The Purgatorium: The Purgatorium Series, Book One

by Eva Pohler

Chapter Three: The Games

  That evening, after a quick shower, Daphne dried her hair and lounged in her towel, waiting for Cam to call. While she waited, she opened her journal to add more lines to her new poem:

  Since your voice can never be heard again,

  Nor your touch felt, nor your eyes seen,

  I’ll close my eyes, and with one long sigh,

  Seek you in my final dream.

  Not long after, Cam phoned to say he would meet Daphne in the dining room because he’d promised Hortense he’d help set up an exercise.

  “What kind of exercise?”

  “Now how much fun would it be if I ruined the surprise?”

  “I don’t like surprises.”

  “Well, you’re no fun. Come on, have a positive attitude. It’s going to be great.”

  She hung up the phone and then put on a soft cream blouse with a long lavender skirt and silver sandals, a new outfit her mother had bought her for the trip. Daphne looked at her reflection as she twisted her hair up into a clip. She hadn’t worn makeup or jewelry in a long time, but tonight, she wished she had brought some along.

  A few others entered the main building way ahead of her. Behind her, Stan called for her to wait up. She turned and gasped. In a button-down light blue shirt and khaki slacks, he looked every bit the male model.

  “Hey,” she said.

  “Hey. You look nice.”

  “Thanks. So do you.”

  They followed the others into the main building.

  “This place is so beautiful,” Daphne said.

  “Yeah. I’ve really enjoyed it here.”

  “How long are you staying?”

  “Not sure. Kind of playing it by ear.”

  People stood in front of the elevator waiting. Daphne’s palms felt sweaty. It had been awhile since she had last been in one.

  “Do you mind if we take the stairs?” Daphne asked at the last second, just as the doors opened to welcome them inside.

  “Not at all.”

  She followed Stan down the hall, but the door to the stairwell had a sign posted: “Wet paint. Do not enter.”

  “Is there another stairwell?” Daphne asked. Her heart was racing now.

  “I would think so. Come on.” He led her down another corridor. They passed the rec room, the spa, the bar and grill, and came to the shop. “Here we go.” But on the door was the same message. “Oops. Looks like the elevator it is.”

  They returned to the lobby and found one waiting. Daphne stepped inside with wobbly legs. As the elevator doors closed, Stan pushed number three, and Daphne’s heart pounded all the way up in her ears. She clutched the railing behind her and looked for her happy place, chastising herself for going so long without riding an elevator. Her doctor had warned her that the desensitizing therapy would wear off. Breathe in, two, three, four, and out, six, seven, eight.

  The doors opened on the third floor.

  He led her through a foyer into the dining room. Daphne took another deep breath and slowly exhaled.

  About a dozen tables were occupied, and a dozen more were not. Daphne spotted Cam across the room standing near a round table where Hortense and a few others in their forties and fifties were seated.

  “You look great,” Cam said, meeting her half way.

  “Thanks. So do you.” She liked his gray shirt and black trousers and how they brought out the gold in his blue eyes and the highlights in his blond hair, a nice distraction from her nerves.

  Stan followed them to the table, which was topped with glasses of iced tea and water and plates of salad and rolls.

  “We’re sitting over there,” Cam pointed to another round table filled with younger people, in their teens and twenties. “But first I want to introduce you to a few others.”

  They said hello to Hortense Gray, and then Cam introduced Daphne to Arturo Gomez, the owner of the resort. He was short and had small hands. On each finger, he wore a ring with a big stone. He also wore a black tuxedo with a flamboyant turquoise bowtie and matching vest. His hair was slicked back, and his mustache lay across his upper lip like an asp. He seemed nice enough, but there was something about him that Daphne did not trust—an eagerness or enthusiasm that seemed out of place. He asked Daphne if she was enjoying her stay so far, and she said absolutely, telling him how much she loved the glass bottom pool and the private beach.

  “There’s much more to experience,” he said with a Spanish accent. “I hope you like every bit of it.”

  Another man sat at Dr. Gray’s left. Cam introduced him as Dr. Lee Reynolds, Dr. Gray’s colleague in behavioral psychology. He was tall, thin, and bald, and appeared to be in his fifties or sixties. His head towered above everyone else’s at the table even though he sat with his shoulders hunched over, like his body was too hard for him to hold upright. He said hello in a soft, effeminate voice, and although he was polite, he, too, gave Daphne a strange feeling, as though there were more to him than met the eye.

  An older woman in her late fifties with curly white hair sat beside Lee Reynolds and was introduced as Mary Ellen Jones. She had round, chipmunk cheeks and an equally round body, and when she smiled, she made Daphne think of Mrs. Santa Claus. Roger, the driver, was also with them, along with a redhead in her late thirties named Kelly something, and a Native American man in his forties whose name Daphne did not hear (and she was too shy to ask to have it repeated). After these introductions, Cam and Stan led her to the table where the younger crowd was seated.

  Although they all told Daphne their names, she couldn’t remember them after having learned so many at the other table. There was a girl with long brown hair and green eyes, a Hispanic boy who looked college-age, and a thin blond boy who didn’t talk much but smiled a lot. She recognized them as the group who had come to play billiards earlier.

  Throughout the meal, they made small talk. Daphne mentioned her interest in the kayaking and horseback riding excursions, and both Stan and Cam said they wanted to join her. Cam encouraged her to go on the bird hiking trail, ranting about the island scrub jay and its near-extinction and how this island was the only place in the world you could see one. Stan told her she must do the island fox hunt—the creatures were fascinating, more like terriers than foxes, and you don’t actually shoot them, just spot them.

  During dessert, Daphne noticed Mr. Gomez being summoned by one of the waiters. After some time, he returned, white-faced, to the microphone near the stage.

  “I hope everyone is enjoying their stay here at the Santa Cruz Island Resort.” Mr. Gomez paused as everyone applauded. “Wonderful. Unfortunately I have troubling news. The dead body of a young woman was discovered in the valley this evening.” A gasp traveled through the room. “The authorities believe she was murdered.” People turned to one another with looks of alarm. “Don’t be afraid. I have four more security guards coming in from the mainland, and they’ll arrive tonight. I only tell you this news so you will take extra precautions. Use common sense. Don’t go anywhere alone. Stay near the resort at night. The navy guards and employees of the Nature Conservancy are searching the grounds for the culprit. It’s likely he is already gone from the island. Just be careful.”

  Daphne wanted to say, “So it wasn’t a mirage, or ghosts,” but she bit her lip because there was something strange about the whole situation that didn’t sit right with her. She couldn’t put her finger on it, but it seemed to her that they were all actors putting on a show. Mr. Gomez reminded her of Dumbledore when he tells the students at Hogwarts that there are places in the castle that are off limits. Nothing seemed authentic. But that made no sense. A whole ballroom full of people couldn’t possibly be acting.

  She told Cam she wanted to go back to her room. He said he had to help Dr. Gray first and would meet her there shortly.

  She glanced across the room and then leaned closer to Cam. “But I’m really upset.” Whether it was all a ruse or a girl really had been murdered, either scenario had sucked away the feelings of liberty that had
been making Daphne unusually happy.

  “I’ll walk you back,” Stan offered.

  She waited for Cam to say, “No, that’s okay. I’ll take her.” But he didn’t. Hiding the hurt, she followed Stan to the elevator and stepped inside.

  Daphne breathed in, breathed out.

  Before they reached the main level, the elevator jerked and stopped.

  “What’s going on?” Daphne asked, as her brain fogged up with fear.

  The lights blinked off. They were enveloped in darkness.

  “You gotta be kiddin’ me,” Stan said.

  “What’s happening?” She couldn’t think. Her hands flapped beside her like the wings of a jarred moth.

  “It’s okay, Daphne,” he said in a soothing voice. “We’re going to be fine. I’m trying to find the emergency switch. Someone will get us outta here soon.”

  Tears ran down her face and her stomach dropped out from under her. She felt like she might be sick. Then it occurred to her that this might be the exercise Cam had agreed to set up for Hortense Gray.

  “This better not be an exercise. This isn’t one of their exercises, is it?” She felt along the wall of the elevator for the rail, and when she found it, she held on tight.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You know, therapeutic games? Cam knows I’m scared of elevators. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out what’s going on here. They’re making me face my fear. Well forget this! Do you hear me out there? I don’t like this one bit!” She hit her fist against the elevator wall.

  “Calm down, Daphne.”

  “I thought therapeutic games would be like relay races and rock climbing. Scaring the crap out of me is not why I came!”

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “I’m sorry, Stan. This isn’t your fault. Oh, God, oh my crap, I can’t breathe!” She felt helpless, out of control, at the mercy of this stupid elevator and the way it was closing in on her, stifling her oxygen, trapping her, not letting her out. “Let me out!”

  “Come here.” He pulled her into his arms with a tight grip, forcing her to hold still. “Relax. It’s okay,” he said softly.

  The lights flickered and then came on. The elevator dropped a few more feet to the bottom floor.

  “Ahhh!” Daphne cried, catching against the wall.

  The doors opened, and Daphne leapt out, trembling and angry and amazingly relieved. She avoided the eyes of the others in the foyer as she tried to regain control of her breathing and rushed from the building.

  Stan caught up to her and put a hand on her shoulder just outside the main building. “You okay?”

  She caught her breath and then said, “No.”

  “Let’s head back to the rooms.” He slid a hand behind her back and nudged her down the sidewalk.

  “So are they scaring the hell out of you, too?” she asked, after her breathing had returned to normal. “Any games as crazy as that?”

  “What do you mean? What games?”

  “Isn’t Dr. Gray putting you through therapeutic games?”

  “I’m here studying the Chumash Indian ruins and archaeological sites for a paper I’m writing.”

  Daphne stopped on the sidewalk near the pool, where the underwater lights had turned on, making the water glow in the dusk falling around them. “I don’t understand.”

  Stan put an arm around her waist and pulled her onward. “If you ask me, Cam’s just teasing you.”

  “No. Dr. Gray said so, too.”

  “Therapeutic games? What does that even mean?”

  Daphne shrugged. “I don’t intend to stay and find out.”

  They reached her unit.

  “You just got here and made my trip one hundred percent better. I hate to see you leave.”

  Daphne blushed. “That’s sweet.” Maybe she just needed to draw a line for Cam. “Thanks. Maybe if I talk to Cam and the doctor...”

  “There you go.”

  She unlocked her door. “Well, good night.”

  “Good night.”

  Daphne turned on the television, still shaken from the elevator. She reminded herself that she wasn’t afraid of death. It was the pain she feared, and Cam wouldn’t put her in any real pain or danger. She changed into her night shirt and hung up her clothes. She was folding the sheet back on the bed when the doorbell rang.

  She peeked through the window to see who was there, but the window didn’t give her a full view.

  “Who is it?” she asked. When there was no reply, she asked again.

  The doorbell rang.

  “Cam?” She returned to the window and this time was met by a strange, ghostly face looking back at her. “Ahh!” Daphne jumped back.

  A young woman with two long braids and skin white as a ghost and blood-red eyes looked in at her. Daphne didn’t know what to think or what to do, muttering, “What in the hell is going on?” Once she recovered from the shock, since she didn’t believe in ghosts, and since she was pissed and wasn’t about to let on they had gotten to her with the elevator, she waved.

  She was about to say, “How do you do?” with amusement when the door to her unit opened, and the ghastly figure stood in the doorway.

  Daphne froze. Hadn’t she locked the door?

  The girl was covered in white powder and had bizarre red eyes. Red stuff dripped from them and from her blue lips. She wore a short black dress, torn in places.

  “Are you one of the living or the dead?” The ghost carried an enormous shotgun.

  “What?”

  Before Daphne could react, the ghost girl pointed the gun and pulled the trigger. A spray of fine white powder shot out. Daphne closed her eyes to keep the powder from getting into them as the ghost girl ran out.

  Daphne rushed to the door and closed it, locked it, and leaned her back against it just in case.

  The ghost girl put her face to the window and screamed, “You are one of the dead! You hear me, Daphne Janus? You are not living! You are one of the dead!”

  Daphne pulled at the curtain to block out the hideous face, but soon there were other faces, equally gruesome, peering in at her. Together they said, “You are not living! You are one of the dead!” The curtain panels wouldn’t close over the entire window. There was a three-inch gap between them through which Daphne could still see the white faces and the red eyes and blue lips dripping with blood—fake blood, she reminded herself.

  “You are not living! You are one of the dead!”

  Daphne ran into the bathroom and closed the door. She stood there, shaking. What in the world had just happened? She looked at herself in the mirror. Baby powder. She was covered in baby powder. She might have laughed if she weren’t so upset. In the bathroom, she used her towel to wipe herself clean. Then she poked her head through the bathroom door. The faces at the window were gone.

  She checked the lock on the door and dragged one of the striped chairs in front of it, just to be sure. Then she phoned Cam, ready to give him an earful, ready to demand he take her home on the first boat, but he didn’t answer, so she called the courtesy desk to leave messages for him and for Hortense Gray.

  She turned on the television for a while, too keyed up for sleep. She waited for Cam for over an hour, checking the window now and then for those horrible faces. She took out her journal and tried to write, but nothing came to her. She just doodled all over the back of one page, making circles, then caterpillars, then leaves. At ten o’clock, she called Cam’s room, but there was still no answer.

  At some point, with the TV on, as she allowed herself to think of her sister, Kara, and her brother, Joey, and then of sweet, sweet, Brock and all they might have had together, and as tears slid down the corners of her eyes, she fell asleep.