My disorientation was total. The room was black. It didn’t smell familiar, and the digital clock was in the wrong place telling me some crap about 5:34. Where was I, and why had I been dreaming of moving to West Bengal? That’s when it came back to me in smelly waves of shame. Argh. I was pretty sure Johnny had seen me hurl last night. The humiliation was smothering.
And then it pierced my ears again, a scream as chilling as morgue water, the noise that had woken me. I sprung out of bed and was shoved back by a Mack truck of a headache. I powered through and felt my way to the door, focusing on a sliver of grayish light glowing through the curtains. I found the doorknob and turned it, welcoming the fresh and chilly lake air. West Battle’s waves were choppy and dark, the sun an hour and a half from rising. The only brightness issued from a lonely light in the parking lot. People were beginning to stir about in their rooms, but as of yet only two doors were open, mine and the one immediately to my right. A cleaning cart was resting between our rooms. I skirted it and entered the adjacent room gingerly, certain the scream had emanated from there.
I was paralyzed by what I saw.
In the middle of the room lay a crumpled male figure. A cleaning woman knelt next to the man, searching for a pulse. It was then that I noticed the jellied outline of a clear plastic bag over his head and the preternatural stillness that only death can bring.
I raced to the bedside phone to dial 911.
“Already called,” the cleaning lady said. “Besides, there’s no hurry.”
Her calmness unsettled me. “Were you the one who just screamed?”
“Yeah,” she said, leaning back on her heels. “This room was supposed to be empty. I was startled, is all. But you clean hotel rooms for enough years, and nothing really scares you anymore.” She indicated the plastic bag. “Must have suffocated himself. It’s tight around his neck.”
I didn’t want to get too close, didn’t want to see whose face it was, but I found myself tiptoeing around the body at a safe distance, just the same. And that’s how I came to stare into the dead eyes of Bob Webber, the blogger who would never again care if the world spelled his name with one or two b’s.