The Eleventh Floor

by Shani Struthers

  Surprise rendered her speechless, giving David a chance to speak instead. “Where is she? What have you done with her body?”

  “Oh, Elspeth, Elspeth,” Edward mocked. “You always felt so sorry for her, didn’t you, David? Poor little Elspeth, tragic little Elspeth. If the terrible thing that had happened to her hadn’t happened – and you’re right, it was in her teens, boys of that age can be really quite merciless – if the drugs hadn’t messed her up further, do you think she’d have been a contender for your affections? Not much of a looker was she, but her legs were nice.”

  “You’re a bastard!” David declared, darting forward.

  Having to rush to catch up with him, Caroline laid a restraining hand on his arm. “Don’t, he’s not worth it.”

  “I’m not worth it?” Edward spluttered. “You should think about your own worth, Caroline, before you pick on me. Considering what’s wrong with you, you’re hardly a catch.”

  “Edward!” Again it was Althea, her raised voice as sharp as razors. “Behave!”

  Immediately he turned on her. “Behave? What am I, an errant child? I’m more than that, and you know it. I’m better than that.”

  “You are no more than I,” Althea spat.

  Whilst Edward and Althea glared at each other, Caroline’s eyes flitted towards the entrance. All she wanted was a world with David in it, not one populated by these… these… her mind struggled to think of how to describe any of them… crazies.

  “We’re leaving,” she announced, desperate to put that plan into action. “There’s something wrong with this hotel, with all of you, and we want nothing more to do with it. We’re going to walk out of that door and find somewhere safe, somewhere far, far away.”

  Marilyn started sobbing, her hand reaching up to tear at her neck.

  “It’s alright, it’s alright.” John attempted to move closer to her, but Tallula moved forwards several paces, effectively blocking him.

  Seeing this, Caroline relented. “Marilyn, John, you can always come with us. I know it’s cold outside, but we’ll… we’ll manage somehow. Elspeth’s body has been moved. Did you know that? And your room, Marilyn, it’s… it’s not the same as before. I’m not saying that you’re responsible… but someone is. The whole of the eleventh floor, it’s…” How could she explain the unexplainable? “We need to leave. And we need to get help for Elspeth.”

  Edward roared with laughter. So did Tallula. “Show them, go on,” he ordered, gesturing to those standing to the left of him. “Show them what’s happened to poor Elspeth.”

  David’s entire jaw was clenched. “What has happened to her?”

  “Show them!” Edward roared again.

  Tom and Raquel, who’d been standing together, briefly glanced at Althea – she was shaking her head, but not at them, more at the situation as a whole. Finally, she looked their way, muttered something, and they moved away from each other. Behind them, slumped on a chair was Elspeth.

  David’s gasp was as loud as Caroline’s. “Christ! Is she…?”

  His word’s petered out as Tallula almost skipped over to Elspeth, reached out a hand and dragged her to her feet. Caroline had to blink several times to believe what she was seeing. “No, it’s not possible.” She turned to David. “I thought she was dead.”

  He kept his gaze straight, as though transfixed. “She was dead. She is.”

  “But… but…”

  Elspeth stood there, beside Tallula, subdued rather than gleeful, her head bowed as though she were ashamed, not staring at them – as Tallula was – defiantly.

  Althea was muttering again. Jenna fetched her a chair and she held onto the back of it, clearly glad of its support. “Such a battle,” she was saying. “It’s always such a battle.” The despair in her voice was reflected on Jenna’s face as she stared at her mistress.

  “Marilyn…” Caroline tried to provoke an explanation from her.

  She looked up, not just scratching at her neck but gnawing viciously at her lip too. “I can’t find him,” she said, looking all around her. “I thought if I came here to The Egress, and on our anniversary too, that I’d find him, he’d be waiting for me.”

  “Find who?”

  “My husband of course! Where is he? Why isn’t he here? I made my way back, after… after… This is our place you see, our special place. I’ve told you that before haven’t I? He felt that as strongly as I did. That’s why I did it – to be with him again.”

  Half of her didn’t want to ask; the other half knew she had to. “Did what?”

  Marilyn bit down harder, drawing blood, Caroline was sure of it.

  Beside her, David tugged at her arm. He was right they needed to get going, but what about John? Could he explain this latest terrible twist? “John?” As always, he needed prompting. “John!”

  Eventually he responded. “I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.”

  Her heart lurched. The paper on the floor in 1109, the scraps with ‘sorry’ scrawled all over them – was he responsible? And the empty liquor bottles, were they his? Was John a drinker, just like his daddy was a drinker – the daddy he was a whole lot worse than? She’d only ever seen him drink water, but that could be for appearance’s sake. If he drank in private – drank so damned much – it would explain his continual shaking.

  “What did you do to your family?” she asked, tears beginning to pool. The only reply she received this time was a howl of anguish, one so pitiful it forced her to screw her eyes shut. And then he was apologising again, a frenzy of whispers, causing Marilyn to stop her sobbing at last, and to return to a more familiar role, that of the carer.

  “Caroline.” David’s voice was urgent.

  “Okay, okay.”

  There were no answers to be had here, only more horrors, and more confusion. Taking a step forwards, she was surprised when David pulled her backwards instead.

  “David, never mind about our coats. We can’t go and get them.”

  “Coats?” He sounded equally as puzzled. “Why are you talking about our coats?”

  “It’s just… Look, we need to go towards the entrance, not away from it.”

  He shook his head. “Caroline, we need the light.”

  “The light?” What was he talking about? “But the electrics—”

  “Run, run, run, y’all,” Tallula interrupted their exchange, “but there’s nowhere to hide, I’m telling you, not anymore. Hiding time is over.” Dramatically she yawned. “Edward, I’m so bored. Let’s just tell them, shall we? Get it over and done with.”

  “Edward…” Althea was warning him again.

  Edward looked tempted to give in to Tallula, so tempted, but then he seemed to back down, to obey Althea, albeit begrudgingly. “They’ll find out soon enough.”

  Tallula’s smug expression turned into one of fury. Edward may accept being thwarted by Althea but she clearly hated it. “Why do you always give in to that old crone? For fuck’s sake, Edward, I wish you’d man up!”

  As fast as lightning, Edward’s hand shot out and struck Tallula across the face. As shocking as all of this was, as shocking as seeing Elspeth again, like the architect’s daughter, risen from the dead, this was worse; the sheer violence of it. As Tallula flew into the wall, a collective gasp was heard, although Althea simply looked away, not condoning but somehow accepting of Edward’s actions. The shapes, the shadows hovering in the background, huddled together, as though for comfort, forming a solid black mass. Elspeth’s shoulders shuddered too. Was she crying? It was impossible to see, she could even be laughing. Raquel remained unimpressed, as if she’d seen it all many times before. Caroline was beginning to think she had.

  Tallula climbed quickly to her feet, one hand rubbing at her cheek. She didn’t challenge Edward; instead she turned to Caroline and David, her expression, her whole demeanour very different to before. She looked beaten in every sense of the word, the porcelain of her face cracked enough to reveal the creature underneath – as scarred as any of them.

&nb
sp; Like so many in pain she wanted to hit out, and yet again she chose them.

  “You can’t leave. None of us can.” Spittle and blood were flying from her mouth. “Are you stupid or something? Surely you realise that by now? All this having to find out for yourself, it’s SHIT. Total SHIT!” She flinched again, as Edward stepped closer. “Don’t worry,” she said to him, “I’m not going to say anything.” Returning her ice-blue gaze back to them, she continued. “Go on then, find out for yourselves what hopeless company you’re in. A drug addict, the suicidal, an alcoholic, and me. Some might have called me hopeless too, but I enjoyed what I did, who I was. That’s what people can’t understand, that there’s enjoyment in inflicting pain. There’s satisfaction in it. If that’s what I truly feel, is it wrong? Is it really so wrong? Isn’t it somehow meant?” Her voice cracked too, as if she doubted her words, despite expressing them so passionately. “There’s no hope for any of us. She,” – although she didn’t dare to look at Althea, she thrust a hand out in her direction to show who she meant – “likes to peddle hope, but I know different. We know different, don’t we, Edward? In here, out there and beyond, it’s all the same. It’s all just… shit.”

  “We have to go.” David’s fear was infectious but Caroline gave it one last shot.

  “Tallula, tell us what this is all about.”

  “I can’t!” she screamed. “Don’t you ever listen? It’s the rules, the fucking rules!”

  Althea, it seemed, had slumped further, whilst Edward had his hands balled, as if he wanted to strike out again; as if any minute he was going to pummel Tallula into the ground, finish off what he’d started. And ordinarily David would step in, she would step in, but there wasn’t anything ordinary about this instance. They had to keep their distance – from all of them. Their sanity depended on it. And yet, still they were backing away from the entrance, inching past the lobby desk, past the elevator, towards the stairwell.

  “David, why are we going this way?”

  Instead of answering, he reached out, pushed the door open, and almost dragged her to where the stairs veered upwards… or downwards even, deeper into the darkness. Staff Only.

  “Okay fine, we’ll go up, but to my room, barricade ourselves in, sit tight ‘til morning. I don’t think they’ll harm us. No one seems out to harm us. Not physically. It’s our minds they’re messing with. We’ll leave at dawn. It’s probably best we leave then anyway. It’ll be easier. David… David… Are you listening? Let’s go to my room. Get away from them.”

  She knew she was babbling. But could she be blamed for that? Elspeth was dead, and yet she’d been standing in front of them, her shoulders shaking, her chest heaving.

  “David!” she screamed his name at him. “Let’s go to my room.”

  At last he acknowledged her, but instead of agreeing, he shook his head. “We can’t.”

  “But we have to go somewhere!”

  “Not to the eleventh floor.”

  She’d learnt to read him well in the short time they’d been together – knew he was keeping something from her again. “Why not?” Her voice was calmer, sterner. “David!”

  “Because… there is no eleventh floor.”

  It was some seconds before she could muster a reply. “I know you’re scared, I am too, but—”

  His hands grabbed her, forcing her to listen to his next words – truly listen. “Caroline, I told you I did some research on this place?”

  She could only nod.

  “I remember reading that it only had ninety rooms, over nine floors.”

  “Where? Where did you see that?”

  “On the Internet. The Egress is listed on various hotel sites, you know TripAdvisor, Hotels dot com. I could never check the official site. Every time I tried it was down, undergoing maintenance, but the other sites, they all had it listed as a ten-storey hotel; lobby and function rooms on the ground floor, and bedrooms over the other nine floors. When I got here, I found out there were eleven floors, that’s one hundred rooms as opposed to ninety. I didn’t think too much of it. Why would I? Sites like those always get the finer details wrong, but…” Again David shut his eyes briefly, as if trying to come to terms with what he was going to say too. “I think they were right after all. Every time I’m on the eleventh floor, I start to feel drained, ill even, except… except when we first made love. Then I felt invincible.” His voice cracked as he recalled. “We can’t go up, Caroline, we have to go to the basement.”

  “David, let me say something. In Althea’s room there was a promotional poster for the hotel, I remember studying it. It said there was going to be eleven floors.”

  “That’s right. There was going to be. But it was never completed.”

  “But…” And then it hit her. “Because of the architect’s daughter…”

  “Because of her. Her death, and the death of the second architect, cast a shadow over the hotel, one that refused to budge. I’ve said this before, but people must have thought the hotel was cursed, the investors included, pulling the plug, quitting whilst they were ahead. It was a hotel drenched in blood from the start. Caroline, I know it sounds as if I’m speculating again, but… I think I’m right. It makes some sort of crazy sense. One thing I am certain of is that nowhere did I ever find mention of an eleventh floor.”

  Having hung on his every word, Caroline turned her head to the side and looked into what could only be described as a chasm. “It’s just so dark,” she whispered.

  “No, Caroline, that’s where you’re wrong.” Once again she could sense his desperation, almost smell the sourness of it, oozing from every pore. “It’s where we’ll find the light.”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  There was no one following them, not yet. Even so, the trepidation that gripped Caroline as she and David made their way into the basement of The Egress threatened to overwhelm her. The darkness was as thick as syrup, as cloying too; the torchlight on her mobile, which David had taken from her and which was fast running out of battery power, barely able to make a dent in it. They had no choice but to feel their way, their hands stretched out, taking pains to tread carefully, especially on the steps; neither of them wanting to fall and injure themselves, to make a horrendous situation worse.

  It was colder still in the depths of The Egress; it smelt musty, of things abandoned and left to rot. Several times she placed her hand over her mouth and nose to try and blot out the smell, the memory too, of the man it reminded her of – Edward. She didn’t want to think about him, about Tallula, Elspeth, any of them, but it wasn’t as if she could forget them either. They might not have followed, but they were close.

  It’s almost like you’re a part of them. They’re a part of you.

  She shook her head, denied it. I’m not like them. I’m not!

  So why did the thought persist?

  “David, this isn’t a good idea… David.”

  But David was distracted.

  “Where is it? Where the hell is it?” he kept muttering.

  “You’re looking for the electrics, right? That’s what you meant by the light?”

  He replied this time but it was half-hearted. “Yeah, we need to find the electrics.”

  “They’ll be here somewhere.” She looked around, her eyesight beginning to adjust, registering a vast space ahead of her, various shapes within it but so far resembling inanimate objects: tall cupboards, items of furniture, and spare beds stored upright.

  “It’s not so dark anymore, is it?” she commented, at the exact same moment he walked into the side of one of the objects.

  “Fuck!” He rubbed at his thigh. “Where’s the damn fuse box?”

  “Why are you so fixated? If you won’t go back to my room, or yours, why don’t we just get out of here?”

  She was stunned when he almost growled at her. “We need the light, Caroline! Don’t you understand? I need the light.”

  Her hand shot out, landing on his forearm. “Okay, okay, calm down. Look… I’m scared too.” H
er voice cracked, but she fought to gain control. “Really scared. You’re frightening me, the way you’re acting.” It was an admission that startled her, but ever since he’d seen Elspeth, he’d changed. Then again, perhaps she’d changed too. “Tell me you’re alright. I need to know that you’re alright. What we’ve seen is… it’s mad, it’s terrible, but—”

  “You have to let me find the light.”

  Removing her hand, she sighed. There was no point in arguing further.

  Again, he walked into another object, the light from her phone waning as the battery ran even lower. Still with his hands in front of him, he proceeded more cautiously.

  It’s only my eyesight that’s adjusting, she realised, able to make out something else in the darkness too, something in a room beyond, one that was separated from the other by a low arch – a figure that was neither bulky or boxlike, but similar to her own…

  “Caroline, I’ve found the fuse box. Damn it! Your cell’s going to die in a minute. Hurry, help me.”

  It was hard to tear her eyes from what was waiting but she forced herself, taking her phone back and holding it up as he struggled with the metal casing beneath which various fuses and switches were buried, swearing again, over and over.

  “Caroline, hold it steady will you? I need a crowbar or something. Look around, there’s got to be something of use in this pit.”

  “Over there, there’s some kind of rod.”

  “Where?” he said, looking at where she was pointing.

  “I’ll get it,” Caroline murmured, walking over, grabbing the rod, which was long and thin and made of steel. Bringing it back to him, she handed it over.

  “Excellent,” he enthused. “God knows how you spotted it there. You must have night-vision. Don’t worry, I can do this. I can get the light to come back on.”

  “I’m not worried,” she assured him. “I can see well enough already.”

  Putting all his might behind it, he eventually levered the doors open, to reveal a bewildering array of all things technical, plenty of danger stickers adorning them.