But the next day, a young woman flipped over a sign that read, "Open for business" in the front window. It wasn't much, just a row of identical, cheap white door set into the brick facade of a cheap motel. The parking lot wasn't even paved, just an oversaturated patch of gravel that promised to suck your wheels down to hell.

Nobody showed up the first day. The young woman painted her nails and fidgeted with the pencils. She wasn't sure what they were supposed to be for since there wasn't any paper to write on, but when she put one in her mouth, she found it satisfying to chew on the eraser. Biting the metal collar near put the taste of blood in her mouth, and she liked that.

Near sunset, the little boy walked into the office without having bothered to be outside it first. "Sarah."

His grown-man's voice had stopped startling her, the way a scary movie stopped startling you after you'd seen it a few times. "Mr. Dandi."

"Sarah, where are the customers? I told you to find some."

"For one thing, we don't have a road yet. And this place is so...cheap. Cheap and small and boring. And when you go inside the rooms, the first thing you notice is that there aren't any beds. Stuff like that. Not that they're going to make it as far as the rooms, because as soon as they see that parking lot, they're going to turn around and find somewhere else to go, because they'll never be able to drive back out of here."

"That was the idea," Mr. Dandi said.

"Also, it's unnerving to be slipping through time like this. I start speaking in languages I've never heard of, and I usually end up with crappy underwear. And did I forget to mention that having the body of a five-year old boy in short pants speak to you in a voice deeper than your father's is just plain wrong? Out of place? Any time, any where?"

Mr. Dandi rubbed his chin. "I will consider what you say."

"You do that," Sarah said.

At night, Sarah curled up under the desk and waited for morning. She must have fallen asleep, because when Mr. Dandi touched her shoulder the next morning, she screamed and bounced her head off the bottom of the desk. When she crawled out from under the desk, she noticed that the carpet had changed, and that Mr. Dandi wore big-boy pants.

"I have had a discussion with our proprietor, Mr. Davis," he said. He was older, dressed in a classy black tux. He looked fatherly, if, say, you'd had a father who'd been in prison for twenty years for serial killing. "He has apologized for the details he overlooked, and asks that you let him know if you have any further requests."

"Should I tell you, or is there any other way to...contact him?" As creepy as it would be to talk to Remington Davis, it had to be better than talking to Mr. Dandi. At least she'd be talking to someone who had once been human. She hadn't thought much of him when she'd been introduced--he'd seemed too mousy, too startled and wishy-washy--but her perspective of the situation had changed over the last twenty-four hours. Answering a want ad promising to show you the world for a modest salary when all you really wanted to do was avoid your ex and your parents for a few months, bad idea. Bad, bad idea. She wondered now how Remi had been dragged into this.

Mr. Dandi was saying, "Dial room service."

"Thanks," Sarah said.

"I expect guests today."

"If they walk through the door, I'll give them a room."

"Is that a necessary part of the process? Walking through the door?"

"Not literally through the door. Christ! Where are you from?"

He answered her, and she regretted asking the question. She didn't say anything else; eventually he left.

The lobby had become the kind of place that used to be classy before the next new thing came into town. The kind of dust in the woodwork that takes a renovation to get out. Expensive carpet ten years too old. A computer with a greenish screen and a yellowed, stiff keyboard. A dot matrix printer. The paintings hanging in the lobby were real oil paintings with little brass plates on the frame. Everything was dark wood or the kind of dark green that money should be. The rooms were down a hallway instead of laid out in a row facing the parking lot.

The front door chimed. The little bell was out of place, but what the hell.

The couple that walked in were a pair of businessmen in suits. They dragged their suitacases behind them on straps and left grooves in the rug.

"May I help you?" Sarah asked.

"We don't have reservations," one of the men said.

Sarah labeled him the tall one. The short one said, "But I'm sure a place like this, you always hold a couple of rooms back for folks like us." He winked at her.

The tall one whined. "It's too early in the day, Greg. Your version of charm is going to turn my stomach."

"Got anyplace to eat?" the short one asked. By then, they'd reached the front desk. The tall one stood back and let the short one lean over the counter.

"We have several rooms available," Sarah said. "What type of rooms would you like?"

They asked her for two single rooms with a connecting door. She typed their names, addresses, vehicle numbers--anything that sounded reasonable to ask two travelers--into the computer and printed them out a receipt.

"Non-smoking," the tall one said.

"Smoking," the short one said.

"That's fine," Sarah told them. She handed them two odd-numbered keys and hoped that Remi would be able to come up with what they wanted by the time they got to the end of the hall. The short one grabbed the key and turned away, but the tall one brushed his hand against hers as he took his key. Lights flashed, and it happened again: the tall one was dragging the short one down the hallway, laughing and smearing blood on the room doors as he echoed toward the front desk. One of the other doors would open, and another guest, one that she'd have to check in later tonight, would snap the both of them into the room like a spider flinging webs over flies.

She caught herself, swallowed, and said, "Excuse me. Have a good evening. Please call the front desk if you need anything."

"About that restaurant?" the short one asked.

"If you will give me a moment, I will ask the maitre-d' whether it has opened again for lunch."

"You do that," the short one said.

The tall one rolled his eyes and shrugged. What do you do?

Sarah picked up the telephone and pushed the button marked "room service." It wasn't a numbered button, but something marked with what looked like some kind of star shape. She'd never seen a phone with a button like that before, but whatever. "Remi? We have some guests who would like to know if the restaurant has opened for lunch."

She heard the sound of a typewriter. "Remi? Remi? Pick up the phone, please." The two men stared at her.

The typewriter stopped. "Remi here. Who is this?"

"Sarah. Is the restaurant open for lunch or not?" She was starting to panic. This wasn't going to work.

"The girl! Hello, Sarah! What do you mean, the restaurant? We don't have a--"

"Will it be open soon, then?"

"Restaurant. You want a restaurant. Who's going to cook, that's what I want to know. Okay. Restaurant. Give me...half an hour. When you hang up, call Mr. Dandi and tell him to get us some staff, somebody that isn't going to panic. Our first customers! What do you think?"

Sarah hung up. "The restaurant will open at ten a.m., sir."

"That's an hour!" the short one said.

"Your gut can wait an hour," the tall one said. "Come on."

As they walked down the hallway, Sarah picked up the phone again. "This is Sarah. Sorry about such short notice."

"Hey. We're all trying to get the hang of this. What did you think about our first customers?"

"They give me the creeps. There's a tall one and a short one. The tall one's going to kill the short one. And then there's another guest that's coming in later today, and he's going to pop them into his room and eat them. I don't know if Mr. Dandi told you, but sometimes I can see the future. If you don't believe me, that's okay."

Remi's voice chuckled over the line. "Sarah. I'm a hotel. I find myself capable of believing a lot of things."

"Why are you doing this?" Sarah asked. "Did you get tricked into it? What?"

"Some guy told me that if I wanted the story of my life, I'd better show up in Portland for this science convention," Remi's voice said. "Or mabye that wasn't it at all. Most of the time I can't remember, and it seems like it's a different story every time I do. I don't know. I think I'm looking forward to it. Maybe this sounds crazy. I used to be a reporter. I loved to write, but every time I tried to make something up, it'd fall flat, turn into stuff worse than the books you pick up in airports. I can't write stories, but maybe I can make them happen. Maybe I can get other people to write them down for me."

"You're right. It sounds crazy." Sarah sighed. "But you're the only person I've got to talk to. Now, how to do I get Mr. Dandi?"

"Try dialing Operator."

"Thanks. Talk to you in a bit, Remi."

"Bye, Sarah."

The next morning, Remi cleaned up the blood from the hallway. Mr. Dandi said they wouldn't be able to get maids or bellhops for a few more days. Sarah had to show him how to act like a waiter, he'd made such a mess of it the day before that the short one had stormed out, screaming at the tall one.

And there were two more room keys hanging on the wall behind the desk.

---

--De Knippling

• Not Yet
• The Story of the Black Monocle
• Sarah At The Desk
• Blue Dolls in Wisconsin, A Renzo Novel
• A Wet Way to Live
• Said the Spider to the Fly

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