Week Twenty: The elevator did not have a button for floor 5

ONE BODY, UNIDENTIFIED

The elevator did not have a button for floor 5. Jack blinked. Looked again. 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8... There wasn’t even a space where 5 should have been.

Jack laughed wildly and swayed in the elevator, reaching out to the floor selection panel for support. The doors slid shut, but the elevator remained where it was. Jack looked again. Still no 5.

So he was drunk. Jack would admit that to anyone. But he was not high. He’d heard of certain older buildings constructed during a more superstitious time omitting the thirteenth floor. There was, of course, still a thirteenth floor; they just called it the fourteenth. Why? Well, why not.

Jack wondered if this were the case here. It had to be, right? But why skip the fifth floor? Five was a good number, Jack mused. Strong. Stolid. High-five. Five by five. Number Five is alive.

One glass of water for every drink you had tonight, his wife’s voice sprung, unbidden (how else?), to mind. Jack reckoned that there had been at least nine, maybe twelve drinks. Unless this hotel offered complementary catheters, there was no way he was going to ingest that much water before bed. So there would be a raucous hangover. What other kind was there? Disheveled misery is what made Jack the charming rake he was. Or it used to, anyway. Or he thought it used to, anyway. Or...

Bah. Jack jammed the button for floor 6 and the elevator lurched to life. Fuck it—he would take the stairs from 6 to 5. His company booked room 511 for him, and though it might be a CIA safe room or a gate to Narnia or maybe even (probably, actually) a staging ground for an extradimensional invasion, 511 is where he would sleep tonight.

As the elevator came to a halt at floor 6, or 5... or whatever... and the doors slid open, the first thing Jack noticed was the smell. A strong odor of some kind... probably from the hallway carpet having been recently cleaned. This seemed odd to Jack, given that it was at least two in the morning (okay, maybe closer to three). But maybe this was the sort of hotel that was so meticulous about quality that they rolled out the steam cleaner at midnight. Or... Jack mused, in staggering search of the stairwell door, maybe it was the stain remover. Would have to have been an awfully large stain. Muuuuurderrrrr...

There: The stairwell door. Jack grasped the handle and pushed, to be rewarded immediately with flashing red lights and a blaring klaxon. So the stairwell was also the emergency fire escape.

“Maybe you should have thought of that when you designed the elevators, asshole!” Jack yelled at no one in particular. Gripping the rail, Jack went down one flight and then out the door, where the bleary-eyed masses were beginning to make their swift and orderly exit out of the burning building.

“Is this the fifth floor?” Jack asked a passing family.

“Yeah,” the man responded, recoiling a little as he took Jack in, “but you should really get out of here. Doesn’t sound like a drill.”

“I’ll take my chances,” Jack smirked, turning to see—hallelujah—room 511. He fumbled with his key card, swiped it, and went into his room, letting the door slam behind him.

Jack fell into bed, grabbed a pillow, and held it hard against his other ear to block out the alarm. With his eyes closed, he couldn’t see the flashing red, either. And once he was finally asleep, he never even smelled the smoke.