Chapter 8
DELILAH
Delilah had staked out a cubicle in Limbo with a reclining chair that she could use as a bed. She curled up on the brown cushion, nibbling on the ends of her hair.
Around her, other guests roamed the hallways shouting and banging on the lift door. No one could possibly be more upset than Delilah, who had been about to reach Heaven.
It wasn’t right. This entire system wasn’t right!
Delilah muttered in frustration, ‘It’s incredibly unfair that I can’t get to Heaven after I only just managed to pass my test through dumb luck and learned nothing.’ Realising how that sounded, she added, ‘But the test was bogus!’
Although Delilah felt ashamed of not figuring out the obvious solution to her test, she was not yet prepared to admit out loud that her mother had been right about gambling and about her daughter being a bad person.
Even more than her annoyance at herself, she felt annoyed at the entire hotel.
Delilah still didn’t think that gambling should be a sin.
Card games and horse races were fun. Why shouldn’t people spend reasonable sums of money on them as they did other hobbies?
Delilah had never hurt anyone with her gambling, excepting that time she’d got her own bones broken by a horse, but that could have happened to any equestrian enthusiast. She’d never bet more than she could afford to lose.
At the casinos, she’d seen people with life-ruining addictions, but those people were mentally ill.
They weren’t evil. They needed help. Mental illness got you sent to Hell?
This Purgatory’s standards were more out of date than the lift with a lever!
The more she thought about it, the angrier she got.
She liked the hotel. She liked teaching cards to Damien and chatting with Heather and recommending books to Jaime. She even liked the overly strong coffee. But she felt certain the tests could be better, less based on arbitrary rules and more on true justice.
Anger finally snapped Delilah out of her self-pity.
Her mother would have said she’d brought this all on herself with her sinful life.
A small part of herself wondered if that might be true, but she refused to succumb to self-doubt (and her mother).
She flung her legs over the side of the chair and straightened her hair.
How long had she been sitting there? It felt like several days had passed, but it could have been a week.
Time became difficult to measure when her body did not require sustenance and she had no calendar.
Her hair never seemed damaged after she bit it.
Her dye job never grew out. The locks didn’t become greasy from lack of washing.
The sameness was starting to drive her insane, just like how Floor Limbo seemed designed to drive people insane with the endless white walls and musty smell.
Delilah had no idea when the lift would be repaired, but she wanted to find out. She should speak to Damien again and see if he needed a hug or a distraction. That lift had been the centre of his life for a long time; he must feel strange to be out of work.
Though she wished he could evacuate with her, she respected his devotion to duty. This entire hotel depended on that lift. He would have definitely made it to maintenance. After that . . . well, Delilah had less faith in Godfrey than Damien.
In the hallway, Delilah found a tall, barrel-chested man pounding on the lift doors and screaming, ‘Get up here! Get up here!’
‘Hey, there’s no call to be rude.’ Delilah hated to imagine how Damien would feel, being constantly harassed by customers.
The man turned, revealing bloodshot eyes. He was a giant of a man with wild brown hair and a full beard and moustache. His buttoned shirt looked rumpled, as if he’d been lying down wearing it. ‘We’re all going to die.’
This seemed more serious than she’d first assumed.
‘We’re already dead. Breathe deeply. Want to see a trick?
’ She grabbed two identical pens from the closest desk, pocketing one.
‘Watch this.’ She tossed the pen into the air.
As he looked up, she slid the second pen into her hand and pretended to find it behind his ear.
‘Here you go.’ She handed him the pen. Behind her back, she caught the duplicate.
His jaw dropped open. ‘Are you an angel?’
She laughed. ‘Nope! An amateur magician. What’s wrong?’
The surprise seemed to have jolted him out of his fear.
He fidgeted with his hands. ‘For the past few weeks, this floor has been expanding uncontrollably. We can’t find the end.
Four people have gone missing. Strange shadows appear at the edges of this place.
Everyone is scared to venture too far . . . and now we’re stuck here.’
Delilah could see how that might stress someone out. She was feeling lightheaded herself. ‘We should be safe if we stay away from the boundary, right?’
He cast her a haunted look. ‘I don’t know.
This shouldn’t be happening at all. Who knows what could happen to us if the entire hotel collapses?
I guess you’re right – there’s no point in banging on the door.
What if I attract attention from . . . something?
I’m going to find a hiding place. You should come with me.
There might not be safety in numbers, but at least we can all keep each other company. ’
The fear in his eyes was contagious. Delilah hesitated. Could she trust him and believe his strange story? ‘I’m Delilah. What’s your name?’
‘I’m Aaron. I’ve been hiding with some friends in a meeting room with very good lighting.
The shadows don’t go near light. Our room has five lightbulbs in the lamp overhead, so we should be safe.
But everyone has got bored and antsy, and they’re afraid the expansion will continue, so they sent me to see if the lift had returned and we could escape.
At least having a new person will make us less bored.
We’ve already heard all of each other’s stories. Your magic tricks are great.’
His offer seemed sincere. ‘Thank you for inviting me. I’ll come with you. Hopefully the shadows will be less likely to attack a group.’ She shook his hand. ‘It would do me good to talk to people. I’ve been sulking on my own ever since the lift broke right before I got off at Heaven.’
‘Bollocks! You should be the person banging on the lift door in rage.’ His eyes widened in sympathy.
‘I had a screaming angry phase, but I think I’ve reached the acceptance stage of grief.’ Delilah fell into step beside Aaron. ‘How long have you been at the hotel?’
‘About five years, in human time, I think. I stopped keeping strict track after the first year.’ Aaron sighed.
‘It took me a long time to work up my nerve to try my test for the first time. Limbo is the floor for people who are indecisive. There are a lot of us who linger at the hotel. Also, our tests can take a long time. I still don’t understand why they asked me so many questions or how I failed.
I’d only just worked up the courage to try my second time when this disaster happened. ’
‘Yeah, the tests here are bloody confusing.’ Delilah nodded. ‘In five years at the hotel, you’ve never seen anything like this happen before?’
‘Never! The hotel has always been perfectly safe. Boring, but unchanging. Sometimes small things break down, like the water fountain.’
‘Ugh, you’re preaching to the choir about that water fountain.’
‘But I’ve never felt endangered before, not like this.’ He shivered. ‘There has never been an entire floor changing, guests getting trapped, or creepy shadows dragging people into their noxious grasp.’
‘Oh . . . they drag people in, do they?’ Delilah rubbed her shivering hands and looked around.
With cinematic timing, the lightbulb overhead went out.
Aaron paled, but he said, ‘We should be fine. There are other lightbulbs in the hallway.’ He ran forward.
Delilah put her head down and ran after him at top speed.
Soon, she caught up to run alongside him.
She had her eyes fixed forward, staring at the next light down the hallway.
Between pants, she said, ‘This is all Godfrey’s fault.
I bet he hasn’t changed any of these lightbulbs in decades.
He wouldn’t even check up on them. What a lazy bastard. ’
‘Mmm.’
‘Do you know Godfrey? He’s the head of the maintenance crew.’ Delilah finally leapt underneath the next lightbulb. ‘Phew.’
‘Mmm!’
Delilah looked over her shoulder.
A shadow had emerged from the wall of the closest cubicle and latched on to Aaron, swallowing up his head. His legs kicked frantically as the rest of his body was dragged in.
The shadows could come out of walls and cubicles now? Weren’t they just supposed to be at the edges of the floor and purely dark parts of the building?
Shock only held Delilah in place for seconds. She lunged forward, grabbing for Aaron. The shadows retreated, and her hands missed. Only his feet stuck out now.
‘I BLAME GODFREY!’ Delilah charged forward, reaching for Aaron’s shoe.
The shadow flowed backwards, towards the wall. Delilah ran faster than she ever had before, arms pumping and chest heaving. Her fingers strained forward.
The last bit of Aaron’s boots vanished into the darkness, then it flattened against the wall, as if it hadn’t just swallowed a person. Delilah did not dare touch it directly, out of fear that she’d be sucked inside just like Aaron. She froze, heart pounding.
Had that truly just happened? Had Aaron been lost? What would that mean for him? Delilah had never seen anyone die before – besides herself. It had happened so fast that she still couldn’t quite believe that he was gone.
The lightbulb overhead flickered.
Delilah backed away. ‘Don’t you dare.’
The light went out. The shadow reared up like a wave, the crest forming high over her head.
‘I HATE GODFREY AND THIS ENTIRE HOTEL!’ Delilah screamed as she turned around and ran.