Keep The Windows Up

The Honda Odyssey idled at the border of the Flesh Wastes. The air conditioning was broken. It had been broken since Toledo, but Gary refused to pay out-of-network mechanic prices. He drummed his thumbs against the steering wheel. The steering wheel was sticky. Everything in the minivan was sticky.

"Keep the windows up," Gary said. He stared through the windshield.

The sky outside was the color of a bruised plum, heavily textured, pulsing with a slow, rhythmic heartbeat that vibrated through the chassis of the Honda. Fat, gray veins crisscrossed the horizon instead of power lines. Occasionally, a spasm would ripple across the clouds, dropping a sudden, localized shower of molars and bicuspids onto the highway. They clattered against the hood like hail.

"Dad, it is literally ninety degrees in here," Lucy said from the back seat. She didn't look up from her phone. The screen cast a harsh white glare on her face. Her thumbs moved in a blur.

"And it's a humid ninety," Gary said. "You roll down that window, and we let the humidity in. Plus, the sign back there said 'WARNING: CAUSTIC MIASMA.' I am not replacing the upholstery again because you wanted a breeze."

Barb sat in the passenger seat, aggressively working a crossword puzzle in a spiral-bound booklet. She had her reading glasses perched at the end of her nose. She licked her thumb, flipped a page, and sighed. "Gary, just pay the toll. We're holding up the line."

Gary leaned forward, squinting through the smeared glass. The tollbooth was a towering structure of fused ribcages and calcified spine segments. Inside the booth sat a writhing, amorphous mass of tentacles and blinking, yellow eyes. It wore a high-vis orange vest over its central bulk.

"I am trying to pay the toll, Barb," Gary said. "But the exchange rate is completely absurd. Look at the board."

He pointed a rigid finger at the digital display hanging from a femur bone above the booth. It read: CURRENT RATE - 1 MORTAL SOUL = 4.2 SOUL COINS.

"Last year it was one to six," Gary muttered. He unbuckled his seatbelt and leaned out the window, immediately coughing as a wave of hot, sulfurous air hit him. "Excuse me! Hello! Yes, you in the vest. The sign says four point two. Is that a typo?"

The mass of tentacles shifted. A wet, tearing sound echoed from the booth. A slit opened in the center of the mass, revealing a row of needle-sharp teeth. "The rate is the rate, mortal," a voice boomed. It sounded like two rocks grinding together at the bottom of a well. "Pay the toll or be consumed by the eternal rot."

Gary adjusted his glasses. "I'm not asking for a handout, I'm just saying the inflation here is out of control. I brought exact change based on last summer's brochure. I have three soul coins and a cursed doubloon. That should cover a standard two-axle vehicle."

"Four point two," the attendant hissed. One of its tentacles reached out, tapping the side of the minivan. It left a smear of black slime on the door.

"Gary," Barb warned without looking up from her puzzle. "Seven letters. A feeling of dread or anxiety. Starts with A."

"Anguish," Gary snapped. He turned back to the attendant. "Look, buddy. I have a reservation at the Abyssal Sands Resort. I am already late for the check-in window. Are you really going to hold me up over a fraction of a coin?"

"The toll requires a blood sacrifice or the equivalent in soul currency," the attendant repeated, its eyes blinking out of sync. "I do not make the rules. I merely enforce the misery."

From the middle row, Jaden kicked the back of Gary's seat. "Dad, move. My phone is at two percent and the charger back here is broken."

"It's not broken, Jaden, you have to hold the cable at an angle," Gary said. He sighed, a long, defeated sound that carried the weight of a thousand suburban commutes. He reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a small, leather pouch. He dumped the contents into his palm. Three dull, leaden coins that screamed faintly when exposed to the air, and one gold piece that dripped dark liquid.

He shoved his hand out the window. "Here. Take it. Keep the change. Just open the gate."

A tentacle whipped out, snatching the coins from Gary's hand. The screaming stopped. The gate of bone slowly raised, the joints popping loudly. Gary rolled the window up immediately and jammed the car into drive.

"Unbelievable," Gary muttered, accelerating onto the fleshy off-ramp. "Highway robbery. Literally. I'm writing a review on TripAdvisor the second we get to the room."

"Make sure you mention the terrible infrastructure," Barb said, writing 'ANGUISH' into her puzzle. "This road is entirely too soft. The suspension is taking a beating."

The minivan rolled over the spongy, purple asphalt of the Flesh Wastes. The landscape outside was a vast, undulating desert of muscle tissue, dotted with geysers that sprayed yellow bile into the sky. In the distance, the Abyssal Sands Resort loomed. It was a massive, brutalist structure constructed entirely out of black stone and what appeared to be thousands of screaming faces pressed into the mortar.

Gary pulled into the circular driveway. The valet was a towering, skeletal figure wearing a crisp red jacket. Gary ignored him, parking the minivan directly in the loading zone.

"Alright, everybody out. Grab your bags. Jaden, grab your sister's bag too. I am not making two trips," Gary ordered, popping the trunk.

They stood on the curb. The heat was oppressive, a wet, heavy blanket that immediately caused Gary's polo shirt to stick to his back. They grabbed their luggage and approached the sliding glass doors of the lobby.

The doors parted. A wet, rhythmic exhalation washed over them.

Gary stopped in his tracks. He looked down at his New Balances. The floor was soft, pink, and covered in a thin layer of moisture. It compressed under his weight.

"Oh, you have got to be kidding me," Gary said.

The entire lobby was the interior of a giant, pulsating lung. The walls expanded and contracted with a slow, wheezing rhythm. Bronchial tubes served as hallways, branching off into the darkness. The front desk was a massive, calcified tumor behind which three identical receptionists stood, their mouths sewn shut, communicating via a series of clicking noises.

Lucy gagged. She dropped her duffel bag on the squishy floor. "Dad. Are you serious right now?"

"It's rustic," Gary said defensively, pulling his rolling suitcase. The wheels dug into the floor tissue, refusing to spin. He had to drag it, leaving a deep furrow in the pink flesh. "The brochure said it was an immersive biological experience."

"It smells like a dead animal," Lucy said. She pinched her nose. The air hung thick, coating the back of her throat with the distinct, metallic grease of roadkill left on August asphalt. She pulled her phone out and opened her camera. She snapped a picture of the front desk and started typing aggressively. "Literally gagging. It's giving rotting meat. I'm posting this right now."

Jaden dropped his backpack. He held his phone up to the ceiling, walking in a tight circle. "I have zero bars. Nothing. Dad, you said there was Wi-Fi."

"There is Wi-Fi," Gary said, marching toward the desk. "I checked the box for premium internet. Just connect to the network."

Jaden walked over to a small, jagged altar of bone sitting near a cluster of seating organs that looked suspiciously like spleens. A small placard on the altar read: 'GUEST NETWORK INTERFACE.'

"It says it needs a blood sacrifice to connect," Jaden said, staring at the small, razor-sharp indent on the bone surface. "Dad, I'm not bleeding for the internet."

Barb walked over, her purse slung over her shoulder. She sighed heavily. "Honestly, you two. Give me your hand."

"No way," Jaden said, backing up.

Barb rolled her eyes. She unzipped a side pocket of her purse and pulled out a small, plastic pouch. She unzipped it, revealing her diabetic testing kit. She pulled out a spring-loaded lancet. "Watch and learn. I do this twice a day."

She pressed the plastic tip against her index finger. Click. A tiny bead of blood welled up on her skin. She reached out and smeared the drop onto the bone altar.

The altar glowed with a sickly green light. A series of archaic runes flashed across the surface, followed by a standard Wi-Fi symbol.

"There," Barb said, putting her finger in her mouth for a second. "The password is 'Guest2026' with a capital G. Now download your little games and stop whining."

Jaden's phone pinged. A flood of notifications poured in. He immediately sat down on a spleen, entirely tuning out the horrifying reality around him.

Gary was currently at the desk, leaning over the calcified tumor. The receptionist clicked rapidly, pointing to a clipboard.

"I understand it's a promotional package," Gary said loudly, using his stern customer service voice. "But I was not informed that the mandatory timeshare presentation was at six a.m. We are on vacation. We sleep in on vacation."

The receptionist clicked again, a fast, aggressive staccato.

"Fine. Fine! But we are getting the free breakfast buffet," Gary said, snatching a keycard made of compressed hair from the desk. "Come on, family. Room 402. Let's get settled before the bleeding walls stain the luggage."

Presentation Room C

The alarm clock in Room 402 was a jar of screaming cicadas that went off precisely at five-thirty the next morning. Gary was already awake, dressed in khaki shorts and a polo shirt tucked in tight. He stood in front of the bathroom mirror, shaving his neck. The mirror was a sheet of polished obsidian that occasionally reflected a version of Gary who had died in a fire, but Gary just adjusted his angle and kept shaving.

"Let's go, let's go!" Gary yelled, clapping his hands as he walked into the main room. The walls of the suite were lined with a velvety red membrane that was surprisingly soft to the touch. "Presentation starts in twenty minutes. If we're late, we lose the two free nights in the Agony Suites."

Barb emerged from the bedroom, looking completely exhausted. She wore a floral blouse and carried a large Yeti tumbler filled with dark, sludge-like coffee from the lobby machine. "I don't even want the two free nights, Gary. The pillows in here feel like they're breathing."

"They're ergonomic," Gary insisted. "Where are the kids?"

Lucy walked out of the second bedroom, dragging her feet. She wore oversized sweatpants and a cropped hoodie. She had her AirPods in, staring blankly at the floor. Jaden followed close behind, his eyes glued to his iPad screen, his thumbs tapping furiously.

"Put the screens away. We have to look engaged," Gary commanded, ushering them out the door.

Presentation Room C was located in the lower bowels of the resort. To get there, the family had to ride an elevator that felt less like a machine and more like the descending esophagus of a very large beast. The doors opened to reveal a surprisingly mundane corporate conference room.

The carpet was a dull, patterned beige. The ceiling was composed of standard acoustic tiles with flickering fluorescent lights. The only indication that they were in the Flesh Wastes was the fact that the walls were slowly oozing a clear, viscous fluid that smelled vaguely of pennies.

Gary chose seats in the second row. He sat up straight, placing a notebook and a pen on the fold-out desk attached to his chair. Barb sat next to him, sipping her sludge. Lucy slouched in her chair, pulling her hood up. Jaden immediately searched for an outlet to plug in his iPad.

At the front of the room stood a podium. Behind the podium was a tear in the fabric of reality. It was a jagged, black void that emitted a low, continuous frequency of human suffering. It sounded like a million voices crying out in eternal torment, but muffled, like it was playing through a blown speaker.

A figure walked out from a side door and stepped up to the podium. It was an eldritch horror of indeterminate geometry. It possessed at least seven eyes, scattered randomly across a mass of grey, folded flesh that vaguely resembled a face. It had too many limbs, all of which were stuffed into an ill-fitting, cheap beige suit. The suit jacket was wrinkled, and the sleeves were too short, revealing wrists covered in suction cups.

"Good morning, future owners," the horror said. Its voice bypassed the ears entirely and projected directly into their frontal lobes. It smelled overwhelmingly of cheap drugstore cologne and sulfur. "I am The Concierge. Thank you for joining us at the Abyssal Sands Resort."

The Concierge clicked a remote. A projection screen lowered from the ceiling, covering the screaming void. The first slide was a stock photo of a family smiling on a beach, but the water was red and the sky was on fire.

"Today, we are going to talk about legacy. We are going to talk about eternity. And more importantly, we are going to talk about fractional ownership," The Concierge projected.

Gary nodded along, taking a note in his notebook.

"For a small down payment of your soul's vitality, you can secure a fixed week every year in our premium tier," The Concierge continued, pacing back and forth. The suit jacket strained against a sudden bulge in its back that looked like a vestigial wing trying to break free. "Imagine knowing that your family has a guaranteed vacation spot, year after year, until the sun burns out and the universe collapses into cold dust."

Gary raised his hand.

The Concierge stopped pacing. Several eyes swiveled to focus on Gary. "Yes. The gentleman in the khakis."

"Hi, Gary Miller, from Ohio," Gary said, standing up slightly. "I have a question about the maintenance fees. On page four of the pamphlet, it says the fees are subject to an annual increase tied to the torment index. But it doesn't state a cap."

The Concierge blinked slowly. "The torment index fluctuates based on the collective misery of the mortal realm. We cannot cap it. It is a variable rate."

"Okay, but what if there's a war? Or a plague?" Gary argued, stepping out into the aisle. "I'm not going to be on the hook for a sudden spike in misery just because someone in Europe presses a button. I want a fixed rate."

"The rate is the rate," The Concierge said, a hint of annoyance vibrating in Gary's brain.

"And what about that?" Gary pointed directly at the projection screen. The screen had rolled up slightly, revealing the screaming void behind it. "Is access to the void included in the maintenance fee? Because if I have to pay extra for existential dread, I'm walking right now."

Barb put her head in her hands. "Gary, please sit down."

Lucy watched her father argue with a multi-dimensional deity over an APR percentage. She let out a long, slow breath. She stood up, grabbed her phone, and quietly walked to the back of the room.

Nobody noticed her leave. Gary was currently demanding to see a manager, completely unfazed by the fact that The Concierge's face was beginning to split open to reveal a nest of writhing centipedes.

Lucy pushed through the heavy double doors and walked out into the hallway. The air was cooler here, damp and smelling of wet stone. She wandered aimlessly, following a series of signs written in a language she couldn't read, but that vaguely pointed toward a symbol of a wave.

She turned a corner and found the resort pool.

It was not a pool. It was a massive, circular pit sunken into the ground, filled with a thick, churning gray sludge. There were no lounge chairs. There was no diving board. Instead, dozens of guests stood at the edge of the pit, staring down into the gray mass, weeping silently. The sludge reflected their deepest regrets, their missed opportunities, their inevitable deaths.

Lucy stood at the edge and looked down. She saw a brief flash of herself failing her freshman biology final, followed by a vision of her dropping her phone in a toilet. She shrugged. "Whatever."

"It's heavy stuff, right?" a voice said.

Lucy turned. Leaning against a cabana constructed entirely of giant, bleached ribs was a guy. He looked around nineteen. He had pale gray skin, two small black horns protruding from his forehead, and completely solid black eyes. He wore a vintage band t-shirt, ripped black jeans, and combat boots. He was holding a small, metallic device to his lips.

He inhaled deeply, then blew out a thick cloud of blue vapor.

"I'm Lucy," she said, walking over.

"Gore," he replied. His voice was raspy, but normal. He didn't speak into her mind like the resort staff. He held out the vape. "Want a hit? It's pure social anxiety. Tastes like blue raspberry and the fear of being perceived."

"I don't vape," Lucy said. She leaned against the ribcage next to him. "You work here?"

"Nah. I'm local," Gore said. He shoved his hands in his pockets. "I just hang out around the resort to watch the mortals freak out. Your dad is currently yelling at an entity older than time itself about blackout dates."

"Yeah, that's Gary," Lucy said, rolling her eyes. "He brought a calculator on the trip. He's been doing math since we crossed the tollbooth."

Gore laughed. It was a dry, scraping sound. "You want to get out of here? This place is depressing. I've got my ride parked out back."

Lucy looked at the weeping guests, then back at the hallway leading to the presentation room. "Sure. Beats watching my dad negotiate a timeshare in hell."

Buffet Line Casualties

While Gary was still engaged in a heated debate regarding the transferability of the deed in the event of an apocalyptic rapture, Jaden realized he was starving. He had successfully ignored the presentation by playing a tower defense game, but his battery was now dangerously low, and his stomach was making loud, angry noises.

He stood up, tucked the iPad under his arm, and slipped out the side door. The Concierge was too busy explaining the concept of infinite recursive debt to Gary to notice. Jaden wandered down the hallway, following the distinct smell of burning sugar and copper.

He found the dining hall. It was a cavernous room with vaulted ceilings that resembled the inside of a ribcage. Long, stainless-steel buffet tables stretched across the floor.

Jaden grabbed a plate from a stack at the end of the line. The plate was warm. Too warm. He decided not to think about it. He walked down the line, inspecting the chafing dishes.

Underneath a sneeze guard made of translucent cartilage, the food was waiting.

Jaden paused at the first dish. It was a large, roasted hunk of meat that looked vaguely like ham, glazed in a thick, dark syrup. It smelled incredible. He picked up a pair of heavy metal tongs and reached for a slice.

As the metal teeth of the tongs closed around the meat, the ham flinched.

Jaden stopped. He stared at the ham. The ham did not have eyes, but it definitely had a mouth. A jagged tear in the center of the roast opened, revealing rows of tiny, needle-like bones. The ham hissed, a sound like fat popping in a hot skillet.

"Whoa," Jaden said softly.

The ham lunged. It snapped its terrifying mouth, the jaw unhinging to bite the tongs. It clamped down on the metal with incredible force, yanking Jaden forward. His stomach hit the buffet table.

"Hey!" Jaden yelled, trying to pull the tongs back. The ham was surprisingly strong. It thrashed side to side, knocking over a tray of gelatinous blue cubes that began to crawl away as soon as they hit the floor.

Jaden pulled harder, but his grip was slipping. The ham began to inch its way up the tongs, snapping its jaws wildly, trying to reach Jaden's hand.

Jaden looked around. The dining hall was empty. There was no staff. He looked down at his right hand. He was holding his iPad. It was an older generation, encased in a thick, heavy-duty black Otterbox. The screen was already spider-webbed with cracks from the time he dropped it down the stairs.

He sighed. "Stupid thing is slow anyway."

He gripped the iPad with both hands, raised it high above his head, and brought it down with all his adolescent strength directly onto the center of the ham.

The impact was loud. A sickening crunch echoed through the hall. The ham let out a high-pitched squeal, released its grip on the tongs, and went limp on the tray.

Jaden stood there, breathing heavily. He lifted the iPad. The screen was completely shattered now, dark and unresponsive. He looked at the dead ham. He used the tongs, carefully lifted a non-moving slice from the edge, and placed it on his plate. He moved down the line, entirely unfazed, looking for the macaroni and cheese.

Across the resort, Barb had finally reached her breaking point. She had left the presentation room twenty minutes after Lucy, unable to listen to Gary argue about property taxes in a dimension that didn't have a government.

She marched down a corridor lined with pulsing veins until she found a set of double doors marked 'SERENITY SPA & RENEWAL.'

She pushed through the doors. The spa was surprisingly calm. The lighting was low and amber. The ambient music was a slow, rhythmic chanting that sounded like monks trapped in a well. Behind the reception desk stood a tall, slender woman with perfectly smooth, featureless white skin. No eyes, no nose, just a smooth plane of porcelain flesh and a small, smiling mouth.

"Welcome," the receptionist said, her voice like wind chimes. "Do you have an appointment?"

"No, I am a walk-in," Barb said, leaning on the desk. She rubbed her temples. "I need a treatment. Something aggressive. My husband is currently trying to out-stubborn an ancient evil, my children are addicted to screens, and I have had a migraine since we crossed the state line. What do you have for tension?"

"Our signature treatment is the Deep Tissue Renewal," the receptionist purred. "It is a comprehensive exfoliation process. We remove the burden of the superficial to reveal the raw strength beneath."

"Sounds perfect. I'll take it," Barb said, handing over her room keycard.

Five minutes later, Barb was lying face down on a padded table in a dimly lit room. The air smelled of eucalyptus and ozone. The aesthetician, another featureless porcelain woman, entered the room carrying a silver tray.

"We will begin the peeling," the aesthetician said softly.

"Just go deep," Barb mumbled into the face cradle. "My shoulders are a mess."

Barb expected a scrub. Perhaps some hot stones. What she did not expect was the aesthetician making a swift, painless incision down the back of her neck with a surgical scalpel.

Barb gasped as she felt a sudden rush of cold air against the back of her neck. But there was no pain. Only a bizarre, intense sensation of release.

"What are you doing?" Barb asked, her voice muffled.

"Releasing the tension," the aesthetician replied. She gripped the edges of the incision. With a smooth, practiced motion, she pulled.

The sound was like a zipper opening, or thick velvet tearing. The aesthetician peeled the skin from Barb's back, rolling it down her sides like a tight, wet wetsuit.

Barb lifted her head. She looked at her arm. The skin was gone. In its place was raw, glistening red muscle. Thick bands of white tendons flexed as she moved her fingers. The blue web of her veins pulsed openly in the dim light.

She sat up. The aesthetician finished peeling the skin from her legs, folding the discarded epidermis neatly at the end of the table.

Barb stood up. She looked in the full-length mirror against the wall. She was a towering anatomical model of human musculature. She had no skin. She was completely flayed.

She rolled her shoulders. The heavy, aching tension that had plagued her for years was completely gone. Her joints moved with frictionless grace. She felt the cool air directly on her muscles. She felt incredibly, undeniably powerful.

She flexed a bicep. The thick red fibers bundled and bulged. The white tendons strained perfectly.

"Oh my god," Barb whispered, admiring her triceps. "This is amazing. My hot flashes are completely gone."

"You are renewed," the aesthetician said, bowing slightly.

"I feel fantastic," Barb said. She grabbed her floral blouse from the chair. She didn't bother putting it on. She just tied it around her waist. "I have to go show Gary. He's never going to believe this. How much should I tip you?"

Far away from the spa, out in the ash-covered dunes behind the resort, Lucy was holding her phone up high, trying to find an angle that captured the sheer insanity of her current situation.

"Hey guys, what is up, it's Lucy," she said into the camera. "GRWM while I ride this mutant dog in hell."

She flipped the camera. She was sitting astride a massive, multi-legged beast that looked like a cross between a dire wolf and a hairless rat. Its skin was mottled gray, and it had three rows of jagged teeth. It panted heavily, drool sizzling as it hit the hot sand.

Gore sat in front of her, holding a set of thick leather reins attached to a bone bit in the beast's mouth. He looked back at her and grinned. "You ready? Hold on tight. Meatball accelerates fast."

"His name is Meatball?" Lucy asked, laughing. She adjusted her grip on Gore's waist.

"Yeah. He's a rescue," Gore said. He snapped the reins. "Hyah!"

Meatball roared, a sound that shook the ground, and launched forward. The acceleration was violent. The wind whipped Lucy's hair back as the beast tore across the Flesh Wastes. The landscape blurred into streaks of purple and red. Geysers of bile erupted around them, painting the sky yellow.

Lucy screamed, but it was a scream of pure adrenaline. She held her phone steady, recording the whole thing. She watched the viewer count in the corner of her screen jump from twelve to four hundred in a matter of seconds.

"Bro, the chat is losing their minds," Lucy yelled over the rushing wind.

Gore swerved Meatball around a towering pillar of calcified bone. "Tell them to smash that like button!"

Lucy laughed, leaning into the turn. For the first time since the road trip started, she wasn't bored. The air was hot, the beast was terrifying, and the boy driving it was a literal demon, but she felt entirely alive.

She looked down at her phone. A comment popped up from one of her friends back home.

User_Kayla: Omg where are you? Is that a filter???

Lucy typed back with one hand, her thumbs flying across the keyboard despite the bumpy ride.

Just at a timeshare. Brb, trying not to fall into the void.

Contract Signatures

In Presentation Room C, the negotiation had reached a critical impasse. Gary stood at the front of the room, his notebook covered in frantic, underlined calculations. The Concierge towered over him, its multiple eyes narrowing into slits of pure, cosmic malice.

"So let me get this straight," Gary said, tapping his pen against the paper. "You want me to sign a contract, in blood, committing my bloodline to this property for eternity. But, according to clause 7B, you have blackout dates during the Blood Moon."

"The Blood Moon is our peak season," The Concierge hissed. The temperature in the room had dropped twenty degrees. Frost was forming on the edge of the podium. "The resort is reserved for high-ranking archdemons and lords of the abyss during that cycle."

"The Blood Moon falls in August!" Gary shouted, throwing his hands up. "That's the only month I can get two consecutive weeks off work! Jaden has baseball camp in July, and Lucy starts school in September. If I can't use the timeshare in August, this whole deal is useless!"

The Concierge leaned forward. The illusion of the beige suit flickered, revealing the true horror of its form—a writhing mass of teeth, eyes, and endless void. "You try my patience, mortal. You will sign the contract. Or you will not leave this room."

A loud, heavy click echoed through the space. The double doors at the back of the room locked. The fluorescent lights shattered, plunging the room into darkness, save for the sickly purple glow emanating from The Concierge's body.

"Are you threatening me?" Gary asked, his voice wavering slightly, but his stubbornness refusing to yield. "Because I have a lawyer in Toledo who specializes in high-pressure sales tactics."

"I do not need to threaten you, Gary," The Concierge boomed, its voice shaking the acoustic ceiling tiles loose. "I will unspool your ancestral timeline. I will erase your lineage from the fabric of reality. You will be less than dust. You will be nothing. Now. Sign. The. Contract."

A heavy silence fell over the room. Gary stared at the massive, terrifying entity. He looked down at the glowing red pen sitting on the contract. He swallowed hard.

Suddenly, the heavy double doors at the back of the room exploded inward.

The heavy wood splintered and tore off the hinges, crashing to the floor. Standing in the doorway, illuminated by the hallway lights, was a towering, nine-foot-tall figure of raw, glistening muscle.

Barb stepped into the room. She was completely skinless. Her muscles flexed and rippled with every movement. She held her floral blouse casually in one hand. She walked down the center aisle, her heavy footsteps shaking the floor.

She stopped right behind Gary. She glared up at The Concierge.

"Is there a problem here?" Barb asked. Her voice was deeper now, resonating from a chest cavity unburdened by fat or skin.

The Concierge shrank back slightly. Its multiple eyes blinked rapidly. "Madam. You are... interrupting a binding negotiation."

Barb cracked her knuckles. The sound was like dry branches snapping. She stepped around Gary, placing herself directly between her husband and the eldritch horror. She raised one arm, flexing her bicep. The striated muscle fibers bulged, practically humming with power.

"My husband said he wants August," Barb growled, stepping closer to the podium. "Are you going to give him August, or am I going to reach into that void behind you and pull your insides out through your face?"

The Concierge stared at the towering, flayed woman. It looked at her exposed deltoids. It looked at the sheer, terrifying confidence radiating from her exposed nervous system.

"I..." The Concierge stammered. The illusion of the beige suit snapped back into place. "I suppose we could make an exception for the Blood Moon. Subject to availability, of course."

"Good," Barb said, crossing her muscular arms. "And waive the maintenance fees for the first century."

Before The Concierge could argue, another figure walked into the room. It was Lucy, followed closely by Gore. Lucy was covered in a fine layer of gray dust, her hair wild, a massive grin on her face.

"Hey guys," Lucy said casually. She looked at Barb. "Mom, did you get a peel? Your skin looks... gone."

"Deep tissue renewal," Barb said proudly, patting her exposed obliques. "I feel twenty years younger."

Gore stepped up to the podium. He looked at The Concierge, then down at the contract on the desk. He pulled his vape out, took a hit, and blew a cloud of blue anxiety directly into The Concierge's cluster of eyes.

"Bro, your conversion rate is garbage," Gore said, leaning on the podium. "You're trying to lock this guy into a fixed-week asset in a depreciating dimensional market. That's amateur hour."

The Concierge coughed, waving the vapor away. "Who are you?"

"I'm the new negotiator," Gore said, tapping the contract. "Here's the deal. You're going to pivot to a points-based equity model. Gary here gets two free weeks in the Scream Dimension every August, fully transferable, zero blackout dates. In exchange, he signs the blood oath, but we cap the torment index at three percent annually. If you don't take the deal, I'm going to livestream your high-pressure sales tactics to the High Council of the Abyss. I know they hate bad PR."

The Concierge stared at Gore. It looked at Barb, who was currently doing a light calf stretch, her tendons popping loudly. It looked at Gary, who was furiously writing down the new terms in his notebook.

"Fine," The Concierge spat. It waved a tentacle over the contract. The text shifted, glowing a bright, angry red as the new terms magically appeared on the parchment. "The terms are updated. Sign it and leave."

Gary read over the contract twice. He nodded in satisfaction. He picked up the glowing red pen. He pressed the tip to his thumb, drawing a drop of blood, and pressed it onto the signature line.

The contract burst into black flames and vanished, sealed for eternity.

"Pleasure doing business with you," Gary said, closing his notebook. "Come on, family. Checkout is at eleven and I am not paying a late fee."

Lucy turned to Gore. "Thanks for the ride. Meatball is a good boy."

"Anytime," Gore said, giving her a two-finger salute. "Text me if you ever want to ride a leviathan. I know a guy who runs a stable in the Marianas Trench."

"Bet," Lucy said.

Thirty minutes later, the Honda Odyssey was packed and idling in the circular driveway. The valet, entirely intimidated by the sight of Barb loading the heavy suitcases with one hand, stood silently in the corner. Jaden was in the back seat, furiously typing on his cracked iPad, trying to capture the last remaining bars of Wi-Fi.

Gary sat in the driver's seat. He put the car in drive. "Alright. Next stop, home. I think we made good time, considering."

Barb sat in the passenger seat, carefully laying a towel over the seat so her exposed muscles wouldn't stick to the leather. She picked up her crossword puzzle. "Gary, turn the air conditioning on."

"Barb, I told you, the compressor is shot," Gary said, pulling out of the driveway.

Barb reached over, gripped the dashboard with her powerful, skinless hand, and squeezed. The plastic cracked. "Gary. Turn the air on."

Gary swallowed hard. He reached out and flipped the dial. A blast of freezing cold air immediately blasted from the vents. "Oh. Look at that. It fixed itself."

The minivan merged onto the fleshy highway, picking up speed. In the back seat, Lucy pulled out her phone and connected to the auxiliary cord. A heavy bass beat filled the cabin.

"Hey, change the song!" Jaden complained, kicking her seat.

"My aux cord, my rules!" Lucy yelled back.

Gary tapped the steering wheel to the beat, entirely ignoring the rain of human teeth bouncing off the minivan windshield. The minivan hit eighty on the interstate, leaving two parallel tracks of black fire burning on the asphalt as Gary finally turned up the radio.