Too Late For Midnight

by Guillermo Lopez

The cinema was showing nothing but romantic comedies that night. That's why I was out so late in the first place. The fellow who played Wolverine was in one of them, and the review says he does time travel, which is kind of like a superpower, except he's doing it for romance and nothing much is actually at stake. Certainly not worth the four miles I'd walked into town for, three miles of which were in less than ideal weather. Summers around here weren't so bad, not at night, but the storms that would come of out of nowhere and dump dirty water on everything were a usual annoyance.

Soaked and frustrated, I hunched away from the movie theater. What idiot combined romance and comedy anyway? Probably the same guy who started those chicken-and-waffle houses. Try to please everybody, and we'll all end up sticky and greasy and probably have heartburn. That's what I believe.

There was an old abandoned motel at the other end of town. I hadn't been planning on heading over there, but that's where I did. Eh, headed.

The rain had stopped by the time I arrived. The clouds hung about, though, and I had to pick my way carefully across the unlit parking lot. I could barely make out the profile of the building. The motel was actually two stories high. Probably why they went under. The appeal of a motel, such as it is, was that someone with a car could just drive up to their room. Who knows what people are thinking sometimes?

That wasn't the only odd thing about the motel. All the doors and windows were boarded up, but in perfect X's like in a cartoon or bad horror movie. Nobody really boards places up like this. Two crossed boards over windows that size keep out exactly two things: jack and shit. Well, maybe two really fat raccoons if they were somehow tied together.

Distant thunder grumbled in the distance as I walked over to the third and fourth odd things about the motel. The small office where a person might check in was dark and covered up by the stereotypical X of boards. The sign, though, the neon sign perched on the flat roof above it still blazed pinkly, "MOTEL" and just under that, in green, "NO VACANCY". Now, I love the noble gases as much as the next guy, but this seemed like a waste. The sign was big, too, almost as tall as I was. I know there's some other motel out there without two stories that could put that sign to good use.

The fourth weird thing, the weirdest thing, and the reason I was here, is that next to the office and the ever vigilant neon sign, was a hot tub. It wasn't very big or fancy. It was little more than a ring of large, neatly stacked stone slabs around a concrete-filled hole. There wasn't even a proper entrance; I had to step onto and over the short wall to get in. But in I went, as I'd done twice before since I stumbled across this place. The water was, as always, perfectly hot and immaculate. It was always clean. Dirt, dead leaves, and even the bugs that swarmed around the pointless neon sign never got in. The second time I was there, I tasted the water. No chlorine or anything, except maybe the tiniest bit of something I couldn't place, kind of like the way a match smells right when you strike it. I don't know. Maybe it was built on a hot spring or something, not that I'd heard of any around here before. Or maybe some confused pool guy shows up every week to clean it and is still somehow getting paid for it.

I didn't think too much about it. Mostly I sat in the hot tub in my underwear and thought of nothing. That's what I was doing that night, the night of romantic comedies and the storm.

I'd been sitting for a long time, my head leaned back against the stone, eyes closed, and the water was almost completely still except for my slow breathing. The only sound was the occasional rumble of thunder distantly off in the distance. Then, ever so slightly, the water level, which had been just under my nipples, raised slowly up and over them. I realized that I was no longer the only one in this deserted hot tub.

I didn't open my eyes right away. Whoever it was still hadn't made a sound. I furiously debated how far I could get barefoot in my underwear if I actually tried to run.

"You'll probably find it more relaxing if you remember to breathe."

A woman's voice. I opened my eyes. My breath came out in a whoosh as I tried to focus. It was. She was, I mean.

Wide eyes, a pert nose, and a high forehead under a mass of curly red hair. She looked young, but kinda old too, and regal, very regal. Well, her bearing was queenly but her slender frame was covered by a one-piece swimsuit with a pink and white swirl design that looked like a mint candy.

I gave out a short, nervous bark that was supposed to be a manly laugh. She smiled and I tried again.

"Ha, um, hullo. You sorta scared me there. Here. I, uh, thought I was the only one that, I mean, I've never seen anyone else here before and-"

"Maybe you've been scaring everybody off," she grinned. "Showing up in the middle of the night in your underwear."

"Is it that late? I should probably go." I began to stand up, remembered that I was indeed only in my underwear, and sat back down. Better play it cool. "I mean to say, I'm meeting some...friends.. they're somewhere else...around this time, eh, to commit...some, um...crimes?"

She looked amused. "Wow, I've never met a dangerous criminal before. What's your name?"

"I, uh, can't tell you that, for your own protection, you understand." I could feel my face flush red. She blinked prettily. "So, what's your name?"

She leaned forward. Her skin was pale. So pale it almost glowed. Like she was being lit up by the light of a full moon, not the sickly light of the neon sign. Her teeth flashed another smile.

"Kill."

TO BE CONTINUED...