Purgatory Hotel

by Anne-Marie Ormsby

  Whoever was in the corridor had stopped outside.

  She waited, ear against the door.

  Nothing.

  Then a huge thud shook the door in its frame. Dakota jumped back screaming as the creature in the corridor threw its body weight against her door.

  “I know you’re in there, little girl!” rasped a voice that made her hair stand on end.

  The only light in the room was the dim glow coming from the corridor through the cracks in the door.

  “Go away, go away, go away!” she whispered, more to herself than anything. One more cackle and she heard the sound of the intruder sloping away, dragging its feet.

  Dakota leant her head against the door, breathing erratically as panic subsided in her. Turning to the room she saw a dim glow coming from an oil lamp beside her bed. Darting across the room she fiddled with the knob on the side until the flame grew and threw more light on the walls. Just as she stood straight again, a sudden knock on her door made her jump.

  “It’s OK, it’s me, he’s gone. Can I come in?” asked the soft woman’s voice from beyond the panelled pine. Dakota was feeling wary of trickery and slid the chain across before opening the door. Out in the hallway stood a plump, short and nervous-looking lady of around fifty, with a bouffant of black hair, smoking and holding a packet of cigarettes and a lighter in her hands. Dakota slowly opened the door with the reasoning that she couldn’t possibly harm her.

  “What do you want?” quizzed Dakota standing firmly although she felt as though she might wobble.

  “Thought you might want some company... please, before he comes back.”

  Dakota stood aside and let the woman in, closing the door swiftly behind her and re-locking the door.

  As she turned she looked at the room she was in more closely. It was small with only enough space for a bed and a single armchair, which the woman was now seated in. Beside the bed was a small table with an ashtray, a full box of cigarettes and a box of matches.

  “Christ, they do push you to smoke here, don’t they? Free booze, free fags,” mused Dakota. Beyond the armchair was a curtained window. The draping worn velvet moved slowly as a draft manipulated it. She realised she had not yet looked outside, and moved past the woman smoking in the chair to pull back the curtains.

  “That view will make you wish we didn’t have windows. The woman laughed knowingly.

  Out beyond the glass was the blackest night Dakota had ever seen. What seemed like miles below them was a forest of dead, twisted trees shaking madly in the bracing wind. Beyond the mass of shuddering trees, she could see a lake, only made visible in the moonless dark by the great white ridges of panicked water surging insanely under the black fingers of the storm. Lightning broke over the lake and she saw, for an instant, a small black boat tossed and storm-crazed making its difficult path through waters that seemed intent on sinking it. There were two passengers, one a tall white figure that stood steadily at the bow of the boat, facing away from the other, a crouched dark being that held onto the side of the boat for safety. In the instant the light failed, she could no longer see them. There was no horizon, there was no distance, and she was only able to see as far as the edge of the lake by the dead forest. Despair filled her as she dropped the curtain back.

  “Best you don’t look out there too often. Sends people crazy,” said the woman, leaning over to pull a bottle of whisky out from under Dakota’s bed. “Here, get some of that down yer neck.”

  “I’ve already had a bottle of vodka. I can’t drink any more,” replied Dakota throwing herself onto the bed. It was stiff as a board and almost bruised her as she landed on it.

  “You won’t throw up, don’t worry. You’ll have a hangover but it’s not like you have anything to get out of bed for, is it!”

  “Why do they give you so much booze and cigarettes here?”

  “I have no idea! It must help with the transition or something, being allowed to have the things you used to turn to when you were down. For most people here that’s booze and fags. Though I hear that once you’ve been here for a while you get so sick of it you just stop.” She laughed and swigged the tobacco-coloured liquid down with a grimace.

  On the floor by the door, Dakota noticed, stood a small stereo and a collection of CDs. Although she could not recall what music she liked, she knew that she had always enjoyed listening to music.

  “Be wary of anything that looks like a treat. They’d give you your favourite albums to listen to, but they don’t allow loud music so the stereo has no volume control! Not everyone gets them, though, so I wouldn’t go telling everyone. They will all be trying to steal yours.” The woman laughed again, and lit another cigarette using the butt of her last one. Dakota wondered what music she had liked, but felt so drunk she was unsure if she could get off the bed again.

  “What’s your name?” asked Dakota, lighting another cigarette.

  “Betty.”

  “Well I’m Dakota, and thanks for the warning earlier. I think I saw him in the lobby earlier. He’d just arrived, I think.”

  “Don’t know who it was for sure. There’s always someone roaming the corridors, trying to put the frighteners on you. But there’s one, worse than the others.” She drew sharply on her cigarette. “I hear them all the time. They wait for people to come back from the Bar or wherever and then chase them around till they get bored. Some of the rapists are the usual culprits. That’s why I warned you to get in. Rapists might not have the right parts to do the deed when they get here, but they’ll still have a good go at raping someone.”

  “What do you mean, they don’t have the right parts?”

  “From what I’ve heard, that’s one of the punishments rapists have when they get here. They don’t have a… you know…” Betty looked slightly embarrassed as she motioned with eyes and hands into her lap.

  “Oh! I see… so they disarm them in a way? Removing their weapon of choice, as it were?”

  “Yep, how frustrating eh? They still have the desire but not the equipment!” Betty allowed herself a chuckle. “But the annoying thing for the women here, is that even though the rapists can’t do what they want, they will still attack whenever they feel like it. A lot of them hang out in the woods when they aren’t patrolling the corridors.”

  “Well I think I’ll call him in the corridor Woods, then. I don’t fancy actually asking his name. What was odd was that, well, he seemed like he knew me.”

  “What makes you think that?”

  “Well he… he said my name.” Lightning lit the edges of the curtains briefly.

  “Maybe he just overheard you checking in?” Betty offered.

  “I could have sworn he didn’t come in till after that, but I could be wrong. It was just odd.”

  “Did you recognise him?”

  “No… I don’t think so. I don’t remember a lot, you see.”

  “No? Head injuries, eh?” She shook her head sadly. “So you don’t remember how you died? Or why you are here? Shit, that’s tough.”

  “What about you? What did you do to get in here?”

  “I’m a murderer,” Betty replied with an innocent smile that seemed wrong considering what she had just said.

  “Oh? Anyone in particular?” Dakota asked, hoping she wouldn’t say young women.

  “Two husbands.” Betty broke into laughter before wiping away some tears.

  “Why?”

  “What can I say? I had bad taste. I was young when I married the first one, only seventeen. Then one night after four years of being beaten black and blue, I stabbed him.”

  “Did you go to prison?”

  “Yeah, for a few years. I got off light cos it was self-defence, you see. Then when I got out I met Mick. He seemed lovely and perfect. Until about two days into our honeymoon and he punched me so hard I ended up in hospital. I realised straight away that I had made a big mistake and as soon as I got out of hospital, I laid out an elaborate plan where everyone thought he had gone away on business, only he never a
rrived at his hotel, because that morning as he was eating his breakfast I smacked him round the head with a hammer until he was dead.”

  Dakota found herself appalled and yet interested in Betty’s tale of murder. She didn’t know if this place was making her like this, but she wanted to hear more about it. So she listened to Betty for hours as she told her what he looked like after she had bust his head open, and how she buried him in the garden, and put decking and a pagoda over where his body was interred. And as fate had it, Betty would get run over by a police car as she left the police station after giving a stellar performance as the confused and worried wife checking on police progress to find her missing husband.

  “That’s karma for you.” Betty chuckled. “Now I’m stuck with both of the fuckers for eternity maybe!”

  “Are they here?”

  “Oh yeah, they are on a different level so I can’t see them, but sometimes I think they will just appear, like ghosts, that’s why I don’t leave my room. This is the first time I’ve left my room for weeks. Well I say weeks, could be years for all I know, no way to tell where you are time-wise. All I know is I am dead and this is my punishment for murdering two people.”

  “But it was self-defence! You wouldn’t have killed them if they hadn’t been beating you up constantly!” Dakota said angrily.

  “You’ll get it all together soon, love; you’ll understand how it works. It’s only self-defence if they are trying to kill you. All I had to do was leave; I didn’t have to kill them. I guess I just wanted to.”

  Dakota was stunned. She realised she knew nothing about the rules of punishment. This wasn’t a legal system she was dealing with.

  “So if you’re such a bad person why aren’t you in hell? Why isn’t the rapist in the corridor in hell?”

  “Uh, I don’t know. I don’t understand any of it. As far as I’m concerned this is hell. Every time I go to sleep I dream about them. It’s like it’s happening all over again. Other times I dream that they are out in the corridor trying to get in. The dreams… they feel so real.”

  Lightning lit the curtains for a moment and Dakota realised she felt tired, after all the vodka and the whisky she had reluctantly shared with Betty.

  “I need to sleep... do you mind?”

  “No, you give it a go. You might need more whisky. You can finish that off; there is more where that came from.” Betty got up and moved over to the door. She paused to listen for a moment then bolted out the door, slamming it. Dakota heard the sound of dragging footsteps and cackling again as Betty hurried into her own room. Dakota got up and re-locked the door, listening to the sniffing noises the rapist in the hall was making. She felt alone and very afraid again.

  She needed to know what had happened; she was dead and that was it but she still needed to know how and what she had done to deserve such an awful afterlife.

  Lying down on her bed she closed her eyes and listened. Over the sound of the storms, she could hear crying, low moans and manic laughter. The sources of these noises seemed to be above and below her. It was all around her. People in other rooms, on other floors and on her own floor, were suffering terrible moments of pain and guilt.

  She lay there for hours, just listening to them all until the sound became a lullaby that sent her to sleep.

  FOUR: Loverman

  The room was dark, but it was hot. The curtains fluttered slightly in a breeze from the open window, and in the distance she could hear cars passing, far off in their late night journeys. Beside her bed the time glowed red for 1.30am.

  Low down and faint she could hear the words to a song playing:

  “Loverman, since the world began, forever Amen till the end of time...”

  The door to the room was haloed in a dim yellow light coming from the hallway.

  Then a shadow broke up the halo as a figure moved outside the door. It was a man and he was humming along to the music that was playing somewhere in her room. When the door opened, all she could see was the silhouette of a man with long hair that just touched his shoulders, wearing a pair of trousers and nothing else. She could not see his face; he was just a black shape moving slowly and silently save for his low humming.

  Although she seemed quite still and at ease there was a great knot growing inside her, twisting and turning her stomach over. As he closed the door and made his way towards her bed in the dark, she realised it was fear she felt.

  “There’s a devil waiting outside your door… weak with evil and broken by the world... shouting your name and he’s asking for more…”

  He had put the song back to the beginning and it was playing over again as she felt the weight of him lie down on the bed beside her, all the while singing along quietly. Fear was becoming confusion; she knew this man. Why was she so afraid of him? He said nothing to her; he just sang along, low and soft to the words of the song. He was faceless movement beside her in the dark, and he drew closer to her ear as he whispered the words:

  “Take off that dress... I’m coming down... I’m your Loverman...”

  The room seemed to be growing hotter and she could feel her body beginning to perspire, as she smelt moisture growing on his skin. Then he put his hand under her nightdress and buried it between her legs.

  Dakota woke bolt upright, sweating and shaking. The light was still on, and she could see that she was still alone. She felt terrified and confused again. Though her head throbbed she reached across to the bottle of whisky to take a swig. Thunder rolled outside and she jumped, dropping the bottle on the floor. Glass shattered and the smell of whisky rose up from the dirty grey carpet. She pushed the images from her dream out of her head and concluded that it was the fear of the rapist in the corridor that had made her dream such a creepy dream.

  She was still clothed in her grey sweater and jeans, but her boots lay on the floor by the bed, scuffed and old. Quickly she pulled them on and made ready to leave her room and go back downstairs. She didn’t want to be alone anymore, and she didn’t want to fall asleep again, so grabbing her room key and putting it in her pocket, she unbolted the door and raced out, locking it behind her.

  The corridor was brighter. It appeared as though more lamps had been lit and she could see that the corridor stretched away for at least a mile. Though she wanted to investigate more, she was sure she could hear dragging footsteps approaching from the distance, so without a thought she got into the elevator and asked to be taken to the lobby.

  FIVE: The Great Outdoors

  The lobby seemed to be no different than before; people still lay about in various stages of drunkenness and despair. Dakota stood warily in the doorway looking around, wondering if she dared enter. She felt drawn to the door across the room that led outside. Without further thought she bolted across the room, bumping into furniture and narrowly missing another resident who had stood up as she crossed his vision.

  As soon as she was through the first set of doors she breathed a little easier, looking back through the glass panels to make sure no one was following her. Rain howled against the doors ahead, but still she needed to go out there, and throwing her weight against the doors, she fell out into the rain-soaked night.

  Dim light from the hotel flooded down in patches onto the mud that surrounded her. Taking steps forward was harder than she thought; the thick black mud clung to her feet as though it were trying to drag her down. As lightning flashed she saw a path ahead of her, so as fast as she could, she trudged forward to hard ground, where she stood to rest her legs. Rain whipped at her mercilessly, her hair and clothes were soaked within minutes and she was freezing under the icy gales that tried to knock her to her knees.

  Dakota wanted to cry, but instead she screamed angrily at the storm. The great grim hotel sneered back at her, its windows like eyeless sockets beyond the great sheets of rain. A few yards away, the dead trees of the forest rose up out of the mud like the twisted clawed hands of old ladies. They seemed to be beckoning her into the endless night, calling her into the deep sickening dark of
the forest. Anger was replaced by a weak sobbing noise that she realised was coming from her own throat. Dakota fought the urge to disappear into the dark throng of the trees and turned back to the hotel. Gargoyles leered at her and their clawed fingers reached down from above, where the walls seemed to have no end; they just stretched up into the abyss of the storm-filled sky, the dim lights at the windows blinking out into the clouds.

  The wind rocked her back towards the hotel, whipping her face with her own hair and the cold sharp rain. Trying again not to be pulled into the mud forever, Dakota slouched back to the door. A gloomy lamp swung above the dark wood and she looked up at the windows beyond it.

  Someone was watching her from a window high above the door. It was just a silhouette, but she knew it was a man. His gaze seemed to sink into her skin and gnaw at her bones. All was still in her. The storm raged and yanked at her tiny form, but she was frozen to the spot, eyes locked on the shape at the window. The curtain dropped back and he was gone.

  Suddenly Dakota felt sick, as though her stomach was swimming around her midriff, eating into its own tail. She gagged uselessly, nothing in her body to empty out – she was dead all over. All she did was suck in air to fill dead lungs. The air was thick, it smelt bad, like something was rotting, and she gagged again.

  Moments later she was back inside, on the other side of the main doors. The glass doors ahead swung in the burst of wind she had let in by re-entering the hotel. Weakly, she prodded them open and dragged mud into the lobby on her wet feet. Residents looked up momentarily and sniggered behind their cigarettes. Unamused, she moved past them all in the direction of the Bar. Rain dripped from every part of her and she shivered in the chill air of the drab, dull room.

  At the doorway to the Bar she felt as though she was being observed again, the image of the faceless man at the window squirming like an eel in her mind, but a quick look around proved she had imagined it.