Hi, friends! This is a story based on Stephen King’s book, The Shining. I submitted it to Views from the Overlook, edited by Jamie Flanagan, and it was rejected. I’m not gonna lie, it stung a little. But the chances of getting into this anthology were pretty slim. And, well, the criteria was that the story be set in King’s The Shining and not Kubrick’s, which my story 90% is, but as you can see by the cover, I’m a sucker for patterns.
I hope you enjoy this piece of fanfic. I wrote it the day it was due and in one sitting. (Please clap.) It was tough, but playing in King’s universe was loads of fun. Now, on with the show. - Shony.
The blood on the hanky is in the shape of a man fucking a goat, or a pig—no, a dog. Bill dabs at his lip, then looks at the hanky again; the man and dog are gone, now it looks like The Great Land. Alaska. Fitting. Bill’s lip feels the size of Anchorage.
He throws the hanky in the sink and pops out his bottom lip in the mirror. It’s the same mouth as his brother’s. Same mouth as his father’s mouth, a bit crooked. But that’s where the similarities end. All the men in his family have the Murphy nose, all but Bill, whose nose is—as a stranger back home once declared on a city bus loud enough for every passenger to hear—like that of a proboscis monkey. His mother calls him a handsome Durante.
Bill walks into the room and flops down onto the taut bed. His brothers are probably plotting a way to get him out of the hotel and back home, but he’s not leaving. He’s got just as much right to be at the reunion as any other Murphy—maybe more. He’s the one who supported the family and worked the box office while his brothers were in Japan, the one who helped organize the tire drive—he was the one who mowed their lawns, gassed and oiled their wives’ cars, fixed their kids’ bike tires, and trained their goddamn dogs.
Bill sees himself smashing Joe’s nose, feels the crunch. He laughs at the thought of Joe’s bloody Murphy schnoz. Joe with the limp from where a 6.5mm bullet just missed an artery—nothing better than a war hero with a flattened nose.
There’s a knock at the door.
Bill hops up from the bed and looks out the peephole. It’s Joan, arms akimbo. She’s going to tear into him.
“I know you’re in there, asshole—open.”
Bill opens the door a crack.
“What, Joe send you up here to finish the fight? Some tough guy.”
“Joe doesn’t know I’m here. Can I come in, or what?”
Bill is skeptical, but moves aside.
Joan struts to the window and pulls open the shades. “Why you sitting here in the dark? No fuckin’ way—you have a view of the topiary? We’ve got a beautiful view of the goddamn parking lot. Well, I guess we can have them switch our room, seeing how you’re getting the fuck out of this hotel and going home right now.”
Bill laughs, pulls on a fresh undershirt.
“I’m not going anywhere, Joanie. You really think I’m going to let that bully—”
“Bully? He told a sweet story about you and him as kids, and then you punched him in the nose.” Joan sits down on the bed.
“Listen, honey, I like you, but your husband…my brother, he told that story specifically because he knows it bothers me. He tells it because it makes me look weak, and it makes him look tough.”
Joan pulls a cigarette from a small case and lights it, the sulphur from the match momentarily overpowers the scent of Bill’s aftershave. After she’s exhaled a plume of tobacco smoke, she seems a different person, lighter, nearly zen.
“Okay, Billy-boy. Have it your way. But can you do me a favor?”
Bill sits on the bed, next to Joan. His ears feel hot. Maybe he should fuck her—that would show Joe who the bigger man is. “I don’t know, Joanie. Depends on the ask.”
“Can you steer clear of each other. For fuck’s sake—and for my sake, too.”
“For you, Joanie—but not for him. That asshole better stay out of my way.”
The smoke snakes around Joan as she rises and heads for the door. “You men are such babies, I’ll tell ya.”
After a shower and shave, Bill takes the two little cloud-white pills. The same pills he’s taken for years. The same pills that got him declared 4-F. He leaves room 218.
The scent of Windex and Clorox hangs heavy in the hallway. He doesn’t mind it. It reminds him of when he was a boy, helping his mother with the chores. Mommy’s Little Helper is what she called him. What did his dad call him again? Oh, yeah, a coward.
Bill walks down the corridor, lost in the orange and red geometric pattern of the carpet. He tries to find where the pattern breaks, as if it might be a maze, but it all ties together in a way that’s difficult for him to make sense of. Sort of like his own life. How did he end up in this pattern of otherness?
He walks past the elevator to the stairs, hoping the exercise will get those cute pills moving through his system faster. When he gets to the bar, he’ll order a scotch, maybe ask the bartender if there’s a place he could score something a little stronger. He feels woozy on the ride down. Feels…off. Maybe the pills are working after all. He hears music and laughter. Smells gardenias.
At the bar, Aunt Genie and Uncle Pete, well, Uncle Pete number two, the first Pete dying of cancer just before Joe had come back from the war, are sitting at one end of the bar, so Bill sits at the other. He orders a scotch, and stews; did Joe really believe the bullshit he was selling?
Dan Brown, Bill’s cousin, walks in, spots Bill drinking at the bar, sees Aunt Genie and Uncle Pete number two, decides to check on his smoldering cousin. He sits down at the stool next to Bill and nods to the bartender. “Hey there, I hear you’ve got the good stuff…” Dan squints at the bartender’s name tag. “Lloyd?”
“That we do, sir. Nothing but the best.” Lloyd takes a bottle from the wall and, without taking his eyes off of Dan, pours the caramel liquid into a tumbler. “I’m sure this will meet with your approval.”
“Ahh, you bet. Put it on Bill’s tab, Lloyd.” Dan lightly shoves his cousin. “Kidding, of course. These are on me.”
Lloyd takes his rag and wipes a drop of scotch from the bar-top. “Very well, sir. Very well.”
“Listen, Dan…now ain’t the best time. I’m not really—”
Dan waves him off. “Bill, you and Joe are always at each other’s throats—this is supposed to be a fun weekend. It’s a goddamn reunion, right? Let’s re unite. You and me, we’re gonna get nice and loose. Then we’re going to find us some ladies—”
“It’s a reunion, Dan. We gonna fuck our cousins?” Bill pushes his glass forward, Lloyd fills it.
“No, Bill, we’re not gonna fuck our cousins—Christ’s sake! No, I happen to know of a room with four of the prettiest girls you’ve ever seen who’re probably just itching for a good time. We go there, maybe bring a bottle of Champagne from the bar here—Lloyd, you can help us out with that, right?” The bartender smiles and nods. “And maybe we’ll see if a couple of these lovely gals want to come to the ballroom tonight, as our dates.” Dan looks around the room approvingly. “Now, if things go right, maybe the party lasts a little longer. But even if it don’t, we’ve had a better night than trying to hear Genie and Pete talk about their dog Pickles over Tommy Dorsey’s horn.”
It doesn’t sound terrible, Bill has to admit. He could use companionship. A night with a pretty girl in a fancy hotel room could be nice.
Lloyd hands Dan a sweating bottle and smiles. “This should do the trick, sir.”
Bill follows Dan to the elevator, but it never comes. “Must be stuck,” Dan says, rapidly pressing the call button. “Guess we’re going to have to earn our calories today, buddy boy.” On the way up they pass Joe and Joan on their way down for a drink. Joe’s nose is as crooked as his smile. And his shoulder supports the weight of an extra-large chip.
Bill smiles and winks at Joe, but Joan shoots a look that says, don’t try me, Billy Boy. He looks away without saying a word. But he’s feeling better already. Those pills must be working. Seeing Joe’s busted nose certainly helps.
Joe tugs in Bill’s direction, wanting to even the score, but Joan keeps a hand gripped tight on his wrist.
Yes, things are looking up, Bill thinks as they walk down the hallway. But the patterns are playing tricks on him, and he’s hit with a nasty bout of vertigo. He steadies himself against the wall.
“You okay, Bill?”
“Yeah, just…just a little thirsty.” Bill takes the bottle of Champagne from Dan and presses on. When they get to the room, Dan’s grin is about as wide as it could be.
Bill laughs. “Funny.”
“What?” Dan raises a brow.
“These ladies are staying in the room right across from mine?”
“You’re in 218?” Dan says, knocking on the door, and slicking his hair back with his palm. “Surprised you haven’t seen them. They’re gorgeous, Billy. You’re gonna—”
The door opens. Dan isn’t wrong; the woman who opens the door is stunning, with golden curls and bright green irises, almost as if colorized, like from a movie. Bill has forgotten all about Joe. About the vertigo and the pills—everything.
“Can I help you, gentlemen?” The woman says between drags on her cigarette.
Dan looks at Bill, but the words aren’t coming. He wants to be smooth, tell how pretty she’s looking, but he has to focus to keep from falling over from the vertigo.
Dan jumps in, “My cousin and I have this bottle of sunshine, and, well, we were raised right.” Dan pokes Bill with his thumb. “My dad would roll over in his grave if he knew there were thirsty women that I hadn’t offered a glass to.”
The woman pauses, sizing up the cousins, then steps aside.
Inside, three other women are sitting around a small table playing gin. “What do we have here, Samantha?” says one of the women.
The night was off to a bang. The girls were as fun as they were pretty. Bill was particularly attracted to the curly blonde who’d answered the door. Dan liked the brown-haired heiress, Mary, who’d stolen him away to the bathroom once the Champagne was finished.
Bill felt uncomfortable when Samantha put her hand down his pants. The other two girls were at the table watching them make out. He wondered if this might be one of those situations guys dream about—maybe they’d all get together. But as he considered this, Samantha squeezed harder than was pleasurable.
“Ouch, honey. Delicate stuff down there—”
He pulls away and gasps. Samantha’s eye is drooping, like his dad’s eye drooped when he had palsy and had asked Bill’s mom to keep him away from him, afraid of what the steroids were doing to his brain. And now Bill couldn’t trust his own mind—this can’t be real. The pills. Maybe they’re not mixing well with the booze. He blinks hard, and when he looks again, her face is porcelain and perfectly symmetrical.
She giggles. “Don’t you like it rough, Billy? You’re so virile. You serve?”
Did he serve? No, he didn’t fucking serve. Someone had to stay home and take care of their dad, who chose the perfect time to get sick. Someone had to work so that their mother could eat. And the vertigo…the doctor said it was real, even if everyone else looked at him as though he was a coward.
“No, no, I wasn’t able to fight. I wanted to, but…” Bill feels his erection fading. He stands.
“Where you going, Billy? We’re just getting started.” She tugged on his arm. “Oh, unless the reason you didn’t serve was because you don’t like…”
Bill grabs his jacket and bangs on the bathroom door. “Dan, I’m heading out. Got a headache again. You staying here?”
No answer.
“Dan, you okay?”
A clank from inside the bathroom and a giggle. “Dan is indisposed. But I’ll take good care of your cousin.”
The girls beg Bill to stay a little longer, but he’s no longer interested in these people.
On his way to his room, directly opposite the room he’s just left, the pattern on the floor halts him in place. It makes him feel like he’s on drugs. But besides those little white pills the doctor makes him gulp, and half a glass of Champagne, he’s not on anything. He closes his eyes and pushes through it, and when he reopens them, the pattern invites him forward, its thick lines splayed like an open farm-gate.
Once inside his room, he hears the girls laughing across the hall. He puts his pillow over his head and grimaces. No, he couldn’t serve. But he wanted to, god knows. But the dizziness. The dizziness.
The reunion is likely in full swing by now, everyone standing around Joe, patting him on the back, Joan kissing his neck. But in here, in room 218, lies Bill: a dizzy, despondent, and flaccid little man.
Somehow, he sleeps, and when he wakes up, he feels like a million smackers. He’s never felt this good. No dizziness. And he’s hard as a rock. He’s got a mind to go next door with his cock out to show Samantha. To show everyone. Maybe he’ll go down to the bar and show good ol’ Lloyd. He wonders how the bartender would respond to that. Very good, sir. None better since Excalibur, sir.
Then he hears it. A little rumble. A little engine revved up beyond hot. There’s a wasp in the room behind the curtain, itching to get out into the night air.
Bill grabs the Good Book from the drawer next to the bed to smash it. It seems the last tenant had the same problem; there’s dead wasp ground into the maroon linen cover. Its abdomen has been exploded across the word Bible.
He walks over to the furious insect, but he doesn’t hit it. Its anger is too relatable. Bill opens the curtain, looks around for the latch to open the window, and when he finds it, he pushes it open. The night air is warm and smells of pine. Below, a man and woman are arguing. Bill can’t see them, but he knows who it is. It’s Joe and Joan. He smiles. Trouble in paradise.
Just on the other side of the couple, a giant rabbit-shaped bush looks ready to hop over the moon. But the dog is hungry. And the lion is grouchy. Bill shudders.
The wasp inches along the window, ramming its head into the glass with a clink, clink, clink. But just before it flies out into the dark Colorado night, it bounces off the glass one final time, and then flies down Bill’s throat. He gags, clutching at his neck. He feels it fight its way down his esophagus. It’s a strange, foreign feeling. Not painful, but awkward. And when it’s down, it’s down. The room is quiet. Bill looks down at the couple, still arguing, and drops the Bible out the window. He’s still hard, maybe even harder. He pulls shut the window.
Bill puts on his suit and runs a comb through his hair. He’s looking as good as he’s feeling. He’s thinking about Joan again. A night with his sister-in-law would put everything right. And they’d been fighting, Joe and her. So maybe the idea has legs. Legs that’ll open under the right circumstances. He takes two more little white pills, preemptively. Doctor’s orders. And heads out into the hallway.
At the end of the hall, the elevator door slides open, and—
Bill lets out a cry that shocks himself. There’s Bill’s dad, his left eye drooping. His dad, who’s been dead for over four years now. Still, there he is, with his crooked smile, wearing his spotless uniform. His dad raises a hand, salutes, and pulls a revolver from his jacket pocket.
“Dad?”
His dad puts the gun to his head as the door slides shut.
BANG.
Bill tries to get back into his room, but the door is locked, and he’s left his keys inside. He pounds on 217, but nobody answers. Thankfully, the door is unlocked.
He rushes in, closing the door behind him. He’s breathing fast. Too fast. The dizziness is threatening to consume him again. He tries to stay calm. Says the mantra, does the steady breathing—thinks of little clouds and birds and snowcapped mountains.
Clank. A sound from the bathroom.
Bill approaches the door and speaks softly. “Sorry, don’t mean to intrude. I’m just…I needed a place to duck into for a moment. There’s…um…I—”
Another clank.
“You okay in there?”
Bill reaches for the doorknob, but before he can touch it, the door swings open. There’s Dan, face down in the bath. He runs over and pulls his cousin out by the arm, but when he hits the tile with a wet slap, he sees his cousin’s face, frozen in terror. The flesh on his cheek is rent. His left eye, sagging, like a hard-boiled egg that’s been stepped on.
Bill stumbles back, nearly falling over the threshold of the bathroom door. He runs out of the room and out into the hallway, but it’s different—the walls are no longer cream, they’re brown, and the carpet, the geometric pattern, is now a solid orange. There are no doors—not his room, not even the door he’s just come out of. Brown walls and orange carpet. Nothing else.
He runs. He doesn’t know where he’s going, or what he’s running from, but he knows it’s here with him. It’s in this maze—and a maze is just what it is.
He turns right, straight, left, left, straight right—falling against the brown walls, swimming through turns and channels, until, until, until—he sees it. It’s a platoon. Standing in front of him with their rifles on their shoulders. Every one of them, a family member. Every one of them brave. Every one of them, steady and honorable.
And then his father steps out from the ranks, his eyes still drooping—forever drooping. And when he smiles at him, Bill feels his bones break and his teeth crumble and his mind…well, his mind is oddly still. He’s no longer dizzy. And the blood, gushing from the elevator from behind the familial platoon, down the doorless hallway toward him, is welcomed. Let the blood come.
Yes. Let the blood wash it all down—the shame, the regret, the pride—like a cute pill.
And then there’s an axe, just right there leaning against the creamy wall. Right there, can you see it? With its sleek head on the geometric pattern. And everything is so steady now. And Joe’s limp, from where he took that bullet helping to rid the world of that evil man, and in doing so, rid the world of all evil, will soon be gone. He’ll be restored. And in that restoration, they’ll be equal again.
The Murphy brothers will be equal again.
Thanks for reading! And if you think I didn’t get a fair shake for the Views from the Overlook anthology, please contact your senators!
All joking and tears aside, I’m 100% going to pick up Views from the Overlook. And then I’m going to print out my story and insert it into my copy of the book. YOU CAN’T STOP ME!!
Also, pick up my book Cherry Kills!
damn sean you’re really fucking good at this
This is an awesome tribute!