by D K Bohlman
As they passed room 314, Calum gave a mental nod to Jenna, waiting inside.
Kovacs pulled a small set of keys out of his pocket and opened the door to room 33. Calum noticed the lock seemed stiff as if it wasn’t used too much.
‘After you.’
Another capture
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Calum walked into room 33 and looked around. Peter had shut the door behind him and was moving past him to the other end of the room.
‘Through here.’ He pointed to a pair of doors. They’d been cleared of the mattress and old wardrobe camouflage.
Again, he turned the key in what seemed a stiff lock. He motioned Calum forwards, again with the same words.
‘After you.’
Calum noticed the doorframe looked dusty and the plaster around it fragmented. He walked slowly through the doors as they were opened by Peter. As he lifted his eyes and peered around the scene in front of him, he knew this was all wrong. He turned back to look at Peter but was beaten to it by a sharp prod in his back with something hard, which jerked him forwards a couple of yards into the room. He stumbled, then recovered, to find Peter pointing a revolver at him.
‘What’s this? Who are all these women?’ he asked, knowing one of them well enough: Aliz Gal was slumped on the sofa, seemingly asleep. So too was a dark-haired girl, pale in complexion. He assumed this was Sarah. There was another woman, on the bed, who he didn’t recognise. She had her eyes open, though she looked subdued.
‘Phone please.’
Calum thought briefly about the alternatives but decided quickly to do as he was ordered. He passed his mobile slowly into Kovacs’ outstretched left hand. He felt nervous, but those nerves were giving way to fast-boiling anger.
‘What the hell’s got into you?’
He watched Kovacs back slowly to the doors.
‘Please … please let us out of here, sir.’
Calum turned his head to find the half-awake girl had sat up a little.
Peter stopped for a fleeting moment then carried on out through the doors. As he pushed them shut, he spoke quietly through the narrowing crack.
‘I can't. I’m sorry … but I can't.’
*
Peter locked room 31 and retreated into the corridor, securing 33 as well. He pushed a couple of mattresses into place across the double doors into 31 before he left, to minimise any noise Neuman might make before he returned with the Scotsman’s assistant. If he could find her. He might try her room, he knew where she was at night: in room 314. Question was, was she there now or on the way to the hotel? All he could do was try her room door and see.
Jenna opens the door
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Jenna was in her room, waiting on the bed for the right time to join Calum at Peter Kovacs’ room. She was anxious, nervous for her boss. Since she’d heard noises of distress when she saw Kovacs and Aliz Gal enter room 33 the other night, she'd had a sense of doom gathering around her. She hadn’t let it get to her when she was with Calum, but right now she was scared.
When a sharp knock rapped on the door, it vibrated her nervous system and set her panicking. Who the hell could that be? She didn’t need any interruptions right now.
She debated whether to let it go, then remembered the peep-hole. She crept swiftly to the hole and pushed her eye up to it.
There was another sharp rap on the wood which nearly threw her off balance. She pressed her head forward again and saw an outline, then a face, partially in shadow from the bright corridor lights.
Izabella!
It was perhaps no surprise she was here, she hadn’t seen her since their aborted tryst the other day. She felt bad about that. It drove her to open the door, to make amends at least.
‘Hi.’ Izabella looked a bit sheepish. Jenna felt a bit sheepish.
She dismissed that thought instantly and smiled. ‘Hey. Come in.’
‘I brought vodka. I just thought …’
She held up a plastic bag.
‘Yeah, sorry about the other night, it was … err awkward. Old boyfriend. Heh.’
‘Oh? I thought … well, you know …’
Jenna grimaced at the awkwardness.
‘Just not sure what I’m doing, Iza, sorry, look, please sit down, let’s have a drink.’
‘Sure, that’s good.’
Izabella visibly relaxed and sat on the bed, close to Jenna. She ripped the seal off the half bottle of vodka she’d brought with her and poured into two plastic cups, together with some orange juice she pulled out of the same bag.
‘Cheers!’
‘Yeah, cheers, Iza.’
They both sank a good slug.
Iza moved a little closer to Jenna, testing the water. Jenna swayed away, almost imperceptibly.
Iza twisted her mouth into a warm smile. ‘Sorry. I shouldn’t assume.’
‘No, no, it's OK, let’s just have a drink, eh?’
Jenna knew she didn’t have time to do this. She had to get Izabella out of the room and soon. It would be a second rebuff but she had no choice. Then there was a loud knock at the door and it all became easier … and harder, in one breath.
‘Jesus, not again, is the boyfriend actually here this time? This is a plant, eh?’
Jenna let out a nervous laugh. ‘No! He’s in Scotland. Just a minute.’
She hopped over to the door and peered through the peep-hole.
Peter Kovacs.
Why the hell was he here, he should be with Calum right now. She wasn’t going to open the door to him. She turned to Izabella, pursed her lips and gave her the universal sshh sign. Iza nodded back, albeit with a sceptical scowl. She felt the inside of her sock, where she’d concealed a knife.
Jenna waited in silence. The doorknob rattled. Lucky she always snicked the catch when she shut the door.
Then she saw Peter move away. Another minute or so and nothing.
Now her mind was in turmoil. Something felt wrong. She needed to excuse herself and find Calum.
*
Peter Kovacs walked away from room 314, wishing he’d availed himself of a master key before he came upstairs this evening.
He decided against returning straight away to Ms Strick’s room. He’d wait a little, see if she turned up to room 21 as planned. If not, he might have to start his dirty work. He was wary of Neuman helping the women find some way of escape … from the personal profile on his website he looked like a bright man.
For a little while, at least, he felt calmer in his room, readying himself to take the next, terrible step.
Peter begins…
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He’d waited thirty minutes and Ms Strick hadn’t turned up at his door. Now his vital signs were all pushing their boundaries, bullying him into taking some action for relief.
He slipped the CO cylinder into a large plastic bag, together with a hose and some tape. He left his room and headed off upstairs to room 41, his father’s old apartment.
Once in the room, he rolled back the rug and peered through the spy-hole once more.
He could see the top of Neuman’s head. Slightly thinning. Moving gently, as if he was talking to one of the others. The rest he had no sight of.
He lay down near the hole and rolled the cylinder close, so he could attach the hose. Then the tricky part. He had to unscrew the spy-hole. He’d rather they didn’t notice, so he was trying to be very quiet, though in truth it really didn’t matter if they spotted him or not.
He remembered about the extra light that would shine down through the hole from his room and went back to switch off the main light, leaving only the torch on his phone switched on.
He grasped the eye-piece with his thumb and index finger and turned it slowly anti-clockwise. It soon came free from its housing, which was set into the floorboards. He placed it down and looked again. He saw a couple of flakes of plaster, floating down towards Neuman’s crown. They seemed to take an eternity to reach him, then they sett
led very gently on his hair.
Not gently enough though.
*
Calum felt a tickle on his head, like an insect alighting and brushed at it, only to see a couple of white flakes fall off. He instinctively looked up.
He’d not noticed the small metal ring in the ceiling in his brief stay in the room. He motioned to Katalin, who was the only one of the three women somewhat awake. She nodded.
‘Yes, I don't know what this is. It never did anything before. In eight years. But it looks different tonight.’
Calum felt his blood freeze. ‘Eight years?! You mean you’ve been here eight years?’
Katalin bowed her head and left it hung down, unable to meet his gaze.
Calum looked up again, gazed steadily at the hole, thought he detected a change in the colour of the opening. He held his index finger to his lips and looked at Katalin.
They both looked up at the ring and listened.
There was a faint scraping sound, then a darkening of the hole inside the ring. A couple more flakes of loose plaster floated down, so slowly they felt the world had suddenly slowed to half speed.
Their breathing quickened in contradiction. Time slowed even more. Then, the sound of a nightmare began.
The chamber
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Peter watched as the plaster snowflake fell onto Calum and made him look upwards, directly into the spy-hole. He shrank back automatically, then thought the movement might have been seen. But it didn’t matter now, did it? They were moribund, all four of them. Five if he could get the missing assistant into there later. For now, four would have to do.
He pulled the flexi tube end towards him and lowered it to the hole. It fit pretty well without any padding or adjustment. He pushed it in a couple of inches so it was nice and tight. Now he was all ready.
He turned his head sideways and stared at the cylinder head. There was the standard red hand wheel on the top. He reached for it, let his fingers curl slowly around the curves of cold metal.
He held his breath for a few seconds, then turned the wheel anti-clockwise. It was hard to turn it, so it moved with a slight jerk, releasing an initial hiss which then subsided to a steady, hushed breath of gas.
He held his ear to the floor next to the hole listening for sounds from the helpless people below but could hear nothing over the deadly shushing of the gas. He stood up, left room 41 and went back to his own room. He might be a monster but he couldn’t watch.
*
Calum heard the gas hiss first. Katalin heard it too, looking up at the hole in the ceiling.
The other two women were rousing themselves a little and Calum could see them sensing his own panic. Aliz hitched herself into a sitting position and mouthed ‘What’s happening?’
Calum pointed upwards. ‘Gas. He’s gassing us. Well, I assume it’s Peter.’
Aliz recoiled and clasped her hands to her cheeks.
‘I don't know what it is or how long it will take, but we need to do something quickly, or I suspect we’ll be dead pretty soon. I can’t smell anything. Any idea, Miss Gal?’
Aliz shook her head. ‘No, no idea. But why don't we try lighting the mattress through the door like we said, just maybe the fire alarm will save us?’
‘First I’ve heard of that … but yeah, we can try it. Right now, I can’t think of anything else.’
Katalin nodded at Calum, got up and tore a few scraps of paper out of a book on the shelf above her bed. She screwed them into long thin tapers and switched on the gas fire. ‘Here, I’ll light them, you push through the door crack and against the mattress.’
Calum grabbed the first one and did as he was asked. Then another, then another until he had pushed around ten lit tapers through the crack between the double doors. His forehead was covered with a nervous sweat by the time he was done.
‘OK, push some blankets or something against the doors now, or else we’ll get killed by the smoke.’ Katalin grabbed some large towels out of her wardrobe and bathroom, doused them in the sink and then pressed them against the doors with Calum’s help.
By now, Sarah was fully awake and aware of what was going on too.
The three women moved closer together, some sort of protective reaction … Katalin put her arms around the other two, squeezing them.
‘I’m praying this works.’
Calum stared at them, unable to move at that moment, his mind frantically circling for more ideas … and the gas hiss continued, quietly, unabated. He felt himself become a little light-headed.
‘Can we get something to stand on and push a wet cloth against the hole?’
‘Of course, why didn’t we think of that already?’ squawked Katalin.
Then the hotel fire alarm sounded.
Alarm
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As the alarm bells started to ring, Peter sprang up and called reception. One of the more senior members of staff answered.
‘Yes, Mr Kovacs, it's appeared on the fire alarm display panel. We think on the third floor. Maybe. Some lights on the second floor are showing too but sometimes it’s not accurate, I think.’
Peter shook his head at the seeming nonsense of an inaccurate fire alarm circuit but pressed on.
‘So the fire service is called automatically?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘OK, have we started the evacuation process?’
‘Of course.’
‘OK, good. I’ll meet you all outside at the assembly point. It's behind the hotel, isn't it?’
‘Yes, sir, next to the Italian restaurant.’
He replaced the phone. Then he sat and thought about the process he’d just started in the room above him. He walked over to the window and stared out, wondering what to do next. He looked down the street and spotted a few guests running away from the hotel towards the fire assembly point.
*
Jenna knew she’d been taking too long, trying to excuse herself politely (again) from Izabella, when the fire alarms exploded into life.
Izabella looked at her, frowned as if it had been orchestrated to get her to leave.
‘I think you are trying to avoid me!’
Jenna half-smiled. ‘Come on, we need to get out, grab your bag, here …’
Jenna saw Izabella flinch as she picked the bag up and handed it to her. Something worrying flashed across her mind, then disappeared again as the alarm continued its insistent shrieking. She gently pushed Izabella towards the door as she opened it with her other hand.
As they crossed the threshold together, they both noticed a faint drift of smoke in the corridor.
‘OK, it’s for real!’ gasped Izabella, with a heavy dose of panic across her face.
Jenna nodded vigorously.
‘Look, I need to check on my colleague, he’s just along the corridor. You go downstairs and get out, I’ll catch up with you.’
Again, there was a flinch in Izabella’s response. Again, Jenna ignored it and pushed her away from the door and towards the entrance to the stairwell.
‘GO.’
She did … still there was a reluctance to her movement that was now pricking at Jenna’s conscious thought … but she needed to find Calum right now.
‘See you downstairs.’ She turned up the corridor towards room 33 and saw there was a thicker haze of smoke around the doorframe. She ran up to the door and banged hard. No response. She banged again until her hands pulsed with the pain of bruising.
She pressed her head sideways against the door, listening for any responses inside. The smoke was beginning to get thicker and was making her eyes tear.
Was there someone else banging? She hammered at the door again and listened. Yes, there it was, muffled, but someone was returning her drumbeat. She knew Calum was in there still. Her mind flared wide and tried to think about how to open the door. A key. That was the only answer. She wasn't strong enough to force it. She turned to race down to reception.
Hanna’s message
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On her way home, Hanna Elek looked inside the paper bag she had stuck into her shoulder carry-all. One of the kitchen guys had slipped it to her before leaving work. There were a few bread rolls inside. She was thinking she'd prefer the guy to the rolls, but rolls were good anyway, nice and fresh and Lili would enjoy them filled with meat and cheese for supper.
The thing was, when he slipped her the bread rolls, he'd slipped a note in the paper bag too. She hadn’t seen it at first, but when she took the last roll out at home, there it was. Addressed to her, folded up into a neat rectangle. She opened it while she was making supper.
Why don’t you pop back to the hotel around ten? I’m off shift then and we can go for a drink for an hour if you like?’
Her heart rate blipped upwards and she smiled at the chopping board.
Hmm, maybe I could if I get Lili to sleep by nine. It’s just a short tram ride, and the neighbour will probably look over Lili for an hour or two. I knew he fancied me. Yeah, maybe I will.
*
Around nine-fifteen, Hanna fluttered her fingers in a wave to her neighbour who was perched on the sofa. ‘Promise I’ll be home by eleven-thirty.’ Her neighbour smiled.
Hanna set off towards the tram stop, smelling of the new perfume one of her friends had given her for her birthday last week. She felt good, light of step and gently excited. It had been a while.
She arrived early and sat on a bench near the rear entrance, waiting for him. Robert was his name. A little younger than her. Round face, stocky build, her sort really. And always kind to her.
She looked at her watch. Actually, there was no need to wait ten minutes out here. She could wait in the kitchens, why should that matter? She punched her code into the entrance security pad and wandered slowly into the staff restroom, just next to the main kitchens.