Well, Crap. That's the Last Time I Go to the Bathroom in Suite 13

There's a monster problem at The Winchester Hotel.

“Ned can do it,” I said as Frank handed me a plunger and a baseball bat covered in barbed wire and rusted nails. “He’s the yucky stuff guy.”

“He and Gunther are doing some kind of off-site job. It seems the Winchester Hotel is expanding its services into creature death clean-up.” Frank shuddered, no doubt thinking about how our newest employee at the Death Valley hotel for monsters had gotten his job. 

Let’s just say that when the boss tells you to never answer calls from Room 9, you don’t fucking answer calls from Room 9. 

“Not it!” I attempted to return the plunger and bat. 

“What are you, eight years old? You’re the housekeeping staff. Go housekeep.” 

For a vampire, Frank wasn’t exactly what you’d call brave. Or useful. Yes, he knew how to get ink stains out of silk and he once met Queen Elizabeth the 1st in 1585 or whatever. Jesus Christ. Don’t get him started on the topic of English royalty unless you have the next six hours free. 

Aaaaaanyway. When it came to facing off against our unique guests? Frank was an undead drama queen. 

He fake fainted the other day. 

Yeah. Guests on the second floor had brought their human meal into their room. Tore the poor dude into pieces. Body parts everywhere. You think a vampire would love bloody crime scenes. But nope, not Frank. 

You ever try to stuff a human torso into a 37-gallon trash bag? I don’t recommend it. I honestly don’t know how serial killers have the time or energy to dismember and dispose of victims. 

Monsters don’t worry about homicide detectives. If Joe Kenda came knocking on the door of Mr. and Mrs. Wendigonnaeatya, he’d get devoured like a bag of Cool Ranch Doritos. 

“Well, are you going to Suite 13 or not?” asked Frank.

“Yeah. But you’re coming, too.”

He splayed a pale hand against his checkered sweater vest. “I’d rather you stake my heart.”

“Don’t tempt me.” 

Frank straightened up and crossed his bony arms. “That’s hurtful, Amelia.”

“Would you rather I hit you with the murder bat?”

“Maybe.”

I rolled my eyes. “You can cower behind me, okay? If I get dead, then you can at least tell Gunther how I bit it.”

He looked me over, and I knew he was doing two things. 

First, he was judging my employee shirt, jeans, and comfortable, but ugly sneakers. And he was also judging my hair, which I routinely wore in a ponytail. 

Second, he was thinking about whether or not I would survive.

Then he asked, “What are the chances you’ll die?”

See? Asshole. “It’s the Winchester Hotel,” I said. “I have a fifty/fifty shot of living through any day of the week.”

“Fine. I’ll go with you. But only to witness your inevitably gruesome end.”

“You’re a real pal, Frank.”

“If you do live through this, maybe you’ll let me do something about your hair. Your roots are showing and you have all those dead ends. You look like a sad porcupine.”

“Says the walking corpse,” I said as we entered the cage elevator. You had to manually open the fancy metal scrollwork gate and then shut it. I pushed the button labeled Suite 13. 

Creaking and shaking, the elevator started moving upward. 

Frank opened his mouth and I pointed the plunger at his chest. “Not a single word about a makeover or I will plunge out your shriveled little heart.”

The vampire zipped his lips. 

Suite 13 had been an attic before Gunther turned this decrepit manse into the Winchester Hotel. There were twelve rooms split among three stories.

Each room on the second and third floors had been designed for the most common types of monsters. Rooms on the lobby floor, aside from the aforementioned Room 9, were kept for those of us who worked at the Winchester. 

For monsters with a lot of moola and more specialized needs, Suite 13 was the ultimate in creature comforts. Heh. Creature comforts. 

“Who are the guests?” asked Frank as we stepped out onto the hallway. In front of us was a set of black doors with painted gold symbols all over them. The number 13 was etched onto a gold circle above the doors.

“Honeymoon couple is all I know,” I answered. “Gunther checked them in yesterday. You think it’s weird that monsters get married?”

“I think it’s weird that human beings still get married,” said Frank. “Women aren’t particularly valuable anymore. What’s the point of marrying one? You don’t get land or money, and virgins are a lost commodity in these modern times.”

“Remind me to kill your misogynistic ass later, will you?”

“Like I haven’t heard that one before.”

“Take that as a hint to re-evaluate your life choices. Also, you need to stop assuming a marriage is only between a male and a female.” I knocked on the door. “Housekeeping!”

We heard a scream, a litany of gurgles, and another scream. 

“What does that mean?” I asked Frank.

“How the fuck am I supposed to know?”

“You speak monster.”

“I picked up a few languages in the last five-hundred years, yes, but ahhhhhhgurglegurgleahhhhhh wasn’t one of them.”

I pounded on the door with my fist. “Housekeeping staff! We are coming inside. Please do not eat us. We are not snacks.”

Gurglegurglegurgleahhhhhhgurgleahhhhhh!!!

“I hope that translates to ‘we are in trouble, we won’t eat you,’” I said as I wrangled the set of old-fashioned brass keys off my belt. I found the one labeled 13 and used it to unlock the left door.

“Wait!” Frank relieved me of the murder bat. “Just in case something horrible happens to you.”

“To avenge me?”

“No, to protect me as I run away.”

“At least you’re a consistent asshole.” I opened the door and we crept inside. A few feet from the double doors was a linebacker-sized … er, monster. The upper half of his body looked like a squid. The lower half was human-esque. 

And naked. 

“Did a squid monster eat a human for dinner?” I asked.

“Not a squid. More along the lines of the octopus family,” corrected Frank. “And no, that’s an Octo-man. Rare creature.”

“Octo-man.” I side-eyed Frank. “You made that up.”

“I did not. These monsters need water. They usually have water helmets. You know, kinda like upside-down fish bowls on their heads.”

I didn’t know whether or not to believe Frank. First, he was a know-it-all that didn’t actually know it all. Second, if he didn’t know, he lied convincingly. 

Octo-man’s tentacles were spread out. Both the pinkish flesh of his octopus face and the white flesh of his human body appeared ghastly pale.

“His eyes are kinda open,” I said

“Octopuses have these muscular rings in their eyes. It’s their version of eyelids. So he might be asleep.”

“Thank you, Dr. Frank, for information I don’t fucking need. Check to see if he’s alive.”

Frank poked me in the shoulder with the bat. “Not it!”

Unlike Frank, my inner eight-year-old honored the not-it code. I heaved a sigh. I bopped the octopus head with the plunger. 

Nothing happened. 

“Hit him in the balls,” suggested Frank. 

“You are a sadist.”

I gave a slightly harder thump onto the creature’s stomach. He didn’t react. 

“Goddamnit. Is he dead?” I asked. 

“I’m telling you—plunger his balls. If he’s unconscious, he will awaken.”

“Isn’t this a honeymoon couple?” I asked. “Go find the other one.”

“I am not housekeeping staff.”

“Do you want me to plunger your balls?”

“Fine!” Frank marched off toward the bathroom. The rest of the suite was empty aside from possibly dead Octo-man. So his spouse could only be in the bathroom. Hopefully alive. 

“I’m really, really, really sorry about this,” I said. I put the plunger on his genitals and pushed down. Then I yanked upward. 

I heard swish-pop sound and the Octo-man’s eyes, aka his muscular eyelid thingies, went wide. He sat up and covered his genitals. “Ahhhhhhgurglegurgleahhhhhhgurgle!”

“I don’t speak Octopus,” I said.

He pointed toward the bathroom with three tentacles while the other five waggled around. 

“Yeah, honey. Still not helpful.”

The Octo-man rolled his large eyes at me, which looked weird with his non-eyelids squeezing and opening like twin anuses. He got on his tentacles and knees and crawled toward the bathroom.

“You need water?” I asked.

“GurglegurgleGURGLE!”

I translated that to, “No shit, idiot.”

I hurried past him into the bathroom. 

Everything was giant, including all the fixtures like the bathtub, sink, toilet, and shower stall.

Might as well call the tub a swimming pool, because that’s how freaking huge it was. Custom-made, according to my boss Gunther. He had to special order everything because monsters can easily break shit. 

Oh, look. There was Frank. 

A large pale green tentacle wrapped around his abdomen shook him like a dirty martini. Another tentacle squeezed his neck. 

A naked Octo-woman stood in the tub, her er … mouth? opened in a silent scream. 

As she banged Frank’s head into the wall, he tried to wallop her with the murder bat. He missed every time. 

He couldn’t speak, which I thought was awesome. 

His eyes bulging out of his head? Erm … not so much. 

He was a vampire, so he didn’t need to breathe, but if the monster currently squeezing his neck didn’t stop, I was sure Frank’s head would pop off. Vampires can heal from a lot of damage, but I wasn’t sure about decapitation.

“Ma’am,” I said, staying out of the reach of her other wildly gesticulating tentacles, “are you having problems with getting water?”

She slammed Frank into the wall three times, and I took that as a yes. I could see from my vantage point that the tub was bone dry. I went to the counter and moved the knobs on the sink. Not one drip. 

Well, crap. 

I looked over my shoulder and saw that Octo-man had passed out again, this time on his stomach. His tentacles reached toward the bathroom door. I think he was trying to save his wife.

Aw, wasn’t that sweet?

“Ma’am, do you think you could let my co-worker go?” 

She responded by throwing Frank across the bathroom and into—whoops, make that through—the opposite wall. 

“Just give me a minute,” I said.

Octo-woman sank to her knees, and then passed out. Her octopus head drooped over the edge of the tub. 

I hurried through the Frank-sized hole and found the vampire splayed in the hall like a rag doll. The murder bat was no longer in his possession. 

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” croaked Frank. “I’m super duper.”

“We need to get them water.”

Frank sat up and stared at me. “Do we?”

“Do you want to explain to Gunther why the honeymoon couple in Room 13 died horrible deaths?”

He stood up, brushed the drywall dust off his pants and then pointed behind me. I turned and spotted the rolled up fire hose on the wall. 

“It uses a different water source,” he said, “so it should work even if the plumbing in the hotel is on the fritz.” 

I grabbed the hose. “You turn it on. I’ll soak the guests and fill up the tub. Hopefully they’re still alive.”

As I walked through the hole in the wall again, the water hose unrolled from its wheelie thing. I pointed it at the Octo-woman, and yelled, “Go, Frank!”

I was unprepared for the strength of the surging water and I clung on to the hose for dear life as I sprayed Octo-woman.

She woke up almost immediately. “Gurglegurglegurgle,” she said happily. 

“Maybe you should grab your husband,” I yelled.

She nodded. I kept the hose on her as she drug her husband to the bathtub AKA swimming pool and tossed him inside. I filled the tub until it overflowed. 

The two love-octopuses dipped and dove under the water. 

“Turn it off, Frank,” I yelled.

The water stopped and I dropped the hose. The couple’s tentacles were entangling and they were making kissy-woo-woo noises.

Aaaaaaaannnd … I’m outta here. 

I headed out of the bathroom through the convenient exit provided by Octo-woman. Frank stood in the hallway looking dazed. “Are they alive?”

“Oh, yeah.”

He looked disappointed. 

“What the fuck!”

We turned and saw Gunther walking toward us. He was holding the murder bat. “Why the hell was this stuck in the check-in counter?” 

“Long story,” I said. 

Gunther noticed the water-soaked floor, the huge hole in the wall, and after peeking inside, the lovemaking Octo-people. “I cannot leave you two alone for a fucking nanosecond. What happened?”

I quickly explained the situation. Gunther shook his head. “Damn. I’ll get Creepy Moe to fix the plumbing issue.” Once again, he studied the hole in the wall, the hose, and the water damage. “Who’s gonna clean this up?”

Frank and I looked at each other.

Then we looked at Gunther.

We both yelled, “Not it!”

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