jammer by every camera. Hmmm.” He pressed a few buttons and the monitors were suddenly showing the jetty, the path leading up to it and the main entrance.

Napoleon raised an eyebrow. “Cameras outside the hotel work?”

“Yes,” Illya said. “I will rewind.” The scene didn't change but the time ticked back slowly. Napoleon sighed and looked around the room for other oddities. The floor was dirty but when he scuffed his foot across it, the white shone through immediately. “Odd that they'd use the marble outside the public areas,” he commented. He'd snuck through enough hotels to know that wasn't normally the case.

“A stone indigenous to the area, perhaps?” Illya suggested. “Ah. There.” For the first time people appeared in the image; an older couple and a boatman walking up from the jetty and into the front door. He took careful note of the luggage; the Van Byurens. And the time stamp said 12:06. “Three minutes before Monaghan's last message,” he said grimly. Meaning whatever had happened had been quick.

“And no one has exited since then, meaning they must all be in the hotel somewhere,” Illya said.

“Or there's another exit,” Napoleon suggested, imagining all the hotel guests being gassed and dragged somewhere – experimented on?The trouble was, there had been absolutely no indication that THRUSH had been doing anything nefarious here. All Monaghan's reports had agreed, this was simply a resort where THRUSH agents happened to be. Surely they wouldn't run experiments on their own people. Although really, by now, he should have learned to expect anything of them.

Either way they were going to need to search the place completely. Illya stopped as they stepped outside. “Do you hear that?” he asked.

Napoleon listened for a moment. “No,” he said in sudden realisation. There was silence. No birds, no insects. It wasn't just people that had vanished, there was no life here at all.

They exchanged a long look but said nothing.

Back inside, they started making a methodical search, room to room. He wasn't surprised when they didn't find anyone; just more abandoned belongings. Here and there they found upturned chairs, signs of a disturbance, but nothing to suggest what might have happened. He couldn't think of a way that a hotel could simply empty of people.

Worse, it didn't quite feel like an empty hotel. There was a certain feeling one found in empty buildings and he didn't feel it here. It was as though there were people somewhere nearby, whispering just out of earshot. He noticed Illya looking round as well.

“Did you hear something?” he asked, almost hopefully. He would prefer this wasn't just his imagination playing tricks on him.

“I saw something,” Illya told him in an undertone, staring further down the corridor. “Something moving.”

He looked. There was nothing. “A shadow, maybe?” he suggested.

Illya looked at him. “Haven't you noticed?” he asked conversationally. “There are no shadows.”

What? He turned sharply to the wall and experimentally raised his hand, the light behind it, but the wall stayed white and gleaming, not even a hint of his shadow. Oh. He drew a sharp breath. “So what could cause that?”

“The right light conditions.....?” Illya suggested, sounding like he was grasping for a rational explanation.

Maybe this marble was more than just reflective, maybe it was its own light source. Was that even possible? Was anything here possible?

“Room 201,” he said, nodding at the next door. “That was Monaghan's room number. Maybe he left us a clue.”

“Doubtful, as he started off saying he had nothing new to report,” Illya pointed out, but they went in anyway.

He shivered. “It's colder in here, isn't it?” he asked. Actually, come to think of it, it had been cold throughout most of the hotel.

Illya reached up and checked the AC. “It's off,” he said.

“Off?” He raised an eyebrow. “It's almost a hundred degrees out there, without air conditioning, this room should be an oven.”

But it wasn't. In fact, it was getting colder. And the voices he hadn't quite been able to hear before were getting louder, a constant whisper now, emanating from the walls.

“Nothing new to report, I – wait! Something's happening....something's wrong! I can...I can see...No! Oh, God, no, get back! Get away - “

That was Monaghan. His last words. And there were shadows moving through the walls now, dark and unsettling, reaching out towards him.

“I can't...I can't see. I can't...where am I? Help me! Help me, please....”

The things – shadows – seemed to be coming out of the walls now, tendrils made of cold and nothing. He ran for the door, pulled it open, but there was a void out there, endless shadow on white marble and no escape.

The whispers were everywhere now. Not just Monaghan.

“Let me go! I'm sorry, I'm sorry.”

“I don't want to die.”

“You're so warm. Let me inside.”

“I don't know where I am. Please, someone, help me.”

“Mommy, mommy!”

Illya was staring fixedly at the wall, and when Napoleon looked as well, shielded his eyes, he could almost make out Monaghan's face in the shadows, almost hear the terror and the desperation and the pleading, and Illya reached out a hand towards the shadow....

“No!” Napoleon pulled him back, acting on sheer instinct. “We need to get out of here.” He dragged Illya, unresisting, to the window. The bright sun did nothing to dispel the cold or the shadows, but the pool was directly below them, and he thought it might just be their only chance. “We need to jump!” he yelled, struggling to make himself heard over the whispers.

He was relieved when Illya nodded, and more so when he grabbed his wrist and the two of them leapt forwards at a single, silent nod. Time seemed to slow as they hung in the air, and then there was a splash and the water was cold and heavy all around him, and the pool tiles were white and gleaming, and just for a second he could see a man's body floating in the water directly in front of him, indistinct and translucent and still-alive, and the eyes opened and the man screamed and then suddenly Illya was pulling him up and out of the pool, and they were running together, running for the gate and for the safe, grey rocks beyond.

It was a long moment before he managed to catch his breath. A long moment before either of them managed to speak. “What the hell was that?” he said at last, as though he was expecting an answer.

Illya shook his head slowly and for a second or two he moved his lips and said nothing. “Some academics have posited the possibility of multiple realities and people slipping between them? It could be we witnessed people being caught in another dimension. Or there is a theory that 'ghosts' are simply images recorded on the physical environment by a means we don't understand. The Taskerlands facility have studied this and...” He shook his head, apparently not quite believing what he was saying. “I do not know.”

“Yeah.” Napoleon took a deep breath and then another, and gazed back towards the hotel. “Yeah. Me neither. I guess we'd better call this in and hope someone else has some ideas.” He felt like he could still hear that whispering, and the cold that left its ugly fingerprints on his soul. “There are more things in heaven and earth....”

“A few too many for my tastes,” Illya said softly.

Yes. He was inclined to agree.

Comments

[mrua7.livejournal.com]

OMG this was great! And I was already fighting off that Halloween mood, but now...dare I say 'release the Kracken!" I already have my Halloween challenge story ready and am itching to write more...need to save some for the week before Halloween as all our challenges here will have spooky themes.

A really good use of the prompt!

[otherhawk.livejournal.com]

Halloween starts earlier every year, I guess! Glad you liked it.

[laurose8.livejournal.com]

Brilliant! Only trouble is: now we've had the best Halloween fic, do we skip the rest?

[otherhawk.livejournal.com]

Lol, hardly. But thank you, glad you enjoyed it.

[lindafishes8.livejournal.com]

Bone chilling good and a tasty pre-Halloween treat! Thanks.

[otherhawk.livejournal.com]

Thank you! And now I'll need to come up with more creepy ideas by the time Halloween actually comes around. Ah, well....

[glennagirl.livejournal.com]

And I'm reading this before bed... chilling.

[otherhawk.livejournal.com]

Hope it didn't disturb your rest. :) Thanks!

[jantojones.livejournal.com]

Wonderfully chilling :-D
Was 'I don't know where I am', a reference to the Wi-Fi episode of Doctor Who?

[otherhawk.livejournal.com]

No, actually, it wasn't in this case but it easily could have been. I can definitely see the similarity.
Glad you liked it!

[jkkitty.livejournal.com]

Love this type of story thanks

[otherhawk.livejournal.com]

Thank you! Glad you liked it. It's fun to have something a little supernatural-y every now and then.