The Haven Hotel

Hope

It feels quiet in spite of the rain. Everything is so still. Above and behind us the ceiling starts dripping in several places and the choking smell of rotten wood, curtain, and carpet gets stronger. Wind enters the house through some invisible broken windows and lifts a thin cloud of dust off the floors. We inch backwards up the stairs while listening for a sound that doesn't come from nature's assault on the abandoned house.

The flight ends in a corridor. On one side is a room with a legless desk and on the other there are two bedrooms and a bathroom. A cluttered bookshelf sits behind me and next to a pot full of soil and rotted aloe. The pages of each novel and magazine are swollen and yellow and undoubtedly illegible. Two framed pictures of a family of six have managed to stay on the walls. The parents and their four kids are only silhouettes in the darkness and they mean nothing in what was once their home.

A knock at the front door snaps my mind back into focus. It comes in three short, urgent bangs. No one says anything. The man gestures towards Nadia and she obeys by heading into one of the bedrooms.

"Themba!" The word rises above the storm and carries through the staircase. Whoever is speaking has a voice that sounds like decades of cheap cigarettes and hard liquor. "Yiz' apha boy! I don't wanna have to fetch you!" His tone is oddly paternal.

The man doesn't say anything. His name is Themba, or at least that's what his hunter calls him. His face gives away very little, but through his blank expression I can see that he's scared. His shoulders are rising and falling too quickly and his hands shake as he aims the pistol down the staircase.

"Why did you shoot me?" I regret the question immediately after asking it. My voice comes out as a pathetic croak; it sounds like I'm a child whining about being punished. Moreover, there's no chance of getting an honest answer to that question right now.

"Who are you?" The hunter asks after a pause. I almost burst out laughing in relief; if the hunter doesn't know who I am, he doesn't know about the Haven. His ignorance about me, however irrelevant it might seem when he's got superior numbers and firepower, gives me some minuscule power over him, and I'm determined to hold on to that power.

"Doesn't matter." My voice is stronger now. I lift the rifle onto my tired shoulder and, with my teeth, tighten the sleeve holding it to my arm. "You shot me, now we have a problem."

"Nah, chick, that wasn't me. Yellow shot you. He gets a bit excited when he sees strangers. I apologize. But there doesn't have to be a problem. I'll let you leave now if you wanna go." 

Again, I almost laugh when it dawns on me that I was almost killed by a man named Yellow. The offer that was just made doesn't register in my mind until the hunter continues speaking. "You don't have to get hurt any more than you already are."

It's a threat, very obvious and not too strong, but it gets the job done. It gets me thinking of whether or not I could survive another gunshot, and how painful my death would be if I couldn't. But then it occurs to me that my prospects of survival aren't very good either way; I can't go back to the Haven after abandoning a special charge, and with my half fixed wound there's no way I'll survive a winter in the city.

With those facts in mind I summon the response that best conveys my feelings. "Fuck you!"

The hunter laughs, and several voices laugh with him. There's some conversation muffled by the rain and then everything returns to relative silence. I glance at Themba and he glances at Nadia. Maybe it's the nerves but the idea of a man named Yellow wielding a sniper rifle is hilarious. Themba looks sideways at me and shakes his head at my nearly insane giggling. A hint of a smile crosses his face; for him it's definitely nerves.