Interesting Times (Interesting Times #1) (14 page)

Smith
regarded Oliver nervously. “All right, then,” he said.

They
drove on in silence. Oliver saw a road sign announcing that they were about to
enter Portsmouth. They’d crossed into New Hampshire, then. He hadn’t noticed
where the state line had been, but today New Hampshire was just as good as
Maine. Smith took an off-ramp just outside of the city and pulled into a gas station.
“You want to get this one, buddy?” Smith asked, stopping adjacent to a pump.

“Sure,”
Oliver said. It was the least he could do, he thought. He’d be happy to buy the
gas all the way to Boston as long as Smith didn’t turn out to be a vampire, or
a werewolf, or some kind of alien.

Oliver
used a credit card at the pump and then went inside the station to buy snacks
and sodas for he and Smith to share. When he came back outside, he was not
entirely surprised to find that Smith was gone. He couldn’t blame the man. He
must have sounded like a complete lunatic before, with the talking cat business
and all that.

There
was a working pay phone just outside the gas station’s front doors. Oliver used
it to call 411 and had them connect him to a taxi company. Half an hour later
he was in the back of a cab heading into Portsmouth. This time he resolved to
keep his mouth shut about anything remotely metaphysical. It wasn’t worth the
trouble.

Oliver
couldn’t recall if Portsmouth had been on the itinerary when he’d been on
vacation with his parents, but he knew he didn’t plan on staying here long. “Is
there an airport here?” he asked the cab driver.

“Pease,”
the man said.

Oliver
was taken aback. “Okay, is there an airport here, please?”

“No,
no,” the driver said. “It’s called Pease. Portsmouth International.”

“Great.”
An international airport sounded promising. “Who goes there?  American? 
United?”

“Nothing
commercial,” the driver said. “It’s just general aviation and freight, I
think.”

Oliver
sighed. “Just take me to a hotel, then. I don’t care which one. Just something
decent.”

“The
Sheraton is nice,” the driver offered. 

“The
Sheraton, then.”

The
driver hadn’t lied. The Sheraton was perfectly acceptable, if a little smaller
in size than Oliver was accustomed to. But he remembered that he was in New
England, and the skyscrapers that dotted San Francisco’s skyline simply didn’t
exist here. He inquired about a room at the front desk, only to be told the
Honeymoon Suite was the only room available.

“I’ll
take it,” Oliver said, slapping a credit card down on the counter.

“But…”
the clerk began. “It’s the Honeymoon Suite.”

“Do I
have to be married to get the room?” he asked.

“No, but
it’s for newlyweds.”

Oliver
sighed deeply. “Let me ask you something. Do you think there is a newlywed
couple out there, anywhere in the world, that is worried right now because they
didn’t reserve this particular room? ‘Oh, honey, this is the happiest day of my
life, but I forgot to reserve the hotel room in Portsmouth!’ Seriously?”

The
clerk looked less than amused. “No.”

“Well,
you never know,” Oliver said. “Maybe there is. Give me the room, and if those
entirely unlikely people do show up here, I’ll let them have it. It’ll be my
gift to them.”

Oliver
showed the clerk his driver’s license and was quickly off to his room, feeling
more than a little ashamed of himself. He wasn’t usually that sarcastic with
strangers. Or at all, he thought. But he’d been through a lot, and he thought
maybe he was entitled to a bit of abruptness. Just a bit, mind you. He wouldn’t
want to make it a habit.

The
suite was on the hotel’s highest floor, which was to say it was on the third
floor. Oliver wasn’t sure what all the fuss had been about. The room’s door had
a plaque bolted to it that read “Honeymoon Suite,” but that was the most
romantic thing about it. The furnishings inside were entirely what he would
have expected. There was one ordinary queen bed, which was definitely not
formed in the shape of a heart or covered in red satin sheets. There was a
perfectly acceptable television and an armoire against one wall. Maybe they
dressed the place up when they had a reservation, Oliver thought. Flower petals
and chocolates on the bed, or something like that. He wasn’t sure what hotels
usually did.

Oliver
checked inside the minibar and helped himself to a four-dollar can of diet
soda. He flipped on the television and looked through the channels, none of
which interested him. He spent a moment watching CNN to see if there was
anything odd in the news, be it lizards or vampires or magical doors appearing
out of nowhere. It was entirely ordinary. Democrats and Republicans didn’t like
each other, and there was trouble in the Middle East. Same as every other day.
Oliver was almost disappointed.

He
dialed room service and ordered a turkey sandwich with a side of steak fries,
which arrived promptly fifteen minutes later. Oliver tore into it with the
vigor of a starving man. He hadn’t realized until the smell of food hit him how
hungry he really was.

Oliver
turned the television to one of the local cable channels, which was running a
marathon of a detective series.  He’d seen the current episode already.
Deciding he’d earned it, he went back to the minibar and spent five dollars on
a package of M&M’s for dessert. He thought about it for a moment, then took
two miniature bottles of Scotch as well. He knew the alcohol was absurdly
overpriced, but he no longer cared. He downed them one after the other and
watched the television detective get one step closer to finding the murderer. 

Half an
hour later he switched off the television and lay back on the bed. He was
tired. When was the last time he’d gone to sleep without the unwanted
assistance of drugs? He couldn’t remember now, and he didn’t care. Oliver
sighed deeply and drifted off to sleep.

And for
the first time in his life, Oliver dreamed.

Chapter 15

Oliver
found himself in a lecture hall, seated in a padded chair equipped with a
tablet arm. He looked around, surprised. He’d been here before. He was at his
university, Fordham Heights College. This room was in the humanities wing, if
he remembered correctly. It had been packed the last time he’d been in here,
but now he was the only student in the class.

The room
had a pitched floor so as to increase the available seating. At the lowest
level stood a podium, with a blackboard just behind it. Behind the podium stood
Dr. Thomas, his old astronomy professor.

“Good
morning, Mr. Jones,” said the professor.

“Good
morning, Dr. Thomas,” said Oliver politely. This was a dream, wasn’t it? His
first dream? Weren’t you supposed to be able to pinch yourself to see if you
were dreaming? Oliver hesitated, then reached down and pinched his own leg.
“Ow,” he said. That had hurt. Wait, did feeling pain mean that it was a dream
or not a dream? He couldn’t remember.

“What
did you think of the reading?” his professor asked, holding up a thin volume.
Oliver leaned forward so he could read the title. The book was
A Brief History
of Time
, by Stephen Hawking. Oliver remembered it. It had been assigned as
part of his “Great Works” class, which had been mandatory for all freshmen in
his school. The assigned readings had included authors such as Shakespeare,
Tolstoy, and for some reason, Stephen Hawking.

“I
thought it was difficult,” Oliver said honestly. He had.

“What
struck you the most?”

“Well,”
Oliver began. It was difficult to say, given how little of it he had
understood. “We had been talking about mass-energy equivalence before.”

“And
what conclusion can we draw?”

“Physics
is hard,” replied Oliver.

“Dumbass”
jeered a new voice. Oliver looked at the desk nearest to him. Jeffrey was
sitting on top of it, looking back at him. Now Oliver was positive he was
dreaming. He’d have remembered if a talking cat had been in his class. People
remembered that kind of thing.

“What
conclusion can we draw?” Jeffrey asked.

Oliver
looked at his desk. An empty sheet of paper and a pen lay before him. Was he
supposed to write something down?

“Matter
cannot be created or destroyed,” Oliver said.

“And
that would be impressive if I were teaching third-grade science,” said Dr.
Thomas sternly. “However, I am not.”

“I’m not
sure why you’re teaching Stephen Hawking in a literature class,” Oliver pointed
out. 

“What
conclusion can we draw?” Dr. Thomas repeated.

“I
remember this question,” Oliver said. “I answered it before. I gave you a
conclusion.”

“What
conclusion can we draw?”

“I said
that thought was a form of energy, and therefore mass.”

“And?”

“That if
thought and mass were equivalent, I asked you if thought could somehow be transformed
into mass?”

“Very
good,” said Dr. Thomas.

“No,”
said Oliver. “It’s wrong. You laughed. You made me feel like an idiot.”

“Imagine
that,” said Jeffrey.

“You
said it was ‘absurd.’ That’s a quote, by the way. You said if it were true, you
would think about Pamela Anderson and Pamela Anderson would appear.”

“Who is
Pamela Anderson?” asked Jeffrey.

Oliver
sighed. “I can’t remember the rest of what you said. You drew a bunch of
equations on the board and I got a B in your stupid class. A
literature
class, by the way.”

“Who is
Pamela Anderson?” Jeffrey demanded.

“She was
a model a long time ago,” Oliver told the cat. “She used to be on a television
show about lifeguards. I never actually saw it.”

“What
did she look like?”

“I don’t
really remember,” Oliver admitted. “Um…tall. Blonde. Kinda pretty, I guess. She
was mostly famous for her big brea…she was curvy.”

“Oh,”
Jeffrey said. He looked at the front of the classroom. “Like her?”

Oliver
blinked. Dr. Thomas was gone. In his place stood a tall, curvy blonde woman. It
definitely was not Pamela Anderson, but he didn’t care. She was gorgeous, and
she was smiling invitingly at Oliver.

“Wow,”
Oliver said. “Some dream.”

“No
fair!” cried Jeffrey. “Make someone for me, too! Maybe a sleek little Siamese.
No,
two
sleek little Siamese!”

“You
can’t make things appear by thinking about them,” Oliver scolded the cat.

Jeffrey
looked at the smiling blonde woman, then back at Oliver. “Are you sure?” he
asked.

Oliver
wondered. This was only a dream, after all. In that case, who knew what else he
could do?

The
blonde woman reached down and rapped her knuckles sharply on the podium. Oliver
felt the world starting to slip. What was happening now? 

The
rapping came a second time, and Oliver opened his eyes. He was back in his room
at the Sheraton. Jeffrey and Dr. Thomas were nowhere to be seen, nor was the
blonde woman. It had been a dream, of course. Was
that
what dreaming was
like? It seemed overrated.

The
rapping came a third time. “Who is it?” Oliver asked.

“Room
service,” called a man’s voice from behind the door.

“They
already came,” Oliver said, getting off the bed. Then he frowned. That voice
had sounded awfully familiar.

Oliver
crossed the room to the door and opened it cautiously. Sally and Tyler were
standing on the other side. “Don’t just open the door like that,” Sally scolded
him. “You didn’t know who we were.” But Tyler came forward and swept Oliver up
in a bear hug.

“Good to
see you,” Tyler said. He was wearing a new Hawaiian shirt, Oliver noted. The
last one must have been destroyed when…what was the proper word for turning
into a bipedal wolf monster?

“Thanks,”
Oliver said awkwardly. “It’s good to see you, too.” Oddly enough, Oliver found
that he meant it.

“We
could have been anyone,” Sally continued, pushing her way past them into the
room. “Never just open the door.”

“But you
knocked.”

“Oh,
god,” she sighed. She looked around the room. “Anyone else here?”

Oliver
shut the door behind them once Tyler had come inside. “No. How did you guys
find me?”

Tyler
gave him a guilty look. “I put a tracker on your clothes earlier,” he
admitted. 

“You…you
bugged
me?” Oliver asked.

“For
lack of a better word, yeah.”

“Oh.”
Oliver wondered how Tyler had done that without him noticing. Maybe it had
happened when he was unconscious.

“That’s
the last thing we need to worry about,” Sally said. She turned to Oliver. “What
happened at John Blackwell’s house?” she asked.

“A
vampire bit me,” Oliver said. Then he started to laugh.

Tyler
and Sally exchanged a worried glance. “And…how is that funny?” Tyler asked. 

Oliver
continued laughing. “I just can’t believe I said that,” he replied. “A vampire
bit me. Do you know how ridiculous that sounds?” He sighed deeply. “Fuck my
life. Who would believe any of this?”

“Try
doing my job someday,” Tyler muttered. Sally nodded. Neither of them seemed to
find the situation all that humorous, Oliver noted. Or all that unusual.

“What
happened after that?” Sally asked.

“It gets
weird,” Oliver said. “Weirder, I should say.”

“Yeah?”
Tyler asked.

“I
wanted to leave but the door was blocked by…vampires.”

“And?”
Sally asked expectantly.

“Um…”
Oliver wasn’t sure how to phrase the next part. “A door magically appeared and
I walked through it.” He frowned. That had sounded even crazier said out loud
than it had in his head.