Vacancy, p.9
Vacancy, page 9
“Rohan—”
“No!” he says, turning on Mira. “We can’t give up right now. We’re so close. It’s almost dawn. You heard what Bradley said—once the sun rises, our parents will look for us and they’ll know to look here. Heck, most of them did the Dare when they were kids. They’d know we’re here.”
I shake my head.
“That’s not going to work,” I say. “If we wait for them, it will be just like thirty-three years ago. The hotel is only going to let someone new in if everyone inside is already dead.”
“And how would you know?” Rohan says. He takes a step forward.
“Rohan …” Mira says again, this time in a tone that clearly says don’t push it.
“What? You heard Bradley. He has a point. Jasmine has more to gain from all this than he did. And he’s … gone. He wouldn’t have done this. And Jasmine says she’s seen this place before. That she felt pulled toward this place. She—”
“We both did!” Mira yells. “Haven’t you been listening? We’ve both felt pulled in by this place. It’s not just her.”
Rohan just shakes his head.
“How could I have trusted either of you? How could I have let you convince me to come here?”
“What?” I can’t believe what I’m hearing. “You begged us to come here, Rohan. You wouldn’t shut up about it. How dare you accuse us of—”
“Yeah, but I wouldn’t have invited you along if I’d known you were going to do all this,” he says, his voice and arms raised. “You trapped us here. You killed everyone.”
“They aren’t dead,” I say. “At least, I don’t think so.” At least, not yet. Not until the Grand Dame has done her ritual.
“There’s still hope,” Mira says.
“No,” Rohan replies. “I’m not doing this anymore. Not with you two. I’m getting out of here, but I’m doing it on my own.”
He turns and starts walking away, toward the entrance, as though the doors will magically just open up for him. Mira rises, but I reach out and stop her.
“Don’t,” I say softly. “Just let him go. He’ll come back around.”
Mira looks between me and Rohan, torn. But she is clearly hurt from Rohan’s accusation, too. She sits back down, defeated, as Rohan reaches the door.
He immediately starts pounding on it.
“Let us out!” he yells. “Do you hear me? Let! Us! Out!”
“Why don’t you just try the handle?” I say sarcastically.
He looks back at me, shoots me a glare.
Then he reaches down and grabs the handle.
“Gee, like this?” he growls.
And yanks open the door.
For a moment, for one
terrible,
hopeful
moment, we all stare at the open door in shocked amazement. Cold air whips through, making the champagne flutes rattle.
It also sends a curious buzzing through my head, through my whole body, like an electric charge ramping up to ten, as deeper in the hotel, a grandfather clock begins to clang.
We look toward a clock in the lobby. 3:33.
Things click.
Somehow I know this was when the ritual took place.
3:33.
“What—” he whispers.
He doesn’t get to finish his question.
Because as the bell tolls, shapes come out of the shadows.
Not monsters.
Hotel guests.
The buzzing inside my head grows louder. My hands clench on the arm of the chaise and on Mira’s hand. She yelps in pain, but it takes all my concentration to keep from screaming as the buzzing grows, becomes a tremor that shakes my bones.
As ghostly guests fill the hall, all dressed in their evening wear.
As they pick up champagne flutes or peruse the table of hors d’oeuvres.
As one of them picks up Rohan as if he weighs nothing and carries him away from the door.
As the ghosts crowd us, preventing us from moving, preventing us from getting to Rohan.
As the shaking inside me gets so strong, my teeth rattle.
As the Grand Dame appears in the center of the room, a wicked smile on her face, and looks directly at me.
I can’t fight it anymore.
The buzzing and the tremors take over, and I crash into another vision.
“Come,” the Grand Dame says. “The time is at hand. Bring her forward.”
The cloth bag is removed from my head, and darkness explodes into flickering light.
It takes a while for me to blink away the stars, to make sense of where I am. It’s not the lobby, and it’s not the dining room like I saw in the previous vision.
No, I’m somewhere that makes my bones shake and acidic fear pulse in my veins.
I’m in the basement. This, I know, is the room where my dreams had been taking me. This is the room that ends in death.
Concrete walls surround me, and three hundred hotel guests crowd in the cramped space. All of them are wearing their finest evening wear, and all of them wear black silk masks, hiding their features. But not hiding their expectant, eager smiles.
Someone shoves me forward, and I stumble into the center of the cleared space.
The Grand Dame stands there, somehow even more imposing than before. She alone isn’t wearing a mask. She doesn’t need to hide her face.
She’s proud of what she’s doing. Of what she’s achieved so far.
She holds out a hand, and some force overtakes me. I reach out and step toward her, letting her fingers grasp coldly around mine. I don’t fight. I don’t think I could if I tried.
She has me totally under her control.
“Tonight, my friends,” the Grand Dame says, “we finally complete our life’s work. You, who have gathered from near and far. You, who have helped find this perfect location—a confluence of energy lines, the perfect cosmic axis. The one place where the veil between the worlds is thinnest. You, who have worked so hard. Now our work has paid off. Tonight, the communing is at hand. Tonight, we do what no living mortal has done before.”
A ripple moves through the crowd, a murmur of excitement.
“Tonight,” she says, “we open the doors between the worlds of the living and the dead. We become the masters of death, and thus of life itself!”
She cackles with glee, sending chills down my spine. The rest of the group laughs and cheers as well.
Only I stand silent. My mouth magically sealed shut.
I shouldn’t be here.
Not in this basement, with its walls and floors covered in strange symbols.
Not with these people, with their strange clothes and scary masks.
Not with this woman, who said she would take me home when she saw me outside school.
Memories jumble. Suddenly, I am fully inside of Sarah’s head. Suddenly, I no longer remember being Jasmine—just this scared little girl from thirty-three years ago.
The Grand Dame was the mayor’s wife. I’d known her all my life. She had organized so many charity functions, had set up the local orphanage, had even single-handedly funded the building of the Carlisle Hotel. All—she said—so Gold River could flourish.
She was trusted and loved by everyone. Rebecca was her name. But here, they only refer to her as the Grand Dame.
How was I supposed to know it was a trick? A trap?
How was I supposed to know she was evil?
The Grand Dame slices her hand through the air. Laughter cuts off sharply.
“Enough,” she says. “The time is now. Link hands, my friends. The stars align. The ritual begins.”
Around me, the hotel guests all clasp hands.
The Grand Dame begins speaking, but it’s not in any language I understand. It’s deep, guttural, like it’s made of earth and clay and electricity. Her words rumble through the room, and the rest of the guests pick up the sound.
Energy hums through my veins.
It feels wrong. So wrong.
Symbols on the wall and floor begin to glow, a sickly, neon green light that writhes and slithers. Like poison.
I can’t move. The Grand Dame’s hands are on my shoulders, and fear or magic root me in place.
As the lights flare in the floor.
As the power grows.
All I can think is: I don’t want to be here. I want to be home.
As the light fills me, all I see are my parents’ loving faces. I miss them. I want them to be here. To save me. To help me.
“No,” I hear through the chanting. “No, this isn’t right. Something is wrong. Something—”
And then, the Grand Dame starts to scream.
The green light fills me. Vibrates in my bones.
The light is unhappy.
The light wants revenge.
I just want to go home. I just want to go home. Help me, Mom and Dad. Help me.
“Help me, Jasmine,” Mira says. “You have to wake up! You have to help me!”
The room swims sluggishly into focus as the vision fades and drips away. Green light is replaced by warm candelabras and fireplaces. The chanting, worried faces of the guests and the Grand Dame are replaced by Mira’s frantic gaze.
“We have to move, please wake up, they have him, they have him.” Her words are so fast I can barely make them out. Finally, sense returns to me. I realize we’re in the lobby. Back in the lobby, in the present day.
And we are alone.
I push myself up to sitting—how did I end up on the floor?—and rub the back of my head. My eyes ache, and my head throbs, and every inch of me feels like it was hit with a meat tenderizer.
“What happened?” I manage. Just talking makes my head throb.
“They took him,” Mira says. Tears run down her cheeks. She keeps looking over her shoulder, toward the halls. “You started shaking and screaming and then they took him and I was so scared I didn’t know what to do.”
Memories rush back. Not only the vision, but of the lobby filling with the ghostly guests. One of them grabbing Rohan.
I shiver with a sudden cold. But it isn’t fear. At least, not just fear.
When I look to the hotel entrance, I see that the door is still open.
I gasp.
“Mira,” I say.
“What?” She doesn’t look away from deeper in the lobby, where they took Rohan.
“Mira, the door. Look!”
She does. Her eyes widen.
“Is this a trap?” she asks.
“I don’t think so,” I reply. “I mean, the ghosts are all gone. They’re all in the basement.”
“How do you know?” she asks. There’s the slightest note of suspicion in her voice.
No. She has to believe me. If this is going to work, she has to trust me.
“I had a vision,” I say. “I think they went to the basement.”
Slowly, carefully, I stand. I wobble slightly; the room swims.
I turn to the open door. Snow drifts inside. It doesn’t melt when it hits the cold carpet.
“We could leave,” I say. The words trip from my mouth before I can stop them. “Go and get help. Find some adults. The police. Someone else.”
Mira looks at the door. I can see the battle raging behind her eyes.
“What can the two of us do to save him?” I ask. “To save any of them? We’re in over our heads,” I say. “Maybe adults could help?”
For a moment, I think she’ll agree with me. She stares at the door for a few tense breaths. Then she looks at me.
“You say you’ve always felt pulled to this place?” she asks.
I swallow and nod solemnly.
“And so have I,” she says. “I think that means … I think that means it’s up to us to stop it. Adults won’t be able to save Rohan. Only us.”
“But we could die,” I say. I can’t quite believe what she’s saying.
“I know,” she says. She takes my hand. “But we’re meant to do this. We’re meant to end it. Together.”
I take a deep breath. I look to the open door.
The last chance to back out.
The last chance to leave this all behind.
Then I look to her and nod.
“Okay,” I say. “Let’s save him.”
And, hand in hand, we turn from the open door and walk back. Deeper into the hotel.
To where the nightmare began.
“How do we get to the basement?” she asks when we’ve left the lobby.
We stand at a crossroads—identical hallways stretch out in three directions.
Now that we stand here, the silence is a heavy emptiness that presses down on my shoulders.
It’s more than a hunger.
It’s a void.
A wound.
Thirty-three years ago, something went terribly wrong in this hotel, and it’s been suffering ever since.
I look to Mira.
I know where to go.
“Do you trust me?” I ask her.
She doesn’t hesitate, even though I fully expect her to.
“Of course,” she replies.
“Then I know where to go,” I say. “I think the hallway in my dreams was a clue. I think it leads to the basement. Where they took him.” I pause. “Are you sure you want to do this? There’s no going back if you say yes.”
She hesitates.
“If it will save him, and everyone else, then yes. We were pulled here for a reason. I’m not leaving until I know what it is.”
“Okay, then,” I say. “Let’s go.”
I swallow a dozen different emotions and turn, heading down one of the halls, following my gut. My feet guide me, moving of their own accord.
“What happened to you in there?” Mira asks as we walk. Her voice is barely above a whisper. “In the vision?”
I look at her. “You really want to know?”
She nods.
“I saw … I saw this place as it was thirty-three years ago. Like I was there. They were—the Grand Dame and all the hotel guests—they were sacrificing this girl, I think. Sarah.” I still don’t tell her that I was in the body of the girl about to be sacrificed. That would freak her out too much. “They said it would ‘open the door between the worlds’ or something. They said they would be able to control life and death.” I swallow. “But it went wrong. I … I don’t know what happened. But it didn’t go to plan.”
Mira nods, taking all of this in stride. As if it’s perfectly rational and logical. And I guess, after everything we’ve gone through tonight, it sort of is.
“And now they’re trying to complete the ritual,” she finishes.
“Yeah,” I say.
“And I bet that’s why they took Rohan down here. They’re going to sacrifice him.”
I pause outside a plain door. One that looks like it would lead to a service closet or something.
“Yeah,” I reply. “I think you’re right.”
“Then we definitely have to do this,” she says. “I won’t let anyone hurt him. Or you. And hopefully there’s a way to get everyone else out as well.”
I look at her and smile. My hand reaches toward the doorknob.
“You’re the most selfless person I’ve ever met,” I say.
“I hear that a lot,” she replies, joking.
I open the door.
Concrete stairs lead down. Lit by a flickering, cold bulb.
“All right, then,” I say. “Let’s end this.”
It’s one thing to dream of a place. To dream of walking toward doom, that sense of foreboding.
It’s another to actually be living it.
My body shakes as we make our way down the steps. Mira puts a hand on my shoulder as she trails behind me.
“There’s nothing to be scared of,” she says.
I don’t know how she can be so calm after everything she’s seen. I don’t know how she can be so brave that she’s able to comfort me.
Maybe she truly is that selfless. In hoping to save Rohan, she’s able to cast away all fear. It’s impressive.
“I’m okay,” I say. But her comfort doesn’t stop my shaking. My veins fill with a similar electricity as before. A fear. An anticipation.
An excitement.
The stairs lead down.
Down.
Down at least three stories, until we are so deep within the earth I can practically feel the ground beyond the concrete walls pressing in, can practically feel it breathing. Flickering neon lights illuminate our descent, casting sharp shadows on the walls and floor as we walk.
Our shadows look like ghosts.
Phantoms.
The light is otherworldly. Makes me feel like I’m not really there.
Like we’ve already lost.
Like we’re already dead.
That, and with every step, the cold electricity grows in my bones.
The tug in my chest tightens, strengthens. Pulls me forward.
We reach the hall.
It is exactly like in my dreams.
Every crack.
Every loose pebble.
Every shadow.
I hold back a gasp and fight down the adrenaline that courses through my veins. This is it.
This is it.
I know what waits behind that door.
Death.
Death.
No matter if I open it in my dreams or in real life, the only thing behind that door is death.
“Are you okay?” Mira asks softly.
I nod.
“It’s exactly like in my dreams,” I say. I swallow. “Except … this is the part where I always woke up.”
She smiles at me sadly, resolve deep in her eyes.
“Well, we aren’t waking up,” she says. “So let’s end this nightmare once and for all. It’s time to get everyone back.”
She reaches out and takes the doorknob.
Then, before either of us can change our minds, she opens the door, and we step inside the pitch-black room.
“Don’t!” Rohan yells the moment we step into the room. “It’s a trap!”
It’s too late.
The door slams behind us, and lights flare into being.
Dozens of candles and torches and lanterns are scattered throughout the room. All of them held in ghostly hands. The room is thick with ghosts—three hundred of them. All of them are wearing their formal evening wear, just like their final moments down here. All of them wear masks. Except now, their faces are gaunt and skeletal, their skin pulled tight, cheeks caved in and hands gnarled and bony.
