Switch by Grant McKenzie Page A

see who come. I see who go.’
    Sam tried to offer a friendly, reassuring smile, but ended up yawning again.
    The clerk handed over the key. ‘You want earplugs? They only four dollars extra.’
    Sam waved him off and headed for his room, four doors down from the glass-enclosed front desk on the ground floor. As he put the key in the lock, he glanced over his shoulder towards the street.
    The Mercedes had moved up a couple of car lengths to park beneath a scrawny tree that somehow survived amidst a steady fog of car exhaust and nightly sprinklings of recycled beer. The gloomy umbrella offered by the tree’s patchwork canopy hid the interior of the car from Sam’s view.
    Turning his back on the car and its unknown occupant, he entered his room.

19
    MaryAnn awoke in complete darkness, the sour smell of rot invading her nostrils.
    She rubbed her eyes, sending tiny white and blue sparks dancing across her corneas, but when the sparks blinked out, the impenetrable darkness remained. She lifted her hand in front of her face and blinked to refocus, but her fingers remained invisible.
    Fear made her heart beat faster and icy daggers of panic stabbed her brain.
    She didn’t like the dark.
    The last thing she remembered was curling up in bed and writing in her diary. Paul had smiled at her in the hallway just before Biology class, and she could tell it wasn’t his ordinary smile. This smile had been special – just for her. It had been a pleasant thought to fall asleep to.
    A high-pitched squeak made her jump.
    The squeak was followed by the sound of tiny, scurrying feet. MaryAnn pulled her knees in closeto her chest. Wherever she was, the air was moist and cold. The floor felt solid, but if she dug in her nails, it could be flaked away. The walls were similar; cold and crumbly. It felt like a grave.
    Another squeak made her strain her ears, trying to gauge its direction. A louder squeak answered and without warning the chamber erupted in duelling high-pitched squeals of pain.
    MaryAnn cowered in her corner, pressing her back against the packed earth and humming a Coldplay song to drown out the noise.
    When silence resumed, she inhaled deeply, holding the oxygen in her lungs for several seconds before releasing it. But then her ears picked up movement, the sound of a dozen tiny feet, sharp claws clicking on hard-pack floor.
    She shivered and her lower lip trembled, then she began to hum again, determined to stay calm until she could figure out what was going on. The humming worked until one of the rats scurried across her bare foot.
    MaryAnn screamed.

20
    The clerk hadn’t lied. The room was clean and the bed looked soft. It took all of Sam’s willpower not to lie down and shut off the world – just for ten minutes. But he knew if he did, he would sleep for hours.
    Instead, Sam stripped off his clothes and stepped into the shower stall. The water was hot and he let it pour over his back and shoulders, easing his tense muscles.
    He placed his forearms against the tiled wall, rested his head upon them and closed his eyes as the soothing water spilled down his lower back, buttocks and aching thighs. He could feel acres of grit and the oily residue of smoke sweating from his pores as the stall filled with luxurious steam.
    When he opened his eyes again, he was shivering; the steam long gone, the water a freezing spray.
    Sam cursed himself for falling asleep, grabbed the complementary toy-sized bar of soap, rippedoff its flimsy wrapper and scrubbed his shivering body from head to toe. When he finally stepped out of the shower, his lips were blue.
    He dressed quickly – the smell of smoke clinging to his soiled clothes – and returned to the bathroom. A large frosted-glass window rested in an old wooden frame above the sink. There was no need for a lock as the years and layers of paint had sealed it tight.
    Sam pulled a red-jacketed Swiss Army pocket-knife from his front pocket, opened the smaller of the two blades, and began to