The NoSleep Podcast - NoSleep Podcast S7E14

Episode Date: July 10, 2016

It's episode 14 of Season 7. On this week's show we have six tales about the mental mayhem, cursed creatures, and lingering lesions."Molly Malone and Her Keyhole Tattoo"** written by Rona Vaselaar and performed by David Ault & Erika Sanderson. (Story starts at 00:03:15)"The Buzzer"** written by Chessie S. and performed by Corinne Sanders. (Story starts at 00:17:40)"Rita" written by Kerry H. and performed by Mike DelGaudio & David Cummings. (Story starts at 00:29:00)"The Children in Our Family Are Cursed"** written by Rona Vaselaar and performed by Nikolle Doolin & Erika Sanderson. (Story starts at 00:56:00)"How I Got My New Dog"** written by Henry Galley and performed by Alexis Bristowe. (Story starts at 01:14:30)"The Silent Treatment"* written by Marcus Damanda and performed by Jessica McEvoy & Jeff Clement & Atticus Jackson & Nikolle Doolin & Kyle Akers & Erika Sanderson. (Story starts at 01:34:10)Click here to learn more about the voice actors on The NoSleep Podcast Click here to learn more about Never Not Funny Click here to learn more about Wooden Overcoats Click here to learn more about Rona Vaselaar Click here to learn more about Kerry H. Click here to learn more about Henry Galley Click here to learn more about Marcus Damanda Executive Producer & Host: David CummingsMusical score composed by: Brandon BooneAudio adaptations produced by: David Cummings & Jeff Clement* & Phil Michalski**"Molly Malone and Her Keyhole Tattoo" illustration courtesy of Charlie CodyAudio program ©2016 - Creative Reason Media Inc. - All Rights Reserved - No reproduction or use of this content is permitted without the express written consent of Creative Reason Media Inc.. The copyrights for each story are held by the respective authors. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Be forewarned, this is a horror fiction podcast. By listening to our stories, you are choosing to be frightened and disturbed for your entertainment. You do so at your own risk. Brace yourself for the No Sleep Podcast. Episode 14. Molly Malone and her key old tattoo. The Busser. Rita.

The children in our fans. are cursed. How I got my new dog, the silent treatment. It's the No Sleep Podcast. I'm David Cummings. Thanks for joining us. On this week's show, we have six tales about mental mayhem, cursed creatures, and lingering lesions. You know, each week our team works hard to bring you our particular brand of horror entertainment. We hope it's a chance to escape from the real world and experience tales which, yes, are frightening and disturbing. Some stories this week include themes of suicide and child death, for instance. Yet they're removed enough from reality to be a safe and recoverable journey into the dark.

But we can't overlook the fact that there is very real horror in the world around us, events which are disturbing and can allow despair to start to creep in. So while in the past I've recommended other great podcasts which share our themes of horror and the bizarre, this week I want to bring to your attention two shows designed to bring a smile to your face and make you laugh. The first is my all-time favorite podcast, Never Not Funny, with Jimmy Pardo. Jimmy and his co-host Matt Bellknap and their team, including author Garen Cockrell, whose writing has been featured on our show, have free flowed, and hilarious conversations with great guests.

They always bring me a lot of laughs. The other show is rather new and is in the form of audio drama or audio comedy in this case. It's called Wooden Overcoats, a podcast sitcom from Britain created by David K. Barnes. It's about two rival funeral directors on the overlooked Channel Island of Piffling. It's funny, absurd with delightfully dark overtones about the business of death. Great writing, acting, and production has made this one one of my faves as well. Check the show notes for links to both shows and treat yourself to some fun audio. But of course you'll want to wait to do that.

Wait until we've subjected you to our devilishly dark tales, which are on their way right now as we start this week's show. In our first tale, we meet a man who shares how he met the woman he loves. In this tale from author Rona Vassilar, the man realizes his love has a secret which she isn't quite ready to share with him, but a strange discovery lures him to find out what her secret is, and it leads him down a very dark path indeed. Performing this tale are David Alt and Erica Sanderson. So remember the lesson of trust when you hear the tale of Molly Malone and her keyhole tattoo.

Molly Malone was the smartest, funniest, most beautiful girl that I've ever met. She was my every dream rolled into one. If I could have designed a woman, I could not have done better than Molly. She had blonde hair that flowed down her back in her ramrods. straight waterfall. When I ran my fingers through it, the light reflected every shade of blonde known to man. She had huge blue eyes so bright, they might as well have been alive in their own right. She was tall, full-figured, graceful, and light. Best part is that she was mine. I first met Molly in my first year at university. We shared.

a philosophy class together. I pretended to like it just to impress her. As soon as we'd graduated, I asked her to marry me, and she said yes without hesitation. We were married in the June of the next year. I work in finance and have a pretty well-paying job, so we were able to afford rent on a nice little townhouse, with painted shutters and a fence, the whole nine yards. It made Molly happy. It made me happy. For five short years, this was our life. There was one thing about Molly that I didn't understand. Molly didn't care much for ink or piercings, but she did have one tattoo, a small one, and it was almost never visible.

It was on her back just a few inches below her neck. A tiny keyhole, no embellishment. no nothing. I always wondered about it. The first time I asked was a few weeks after we'd been dating. Molly usually wore high-collared shirts or scarves, so I hadn't noticed it until that point. When I asked her why she got that tattoo, she seemed a little startled. Then her demeanor softened, and she smiled at me. I'll tell you about it one day, just not today. Since we'd only just started dating, I decided not to push it. After all, she would tell me when she was ready.

In fact, I mostly forgot about it. It wasn't until I proposed to her that I dared ask again. After she'd said yes, she practically jumped into my arms. I whispered my question into her ear as I swung her around under the lights of Leicester Square in London. She stiffened a little as she pulled back to look at me. day. I promise one day I'll tell you. Just not today. As the wedding drew near, my curiosity deepened. I decided that I would learn the truth on our wedding night. As she pulled me to the bed that we would share a little shy but excited all the same, I asked the question one more time.

This time her eyes became a little wet, as though on the verge of spilling tears. She sighed and fit herself within my arms, pressing close to me as though for comfort. I know you must be so curious. And now that we're husband and wife, there should be no secrets between us. But please, trust me now as you've trusted me these past few years. If you love me, then believe me. One day I'll tell you. Just not today. From that moment on, I resolved never to ask again. I realized that it wasn't important one stupid little tattoo. I would wait for her to tell me of her own volition and the results would be infinitely more satisfying. I conveyed my love to her with my silence and we basked in happiness. Just before our five-year anniversary, the relative stability of

our life began to tremble when one night I touched Molly's tattoo for the very first time. We were lying in bed, and she'd already drifted off to sleep. She always fell asleep before me, but she compensated for it by getting up ridiculously early every morning. As I held her in my arms, enjoying the comfort of her soft warmth, my fingers trailed their way down past her neck. I was surprised when I felt a hole situated between her shoulder blades. Alarm rang through my body, and I almost roused her from sleep, until my fingers trailed. along the edges, and I realized it was the tattoo. That was when I understood that it wasn't tattoo at all. Molly had an actual keyhole in her back. For three weeks, I didn't say a word to Molly about my discovery.

After all, she'd promised to tell me when she was ready, and I trusted her. But that didn't stop me from exploring. Every night when she fell asleep, I would touch the hard edges of the keyhole, mapping the mystery with my fingers. I began paying more attention to her routine when she was awake. I noticed, for the first time, the way she made sure she was always awake before I was, even on the days she had off from work. I also noticed that she went to bed exactly 14 hours after she woke up, each and every day. with absolutely no deviation. My curiosity grew, and my patience began to wane. One night after Molly was in bed, I committed the ultimate offense.

In the darkness of our bedroom, I began to go through her things. It was wrong of me, and I know that now. Believe me, I do. But at the time, I just had to... Something was going on with my way. wife and it was time for me to find out what. I opened her drawer in the bathroom but found nothing out of the ordinary. I went through her jewelry, her makeup and still nothing. Finally, I moved to the bedroom and started for her bedside table. It was locked. Molly and I had matching bedside tables and I knew that mine didn't have a lock. After a little inspection, I found that Molly had actually added a

lock to her own drawer. How had I never seen that before? The lock wasn't very secure, truth be told, and it only took me a moment to use one of Molly's bobby pins to pick it. Holding my breath, I peered inside. How odd it was to find a drawer full of keys. It was a strange assortment with keys of every colour, blue, yellow, green, grey, but they were all the same size. and it was obvious where they were meant to go. I spent a few hours examining those keys, playing with them, wondering about them, until I noticed a few rays of light peeking through the windows. I don't know exactly what possessed me at that moment,

looking at my wife's prone body, but I have no excuse for what happened next. I grabbed a blue key and placed it in her keyhole. I gave it one, two, three, turns. And then she began to stir. I threw the key back into the drawer and slammed it shut, hoping that she wouldn't be too suspicious when she realized it was unlocked. I threw myself back into bed and laid quietly as Molly began to wake up. That day Molly was different. She seemed confused, disoriented. Mostly she was unhappy, as though a pallor had fallen over her usually sunny disposition.

I caught her rubbing her back a little throughout the day, as though it was the source of her discomfort. At night she fell asleep a few hours earlier than usual. That morning, I tried again. This time I selected a yellow key. Instead of three turns, I gave it six. Molly's sunny disposition was back with a vengeance, although that undercurrent of confusion was still there.

She fell asleep exactly 14 hours after waking up, so I knew that I'd gotten the turns right. Over the next week, I tried a variety of new keys. As time went on, I could feel Molly's disposition towards me changing. Her confusion morphed into a slight coldness, as though she felt betrayed by me. It was foolish for me to think that I could keep it a secret from her. From the beginning, she must have known what I was doing. In hindsight, it was so obvious. But the possibility of her discovering my indiscretion didn't stop me. For over a week, my experiment continued. And then, one day, I discovered the black key.

The first few times I snooped through the key drawer, I didn't see it. One night, my hand knocked against the back of the drawer, and I felt the wood give just a little. I was a little. Curious I pushed harder, harder until the hidden door to the false back of the drawer gave way. And out fell that black key. It was a little more intricate than the others with beautiful silver engraving along its body. It was so black that it was hard to see in the dark, but the silver glowed in the moonlight as though an enchantment lay in my palm. Such a beautiful...

I knew I wanted to. use it then and there. As I had done every night before, I wound the key six times. Instead of placing it back in the drawer, though, this time, I kept it in my pocket. So gorgeous. That day before I left for work, I watched Molly with a sharp gaze. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. In fact, it seemed as though the black key hadn't done anything at all. I was a little disappointed about that. I left for work, out of sorts and unhappy, wondering what you had that key for anyway, or any of them at all for that matter. Thinking back, that was the last happy day of my life, and I wasn't even able to appreciate it. I was too caught up in my wife's secret, the one that I had shamelessly pried open to unworthy eyes.

That day I got off work at five as usual. I'd finally begun feeling a little. I'd finally begun feeling a little bit guilty about everything I'd done over the past week. So I stopped at the flower shop to buy a dozen lilies, her favorite flower. I got home just half an hour later than usual. Sometimes I wonder if I had got home earlier, if perhaps things would have been different. I opened the door and stepped through the hall. I walked into the kitchen only to see a chair toppled over on the floor. And Molly, hanging by her neck from the sea. She didn't leave a note. I wonder if perhaps that was her final revenge to leave so much of her life still shrouded in mystery. I know now that if I had just been patient, if I'd shown myself trustworthy, she would have opened up to me.

But I wasn't trustworthy. I betrayed her and this was the result. Now I know what the black key was for and the reason it was hidden. I was the orchestrator of Molly's death and there's no way to get her back. Even though telephones have been around for almost a century, there is still something very unsettling about those disembodied voices we hear on the other end. As we learn from author Chessie S, a woman working at a call center encounters strange calls with mysterious noises and voices.

unsettling enough, but it's even more disturbing when you realize she answers calls for the funeral industry. Performing this tale is Corinne Sanders. So the next time the phone rings, you'd better hope you don't hear the buzzer. What do florists, nursing homes, newspaper editors, doctors, offices, and ambulance services all have in common? They're all people you call when somebody dies. I work in an answering service that largely services those kinds of accounts atop the usual smattering of funeral directors. Funnily enough, I work third shift, graveyard shift. Now, while I do deal with plenty of other stuff, funerals and deaths are a big part of it.

I've been here about 10 years, and I figure, at a range of it, rate of around 12 death calls a night, an average, where I had to talk to somebody about someone dying. I've been party to around 20,000 deaths. 20,000. Funny thing, I've talked to grieving mothers and husbands who just watched their wives die. Dead babies are the worst. Stillbirths make you feel like a shithead for every question you have to ask, but it's the same night after night. Name. Name of the deceased. Callback number. Place of death. Time. You get that on basically every call. Some nights you have to ask some funny questions. In one piece under the truck. Some days it's really quiet. Some days it's crazy. You'd think more people would die around holidays, but that's actually a myth.

More people die when it's cold or right after the holiday or at night. They just hang on to see their family one last time. I work alone sitting in the office. No real call for multiple operators on third shift. Now, it should be kept in mind. This is an old answering service. It's over 30 years old now. The last two people to do my job both had major psychotic episodes.

One of them was found slumped over his desk with a brain aneurism. He was alive, but I think he's in a home now. He was 35. I've come close. I'm pretty stable, mind you. The thing is, you don't see the sun on a third shift, especially during the winter, and that does something to people over a long enough period. 10 years and I've had to be rigorous with taking vitamins and getting sunlight.

Being alone and without sunlight still gives me hallucinations from time to time. People's voices, footsteps, crap like that. It's not real and I'm aware it's not real, but it's unsettling. That's all beside the point, though. About six months ago, we started getting some strange calls. Now, the office is used to this. But dials are a daily thing. Pick up, determine nobody is on the other end, hang up.

Simple, yeah. I'm alone, so I don't get much information from what's going on in the office, and they don't hear hardly anything that goes on at night. I don't remember the first call, but I'm sure I dismissed it as another wrong number. It was just some soft guitar music. classical guitar like my dad plays. The call came in on some random account too, so it was easy to put out of my mind.

Over the next few nights, more of these calls came in. They were on all different kinds of accounts, none of them with consistent caller IDs. It was the same every time, some bit of guitar that played on and on. Nice, you know? Almost pleasant,

considering all the idiots who call in banging on about their broken refrigerators. In large part, I just ignored it and only took mental note. That was when the arguing started. Another call one night that sounded very much like a couple arguing in Spanish. I don't speak Spanish, but it came in again and again, and each time I heard it, they sounded more and more agitated. After a while, I stopped hanging up immediately and instead decided to try to get

Google to translate what I was hearing. Google Voice Translate didn't work except on three words. Te audio. It means something like, I hate you. Not long after that, a new phenomenon developed that everyone in the office came to refer to as the buzzer. You'd pick up a line and someone would breathe out, like a sigh, that an ear-splitting racket would start up.

It's not like a modem noise or fax noise or in-es. anything one could really replicate without hearing it. The closest sound I can think of is a really old motor, except tinier. It's loud enough to leave your ear ringing. Same as before, it wasn't on any specific accounts, but just about any time you could get hit by the buzzer. Most operators took to turning their volume down quickly before they took a call, then back up when they got a human.

management was trying to trace the calls, but there wasn't any rhyme or reason to which accounts it was coming in on, so it was impossible to block out. Strange as it might sound, I found them interesting. There's not much to do late at night, and I'm here alone, so if calls aren't coming in, it can get real boring. One night, about a month ago, I decided to see if one of these calls came in if I could get it to loop. At least then I'd know I was listening to a recording and it was some asshole robocalling us. Finally, the call came in on one of our funeral home accounts. There was the breath and I yanked my headset off before it could start. The noise was loud enough I was worried it might damage the headset speaker, but I turned it down as far as it would go.

I listened to the buzzer. It was like static, but deeper, throatier, angrier. It was like listening to a big cat roaring in pain, except it was some kind of tiger made of gears and sprockets. After a full minute, I began to hear variations in the noise. Some slower, some faster. They almost sounded like words. Fuck it, I thought. I'm alone.

Can't hurt, right? This is such, such funeral home. Are you there? There was a sort of lull. in the noise than a slow, distorted sound, rising and falling. I listened for a moment. Someone there? I listened again. This time there was a distinct change in the noise. It was familiar too. It was the sound of my own voice, slowed a bit and distorted a little, but definitely me. I hung up immediately. That was when every breaker in the building popped simultaneously,

leaving me in dark for about two minutes before the backups kicked on. All of our lines were down for almost three hours while they tried to fix the servers and trace the problem. I didn't tell anyone. What was I going to say? I haven't gotten the buzzer or the guitar music or the Spanish couple since then. I'm mostly laying this out to get myself some closure. It's silly this still gives me chills because I like my job.

There are a million things it could be, right? I'm not superstitious or anything, but I talk to so many nursing home patients who died later the same night or later the same week. How many died screaming with only the beep and clatter of machines to comfort them? How many laid in the background, listening to their loved ones talk to me while I used the detached pantomime voice of sympathy that I learned in my first year on the job to help them.

make final arrangements. How many dead voices did we record in those voice-logging servers every year? A thousand? Ten thousand? How many souls did I usher out of this world whose words were captured on our servers, erased and recorded over with another dead voice again and again? I have this fear that won't leave me, because it comes back around to one possible answer which I can't

ever completely dismiss too many. I'm sure all of us can recall jobs where the people we worked with were far more memorable than the work itself. In this tale from author Carrie H., a man recalls his days managing a hotel and a particular woman who was in charge of the cleaning staff. A chance encounter with the hotel's owner sheds light on an event which deeply affected both the woman and the owner. Performing this tale with me is Mike Delgado. So the next time you wonder why some people seem to have special privileges, remember the tale of Rita.

I did a brief stint as a hotel manager right out of high school. At the time, I wasn't sure I wanted to go to college. So I drifted a bit and wound up beached at the hotel, where I stayed for about a year. I enjoyed it as much as anyone can enjoy a retail job, Although at times it was catastrophically boring, it certainly wasn't demanding intellectually. And the majority of my work involved hurting people, both guests and staff, into the tiny but well-appointed rooms. We were almost always booked to capacity, so we never suffered for a lack of profit. It helped that we had a very well-stock bar in the dining area, which most of the less expensive hotels didn't offer.

Since we were on the richer side of town, we kept a lot of the low. lot of good product in stock. And it was always a point of contention with the staff that they were expressly barred from visiting the bar, even if they were off the clock and out of uniform. The owner of the hotel felt it was in poor taste to allow the staff to drink at their workplace. This rule held for everyone, management, housekeeping, kitchen staff, even the bartenders. There was only one exception. Rita. Rita was a small, compact Hispanic woman who spoke almost no English. She was a legend, and every single person in that hotel agreed that the place was held together

with her sweat and the bottle of fabuloso she carried around in the waistband of her pants. I've never seen a more efficient and more terrifying force of nature than Rita. Watching her clean a room was close to a religious experience. No one could snap a sheet that crisply and lay it. perfectly flat in one smooth move or clean a bathroom with a single paper towel and still leave it spotless like Rita could. Beryling down the hall in her tiny white sneakers, even guests got out of her way without being told to and pulled along in her wake was the cloying chemical fruity smell of fabuloso. Rita worked 10-hour days with unlimited overtime. She was the most senior member of staff

and had no set schedule. She came in when she wanted and left when she wanted. Generally, she arrived as soon as the sun was up and left around seven at night. No one knew much about her. As I didn't speak Spanish, I couldn't ask much. And I wouldn't have, even if I could have. Somehow it wouldn't have been appropriate. All we knew was that every night after she clocked out,

she would sit at the bar for hours and drink. She had no preference as far as brand or strength. but according to the bartenders, she generally asked for rum and a healthy slice of lime. Sometimes she would nurse one drink for hours. Other days, she would take three or four before climbing into her car and driving home. I questioned the bartenders whether it was safe for her to drive and was assured that Rita never got drunk. Rita, I was assured, could outdrink all of us combined. Now, of course, the glaring question of why Rita could drink when no one out, else could partake consumed to me at first. But perhaps not surprisingly, no one I asked

seemed to know the answer. It had always been that way, one of those things that simply existed and had long since ceased to be of any real interest to anyone. Over time, my curiosity waned, and I went about my job as everyone else did, knowing that at the end of my night, I would wave goodbye to Rita as she sat at the bar, staring at nothing. Her very small, chapped hands cupped around the tumbler full of rum. Sometimes she would nod, and sometimes she didn't seem to hear me. When my time at the hotel ended and my life moved on, I forgot about her. Many years later, however, I happened to run across the owner of the hotel at a restaurant

in town. I was visiting an ill family member and needed to get out of the house for a bit. It was late, and the owner was sitting at the bar. He invited me to join him, which I did. We talked for a while, caught up. asked each other the appropriate questions. He ordered a rum and coke, and that sparked my memory of Rita. I ordered the same and thought that perhaps he'd be able to solve the mystery for me.

He listened to the question, took a large sip, and put his drink down. Ah, yes, that. Well, I'm not really sure it's appropriate dinner conversation, frankly. I assured him that my curiosity was genuine, satisfied him, and he nodded and stirred his drink with a tip of it. of his finger. I noticed he wasn't wearing a wedding ring. Well, you know, Rita didn't speak very much English. When I hired her, she was new to the country. She married a man to get her citizenship, and in any normal circumstance, I'd never have considered taking her on. But there was

something about her I admired. She had this certain resolve. She brought along a friend to translate for her. This friend, they, they kept repeating a certain phrase, I will work for you very hard. I will start tomorrow. Not may I start tomorrow. I will start tomorrow. And I thought, well, if she's this determined to work for me, why not give her a shot? And of course, you know how hard that woman worked. She was worth every penny I paid her, and more. I didn't deserve her. I didn't deserve her. Frankly, if she'd only spoke in English, she would have been the perfect employee. He laughed and I nodded in agreement. So is that why you let her drink at the bar, or was the rule not around back then?

He shook his head. Oh, no, no, she didn't drink when I hired her. At the hotel, anyway. Of course, I can't say what she did outside of it. I knew I could rely on her to do anything and keep the other girls in line. That's why I promoted her to management right away. The other girls were terrified of her. Much as I hate to admit it, fear is an excellent motivator.

Nothing bothered her, and she was never afraid to speak her mind. If a guest behaved in a way she felt was out of line, she'd tell them so. There was no funny business on her watch. She was fearless. One evening, a man tried to assault her while she cleaned his room. She sprayed him in the face with her bottle of... What was it she used? I thought, and it came back to me in a picture.

The bottle hanging from her waistband. Fabuloso! Yes, Fabuliso. I grinned at his odd pronunciation of the word. She sprayed him in his face, kicked him in his... Well, you know, and called the police right from his room phone. I gave her a... raise after that, thinking she'd demand one, but she never seemed to let it bother her. Nothing ever did.

We ordered another round of drinks and raised an impromptu toast to Rita. He drank deeply, and when he set his glass down, he was frowning, his eyebrows meeting in the middle. One afternoon, it was during the off-season. She asked to see me in my office, and it was the only time I'd ever seen her troubled. I knew whatever was going to be. going on was serious. By that point, she'd picked up a bit of English, and when I asked her what was wrong, she said, this man, he taking a shower too long. It was hard for me to understand her, but I assumed that she meant that someone had left the water on in their room, and I reminded her that if it was within policy, she could go in and shut it off. But it was strange, her telling me that.

I knew she knew the policies by heart. I couldn't understand why she was asking me for permission. At least that's what I thought she was doing. But she kept saying it over and over, he taking a shower, too long of a shower, you must go in, you must call someone. So I had her show me to the room where I could hear the water running. No one answered the door, so we went inside.

and sure enough, someone was in the shower. We could hear him through the door. He wasn't laughing exactly. I can't really describe the sound, like hiccuping, I suppose. I told him I was coming inside, and he didn't answer, so we went in. He was in the tub,

sitting inside it with his clothes on. If I recall correctly, I looked up his reservation after it was over. He was a businessman who was attending a conference. He booked the room for about five nights. He was sitting under the water with his suit on, hiccuping. I suspected that he had either suffered some sort of mental issue or was perhaps under the effects of something, so I told Rita to use the room phone to call 911.

one. She spoke in Spanish, but I know I heard her use one of the only Spanish words I knew. Fuego. And I thought that was odd, or maybe that I hadn't heard her correctly. And she seemed so urgent. The whole thing was so strange. While she talked to the dispatcher, I spoke to the guest to try to see what was wrong. While I was kneeling next to the tub talking with him, I noticed that his shoes were burnt and the cuffs of his shirt. He was picking at them, tearing the fabric off a little. I wondered if that was what Rita had meant. Maybe she'd seen him try to light something in his room on fire. I didn't smell any smoke, though. Not at the time. The owner downed the rest of his drink and ordered another from the passing bartender.

When it arrived, he drank half and a few quick swallows. I hadn't touched mine since the toast. It was sweating onto the counter. When she came back, I instructed her to go downstairs and wait for the ambulance, but she wouldn't leave. She kept trying to tell me something, but it was in Spanish, and I couldn't understand. She would point at him, then the hairdryer on the wall, the little lint holes on the side, and then at herself. She held up her hand, wiggled her finger, gestures gestured all around, but I couldn't understand her. Clearly, something was very wrong, something only she seemed to be aware of, but... Yeah, I'm ashamed to admit it.

I didn't think it was anything important. In fact, I was irritated at her. It was so unlike her to disobey me that way. She kept talking and pulling on the sleeve of my coat, trying to pull me away. I told her to go downstairs. I swore at her. I'm ashamed of the things I said. And she started to cry.

I thought, oh my gosh, I've made her cry. And it upset me. But I just didn't think. I didn't understand. And she wouldn't stop talking. So I got up and I pushed her out. I laid my hands on her and I pushed her out of the room. I shut the door in her face, locked it,

and I could hear her pounding on it, yelling something. I told her if she wanted to keep her job, she'd go downstairs and wait for the police. And I think, I think maybe she'd, understood then that I didn't understand and that it was pointless for her to try anymore, that what would happen would happen. She was a powerful woman, but against the barrier of language. She was powerless.

I heard her leave, and I was alone with the man. He started to talk to me. He told me that he wanted to get out, but that he couldn't. He thanked me, as I recall, a few times. He said, thank you for coming to check on me. It's awful sitting in here, but I couldn't get out to call you. I've been in here two days. Thank you.

Of course, that was alarming. If he'd been in there two days, I imagined he must have been very hungry. Not to mention the other mental implications. I asked him, why couldn't he get out? I couldn't think of what else to say. He started laughing, and he said, you wouldn't believe me even if I told you. The owner stopped and looked into the bottom of his glass.

He was right, you know. I wouldn't have believed him. Him or Rita. He shook his head. and drain the glass. Ordered another. Drained it, too. I let him.

My hands were numb, but I couldn't let go of the glass. The ambulance got there quickly, though maybe it wasn't that quickly, and it only seemed that way. The man didn't say anything else, just sat there under the water. Rita led them upstairs,

and the paramedics took my place after I opened the door. Rita was right on their heels, and she tried to shove past them to tell them whatever she was trying to tell me, but they shoved her away. They asked us to wait outside, and I took her and led her away.

She kept looking over her shoulder, but she let me do it. Outside in the hall, we could hear them talking to him, manned him to them. She was crying, chewing her knuckles and collapsing on the floor, muttering something, and then getting back up. The whole time she kept begging me. I knew that's what she was doing, begging. She hung on my sleeve, pleaded with me, but I just pushed her away. I can't even remember what would have been more important than a lot. I was a little bit of

her. I can't imagine why I didn't listen. I do remember that I kept thinking of our water bill. Isn't that absurd? I kept thinking of all that wasted water and all Rita could think about was the man. He was slurring a bit by this point, and I wondered if I should have stopped him from ordering another drink. But it seemed my mouth was shot. We heard the water turn off and the sound of the man climbing out of the shower. I couldn't understand him. The walls and door were thick, but I could tell he was upset and resisting it. But that the paramedics weren't given him a choice.

Rita froze when the water stopped. She was holding my arm too tight. It almost hurt. There was a pause where everything went quiet. That's when I began to feel that something wasn't right. Something felt very wrong. Rita and I looked at each other then, and I knew I'd made a terrible, terrible mistake. I was too late by then, of course, and the guilt that fell over me then, I've never been able to take off of me.

I found myself reaching for the door without even thinking of doing it, and as I did, the door was wrenched open from inside, yanked out of my hand. I felt a rush of air, as if... The room was taking a very quick, deep breath. He took a harsh hissing breath from between his teeth. Just like that, there was a very strange smell and in a very, very bright orange light. Something hot rushed out and almost bumped into me. And it was so hot, it actually melted that side of my coat. melted it right off.

It was dripping onto the floor. Can you imagine? He shook his head. Happened so fast. Couldn't make any sense of it. I heard Rita scream somewhere.

During those events, she had gotten out of the way. I heard the paramedic shouting. One of them pushed me aside, and he got some of the melting, coat on his hand, but he didn't seem to know. He was looking at whatever that bright light was, the light that was now in the hallway. And when he pulled the room's fire extinguisher off the wall, yeah, it all clicked into place at once. I turned and saw the man, completely engulfed in flames. and he was holding Rita in his arms, burning her alive.

You know what I did? I grabbed her from him. I sort of kicked. He swung on the stool and kicked outward. Like that. Kicked him in the thighs, and he let her go. I don't know. I badly burn.

Some of her hair was gone, yeah. and her shirt had been burned mostly away, but I didn't see any blistering on the skin. She was screaming, and her eyes were wide, but she wasn't afraid. She was crying. She reached for the man who was reaching out for her, and he was the only one not making any sound.

His mouth was open, and I could see that his tongue was burning. It was actually on fire, but he wasn't making a sound. I saw inside him, putting up his throat and out of his mouth, smell coming from him, chemical acetone, all over Rita. It was coming from inside him. baking through his skin with the heaths. She cried out a name, reached for the man, but he collapsed on the floor. Then Rita began to go limp, and I caught her, but the second paramedic yanked us both upright,

and he told us to run, run, and call the fire department. I put Rita in the office. laid her on the floor and instructed the staff to pull the fire alarm and get everyone out of the hotel. Rita was crying. Even unconscious, she wept. That's the last thing I remember clearly. Everything after that is blurred. He stared at the glittering bottles on the back wall of the bar. The bar seemed deafening around us. even though it was mostly empty.

When they took the man out, they took him out on a stretcher, but they didn't cover him. There wasn't anything to cover, really. Everything had been burnt to ash, except his shoes. His shoes survived. I wonder about that, about those shoes.

We were very quiet for. a moment. Then, trembling, I pushed my drink away. Suddenly, I wanted very much to go back home, back to my temporary bed. Rita started drinking after that.

I led her. I couldn't think what else to do for her. I couldn't imagine what she must have seen, what she must have felt when that man grabbed her, as if she was a life ring.

I remember her hands were hovering over his back. She was trying to hold him, but he was too hot. Then I kicked him away. And before his eyes melted, I saw that there was fear in them, but more so, a great sadness. I can't even remember his name. I should look it up one day. Somewhere behind us, someone dropped a glass, and it shattered.

There was shrill laughter, and I got to my feet quickly. I tossed some cash onto the bar and turned to go, and he grabbed the sleeve of my coat. He looked up at me with his hollow face and his dead eyes. I was sweating inside my shirt. It never went away, you know? That smell. His fingers gripped the fabric. Maybe I could have imagined the whole thing, but you know.

She always smelled like him, even years later. That smell. It's doctor. He let me go. I rushed out into the night toward my car. I drove home with all the windows down, letting the air roar in. And back at the house, I wound my way up the stairs in the dark. Fully clothed, I climbed into bed.

But sleep wouldn't come. I thought about what the owner had said about the smell. Acetone, the fruity chemical smell some have associated with the phenomenon of spontaneous human combustion. Lying awake, drenched in sweat, my palms pressed against my mouth. I thought of Rita, her chapped red hands. The smell that was always on her. The smell that I know now was the smell of that burnt. Man, a fabuloso.

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