Purgatech: Aaron's Terrible Realization

Chapter 2

I slammed Collin's trunk shut and carried my suitcase around to his window.

"Alright man, I'll only be about fifteen minutes away if anything gets weird. Don't hesitate to call me."

"Thanks a lot," I said. "I appreciate your help with this."

"Hey, what kind of friend would I be if I didn't help you get to your ghosty interview?" We both laughed and just like that, he was gone, rolling down the avenue and disappearing into the gloomy evening.

I turned around to face the house. Now, without Collin to bounce jokes off of, the house seemed even more ominous than it had. I'd committed, though, and my only means of escape was gone. I took a deep breath and approached the huge red door.

The porch steps creaked under my feet and I noticed that they were overgrown with the same ivy that grew on the walls of the house. It didn't look like the steps were used very much. They must use a side door or something, I thought.

About half way up the steps, a floodlight kicked on. Damn motion sensors. It was blinding after the dim light from the street lamps. I put my hand up to shield my face and knocked on the door.

As the sound of my knuckles on the old wood faded, I felt the butterflies in my stomach do another lap around their small enclosure. It was sinking in for the first time that this was, first and foremost, a job interview. Even if it was in a spooky, rundown house and for a position that seemed obscure at best, I was about to present myself for a job. I always get nervous in situations like that. I tugged at the collar of my shirt and adjusted my belt, trying to look as professional as possible while standing on the porch of an ancient house.

A latch clicked on the other side of the door and the doorknob turned. "Mr. Young, is that you?" The voice floated through the door as though it weren't there. I heard him clear and crisp.

"Um, yes. Yes, I'm Young," I stammered. The voice was pleasant. It seemed genuinely excited. The door creaked open.

"I'm so glad you made it alright. Mary's Rest can be a tough place for some folks to find," said the man in the doorway. I couldn't see him very well with the flood light in my eyes. "Do come in."

"Thanks. It wasn't so bad getting here. Just plugged the address into the GPS."

"Ah yes," said the man. "Modern conveniences are most, um, convenient, don't you agree?"

"I guess so." My eyes were beginning to adjust and my attempts at professionalism were pretty much out the window as I took in everything around me.

The foyer of the house was huge and as dimly lit as the street outside. I could see very large rooms to either side of me. The left looked to be a sitting room and the right had a dinning room table at its center. Directly in front of me, in line with the door was a massive staircase. It made its regal way up to the second floor, which was dark. A huge chandelier hung above my head.

"Let me take your bag." The man who had welcomed me into the house was reaching out toward my suitcase.

He was a very tall man and very thin. His skin was pale and his hair cropped short around a shining bald pate. He wore a dark suit and was void of any color except for a small red flower tucked into the lapel of his jacket. I had to focus hard on my face to keep from smiling. He looked so much like he belonged in this house that it could not have been an accident. It was like he was trying to impersonate a vampire.

I handed my bag over. As the man took it in one hand, he offered the other for a handshake. "My name is Mr. Turner. Pleased to meet you Mr. Young."

"You can call me Aaron," I said.

"Well then, nice to meet you, Aaron." He did not offer me his first name. Instead, he turned and began to head up the staircase with my bag in tow.

"Your room will be upstairs, Aaron. I hope you don't mind. Our accommodations are in a sort of hostel style. You might have up to three other room mates, depending on how many folks pass the interviews." He stopped at the top of the stairs. There was a door immediately to the left of the top step and Mr. Turner reached into his pocket to retrieve a long skeleton key.

"I don't mind,” I said, “Always wanted to travel Europe. Guess this is my chance to pretend." Mr. Turner looked at me as he turned the key. He wasn’t smiling.

"Yes, well, I'm glad the plans suit you well." He pushed the door open and threw the light switch. A small fixture in the center of the ceiling illuminated the room. It was larger than I had expected with twin bunk beds on opposite walls. There was little else in the way of furniture except for a couple of rocking chairs, an antique dresser, and an oil painting of a snowy landscape.

"Roomy," I said, following Turner into the room. The floorboards creaked and there was a faint sent of ancient wood mixed with something damp. It reminded me of the way my grandmother's house smelled.

Turner set down my suitcase in the middle of the floor and turned to walk toward the door. “You may have any bed you like, Aaron. There are spare blankets in the credenza, along with towels and washcloths. Please, take some time to make yourself at home. When you've settled in, come down to the sitting room and we will commence with the interview before supper.”

Turner exited the room without another word. He closed the door behind himself. For one, panicky moment, I expected to hear the click of him locking the door behind him. Of course, I did not let and out a breath I wasn’t aware of holding.

I walked over to one of the bottom bunks and threw my suitcase and then myself onto it. The ride here had been long and I was tired. I wished that I had time for a nap but I knew that Turner would be expecting me way sooner than that. Still, I pulled out my phone to binge on social media for a few minutes before preparing myself for the interview.

After becoming annoyed with the idiots on Twitter and the endless photo feed of cool stuff I couldn't do on i********:, I opened up f*******:. I had fifty-two notifications. I didn't check my page very often.

I started to scroll through the notifications, most of them being updates about random people who probably didn't actually belong on my friends list. My heart did a high jump and then a low dive when I saw Katie's name pop up.

The notification said that she had posted a new picture. Knowing that it was a bad idea, I tapped the link and prepared myself to see that beautiful face.

Instead of just Katie, there were five people. Katie, one of her friends, that girl's boyfriend, and two other guys I didn't know. It was one of those car selflies where someone in the front seat takes a picture of the entire group. They were all dressed up in weird costumes. The caption said something about a renaissance festival. I didn't pay that much attention, though. Who the hell were those guys?

The butterflies in my stomach dissolved in a flood acid. We had been broken up for a couple of weeks and she's off parading around with random dudes in a slinky fairy dress? How could she be moving that fast?

Before I could stop myself, I switched to my texting app and sent her a message. 'Did you have a good time with the frog princes?' it said. Lame, I know, but I was freaking out and I couldn't come up with an actual clever thing to say. I waited a moment. Then two. Then four. I sat there, staring at the phone, waiting for the little dots to appear to let me know that she was typing. They did not appear. Angry, I threw my phone across the room.

It bounced off of a door I hadn't noticed before. It wasn't the bathroom, that one was to my left. I could see the toilet from where I sat. I assumed it must be a closet but got up to check it out.

The doorknob was very old. The tarnished metal seemed sad somehow. I don't really know what that means but it's the only thing I can think to describe it, worn and tarnished as it was.

I took hold of the knob to check out the contents of the closet. The first thing I noticed was how cold it was. The second, that it wouldn't turn. I tugged on the door to see if it would rattle in its frame but it would not.

There was no way that a door this would have a doorknob that locked. The door could be locked, sure. The keyhole was plainly visible so the deadbolt was probably secured. But that wouldn't explain why the knob itself wouldn't turn. It was very simple in design, no way that it had a locking mechanism. I assumed that it was simply rusted shut and gave it up as a fruitless endeavor.

I went over to the bed and grabbed my toothbrush and a few other things and went about preparing myself for a sit down with Mr. Turner. I'd been rehearsing all of the usual interview exchanges for the last couple of days. What are your strengths? Well, I'm a great team player and I'm goal oriented. What are your weaknesses? I'm a bit of a perfectionist. Same old song and dance that got me the crumby pizza gig.

After I felt refreshed, I took one last look at myself in the mirror. I thought about losing the glasses for the interview. But Turner had already seen me in them so it would almost seem like I was insulting his intelligence. I pushed my hair back from my forehead (maybe I should have gotten a trim) and took a deep breath. Game time.

I made my way quickly down the stairs and turned the corner into the sitting area I'd seen. It was large and beautifully decorated, though the decor was all rather dated. The antique furniture was arranged in such a way as to make the huge fireplace the focal point of the room. Above the mantel was a life sized, full length portrait of a man in aristocratic dress.

Turner was seated in a leather arm chair in one corner. He gestured to a couch that sat near it. "Please, Aaron. Sit."

"This is a very nice home. Uh, office, I suppose," I stumbled over my words, feeling stupid.

"Not to worry, my boy," said Turner, chuckling. "It is a bit nontraditional, eh?"

"Hey, if it works for you guys, it works."

"I agreed." Turner smiled pleasantly, saying nothing else. A few moments ticked by as I wondered what he was waiting on. Wasn't this sort of his conversation to lead?

Finally, Turner spoke. "If you had to choose one, what sort of animal would you identify with most?"

I was completely taken aback. "Um, sorry, did you say animal?"

"Yes, I did." Turner folded his hands under his chin.

"Well, I suppose, if I had to choose, I would say, um, a wolf."

"A wolf? Interesting, Why a wolf?"

"Well, I haven't thought much about it you know.” Trying to stall for time. What kind of interview question was that? “I guess because I like a group, you know, like a pack. I do well with others around." I was thinking of Katie and the group of friends we spent time with.

"Yes, but sometimes the wolf is alone. How well do you do alone?"

"I do just fine on my own," I said, cringing at the feeling of the lying slipping between my teeth. Turner looked directly at me for another long moment before speaking again.

"If there were a woman and child trapped in a burning building and you had the chance to save only one of them, which would you choose and why?"

"What?" I blurted, loosing all attempts at professionalism.

"I believe I spoke rather clearly, Aaron."

"What does that have..."

"This is an interview that I am conducting for a position that I am offering. If you do not like the questions, you will likely not be a good fit for..."

"I'm sorry, Mr. Turner," I said, quickly. "I was just taken aback, that's all. It's a little non traditional, right?"

"This is a nontraditional position, Aaron." Turner had a slightly bemused smile on his face.

"The woman," I said.

"Interesting. And why do you say you would say the woman?"

"I'm not really sure," I said, thinking of Katie and what her blue eyes might look like if she was about to burn to death, "just my first instinct."'

"Very well, an acceptable answer." Mr. Young made some notes on a clip board he seemed to have produced from nowhere. He had retrieved a tablet from the same place. He fiddled with the screen for a moment and then turned it around so that I could see the app he had pulled up. PURGATECH was written in blue lettering at the top of a black screen. There were more words below but I couldn't quite make them out.

"One final question, Aaron," said Mr. Young. I was a little confused, only three questions for an entire interview? He looked at me steadily in the eye and asked, "Would you like to see a ghost?"

I had no idea what to say. I must have misheard. "Excuse me?"

"Come now, Aaron. Surely you read the description of the app. This is the moment when you decide. Are you prepared to see evidence of life after death? Are you ready to see a ghost, here in this room, with us? Yes or no?"