CHAPTER II
Two weeks had gone by, and on the appointed day Paul had showed up at the doorstep of America Manor. The servants had shown him in, made a few gestures here and there by way of showing him around, and then, in broken Star-Spanglish, indicated that they would be leaving to let him spend the night alone and that he could help himself to anything in the fridge. And then that was that… as the last of their 254.4 million cars pulled away towards Mexico, Paul shut the gate and turned back.
After a brief deliberation Paul decided to spend the night in the New York wing of the house, which had been recently renovated and was generally considered quite safe. His footsteps echoed down the empty streets and hallways, past silent animated advertisements that were selling six foot Naturally Whitened smiles to nobody in particular.
Picking a room which looked cozy, a loft facing the bay, Paul settled in. The sunset was brilliant in the west, reflecting off the buildings and distant calls of scattered birds. They seemed jubilant, aware something was different. Joyful in the stillness. Peaceful.
Paul found himself smiling. This was his now, and while he couldn’t fathom why, or even be sure that his uncle had really meant to bless him with it, this was where he found himself. Like that proverbial gift horse, now separated into ashes, metaphysics, and memories, there wasn’t a proverbial mouth here left for him to look into, and therefore he would keep his gaze focused on the bright future that lay before him.
Though he may still work at the 7-11, it would be clear that things had changed. He might not actually have much money to speak of, but so long as America Manor would run itself – and his uncle had made sure that it would by bequeathing him his crony capitalism and mostly-free market – Paul no longer had to worry about providing a roof over his head or meals on the table, and there went most of his expenses right there. And anyone who came into that 7-11 would see, looking into his eyes: here was a man with money, or actually just a really sweet house fortified to survive all but the most explosive housing bubbles. Respect would slowly dawn across their features like the rising sun in winter. And then they would buy a candy bar, and it would be $1.06, and would they like their receipt?
They wouldn’t.
But, there were two questions which nagged, albeit somewhat halfheartedly, at the edges of Paul’s peacefulness. First of all: why did he have to spend this first night alone here? Spending the night in a totally sweet house, free of charge, no one to bother him – now how was that a test of any sort at all? Did his uncle just want to make sure his possibly-beloved grandnephew was not a monophobe?
And secondly: was he really alone?
He was just wondering, you see.
All of a sudden (OH FUCK) there came a loud knock at the door, breaking the stillness, shattering his reverie, and causing him to drop the sandwich he’d been holding. “Y-yes?” Paul called, fumbling around, his heart stopped between the five-second rule and the unseen visitor.
“Room service,” called back a somewhat gravelly, but nonetheless cheery voice.
“Oh. Um. Thanks!” Paul found the sandwich, re-plated it on his nightstand, and strode to the door.
The hall was as empty as he had found it on his own way in. The only difference was a tray on the ground, bearing a single silver-domed plate, steaming slightly. A tangy, spicy, pungent, delicious aroma made a beeline for his nose, and he realized with a start that maybe the sandwich really wasn’t what he had wanted after all. Paul glanced down the hallway to look for the mysterious busboy, but there was no sign either of him or of his bus.
Paul shut the door and set it down on his bed, then removed the cover. Steam billowed up and a bolt of flavor shot his nostrils right through… buffalo wings… but then he saw it.
The plate had clearly originally contained about twenty wings, ten tiny buffalos worth. But someone had eaten most of them, and left their bones… arranging them to spell “GET OUT” in letters writ red with hot sauce. This was mildly ominous – scratch that, medium-hotly ominous – and entirely mysterious. It did occur to Paul that having someone else left in America Manor with him might technically be a no-no, but it wasn’t his fault so they could hardly blame him. And while their shyness and uncanny method of communicating raised all of the hackles on Paul’s craw, gullet, and navel combined, it was also quite possible that they simply meant that he should get out more, a sentiment he rather agreed with.
In the lower-left corner of the plate, they had left him about five wings. Paul was running out of gift horse metaphors and was hungry, so he ate them straight away. He finished, licking his fingers to free them of their rouge covering as best as he could, then headed to the bathroom to wash up.
He was not in there for more than a minute when he saw something which made his blood run cold, and he screamed as if he had never screamed before and was consequently not very good at it. He looked around frantically to find something to prove him wrong, a box of Kleenex, a tattered newspaper, anything to make it right.
Paul America’s secret worst fear had come true, far worse than the imagined horrors of poverty or of double shifts at the 7-11.
Whoever usually lived here, there was something deeply wrong.
