The sound of the nearby ocean’s waves pounding against the shores of abandoned beaches reverberated through the dingy little coastal town. Vaz almost felt as if she was forcing herself to drag her way into town. No one else was outside on the cold, somewhat humid summer morning, no active cars in sight. The all too familiar scent of summertime visitors barbecuing at odd hours of the day during the past summers had completely dissipated.
Vaz stopped walking once she reached her destination, being a convenience store which, when looking at the building from outdoors, was in somewhat of a state of disarray. In a way that Vaz just could not articulate in a way that made her sound coherent to anyone else, but the convenience store, along with many other buildings in this damp sea town, had a bad smell to them.
She slipped her mask on, a cute black mask with a funny little cat that conveniently hid the only part of her body that gave her any feeling of dysphoria. She walked into the little store and could almost immediately feel a headache starting. She navigated herself through the crowded aisles and grabbed a bag of chips. Once she made her way back to the front of the store, Vaz could hear a voice that definitely was not in the store beforehand.
“... Yeah, I’m coming in a minute,” said a woman standing in front of the service counter. Multiple bottles of various beverages sat on the counter. “I’m in my car right now, actually.” The woman shared a smile with the person behind the counter, and once her head was turned to face the worker, Vaz caught sight of the electronic headset attached to her ear, and the entire conversation made sense now.
The woman continued talking, but at that point Vaz stopped paying attention. The woman flashed a warm smile to the person behind the counter, and swiped her card to pay for the beverages. She quickly headed outside.
Vaz walked to the counter and set her chips down. She watched the woman as she walked outside and eventually disappeared from her sight. Vaz turned her attention back to the person behind the counter “So, what the hell was up with her, Cal?”
They shrugged. They grabbed the bag of chips and a scanning gun, and struggled an embarrassing amount trying to scan the barcode, “Apparently she runs like, a huge chain of travel agencies along this side of the country. She’s travelling to a few locations over the next few weeks to record an advertisement, or something like that?”
“In the middle of a pandemic? That’s a little tasteless, don’t you think so?”
“Uh, I guess. She’s collecting footage for the ad from a lot of her agencies too, going through multiple states, getting in contact with all sorts of different filming crews…”
“Not to mention that she wasn’t wearing a mask, either.”
“She was just wearing those face shields that only cover the mouth, too,” Cal trailed off. A beep from the scanning gun signaled that they finally got the barcode on the bag of chips, “huh, four dollars.”
“Hm, that’s kind of expensive,” Vaz pulled out her wallet and grabbed the money, sliding it across the counter to Cal.
“Yeah, apparently some stuff in the store’s been going up in price recently. I think it’s something related to the owner having to get in contact with a different distributor, because the business of the last people that brought food to the store folded soon after the pandemic started affecting us,” Cal handed the bag back to Vaz, “I’m not sure, though. I usually get to work on the beach this time of year, but a tourist season never came this year.”
“Oh yeah, I guess tourists never really started coming this year. I know it’s for the better, but I’d hate to see what happens to this place if this persists.”
Cal shook their head, “No, there’s tourists here. There’s not a lot of them, but there’s apparently some staying at the Seaside Inn right now. I think that woman who came in earlier mentioned staying there, too. Rie works there part-time, he was telling me about it last night.”
Vaz heard a click go off in her mind.
Just as the sun started to set, Vaz approached the Seaside Inn, wearing her same black mask, with her duffle bag slinged over her shoulder. She headed directly to the front counter, where a nervous blonde man was replacing the towels on a maid’s cleaning cart.
“Uhm, I’m not sure how to feel about this, Vaz,” the man said. He cleared out an empty spot on the bottom of the cart, but draped a few towels over the sides to conceal it, “I know that everyone here is hurting, but this just feels so impolite.”
“I bet what we’re doing is more than impolite, Rie, but I’m sure it’s necessary. Now make sure no one comes by, I’m just gonna...” Vaz grabbed the blue shirt and pants that sat on the cleaning cart, and started to put them on over her clothes.
“I have a feeling this is something I could get fired for, Vaz. I think my boss wouldn’t be too happy if they found out that I’m helping you rob one of our guests blind,” Rie sighed, suspiciously looking around the room, “I know that they wouldn’t like you taking one of the maid’s outfits. Those things cost fifty bucks…”
“You know, this is hard on me too, Rie. These pants are way too short for me, for example.” Vaz stood up, then grabbed the handles on the maid cart. “Do you have the key for her door?”
“No, I don’t,” Rie responded, sounding a little exasperated, “the doors here don’t actually lock all that well. Just bumping a cleaning cart is enough to get them open. The room she’s staying in is especially flimsy, because a few years ago one of the tourists kidnapped a maid’s cart and rammed it direcly into room thirteen’s door.”
“Really? I’ll just have to keep that in mind,” Vaz grabbed the handles of the cart and navigated it out of the front room of the hotel.
She navigated through the hallway and brought her cart over to room thirteen. Vaz did not even know the room she stayed in, but luckily Rie had spilled the beans. Vaz stood in front of the door, and with a slight nudge of the cart, the door slowly opened up.
Vaz peeked into the room. No one was in there, but someone had definitely stayed in the room. She slid the cart into the room, but she quickly abandoned it and started wildly opening up various drawers, trying to find anything valuable.
Vaz opened up the drawer on the bedside table. She desperately looked around for anything of worth, and tucked behind the hotel bible was a small, black felt box. Inside the box lay a single earring. It was in the shape of a bird, with a little plastic bead for an eye. Vaz felt the heartbeat of a woman she felt nothing but pure anger towards, pulsating through the earring, pounding against her hand. Such a tremendous weight in her hand. Why would someone with so much money hold onto such a thing? It almost certainly had a story to tell, though that night Vaz was not interested in hearing what it had to say. Vaz clipped the earring on and continued to look through the room