Before I Go: A dark and tense psychological crime thriller. by Marie Reyes (reading strategies book txt) 📕

on their way out for a night of heavy drinking. Their energy was tiring just to watch. After the last person emerged, Michael slipped in and leaned against the metal railing at the back. The mirrored surfaces made the small space feel less claustrophobic, and he caught a glimpse of himself. His hair was all over the place, shoulders slumped and dark circles under his eyes. He had looked better. Why wasn’t the elevator moving? It would help if he pressed the button. He reached over to the panel and the doors started opening again.

A girl in a coral blouse rushed into the elevator, breathing heavily, and pressed the third floor button. She glanced over at him and granted him a small smile, barely perceptible—such a serious face for someone at a party-resort—as if she was here on a business trip. Her poker straight long brown hair shined in the harsh artificial lighting. Michael straightened up. There was always something awkwardly intimate about being in such an enclosed space with a stranger. He considered small talk to break the silence, but decided against it as the muffled sound of the hydraulics whirred in the background.

She looked so deep in thought, that he couldn’t glean anything by looking at her—a closed book. He looked down, not wanting her to think he was checking her out or anything like that. Suddenly he started humming. It wasn’t a conscious action—it just came out. Obviously his brain had tried to remedy the awkward silence—by doing something even more awkward. Not sure what he was humming, he started improvising. Maybe sewing together melodies from random songs he had heard in the taxi. His voice sounded far too loud in the small space and he started trailing off.

Once she got out on her floor Michael breathed a sigh of relief as he was alone again, and he resumed his slouch until the fourth floor. 418.

His floor didn’t seem to resemble the rest of the hotel. It smelled faintly like stale alcohol and cigarettes as he walked towards his room, and he could hear other rowdy guests from behind their doors.

He looked at the door numbers as he walked along the corridor. His room was at the end and through a heavy set of doors. He slotted the key card in the mechanism and waited for the light to turn green. It was pitch black until he turned the main light on. He followed his hotel routine of putting his bag on the bed and opening the curtains to check out the view, to find out he had got lucky this time. His room overlooked the main swimming pool framed by palm trees, and the surrounding lights made the water glow a fluorescent turquoise. White plastic chairs were laid out in rows on each side of the pool, and he watched as a boy plucked a girl from her chair, throwing her over his shoulder and swinging her into the pool. Her screams of protest went ignored, and she flailed around in the water as her friends laughed, before jumping into the pool to join her. He felt odd spying on them so closed the curtains and inspected the room. So, this would be the place where he would take his last breath, and he couldn’t think of anywhere better. There was nothing left to worry about. The future was a burden he didn’t have to pull him down. All that was left, was the here and now. He walked back to his bag and unzipped it, pulling out clothes and toiletries until he got to the bag buried in the bottom. The box inside looked so innocent, like it could be cough syrup, or something equally innocuous. It didn’t look like something that could kill a man in minutes. He opened the lid and pulled out the bottle, examining the contents. Just a clear liquid—nothing to see here. Also in his bag, next to the pentobarbital, was some mescaline he had acquired from a man in Chiapas. He offered the mescaline in its pill form, which would have been a lot easier to take, but Michael wanted to prepare his gag reflex, so that by the time he had to take his pentobarbital, he would be used to swallowing bitter things. Although he was so tired he was tempted to take some mescaline there and then. It’s not like he had anything else to do. The room looked clinical and sparse, with none of the personality of the hostels he had stayed in before. He took advantage of the closet and started hanging up his clothes. This was his final destination; might as well make it his own. He laid out his toiletries in the bathroom. Shower gel, razor, tooth paste, tooth brush. In the hostels he had to lug his stuff back and forth between his room and the shared bathrooms. He made the mistake of leaving his stuff in there before and the next time he came to brush his teeth and shower some skint backpacker must have stolen it.

The whirring air-con made a calming background noise. He couldn’t stand true silence, as it let his thoughts have free rein. As he turned on the shower, the sound of the high-powered streams of water hitting the porcelain below relaxed him even further. After putting some music on his phone and placing it on the sink, he hopped into the flow of cool water—the perfect temperature to sooth his angry red shoulders. Cascades of water ran down his torso, washing away the grime of the last two days. Somewhat energized from the cleansing shower, Michael donned a complementary bathrobe. This was the life. He grabbed a menu from the writing desk and browsed through the pages. Today was a room service day. Despite the exotic options available, he opted for a beef burger with mulato-chilli cheese.

***

Clean, and with a full stomach, Michael felt renewed. He continued to play music, got the baggie of mescaline and