And then Mr. Thick was gone. As though he had never been there to begin with. Jack looked down at the counter, expecting to see that Mr. Thick had taken the brands, and saw nine keys instead. Keys for the rooms, of course, Jack thought.

He felt closer to Gina than he had since staring at her underwear clad bottom that morning.

He gathered up the keys and put them in his pockets.

Twenty-six.

He stepped out into the cold night under a sky the color of old milk.

He had keys.

He didn't know exactly what that meant but the keys were hope. Keys opened doors and Gina might just be behind one of those doors.

He wondered if the motel only had nine rooms or if he would have to be selective about the rooms he entered. But it would all be meaningless if the keys didn't open the door housing Gina, wouldn't it? And there was still the possibility she wasn't here at all. That this was still some part of Mr. Grin's disturbing game. But he didn't want to believe that. Despite the incessant moaning of his body, things felt different. They felt better. They had felt better ever since those people had removed their brands and placed them in front of the door. In a way, he felt like that was their way of telling him he had made it. Because they had been sent here to stop him and if they were just giving up then that meant there wasn't anything to stop, right?

It made sense to Jack.

But again, he wondered if the brands were the work of Mr. Grin or somebody else. In the end, he figured, they had helped him so maybe they weren't Mr. Grin's. Of course, if all they did was get him closer to Mr. Grin and, therefore, death, then he supposed that probably wasn't a lot of help.

The keys were in his left pants pocket. He went to the first door and tried each key. Once a key didn't work, he placed it in his back pocket. None of the keys opened the first door.

He went to room number two and began trying the keys. The third key opened the lock. Pulling the pistol from the back of his pants, he opened the door just a crack, listening. If Mr. Grin was in there, he a.s.sumed he would probably pounce on him as soon as he stepped into the room.

He heard nothing. Slowly, he eased himself into the room.

It was disorienting.

The room was not at all what he expected.

It wasn't really a hotel room at all. And it was very loud, filled with the cacophonous sounds of furious typing and the flapping wings of birds.

The room was huge. It reminded him of a warehouse or a large barn. It was full of people, busy at desks. The room was very brightly lighted, which he found odd because he hadn't seen the glow of a light from outside. The enormous room's roof was crisscrossed with a number of wooden beams. Roosting on these beams were thousands of nondescript birds. Probably pigeons or sparrows, he thought. He didn't really know birds. A giant ladder was propped against one of the beams.

A squat man with a toupee approached him.

"You gonna get to work?" he asked.

"I..." Jack didn't really know how to begin. "I don't think I work here."

"Ah, anybody can work here. It's easy as pie. Just watch that guy."

He watched a slender man in a suit and tie and rectangular black framed gla.s.ses stand up from a desk and cross the wooden floor to the ladder. Quickly, expertly, he climbed the ladder. He slowed once he got closer to the top of the ladder, moving stealthily, cautiously. After reaching the staggering height of the beam, he reached out, slowly, and then, lightning-quick, grabbed onto one of the birds.

The squat man in the toupee grunted. "He got im a good un."

The man in the suit, tucking the bird into his blazer, descended the ladder in a hurry. He crossed back to his desk where a computer monitor and keyboard rested. The monitor was the old clunky kind. The man opened up the top of the monitor and placed the bird inside. Jack noticed there was a crank on the right hand side of the monitor. The man cranked the crank and a bluish glow came from the monitor.

"He'll have to work all night on that," the squat man said.

Jack didn't know why he was here. "I think I have the wrong room," he said. "I'm sorry."

"The d.a.m.n hotel's like that. Took me forever to find this place. I still haven't found my way out. None of us has. If you ever need a job, you come back. There's plenty of birds. And plenty of light."

He slid his gun back into the waistband of his jeans, realizing he wasn't in any sort of danger, and cautiously attempted to slink out of the room.

"Before you go," the squat man said, gesturing down at Jack's gut wound. "You should go to Room 12. Might be able to help you with that."

"Thank you," Jack said. "Thanks a lot."

He wondered if he should go directly to Room 12 or try all the other doors between here and there. He decided to try all the other doors. If he did run into Mr. Grin before he made it to Room 12, he didn't see how this little gunshot wound was really going to hurt his chances.

He had eight keys left. How many more rooms were there?

He thought about what the clerk had said to him. The man you're looking for is not who you think he is. He smiles because he's out of his skin. Try looking in the Utility Shed.

Yes. He would have to do that. He would have to remember a utility shed. Suddenly, he wasn't so sure he could remember anything. He let the clerk's three somewhat bizarre, not really connected sentences replay in his mind because, of all the things to hold onto, he thought maybe that was it. He wasn't even sure if he could remember what he saw in the last room. It didn't seem to make a lot of sense. It was more like a dream. He felt that it was likely he was still lying back in the Wilds somewhere, pa.s.sed out from pain or maybe even dying.

None of the keys opened Room 3.

Onto Room 4.

Again, none of the keys worked.

Room 5 opened on the first key and again, he underwent the same ritual of first cracking the door and listening for sound. Nothing. He slid the gun from his waistband.

This room was darkened.

He felt along the wall for a switch and, finding it, flipped it up. Once the room was lighted, he felt a staggering sense of deja vu. This was the room he had seen in his mind when Mr. Grin had called the one time... The time he forced Gina to give him head at gun point. Maybe all of the rooms were the same or maybe, he thought, maybe this was the room.

The bed was mussed and he thought, if he breathed deep enough, he could smell Gina's exotic scent along with a more primal, desperate stench that maybe accompanied all hotel rooms. The smells of smoke and s.e.m.e.n and sweat.

Over the headboard of the bed was a small smear of blood. Probably made by a hand. He thought of Gina bracing herself against the wall while Mr. Grin plowed her from behind. A blinding fury shot through his brain. His stomach lurched in revolt. Collapsing to his knees, he braced himself against the foot of the bed and vomited on the dirty dark green carpet.

Nothing here, he thought.

Seven keys left. Seven keys left and nothing here. The man you're looking for is not who you think he is. He smiles because he's out of his skin. Try looking in the Utility Shed.

The Utility Shed.

The Utility Shed.

Room 12 and maybe someone there could make the pain go away. Who could he really expect to find in a tiny motel like this? Was there a doctor in Room 12, camped out and waiting for him with an impressive array of sterile surgical instruments? He doubted it.

He doubted everything.

He stood up and wiped the puke from his chin, backing out of the room, putting the gun back in the waist of his jeans and not even bothering to shut the door behind him.

What the h.e.l.l was this place?

A person could go insane here.

All part of the game. It's all part of the game, Jack.

But he didn't want to play the game anymore. He never wanted to play the game to begin with. He just wanted it to be over. He didn't know how much longer he could continue. His whole body was starting to feel like an open, throbbing wound.

"Gina!" he screamed, half-expecting her to answer him. "Gina!"

Nothing.

Just the silence of an abandoned motel parking lot way on the outskirts of a mid-size city. Looking at it, he saw nothing unusual. Even the light from the lobby was now dimmed. And the door to the lobby looked the way he expected it to look, all shattered dirty gla.s.s.

But he was just in there. He was just in there and it didn't look that way at all.

Onto Room 6. Room 6. Seven more keys. His mind sang songs of madness. He was losing it. There was absolutely no doubt about that. And if Mr. Grin had come looking for him then why the f.u.c.k hadn't he found him yet?

The man you're looking for is not who you think he is. But Jack didn't know who the h.e.l.l he thought he was other than that vague sense of a smiling fat man.

He now had two keys in his back pocket.

None of the remaining keys opened Room 6.

What if that was the room he needed to be in, though? What if that was the room Gina was in?

He thought about breaking down the door but he doubted his body could take it. No. His body would break before the door would. Stepping back from the door, looking at the door to Room 7, he felt a strange sense of calm.

Things would either work out or they wouldn't.

That was it. After chasing itself all day, that was the only answer, the only reason his mind could come up with.

Things would either work out... or they wouldn't.

And if they didn't, he supposed there would be little time to think about the consequences.

So far, something had brought him here. He didn't like to think of it as anything divine. It was really more a series of coincidence. And, really, where was 'here' anyway? It could be the place of his potential death. Or it could be the place of Gina's rescue. It was already, most probably, the place of Gina's rape and torture.

Door number seven was a no.

Same with Room 8.

Room 9 opened on the second key.

The room was immaculate. Brightly lighted. Clean smelling, even. A non- smoking room? No. They probably hadn't even come up with those by the time the Hotel Eternity went out of business. A piece of paper sat on the bedside table. It was covered in black symbols that looked like stick figures. It begged him to look at it and think about its meaning but he didn't think he had time for that. He folded it up and put it in the breast pocket of his t-shirt because it was something, because it was anything.

A third key in the back pocket.

The gun in his waistband.

Six keys left.

Onto Room 10.

Nothing.

Room 11.

Nothing.

Room 12.

This was the room. He didn't think it could have come any sooner. If there was something in this room that could help him, he didn't even care if it was just a painkiller of some sort, he wanted in it.

The fifth key opened it.

Now there were four keys in his back pocket and five in his front. He pulled the gun out. Eased into the room. Felt a further cool sense of calm surround him as he turned on the lights and looked around.

Twenty-seven.

Stepping into the room was like stepping outside.

Maybe he had stepped outside. It smelled like outside.

But everything was still arranged like it was a motel room. There were several bales of hay, the smaller rectangular kind, the kind people buy around Halloween, in place of a bed. Where a bedside table should have been was a tree. He even thought he saw what very well could have been a bedside table in the tree, about halfway up, as though the tree had grown over it, somehow overtaking it. The carpet was a mat of very soft moss. He wanted to take his shoes off so he could feel it on his feet. He probably would have, if there weren't more urgent matters at hand. He looked up to see if there was a ceiling but he couldn't tell. If there was a ceiling, it was black as the night sky. The room glowed like a full moon night but he couldn't find the source of the light. The walls to his right and his left were lined with high cornstalks, well over seven feet tall. He wondered how far back they went. If he went drifting off into them, would he eventually become lost in some sort of corn maze? The wall in front of him, the one beyond the hay bed, was a meadow. It looked very much like the meadow he and Sam had walked through to get to the train tracks.

The air out there was thick with fireflies. Perhaps these were what provided the light. He didn't see how he could resist going toward them and, he reckoned, he didn't really have any choice.

Things would either work out or they wouldn't.

If something in the distance called to him, beckoned to him, then he felt as if he had an obligation to go toward it. It might be the thing that helped him. And, besides, if he didn't find what he was looking for out there, at least there was a nice open meadow for him to lie down and die in. He took a deep, burning breath, tried to ignore the bullet in his gut, and crossed the room.

Pa.s.sing the strange hay bed, he reached out his hand and let it brush along the surface as though his sense of touch could rea.s.sure him this was real. If this wasn't real, however, his reality had ended some time ago. Touching the stiff hay, he realized he hadn't drawn his gun before entering this room. Was it because of what the squat man with the toupee had said? Had he actually trusted him? If who he was looking for was not who he thought it was then who was to say that the squat man with the toupee wasn't Mr. Grin?

His head hurt. He thought his head hurt almost as much as his stomach. If he didn't find Gina soon, if something didn't happen soon, he thought he might actually die. If he didn't die because of the injuries then the pain would prevent him from pressing on and he now feared he might be so lost he could never find his way back.

He crossed into the meadow and his strange dreamlike sense intensified even more. The air in the meadow was warm and humid, as if on a summer's night. He saw a small structure in the distance and wondered what it was. He watched the millions of fireflies circle around in the air and come toward him. At first he was frightened of them and then he remembered they were just fireflies, lightning bugs, and couldn't really hurt him.

Within seconds, they covered his entire body.