(NO)Vacancy, Chapter 1

*The first chapter in my first attempt at writing. More chapters to come... maybe. Please, be brutally honest in your assessments.That's why I'm here. I can take it! Excuse any issues in my copy/paste from Scrivener*


Elizabeth lifted her head off the steering wheel.

They had been stuck at this red light for what seemed like an eternity, and now a storm was forming overhead. Perfect.

The light turns green.

“Jesus Christ… It’s about time,” Elizabeth mutters under her breath.

“It’s not nice to take the Lord’s name in vain, Mom. Gramma Kat always said so,” Elizabeth’s youngest daughter, Paige, stated matter-of-factly. Paige is a seven year-old ball of fire with blonde hair and green eyes, just like her mother. Her eldest daughter, sixteen year-old Rose, was staring out the window, headphones securely fitted over ears. Rose was completely oblivious to the conversation at hand.

“Well, Gramma Kat knows that I’m very sorry,” Elizabeth said, feigning empathy for her mother. Gramma Kat, or Katherine to the adults in her life, had been dead for two weeks. Both of Elizabeth’s children were close to Gramma Kat, but Rose had a special relationship with her grandmother. The funeral was quick and quaint, just the way Katherine had wanted it. The problem with quick, quaint funerals is that they don’t leave a lot of time for mourning and processing for youths. Unlike their adult counterparts, kids haven’t yet been formally acquainted with death.

This was the purpose of their trip today; mourning. Or more specifically, closure after mourning. Elizabeth was driving with her children to see a psychologist for Rose. After Katherine died, Rose had been struggling. She wasn’t eating much, wasn’t applying herself in school. Her world had been put on pause.

Traffic was starting lurch forward just as the first big drops of rain hit the windshield of their sensible SUV.

“Wow, this looks like it might get bad,” Elizabeth said as she turned her eyes briefly toward the darkening sky before refocusing on the traffic in front of her. The rain was falling steadily harder as they continued south along 127 toward Monroe. If the rain wasn’t bad enough, a sudden wind began to blow out of the west. Elizabeth could feel it gently pushing her maroon SUV toward the center line.

“Mom, is Gramma Kat still in heaven?” asked Paige from the back seat, her pale green eyes fixated thoughtfully on the storm above.

“Yes, she is,” answered Elizabeth in a tone that was sweet, but not condescendingly so. “She’s in heaven with grandpa Bob and Taffy.” Taffy was Paige’s goldfish. She won the small, orange and black-speckled creature with comically bulbous eyes at the fair last summer. Taffy had been doomed from the moment she (or maybe he?) was placed in that plastic bag. Not without purpose, Taffy had helped Elizabeth teach her daughter about death. The plan must have been a success, because Paige appeared to be maintaining quite well after losing her grandmother.

‘I probably should’ve gotten Rose her own Taffy,’ Elizabeth thought ruefully to herself. She did not have a good relationship with her late mother, but kept things cordial for the children. It didn’t help matters that her years spent as an emergency room nurse had desensitized her to death and dying. Feigning empathy for the countless, faceless patients that passed though her ER almost came naturally now. She had grown adept at coaching the families of strangers through the beginning stages of grief and loss, but none of them had been as difficult as her stone-faced daughter, Rose. ‘I am a terrible person.’ It wasn’t Rose’s fault that she was struggling with loss. She’s just a kid. This is the first time she has had to stare down her own mortality.

“What do you think Heaven is like?” Paige continued, apparently having been left unfulfilled by her mother’s answer.

“Well, I think Heaven is what you make it, honey,” Elizabeth replied, as Paige kept inquisitive eye contact in the rear-view mirror, a rapt expression on her small face. Elizabeth could tell another question was coming.

“… but what do you think Gramma Kat’s Heaven is like?”

Elizabeth had to take pause. This was a tough question. Her gut said ‘Gramma Kat’s Heaven is filled with cheap tequila and Tom Selleck lookalikes,’ but her kind heart for her daughter won the day.

“Gramma Kat’s Heaven is filled with pictures of her grandbabies, and all the Sudoku puzzles she could ever want,’ Elizabeth said in a way that came out sounding more forced than she had intended. It was a weak offering, but it appeared to appease Paige, for the moment.

Appearances can be deceiving.

“But, how does Gramma Kat know that you’re sorry for taking the Lord’s name in vain if she’s in Heaven?” Paige asked, genuinely perplexed.

“Gramma Kat, well, she has a hole she can see us through. She can look down and see us right now,” Elizabeth offered, almost positive that she had just referenced an old country music song.

“Oh my god! Can you both stop!” It was Rose, who had taken a break from her headphones, if they were ever plugged in at all “stop feeding her that bullshit, Mom! Gramma Kat’s fucking dead! There isn’t a Heaven, and she can’t see us!” Rose cried, now choking on tears between short gasps. “Just drop it…” she finished after a brief pause, glaring at her mother’s reflection in the rear-view mirror, dark brown wisps of hair falling around her cold, blue eyes. They were her grandmother’s eyes, and seeing them set in such familiar judgment sent a subconscious chill through Elizabeth’s very being.

Rose put her headphones back on and turned toward the window in a huff. Paige looked at her mother in the rear-view mirror and then slowly turned toward her own window. Elizabeth could see small tears tracking down her cheek.

‘This shrink visit could not get here soon enough.’ Elizabeth though to herself above the painful silence.
Overhead, the rain was only getting worse. Elizabeth could barely make out the white lines on the edge of the road. The windshield wipers whipped the rain off in thick sheets on the highest speed setting, but they couldn’t keep up. The wind picked up, howling through the trees that lined the road. She was getting nervous; she had never been on this stretch of road, nothing looked familiar.

“Everyone has their seatbelt on, right?” Elizabeth asked, trying to mask her nervousness. Paige nodded without looking away from the window. Rose also maintained her window gaze, obnoxiously thumbing her shoulder strap into view of the rear-view mirror and letting it snap back across her chest in dramatic fashion.

‘I wonder if we’re driving through a tornado’ Elizabeth thought, the sky now so dark that it seemed much later than the noon-time hour she knew it to be. She had always heard that it got dark during tornados. Having now thoroughly freaked herself out, Elizabeth was looking for places to pull over and wait out the storm. Preferably somewhere with a basement, just to be safe.

“Kids, we’re going to look for a spot to pull over and wait for the storm to pass.”

“OK, Mom,” Paige said, still looking out the window.

“Whatever.” Rose dryly scoffed. She wasn’t particularly looking forward to this appointment, anyway. Shrinks were for the weirdos in school. The outcasts, the cutters, the losers, the drinkers, those kids. Not her.

Elizabeth scanned left and right, now slowing her driving to a crawl. To go much faster would spell certain disaster.
‘How did it get dark so goddamn fast?’ She thought to herself. Even the trees on the roadside were now obscured by the wind and rain, both of which continued to beat the shit out of her poor, sensible SUV. The deafening pounding of the rain on the thin aluminum roof and the constant push of the wind was becoming more and more unnerving.

“Mom! Look! There’s a light!” Paige exclaimed, pointing excitedly at her window.

Elizabeth looked to her right and sure enough, there it was; a faint, yellow-white glow in the distance. The light looked like it might require a right-hand turn at the next intersection. As they drew closer to becoming parallel with the light in the distance, an intersection came into view. There was no street sign, just a broken, dilapidated-looking stretch of pavement trailing off to the right of the main road. Elizabeth steered the SUV onto the side road and continued at her snail’s pace toward the light. The rain was falling faster now, and the wind more aggressive. The car was rocking with each gust. Her children were now concerned, but their frightened chittering to each other was drowned out by the impossibly loud rain.

Just ahead, the light gave way to a shape; it was a large, Victorian-styled building with a blue sign out front. The blue sign was in the shape of an arrow, with the fletching pointed toward the sky, and the arrowhead end finishing in a dramatic swoosh gesturing toward the building.

(NO)Vacancy

The vacancy portion of the sign was set alight in a soft, red glow, while the NO just before it was left unlit. Elizabeth’s inner voice exclaimed in delight.

‘A hotel! A big, sturdy building that surely has a basement!’

Elizabeth pulled into the first parking spot available among the other vehicles taking refuge from the storm and looked toward the hotel. The front of the building had an elongated carport leading up to the glass double doors. The covered walkway would hopefully provide some shelter for part of their run.

“OK, kids!” Elizabeth shouted to her children over the drumming rain and bashing wind “We’re going to run for the door, OK? Rose, hold your sister’s hand!”

Paige scooted closer to Rose’s door and clasped her hand, nervously awaiting the drenching sprint ahead.

“Go! Go! Go!” Elizabeth shouted as she opened her door and immediately turned to the back passenger door behind her to help Rose and Paige out of the SUV. Paige was crying, but Elizabeth couldn’t hear her over the wind and rain. She grasped at Rose’s hand, and once she had a firm grip, she ran toward the door with her children in tow.

They reached the carport, but it offered little shelter; the wind was blowing the rain in sideways. The trio trudged onward in an awkward half-walk, half-jog toward the welcoming light of the doors. The warm glow of the interior lights shone brightly off of the brass accents of the handles and the gold-leaf script on the antique glass doors. The decadent cursive, adorned with delicate swoops and swirls read The Elysium.

They had reached the door. Elizabeth grabbed the handle and pulled the heavy wood-framed door with her right hand, trebucheting the children into the safety of the foyer with her left.