Undead in Indianapolis

Fiction by kirsti mackenzie & scott laudati

Here’s what happened in room 205 of the Hyatt by the Indianapolis Airport. First of all, you get there by exiting the highway onto an access road that runs right through a swamp, but the road wasn’t pitched properly, so a shallow canal crosses the dips and connects the yellow pools on each side. I had to swerve to miss a duck floating across the middle of the street without a care in the world, which made me think it wasn’t a recent rain that flooded these low lands but more likely Indianapolis was just sinking back into the muck, like a white trash Venice, and one day it would just be a rumor some teacher in the midwest might bring up like the name of an Indian tribe that had once called this place home, something everyone agreed probably existed once, but nobody really cared. The whole vibe of the place was just misery, a place people went to Dollar General for dog food. Hell, there was even a “turn your cell phone in for money” booth at the Kroger. How could that be interpreted in any way other than - steal your parents phones and give em to us, and we’ll give you whatever a bag of meth costs this week!   

I pulled into the Hyatt parking lot, parked, then looked at the nasty bilge water I’d just driven through slowly drip off my car. Nothing seemed weird at this point, the air smelled like fertilizer and I clocked that even though this was the airport Hyatt, there wasn’t a single plane up in the sky. That’s not weird, I thought. Who flies to Indianapolis, anyway? 

I checked in and called Caleb Caudell, my host last time I was in Indy, who’d given me an air mattress and two cats to cuddle with, and told him to pull up. All Hyatts are the same layout, which is oddly comforting, but this one was grungier, it smelled like old cigarettes, and a group of Mexican women were on their knees in the lobby, praying in a circle with their palms to the ceiling like an icon was going to land between them. 

Caleb came over and drank for a few hours in my huge room. It took twenty big steps to walk across and along the way you passed two couches, HUGE couches! We spent those hours standing at my window, drinking and watching cars plow through the swamp water, and when they hit it fast they sent two massive splashes of slime up into the air, and we laughed each time an unsuspecting car got soaked. When I walked him to his car the air smelled horrible and I saw the moon reflect off the shiny backs of wet bullfrogs sitting along the road. And I smiled because I knew I was drunk enough to fall asleep.

Three of those praying Mexican ladies got into the elevator with me and the old one said, ”Lucky man to be surrounded by three women.” Holy shit, I thought, was this it? Was my dream coming true? But then they asked me to come to church with them. I declined and the lady I’d just thought was implying an orgy said, “You never know when you’ll need God. And when you do, you’ll wish you had some points saved up.” That is a really ominous thing for an abuelita to say to you when you’re half-crocked on booze and stuck in an elevator for five floors.

But I forgot about that quick. I had a show in Chicago the next night and needed to pass out. I turned off all the lamps on the way to bed and the only light was coming from Fox News on the TV, which I loved to go to bed to, there was something about the constant outrage that just lulled me to sleep. And then I was facedown, envisioning a Chicago the next night where everyone loved me and knew I was THE PEOPLES’ CHAMP. And then it happened.

I saw him standing in the closet next to the sink, and he wanted me to see him, he called for it. I knew somehow he’d been there all night, waiting for me at my most helpless moment, and I wasn’t asleep and this wasn’t a dream because I saw the time on Fox News and I watched it change from 12:11 to 12:12. Still facedown, I was getting ready to roll over and fight this thing like a rat on it’s back, but he saw my eyes move, he saw me readying myself, and he charged. 

That’s when I realized he had no eyes, no mouth, and he wasn't a human at all, but some amorphous creature loosely in the shape of a man. I was pinned on my stomach at that point, knowing this was a demon, and it wanted to hurt me. But it couldn’t. I could feel it trying. I watched it rear it’s arms up but they were coming down without any force. And the entire time I could see it standing over me, and I could see Trump on the TV talking about sending troops to Chicago, and somehow I knew if I stayed there and kept all my muscles clenched and my mind pure I could fight this thing off. Finally I broke the spell and lurched up with my fists balled, and the demon zipped across the room and disappeared in the darkness. 

But it wasn’t over. I turned every light on and checked behind every corner. And I said, “What is your problem?” but I got no response. The lights stayed on and I tried going back to sleep, but every time I would get close this arctic chill started in my toes and then worked its way up my body, in a grapple so tight and cold it was almost painful. It crawled its way up to my chest and I thought I might be having a heart attack. But it wasn’t internal, and it wasn’t nerves, the demon was trying to get me out of there. That wasn’t going to happen, though. I paid $120 for the room, demon or not, if you’re poor like me - on principal you’re getting your money’s worth, this thing was going to have to kill me. And I knew it wanted to, because those chills … they happened over and over until the sun came up.

The next morning I asked the desk if anything had ever happened in room 205. A nice lady said, “Nothing ever happened in that room.” But the girl in training said, “Wasn’t that the room …,” and she was immediately cut off by her boss.

Look, you get bored. There is only so much to do when you’re trapped in a hotel room in fucking Indianapolis for all of time. Time, by the way? Doesn’t exist. Not like you think it does. I had a heart attack under a hooker in this room in ‘86. I was on a layover to Denver and I figure why not have some fun. Doc told me to watch my ticker, that I was a textbook coronary waiting to happen, but I kept mucking fast food on business trips and drinking myself stupid in airport bars smiling at women who had no business being as interested as they were in middle-aged insurance brokers, so. Here I am for-fucking-ever, in room 205 at the Hyatt Place Indianapolis Airport. Limbo, if you’ve ever seen it. 

Now, this asshole wasn’t much different than any of the others. I’ve been here a long time, and I see all kinds. You get your hangdog salesmen and claims adjusters, like yours truly. Porn addicts and guys dialing numbers that promise a good time. You get your screaming families on their way to Disneyland. You get buck wild cheating lovers. You get loners and weirdos and people who go garden variety gonzo in the anonymity of an airport hotel. I’ve seen shit you wouldn’t believe, is what I’m saying. 

But this guy, not so bad. Normal. Looks kind of like a musician, chip on his shoulder and sunglasses inside and a head of hair I would have killed for when I was almost forty. The broads in the airport bar would have eaten him up. Checks in with a little bag and a couple of bottles and calls a buddy. They stand there in front of the window getting plastered and laughing at cars going through swamp water. Why anyone wants to hang out drinking in an airport hotel is beyond me but I’ve been here a long time, and after all, what are you gonna see in Indianapolis? 

He leaves for a bit to go walk his buddy out and I decide, you know, I’m gonna have a little fun. It’s been a long time. 

I went through a really miserable period where I used to scare the shit out of everyone but then I figure if I’m in limbo, I’m never getting out of it by making kids scream in the middle of the night, or poor women on their way to some godawful bachelorette party in Nashville. Bad karma, or Catholic guilt, or whatever. So now I only do it with guys, like alone ones. And I don’t do it as bad as I used to. 

This is what you have to remember. It wasn’t nearly as bad as he’s saying.

I’m not calling him a pussy, but it’s not like he’s making it out. He’s got FOX News on (which, by the way, is much dumber and more embarrassing than I remember) and he’s fading a bit cuz he’s drunk. And I’m thinking, okay, how can I spook the guy a little, just enough that he sobers up? Like maybe he’ll thank me, because he told his buddy he’s on his way to Chicago to meet some girl and “read.”

It seemed obvious. Tickle fight.

I wait til he’s real sleepy and I arrange myself where he’ll see me, straight shot from the closet. Perfect vantage point. But then he notices me, right? And I guess I’ve been here a lot longer than I imagined—in limbo—because he looks, I don’t know, scared? Like, terrified? I look like I’ve always looked but maybe he’s seeing something different, some version of me I don’t know. This is supposed to be a bit of light fun. No weird shit, nothing kinky, just fucking with the guy. But he’s got this look on his face. I don’t know what his problem is but time to wake up, asshole. I’m all charged up and I pounce, tickle tickle tickle! 

And he’s under me, kind of moaning and wriggling, like he’s trying to fight me. All I’m trying to do is wake him up a little and quite honestly, this is not the worst I could do. I pulled some nasty shit on a cardiologist in ‘02 that I’d never do again. Guy shit himself, left without his bags. Tickle fights are really not that bad, on the scale of ghost things you can do to a person. This guy falls out of bed with his fists balled and I want to laugh because, man, who do you think you’re fucking with? But then I catch sight of myself in the mirror and, hoo boy. He wasn’t wrong to be scared. 

It’s ugly, is what I’m trying to say. I’m ugly. 

I’ve been here a long time. 

I’m starting to wonder if I’m crossing over. Like not to the good place.

Normally, they’d check out right away, or get a different room. Not this one. He gets up with that chip on his shoulder and says, over and over, in a thick Jersey accent: what the fuck is your PRAW-blem. And he stayed, that guy. I respect it. He crawls back into bed shivering and tossing and I spent a good long time that night wishing I could hit that bottle he brought into the room, wondering what I’d become. Wondering if I’d ever get out. Envying him. Because the sun will come up, and only one of us is going to be stuck in room 205. 

He had this, I don’t know. Aura. Like someone had been praying over him. Like he’d had points saved up with God. Lucky guy, I guess. I forgot long ago what it was like to be half-cracked on booze and dripping in God’s favor. 

Kirsti MacKenzie is the author of Better to Beg, available with Sweet Trash/House of Vlad. She lives in Northern Ontario and runs Major 7th Magazine.

Scott Laudati is the author of Play the Devil, Hawaiian Shirts in the Electric Chair, and more. He lives in Brooklyn and runs Bone Machine, Inc.