Chapter 7: The Omnivista Resort
Marc kept pace with Pierre’s long strides, purposefully distancing himself from the other teenagers. Rune was not far behind, pushing the trash magskid while perpetrating her childlike facade. Regan and Buzz followed, silently exchanging enthusiastic glances, while Andy stared ahead aloofly, his hands in his pockets.
Chaplin traipsed along beside Steve at the back of the crew. The signature bounce in his walk was gone. Each step seemed to require a great deal of energy, as though his legs had hardened into stone. Melancholy made him less intimidating, and she found herself taking short glances at his face. His eyes were not a brilliant blue as she had expected, but a shade of gray that seemed out of place against his bronze skin, like two rainclouds suspended in a tropical sunset. There was a tiny circular scar set into the skin above his manicured right eyebrow, and another at the base of his neck.
Pierre stopped in the center of the massive lobby and the teenagers gathered in front of him the way any sightseeing group would to hear a tour guide expound upon a foreign destination. He began a prosaic narrative, his words reverberating as they bounced across the expanse of white tile.
“Phase One of Project Lunar was digging a big rectangle into the surface and installing the roof and skylights. Then they hooked up the atmospheric contraptions--gravity, oxygen, temperature--and we built out the walls.” He crossed the room and banged a closed fist on the stark white surface between two glass doors. A corner of his mouth crept up, forming an asymmetrical smirk at a diabolical accomplishment. “Moon rock and a little bit of concrete. This stuff is sound proof and indestructible.”
Regan’s mouth fell open in horror. She turned to look at Marc whose jaw was tightly clenched to prevent a similar expression. Sound proof and indestructible were attributes more fitting for a medieval dungeon than a luxury hotel. Looking up at the waning Earth, she understood how imprisoned they truly were.
Pierre continued his commentary, unaware of the impact of his gloating.
“We installed all wiring, painted, laid the flooring, hung the doors,” he rotated a silver handle and swung open the frosted glass door beside him. The empty room behind it was painted the deep red shade of pomegranate seeds, and without windows to provide the glow of the moon, it was like looking at walls of human flesh.
“And there’s the murder room,” Buzz quipped under his breath. His widened eyes looked around the group to see their reactions, but was promptly interrupted.
“What was that?” Pierre barked, the contentment vanishing from his face, which was taking the color of the room behind him.
Buzz’s face snapped back to attention. It was not the first time a joke had landed him in trouble, and he knew the key was to ask an on-topic question in a loud, clear voice. In his experience, people generally chose to answer the question and avoid escalating a conflict. Except his 86-year-old Bubbe.
“What’s this place called?” Buzz asked politely, hoping his wide eyes and smile would make him seem genuinely interested in the answer.
Pierre chortled and scratched the peppered stubble growing on his fleshy neck. His pale, thick lips widened into an acerbic smile. He raised and opened his arms theatrically, and silkily announced, “The Omnivista Resort.”
“I like it,” Rune chirped brightly.
“Oh good,” Pierre replied sarcastically. He jerked his thumb to the right. “Over here you’ve got a little coffee shop and one of the restaurants. Behind it is Bank B of guest rooms.”
Marc moved to look down the hallway at the next set of rooms, but Pierre walked away and continued to list rooms, having clearly lost enthusiasm for the excursion.
“I think this is a store.” He walked counter clockwise along the edge of the lobby, listing rooms indifferently as he passed. “Gym and pool, spa. Your room’s gonna be the daycare.”
Pierre stopped in front of the door next to their dorm room and turned to the kids. His brow wrinkled as he scowled, waiting for each of them to pay attention. Rune felt her hands tremble and hid them behind her back. She focused on the impeccably tied laces of Andy’s boots inches from her own. Steve recognized his sister’s distress and moved to the front of the group, blocking her view of the door.
“Don’t go in here,” Pierre warned them bluntly.
The words hung in the air like thick, black smoke. Marc looked fixedly at the man’s steely face, waiting for some explanation. What was in the room? Why did he encourage one of them to enter when they first arrived? Would he dole out the same punishment again? None of the teenagers dared to ask.
They silently followed their oppressor as he recommenced the tour in large, slogging steps. Behind two glass doors a gleaming silver counter curved to mimic a crescent moon. Blue light bounced off pearly walls extending further back to a large empty room.
“Here’s the fine dining restaurant,” Pierre grumbled without stopping. “And right next to it, the Gold Bar.”
A floor-to-ceiling glass wall framed an unremarkable brown slab. It lacked the opulence of its name, altogether out of place in the Tiffany Blue room. A giant brick of mud set inside an expensive jewelry box.
“Fancy!” Buzz whispered to Regan. She snickered quietly and elbowed him in the ribs, reminding him to stay out of trouble. He grabbed his side in exaggerated pain, which caused Chaplin to snort in delight. The sound echoed across the empty room, inciting laughter from Marc, Steve, and Rune.
“And this is what I’ve been working on.” Pierre raised his raspy voice over the rowdy teenagers. Directly to his left stood two wide azure doors adorned with antique silver handles. His beefy hand covered barely a third of the twisting metal as he pulled it toward him. “The theater.”
Marc collected himself as he watched Andy boldly walk through the doorway, then strode quickly to catch up. As he stopped next to his composed peer, his feet sensed the soft flooring through his heavy work boots. The lush red carpeting beneath him extended in two aisles down a sloping matte gray floor where several rows of seats had been installed at the bottom. Marc followed Andy as he descended further into the auditorium toward an elevated stage with pale wood flooring. The industrial lights flickered off, drawing both their faces up to the glowing crystal chandelier suspended from the high, windowless ceiling.
Rune, also gazing upward, bumped into Marc and steadied herself by grabbing his arm. At the foot of the stage, Regan ran her palm over the smooth wooden surface while Buzz calculated how many seats would ultimately fill the room. Chaplin sat in the center of the sixth row and leaned her head back to take in the view above. The severe white lights flashed back on and Pierre lumbered down to meet the students, huffing slightly as his body shook with each step.
“200 seats?” Buzz shouted across the room, having finished his calculation.
“250,” Pierre yelled back, stopping behind Chaplin’s chair. “It would’ve taken the Phase One crew less than a week, those bastards.”
The dingy handkerchief appeared once more to mop his damp head. He sighed deeply and leaned forward on the seatbacks in front of him. Chaplin recognized anguish as she viewed his face in close proximity for the first time. Pale purple skin sagged below a pair of unfocused brown eyes, somberly lost in thought. She wondered how long he had been by himself in the large hotel before they arrived for Phase Two. How long did it take for Jack Torrance to turn on his wife and child when they were secluded at the Overlook?
“We could probably install the rest of the rows in about a week,” Marc offered, scanning the room with his hands on his hips.
With a shake of his head, Pierre tore himself from his inner thoughts.
“Nah,” he grumbled as he straightened himself. “I need you to start installing lights in guest rooms before Earthset. Come on.”
He clomped down to the right hand corner of the stage and took the black circle from his pocket. As he pressed it against the nondescript wall, a section slid away. Pierre stepped in and turned on the lights, revealing a narrow hallway covered entirely with matte-black paint.
“Backstage passes.” Buzz joked, marching forward through the small space with the rest of the group single file like a line of ants.
The blackened corridor beside the stage was so short that Pierre reached its exit and opened the door before Chaplin stepped through the first. White light streaked down the hallway, turning each person in front of her into shadowy figures that disappeared as they advanced. She watched Steve turn right and found herself squinting into a blinding abyss. She rubbed her stinging eyes as she stepped into the light and her body crashed into something cold and hard.
Cautiously opening her eyes, Chaplin found herself face to face with a chalky gray wall. She stumbled backward as her sight came back into focus and saw that Steve was a good twenty paces away. But just as she started after them, she caught a glimmer in the corner of her left eye. Through a sliver of a door that sat slightly ajar, a golden beam pulsed steadily like the beacon of a lighthouse. Her body moved toward it instinctively, and before she had a chance to consider the risks, she had stepped inside the room.
A gilded cat waved its paw from its perch on a beige table identical to the one in her dorm room. Beside it, a pen was nested in the pages of a tattered paperback of crossword puzzles next to an empty coffee mug. Chaplin looked up, almost expecting to find the book’s owner, and recognized the furnishing. A row of ten bunk beds lined the wall, sleeping bags and navy jumpsuits strewn carelessly across them. In the corner, an acoustic guitar leaned against the wall beside a battered pair of work boots and several empty beer cans.
Heart pounding, Chaplin pulled the door knob as she backed out of the abandoned room, making sure to leave it slightly open. She sprinted down the empty corridor to catch up with the rest of the group, panicked by her solitude.
“She was right behind me,” Steve said as he reappeared in the hallway and saw Chaplin tearing down the hallway. It was clear that she was not running to them, but rather from something. “Hold on, I think she tripped.”
He allowed the door to close behind him and in a hush voice commanded “FALL! FALL DOWN!’
Chaplin threw herself on the dusty cement floor, smacking the left side of her face as her body’s momentum caused her to slide closer to Steve. He jogged over to her, knelt down, and whispered, “You hit your head. Act confused.”
“What?” She gasped as she struggled to catch her breath.
“Perfect.” Steve smiled and gently pulled the hair away from her bleeding cheekbone. His stormy eyes ran over her face and then her crumpled body.
“She okay?” Pierre bellowed from the end of the passageway.
“Compared to what?” Steve laughed and scooped Chaplin up in his arms as he raised himself from the floor. She rested her head against his jagged collar bone as he carried her to their boss. “Looks like she managed to break the fall with her face.”
“Don’t be an ass,” Pierre muttered, leaning in to examine her eyes. “What happened, sweetheart?”
Chaplin shrugged, taking care to control her panting. She closed her eyes and pressed her face against Steve’s chest and drew in a long breath of pine needles and his own personal scent. It was not unpleasant, and she was relieved to avoid further eye contact with Pierre.
“I’ve got a first aid kit somewhere. Think you can get her back to your room?”
“You’ve got it, boss,” Steve answered jovially.
She kept her eyes closed as they met up with the others, happy to feign unconsciousness if it meant they didn’t pummel her with questions. Instead, they directed all their inquiries to Steve, whose deep voice vibrated in his chest as he lied about finding her sprawled on the floor and shaking her to wake her up. But as he lowered her onto her bed, he whispered, “We’ll talk about this later.”
Pierre showed up an hour later, carrying what could have been mistaken for his lunch box were it not for the the white cross printed on the red canvas. He tossed it to Steve, who caught it and placed it on the table next to his bowl of instant macaroni and cheese and continued eating. After a moment of everyone silently avoiding eye contact, Regan took the kit to Chaplin’s bed to clean her face and bandage the wound on her right temple. An impressive amount of blood had leaked from what amounted to a light scrape, leaving brown stains on her collar.
“Why don’t you stay here and rest up?” Pierre offered from his position at the doorway, grimacing at the reddened wipes Regan carried to the trashcan in the kitchen.
Chaplin sat up slowly and gingerly ran her fingers across the gauze taped to her forehead, then shook her head to reject the suggestion. Being trapped alone for several hours seemed like a plot device in a gory horror movie. Strange things waited to be discovered in this place, and she did not wish to uncover anymore on her own.
“Suit yourself,” Pierre shrugged and looked at the gold watch on his wrist. “Get started on Bank A of guest rooms. Should be two and a half days of good Earthlight left.”