Dear Diary--A Journal From Purgatory, Patrick Sean Lee [thriller novels to read TXT] 📗

sympathy bordering on maliciousness. Then he directed my gaze to the sign again. It read in English, tufts of gray smoke rising from the lettering.

Purge thyself of all thy sins. Enter.

It hit me immediately. We were indeed in Purgatory, although we were really not. Not yet fully. Whatever else this city is; whatever the citizens’ reasons for being here, the city is merely the gateway to that place spoken of in Dante’s writing, I think. I have no sins. I don’t believe in them. Therefore I will not go back and accept his offer to enter the doors. One session of Hell was quite enough for myself and my love.

We will leave this city tomorrow, this realm, and go back to the lakeshore or the landing. The universe is a big place.

Tonight we are camped on the outskirts, just beyond the first row of neat, low houses. I have built another fire, and Teresa sits beside me, exhausted, but relieved.

Goodnight, friend.


March 18

Dear Diary,

A wonderful day!

Teresa and I saw children playing in the woods nearby this morning. We’d slept late, and the sounds of their laughter awakened us. Two of them stood behind a large tree twenty feet away, spying on us and giggling, while the others cavorted and did what young children everywhere do in their carefree games. Did back on Earth, anyway.

At length, after we had risen to our feet, Teresa approached the two at the tree cautiously so as not to frighten them away, and asked them in a gentle voice who they were, how old they were, where they lived. Things of that nature. They were dressed in colorful blouses and lacy, white pinafores, with striped hose and black shoes—what I might expect a five or six year-old anywhere to wear.

As with the human-looking adults back in the city proper, they seemed to understand Teresa’s questions well enough, and responded cheerfully. The remaining children abandoned their game of tag and rushed to her side, curious to meet this woman who beamed like the brightest star.

“We live there,” one of the ones who had stood spying on us a moment earlier said, pointing back at the city.

“Yes, but where?” Teresa followed. This question seemed to delight the little girl, whose hair was the same color and texture as Teresa’s, although it was done up in tight ringlets and curls. I do believe this feature drew Teresa’s interest most, as though they shared something special.

The girl pointed again in the direction of the city. “In a house! It is a big

house, and we have each of us a bedroom and as many toys as we could ever want. I have a dog named George, too. He isn’t here. Do you have a dog?”

It was Teresa’s turn to be delighted. She sat down on the amber grass and talked with them for quite some time, laughing joyfully at their innocent responses to her questions, while I considered re-entering the city to search out wherever they might live—an orphanage of some sort I imagined. We had seen no children yesterday on the streets, but obviously there are some, or many, who reside in Purgatory. I can’t imagine why. I thought again of the man outside the dreadful looking doorway. This is indeed a very odd place.

Teresa learned this: They do live in a communal home farther into the city. There are many such places, evidently. To a child they are happy, they said. When asked about school, Teresa drew blank looks. Parents? Further blank stares. Guardians?

“What are those?” one of them asked.

“But who cares for you? How do you eat? You must have someone in your home who looks after you—teaches you, loves you,” Teresa asked them.

At this they all laughed. The little girl with the dark hair answered first, laughing.

“We all love each other! All the big people love us, too.”

“Yes, but who takes care of you?”

There answer, almost in unison.

“We do!”

And on and on, this peculiar tale of the relationship between the guardian-less children and the adults back in the city. I determined to return and find out more about this society.

At length the children tired of question and answer and ran off again to their games. I found it touching, Diary, that when they did, the little girl who seemed most drawn to Teresa, returned after several steps and threw her arms around her. The child kissed her, and then ran off to join the others.

Teresa called out, “What is your name, little girl?”

She stopped and turned. After a second or two she replied, shrugging her shoulders.

“I don’t have one of those.”

And then she was off again.

I don’t quite know what to make of that as I sit here beside our fire tonight. Teresa has been strangely quiet. I’m sure she doesn’t know either. I can see in her face, though, an unspoken longing to meet the children again, and in particular the one who has no name. Perhaps we will before we leave this place.

Goodnight


March 19

Dear Diary,

I confronted Teresa this morning in the kindest way I knew how after having walked beside her in the thick woods for several hours. She moved slowly all that time, inspecting every berry, nut, and root as though she were selecting them for the Harry and David enterprise back on earth. But it was not her five-minute stop at each piece that struck me—women are like that when they shop—it was the almost-visible disinterest

in them. I mean, she felt them with her fingertips, smelled them, turned them over several times, but the routine might be compared to a person on a crowded bus who pretends to be reading, yet never turns the pages. Her thoughts were far, far away. Had I not plucked a few nuts and berries myself, no doubt we’d have had no breakfast.

“What is it?” I finally blurted after she’d stood mesmerized for an eternity in front of one of the skyscraper trees standing well into the forest. It took me two or three more tries with the question to bring her out of her lethargy.

“I think I must go back into the city—today,” she said running her fingers over the rough bark. “There is something I must do there. You can’t follow, though.”

Of course I asked her to explain, but her answers to my questions were nothing if not vague. Sidesteps, really. But in the end I agreed, promising her I wouldn’t follow. I broke that promise, naturally.

We ate—I ate, I should say. Teresa kissed me in a most unusual way afterward, and then left. I sat cross-legged on the grass with my arms locked around my knees as she made her way down the incline in the direction of the gate closest to our camp. She looked back over her shoulder a few times until she was seemingly satisfied that I was going to keep my word. Once she arrived at the gate and disappeared through it I bolted to my feet and ran down the hill after her. Her first stop was a small alcove between two buildings several blocks in. I could see very well that there was someone else there, and that someone was the little girl whom she had taken such an interest in over the past few days. They spoke for some time, Teresa bending over often to hug her and kiss her head and tiny face. How odd, I thought, that they showed such affection for one another, and how odd as well that they felt the need to do this in secret. But as I said, the truth of it had hit me. There existed some special relationship between them prior to Teresa’s death. The question was: was the little girl a sibling whose death Teresa either inadvertently or overtly caused? Or was she perhaps the daughter of a close friend? God forbid that my Teresa might have gone insane while alive and killed her own flesh and blood I thought. But she never mentioned a daughter in our many discussions, nor has she ever exhibited any acts I would consider insane, so I ruled that out.

After some time had passed they left the alcove and walked hand in hand farther into the city until they came to that horrid entryway Teresa and I had seen a few days ago. The keeper stood outside and raised his cowled head when they approached. As far as I could tell he said nothing, though. His thin mouth remained static, but his eyes glowed more red with each second that passed. I wondered why they had stopped at the entrance? My question was answered after Teresa bent down and said something else to the girl with no name, who broke down in tears even as Teresa spoke.

Looking up then, Teresa nodded her head to the man, at which he approached the door and unlatched it. She bent again and kissed the weeping girl and then moved to enter. Diary, I screamed! She stopped briefly and looked back at me with the saddest look on her face and a single tear that glistened on her cheek. She turned again and walked through the darkened entry into…what lay ahead of her I wondered in a panic? Why was she entering this anteroom of Hell?

I ran across the roadway and reached the doorway, but I was too late. The keeper had pulled it shut after her entrance and stood glowering at me, the staff he carried cocked sideways, barring my entrance. On seeing me, the girl ran like the wind to the north. I would have followed—of a certainty she knew why Teresa had gone into whatever lay behind that door—but my only concern at that moment was to somehow get past the terrible guard and pursue her. Teresa and I had survived Hell. Whatever had actually motivated her to enter that lower chamber of Purgatory I wasn’t positively certain of, but I knew together we could defeat this new kingdom of souls and their tormenters.


March 20

Tried several times to get past the gatekeeper today.

No luck. He didn’t strike me, but when I grabbed his staff to pull it out of my way twice, it was like trying to move a fully-grown tree. I finally despaired and left.


March 21

Dear Diary,

I spent much of the day searching for a way to get past the gatekeeper. A hidden door or a boarded-over window; a coal chute, a chink in the masonry someplace, but I found no other entrance. Why would I not be allowed to enter the doorway at the front of the building? Why did that creature block some and not others? Well, me at least?

I put the problem of entrance aside after several hours of searching in vain and made my way past the bookstore, down along the avenue in search of the street called Limbo. Mile after mile I walked, hoping to stumble upon it or at the very least see children. Again my efforts proved fruitless. It is as though everything important to me has vanished—the little girl more