Vacancy

               There were 112 rooms at the Marrowick Hotel, and Lenora Pritchard was the only guest. At least that was what the old man behind the front desk told her. “Entire place to yourself.” Lenora glanced across the enormous lobby. Faded blue carpet stretched beneath a brass chandelier. Beyond the windows, the Atlantic hammered the North Carolina coastline beneath a January sky the color of dirty dishwater. She had driven through miles of nearly deserted Outer Banks towns to get here. Shuttered souvenir shops. Empty restaurants. Vacation homes standing dark behind the dunes.

               “Seriously?”

               “January.”

               “I figured there’d be somebody.”

               The old man smiled. “There is.”

               “I mean besides us.”

               “No.”

               His name tag read ALDEN VAUGHN. He appeared 80, perhaps older. The skin around his mouth had the waxy looseness of extreme age, but his hands looked oddly young. Lenora noticed because she had spent the previous week thinking about death. Her mother had died eight days earlier. Cancer. Not unexpected, which everyone seemed to believe made it easier. It did not. What it made was paperwork. Insurance. Probate. Medical bills. Seventeen boxes of photographs Sylvia Pritchard had apparently expected her daughter to sort someday.

               Lenora reached box four before deciding she needed to get away. Then an advertisement appeared on her phone.

               WINTER AT THE MARROWICK

               NORTH CAROLINA’S FORGOTTEN OCEANFRONT TREASURE

               ROOMS FROM $39

               NEED TO GET AWAY?

               Apparently. Alden slid a brass key across the desk.

               314.

               “Ocean view.”

               “Thirty-nine bucks?”

               “January.”

               “Restaurant?”

               “Closed.”

               “Bar?”

               “Closed.”

               “Anything open?”

               “Vending machine.”

               “Luxury.”

               “I make breakfast.”

               “For who?”

               “You’re the guest.” Singular. Lenora picked up her suitcase. “Ms. Pritchard?” She turned. “If you hear anything tonight, don’t worry.”

               “That’s an objectively terrible thing to say to a woman staying alone in a hotel.”

               “Old building.”

               “Pipes?”

               “Sometimes.”

               “Ghosts?”

               “Never met one.”

               The elevator opened. “What exactly might I hear?”

               Alden looked toward the ceiling. “Furniture moving. Water.” He hesitated. “Sometimes crying.” Lenora stared. Alden smiled. “Joke.”

               “That wasn’t funny.”

               “No,” he said softly. “It never is.”

               At 2:18am, somebody dragged a bed across the ceiling.

               SCRRRRRRRAPE.

               Lenora opened her eyes. Room 414. Alden had said she was alone. Another scrape. Then a woman began crying. Not screaming. Crying. Long, exhausted sobs directly above her. Lenora called the front desk. Alden answered immediately. “There’s somebody above me.”

               “You’re the only guest.”

               “Then who is in 414?”

               “Nobody.”

               “I can fucking hear her.”

               “Old building.”

               “Unless the building has clinical depression, that doesn’t explain crying.”

               The crying stopped. Instantly. “There,” Alden said.

               “What stopped it?” The line disconnected. Lenora remained awake. Near dawn, she heard footsteps outside. She looked through the peephole. Nobody. But wet, bare footprints crossed the carpet from the elevator and ended directly outside Room 314.

               Morning gave everything excuses. The hotel looked merely old. The footprints were gone. Alden made pancakes and bacon. Lenora worked in the lobby, sorting her mother’s documents and photographs. Then she found one that stopped her. Sylvia stood outside the Marrowick. Lenora flipped it over.

               Outer Banks, North Carolina. July 1988 — finally some good news.

               Lenora had been born in March 1989. She carried it to Alden. “My mother stayed here.”

               “Yes.”

               “You recognize her?”

               “Yes.”

               “That was 38 years ago.”

               “Correct.”

               “Why was she here?”

               Alden handed back the photograph. “She got what she came for.”

               “What was that?”

               He picked up his book. “You.”

               That night the furniture started at 1:43am. Not just above her. Everywhere.

               SCRAPE.

               Above.

               SCRAPE.

               Across the hall.

               SCRAPE.

               Below. Lenora went upstairs. Room 414. She knocked. A voice whispered:

               “Please.”

               “Are you okay?”

               “Please don’t leave.”

               Lenora tried the locked door, then ran downstairs. Alden was gone. A master key hung behind the desk. She took it. Room 414 was empty. Not vacant. Empty. No bed. No furniture. Bare walls. “Hello?”

               “Here.” The voice came from the wall. One patch still had floral wallpaper. Lenora pressed her palm against it. Something pressed back. Five fingers. She screamed. A human face pushed outward beneath the paper. Nose. Lips. Eye sockets. The mouth opened. “Please.” The wallpaper tore. Black water exploded into the room. Lenora ran.

               She packed in two minutes. The elevator stopped on the second floor. Doors opened. The hallway was wrong. Orange carpet. Dark paneling. Brass sconces. A sign read:

               WELCOME TO THE NEWLY RENOVATED MARROWICK HOTEL — 1972

               “No.” The elevator refused to move. Lenora stepped out. Room 218 stood open. A teenage girl lay strapped to a hospital bed. A physician stood between her legs while a woman smoked beside the window.

               “Mommy, please.”

               The woman looked away. The physician lifted an instrument. “You’ll feel some pressure.” The girl screamed. Lenora rushed forward. The lights flickered. Empty room. Room 221 opened. An elderly man struggled against restraints while his daughter signed paperwork.

               “He’s become impossible.”

               “And the estate?” the physician asked.

               “Already transferred.”

               “What treatment are you requesting?”

               The woman looked at her father. “Something permanent.”

               Flicker. Gone. Room 226. A boy of perhaps 12 sat on a bed. His legs were badly malformed. His father spoke with the physician. “He’ll never work. Never marry. Never live independently.”

               “Dad?”

               “Subfoundation transfer is irreversible.”

               The father signed.

               “Dad?”

               Flicker. Gone. Lenora understood. The Marrowick was where respectable families brought people they did not want anyone asking about. At the corridor’s end:

               HARLAN MOTT, M.D.

               PRIVATE MEDICAL SERVICES

               The files went back to 1954. Pregnant daughters. Addicted sons. Disabled children. Wives labeled unstable. Elderly parents whose property somebody wanted. Sometimes treatment meant sterilization. Sometimes surgery. Sometimes the patient disappeared beneath one phrase:

               SUBFOUNDATION TRANSFER.

               Then Lenora found her mother.

               PRITCHARD, SYLVIA A.

               ADMITTED: JULY 14, 1988

               PRIMARY COMPLAINT: INFERTILITY

               Multiple miscarriages. Failed treatments. Then:

               Patient informed of experimental regenerative procedure.

               Maternal tissue obtained.

               Culture accepted.

               Implantation successful.

               Six weeks later:

               Fetal development proceeding at exceptional rate. Morphology normal.

               Beneath it, handwritten:

               First truly viable specimen.

               A photograph showed Sylvia unconscious on an operating table. A translucent cord extended from her abdomen into a metal basin on the floor. Mott had written:

               Organism appears to recognize gestational host as component rather than patient.

               Something enormous moved beneath Lenora’s feet.

               Stairs behind Mott’s office descended into black water. Lenora followed them. The basement smelled of salt, antiseptic, and blood. Hospital beds appeared in the darkness. A woman turned toward Lenora. She had two mouths. One where it belonged. Another opening vertically through her cheek. Both whispered:

               “Mommy.”

               Something crawled from beneath another bed. A child. Hands emerged directly from its shoulders. No arms.

               “Mommy.”

               A naked man dragged himself through the water, abdomen open from sternum to pelvis. His intestine extended behind him and disappeared into a crack in the foundation.

               “Mommy.”

               Another patient had seven fingers on each hand. It methodically broke the extras against the bedrail.

               Snap.

               A new finger slowly pushed through the bloody skin. “Make it stop.” Lights came on.

               Alden stood behind her.

               “What the fuck are they?”

               “Attempts.”

               “At what?”

               Alden looked at her. “You.”

               Workers repairing the Marrowick in 1953 discovered something beneath its foundation. Mott experimented. Fed skin, it grew skin. Muscle produced muscle. Bone produced bone. At first badly. Then better. “You fed people to it.”

               “Mott did.”

               “You helped.”

               “I was maintenance.”

               “You knew.”

               “Yes.” Alden rolled up his sleeve. His arm looked 30 years younger than his face. “I had bone cancer in 1976.”

               “How old are you?”

               “106.”

               Lenora recoiled. “It healed you?”

               “It rebuilt me.”

               She looked at the malformed patients. “That isn’t rebuilding.”

               “That was learning.” Mott had used people nobody expected to see again. Bodies became lessons. Organs. Eyes. Hands. Faces. Reproductive systems. Then Mott realized the thing could create instead of merely repair.

               “My mother.”

               “She wanted a child.”

               “What did she agree to?”

               Alden looked toward the rear wall. “Not enough.”

               The foundation was alive. Flesh surrounded support columns. Veins climbed pipes. Something resembling a rib cage had grown around the boiler. Faces protruded from the walls. An eye blinked inside muscle. Fingers opened from the ceiling. “Lenora.” She froze. Her mother’s voice. “Baby.” Sylvia emerged from the wall. From the waist upward. She looked 30 again.

               “Mom?” Sylvia smiled. Lenora began crying. “You’re dead.”

               “Yes.”

               “What happened?”

               “I came back.”

               “That isn’t you.”

               “It knows me.”

               “That isn’t the same thing.”

               “It remembers everything it eats.”

               Lenora looked at Alden. “You stole her body?”

               “Your mother arranged it years ago.”

               Sylvia reached toward Lenora. Her arm stretched too far. “I missed you.”

               Lenora stepped back. “What did Mott put inside you in 1988?”

               Sylvia cried. “I wanted you so badly.”

               “What did he use?”

               “My eggs.”

               “And whose sperm?” The wall contracted. “Mom.”

               Sylvia closed her eyes. “It.”

               “No.”

               “Mott said it had learned enough.”

               “That thing is my father?”

               “It doesn’t have fathers.”

               The malformed patients stirred.

               “Mommy.”

               “Shut up.”

               “Mommy.”

               Lenora pointed at Sylvia. “They’re calling you.”

               “No.”

               The armless child stared directly at Lenora.

               “Mommy.”

               The two-mouthed woman:

               “Mommy.”

               Lenora lowered her hand. Alden stepped backward. “What?” His face filled with pity.

               “What the fuck am I?” Pain detonated through Lenora’s pelvis. She collapsed. Something moved inside her. Not kicking. Growing. Her abdomen expanded. Weeks of pregnancy compressed into seconds. Skin stretched. Muscles tore. Lenora screamed. “WHAT AM I?!?!?!”

               The foundation contracted again. Alden whispered:

               “You aren’t its child.” Another contraction tore through her. “You’re how it makes them.”

               Lenora woke in Room 314. Her stomach was flat. Beside the bed stood a bassinet. A baby girl slept inside. Perfect. Ten fingers. Ten toes. She opened green eyes. Sylvia’s eyes. Another infant cried in the hallway. Then another. Lenora opened the door. Bassinets lined the corridor. Alden stepped from the elevator. How many?”

               “Twenty-eight survived.”

               “Survived what?”

               “The first cycle.”

               “First?”

               “You are the first reproductive structure it has successfully created.”

               “I am a person.”

               “Yes.”

               “Then get me the fuck out.”

               “You can leave.” Alden looked at the baby. “But I don’t think you’ll get far.”

               Lenora made three miles. Then cramps. Bleeding. Something inside her pulled backward. Toward the hotel. She kept driving until pain blinded her. The moment she turned around, it stopped. Whatever lived beneath the Marrowick existed inside every cell. Every cell knew where home was.

               By February, Lenora stopped trying. The babies needed almost nothing. At night, tiny tubes emerged from the walls and disappeared beneath their blankets. Some malformed patients remembered being human. One woman had been transferred in 1961 because her husband wanted to marry his secretary. “Why doesn’t it let you die?” Lenora asked.

               The woman laughed through two mouths. “It doesn’t understand death.” That frightened Lenora more than cruelty. Cruelty had intention. This thing only understood failed construction. So, it kept trying. Lenora began touching the living walls. Soon she could feel things through them. Babies crying upstairs. Alden crossing the lobby. The ocean beneath the pilings. Sometimes Sylvia dreaming. One morning Lenora woke in the basement with both hands buried wrist-deep in flesh. She did not remember going there. The wall released her gently.

               Alden died in March. 106 years old. “Don’t let it waste me,” he whispered.

               “No.”

               “Please.”

               Lenora lowered his body into the foundation. The flesh opened. Accepted him. Before sunrise, ten young fingers grew from the wall. Perfect. Lenora watched them flex. And felt pride. That frightened her most.

               In April, Lenora reopened reservations. She told herself she needed people. Witnesses. Someone who could help. Yet every time she tried explaining the Marrowick online, her fingers froze. Instead, she uploaded photographs.

               Oceanfront rooms.

               Historic charm.

               Private beach.

               She targeted couples, families, people searching fertility treatments, and people who had recently lost someone. Lenora stared at that final category. Then clicked Enable. The bookings came immediately. By Memorial Day weekend, all 112 rooms were occupied. Children ran through the lobby. Couples carried coolers. For the first time in years, the Marrowick sounded alive. Lenora stood behind the desk wearing Alden’s old name-tag holder.

               LENORA

               A pregnant woman approached. “Reservation under Hadley.”

               “Room 414.”

               “Ocean view?”

               “One of our best.”

               The woman’s husband touched her stomach. The baby kicked. Something beneath the lobby shifted. Interested.

               “How far along?”

               “Seven months.”

               “First?”

               “Yes. We had a really hard time getting pregnant.”

               Lenora stopped. Sylvia. 1988.

               First truly viable specimen.

               Lenora pushed the key toward her. Then pulled it back. “Don’t stay here.”

               The woman blinked. “What?”

               “Take your husband and leave.”

               The lights flickered. Pain struck Lenora’s abdomen. Beneath her feet, something rolled.

               “Is something wrong?”

               “Yes.”

               A vein appeared beneath Lenora’s wrist. It moved toward the pregnant woman. “Leave.”

               Every elevator opened.

               From upstairs:

               SCRRRRRRRAPE.

               “What was that?”

               Lenora imagined throwing away the key. Evacuating the hotel. Driving until whatever lived inside her killed her. Then a baby cried upstairs. One of hers. Lenora’s body reacted. Milk leaked beneath her blouse. The pain disappeared. Warmth flooded her. Love. Real love. For the babies. For Sylvia. For the walls. For everything underneath. Lenora finally understood Mott’s greatest mistake. He thought he was teaching the organism to build a human body. He succeeded. But the people he fed it taught something else.

               Memory.

               Fear.

               Attachment.

               Need.

               Family.

               The woman waited. “Is the room okay?”

               Lenora smiled. “Yes.” She handed her the key. “Sorry. Long winter.”

               The woman started toward the elevator. “Mrs. Hadley?” She turned. Lenora almost tried again. Instead:

               “If you hear anything tonight, don’t worry.”

               The woman smiled. “Old building?”

               Beneath the carpet, something enormous stretched toward the elevator. Lenora rested both hands over the movement beginning inside her abdomen. Another cycle. She smiled. “No.” The elevator doors closed around Mrs. Hadley. “New family.”