There were tears in Caroline’s eyes again as Althea spoke, sorrow for all of those she’d met at The Egress, for their plight. “When you say the living floors…”
“I mean floors two to ten. It’s only the eleventh floor that’s reserved for us.”
“The floor that was never built.”
“But it was meant to be built. And so, in a way, it was. It was real in the minds of many as a proposal, even if that proposal was never realised. It was born, but given over to death, the very purpose that stopped its full incarnation.”
And because David was caught between both worlds, he could come and go between floors. She’d been able to as well, but only initially. As time wore on, it had become more difficult, just as it had for David, their worlds parting long before she shut him out.
“Edward was on the sixth floor though, not the eleventh,” Caroline pointed out.
“In a room that didn’t exist – 666. A joke, by his standards anyway.”
“The number of the beast.”
“Oh yes,” Althea answered, “he can be a beast at times.”
“There’s another thing I need to know.” She had to steel herself for this answer too. “Edward kept saying I was diseased. Am I?”
Althea lowered her eyes, sombre once again. “He can see things like that much more clearly than me. He… he’s not usually wrong. But remember, it’s your body he’s referring to, not your soul. If there was disease, it doesn’t matter now.”
Even so, if she’d lived, if she’d survived the car crash, it would have mattered. ‘It does seem to run in families’ – that’s what Althea had said about addiction, and maybe it applied to cancer too, in her family anyway. She might well have become a load for David to carry, no happy ending on the cards for them, either side of the divide.
She’d heard enough for now. Climbing to her feet, she once again surveyed the scene before her, Althea rising too, to stand beside her.
“It’s not such a bad place you know,” said Althea, “even without David. It has its moments.”
“But I can leave if I want to?”
“You can. Simply take the elevator, that crotchety old elevator, and ride it all the way to the eleventh floor, beyond the eleventh floor. Have the will to keep going.”
The will – that’s all she needed – her means of escape, to whatever, whoever lay beyond, her parents even, as solid as she was, not just a hazy memory.
An idea occurred.
“What if I don’t leave? What if I stay here? We’re all connected to The Egress, which means David is too. It’s where he came while in a coma, where he intended to come, investigating Helen’s case. It’s where we met. I know the love we shared was real, that we felt the same way about each other. In death and near-death, we were just so alive.” Taking Althea’s hands, she held them in her own. “If he remembers anything about our time together, he could come back couldn’t he, one day, when he’s dead, I mean?”
“There’s a chance. Even if he finds love during his lifetime, it might not compare.”
“All I have to do is bide my time.”
“As I said before, Caroline, that’s your decision. No one else can make your mind up for you. Free will, remember?”
Caroline did remember. “And meanwhile others will continue to make their way here?”
“Yes, they will. It’s a heavy workload at times.”
Caroline released Althea’s hands. Needing a moment to herself, she walked over to the window, the piano music, the laughter, and the chatter that filled the air around her fading slightly as she pressed up against the window. Gazing outwards over the landscape, it gave no hint that David had ever been there, the snow virginal, no footprints in it at all.
She came to a decision.
I’ll wait. I’ll stay here, with Althea and Jenna, take over on reception perhaps, let Raquel retire. Maybe I’ll go down to the basement sometimes and keep Helen company. Maybe she’ll finally realise that Edward and his kind are no threat to her, not anymore and she’ll venture upstairs with me to the lobby; this time she’ll keep going, all the way.
Whatever happens, David, I’ll wait.
And I’ll hope.
The only man who could ever reach her…
She smiled.
There might be a happy ending after all.
Epilogue
“Kids, come on. Can it, will you?”
David looked at the woman sitting in the passenger seat beside him and they exchanged a wry smile.
“Little monsters, aren’t they?” she said. “It must be you they take after.”
“Hey!” David retaliated. “You’re the one who screams and shouts, especially in the bedroom if I recall correctly.”
Melissa’s mouth opened wide. “David! Don’t mention stuff like that in front of the children.”
David laughed. “Melissa, it’s because of that, they’re even here.”
Melissa spluttered too and David carried on driving, taking his family for a weekend away, to the other side of the state, to the hills and the valleys.
God, he was glad of his family, of his beautiful wife, and his two children, both boys, Frankie and Leo, aged seven and five respectively. Grateful he was actually here to have a family. He was blessed, truly blessed. A few years previously his life had almost ended, being caught in a snowstorm in this part of Pennsylvania, that had taken so many by surprise with its sudden ferocity. He’d been driving at the time, ignoring warnings on the radio to find shelter, that it was set to rival anything experienced in the 1950s and 80s.
They always exaggerate, these forecasters, he’d thought. There’s plenty of time to reach the hotel. He hadn’t even slowed down, just carried on, trusting in his Ford to get him to where he was going. More fool him. Not only had he put his own life in danger, but also the driver of the car he’d hit, a young college grad, on his way home, sending them both careering off the highway and into a ditch. Thankfully the college grad had been wearing his seat belt. David, on the other hand, hadn’t, an old hangover from his cop days when he needed to jump from his car quickly on occasions, in pursuit of the bad guys. Idiot! What a fucking idiot. He’d flown through the windshield, had an altercation with a tree, subsequently lying unconscious and bloodied in the snow while the college grad called for an ambulance, which only just managed to get through and whisk him to the nearest hospital in Susquehanna. And there he had lain for the next six weeks, the first few days in a deep coma, coming out very gradually under the control of the medical staff. The hospital bills that had mounted up were something else. But it was only money, he consoled himself, he hadn’t paid with his life. It turned out that the storm had caused a fair amount of deaths across the middle states, but not as many as the 1950s storm. That had claimed over three hundred lives – incredibly – and injured hundreds too. Even if there’d been one death, it would have been one too many, but at least he wasn’t counted in that tally.
“Make a left onto Highway 31 North,” the Sat Nav instructed.
“What was that?” David asked. “Did she say take the next left?”
“Damn it, I didn’t hear either,” Melissa responded. Turning around, she also told the kids to pipe down. “Enough already! There’s a theme park where we’re going, remember? If you want to reach it sooner rather than later, you gotta let us listen to directions.”
Immediately, Frankie and Leo stopped jabbering, just as David made the required turn.
“See? How’d you do that, get them to obey so quickly?”
“It’s called the magic touch, darling. I seem to have it too.”
Again, David laughed. She certainly did. The stirring in his loins was testament to that.
Having only met her a short time before the accident, he was lucky too that she’d stood by him while he recovered, visiting him regularly, every day when he was in a coma, sitting by his bedside, holding his hand. His mom had told him that, the mom he’d been somewhat estranged from. The accident had brought everyone
so much closer together, David no longer so disparaging of the beliefs his preacher father held, his unwavering faith. Perhaps because he considered himself blessed, he was more inclined to believe. ‘She’s a keeper,’ Mom had told him, and she’d been right. After waking, it had been a while before he was back on his feet, but still Melissa was there, even when they were testing for permanent brain damage, her devotion, and her loyalty astounding.
And so he’d asked her to marry him, fast forward eight years and here they were, the two that were now four, on a weekend vacation, heading to the hills and a theme park.
“So, tell me, who’s gonna ride the American Eagle?” he bellowed.
“Me!” All three of them declared.
“And the Big Dipper?”
“Me!” was again the earnest response.
“And…” he continued, but something in the distance caught his attention: a building, large red letters sitting on its roof spelling out a name – The Egress. That’s where he’d been heading the day he’d crashed, investigating the Helen Ansell case.
“Isn’t that…?” Despite wearing sunglasses, he could tell Melissa was squinting too.
“Yeah, it is.”
“Oh, we have come the wrong way then, we should’ve turned left further up I think.”
David shook his head. “It’s okay, there’s probably a road ahead that meets with ours. Let’s just… carry on.” There was hesitation in his voice as he glanced at Melissa, a silent acknowledgement between them that they were close to the scene of his accident.
“Okay,” Melissa sighed, a ragged sound, unease in it too. “Such a shame about that girl, wasn’t it, the one you were investigating. What was her name again?”
“Helen. And yeah, but at least her body was found, a month or two after I was back on my feet actually, and her parent’s got some kind of closure.”
“Can you imagine the pain they must have gone through?”
“I don’t want to imagine, or the pain that Helen went through either.”
There was a sombre moment of silence, even the kids seemed to have realised the gravitas of their conversation and barely breathed.
“Did you ever go back to The Egress?” Melissa asked, “I can’t recall.”
Turning his head to look at her, he was about to answer, when she shouted at him.
“Look out!”
“Wh…?” Quickly, he swerved, there was a snake in the road – a Northern Copperhead he reckoned and venomous. What was it doing out here, on a highway? Thankfully there was no oncoming traffic, and he managed to straighten up again, no harm done. “Christ, Mel, no need to shout like that, it’s a snake. I could have driven over it.”
“Oh, that’s such a lovely thing to say, isn’t it?” Mel retorted. “Just kill the poor snake.”
“What would you prefer, that I kill us instead?”
Realising his words, this place, and their unease at unintentionally finding themselves here, he sighed. “I’m sorry.”
She attempted a smile. “Should I turn the radio on?”
“Good idea,” David said, taking a deep breath. He didn’t want more tension either.
“So,” she said, making conversation again, “did you ever go back?”
“Where?”
“To The Egress.”
“No point, not after her body was found. And it’s not a case of going back, I never got there in the first place, remember?”
Melissa swiped at his arm. “You know what I mean! I’m glad they caught her killer too.”
“Eventually. Carl Warren. She wasn’t his first, and she wasn’t his last either. The bastard killed two more women after Helen.”
“Christ! I can’t understand why he hasn’t been executed.”
“Believe me, honey, he will be, but it’s Bucks County for now while the prosecutors make their case for the death penalty.”
“Let’s hope they manage to pull it off.” There was another brief silence and then she changed the subject. “Egress. It’s a strange word, isn’t it? Do you know what it means?”
He did know; he’d felt compelled to look it up one day, recently, in fact, the name popping into his head after so long. “It means the action of going out of or leaving a place.”
Melissa removed her sunglasses and rubbed at the bridge of her nose. “So, it sort of means transition. Pretty apt for a hotel I suppose.”
“I suppose.”
They drew ever closer to the hotel, a lonely building, pretty much nothing else around it.
“There were such great plans for this area,” he continued, having read that too, once upon a time. “But it never really took off. The hotel had some bad luck right from the start, the architect’s daughter died there, and then another architect, the one who took over from him, in some sort of gambling dispute. Plus, it was once the site of the city morgue.”
“Eww. I wouldn’t want to stay there, knowing all that.”
“I don’t think many do,” agreed David.
“It looks kind of derelict to me.”
“It does, although… I don’t know, I don’t think it is. I think it’s still limping on, doing a little business here and there.”
He started to lean heavily on the brake.
“Why you slowing down for?” asked Melissa.
“I just want to see,” David replied.
“See what?”
“I don’t know, I… Hang on a minute, Mel.”
Was that someone at the window, to the left of the entrance, staring outwards? He slowed further – almost grinding to a halt, careful no one was behind him, although it was unlikely on this lonely road. There was someone at the window, someone who was staring right back at him!
“David…”
He realised Melissa was talking to him, but her voice seemed so far away, unreal even. What was real was what was in front of him – the person, a female, he realised, who’d caught his eye. There was something… familiar about her, but how come? Why on earth should a woman in a window of a building he’d never set foot in be familiar? And yet, he knew what it would look like inside; the piano that would be to the right of the entrance, the lobby desk, the bored receptionist, a ballroom, in which dinner was served every evening, the guest rooms even, how large they were, unusually large for this area. A grand place, or at least it was meant to be, that had fallen on hard times, which had never fulfilled its potential, its dreams; that was seen as cursed… But it wasn’t cursed, not really. It was actually kind of special…
Sweet Caroline.
That was the song playing on the radio, courtesy of some country station Melissa had tuned into.
Good times never seemed so good.
His heart both ached and soared.
Who are you? he wanted to ask. Why are you so familiar?
“Daddy, come on,” a voice behind him started whining again. “We want to go on the water slide!”
“The water slide?” For a moment he didn’t know what that was, who was speaking, or why he was having to wipe away a tear that luckily no one had noticed. It’s your son speaking, David. How can you forget your son? “Oh, the water slide, yeah, yeah, okay.”
“Oh good, you’re speeding up again,” Melissa seemed relieved. “I thought you were going to make us go in there for a minute, take a look around. You know, I don’t think you’re right, I don’t think it is in use anymore. It really does look derelict to me.”
As The Egress fell out of sight, he glanced at Melissa. “But didn’t you see her, the woman in the window, the one who was staring?”
She shook her head. “A woman in the window? What did she look like?”
“Look like?” he repeated. “I… erm… I don’t know. She was a shadow, a silhouette.”
“Maybe it was a guest then, admiring what a gorgeous day we’ve been blessed with.”
“Maybe.”
She started to sing along to the tune still playing on the radio. “I love this song,” she declared happily. “Neil Diamond’s got t
he most amazing voice.”
The ache in him increased. “Yeah,” he replied. “I love Sweet Caroline too.”
The End
Also by the author
This Haunted World Book One: The Venetian
Welcome to the asylum…
2015
Their troubled past behind them, married couple, Rob and Louise, visit Venice for the first time together, looking forward to a relaxing weekend. Not just a romantic destination, it’s also the ‘most haunted city in the world’ and soon, Louise finds herself the focus of an entity she can’t quite get to grips with – a ‘veiled lady’ who stalks her.
1938
After marrying young Venetian doctor, Enrico Sanuto, Charlotte moves from England to Venice, full of hope for the future. Home though is not in the city; it’s on Poveglia, in the Venetian lagoon, where she is set to work in an asylum, tending to those that society shuns. As the true horror of her surroundings reveals itself, hope turns to dust.
From the labyrinthine alleys of Venice to the twisting, turning corridors of Poveglia, their fates intertwine. Vengeance only waits for so long…
Eve: A Christmas Ghost Story (Psychic Surveys Prequel)
What do you do when a whole town is haunted?
In 1899, in the North Yorkshire market town of Thorpe Morton, a tragedy occurred; 59 people died at the market hall whilst celebrating Christmas Eve, many of them children. One hundred years on and the spirits of the deceased are restless still, ‘haunting’ the community, refusing to let them forget.
The Eleventh Floor Page 26