One of Them

It began gradually, as it does every year. First the families become more sparse, leaving their summer trip in the rearview to prepare their children for the school year ahead. Next, the young adults depart to rejoin their college cohorts and swap out our hotel bar for frat parties. Lastly, the retirees, the old businessmen, the young women on their arms, all drift off. Perhaps back to their cities, perhaps off to another land that promised a warmer winter than this one could.

My hours always stayed the same no matter if every room was booked, or just a few. I awaken at 05:00 AM and extend an arm to flick on the dim lamp on the otherwise empty nightstand, letting the soft glow bathe my cheeks and still-closed eyes before I eventually blink them open. There was a time, a long time ago, that off-season meant I would have less work and I’d need to rely on serving jobs in town to make it through. After all, there are no rooms to clean without guests to stay in them first, leaving bits of themselves among the disarray for me to methodically scrub away before the next ones arrive. Sometimes in these few minutes before I push the covers off there is a tendril of regret somewhere deep in my core. A little voice that says I should have been happy with the work I’d had, and not agreed to staying on with the hotel through the winter. It’s much too late now. Once you agree to stay on for the winter, you don’t ever really untangle yourself back out.

The offer had first come through Jeremiah, the bellhop. He was in his mid-50s if I’d had to guess, still surprisingly sprightly after decades of hoisting various luggage onto and off carts, always had a warm smile and a “and how are you today, Cara?” for me. The first week I’d started working here he’d been the one to show me where the hidden coffee machine only meant for management was, and when to waltz into there for a steaming hot cup during the busiest check-in times so Jerry, the day-manager, would be too busy to catch you and berate you for being outside of your designated area.

Jeremiah approached with the offer two years later as we took our coinciding break in the back alley of the hotel, him leaning against the wall with a lit cigarette in his right hand, me perched on an overturned bucket nearby lamenting that I’d need to go see handsy Ricky about coming back to work at his restaurant for the off-season in a few weeks.

“You could always stay on, work the winter shifts.” He exhaled a thin cloud as he spoke. I looked back at him with my brows furrowed half-caught in wanting to scoff at his rather dry joke and half-aware that he sounded almost, well, serious.

It turned out that he was indeed quite serious. He told me the hours, the rate of pay (at which my jaw slightly dropped), but nothing about what the work was, only that he would show me that evening. I spent the rest of the day with my thoughts racing at what it could be. Finally, at the end of our shift, he led me through the back kitchen, out through a narrow hallway, and after several turns to an elevator door I’d never seen before. The elevator only had two buttons inside it; BELOW and ABOVE. I hesitated before I stepped both feet in, wondering exactly what I’d gotten myself into. But the promise of money, more money than I even make during high-season, and of course, not having to grit my teeth through another season of handsy Ricky brushing up against my ass, “on accident”, eventually made me take a breath and step in behind Jeremiah. He reached out and selected BELOW. The elevator doors emitted a low screech as they closed with some effort, and with it every muscle in my body tensed. Something about that moment, that exact moment, I got a feeling I had just made a mistake.

When the doors opened again, I blinked in confusion. We hadn’t gone anywhere, the same bleak hallway stared back at us, the same dark smudge against the lower part of the wall, the same faint musty smell of being in the bowels of an old building. Jeremiah stepped out with a smile back at me, motioning his head for me to follow. I started to feel some anger stir at the thought that this had all been a prank. There was no money, there was no work. I stepped out behind him opening my mouth to demand an answer but the moment my feet crossed the threshold I promptly snapped my mouth back shut. There was something distinctly different. A slight haze from the corner of my eyes formed but the moment I turned my head to look directly at it, it crystallized into something ordinary. The linoleum floor beneath me seemed to shift slightly, as though I was no longer on solid ground but upon me focusing on it, it stabilized.

“Don’t worry, kid. You’ll get used to it. Whatever your attention is on, is what will become clear. Clever way to get us to keep us from seeing too much, I suppose.” Jeremiah shrugged his shoulders as if what he’d just said was an absolutely normal explanation. He ignored my wide-eyed whispers of whatthefuckareyoutalkingabout and whatisthisshit and continued on through several turns, down a narrow hallway, and into a quiet, dusty back kitchen. I noted the stark difference between the kitchen we’d walked through above which had been filled with boxes of freshly delivered produce, gleaming knives and bowls, and rows of drying cutting boards and I quickened my pace to stay close.

My first day on that floor was one I would never forget. As we walked through to the main lobby, I saw them. The below people. They looked almost like us, but their arms and fingers seemed slightly too long, their legs moved in an almost-swaying motion, and their eyes, well those stopped you in your tracks altogether. I gaped at them, and those that noticed my existence peered back with their crystal blue eyes that appeared upon closer inspection to be missing their pupils. Jeremiah jolted me forward, his firm hand on my elbow to pull me along, and hissed at me to stop staring at the guests. We moved through several more floors in silence aside from what felt like a very loud thumping of my heartbeat and my occasional hard swallow. Much of the hotel appeared the same to the one above even down to the staff lounge door which always took some jiggling to push open, although I noted it lacked any staff inside. The final thing he showed me was the inside of a hotel suite, currently occupied by a below person that had just breezed out and down the hall, ignoring us in the same way the guests above did. Jeremiah clicked the room door open with the swipe of his master card and we pushed our way through to see a perfectly ordinary room. The trash can was halfway full, sheets were strewn haphazardly across the bed in a faint attempt of making it, rumpled clothes were thrown on a chair. I took it all in with a slow spin around until I faced Jeremiah again.

“That’s all there is to it. You come in, you clean, you go home. Same as above.” He rocked back on his heels with a matter-of-fact manner as he spoke and a faint dizziness entered my mind as I desperately tried and failed to wrap my mind around what I was experiencing.

“What are they?” I managed at last.

“The originals. The immortals. The others. The society. They go by many names, as you’ll find. They’ve been around longer than us, that’s for sure.”

I slowly nodded as I considered his words. “So, I come in, I clean, I go home. That’s it?”

“That’s it.”

The next two weeks before high-season officially ends drags by. The work below won’t start until the remainder of the staff is laid off for the season and only the skeleton crew remains, me being one of them this year. We consisted of Jeremiah, myself, Silvia (Cleaner), Nick (Front Desk), and Trudy from Human Resources which I raised my brows at in question but received no answer besides a shrug. When the work eventually began, it truly was as Jeremiah had said. I woke up as always, took the elevator down, stocked my cleaning cart, and cleaned. The below people, as I’d kept calling them in my head, mostly ignored me outside of a few cursory nods when they made the mistake of meeting the eyes of the help.

Eight weeks in, I made a mistake. I knew what I was doing was wrong, but with all my heart believed it would harm nobody, least of all myself, and surely it would not be noticed. I was wrong. When I entered suite 608 that day, an elongated walnut brown book peeked out from between the stark white sheets on the bed. Curious as I am, I naturally opened it up and flipped softly through the pages. I didn’t recognize the language, or any of the words, and with no pictures for context I disappointingly started to close it when I caught a flash of a word: begin. Begin? My eyes frantically scanned the page again. It was gone but I knew without a doubt I had seen it. Something Jeremiah had said previously came to the forefront of my mind: ‘Whatever your attention is on, is what will become clear.’ I focused harder, squinting my eyes with effort and bringing it closer to my face as though that might help me concentrate. Slowly the words faltered slightly as a headache started knocking at my temples. I exhaled with effort and closed my eyes. This wasn’t going to happen easily. Before I could stop myself, I tore the page out and after folding it neatly three times, shoved it deep into my pocket. Heart pounding, I finish my shift quickly and hurry to the elevator almost running directly into Nick as I burst through the back kitchen doors.

“Woah! In a hurry to get home?” He laughs easily, eyes twinkling and I feel my face flush as I manage to croak out a small laugh and shake of my head. We enter the elevator together and as the now familiar screech of the doors closing fills the quiet space I allow myself a small exhale. That was as far as my memory extended, that one final exhale. The next time I opened my eyes, I was back in the below with Jeremiah, Nick, and Trudy all peering down at the floor that I was apparently now laying on with concerned looks on all three faces.“Cara, what did you take?” Trudy asks, her typically monotone voice noticeably at a more feverish pitch. I begin a feeble denial but stop myself when I see the looks in their eyes. Reaching into my pocket I pull out the folded piece of paper and hold it out to Trudy who pauses all too long before nimbly reaching out for it.

Trudy leans down and gets closer to my face before she speaks again. “Cara, the below takes what is owed. It balances the scales. When you went up with something that belonged down here, it grasped something else. Something that was yours. You might not feel it right now, but somewhere deep inside of you there is a part that now belongs in the below. When that exchange abruptly happened, you collapsed. Nick, thank the gods, caught you before you split your head on the floor.”

I felt a tremor go through my body at her words, a chill down to my bone marrow that sang that what she was saying was the truth, the absolute truth.

“Here,” she says, “Keep it. You’ve already paid for it anyways.” And with that she shoves the paper back towards me. Gingerly, I take it, knowing somewhere deep in my soul that I still wanted it just as desperately as I had the moment I’d decided to rip it out of the book.

It’s been three off-seasons since my first time staying on for the winter. Three years of piecing together exactly what was on that page with what I witnessed in the below. I was right about seeing the word ‘begin’. I was right to have taken the page even after paying for it with a portion of my being. The below people people had a mantra that I found repeated over and over on the one page I had about their lives. ‘Begin each morn with your inhale, breathe in what is above to what is within, live well, live all.’ This phrase was strung between the other phrases all touting their health. The health they took from the above. Slowly, I took notice. The way they’d tilt their heads up towards the ceiling, part their mouths lightly, and a faint shimmer would cascade in a spiral through the ceiling and down into their waiting throats. They fed on the above. At first it’d made me sick. Then, I’d gotten angry. And then? Well then, I wanted the same.

My fourth winter season began at 05:00 AM this morning. I woke up as I normally did, walked into work quite ordinarily, and then went straight to suite 322 where a long-time guest had been staying. Slightly more wispy than the others, with a slight stoop to her distinct walk, she had been my perfect choice since last season. Clicking the master key to her room, I slipped in with bated breath hoping to see her light eyes meet mine. To my delight, they did. They widened in surprise at my sudden onset, and her arms flailed outwards as mine came up connecting the thick wrench with the side of her head. The hollow thunk surprised me but she went down anyways. I got to work quickly, wrapping the gray duct tape around her wrists and ankles before hoisting her up over my shoulder. She was light! Oh, so light. I beamed as I quickly scurried down the hallway, through the empty back kitchen, and towards the elevator. This would work, it just had to. The scales had to be balanced, didn’t they? If I took a whole below person up, the below would claim all of me. I would be one of them, I would have to be. The doors screeched shut, I jammed my free hand into the ABOVE button, and felt my knees weaken before everything went black.

The next time I tried to open my eyes, it didn’t quite feel right. They were slightly too moist, as though there was a gel on my sockets. But slowly I managed to fully blink them open as everything came into crystal clear focus. There was no haze around the corners, the ground felt smooth and solid. I looked up this time into four sets of piercing blue eyes, none that I recognized. The below people parted as another one of them strode in with disdain sparking in his eyes and his mouth in a firm frown. He glanced down at with me in disgust as a sense of dread built in the pit of my stomach.

“Kill it.” He spat before my arms were grasped from behind and everything went black once again.