Purgatory Hotel

by Anne-Marie Ormsby

  And throughout the heart-to-heart Lula was trying to have with her, all she could think of was what Jackson would do to her when he got her alone.

  She was surprised to discover that Jackson had nothing up his sleeve, no sudden attack once Lula had calmed and fallen asleep at around two in the morning. He didn’t even come into her room that night; she heard his insomniac hours of solitude all night long as she lay awake waiting his approach. But he never came.

  He stayed down in the lounge all night, listening to Nick Cave albums. She could see him in her mind’s eye, Jackson sitting alone smoking endless cigarettes, a magical tumbler of whisky that was never empty and a musty old copy of some poetry book in his hands, Blake or Baudelaire.

  She did not know why he had left her alone, but he did so for a few days after. The most contact she had with him was one stolen moment when he held her face in his hands and looked deep into her eyes, as though he was looking for something.

  She felt tears in her eyes as she looked back at him, her heart so confused with what was right and wrong. All she knew was that she had such deep feelings for Jackson that she almost never wanted to see him again.

  One evening, a week or so later, Lula announced she was going out for the evening, which was most unusual as she rarely went out without Jackson.

  “Where are you going?” Dakota asked.

  “Oh, just over to Linda’s house for a few drinks. I’ll be gone a few hours,” she explained and her eyes flicked across to where Jackson was sitting. “Why don’t you two watch a movie together?”

  “What?” Dakota felt shock washing over her; Lula had never been like this before. Then she realised Lula was expecting Jackson and her to have a ‘bonding session’ while she was away.

  “It’ll be nice for you to spend an evening together. You both like the same movies… you can even have a bit of wine if you like.” Lula smiled excitedly and went into the hallway to put her coat on.

  “Why are you doing this, Lula?” Dakota raced out after her and spoke in whispers.

  “I don’t want you two to be at odds… I love you both and I want you to get on. You just need to spend more time together, talk about all the things you have in common. You like all the same books; he used to make such an effort with you by bringing books home from the library for you, didn’t he?”

  Dakota smiled weakly and hugged her sister back when she gave her a kiss goodbye.

  “Have a nice night, you two,” Lula called, smiling like an excited teenager.

  “Yeah, you have fun,” Dakota replied.

  As the door shut, silence descended over the house, cars passed outside and she could hear people laughing somewhere up the road.

  Dakota turned and walked into the lounge.

  Jackson was sitting in his chair looking at her.

  “So, Lula wants us to get closer. Do you think we should do as she says?” he said, a wry grin on his face.

  “If only she knew, Jackson, she’d kill us.” Dakota sparked up a cigarette and threw herself into the sofa.

  “I’m sorry, you know,” he said.

  “For what?”

  “For whatever I did that made you run away. Please don’t do that again. You belong here with us.”

  “I can’t bear the lies, Jackson. So much has happened that Lula doesn’t know and I have no one to turn to.”

  “You have me! Or don’t I count?” he snapped.

  “I used to be so close to her – we always told each other everything… It’s hard to not have a female friend anymore.” Dakota felt sadness welling in her.

  “You don’t need anyone else when you have me. I am everything you will ever need and you know that,” he said, his voice softer now. She felt herself weakening, her defences melting in her tiredness.

  “I just want an ordinary life, normal life… a normal boyfriend, a family and friends. I can never have it now, but don’t stop me from trying,” she said, half-angry, wiping a tear from her cheek. He stood up and slowly walked across to where she sat. In a few movements they were lying cuddled together on the sofa, and Dakota was lost to him again. All the resistance she managed when he wasn’t near her fell away and she was safe and warm again, just like that night in the hospital when he had been her only comforter.

  “Can we try to look like we like each other in a platonic way from now on? I mean, can we act like we like each other but not too much? I’d rather Lula thought we liked each other than hated each other.” Jackson faced her in the still lounge, the muted TV mouthing soundless words in the background.

  “I’ll try… If only she knew that I was trying to leave cos I liked you too much… maybe she would rather I left,” Dakota muttered.

  “You’ll always be my girl, D, always,” he whispered into her dark hair.

  And so the act continued. The great play that was her life went on unhindered and she knew that Lula believed that she and Jackson had worked their differences out. And in a way they had. Dakota knew that as long as she lived in that house, he would never leave her alone, and she didn’t want him to, but no matter how much she desired him, she knew that one day she would have to get away from him, and if it took two years before Lula would let her go, then she would keep on going till then.

  Dakota had dozed off again in the library, but woke sharply when a crack of thunder shook the windows.

  Betty was asleep, too, but the empty bottle of vodka indicated that it would take more than thunder to wake her up.

  Dakota stood up and felt she needed a break, a walk, anything to get her away from the books for a while. With one of the ink quills on the table she left a note for Betty telling her she had gone to get her another bottle of vodka and would return soon.

  The scratching of lives rose and fell behind the thunder as she made her way out to the hallway, with one of the table lamps in her hand; in the distant shadows of the library, souls moved, moaned and wept quietly amidst the tall shelves of secrets.

  Dakota decided she would give nearly anything to have a moment without hers or someone else’s despair. But she knew that there was not a single cobweb in Purgatory that wasn’t saturated in sadness.

  As she stepped out into the dark corridor she thought of the young boy she had met earlier who had run off deep into the hotel. His laughter had taken a long time to fade into nothing and it made her wonder how much further this corridor went.

  The familiar whispers and sniggers came from the direction that led to the lobby, but in the opposite direction there seemed to be only silence.

  “I’ll just take a look; it won’t take a second,” she muttered to herself and headed deeper into the darkness of the hotel.

  The wall lamps continued to fade and swell in the distance and she was glad of the steady light from her lamp. The further she went the quieter it got. She felt that not even the crazies came this far in, and she began to wonder whether it was a good idea to go on.

  Then, as one of the lamps up ahead reached full brightness, she noticed another door.

  TWENTY-FOUR: The Chapel

  Dakota saw that the door had been opened recently as there were no cobwebs draped across its peeling front. Silence beyond the door made her unsure of whether that was a good sign or a bad sign, but she knew that she wanted to take a look, so she did.

  The door creaked in a suitably Hammer-Horror way as she entered what appeared to be some kind of temple. The one window on the far wall allowed lightning to elaborate on the details of the room that the weak lamps could not pick out.

  It was very cobwebbed and dusty, but she could see by the floor that at least one other person had visited this room recently. There were a few seats but the walls were completely covered in religious imagery from nearly every religion she could think of and perhaps a few more she hadn’t heard of. Buddhas, pentagrams and crucifixes were just a few symbols she recognised.

  Great gold leaf paintings of various gods and goddesses spread themselves out across the huge walls. The room was almost as big as a
church, she realised as she wandered further in.

  At first, she wondered what this sort of room was doing here in Purgatory. Then she realised that it was most probably there for the same reasons as the Library was: to aid in everybody’s journey to repentance. But like the library, this place was fairly disused, a sad reminder that people here just weren’t any good deep down, that no one there really wanted to get out because they didn’t even know how to be sorry for whatever they had done.

  Dakota couldn’t even remember what she had done to get there, but she knew she was sorry nonetheless. She almost wanted to say it out loud, ‘I am sorry really, I’m not like all the others, I’m good deep down, and really I am!’ But the sad-faced gods looked down on her and she felt unworthy of them.

  Movement somewhere deep in the shadows stirred her, and she turned frantic to the source of the noise.

  “Did you know you’ve got a stalker?” said David, stepping forward from the row of chairs.

  “Christ! Why do you always have to creep around like that?” She relaxed slightly when she noticed his wrists weren’t bleeding anymore.

  “Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you. Not used to seeing anyone else in here,”

  “No, I guess not. This place seems a bit derelict. How come you’re here?” Dakota asked, sitting down.

  “I like it here. It’s safe, and peaceful. There’s nowhere else in this dump I’d rather be.”

  “Why did you say I had a stalker?” she asked warily, recalling his opening sentence.

  “I keep seeing someone behind you or waiting by the library for you. Never see a face or nothing, just a silhouette, smoking a cigarette. Whoever it is often walks this corridor. I always find the lights dim down when he goes past, like I am not allowed to see his face or something.”

  “Oh, it’s just Woods; he follows me around… I knew him, you see, in life,” she said uncomfortably, as though revealing a difficult secret.

  “Oh, guess it was him, then. Don’t think I know him,” David replied.

  Silence sat with them a while, wind moaning above their heads through some unseen crack in the high window. Lightning lit up the face of a golden Buddha and Dakota wondered, “So what religion are you?”

  “Me?” he asked, somewhat surprised at the question. She nodded with a faint smile. “Oh, I don’t know. I think I believe in them all; they are all basically the same thing after all – a higher power that created us and now watches over us, god or goddess, doesn’t really matter, does it?” he said, his sad eyes falling on an image of the Virgin Mary.

  “I was a Catholic, had a picture like that in my bedroom,” she said softly in the dark room, motioning towards the beautiful woman on the wall.

  “I like the idea that God is a woman, you know. Seems all the men I met in my life were so brutal. Perhaps the devil is a man,” he mused, his mind recalling the violence of his father.

  “Yeah, I like that idea, but where is the devil in all of this? There is no hell as such, so where does he live if God is in Heaven?”

  “He’s probably here, lurking down the hall somewhere… your stalker probably!” He laughed slightly but jumped as thunder rattled at the windows.

  “So why do you stay here?”

  “Well, I think it’s my best way out, you know, to stay here and pray, hope He will forgive me and let me into Heaven. I’ve been here a long time now, and I’ve stayed out of trouble. I was hoping that God might understand in some way that I only killed myself cos I was so unhappy. I just think if I show how sorry I am, he might…”

  “Have you been to the library?” Dakota asked as her mind skipped back to what she should be doing.

  “Yeah, I did all that. It’s amazing how much you forget, all those things from childhood. My father loved me once, I think. He used to be nice to me sometimes when I was a baby. Don’t know why he stopped…” He paused, his thoughts going to places that Dakota couldn’t follow. “Anyway, yes, I did that. I just have to hope now that prayers might help.”

  Dakota stared at David and his skinny body, wondering if he was right. Was religion and prayer the best way out of this replacement for Hell? But she couldn’t even begin that process until she had worked out what she had done to get here in the first place.

  She wanted to stay here, in the peaceful safe air of the Chapel, but she knew she couldn’t stay. She had work to do.

  “I’d better go, but I will come back. I just have to keep going in the library till I know why I am here. Then I’ll come back and pray with you,” she said, standing up.

  “Really? Will you pray with me? I’d love that… Come back soon, OK?” He seemed moved to tears by her words and reached out to touch her hand.

  “I promise I’ll come back, see you later, OK?” She smiled and moved off towards the door to the corridor.

  As she stepped out into the corridor, she listened. There were distant shufflings further down towards the Lobby, which meant she would have to fight her way through the shadowy occupants. She sighed and stepped further out, closing the chapel door. As she turned back to the hallway, she jumped back as she came face to face with Goldman.

  He was smiling his gruesome grin at her, his proximity to her making her skin crawl, and all the while Dakota kept repeating a phrase over and over in her head: ‘Don’t show him you’re scared of him.’ Even so, his cruel smile led her to believe she wasn’t doing too well at hiding her fear.

  “Nice to see you, pretty.” He smiled, leaning up against the wall, blocking her exit.

  “Wish I could say the same. What do you prefer to be called now? Woods or Goldman?” she replied, aware of a shake in her voice.

  “I’d actually prefer you to call me Daddy.” He licked his lips at her and she felt her dead stomach roll over into knots.

  “Forgive me if I don’t. I think I’m a bit too old for you, aren’t I?” she snapped, trying to accentuate the defiance in her tone.

  “I’d always make an exception for you, pretty. Been waiting to get my hands on you since you were the right age; I’d just have to use my imagination a bit, that’s all.” He chuckled, reaching out to touch her hair.

  “So you still don’t have anything better to do with your time, eh? I guess dying didn’t teach you any lessons.”

  “I’m starting to think you aren’t happy to see such a familiar face here – thought we could use the time wisely… you know, get to know each other better…” He was creeping closer to her, her back pushing up against the wall, wishing she could just vanish. “After all, pretty, we do have all the time in the world now, don’t we?”

  He managed to get within inches of her face, his body beginning to press on her lower half before she snapped into action and shoved him away with all her strength, making a run for it.

  After a brief tussle with the crazies down past the Library, Dakota made her way back into the Bar to get some more vodka. She actually felt she needed some now, and she even craved a cigarette. In her pocket she found one last cigarette, slightly battered but not split, and she lit it in the dim light by the Bar door, her hands shaking almost uncontrollably. Her close encounter with Goldman had left her nervous; she feared that she might not have the strength to fight him off next time.

  Inside, the usual suspects sat in the dim shadows and anger burnt low like a fire reduced to embers. She could feel it in the air, mixed with the softer, weaker emotions of pity and despair.

  She recalled the last time she had been in the Bar, the fight with Danny still clear in her crowded mind. She felt bad suddenly, as though she could forget everything and tell him it wasn’t worth it – that they had to stick together in this place and be friends.

  As low music murmured in the background, muffled by thunder, she saw Danny, sitting at the end of the bar again, head in hand, a burnt-out cigarette still clinging to a column of ash sitting between his fingers. He was asleep and hunched over, his grip on his one pleasure continuing through sleep.

  Dakota reached out and lifted the dead cigar
ette from his finger, dropping the cold ash across the bar. The movement woke Danny suddenly, and she reached out her hand to his arm to calm him. But instead, his eyes showed horror at the sight of her. He fell back, off his chair, muttering and crying, as though he was terrified of her.

  His actions startled Dakota at first, but she still knelt down beside him to try and calm him. “It’s OK, it’s me, Dakota. You were dreaming. Calm down,” she whispered. In seconds, the look of fear melted and he stared at her like she was a new species of plant.

  “Dakota? Oh, it’s you… you looked like…” He continued to mutter inaudibly as she helped him back onto his stool.

  “Who did I look like?” She laughed slightly. “You’d think you’d seen a ghost!”

  “Nothing… no one. I was dreaming, as you said.” He was visibly shaken and looked more than ever like he needed a drink.

  “Can’t you have just one drink? Will they notice?” she whispered, pouring out a shot of vodka. Danny looked sadly at the glass for a moment before reaching out and dragging it down the bar towards him.

  The liquid in the glass caught the candle-light for a moment as he lifted it to his mouth, but in a second it was gone.

  “What happened?” she said, staring at the empty glass that sat against his closed lips. Danny held the glass in front of his eyes and stared at it with more sadness in his eyes than she had ever seen in him before.

  “They took it away. I told you I can’t drink. It happens every time I try. I can hold a glass of it in my hand for hours, but as soon as it goes near my mouth, it disappears, evaporates,” he said sadly. Dakota took the glass and ran her finger around the inside. Despite the fact that she had filled it with vodka a few moments before, it was bone dry, as though it had been sitting on the shelf for ages.

  “Sorry, I thought they might let you have one occasionally,” she said.