The Wolf Witch (The Keys Trilogy Book 1) (2 page)

This wasn’t happening.

Except that it was. There was no question that she was no longer alone in the hallway. She could smell its meaty, bloody breaths. The knife was six inches out of reach and she knew – with some old, old instinct – that the second she moved that thing would be on her. She could almost feel the bulk of it behind her – huge and black, filling the hallway. It huffed and stirred, knocking over the umbrella stand seemingly just by breathing.

I’ll huff and I’ll puff and I’ll blow your house down.

The floorboards creaked behind her and she knew the thing was preparing to spring at her. In that tiny instant she hoped (one last time) that this was nothing but a nightmare.

The thud knocked the breath from her lungs. The full weight of the thing was on her back now, a hot, heavy panting horror. She couldn’t even scream, but the way she had sprawled when it landed had brought her fingers closer to the hilt of the kitchen knife. There was a blunt, tearing pain down the length of her spine and with it came a blaze of anger, lighting up her brain and reminding her to fight. There was more than her own life at stake here.

She stretched out under the weight of the creature. It was snapping and snarling at the nape of her neck now and she could feel the rags of her torn shirt flapping loose and warm and wet. The only thing in her mind now was the old refrain from the Disney cartoon – mocking and tinny –
Who’s afraid of the big bad wolf, the big bad wolf, the big bad wolf?

There were claws in her shoulders now. It snapped near her face and she saw the muzzle – black and hairy and hellish – and the teeth. Holy God, look at the size of those teeth.

But her fingertip was on the brushed steel hilt and she stretched towards it. The pain was like nothing she had ever felt before, as the muscles in her shoulders strained in spite of the claws piercing them. She felt each puncture wound as distinct clear spots of agony, and a dim little voice was already saying it would be better to just stop. Just die.

But no. The knife was there. She had it. She brought it up over her head, screaming as she stabbed blindly at the beast above her. She felt the knife glance briefly off something fleshy and a hot, desperate killing instinct surged up inside her. Pure hate. Pure survival.

She flailed with the knife again but then the teeth were in the back of her neck. They crunched. Her fingers went limp and the knife fell. It slashed across her back but the feeling was strange – muted.

That was when she realized she could no longer move.

The wet smacking sounds had started again.

Abbie lay face down with her head turned to one side. There were red splatters all up the wall, ruining the floral paper she had kept meaning to replace.
Either that wallpaper goes or I do.
Famous last words.

She felt warm stickiness beneath her cheek and began to realize the size of the puddle she was lying in. So much blood.

Her last conscious thought was that some poor person was going to have to clean up this mess.

1

“Bleach,” said Charmaine. “Here in the squeezy bottles. If the label peels off your squeezy bottle, shout up. Regulations say we have to keep them clearly labeled. Always wear a mask when you’re bleaching out the shower trays, understand?”

“Sure.”

The housekeeper moved on to the next item – a stack of old newspapers. “These we get from the rooms when they’re done. Always bring them back because they’re gettin’ like gold dust these days. Nothing shines a window up like newsprint.”

“Wet on, dry off,” said Blue. “I know.”

“You done this before, huh?” said Charmaine. The skin of her fingers looked dry and shiny, like burnt baking parchment. She didn’t sound surprised; there was always work doing the things that other people didn’t want to do.

“Windex,” she said, adding the bottle to Blue’s plastic cleaning caddy. “Two cloths. Use the white to put it on and the soft blue to take it off. Always keep your blue cloth dry as possible – you use that one like a chammy, for polishing and buffing the taps. Don’t leave the inside of basins and baths wet when you’ve rinsed them. Yellow towels here are for drying off. Never use those for drying off cups in the room – there’s a dishtowel for that here...”

Blue nodded along. The heat didn’t help. It was hard enough to remember all of this in one go without feeling like she might faint any moment. The air was thick as molasses and a dryer was already belching out even more heat from a corner of the laundry. Add a sleepless night, a queasy stomach, a skipped breakfast and a bad case of first-day nerves. The one bright spot was that if she
did
throw up, she would at least be near a toilet.

“Rooms two, three and six are first,” said Charmaine. “Conservationists. Love those guys – they’re up and out first thing in the morning tagging deer or diving on the reefs. Worst ones are the honeymooners – they wanna lie around all day feeling each other up and won’t let you in to clean the room until it’s nearly time for dinner. You’ll never get off early with newlyweds.”

Stacy - a skinny blonde white woman - looked up from where she was folding table napkins. “But
they
will,” she said.

Charmaine flicked her on the butt with a dishtowel. “Yeah, I walked into that one,” she said, and turned back to Blue. “You want to start on beds or baths?”

“Um...I...don’t know. Wherever you want me, I guess.”

“Go with Stacy on baths,” said Charmaine. “She’ll show you the ropes. Seven checked out, Stace – it’s a full changeover now.”

“Okay. Cool. You want me to take up the sheets?”

“Nah. Renee will be down in a minute. You go with...” Charmaine frowned and shook her head. “I’m sorry – I’m lousy with names.”

“Blue.”

“Duh. How did I forget that? Easy to remember, what with your eyes.”

“Are those contact lenses?” asked Stacy.

“No,” said Blue.

“Jesus, Stacy,” said Charmaine.

“What? I’m just asking.”

“You wanna ask if her titties are real while you at it? Raised by goddamn wolves, I swear to God. Now get going.”

“Yes ma’am,” said Stacy, tipping a little salute as she led Blue towards the door. “Okay, Blue – let’s get you started.”

They passed Renee on the stairs. She was a soft-faced, middle aged lady who might once have been pretty in a sort of plump, sweet-lipped way, but age hadn’t been kind to her and she looked as though disappointment had somehow let the air out of her face. She didn’t speak.

“Shit,” said Stacy, when she was gone. “I have
no
idea what to say to her.”

“Why?”

“Her husband was in the hospital. I never know what to say to people when shit like that goes down, you know?” She unlocked the door of room two. The windows were open behind the screen and an electric fan was still spinning away, its blades chopping almost ineffectually at the thick, perfumed air.

Stacy raised her arms and stood in front of it for a second, drying her armpits. On her upper arm, inked on a banner wrapped around the stem of a red rose, was the name AXL. “These hippies hate the aircon,” she said. “Although they still leave the goddamn fan running. Don’t know what they think
that
runs on. Pixie dust, I guess.”

She flapped the front of her white wife-beater a couple of times and lifted the fallen strap of a cerise bra. “You ready to get started?” she asked.

“I guess.”

“Don’t look so worried. It’s not hard.”

“No, I know. It’s just a lot to remember.”

“You’ll get it. Here.” She took the blue cloth and the dishtowel from the plastic box. “Tuck these two into your belt so they keep dry. Once you get the sponges wet they’ll piss water all in the bottom of your carrier and you don’t want to get your polishing cloths wet. That way you get streaks and Charmaine gets a bug up her ass.”

After the first couple of bathrooms, Blue started to relax. It was just a case of organizing yourself – trash first, then clean glasses and cups, scrub bath, sink and toilet, then clean off shelves, polish mirrors, restock towels and toilet paper and wash the floor. By the third room she was doing it alone and Stacy had gone ahead.

Someone came into the hotel room. Blue heard them sighing on the other side of the half open bathroom door. Then the sounds of sheets being pulled off the bed.

More footsteps at the door. “Girl, you’re going to have to talk about it sometime,” said Charmaine’s voice.

There was another heavy sigh. “I know that,” said another voice, presumably Renee’s.

“Well? Is he okay?”

“As well as you’d expect, for a man with one leg.”

“Oh honey. I’m sorry.”

Renee let out a little huff and Blue heard someone punching pillows into shape. “What can you do? I told him this would happen if he didn’t get control of his weight, but he was too damn stubborn to own up to the fact that he ate too much.”

“That’s men for you. That’s how I knew the Bible was bullshit; I can buy the whole God thing, even raising the dead and walking on water, but you expect me to believe a woman successfully persuaded a man to eat
fruit
?”

“You shouldn’t talk like that, Charmaine. And I shouldn’t be talking about this anyway - ”

“ - and how come? It’s your husband. His diabetes.”

Yet another sigh. “Well, I guess you’re gonna hear about it sooner or later, although the hospital is crapping their pants about what I might say - ”

“ - holy shit, Renee – what happened? He didn’t get one of those infections, did he? Like a superbug?”

“No. Nothing like that. I’m just talking to a lawyer at the moment and I don’t know if...” Something soft thudded to the floor. “...oh darn it. Like I say, you may as well hear it from me than those dumbass local hacks. They lost Greg’s leg.”

Blue, who had been scrubbing the toilet, scrubbed a little harder to cover the fact that she was listening.

“
Lost
it?” said Charmaine. “How do you mean?”

“Well, the first I heard about it was the police showing up at my house. They came around all official like ‘Are you Mrs. Greg Holcombe?’ so I says yes and they tell me I should sit down.”

“The hell?”

“I know. I was confused. But not as confused as they were when I let them inside and they saw Greg.”

“They thought Greg had been killed?”

“Murdered. They thought the old Keys Cannibal had come out of retirement and chopped him up. They’d found his leg, you see. Still with that stupid Wile E. Coyote tattoo on it.”

Blue quickly flushed the toilet and moved to the top of the bath tub, nearer the door, straining her ears to hear over the flush.

“...in the incinerator?”

“That’s just it. They didn’t. Whoever was supposed to put his leg in the incinerator didn’t. They must have just tossed it in a dumpster where a stray dog got it.”

“Well, someone better be getting fired. What the hell?”

“This big ass dog was just strutting down the street, they said. With Greg’s diabetic foot in his mouth. Trotting on by, wagging his tail and scaring the crap out of the tourists. Someone called the cops and well...you know how Greg and Ryan were old drinking buddies back in the day?”

“Sure.”

“Ryan recognized the tattoo; one night they got drunk and dared each other to get ‘em. So he sees the coyote tattoo and figures ‘Oh boy, someone’s gone and chopped up Greg,’ because I guess he didn’t know Greg was in the hospital. They were kind of on the outs after we got more involved with the church, you know.”

“Right. But what did Ryan
do
?”

“Well, he showed up at the house, of course. Poor man. He said ‘Renee, I think you might need to sit down for this,’ and my heart was in my mouth right then because I thought it was something with the kids. But then he says he’s found Greg’s leg, only to look over my shoulder and see the rest of Greg sitting in front of the TV drinking a Mountain Dew. And you know what the worst thing was?”

“Honey, I cannot begin to imagine.”

“It wasn’t even
diet
Mountain Dew,” said Renee, her voice breaking. “After everything that stupid son-of-a-bitch has been through, he couldn’t even switch to diet soda.”

There was a brief silence and Blue quickly ran the bath taps. She had a horrible feeling she was going to laugh.

The water echoed off the sides of the tub as she ducked her head to scrub, so that for a while it was all she could hear. When she straightened up she could hear someone moving in the next room but no more talking. Someone cleared her throat, then Charmaine poked her head around the bathroom door.

“How are you getting on?”

“Um...good. I think?”

Charmaine’s sharp dark eyes scanned the room like those of some kind of house-proud hawk. “Shower screen was a little streaky in two,” she said. “Make sure you get all of the Windex off next time.”

“Okay. I will.”

“We’re going on up to the next floor. Come up and meet us in eight when you’re done.”

The work was harder on the higher floors. The aircon could only do so much to take the edge off when you were moving around, and as the heat rose the upper rooms of the hotel were nearly as stifling as Blue’s own attic room. She had counted herself lucky when she found a hotel that was offering a job and board, but in practice it only doubled the pressure to do well. If she lost this job she would also be homeless. And she didn’t know anyone here in Florida.

It was a long, sweaty morning, broken up only by a quick cold drink somewhere around eleven. By the time they were done, Blue’s head was starting to spin with hunger, adding to her sense of unreality. She had been here for almost a week but she didn’t think she’d ever get used to it. Every time she saw the palms swaying and the light gleaming off the clear blue sea she had to pinch herself; this was really happening to her. She was really here.

She followed the other maids across the lawn, Stacy lugging a vacuum-cleaner and Renee pacing ahead with the sheets she had taken off the bed. Charmaine stopped in her tracks, shaded her eyes and glanced out to sea.

There was a boat at the end of the jetty. Blue could make out a dark, slender figure bending over in the boat.