Page 24 of Close Your Eyes and Count to 10

At the door, she paused, realized she was holding her breath.

“And how do you handle your fear?” said the doctor.

“Malinka?” she said again.

“Head-on,” had been her reply.

She pushed the door open fast, slamming it hard against the wall. The sound echoed, reverberating down the hall.

Nothing. No one.

But this room had a ratty mattress on the floor, was littered with trash and debris, a tattered sneaker, a fallen chunk of plaster, a pizza box rotted and covered with mold, a crushed, faded condom box, a cracked purple bong. She thought of those boot prints, who they might belong to.

What had she seen? Was someone hiding in one of these rooms?

She kept moving toward the double doors at the end of the hallway. They seemed to breathe, opening and closing just slightly. Shining her light, she pushed inside.

Her pack light flickered and went out.

The sudden loss of brightness left her blind.

Her eyes slowly adjusted, forms taking shape. Then a shadow loomed from the black, moving fast toward her, heavy footfalls echoing. She lifted her arms as she was knocked back. Slamming hard against the wall, her head smacked on the cement. Then, stumbling, she lost her footing and went down onto concrete as the form ran past her, disappearing, footfalls still echoing off every surface, heavy on the stairs.

“Hey,” she yelled, struggling to her feet.

She gave chase, tripping again, then getting up. By the time she reached the stairs, Malinka was coming up.

“Did you see that?” Malinka asked, breathless, eyes wide. “Who was it?”

“I don’t know,” Adele managed, still reeling.

“He knocked me down,” said Malinka. She rubbed her arm. “But he’s gone now. He ran out the back.”

Adele put a hand to her forehead, brought back fingers bright with blood. Her heart pumped in overdrive, adrenaline making her shake.

“Oh, God,” said Malinka. “You’re bleeding.”

Malinka sifted through her pack, came out with a white cloth, which Adele held to her head. Adele leaned against the wall, breathing still shallow.

“Where did he come from?” Malinka asked, peering into the darkness.

“Down that way,” Adele answered.

After taking a moment to catch their breath, they walked back down the hall, Adele looking over her shoulder in the direction the shadow had disappeared. “In here.”

Adele’s light decided to come back on, dimmer than before.Note to self: never get the cheap stuff.

Inside what must have been the biggest suite in the hotel was a tatty old tent. Shining their lights, they saw that someone had boarded up the windows. There was a small camping stove in the corner, a pile of magazines, what looked like a tangle of old rags.

Malinka carefully pushed back the tent flap to reveal a cot, a camping light, a faded sleeping bag.

“Someone has been living here,” she said.

She lifted up a pack of cigarettes, a lighter. A paperback,Waldenby Thoreau. She let the things drop back on the cot.

Adele stared, her stomach clenching. The cigarettes—Marlboro—Miller’s brand. Or so she came to discover after he’d gone when she found a carton in his desk.Walden.His favorite book, which she knew well because he was always quoting it.To stand at the meeting of two eternities, the past and future, which is precisely the present moment,he’d say.

She wondered how he justified the things he’d done against the principals he’d supposedly held dear.

---