Purgatory - 1. Chapter 1

“Laura knew someone—something—was following her, but all she heard was her own heartbeat drumming frantically inside her head and the clacking of her high heels on the asphalt. She sped up until she was almost running across the empty parking lot. Wrestling the keys out of her huge purse, she desperately pressed any buttons until finally a resounding ‘plop’ signaled the locks had opened. She yanked the door open, threw herself into the driver’s seat, and only felt safe again after the next ‘plop’ told her she had successfully sealed herself inside her car.”

No one around the bonfire moved, not even to sip at the beers in their hands. Everyone’s gaze was riveted on Dirk, whose deep, compelling voice was only interrupted by the occasional crack of the burning embers which sometimes resulted in showers of sparks.

When Ollie saw Zach slowly creeping up behind Hailey, he quickly hid his grin behind his hand. Then he elbowed Frank to shut him up. Obviously, he had seen Zach too and was about to warn Hailey. No way was he going to let him spoil the best part of Dirk’s scary story.

“With trembling hands, Laura inserted the key. Luckily, the engine started on the first turn. One gaze into the rearview mirror and her whole body froze. Eerie green eyes looked back at her, and an ice-cold hand closed over her throat.” At the exact moment Dirk said ‘throat’, Zach’s hand gripped Hailey around her neck.

Her high-pitched screams were exactly what Ollie had been waiting for. Even a few minutes later, everyone was still heaving with laughter—except for Zach, who was rubbing his sore arm, glaring daggers at Hailey. “This hurts like a motherfucker, bitch!”

“Serves you right, ass!” Hailey slapped Zach again so hard he fell on his back. “I almost pissed myself when you gripped my throat! How did you get your hands this cold?”

“I dipped them into the ice bucket!”

“Shit, my heart is pounding out of my chest!” Hailey looked at the others who were still snickering and she grinned. It had been a good prank; she had to give it to Dirk and Zach. “One of you will walk me to my car later.” She pointed with her finger first at Dirk, then at Zach. “And check the backseats!”

“We’re totally for checking her backseats, right?” Dirk slapped Zach on the arm, who pushed back at him and soon both were rolling around in the dirt. Ollie grinned at his friends. For many years, he had watched them pulling off something similar, always scaring the new girls on All Hollow’s Eve with their creepy stories and live performance, as they called it.

“Hey, SWAT! Cool costume.” Ollie thought her name was Breanna. She ran a finger over the fastenings of his Kevlar vest. “I choose you to drive me home.”

“His name is Ollie, and he just came in his work clothes, the lazy fucker!” Zach grinned at him.

“You really are with SWAT? This isn’t just a costume?” Breanna’s eyes got big. “How cool is that?” Then she turned to Dirk. “So much better than a lowly firefighter in a cowboy costume.” Then her gaze was back on Ollie. “There must be some spine-chilling, authentic story you could tell us instead of that lame shit Dirk is sprouting every year.”

“Hey! It worked, right? Hailey’s bloodcurdling screams shocked the wildlife out of their furry pants. I think I saw a squirrel dropping down in shock right over there.”

“Yes, but only because you had help.” Hailey batted her eyes at Ollie. “So? About that story Breanna just asked for. I’m ready to get all frightened again.”

“Back off, H! That one is mine. You already scored Zach and Dirk!” Breanna mock-glowered. “Ollie, I never knew you worked the streets, fighting the bad guys. That’s so cool.”

An authentic creepy story... Ollie frowned, then his gaze fell on some friends who were just coming down the dirt path leading to the fire. He mouthed ‘Late as always’, but they just shrugged before they sat down across from him, and Ollie thought, Why not?.

“I always wanted to be part of SWAT. After I graduated with a degree in criminal justice, one of my instructors came to me with a deal I couldn’t resist. Two years of serving as a conventional police officer in a small town that had trouble finding people who were willing to work there, and then he would get me into SWAT training. Of course, I agreed, and a few weeks later I arrived in Hollies Fork.”

“Seriously? Hollies Fork?” Zach snickered.

“Yep. And it gets better. Their police station is so tiny, it’s tucked into a side wing of the community center. The entire staff consisted of Chief Wagner, Officer Kristen Holloway and then me. Kristen’s husband worked as an EMT, which was why she stayed even after her two years were over.”

“Idyllic.” Frank grinned. “It sounds like my hometown, and I just remembered why I couldn’t get away fast enough.”

“Dispatch was handled by two lovely older ladies, Daisy and Elsie.”

Frank shook his head. “No way! You’re making this up!”

“Nope. Our main offenses were DUIs, livestock theft, domestic violence, and traffic accidents. The traffic accidents happened because of a busy highway nearby.”

“You must have been bored out of your mind!”

“I had to follow Kristen the first few months to learn how things were done in Hollies Fork, and after that they let me do my own patrols. It wasn’t as bad as it sounds.”

“Any hot girls?” Frank mocked.

“Probably.”

“What do you mean ‘probably’? You do have eyes, right?”

“He doesn’t swing that way, Breanna.” Frank watched her mulling over his words.

“You’re gay? Damn!” Breanna pouted. “I thought I could snatch up a hot SWAT officer tonight.”

Zach promptly wrapped his arm around her shoulder. “I parked my car near Hailey’s. We can watch her and Dirk ‘checking the backseats’, maybe do some checking ourselves before I bring you home.”

“Fuck off!” Breanna still snuggled into Zach’s arm, making him wink at Ollie victoriously.

“What about Chief Wagner? Was he hot?” Of course, Dirk had to ask that. He knew him too well.

“I’ll let you judge that yourself. During one of our afternoon meetings, I reported that members of the school’s baseball team had beaten up another boy just because they thought he was gay.”

“Uh-oh.”

“Do you know what his answer was, Frank?” Ollie let his voice turn low and mean. ‘It was that little faggot, the Baker boy, right? You would think owning the auto shop, his father had better control over him. I hope you didn’t get involved too much. The kids will handle these things much better than us.’ ”

Zach interrupted him. “You are making that up.”

Ollie shook his head. “I wish. Kristen just looked away. I think she was embarrassed at least. Daisy, on the other hand, murmured something about ‘not right to lay with another man’, and I knew to better not let my preferences slip out accidentally. I also decided to have my eyes on the boy—Ryan Baker. I did a lot more patrolling around school and at the outskirts of town. Ryan was smart enough to stay on the main streets, and the other kids knew not to mess with him when I was there.”

“So this really still happens.” Zach shook his head. “You would think we are past this shit.”

Everyone was staring at the fire, until Breanna finally said, “This is all well and good, but when are you getting to the scary part?”

“On Halloween—”

“Aww...that’s more like it!” Breanna tugged at Zach’s arm and wrapped it around her.

“On Halloween it was all men on deck. The whole town always went haywire. We had illegal fireworks, DUIs, underage drinking, and property vandalized. That year, someone smashed the window of the auto shop.”

“Ryan Baker’s father’s auto shop?” Frank asked knowingly.

“Yep. I was on the way to an abandoned hotel outside of town when it happened. The former ‘Hollies Fork Inn’ was a mere ruin, but the kids loved to party there away from their parents’ prying eyes, and the Chief sent me there to make sure it didn’t get out of control. You can guess my astonishment when I met several cars packed with teenagers, barreling down the road back to town. They only slowed down briefly when they saw my car, but then bolted down the road again as if the devil was after them. My first thought was that someone must have managed to spook them pretty good, and I couldn’t suppress a grin, especially as one of the drivers had been the leader of the boys who had beaten up Ryan.”

“So, you reached the hotel—” Breanna urged.

“Shush, Brea!”

“Shush yourself, Dirk!”

Ollie grinned. “When I reached the hotel, everything was suspiciously quiet. All what was left of the Halloween party were some empty cans, a few bags of chips, and a not-quite extinguished fire. I got my torch light out and searched around until the beam lightened the parking lot. One car was still sitting there, a car I hadn’t seen in town, and believe me, I would have noticed it.”

“Bah! Get to the point already!” Even Zach was getting impatient.

“It was an old, dented 1954 Cadillac Eldorado. It was covered in dust and dirt, as if someone had just dug it out or found it in a barn. When I came closer, I saw that it must have been red once, and even the license plates were still there. As it was routine, I shone the light inside and almost dropped it. Two mummified bodies were sitting in the front seats—”

“Oh my God!” Breanna slapped a hand over her mouth.

“What do you mean ‘mummified’?” Dirk looked intrigued. “Like dried skin stretched over mummies’ bones—”

“No!” Hailey cuffed Dirk. “Would you shut up?”

“You’re kidding, right?” Frank grinned incredulous. “It was a setup, right?”

“That’s what I thought too. They couldn’t be real bodies. I looked around, shone the light between the bushes and along the walls of the hotel, the whole time expecting someone to come out of hiding, laughing their ass off. How they had not only scared the kids but a cop too, you know? Only, nothing happened.”

“You mean, they actually were real bodies?” Hailey whispered.

“I walked around the car and finally stopped at the driver’s side. The man—I was sure it was a man by then because of his clothes—had his hands on the head of the other, who was lying across his lap. Well, what was left of his hands.”

“W-what was left of his hands?” Breanna was almost sitting on Zach’s lap.

“The driver’s bones were broken in several places; his right hand didn’t have one finger intact.”

“Oh my God!” Hailey burrowed her face against Dirk’s chest, waving her hand in Ollie’s direction. “Go on.”

“I looked around again. This had to be a Halloween prank, right? It explained perfectly why the kids had run back to town like scared rabbits. Still not trusting the bodies were real, I fetched some gloves and—touched the shoulder of the driver.”

“No, you didn’t!” Breanna shook her head.

“Of course I did. I even sniffed at them.”

“Ew!” Frank grimaced, and after hesitating briefly he asked, “How did they smell?”

“Ew, Frank!” Hailey slapped Frank. “How can you ask something like that?”

“What—”

“They smelled like decay, old and weathered, but still...decay.”

“So, they were genuine bodies?” Dirk perked up.

“Yes.”

Zach frowned. “What pervert would do that?”

“Back then, I thought that someone must have found the car buried in the dunes outside the hotel and thought it would be funny to scare the kids. The desert there is extremely dry—dry enough to naturally mummify dead bodies. I took out my camera and took several pictures, all the while expecting someone to jump out of the woodwork shouting, ‘Prank!’. After that, I freed the license plates of the dirt, and ran the plates through the system. It took a while, but then I knew the car belonged to Ralph Hanson, 34, the owner of the local gas station, who had gone missing without any trace in 1954.”

“You stumbled on an old murder case? I can’t believe it.” Zach glared at Ollie. “Why didn’t you ever tell me this story before?”

“Does it matter?” Frank rolled his eyes, then he turned to Ollie. “Was one of them the missed Ralph Hanson? And who was the other one?”

Ollie grinned at Frank’s impatience. “The remaining clothes suggested they were both male, which was all I knew at that moment.”

“So, what did you do next?”

Ollie looked at Frank. “At that moment? I still wasn’t one hundred percent sure I had a real case and my colleagues wouldn’t laugh their asses off at my gullibility, but I reported in my finding. Half an hour later, Chief Wagner reached the scene. He took one look at the car and the bodies, and called the coroner. I told him we had to secure the scene first, investigate more, call in the Feds maybe, but he didn’t want to hear any of that.”

Dirk put down the beer he was drinking. “What? He just wanted to ignore a possible murder case?”

“Yep. Without taking any additional pics, he let the coroner collect the bodies and had the car towed to the local junkyard, all the while lecturing me this wasn’t CSI Miami but reality. It was a cold case, much too late to find out what had happened.”

“But how did he explain the car sitting in the parking lot all of a sudden?” Frank asked incredulous.

“The same way I did; someone found it and thought it was a good idea to scare the kids. It was Halloween, after all.”

“Someone!?” Breanna threw her hands up. “It was disrespectful towards those two people. How can he let someone get away with using murdered people for a prank?”

“And it’s illegal!” Frank threw a twig into the fire. “What an asshole!”

“The next day it was all over town; after more than sixty years, the police had found Ralph Hanson’s car. Everyone was sure that he was one of the bodies. Curiously, no one had any suggestions about the other person, though. Then I overheard Daisy and Elsie whispering rumors that included my favorite word again: faggots.”

“Oh, no!” Hailey exclaimed. “They were killed because they were gay.”

“Chief Wagner proclaimed that a misguided individual must have found the car by accident and thought it would be funny placing actual skeletons in the old parking lot of the hotel on Halloween. He said he wouldn’t condone such behavior, and he would ensure the bodies would be buried honorably. He said nothing about trying to find out their identity, or how they died. When I complained about the proceedings, I was informed that should I make a scene, I could forget my recommendation for SWAT.”

“And you actually let it go?” Dirk snapped. “I’d thought better of you!”

“What do you think? Those men had been murdered, and no one was interested in finding out how or why. That—and I was sure Chief Wagner knew something, seeing how fast he swept everything under the rug. The next evening, I drove to the old hotel to do some investigating on my own. Something was very wrong, and I couldn’t simply let the matter rest. I had this feeling I needed to do something.”

“Good!” Dirk nodded.

“I sat in my car and stared at the hotel. Suddenly, a man came out. He was about six foot two, with black hair, wearing black slacks, and a white button-down shirt that was splattered with blood. I knew him from old pictures I had seen that morning.”

“Oh my God!” Breanna grabbed Zack’s hand and quickly wrapped his arm around her shoulders again. “Ralph Hanson!”

“Is this where the ghost story starts?” Frank narrowed his eyes at Ollie. “Tell me you’re kidding!”

“I got out of the car and Ralph stopped his approach. I remember thinking he really was a handsome guy in that rakish kind of way. When he knew he had my attention, he turned around without a word walking back to the hotel, while making a gesture with his hand for me to follow him.”

“And you did.”

Ollie nodded at Dirk’s question. “I did. We went through the lobby, which didn’t look as it had the day before. There was the dusty reception desk, wilted flowers in a vase, and some chairs and end tables in disarray. The whole hotel seemed only to have been closed recently. There was a feeling people had just left.”

“Ralph took the stairs to a room on the third floor. There were dozens of flickering candles, a bottle of wine sitting in a cooler, and two glasses set next to some blankets on the floor. A younger man came out of what might have been the bathroom. He totally ignored me and went right into Ralph’s arms and kissed him passionately.”

Zach lifted his hand. “Wait! Is there some sort of time travel going on now all of a sudden?”

“I wouldn’t say time travel but maybe a flashback. I believe Ralph showed me what had happened at the hotel all those years ago.”

“A flashback?” Zach lifted an eyebrow. “Now you’re inventing things, right?”

Breanna shushed him. “Of course not! Ralph’s ghost needed Ollie to know. Now shut up already, I want to know what happened to them.”

“You—”

“Shut up!” Then she waved her hands at Ollie. “Go on!”

“I was standing there watching them kiss, when a hard knock on the door interrupted them. It sounded as if several fists were pounding on the door. Both men froze. I guess they already knew what that meant for them. Ralph shoved the younger man out to the balcony. ‘Take the fire escape, Darrell. Hurry!”

‘I won’t leave you, Ralph!’

‘You must. Quick! Penny said she would cover for me. Just tell them I’m waiting for her!’

The door was shaking in its hinges by then, and finally Darrell went to the balcony and grabbed the fire escape ladder, not a minute too soon. At least five men, armed with baseball bats and logs, pressed into the room. Seeing them, Ralph drew himself up and forced a smile on his face. ‘Chief Wagner! What can I do for you?’ ”

“Chief Wagner!?” Zach frowned. “That can’t be. The man must have been too old—”

Ollie stopped him by lifting his hand. “I’ll come to that. “ He took in a deep breath. “Chief Wagner hit Ralph in the face without warning. ‘Shut up, faggot!’ Then he looked around. ‘Where is the mayor’s son? Where is Darrell?’ Before Ralph could get another word out though, the men brought down their weapons on him. I tried to help, but I was just there as a witness, frozen in place, and forced to watch. By now, Ralph was lying on the floor, trying to protect himself with his arms, when his gaze was suddenly on me. I could hear his voice in my head: ‘Chief Wagner, Mayor Emerson, Edwin Meyer, Donald Muller, Wallace Green. Protect Ryan and Tyler! It is happening again.’”

“Oh my God, Ollie!” Breanna’s hand gripped his arm. “That must have been so horrible, seeing that and not being able to do anything!”

“One of the men was out on the balcony, bending over the railing. ‘He’s running into the dunes. Maurice and Gerald are on him.’

“There I was, helplessly watching them beating up Ralph without mercy, their intent clear; they came to kill. They stomped on his hands, broke his fingers, thrashed his arms and legs, kicked him between his legs, and I could do nothing but cry for him.” Ollie swallowed. “It could have stopped there, but it didn’t. I heard yelling from the outside. Pleading. And I realized I could move again. I ran down the stairs, out of the hotel. What I saw made my blood run cold: Darrell was on his knees, begging two men for his life, only to have them cruelly shoot him in the head.”

By now, the girls were crying. Even the guys were secretly swiping tears from their faces.

“After the ugly deed was done, the men piled into their cars as if nothing bad had happened. They were actually joking around and slapping each other’s backs.”

“This is so horrible.” Hailey was sobbing.

“I sat beside Darrell, but not able to touch him as my hands ran right through him. Watching the light of his life slowly fading from his eyes was the worst thing I had ever seen. When I heard noises behind me, my first thought was that the men had come back, but it was Ralph limping over to us.”

“I thought he was dead!” Breanna exclaimed.

“As did I. I don’t know how he even managed to live after the beating he took, let alone walking down the stairs. He sat down beside Darrell, took his hand in his, and we quietly cried for the senselessness of his death, the ignorance, the injustice. My heart broke when Ralph, as injured as he was, took Darrell into his arms and slowly carried him over to his car. They had smashed the windows, dented the metal, scratched the paint, and I think they even pissed on it. Ralph carefully placed Darrell into the passenger seat, then walked around the car and sat down in the driver’s seat. He pulled Darrell’s head into his lap. ‘We waited so long for you come along, Oliver. Don’t let them get away with it again. Protect Ryan Baker and Tyler Meyer. This can never happen again. Make the town see by telling our story.’

“The next thing I knew, I was sitting in my car staring at the dilapidated ruin of the hotel, with tears running down my face. The car with Ralph and Darrell was gone; everything looked exactly as it had in the morning. What should I do? I knew what I had just witnessed was what had happened more than sixty years ago. I couldn’t really call the Feds telling them two ghosts had told me about how they had been murdered years ago. So, with trembling hands, I dialed my instructor’s number.”

Ollie’s friends were quietly watching him. That was when he became aware of the tears running down his face.

“The next morning, Feds were swarming Hollies Fork, following an anonymous tip. Only I knew my instructor had called in some favors so they would react this quickly. Investigating the room where they had beaten up Ralph, they found traces of blood on the wall and the floor, candle stumps—and a wallet. It belonged to Darrell, the mayor’s son back then. Another team secured Ralph’s car just in time before it landed in the junkyard’s crusher. In its trunk were logs and baseball bats, one engraved with the name of the former police chief.”

Dirk fished a beer can out of the cooler. “So, you want us to believe that happened for real?”

“You asked for a genuine story. Anything can happen on All Hallow’s Eve when the dead can enter the world of the living.”

“I just Googled Hollies Fork.” Hailey held her phone up. “It’s on their website: The Haunted Hotel Rainbow Festival. It says here they celebrate it every year in memory of Ralph and Darrell, who had been murdered in the fifties by bigoted citizens. Wow!”

Zach ripped open a bag of chips. “You read that somewhere, right?” Offering it to Ollie, he said, “You never even were in Hollies Fork.”

“Three of the seven men mentioned in the anonymous notice had already passed away, the old mayor among them. One finally confessed. Everything came out. After that, it was as if a dam had been lifted. Sometimes, unexplainable things happen and we just have to go with the flow. The important thing is that an old crime has been solved, and a new crime has been prevented.”

“A real ghost story?” Frank grinned.

Ollie smiled. “Yep.” He lifted a hand, a simple gesture of recognition to those two men who lost so much. They sat across the fire, listening to their story. The young men waved back, before Ralph and Darrell faded away. In his head Ollie heard them whisper, ‘Until next year?’

“Of course.”