Ex-Purgatory by Peter Clines (best book club books TXT) 📕

a diluted industrial cleaner, meaning you were most likely not mopping at home. The varying degrees of discoloration mean it happened multiple times with different ratios of water to cleaner. Mopping is a regular action you perform when not at home, thus, a janitor.”

He smiled. “You’re like Sherlock Holmes,” he said.

“Except I am not fictional,” she said with a slight bow of her head. The motion made a few strands of hair slide across her forehead and cheek. “What do you do now?”

“Sorry?”

“You said you were a janitor. What do you do now?”

He rewound his words in his head. “I … I don’t know why I said that,” he admitted. “Nervous, I guess.”

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why are you nervous?”

He juggled a few possible answers. “Because it’s important you know me.”

“Why?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know,” he said.

“You are lying,” she said, “and you are not good at it.”

His mind raced and he realized just how unprepared for this conversation he was.

Karen slid a bottle of water from an ice bucket on the table. She made no move to open it. There were three left in the bucket, and he thought about taking one to give himself a few moments. He wasn’t sure how stepping toward her would go over, though, and it seemed rude to take one if she didn’t offer it.

His eyes drifted across the table to her face and stopped at the elaborate hotel phone. The call with Barry flitted across his mind. “Can I ask you a question?”

She ran one finger around the bottle cap and wiped off the excess water. “Very well.”

“Do you know who George Romero is?”

“He is an American film director who began his career making commercials and short films in the Pittsburgh area, most notably doing a feature for the children’s show Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood. He is best known as the creator of the Night of the Living Dead horror series.”

“Yes!” said George. “What are those about?”

She raised an eyebrow.

“Please,” he said, “it’s important.”

She stared at him for a moment. “An unknown force causes the dead to become animate and attack the living. In most of the films in the series, the plot revolves around a small and isolated group of characters dealing with the dead.”

“But what are they called?”

“The characters?”

“The dead.”

“Romero has said in several interviews that he and his fellow filmmakers did not give the creatures a name, although he was inspired by the legend of the ghoul.”

George shook his head. “No, not ghouls. They’re called something else.”

The dark-skinned woman opened her mouth to reply and her expression shifted. Her eyes softened. Then she straightened up. Her shoulders squared off. “Despite my status as a celebrity,” she said, “I am not a student of popular culture. It is not uncommon for me to miss references to motion pictures.”

“This isn’t a reference,” he said. “It’s just a name. A word.” He met her gaze and her eyes softened again, just for a moment. “And you don’t know what it is, do you?”

It was the wrong thing to say. Her eyes hardened. The corners of her mouth twitched. George had the distinct impression he’d just insulted her somehow.

“Is there a point to this meeting, Mr. Bailey?” she asked.

“Look,” he said, “I know this is going to sound insane, and I bet you hear crazy stuff like this all the time, but I think you and I … I think we’re supposed to be somewhere else.”

“Where?”

“Somewhere … else.”

“That is not very informative,” she said.

“It’s hard to explain.”

Her mouth twitched again. Her eyes hardened a bit more.

“You have dreams about monsters,” said George. “Dead people who walk, like in the Romero movies. And I’m in the dreams, too, aren’t I?”

“No,” she said, “you are not.”

His heart dropped again. “I’m not?”

“I do not dream,” she said. She stared at his eyes. “Not since I was a child. I practice a form of polyphasic sleep.”

Another moment stretched out between them and became a full minute. She still held the water bottle, but didn’t drink from it. George felt pretty sure at this point she wasn’t going to offer him one.

He was pretty sure she didn’t blink, either.

“So,” he said, “none of this means anything to you.”

She shook her head once. Left. Right. Her eyes never left his.

“You don’t know me at all.”

Again, one time side to side.

“Then why did you invite me up?”

“She didn’t,” said the thin man from behind George. “I did.”

George looked at him. So did Karen. “Father?”

“Your name is George,” said the older man. “Like the saint?”

The comparison made his head throb. The air rushed out of his lungs. “Yes,” he coughed. “Yes it is.”

Karen’s father looked at her. “You call his name in your sleep.”

Any last hints of softness left her face. Her expression would’ve fit well on a grim teacher or soldier. “Nonsense.”

His chin went up and down once. It was an economical, efficient motion, like Karen’s. “For three weeks now,” he said. “When the clerk said there was a man with this name asking to meet with you, I said to send him up.”

She glared at him. “You gave access to a complete stranger? What if he was dangerous?”

The thin man glanced at George. He made a dry sound that might’ve been a chuckle. “What if he was?”

Something clicked in George’s mind. He remembered who—what—Karen Quilt’s father was. He remembered the links he’d found while browsing the Internet and the articles those links had brought up. Some of the pictures in those articles were worse than the things he dreamed about.

The man in the John Lennon glasses, he realized, was far closer to Nazi officer than hipster assistant.

The thin man met his daughter’s gaze. “If there is nothing else,” he said, “I believe Mr. Bailey’s ten minutes are up.”

Karen stood up. It was a smooth, graceful motion, just what one would expect from a professional model. She held out her hand and he took it in his. Their fingers fit perfectly against one another. She had a very strong grip. “This has been interesting,” she said. “It has been a