Total pages in book: 123
Estimated words: 116220 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 581(@200wpm)___ 465(@250wpm)___ 387(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 116220 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 581(@200wpm)___ 465(@250wpm)___ 387(@300wpm)
Brock clumsily pulls out his phone with his other hand, as if a thought just occurred to him. He squints at it. “Not even a message. Not a call. Nothin’.” He sighs, kicks back in his seat. “Love you too, Jess. Hope you’re havin’ some sweet dreams.”
They continue down the road without interruption. Kyle’s phone is affixed to the dash with the Maps app guiding the way. There’s an hour left until their destination. Then fifty minutes.
Forty. Thirty.
The sky begins to glow with the approach of the Las Vegas skyline. Kyle turns down the radio at once, focusing ahead, his heart picking up pace the moment he senses the big city within reach. His grip on the steering wheel tightens to the point of discomfort. The road has since opened to the highway, wide, full of lanes of traffic. Even at half past four, many vehicles are still on the road, inbound and outbound.
Brock stirs, looks up. “Whoa. When did we get there?”
“Give me directions,” says Kyle. “Never been to Vegas.”
“Really? Not even once?” Brock yanks Kyle’s phone off of the dashboard mount, squints as he pulls up the directions. “Just keep goin’.”
“What’s the exit?”
“Not for quite a bit, hold your horses. Exit 75, Las Vegas Boulevard, keep goin’. Hey,” he says suddenly, slapping his hand on Kyle’s shoulder. “Look at us on an adventure together, catchin’ up on all the time we missed in each other’s lives. I’m so …” Brock’s voice tightens. “I’m so glad to have you back.”
“Think it’s time you hold your horsies,” says Kyle, “before you go ballin’ like a baby again.”
“‘Ballin’? Did you just say ‘ballin’? Aw, I knew it, the Texan is still in you, Arizona didn’t burn it all up.”
Kyle starts to feel the bubbly aftermath of Brock’s emotion as a connection tries to form. He shrugs Brock’s hand off of his shoulder to cease that right away. “Directions. Focus.”
“Yeah, yeah, I’ll give you directions, bud.” Brock grins.
To the tune of another 90s alternative hit, they head down the highway, take the exit, and make their way down the neck of the Las Vegas Strip. Kyle drives slower than he should, eyes on the glittering buildings, crowds that still linger out even this late, and dark nooks between the hotels and casinos. Walkways and concrete overpasses connect all of the sidewalks, the streets helpfully devoid of people and pesky interruptive crosswalks.
“Over there, take a right,” instructs Brock, who has become surprisingly alert, considering he’s likely still fighting off the alcohol—or else his tolerance is proving higher than Kyle first thought. “Gettin’ close, almost there, just a bit further.”
The next corner they turn, the world changes. The glitz of the Vegas Strip is traded at once for gloom. Kyle stares ahead at three towers, triangular in shape and glassy, the color of which lands hardest with Kyle—like obsidian, black, impenetrable, but with deep red undertones, sinister and daunting. The towers all protrude from a wide, castle-like complex of stones the color of gunmetal grey and demonic red, opulent in appearance, yet too far removed from reality to be truly representative of anything but its own twisted fantasy. Even the red-leafed, grey-barked trees lining the way to the entrance seem imported from some alien planet where blood is the only sustenance, even for the grass and bugs and earth.
Kyle can’t be sure whether he’s using his gift or not, but all around him, he feels eyes. He feels mocking laughter. He feels bitterness and spite. This is a dark and evil place.
“Isn’t it stupid as fuck?” mutters Brock, at once ruining the atmosphere. “Wait ‘til you see inside. It’s like Satan took a shit all over everything.”
Kyle finds himself grateful for Brock’s boorishness. It helps deflect some of the cold dread making a home in his stomach. “Yeah, stupid as fuck,” he agrees absently, driving up the road to the front of the building. Soon, they are under the long, wide entrance canopy, lined with black thorny vines and blood red roses. He comes to a stop by the curb. “Do they only do valet?”
“I’ll take care of it,” says Brock, hopping out of the car.
Kyle turns off the car and steps out, keys in hand. He takes in the diabolical décor. Statues of odd, regal-looking men with fangs and demonic winged women in artful poses hug the tall doors leading in. Electric lanterns line the walls like torches that burn forever—or at least until someone fails to pay a bill. Kyle imagines there would be more activity here during the day or evening when normal guests are checking in, but this late, it seems they’re the only people here, save for one car at the other end of the entrance, a woman smoking a cigarette on a bench to the side of the car, and an old man in a suit on a cell phone by one of the statues, pinching his forehead and looking annoyed.