Icebox

Chapter 5

Chocolate

Night.

No telling what time it was; there wasn’t any power, after all.

The nipping cold brushed against the top of my face, but the rest of my body lay warm by the heat of the blankets, the wrap of my winter clothes, and the body heat of the mare huddled against me--sitting upright and also well-awake (if not a little tired).

“I need to use the restroom.” She said quietly in the dark. I adjusted myself and the covers to give her a clear path--to which she climbed out.

I quickly shut the blankets back in to seal the heat--thinking myself like somepony with the wings of an unusually fuzzy bat. The bathroom doors lock clicked from behind me.

I was never one much to understand the biology of a bat--nor do I feel I’ve seen enough pictures of one to tell--but they never seem to be the types of creatures that would fair so well in the cold. As my memory recalls, they were light on the hair and thin on the skin--particularly on the spread they call their wings. I suppose there wouldn’t be a lot of blood in such a section, but it all seems like good kindling to stoke the flames of an icy chill.

That wasn’t a very good comparison. My creative writing instructor would be disappointed.

I leaned back onto the mattress, cozying up with my “wings” and looked up once again to the popcorn ceiling above me. It was the closest thing I felt I’d be getting to a night under the stars anytime soon. Don’t think Luna’d be too happy in my situation, assuming she’d be just as hobbled as I by a stuck door on the side of some shitty motel.

My mind took off to the silhouettes of all the different objects in the room. A TV. A desk. A chair. The other bed. The inactive ventilation system. The front door (locked). The barred window. A possible reason for those bars was becoming very clear to me now.

From my spot on the bed in the back, the old, yellow light of the street posts shone on the snowy asphalt outside and, by consequence, the edge of the room I was in. Electricity seemed to be flowing to the rest of the motel, but then again, I hadn’t peeked at the dual lamps by the side of the lobby’s screen doors, so I couldn’t say for sure.

I leaned over and extended a hoof--hoping to find my nerd optics--but only managed to knock Masq’s cigarette pack to the floor. Not feeling too sorry for myself, I felt around again and finally found my glasses.

Sliding them over my ears, I relinquished myself from our jointly-made blanket cocoon which, by this point, could hold its own in the shape of a droopy, dreary, mopey triangle. I approached the window--passing all the objects I had observed--and stared out into the night.

I could only barely make out the shriveled plants in the far background near the trail. Anything further beyond was a part of a different dimension. The road which brought us here--gone. The Moon and stars--gone. Not even snow would reflect its crystalline glimmer from the illuminating posts on the side of the motel’s courtyard driveway.

I looked to the left, searching for the outdoor lamps by the lobby, but could not find them. Come to think of it, I could not find the doors either.

The asphalt in front of them, the little bright dot that represented that lonely mare doll-- Everything in that direction looked as though it had been swallowed by a circular veil of pitch. It was almost as though there were a wormhole about the size of a large plate. I repositioned myself and tried to change perspective.

I saw the outline of a boxy, wintery cap, then a neck, and soon after--a muzzle.

Not a few inches from my own muzzle, there stood, on the other side of the window, the face of a silhouette. Soulless and unshaken. Black and murky as the portal to another universe just over yonder. Looking ahead into the back of the room, it ignored my movements--acting as though I hadn’t existed.

I banged on the window. “Hello?” I asked, thinking the fellow on the other side might respond if I gave some auditory indication that I existed. Silence filled the air as it kept staring. It turned and walked towards the door, breaking its grim gaze. It revealed a pair of lights by the greeting area, the asphalt in front of them, and the little bright dot that represented the lonely mare doll.

I tried pressing my face to the window--hoping I could find the being with a little repositioning--smearing my cheek against the cold pane.

A door’s latch clicked from behind me. I turned around.

“Tinker?” Asked Masq, her voice felt as though it were booming across the room, causing me to jump.

Ring ring! Came a sound from the nightstand, startling me once again. The phone had gone off, despite the lack of electricity.

Ring ring! It went again, but I wasn’t at my wits enough to answer it. Masq was making the weary effort of taking a step forward to finally cease its incessant noise, but stopped when I stuck a hoof up, signaling her that I’ve got it handled.

I approached the phone, leaving the front door to its fate. Ring ring! It went for a third time.

Taking hold of the phone and placing the receiver to my ear, I heard the voice of a syrup-drinking, hockey-loving northerner.

“Hey there!” Said the desk keeper through the phone line, corny and annoying as can be.

“Uh hey! Hey! Good to speak with you again! I don’t mean to be rude, but I’m afraid we’re in a bit of a predicament.” I looked over to Masq, who was climbing into the bed to my side and wrapping herself in the comforters while listening in. “I don’t know if you’re aware, but the power’s gone out in our room and the door’s stuck closed, but I think I just saw you outside, didn’t I? Is there any way you could offer some assistance? Any way you could help?”

The muddling of background noise dominated the sounds coming out of the speaker. It sounded as though somepony were fiddling with a foal’s toy across a desk, or perhaps throwing rocks against it? “That’s good to know!” The voice popped back in--faded, and laced with static.

“What?” I asked him--bewildered.

“Goodbye!” The caller on the other end had hung up.

It had gotten darker--if such a thing could be believed. The light shining through the window gave everything just enough of a glare that it could be made out, but it didn’t help the fact that I felt I had developed an annoying stigmatism whenever I tried to look around--glasses or no glasses.

Masq lay against me, sound asleep. I could feel her breaths moving in and out of her body as it rose and sank with the shifting shape of her lungs.

The side of my face was cold, but my body was nice and warm thanks to all the insulation.

I looked off to the nightstand and lazily blinked one eye at a time. I made out the outline of my glasses--of which were laid over the top of Masq’s open cigarette pack.

I stared out at the window--the long, cylindrical bars reflecting the light of the street post. They ran up and down like the thinly cut stripes on a zebra--just without the white.

A flickering came between them. My shadowy voyeur had returned. As he stood, I looked, blinking--again, one eye at a time--and counted off by the second.

One. Two. Three.

He walked off to his right. To the door. Just as he had done before. I had not the energy to investigate his motives; my brain was without the theories it normally liked to produce.

I let my vision turn just as black as his skin and felt the energy fade from my body. The warm mattress glued to my skin. I felt water dripping down my side.

I shifted in the blankets, trying to wipe the miniscule drop away, but only more came my way. I opened my eyes. White.

I was now laying down, covered in a blanket of snow.

I freaked out and jumped, sending chunks and clouds of icy dust up into the air, trying to get to my hooves as fast as possible. I felt them sink in, but never touch the ground below.

The winding sound of the gale had returned--just as it roared by the trail--running between my legs and across my exposed, naked body. I shivered, the shake rattling my spine down to the center. I pulled my appendages closer together to conserve what little heat I had left.

It was still dark out, but the 6 o’clock Stop didn’t seem to be anywhere nearby. Just trees.

Like a last, lonesome, column remnant of a fabled, dead ruin, the desk keeper stood a distance away with his back turned to me. I tiptoed over to him, weary of each chilling, piercing step into the snow beneath me.

“Hello?” I called out. A strong gust of the wind blew into my face--drowning out the sound of my voice. He didn’t seem like he could hear me. “Hello?!!” I shouted. Nothing.

“What are we doing here?!” I asked him, trying to out-volume the wind. Again, nothing. He was just as mute as the silhouette.

Still, he wore his brown ushanka hat. His green flannel. He didn’t seem like he’d be very warm either, and he didn’t hold anything that could be of use out in the cold in his mouth or hooves. Despite all the flicks and specs of winter precipitation grazing over his body, he was not one to succumb so easily as I.

A solid 180. He turned around--like a soldier performing an about face--and looked in my direction, but not at me. He walked right towards me. I stepped out of his way, allowing him to pathfind like an NPC in a video game as he passed by.

Turn! He switched direction erratically--following a different invisible arrow now.

Turn! He did it again, ready to collide with me. I once more stepped out of the way.

“Look,” I pleaded desperately, pushing up my cold-framed glasses, teeth chattering. “I don’t know what we’re doing here, but my wife is still stuck inside the motel.”

Turn! His eyes lifelessly beamed ahead.

“There are enough blankets and cold-weather clothes to keep her warm, but I don’t know how long she can last.”

Turn! He still did not seem one much for conversation. My body was shaking harder--my hooves below feeling like they were being stabbed from every angle.

“Maybe you have some sort of crowbar? Some sort of tool, yes? Something--anything that we can use to help get her out??”

Turn! The desk keeper was to sail past me based on the trajectory.

“I just don’t want anything to happen to her...” I begged.

The desk keeper stopped in front of me, facing off to the side. His body and head snapped to my direction with a robotic twitch, but still, he refused to look me in the eyes. He reeled back as if he had a baseball bat in-hoof. I peeked around behind his head and, for a flash of a second, saw the metal spade and wooden handle of an old shovel come swinging at my ear.

My eyes opened.

Green.

The hue of the wallpaper showed true--even in the dark.

I was sitting up in my bed, facing forward. A warm hoof was locked around mine, gripping tightly. I turned my head and saw the concerned, pretty red eyes of a mare I knew, looking to me, awaiting a response.

“We need to stock up on food.”

A small bag of trail mix, a bruised up banana, and 3 water bottles, sinking into the sheets with their combined weight on the bed that rivaled the one we were sleeping on. The both of us stared blankly down upon our pitiful ration stockpile--neither expecting it to last for… however long we’d be in here.

Masq took off for the door in the center of the room that connected us to the next room over. She gave the knob a good, smooth turn and--unlike other knobs I knew--it obeyed like it was supposed to.

“Masq, what are you doing??” I asked, caught off guard.

“Well,” she shrugged, “I thought it would be a good idea to check out another room. Maybe there’s something we can use.”

“What? No! Absolutely not!”

She looked at me like I had just got back from a thousand year trip to the Moon. “Why shouldn’t we?”

“Because those aren’t our rooms! That’s why! We paid for this room and this room alone. No matter the peril, we cannot solicit other members of the motel, and that’s final.” I said, stomping my hoof to the ground.

She held a hoof up as if to knock.

“Masq.”

Knock knock! The deed had already been done. “Hellooo….?” She asked the door. “Hellooooooo...?”

She leaned in and softly pressed her ear to it, whispering and holding her red eyes in my direction. “...Did you hear that…?”

I’m afraid I did not, my dear.

“...That’s because the stallion at the desk said we were the only guests he had.” A cruel smile stretched across her face as she swung the door open, waltzing in and ready to loot. I reluctantly sucked in my urges to hang back and followed closely behind the butt of my budding, bodacious bitch of a starlet.

The room on the other side was a near mirror image of the one we had walked in from. Green walls with peeling on the corners and spots on the edges. Dresser with a TV. Midget fridge. The works.

The added accessory of a few unique decorations stuck out to me, though. An old painting of a double barrel shotgun that loomed over me with a dark, oily, shamrock background. A lonesome, cardboard box with a panel that had been savagely torn off by those unknown. A bobbing hula mare with suggestive hips by a lamp, playing a ukulele. Her poorly painted face made her look psychotic and deceptive rather than welcoming, as I imagined her maker would have intended.

A tropical getaway would be nice right now.

Masq was already at it with the mini-fridge, pulling the little white door open and pilfering through like a raccoon in a trashcan--only to find another water bottle tucked inside. She set the crinkling, god awful thing down atop the fridge and pulled the drawers of the dresser open, serenading us both with the sound of wood running against itself thrice over. Finding that all three of them were empty, she took her leave of the place with the bottle in-tow. The plastic, held in her muzzle, gave a minute pop with every step that she took. Sweet Celestia.

I was now alone in the room. Alone with the painting. It was not positioned very high upon the wall, but it towered over me. Just like did an abusive, strong-hooved father over his smart-mouthed colt.

Out of curiosity, I went to the front door in the hopes that I might have more luck.

Tug. Tug. Tug. Of course it wouldn’t open.

My eyes turned to the side of the room opposite of where I came in from. To the next connecting door. Small flakes of its old, orange paint had fallen to the carpet floor below, exposing a sickly, gray metal beneath. The handle, just like the last door I came through, turned with a resounding click from the hinge.

“Oh, I didn’t know we were planning on getting exploratory.” Masq sarcastically snarled through the walls of our original room.

“I didn’t know we weren’t minding our own business.” I snarled back, mirroring her tone and hoping she’d hear me.

The room on the other side of this door was not a conformist like the other two. A long gray background stretched all around me. No peeling. No spots. Not much furniture to be had. There was a mini-fridge, a bed, a filing cabinet with its top drawer left open, and a desk with a chair of glossy, hard, ceramic padding. There was no connecting door across from me, nor a front door for entry. Just the red door for a closet on my right and another orange door like the one I came in from mysteriously hanging off to my left. If I had recalled the buildings layout correctly, that orange door should surely lead outside into the snow out back. Perhaps the contractors were feeling a little artsy?

The mini-fridge took the priority in my mind. Carefully opening the door and hearing the rubber-shielded magnet disconnect from the frame, there lie only one thing, waiting to be unearthed from its place at the wall in the back of the fridge. A mare-shaped piece of dark chocolate with gleaming, beautiful red eyes--head yanked off with animalistic fury. Decaying alone in the chill of a freezebox within a freezebox, her body had overgrown with a subtle, white mold that had the texture and appearance of gathering dust. I pulled each part of her out and set her neatly upon the top of the fridge, politely shutting the door.

The desk, weathered, worn, hardy, and reliable, looked like a signature piece from my home workshop back in Ponyville. Feeling its cold touch with my hoof and smelling the old metallic scent that radiated off from it, I must say that it felt like it were crudely and unjustly abandoned by its former owner. It was almost like it was waiting to put back into service.

Each of the metal drawers of the filing cabinet slid out with a smooth, elegant ease--almost like they were brand new. There was nothing inside any of them, but it was satisfying enough to listen to and feel them shut close as they glided across the railings within. Good engineering on the part of whoever made it.

I flinched when I saw what lay at the top of those cabinets, taking a step back and pushing up my glasses, which had fallen out of place again upon my surprise. A hoof-sized, shining, golden alligator statuette which bore down on me with beady, bulbous, perverse eyes--nose angled downrange towards the center of my body. In this room, its influence was small, but present enough to keep me in-check. I did not tamper with it.

The orange door beckoned me with an unholy call that tore its way through my flesh and bones. Thinking it surely must lead out to the back, out into the snow, I heeded that call and reluctantly opened it.

Two beds. A nightstand in the middle with a digital alarm clock which presumably told the time in a blinding, blue font when the power was on. A lamp that looked like it was ready for retirement. A midget of a refrigerator. A television that sat upon a wooden set of drawers. No windows. No entryway. Just another orange connecting door at the other side and an old, decomposing shade of green all around me. A small strip of the paint disconnected from the baseboard and peeled up like the skin of a stripped orange.

In the corner lay a phantom-like haze--a shimmering in the dark no different from the blur of the Sun’s heat upon black asphalt in the Summer--edging its way to the center of the room. I closed the door immediately and went straight for my chocolate mare.

The red door beckoned me as well. A more welcoming call, but I did not feel like opening anything else that night. I returned to our old room.

“Hey.” said Masq, sitting on the bed, wrapped in the blankets. Based on the way her eyes darted down, I could tell she was staring at the decapitated mare I was holding.

“Hey.” I said back, storing that mare in the fridge. Seems Masq moved the rest of our rations there as well to keep them insulated. I sat beside her, looking at her lips and cute little nose, softly rubbing her thigh with a hoof.

“Everything all right?” She asked me.

“Everything’s fine.” I said, staring into eyes that were the same color as those of the chocolate mare.