FirstLineFiction beta

from Contest #8

"'I wouldn't do that if I were you,' she told me the first time we met."  Mary leaned in closer to her ring of listeners, whispering, “and I ignored her.  What could happen after all?” 

Mary leaned back, remembering as if it were just yesterday.  She closed her eyes knowing her audience would wait for her story.

She had been so proud of herself.  She’d never held a job before.  Her small town didn’t have many summer opportunities for high school kids.  So she’d sent her applications out far and wide. 

Only this one had answered.  An Inn.  They didn’t need experience, they would train.  They’d even sent her directions on which bus to take, and when to arrive.

So she’d packed her bags, hopped the bus, and set off to find the place.

It was a summer resort, this old Inn, at a small lake, backing onto a forest reserve.  Families had been vacationing here for generations.  They belonged. 

She didn’t have any history with the Inn.  She’d had been hired as housekeeping help for the summer.  She was to keep the rooms neat, dust, vacuum, make the beds, serve the food, clean up the kitchen and any other scut work the Housekeeper passed on to her.  Free hours came after she finished.

Mary would be trained by Eva, the front desk woman told her as she arrived.  Eva had been with the Inn since she was sixteen, a long time ago.  The Housekeeper had trained Eva herself, the front desk woman had assured Mary.  Now Eva trained transient staff; like Mary.  All the staff took one summer staff under their wing.  The woman’s demeanor implied Mary should feel honored.

Mary got directions to her dorm-style room.  She was told a supplied uniform would be hanging in the wardrobe.  Mary was to get settled, don the uniform and start work.  She was late already.

Mary grumbled all the way up the stairs.  How could she be late already?  Her acceptance letter had asked her to arrive before tomorrow.  She did.  So how did that make her late? 

The ground floor opened onto wide shallow steps up to the second floor.  Following the directions, she located a narrowing hall.  Mary found the stairs to the third floor poorly lit.  They creaked as she climbed, almost in protest. 

It was a long, hot room with six beds in a row.  She picked the farthest bed from the door.  She opened the wardrobe door, pushed the hangars all to one side to put away her clothing. She opened her suitcase and grabbed an armful. 

That’s when Eva spoke.  “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

Mary jumped.  She hadn’t even heard the woman enter the room.  “Why not,” she started, dropping the armload of clothing onto the wardrobe floor.

She whispered, “They’re trouble when they’re all together like that.  More than three jammed together and they get into a snarl.  And then they breed.  Don’t you know why there’s always too many hangars in a closet?  Once they breed, they go rogue.  They take over.  They poke holes in clothes if you manage to separate them.  Your skirts and pants never fit again if you hang them on randy hangars.  Sometimes they only leave rags.  They get noisy, too.  Sure, they look innocent when you open the door, but as soon as they’re in the dark, oh the trouble they get into.  One closet in a house goes bad, that’s all it takes.”

Mary gaped at her.  “Sure,” she dismissed.

“You kids never listen,” Eva sniffed.  “You always have to learn the hard way.  By the way, don’t ever let the Housekeeper find your stuff sticking out or not put away.”  Eva warned, as Mary swung the wardrobe door closed.  “Madam hates to see messy rooms.

“Get your uniform on and meet me in the kitchen.  Just ask for Eva, me, when you finally get there.  I’ll walk you around to show you where everything is kept.  The Housekeeper will assign you your rooms.  Tomorrow I’ll show you how we like them kept.  Hurry up girl.”  Eva glared at the wardrobe, then left the room as silently as she’d entered.

Mary dumped her belongings from her suitcase onto the bed.  She opened both doors of the wardrobe to inspect her space.  Behind the first door, other then the once carefully separated hangars and a uniform hanging from a peg on the door, the wardrobe was empty.  She opened the second door, peering into the unlit interior.  There was a set of fitted drawers and  three shelves above.  On the inside of that door was a mirror.  Mary checked all the drawers.  Empty, except for a corner of paper wedged at the very back of the top drawer. 

Mary wiggled the drawer, tipping it front up, edging her hand in, until she could free the paper.  It wasn’t just a corner.  It was a whole sheet, folded in half. 

She opened it.  On a yellowed paper, on the Inn’s own letterhead, in block letters, dated Summer 1935 was a message from a housekeeping aide.  It read, ‘This place is strange.  Listen to Eva, she knows.’

‘Eva,’ Mary didn’t think Eva looked that old.  She could hear voices coming down the hall so she tucked it into her jeans pocket and started folding her clothing to put away in the drawers. 

Two girls entered the room, arm in arm, swinging their suitcases in unison.  “Hi,” the blonde one smiled.  “I’m Steff and this’s Kalie.  You must be Mary.  Mrs Donner at the front desk told us you would be up here.”

“Hi.  Yeah, I’m Mary.  Did you two know each other before?”

Kalie, running a hand through her brown curls, grinned at Steff as they separated to each take a bed.  “We’ve been here before.  I worked here last year.  Steff came with her family.  We promised each other we would try for the jobs here this year.  Steff’s never worked before.”

“Neither have I.  This is my first job,” Mary confessed.  “I’ve never even been away from my family before.”

“My father thought I was crazy to want to be a housekeeping aide for the summer.”  Steff admitted.  “I almost had to go down on my knees to get him to agree.  So did you see the gardeners yet.  They hired some gardener hunks this year.”

Kalie and Steff giggled.  “Dibs on the bearded hunk,” Steff claimed.  “I saw him first.”

“Which one do you want Mary?” Kalie asked.

“I didn’t see any young guys,” Mary said.  “I saw an old bald man on a lawn tractor and an oriental looking man raking gravel off the grass.  But no-one our age.  So si it ok if I see them before I could pick.”  She smiled at the girls.  “Are you sure we’ll have any time to play with them?  From what Mrs Donner said, it sounded like we were going to be run off our feet all summer.”

“Oh she just likes to see if she can scare you,” Kalie whispered.  “As long as you get one smile from the Housekeeper, you’ll have lots of free time.  Who’s training you?”

“I got this creepy old lady Eva.  She scared me all right.  I just got up here, was getting ready to put my stuff away.  She just appeared, with absolutely no noise.  She warned me not to bunch the hangars.  Something about them breeding in the dark and getting into trouble.”

“Kalie paled.  “You didn’t push them together, did you?”

“Was she for real?”  Mary started to get worried. 

“Don’t you know anything about hangars?  Do you know how bad things can get if they start to breed?”  Kalie jumped over to Mary’s wardrobe, carefully separating the hangars until none of them touched.  “Like that.  Just keep them like that and we’ll be ok.  They weren’t in the dark at all after you bunched them, right?  You didn’t close the door or anything?”

Steff watched, her eyes huge, her face sober.

“You’ve got to be kidding!  I’ve never heard of anything like that.  Sure, everyone knows hangars breed in the dark.  But that’s an old wives’ tale.  Nothing bad ever happens.”  Mary crossed her arms defensively across her chest, frowning at Kalie.

“Just where do you think old wives’ tales come from, Mary?  There wouldn’t be a tale if nothing happened.”  Kalie returned to her unpacking.  “Oh, did she tell you not to open any of the doors up here?  They are supposed to be locked, but sometimes one won’t be.  Just don’t open them! Ok?

“Come on you two.  We’ve gotta get downstairs to help.  We get dinner before the guests with the rest of the staff.  If we get the tables set up.  I wanna be at that table.  We’ll get to talk to the hunks. 

“Get outta your street clothes and into your uniforms, toot sweet.”  Kalie laughed after she mangled that bit of French.

All three girls quickly finished unpacking and changed.  Kalie instructed them to pull their hair back.  “The Housekeeper wants us to look clean and fresh.  If any hair falls into the food, she’ll give you the Look.  You really don’t want the Look your first night.  Come on.”

Kalie led the way, showing them how to set up for dinner.  By the time Eva found Mary, the dining room looked perfect. 

“Very nicely done,” she complimented.  “Come girls,” she motioned.  “We just have time to eat.  Guests will arrive for their meal in three-quarters of an hour.”

The rest of the staff waited for the girls around the staff dining table.  Eva introduced them to everyone. 

Kalie kept elbowing Mary.  “See?  What’d I tell you?  Hunks.  Anyone of them catch your eye?”  She whispered.

“All of them,” Mary replied.  “I need to hear them talk before I make up my mind.”

At that moment the chef and underlings entered with the staff dinner.  Everyone helped themselves, traded comments and started to get to know the summer help. 

Although the meal was over fairly fast, Mary felt she had established good beginnings to friendships here.  She would get to know everyone before the summer ended.

Steff, Kalie and Mary served the assigned tables, introducing themselves to their guests.  Kalie advised Steff and Mary that end of vacation tips depended on their rapport with ‘their’ guests.  “We not only serve them meals, we’re responsible for their rooms’ upkeep.  Listen to what they expect, then do it every day.  That way you get better tips.”

After dinner, once the dining room had been tidied to the Housekeeper’s specifications and approved by Eva, the girls were free.

“I just want to sleep,” Mary yawned.  “I left this morning, early to get here.  I’m tuckered.  I’ll check out everything tomorrow.”

Steff agreed. 

Kalie wanted to roam around, but followed them upstairs instead.  “I’m not going off alone before I know any of the new guys.  I can wait till tomorrow.  We’ll go out in a group.”

Mary, Steff and Kalie, spent the next half hour prying the windows open.  It was far in the too stuffy in the dorm to sleep.  Kalie closed the hall door, “for privacy,” she’d giggled, though Mary hadn’t seen anyone else sleeping on this floor. 

They undressed, giggling and trading enhanced life highlights.  Before full night had fallen, the room cooled enough so they could sleep.

Mary awakened several times through the night to strange noises, like metal rustlings.  If she sat up, the noises disappeared.  “Just the Inn settling,” she assured herself the first time, lying back down.  An old childish habit of believing that nothing to get her if she was covered, she only left her nose out to breathe as she fell asleep.

It wasn’t quite dawn when Kalie woke them with a scream.  “Don’t step on the floor,” she warned.

Except for the circle of light Kalie’s lamp shone on the floor. they could see the floor littered with wire—coat hangar shaped wire.  Everywhere! 

“You did close the door on them after you bunched them,” she accused Mary.  “I wish you’d told me.

“We’ll all jump to your bed.  You’re closest to the window.  Steff, without touching anything else, strip your sheets and get over here to Mary’s bed.  DO NOT step on the floor!”

Steff stuttered hysterically, saying nothing.  She grabbed her sheets before hopping  two beds over to join Kalie.  She grabbed Kalie, crying.  “What happened?  Why are there hangars all over the floor?”

“No time for questions.  We gotta get outta here and warn the Housekeeper.  You can never tell where they’ll head to.  We gotta get them locked in.”  Katie knotted her stripped sheets as she spoke.

Mary sat on her bed shocked as the hangars writhed towards the hall door.  As she watched, they undulated, expanded and separated into new hangars, furthering their path to the door.  The occasional wire rose above the school, groping at doorknob height for escape.

“Hurry,” Mary stripped the sheets, double knotting one over her headboard. 

Kalie joined her and they knotted her sheets with Mary’s.  All three girls watched hangars multiply, swelling numbers expanding the gap between the last two beds.  Almost waiting for Steff to attempt that last jump. 

“I can do it!” Steff sniffed from the bed one over.  She threw her sheets to Mary. “Catch me!”  And she jumped.

Hangar heads slithered up, grabbing at her, shredding at her ankles.

Mary and Kalie caught her, pulling her up the bed.  Steff’s blood dripped on the floor. 

As Kalie knotted the sheets, Mary and Steff held a blanket like a shield, holding off the hangar horde.  Katie hissed occasionally.  Though Mary had pushed her bed as close to the window as the sash would allow, the gap enabled some heads to slide through.

Kalie threw the sheet ladder through the window.  “I’ll hold you.  Go, Steff.”

Steff reached for the window sill.  The hangar hook caught her wrist. 

Mary grappled with it, lifting it off Staff’s wrist.  She stuffed a pillow across the window gap.  It wouldn’t hold long.  She could already hear the tearing.  “Go, Steff.  Now.”

Steff kneeled on the sill, wrapped the sheet ladder around her wrists before lowering herself down.  Mary padded the sill with her other pillow before following Steff.  She was halfway down when the rope shook with Kalie’s weight.  \

Mary fell the last floor.  Kalie shouted at them.  “Go wake up the Housekeeper.  She’ll know what to do.”

Steff ran off.  Mary didn’t know where she was going, so she stayed to help Kalie down. 

“Come on!” Kalie yelled.  Her feet had barely touched the ground before she was running towards the groundskeepers’ cabins.  “They gotta plywood that window.  We can’t let them escape!”

Mary followed.  She was afraid, but of what.  What had just happened? 

Once Kalie had aroused the grounds staff, she led Mary back into the Inn. 

Eva met her at the bottom of the stairs, “Good girl,” she awarded Kalie.  “The room’s locked.  Don’t open it again. 

“I’ve put Steffanie in the blue room.  It’s empty right now.  You two can join her.  We’ll do a full cleansing at Midsummer.  Thanks you girls.”

Mary opened her eyes, counting the heads still waiting for her to tell the story.  She opened her mouth to speak, when her aide rushed to her side.

“Madam, they closed a bunch of them into the wardrobe, in the dark.”

 

back to Contest #8