by Gina Ranalli
When I flip the light switch, however, the room appears to be completely normal. A carbon copy of a million other hotel rooms across the globe.
There is a double bed, a floral pastel bedspread across it, a small desk, a lavender lounge chair, a little table with two straight-backed chairs tucked neatly beneath it. A closet with a wooden sliding door. A night table with a white ceramic lamp and that’s it.
“This is so not how I pictured Heaven to be,” Katina says.
“It’s not Heaven,” I remind her. “Heaven is under construction, remember?”
“Whatever,” she says, plopping herself down onto the bed. “I can’t believe you don’t even have a mini-bar.”
“Yeah,” I say. “That sucks.”
I go over to the one window in the room and pull back the pink drapes. Outside, there is a mountain range, gray with snowy peaks. Quite beautiful, except that it’s moving. Rolling past the window as if it were the backdrop of a movie. “Shit,” I mutter. “The mountains are moving. How messed up is that?”
Katina comes over and looks out. “The mountains aren’t moving. We are.”
“Really?” I look closer at the mountains. “It doesn’t feel like we’re moving.”
She sighs loudly and moves away from the window. “Well, we are. The hotel is flying or some shit.”
I watch for another minute or two and determine that Katina is correct. Though it can’t be felt, the hotel is indeed flying. I wonder where we are. The Rocky Mountains? The Andes? My stomach lurches and I have to turn away from the window.
Katina is sitting at the table, looking at a menu. “Are you hungry?” she asks. “I’m starving.”
Sitting down across from her, I ask, “Is there room service?”
“Surprisingly, yes. At least according to this there is, but the menu is kind of…uh…sparse.”
“Give me that.” I lean over and pluck it from her fingers. Studying the menu, I say “What the hell? ‘Floors six and lower (excluding floors one and lower) can choose from a wide variety of our house baked pies, day or night, free of charge.’ Pies? That’s all we get? I was hoping for nice plate of pasta in white sauce.”
“Yeah, and I could go for a big bloody steak but it looks like we’re SOL.” Katina leans back in her chair and puts her feet on the table. “Did you look at the kinds of pies they have?”
I look down at the menu again. “What’s rock pie?”
“Beats me. Probably made with rocks, is my guess.”
I get up and go over to the phone on the nightstand. I dial zero and wait for someone to pick up. It takes them several minutes, but when they finally do, I recognize Mustache Man’s voice right away. “Hi,” I say. “Yeah, this is room…uh…” I look at Katina and snap my fingers, pointing to the keycard on the table. She picks it up and says, “631.”
Frowning at her, I repeat the number into the phone. “We’re kind of hungry up here and noticed that the menu says we’re only allowed to have pies.”
“The pies are excellent, I assure you madam,” says Mustache Man.
“I’m sure they are, but you know…we’re hungry for something a little more substantial than pie right now.”
“House rules,” he says crisply.
“House rules,” I repeat, trying to sound indignant.
Katina jumps out of the chair and barrels over to me, grabbing the phone out of my hand. “Listen, buddy, we think your house rules suck, so why don’t you just send us the menu that all the rich people on the upper floors are getting?”
I sit down on the edge of the bed and watch as she listens. It seems like she listens for a long time. Then: “Okay, fine. Whatever. But it better be good.” Then she slams the phone down into its cradle. “Fucking wanker,” she says to it.
“Are they sending us another menu?” I ask.
“Nope,” she replies, heading towards the bathroom. “He said he was sending up pie.”
Groaning, I flop back on the bed and look at the ceiling. Oddly, it’s covered with tire tread marks of all shapes and sizes. Thin treads that could have been made by a little wagon of some sort, bicycle treads, all the way up to treads that could have only been made by an SUV. I mention it to Katina who lies down beside me and points. “I think that one is from a grocery cart,” she says. “I used to work in a grocery store.”
“Hmm,” I say.
Someone knocks on the door and Katina jumps up to answer it. I don’t move. I’m pretty sure I don’t want to know who it is, but nevertheless, Katina says, “It’s room service with our pie.”
“Great,” I say sarcastically.
“I’ll just put it over here on the table,” says a new female voice.
I sit up to see a strange alien/human hybrid in a tuxedo shirt and black trousers crossing the room and carrying a silver tray with a covered dish, plates, and silverware on it. She smiles at me, big black alien eyes blinking slowly. “Hi. I’m Jane 62,” she says with her tiny slit of a mouth. She puts the tray on the table and uncovers the pie. It looks like a regular pie but it sounds like there’s music coming from it, very faintly.
“Is there a Jane 63?” Katina asks.
“Not that I know of,” Jane 62 replies, cutting into the pie with a huge knife.
I get off the bed and go over to the table, leaning over to listen to the pie. Jane 62 dishes out a slice and suddenly the room is filled with loud opera music, a woman bellowing in what I think is Italian.
“Opera pie,” she says, handing me the plate. “It’s quite delicious.”
Crinkling my nose, I say, “I hate opera.” If I could, I’d crinkle my ears as well.
“Guess we should have gotten the rock pie after all,” Katina says, taking her plate.
The pie looks like cherry, but I have no intention of eating it. It’s giving me a headache and I hand it back to Jane 62. “I’m not hungry right now,” I say loudly, to be heard over the music.
Katina decides not to eat it either. “Let’s try to get up to a higher floor and find some real food,” she suggests.
“Good idea,” I say. I turn to Jane 62. “Will you get this out of here? I really can’t stand opera.”
“We also have a nice country pie,” she says pleasantly. “Apple flavored and not quite as loud. Would you like me to bring one up?”
“No!” Katina and I say together.
Jane 62 looks hurt but starts stacking the plates of pie back onto the tray and covering them. Immediately, the volume of the music becomes at least tolerable. “You’ll have a hard time getting to the higher floors,” Jane 62 says. “It would be much easier to go down than up.”
“Why is that?” I ask.
“It’s just the rules,” she replies.
“Fuck!” Katina blurts. “I’m so sick of hearing about the rules.”
“The guests on the upper floors have entitlement issues,” Jane 62 explains. “Most of them are not very pleasant.”
“Rich people,” I say. “Why am I not surprised?”
“I don’t care,” Katina says. “I just want to get out of this room. I’m bored.”
“We could go check out your room,” I suggest.”
She nods. “Maybe I’ll have a better menu.”
Jane 62 asks what floor Katina’s room is on, then shakes her head. “You can go up there,” she says to Katina. “You can’t,” she says to me.
“That’s retarded,” I say.
Katina starts bouncing around. “I’m bored! I don’t care where we go. Let’s just go!”
We follow Jane 62 out into the hall, me patting my pocket to make sure I have my keycard on me.
Outside my door is a cart filled with covered trays and it sounds like a dozen different radio stations playing at once. Jane 62 starts pushing the cart down the hall and the tangled music starts to recede a bit.
“Why don’t you come with us?” I ask when she pauses at the room next door to mine.
She turns back. “Upstairs? I’m not allowed up there either.”
&nb
sp; “Why not?”
“This is my floor,” she says. “We’re all assigned our floor and we’re not supposed to leave it.”
“That’s bullshit,” I tell her. “Why would you let anyone tell you what to do like that? What is this, a prison?”
Jane 62 looks uncertain, the gray-green skin of her forehead wrinkling slightly as though she’s worried. “I have always wanted to see other parts of the hotel.”
“Hey!” Katina says suddenly. “We should go back to that limbo floor and get that guy too. What was his name again?”
“Ago,” I say.
“Yeah, him. What do you think? Party in my room?”
“Sounds good to me.” I look at Jane 62. “You only live once. Fuck the rules.”
She stays where she is, so I shrug and Katina and I head for the elevator. Just as I’m pushing the button, Jane 62 jogs over and says, “I hope I don’t get caught.”
“Will you get fired or something?” I ask.
“I have no idea. I don’t even get paid.”
For some reason this strikes me as funny and I start laughing. Katina cracks up too, but Jane 62 just stands there looking thoughtful.
The elevator opens and the three of us climb in. I push the button for 4 ½ and when we get there, we have to pry open the doors again.
“Ago!” I yell into the darkness. “You in there?”
“Get your ass over here,” Katina shouts. “We’re having a mutiny!”
I laugh again and together Katina and I scream for Ago and finally he shows himself. He has to crouch down and stick his head into the elevator so we can see him. “What kind of mutiny?” he asks.
“We’re gonna explore the hotel,” I tell him.
He seems puzzled. “Why?”
“Why not?” I counter.
“Well, we might run into Lucy for one thing.”
Jane 62 lets out a little gasp that might be fright.
“Who the fuck is Lucy?” Katina demands.
His face deadly serious, Ago says, “Lucifer.”
Chapter 9
“Lucifer,” I say. “As in, the devil? That Lucifer?”
“The one and only,” Ago says. “But, from what I heard, it’s best if you don’t call him the devil to his face. He’s pretty sensitive about it.”
I purse my lips, carefully considering this new information.
Beside me, Katina is laughing. “I’m gonna get to meet Satan in the flesh? This is too awesome! I don’t even believe in him!”
“You will soon enough,” Ago says and climbs down into the elevator. “But, what the hell. Purgatory is getting boring anyway.”
Clapping him on the back, I say, “Great. One more person for our revolt.”
The elevator doors slide shut and I push the button for the 6th floor. The box gives a lurch, jarring us all, but then doesn’t move.
“See?” Jane 62 says. “We’re not allowed up there.”
“What about me?” Katina protests. “My room is on the 6th floor!”
“You could go up there if we weren’t with you,” Jane 62 explains. “But since we are, the elevator won’t go any higher.”
“It’s like a built-in security system,” Ago adds.
“Well, that’s just great,” I say sarcastically. “Why didn’t you guys tell us this before?”
“We never tried to go up before,” Jane 62 says. “We just heard that this would happen and apparently it’s true.”
“Great,” I say again. “Can we go down to the lower floors?”
“Why would you want to go down?” Ago asks, as if it’s the most preposterous idea he’s ever heard.
I don’t bother answering him and just start pushing buttons. The elevator comes back to life, lowering us slowly.
“Oh, shit,” Ago whispers, while Jane 62 makes that gasping sound again.
“What’s wrong?” Katina asks them. “Scared of a little Beelzebub are you?” She laughs maniacally, pointing and teasing them.
Chapter 10
A second later the elevator comes to a stop and the doors open onto a floor that doesn’t look very different from mine. A little more rundown, but that’s about it. The four of us tromp out and then split up, knocking on doors and trying to get people to join us in our little rebellion. Mostly people just give us weird looks and politely refuse. A couple times we have doors slammed in our faces. A few of the guests won’t open their doors at all, but yell curses at us just the same.
We go down to the next floor and find it to be even more raggedy than the previous one. Here the wallpaper is peeling off the walls and the carpets have stains and cigarette burns and the room doors are all dirty. The lights in the ceiling fixtures flicker sporadically and on more than one occasion we find ourselves in almost complete darkness.
Again, we have no luck and pile back into the elevator, both Ago and Jane 62 becoming increasingly nervous.
When the doors open on the next lower floor, we see that it is in even worse condition than the last. The ceiling leaks and the hallway is strewn with trash. There’s shouting coming from behind several of the doors, as well as the sound of people weeping. I go to knock on the door of room 256 and the only response I get is something thrown and smashed against the other side of it.
At the far end of the hall, two guys come running out of a room, one chasing the other with a huge meat cleaver and screaming, “I’ll chop your fucking head off, you prick!” The first one plows into Katina, almost knocking her over and then barrels down the hallway towards me. I flinch as they race by and then they run into another room, slamming the door behind themselves.
“Maybe this wasn’t such a great idea,” Katina calls down to me.
I open my mouth to agree, but the door behind me suddenly swings open and I turn to see an older woman standing there in a slinky red robe. She looks somewhat like Marilyn Monroe, if Marilyn had lived to enter her mid-fifties and drank hard liquor every day of her life. She’s smoking a cigarette in one of those long cigarette holders and looking at me from beneath eyelids painted a ridiculous shade of blue.
“What’s this you’re yelling about, honey?” she asks, exhaling smoke through her nostrils.
“Uh…” I hesitate, but then tell her about what we were doing. She listens silently, smoking, without expression.
“Sounds like a real gas,” she croaks, when I finish. “I ain’t got nothing better to do.”
By now, the others have joined me and are regarding this woman with blatant skepticism.
“What’s your name?” I ask, out of politeness.
She grins at me, showing off her yellowed crooked teeth. “The name’s Lithia, darlin’. And who might you all be?”
I introduce myself and everyone else.
“Pleased ta meet ya,” she greets everyone in turn. Then: “Yep, I reckon I’ll come along for the party. I’m sick to death of this hellhole. You’re all from above, eh?”
I tell her that Katina and I are, but Jane 62 is sort of an employee of the hotel and Ago is from Purgatory.
Lithia nods. “Gotta be better than this shit. You see where they put me? Only a floor or two above Hell, that’s where. Those fucking bastards. I was a Rockette once upon a time and this is how they treat me! Look at these yams!” She sticks out one of her legs and wiggles it seductively. We all make sounds like we’re impressed but, really, it just looks like a leg. A little scrawny if anything.
The two guys who were chasing each other fly out of their room again, this time the previous chaser is now the chasee and his meat cleaver is buried deep inside the back of his head.
We watch them go by, all of us horrified, except for Lithia. “Oh, don’t mind those two,” she says. “They’re just playing.”
“Maybe we should get off this floor,” Jane 62 suggests. “I think I’ve seen enough of the lower floors for now.”
“Great idea, missy,” Lithia says. “Lead the way. I’m right behind ya.”
“Don’t you want to put something else on?” I ask.
“Nah. This is all I got anyway. What I was wearing when I did the ole…” She points a long-nailed finger to the side of her head and mimes shooting a gun.
“Suicide, huh?” Katina says. “There’s a surprise.”
“Suicide-murder,” Lithia says with a tone of pride. “That no good bastard had it coming though, I can guarantee you that.”
None of us care to ask her to elaborate, so we just smile and nod and then head back towards the elevator, Lithia bringing up the rear in her bare feet.
When we get into the elevator, though, we quickly discover that it won’t go back up. All the buttons to the upper floor remain dark when we push them.
“It’s because of her,” Jane 62 says, pointing at Lithia. “It won’t let us go back up with her in here.”
“Well, don’t that beat all,” Lithia says mildly, dragging on her cigarette. Even though she keeps smoking, the cigarette doesn’t seem to be getting any shorter.
“What should we do?” I ask no one in particular.
The elevator suddenly jerks to life, going down.
Chapter 11
“Uh oh,” says Jane 62.
“We’re fucked,” Ago agrees.
Katina starts laughing yet again and everyone looks at her like she’s crazy.
“You have a weird sense of humor,” Ago tells her.
She makes a face at him, but then bites the inside of her cheek in an attempt to quell her giggling.
The elevator door opens, this time with a strange hissing sound and the scent that wafts inside is unmistakable.
“Oh, man,” Ago says, pinching his nose closed. “Brimstone!”
Katina loses her struggle and busts out laughing. She’s practically falling over, she’s so hysterical.
Outside the elevator, the sounds are not nearly as identifiable as the smell. There is the sound of screaming, but it’s hard to tell if it’s human. Could be animal.
The hallway in front of us is even more dark and gloomy than the floor above us was. So dark that you have to squint to see anything at all.
