Experanza
It was early December in 1996 in the city of Tela, a coastal town in Honduras. The country was recovering from the most recent natural disaster. The winds of Hurricane Marco did little damage thanks to the nearby hills and mountains, but the torrential rain caused substantial flooding. Everyone celebrated the day the thunderclouds fled to make way for the ensuing daylight. The citizens of Tela basked in the sunshine with collective cries of Gracias a Dios and, at night, they partied. Many stayed at home and celebrated with food and a few beers here and there. Those left with damaged or flooded homes, were invited to neighbors’ houses and they would help each other in the following weeks to make repairs. Others went out on the town. One of the popular hotspots was a nightclub built mostly out of cement with the word Experanza painted in phosphorescent blue on the outside wall.
Experanza had two stories. There was very little difference in aesthetic between the two. They each had a bar, a dance floor, and six tables with chairs lining the walls between the doors to the individual restrooms. The only differences were the sound and the lighting. Both floors played the same music, but the bottom floor was loud enough that you would have to shout to speak to one another. It was also dark except for the strobing lights that provided enough luminescence to walk without incident but made it difficult to focus on anything. In contrast, the top floor played the music soft enough to allow for conversation and it was well-lit, even at night. Those differences drew a sharp contrast between the visitors of the respective floors. The top floor drew in the married couples looking for time away from the children and the religious Americans who taught at the local bilingual Episcopalian school. The bottom floor drew a different crowd eager to rub up on each other on the dance floor and engage in activities that they would rather keep hidden.
The party had to end at some point. There was no official “Last Call” but Nina, the manager, found ways to shoo people out of the establishment. It started with closing off the top floor; an easy task since most of the people who frequented the top floor left before 1 AM. The bottom floor wasn’t any more difficult. The masses dispersed as soon as Nina shut off the music and replaced the strobe lights with the main lights that illuminated the patrons’ nightly sins. There was no judgment in the place, but it was the clear indication everyone needed to realize that they had to leave. Stragglers always stayed behind, mostly men. Nina designated them with one of two classifications. The drunkards were the ones who’d had too many drinks and were passed out at one of the tables or, sometimes, the floor. The other group, the remainers, were those that just didn’t want to leave. It had less to do with Experanza being a place they enjoyed and more to do with having an ungrateful family at home in their eyes. Nina prepared for her last duties. She would play nurse to the drunkards, waking them up slowly and pouring them cups of water to drink before they were steady enough to walk home. She would then play therapist to the remainers, convincing them that they were loved and needed at home. Tonight, it was one remainer and one drunkard, an easier situation than most nights.
At that point, the door that led outside opened and a woman entered Experanza. Nina didn’t recognize her, which meant she was probably a downstairs girl. Nina had a deep dislike for the downstairs girls. Men were animals; slave to their base instincts but the women, according to Nina’s philosophy, should know better. Most of the time, when people came back at this hour, it was because they forgot something. For men it was keys or a wallet and for women it was usually a purse. “What did you forget?” Nina asked the woman in Spanish.
“Nothing,” the woman told her. “I’m looking for somebody.” She surveyed the room.
“Who?” Nina asked.
“A dead man,” the strange woman replied, still looking around.
Great, another wife looking for her drunken husband to castigate him, Nina thought to herself.
The woman approached the drunkard and introduced herself as Ruby as she sat in her chair next to the one in which he was sitting. The drunkard wasn’t passed out, per se, but he was far from conscious. Yet, when Ruby belted out a series of questions, he awoke with bright eyes and answered without hesitation.
“What’s your name?” Ruby asked.
“Juan Carlos Valle,” the drunkard answered.
“What year were you born?”
“1964.”
“What is your greatest fear?”
“Sharks.”
“Have a good night,” the woman named Ruby told him and the drunkard’s stupor returned as he lay his head on the table.
While that conversation happened, the remainer had finished a conversation he had been having with Nina as he sipped the last of his Port Royal brand beer. He left a stack of bills on the bar and made a beeline for the exit. He pushed on the door, but it didn’t open. He pushed a little harder, thinking it was just stuck, but it still wouldn’t budge. Ruby stood from her chair and turned to the remainer to tell him, “Nobody is going to leave until I find who I’m looking for.”
Nina, witnessing what was happening from behind the bar, didn’t hesitate and reached under the counter for a gun that was in a drawer. Her eyes glanced down momentarily and when she looked back up, the woman named Ruby was at the bar with a six-shooter pointed at Nina’s chest. “How?” Nina asked, shocked at the lady’s speed.
“It doesn’t matter how,” Ruby told her. “But if you don’t give me that gun, I’ll blow a hole through you.” Nina did as she was asked. She might have tried to be heroic in the situation and attempt to shoot her anyways, but based on what she’d seen, she didn’t want to risk matching reflexes with the woman in front of her, so she handed over the gun. Ruby tucked it into her belt and proceeded to ask Nina the same three questions that she’d asked the drunkard. “What is your name?”
Nina fell into a mild trance when asked and answered honestly, “Nina Fernandez.”
“What year were you born?”
“1974.”
“What is your greatest fear?”
“The people will find out my secret.”
Ruby didn’t react well to that last answer. She cocked the gun in her hand. “And what is your secret?”
“I don’t like men,” Nina answered.
Ruby revealed a grin. “I don’t either. They’re a pain in my ass, mostly.”
“That’s not what I meant,” Nina tried to clarify.
“I know what you meant,” Ruby told her as she uncocked the revolver. “But I don’t care and you’re not who I’m looking for.”
Nina came out of her daze as Ruby turned to ask the remainer the same three questions. Marco Villalobos. 1959. My greatest fear is disappointing my family. It was more than uninteresting; it was a waste of time. None of the three was the one she was seeking. She asked Nina, “There’s a second floor. Show me what’s up there.”
“It’s locked,” Nina told her. “I shut it down earlier and checked to make sure everyone was gone.”
“Show me anyways,” Ruby said. “I know the person I’m looking for is here somewhere.”
“I don’t know who you’re looking for,” Nina replied in a furious tone. “But they’re not upstairs. Every night I go through the whole floor and all the bathrooms upstairs to make sure.”
Nina was right. They both turned toward one of the restroom doors at the sound of a flush. The door swung open and a man came out. He wore a green shirt with a stain that looked like vomit. “Sorry,” he said. “I guess I had too much.” Ruby turned her head to him and started to ask him the same three questions but before she could, the man, having noticed the pistol in her hand, rushed her and pounced.
Only, it wasn’t the man. Nina couldn’t believe what she saw. The man’s flesh fell to the ground and a creature escaped his body. It was skeletal yet phantasmic in appearance and looked twice the size of the man that had birthed it. Its face was long like a tyrannosaurus skull with the fangs to match. It had six legs and the front four pinned Ruby’s limbs to the ground after having knocked her over and launching the six-shooter that was in her hand out of reach. The creature spoke in a guttural language. Nina didn’t understand it and neither did the two patrons of Experanza who were trying their hardest to break through the door. But Nina could tell that Ruby could comprehend everything it said.
Nina may not have understood the words the creature spoke, but she could tell that its implications were that it was about to kill Ruby. Nina ran around the bar and rushed to the gun that Ruby had dropped. The creature didn’t take long to notice and pulled away from Ruby to stop her. Nina grabbed the gun and twisted her body to shoot it, but the creature was too quick. The six-shooter fell out of her hand as the creature grabbed her and threw her into a nearby cement pillar.
The gun had fallen within Ruby’s reach and, while the creature was distracted, Ruby grasped it and shot the creature nine times. Once would have done the trick, but she had grown angry with aggravation. It screamed in horror and pain as the bullet holes expanded causing the creature’s body to slowly burn away into nothingness. As soon as it vanished, the door opened for the drunkard and the remainer and they flew into the streets of Tela.
Nina got up and stood next to Ruby to stare at the spot where the creature was. “What was that?”
As Ruby holstered her weapon, she said, “It was a living creature once. Could have been peaceful, for all I know. At some point it died and eventually made its way through the Death Gate. Then it escaped and made a new body for itself. Now, thanks to this special gun I have, it will endure an agony like no other as it travels slowly back to where it belongs.”
“The Death Gate?” Nina had never heard that term. She had an idea that it was the door to the afterlife based on what Ruby had just explained. With the experience she’d just had, she believed every word.
“It’s the gate through which everything that dies eventually enters,” Ruby confirmed. “Whatever is past the gate is beyond my ken. What I do know, is that if somebody gets out, someone like me is sent to get them.”
Nina reflected on what she had just heard then said, “I don’t know if I should be happy that you saved my life from whatever it would have done to me or mad because you made it come out.”
“It would have come out eventually,” Ruby said. “The longer the spirit is away, the more monstrous it gets. Eventually, the beast would have been too much for the body to contain and it would have wreaked havoc in the city. I just made it come out faster. Also, I didn’t save your life.”
“That’s true,” Nina said. “I saved your life which gave you time to kill the monster. So, in a way, I saved my own life.”
Ruby had a morose look on her face when she turned her head in Nina’s direction to say, “No, you didn’t.”
Nina saw that Ruby’s eyes were looking past her, so she turned and saw another woman on the ground in front of the pillar that she had slammed into earlier. It was not another woman, though. It was Nina. The realization swept through her. She looked at her hands and saw that she could see through them to the floor. She reached to touch Ruby, but her hand just went right through her. “What happens to me now? Do you shoot me?”
“No,” Ruby said. “That’s reserved for escapees. Now, you have a choice to make. I’m not exactly sure how it works but I’m told it’s like an instinct. You can either stay awake to haunt this place as an apparition or you can sleep. Either way, you’ll remain here until the day the Harvester comes to reap the souls of all who have ever lived on this world and transport you all through the Death Gate. My only advice is, when that day comes and you do go through, don’t ever try to get out. No matter what’s on the other side. If you do, you’ll just bring death and misery with you and, when someone like me comes along, they will unleash a hell on you unlike any other.” There was a momentary silence then Ruby turned from Nina and walked toward the front door. She pulled a large skeleton key from her pocket and a keyhole appeared that wasn’t previously there. She inserted the key and pushed the door open and, instead of seeing the streets of Tela, Ruby and the spirit of Nina Fernandez saw a long metal tunnel. Ruby went through and closed the door behind her leaving Nina to contemplate her future.
Years later, a young boy named Rodolfo walked the streets of Tela next to his grandfather. The grandfather stopped to stare across the street at a restaurant that had the word Tropicalia painted on it. The young boy, confused, asked, “What is it, grandpa?”
The grandfather explained, “Last week, at your mother’s birthday party, you asked me why I didn’t drink like the other adults. That place is the reason why.” He pointed his arthritic finger towards the establishment.
The boy looked and attempted to read the sign, even though it was in cursive, “Tro-pi-ca-li-a,” he said aloud.
“That’s what it’s called now,” the grandfather said. “But, years ago, it was called Experanza and I would go there a lot to drink. Until the night I saw a monster kill a woman. I never drank again, after that.”
The boy looked up in horror at what his grandfather told him. A second later, he burst into laughter as he said, “Stop trying to scare me grandpa. You’re silly.”
The grandfather, a former drunkard named Juan Carlos, forced a smile as he said to his grandson, “You’re too smart for me, child.” They continued to walk but as the grandfather turned his body to continue their leisurely stroll, he could have sworn that, through the corner of his eye, he saw someone in that place that looked just like the woman named Nina, who was killed by a monster at the Experanza.