Room 206

- from a forthcoming short story

Room 206

by s. joaquin rivera

The pager said room 206. This was it. This was an “unknown” call. This was what I had been waiting for all those months in class. I could not have been more nervous. As we approached the door you could hear loud Mexican porn playing on the television. Wes started laughing and captain Rhodes elbowed him. The captain cautiously opened the door and the smell was horrifying; David, the other rookie besides myself that day, threw up onto the concrete below. I was happy that I was able to fight it off, though the urge to follow suit was strong. Disgusted, the captain told him to take it outside.

There were dark blood stains leading from the window to the kitchen area but no other signs of anyone being at home other than the rotting corpse in the middle of the kitchen floor.

It did not matter as I drew my weapon anyway. The whole place was littered with the remnants of failure; crack pipes, pizza boxes, Chinese take-out and trash everywhere. The broken liquor bottles and empty beer cans were mixed together in piles among torn up pieces of mail and photographs. There were portrait pictures everywhere with tiny holes poked into the eyes giving the people a creepy, soulless look.

We all stood there for a moment looking at each other and listening for anything when the phone rang. It startled me and I nearly jumped out of my skin. The answering machine on the table picked up the call and we listened to the laughing voice on the speaker.

“Jack? Jackie-boy? Jack-Jack? You hear me, man? I know you’re there…(laughing). I can see your car in front of the building, asshole. I guess I should say congratulations. You stupid fuck. You have no idea what you’re in for you know that…? Do you know that, Jackie-boy? Do you know what’s going to happen now…(more raucous laughing)”

Click.

I remember that I was closest to the entrance. The door was still open and we could all hear David outside puking his guts out still. Rhodes, Wes and myself were not so lucky. The moment before the explosion happened it felt like time stopped. My ears had that familiar ringing tone and I felt my heart stop inside of my chest. I watched the cigarette the captain was smoking fall to the floor in slow motion, unmoving and with a broken trail of smoke ascending upward and evaporating into the dark room. And just before it hit the ground everything went black.

©2008 S. Joaquin Rivera/ Broken Sword Publications, All Rights Reserved

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