Motel From Hell

Housekeeping

"Are you okay?" Chester asks softly, coming out of the room. I'm sitting outside the room, with my head buried into my knees, and railing bars steadying me.

"No, but I'm better." I mumble, looking up at him with a blotchy face, and red eyes. With blurry vision I notice faded red smudges circling his mouth, making his pink lips more vibrant than usual.

"They seemed fine... Completely normal." I mutter, my eyes watering a little.

"Trust me, don't trust normality, and bed and breakfast reservations." Chester says, sinking down next to me.

"So... Did you?" I ask, not able to finish the words, but I know he can hear the rest of the sentence in my mind.

"Yeah, I sucked their souls out, and their blood." Chester says. Oh, so that's what the ring of red is, it's dry blood. Chester's green eyes darken with pain, he hangs his head, and roughly starts wiping his mouth with his sleeve.

"Hey," I say softly, trying to get him to stop but he just keeps rubbing till his skin goes redder than the faded blood.

"Hey!" I exclaim, grabbing his arm, and forcing it away from him. "You're hurting yourself!" I clutch his hand, scared he'll do it again.

"Its not your fault, you're not a monster." I say, gripping his hand tightly. "You're not a monster," I repeat. "This wasn't your fault they... You don't scare me, you're a good person." I say desperately wanting him to get out of his head.

"... I have to cut to put their bodies to rest, it's the least I can do." Chester breathes, standing up to his feet. He walks back into the room, and I poke my head in to see him sucking up everything and cutting the man down. I feel every muscle in my body tighten, and my throat close up. The boy who never cleans is cleaning up a suicide, I can tell everyone of his emotions are burning, burning him from the inside out. He looks like he wants to vomit, cry, scream, break but most importantly wants to do right by this couple. He looks like he's a broken person who is being held together by a string that's wounded to tight, and suffocating him.

He can't be doing this by himself, why is he doing this all by himself? Why is he doing this to himself? I push away the nausea, and slowly rise on wobbly knees. I drag myself to the office, and gather up all my cleaning supplies, and trudge back up to room. On the walk back it feels shorter than usual, as if I can't avoid the situation. I walk into the room, heat blasting at me as I walk past Chester and the swinging man.

"Wh... What are you doing?" Chester asks.

"Doing my job, I'm cleaning." I say, opening up a black garbage bag.

"No... No. You should be waiting outside!" Chester states, jutting his chin at the door.

"You're my friend, the first real friend I've had in a long time. And I'm not letting go through this alone." I say, locking my eyes with his green pools. Chester opens his mouth to protest but I cut him off.

"I'm not letting you do this alone." I state firmly. His eyes burn into mine, a thousand words, and feelings sparking off between us.

"I'm here for you." I softly state before walking into the bathroom.

My wrist is damp, the skin shining with water, and blood. The drain is groaning, and echoing as the water slips down, leaving red stained on the white porcelain, and on the woman's skin. I hold back a sob, and wrap my arms under her limb ones, and drag her out, making bright red blood seep out again. I hold back a gag, and force the asian woman into the bag. I feel every once of my humanity burn with sheer pain but feel nothing cold on the outside. Every movement I make hurts, my arms ache when I shove her further in the bag, each breath of metallic blood jabs into my lungs, and fingertips feel like they're burning with acid when they touch her.

Every vein in my hands ache as I pull the drawstrings on the garbage close, sealing the shell of body in there. I take a shaky breath then force myself to wrap my hands on the Bleach bottle, and pour more than half of it out, letting the clear chemicals pounds against the tub. I scrub lazily at first, letting the sponge graze only the red porcelain, but suddenly my back is rod straight, I can't breathe, and I'm hastily scrubbing at every drop of red. I don't know how long I scrubbed, it could have been hours, it could have been minutes, but it felt like I was living a nightmare that lasted forever.

"Blake!" Arms wound around me, and pull me away from the tub. I hear myself panting like a dying fish out of water, and big hands wipe away tears off my cheeks.

"You helped enough." Chester says. I glance at the tub, realizing the red blood is gone, completely gone, and I vaguely see my reflection in it. My wrists are red, and my hands are covered with developing blisters.

"It's over," Chester breathes, holding me to his chest. "It's over." He says, pulling me up to my feet with him. He pulls me along with him, and I hear something dragging behind us, I look over my shoulder at the two lumpy garbage bags dragging themselves across the floor, and wonder how using his powers is taking a toll on Chester. As we walk outside we both freeze, including the two body bags behind us, two headlights approach fast. A pizza delivery pulls right next to the couple's car, the pizza ornament on top of the roof making my stomach churn.

"That's right, you order pizza." I mutter.

"I don't know about you but I don't have much of an appetite anymore." Chester mumbles like he's been punched in the stomach.

"I haven't barfed yet by some miracle but I know if I even smell it there will be chunks." I groan.