The hotel was quiet - no police presence, no note on our door, no blinking light on the phone, nothing to confirm that we had indeed been outed. Kimber tiredly climbed the stairs to the room and laid down on the bed as I loaded everything into the car. I let her lie there while I locked myself in the bathroom to get high. When I came out she seemed to be asleep.
"Kimber, come on, we've gotta go."
Nothing.
"Kimber." I walked over and shook her.
"No. I'm not going anywhere." She answered. "You can go. Take me car. Just leave me here."
I wanted to argue with her but my eyes were already heavy as the H breathed sweet euphoria into my body. I laid down on the other bed and enjoyed the high for a while. If we were going to be killed in our sleep that night, I wanted it to be like this.
I dreamt of nothing but blackness, which is what the dope bought me. But slowly I became awake in the darkness to the sound of piercing metal screams floating down from the mountains. Echoes of a beast already slain, but still haunting me, hunting me. The nightmares were back.
I turned my head toward the window and watched the snowflakes that were falling through the florescent light over our door. No one had come in the night to kill us yet. I closed my eyes and enjoyed the feeling of heaven still coursing through me. It was a feeling I loved, waking up high, enjoying it for a few minutes and trusting that it'll cradle me back to sleep and make me whole in the night. It was a monster I never wanted to kill. It encompassed me.
The metal whirling started up again. I opened my eyes to the window, as if expecting to see the Shiny Gentleman sitting outside of it, covered in snow. Was it real? It was so hard to tell... I began nodding off again.
And then I heard it a third time. The Shiny Gentleman was quieter than it had been nine years before but it was still there, still alive, floating down through the black mountains to my door. I concentrated. My head tried to wander but I focused on the noise again and again until I was sure. It was real.
When I opened my eyes sunlight was peeking through the curtains. I turned over to look at Kimber's bed. She had her back to me and was still curled into a ball above the covers. It didn't look like she had moved since the night before.
"Kimber." She didn't respond.
"Kimber!"
"What do you want, Sam?" I heard the quiet reply.
"I heard it last night. The Shiny Gentleman." I took a deep breath. "Borrasca is still there."
She was silent a moment and then slowly rolled over to look at me. "I didn't hear anything."
"I did. I swear. It's quieter, like it's farther away but it was there."
Kimber sighed and then sat up. She looked at the clock. 7:53am. "I don't think you heard anything at all."
I furrowed my eyebrows. "I know what I heard, K."
She shrugged and got out of bed. "I'm sure you believe it." She said as she shrugged off her parka.
"Kimber." I said, leaning up on one elbow.
"You saw it yourself, Sam. They're gone. It's over. I haven't heard the- the-...I haven't heard that sound once in the three days we've been here."
