All the Inside Howling (Hollow Folk #2)(101)

Still pulling that face, Emmett said, “You guys don’t carry cash?”

“Not that much—” Becca began.

Emmett produced his wallet and counted out five hundred dollars. “That should be enough for a room, right?”

Becca stared at me. I stared at her.

“What?” Emmett said.

So we caught a taxi, and I asked for someplace cheap but clean. The taxi driver had an unpronounceable name, but he was friendly. He talked mostly about Armenia and how different it was. When he dropped us at a motel, Becca peeled another twenty off of Emmett’s stack and gave it to the driver. He waved and pulled away, leaving us in front of our temporary home.

Rocky’s Rocky Mountain Motel ran for a city block, with all the rooms facing out at the street. Exterior stairs, planted at each end of the building, connected the upper and lower floors. Strung along each floor, old-fashioned light fixtures shaped like gumballs gave off light the color of mustard that needs tossing out. And, at the east end of the block, a red-and-white illuminated sign marked the office.

“Let me do the talking,” Becca said, glancing at each of us. “In fact, Emmett, maybe you should wait out here.”

“What? Why?”

She snagged the wallet from his hand, smiled, and pranced towards the office. And it was definitely prancing. Her whole stride shifted: each step carried her only a fraction of the distance it normally should have, and she seemed to be walking on tip-toe, as though afraid of putting a nail through her foot. One hand came up, playing with a lock of platinum-blond hair, and she pursed her lips.

“Are you having a seizure?” I asked.

“Go to hell,” she said out of the side of her mouth, pulling open the door and prancing—no, mincing—into the office.

The man behind the small, bulletproof window had let necessity foster his creative spirit. His enormous belly, which seemed likely to cause serious back problems, pooled across his desk, straining the safety pins that held his red plaid shirt closed. Around one wrist he wore a WWJD bracelet slowly being swallowed by the folds of flesh, and around his neck he had hung an ancient camera, a ring of keys, and a crisply printed electronic ID card. A cord braided from plastic shopping bags suspended these talismans across his chest. Behind the bulletproof glass, a flattened Vess root beer can had the word Rocky written on it in black marker.

“Oh my God,” Becca said, her voice pitched so high that it was likely intended for cats and small birds and submarines. “You don’t, like, have a room?” She rocked against me, wrapping her arms around my waist and giggling hysterically. “Oh my God, I am so drunk.”

Rocky—I assumed, based on the Vess soda can, that this was Rocky—leaned forward, jostling the desk and jiggling from the neck down. The thick glass muted his bellowed “What?”

“Oh my God,” Becca shrieked, laughing again. “I am so drunk.”

“We want a room,” I shouted.

Rocky ran a hand through thinning hair like a man trying to solve a crossword puzzle but without any clues. Then, another bellow: “A room?”

Becca giggled, sliding against me and kissing my neck. Her hands dipped below my waistband, and I just about jumped out of my sneakers. Fighting with Becca’s wandering hands, I nodded. “Yes,” I said.

Another long pause as Rocky tried to decipher my coded message through the glass. “You want it by the hour?”

Becca slid her tongue in my ear. This time I did jump, and my face had turned to fire. “God damn it, I don’t care. Whatever. Just give me a room.”

“Oh my God,” Becca shrieked, yanking an inch of my underwear into view. “Briefs. I swear to God, I knew you wore briefs.”

Rocky, running his hand through that thinning hair again, seemed to consider the situation. A small smile tightened his mouth, and he leered at Becca’s backside. Then, slowly, like he was unfolding it fresh and still stiff from the package, he gave me a thumbs up.

“The room,” I shouted, pinning one of Becca’s arms as she tried to tug my shirt over my head. She settled for running her tongue down my neck. Jesus, Mary, and Martha. If we ever got back to Vehpese, I was going to shave Becca bald for putting me through this.

“Forty bucks,” Rocky said. “You got to sign the register.”

As though remembering where we were, Becca staggered to the bulletproof window. She slid the forty bucks under the partition, scribbled something on the register, smiled, tried to curtsy, and fell, knocking a lamp to the floor. She lay there, legs spread wide, her shirt riding up to reveal a pale inch of stomach.

“Get up,” I growled, grabbing her and the lamp and wishing I could leave her and take the lamp.

Rocky’s smile had grown, and he pushed a key with an enormous tag marked 28 through the slot. “You two have fun.” And he gave me that achingly slow, arthritic thumbs up again.

I didn’t run to the exit. I—I may have hurried. Just a little. But Becca was behind me, her hands ripping my underwear up and over my ass like she’d just invented the first wedgie and wanted to see if there was room for improvement. When we stumbled out into the freezing Denver night, Becca let me go, and my eyes went to Emmett, who stood near a streetlight. My thoughts did rapid geometry: he had been at an angle, and Becca had been behind me, so he couldn’t have seen her hands in my underwear. He couldn’t have. Not at that angle. Could he? Not that it mattered. Because it didn’t. It didn’t matter at all. But . . . could he?