Tom Simpson - Sink

He tried to turn the doorknob but the handle was in a frozen position. Putting the now blood soaked tissue roll on the floor next to the door he grabbed the handle with both hands and tried to twist it open. It still wouldn’t open so he stretched his right leg up on the air-conditioning unit and pulled himself into the now exposed window frame. Reaching out, he pushed the window the rest of the way out and it crashed noisily onto the concrete walkway in the front of his room. Jumping down to the walk, carefully avoiding the broken glass, he saw that the entire wing of the resort had sunk into the ground. His second floor walkway was now even with the carefully manicured courtyard and the ground floor had completely disappeared. Still not really realizing what had happened, Steve Sidel started making his way toward the now missing lobby.

The warm needle spray of the hotel shower soothed Kathy Santos’s stiff shoulder muscles as she hummed a song she had not heard since her childhood days. The days in the penthouse apartment on Fifth Avenue in New York City. Her black nanny had sung many songs to try to bring a little happiness in an otherwise lonely childhood. Her parents were big time socialites and they were away from home a lot more than they were there. Having no siblings, Kathy had invented imaginary playmates, girls with names like Sissy and Patty and sometimes little boys named Sammy or Billy. She managed to endure those lonely years without them having much effect on her blossoming teen years. She had been sent to a very prestigious finishing school after high school and had turned into a very lovely, very mature, young woman.

She lathered her very tanned torso as she recalled the big turning point in her life. She had been working in her parents’ business, Santos Cosmetics, as a sales representative, when her world collapsed. Her parents, on the way back from a convention in Puerto Rico, aboard their fifty six foot yacht, stopped to help a fellow boat that was flying a distress signal. The boat turned out to be modern day pirates and they had boarded her parents’ boat and tied the crew and her parents up while they ransacked the entire boat. Not being satisfied with the abundant jewelry and cash that they found aboard, the pirates began executing the crew members one by one with a single shot in the back of the head. The pirates left Kathy’s mother and the female cook for last and then brutally raped both women before firing the by now merciful shots in the back of their heads. This entire event was recorded on the video security cameras mounted on the boat and later sold to several sleazy tabloids around the world.

Kathy shivered as she recalled that terrible moment when she had been awakened in her motel room in the middle of the night by the phone call from the executive vice president who informed her of her parents’ deaths. She had been on a sales trip to Charleston, South Carolina and caught the first plane back to New York. She had started working in the company as a gopher and worked her way up to sales representative, by her hard work not her parents’ position and therefore, knew the company from the ground up. When the board of directors met a week after her parents were laid to rest, they unanimously voted her president of the corporation, her being the sole heir, and having extensive knowledge of the workings of the entire company. She achieved not only a personal success as president but was now regarded as one of the top women executives in the country. She was at the resort to represent a new line of cosmetics that Tankinato wanted to start selling in Japan and she decided to stay a few extra days to take a little mini vacation that she was well entitled to.

The roar of the shower drowned out the first cracking sounds the west wall made as it started tumbling down, not unlike the nursery rhyme about London Bridge. Kathy Santos did not realize anything was wrong until she shut off the water, slid the shower curtain back, and reached for her hotel issue white undersized towel. She was looking at a very panoramic view of the lake, which was quite all right since she was in the last room on that end of the motel. The big problem was she didn’t have a window on that side of her room, especially in the bathroom. Trying to hide her nakedness behind the skimpy towel, she darted toward the main room of her suite when the room buckled like a roller coaster. Losing the towel, no big deal at this point she thought, she grabbed the bathroom door frame and rode out the sudden shaking of the room. Regaining her wits, which she had always been very good at, she crawled over to the open closet and grabbed a pair of Levis and tee shirt which piled together on the now quite littered floor. Pulling the shirt hastily over her head and squirming into the very tight fitting jeans, she regained

her feet and headed toward the door determined to find out exactly what was going on.

Steve Sidel was about twenty feet away from the central sidewalk that bisected the lavish green courtyard, when he heard the scream. Turning back toward his room he saw a very attractive lady outside the room next door to his. She had her right hand on her mouth as if suppressing the scream that had already escaped her lips. Her long brunette hair was dripping wet and plastered to her forehead giving her an exotic look, like she had just stepped from underneath a tropical waterfall. The very tight denim jeans and bright white tee shirt which also was plastered to her body gave him the feeling that this woman just won the Miss International Wet Tee Shirt Contest. She was looking down at something at the west side of what was left of the room she was in front of. The entire side wall of the room was laying in a pile of rubble and it was at the base of this that her attention was focused. He started to trot in the direction of the woman when she turned her back to the object she had been staring at and lost what must have been her breakfast. Rushing up to her side he placed his arm on her shoulder and led her a few feet away to a concrete bench which somehow was still standing.

Once he had her seated on the bench, her shivering like being caught without a coat in a blizzard, he turned his attention back to what she had been staring at. At first he could not believe his eyes at what he was seeing but then reality sunk in. When the wall collapsed apparently, a man had been on the end of the building, doing what, he had no idea, but now the man would never have another idea. The man’s face had been completely skinned, caught supposedly by the aluminum gutter that fallen off the roof above him and just his eyeballs, nostrils and an open hole representing his mouth were left. The skeletal look was bad enough but the worse part was the flag pole that had adorned the crest of the roof had came straight down through his mouth and out the back of his head still in a vertical position displaying the crest of the resort in a full color spectrum.

Patrick Ramsburger was a very competent bartender. He had been making drinks for his

customers for over twenty two years and he was quite good at it. His customers, over the years had always relished the fact that as soon as their drink was low or their cigarette needed to be lit, Pat was there. He had an uncanny sense of when one of his customers needed something. It was almost as if he had eyes in the back of his head. He was mister efficient in the bar business.

The corporation had heard of Patrick Ramsburger’s reputation and had written several letters trying to entice him to come to work in their new resort. After several weeks of negotiation, they hit on the right amount of compensation and benefits and Pat packed his meager belongings and headed for the sunshine state. He was tired of the cold weather in New York and he decided he would like to lounge around by the pool on his days off soaking up the Florida sun. He had arrived four weeks before the grand opening and ordered all the necessary equipment and alcohol in order to stock the resort lounge for the big grand opening and a surplus to handle several weeks after. He was on an unlimited budget, due to his explicit reputation and he wanted to make sure everything ran smoothly.