It feels much longer than a week since I first accidentally stumbled across Sauna Club.
All I wanted to do was lose a bit of weight…Now someone’s dead, someone’s missing and I’m about to break the law…again.
I started and finished the day alone.
After dreaming about Sak’s hideous death in that strange between world, I’d woken with a start and rolled over to feel for my wife, to place a hand on bump where her child was growing. But she wasn’t there. Again.
She’s always been a bit of a workaholic. For a while it was something I really admired about her. It was something I thought might have slowed down since we’re expecting but I guess she stayed out again last night, “save the commute”.
That’s fine. I suppose. Saves me explaining where I’m going. She wouldn’t have believed me if I’d told her about the sauna…and if she had she wouldn’t have understood. How can you find the words to explain something that isn’t, that shouldn’t be possible in a rational world. But even the secret feels like cheating.
When I arrived at the gym there was no doubt that my dream was something more…prophetic. An ambulance was parked immediately outside the entrance to the gym and there was a frantic coming and going of medical staff.
I parked up slowly, in no rush to see what I knew had happened.
Once inside I weaved my way through the tables in the cafe to the large window that looked out over the poolside. The place where mothers gathered to watch their darlings paddling. I gawped with the other onlookers. Dozens of them. Sure enough a team of paramedics were gathered around the sauna. I felt myself nearly cracking up at how hot they must have been beneath their PPE. A gurney was slowly being wheeled into view. A decency sheet hiding the horrors beneath but there was no mistaking the shape of a body.
“What happened?” I murmured, not meaning to say it out loud or ask any one in particular but the lady next to me answered all the same.
“Body in the Sauna” the stranger said curtly, like this happened all the time.
“What?”
“Like they’d been sat in there all night. No locks on those doors though. Apparently, they just sat there until they…perspired.”
I looked back to the medical drama unfolding by the pool side and the body on the gurney. As it sat there you could see that something was beginning to seep through the thick white linen. The material clinging, sticking tighter to the corpse it was hiding, gluing itself to something…sticky.
The sauna door was closed and a thin membrane of condensation coated the inside and just for a moment, amid all the movement, I could have sworn I spotted to hand prints on the glass, like…claw marks.
“Mike?” A voice I knew cut through the crowd and I turned around to see two smiling faces at a nearby table. Lydia and Jen were sat having coffees like it was a normal morning and the corpse of one of their dear friends wasn’t being paraded poolside. Lydia eagerly patted a free seat next to her. There was nothing for it but to join them. Somehow these strangers had become ‘my people’ after nothing more than a chance encounter.
Jen’s hands had a slight shake to them as she raised the coffee to her mouth. “It’s nice to see you again Mike.”
“Jen…what is going on?”
“We’re not entirely certain dear. Take a seat. Let me get you a drink. Coffee?”
“I don’t want…not to be rude but…”
“It’s a lot to take in.”
“Sak’s fucking dead!” I gasped. Unable to contain it any longer. I expected a conciliatory arm on my shoulder or a collective moment of grief but instead the two of them stared at me, bug eyed with horror.
“What?” Jen gasped. The tendrils of steam from her coffee rising towards her nose. Reminding me of…
“Sak” Lydia echoed.
“Yes…didn’t you…” How could they not know…
“We don’t know who it is dear. The ambulance was here before us. Could be anyone for all we know…” Jen and Lydia shared a conspiratorial glance “but we’d assumed…” Jen made a sudden sharp inhale, “we’d assumed it was Andy.” It almost sounded like…relief.
Lydia smiled and showed me her phone. A whatsapp screen was open showing me a message thread for the Sauna Club. The last message was from ‘Andy’ with three black up arrow emoji’s following his name. “We all on for this morning?” he had asked with a sweaty face emoji and a cheeky wink.
“I don’t understand” I mumbled. My mind racing to keep up with the events unfolding at the gym. I realised how little I knew about these people or the inner workings of their group.
“So we knew that Andy was going…but what makes you think it’s Sak out there?” Lydia asked, a sudden intensity in her beautiful face.
“I…I don’t know…I just…I thought…” I thought better of bringing up my dream.
“It’s okay Mike…it’s a lot to take in. Let me get you a coffee” Jen pressed again and this time she stood, more determined to keep me with them by buying me a drink. “Lydia darling, anything for you?” Lydia shook her head and Jen tottered away from her us towards the café, propping herself up on every chair or table she passed. She looked more frail than the last time I’d seen her.
“It’s good to see you Mike” Lydia smiled at me and my mind flashed up images of her naked body, disappearing into that strange wooden maze. “We…didn’t know if you’d be coming back.”
“Me neither.” She shuffled closer to me on her chair and took hold of my hand “Listen. I’m sure you’ve got a lot of questions. I know I have…but before Jen gets back I was wondering if you could do me a small favour?” Her thumb gently stroked the palm of my hand and I knew that there was no way this could be a good thing.“You really think that’s Sak out there?” the burning intensity was back in her eyes and all I could do was nod slowly. “Bummer” she sighed…the understatement of the year. “If it is Sak he’s got a black padlock with silver tribal designs on it…like his stup- …like his tattoo’s…the code is 3290” The information came out quickly and easily and when she was finished she stared at me blankly, waiting to see what I’d do with it. All I could do was blink. How did she know that?
“If it is Sak then I think we owe it to him to gather his belongings…there might be…it’s the right thing to do don’t you agree?” Lydia glanced towards the café and then back to me. Her eyes grew soft and child like and a slow smiled danced across her lips “Don’t you?” she repeated.
How could I refuse. I removed my hand from hers, not without noticing the line of scars that spiralled around her wrist and away up the sleeves of her shirt. She needed some one. Someone like me. I stood with a determined nod. Lydia beamed and as I stood she gave my love handles a quick pat. “You look good by the way Mike…have you lost weight?” I turned away before she could see me blush and made my way to the changing rooms.
I regretted the decision as soon as I entered the locker rooms. The room was filled almost exclusively with medical staff and police. A stern faced chap clocked me as I entered “nice and quickly mate we’ve got to err…we’ll be wheeling them through in a minute and we’ll need a clear path. Not something you’ll want to see okay.”
I gave the officer a thumbs up and made it look like I was quickly heading towards my locker, all the while my scanning up and down the rows, searching for Saks padlock.My phone pinged in my pocket and I looked down to see that Lydia had added me to “The Sauna Club” Whatsapp group. I should have taken a moment longer to ponder what game she was playing but I didn’t want to pause in here any longer than I had to. I could feel the eyes of the police officer on my back.
I spotted the padlock and made a beeline. 3…2…9…0 the numbers clicked in easily. The lock fell away and the door swung open. Inside was a gym bag with tacky flame decals along it, one of those litre sized drinking bottles with motivational sayings all down the side and a small notebook being crushed at the bottom. I was about to gather the lot when I paused. The next locker also had a padlock on it. I don’t know why but the two of them side by side felt…linked. Trying to be as discreet as possible I opened the whatsapp group again, clicked on to ‘members’ and dialled Andy’s number.
I listened.
Sure enough, from behind the small wooden door I heard the soft buzz of a phone vibrating.
Sak hadn’t gone alone into that strange world. Andy had taken him there. They had gone together and now Sak was dead and Andy was…Well…where was Andy?
“Come on mate” the police offer said again “You don’t wanna see this.” His voice sounded different. I turned around and saw the officer had taken a seat on one of the changing benches. His face looked pale.
“I’ve spent years on the force…thought I’d…thought I’d just about seen it all…but every now and again something comes along and…”
behind the officer I could see the doorway leading to the showers.
“Why didn’t they do anything? Not a single thing to save his own life.”
I thought we’d been alone in the changing rooms but now I saw that every single one of the shower cubicles was full.
“Sat there for hours until…his skin started to peel”
All the showers were on full blast, filling each cubicle with steam and through the condensation on the glass doors I could see a row of people.
“I’ve never seen a body look so…starved”
Hordes of dark figures, filling the showers and facing towards us.
“And his eyes were so…dry…so dry”
More and more figures gathering in the swirling white clouds, Waiting to spill out into the changing room and-
“I better get going” I stammered, and without another word I grabbed Sak’s belongings and left.
As I returned to the café my phone buzzed again at the same time the tanoy sounded. “The sauna is currently closed and will be until further notice” said the voice. The push notification on my phone was identical.
As I returned to the café I noticed that Jen had her head pressed against the table, audibly crying. Lydia was trying her best to console her. I sat quietly beside her and deposited Sak’s bag by her feet. Lydia gave me a smile and a wink.
“What’s happened?” I mouthed.Lydia nodded towards the Jens phone on the table, where the push notification was still illuminated. Beside the phone was a lock of grey hair, recently fallen from Jens head.
“I need it though…I need it, I need it, I need it.” Jens sobs racked her body.
“Shh, it’s okay Jen…We’ll work it out” Lydia cooed.
Jens head flicked up, angry now “I don’t know what you are after Lydia, but without the sauna I’m dead okay. Dead. I’ve already been here longer than I should have and if I can’t go back I might as well-”
All at once the fight went out of her. Jen saw I was back, wiped the tears from her eyes and smiled. I was shocked at how quickly she could put that mask back on.
“I’m sorry Mike…” She said calmly now “I know this is all new to you. But…that place…on the other side of the steam…it’s…it’s everything to me”
“Us.” Lydia corrected.
“Us…I told you we all went there looking for something…for me it was a cure. And the sauna has given me more time than I thought possible. And last time I went…I thought I’d found…something more permanent. If I could have just gone one more time I think-”
“Listen” Lydia cut her off “I have an…idea.” She took hold of both our hands. “Sak was a PT right? And Mike here has just been so kind as to retrieve his bag from the changing rooms.”
“What?” hissed Jen, taken aback. She turned to stare at me with a face that screamed ‘what have you done’…It was then and only then that I realised that the little favour that Lydia had just asked of me was almost certainly illegal.
Lydia went on “ I know for a fact that Sak had his own key pass to get into the gym outside of hours for teaching.”
“Lydia no…”
“What’s stopping us from coming back later tonight and…exploring.”
Silence.
The three of us slowly exchanged looks. The law was the obvious answer but something else hung in the air…that supernatural ‘what if?’
“I think…” I spoke slowly, unsure of where this thought might lead, but they had to know “I think that Andy was there this morning…I think that he’s still in there.”
Another heavy silence as we weighed up the costs of this decision. A heavy silence as we remembered Andy’s warning. “Never stay longer than the sandtimer.”
I’d be lying if I said that the pull of that strange world had taken hold of me…both it’s promise and it’s danger. To save Andy, to find out what happened to Sak and to find something for me…to change my own life in all the ways it so desperately needed changing. For Jen, a new life, a cure. And for Lydia…What was in this for her? She seemed to want it more than any of us.
“Okay…” said Jen eventually.
“Yes?” Lydia said, her eyes growing wide with excitement. “Mike?”
All eyes on me.
“Lets do it.”And that was that. The deal was done, the decision made.
I’m home now…counting down the hours until midnight, until Sauna Club…maybe the last time we ever do Sauna Club. One last time to find the secrets that rest in that terrifying world. One last time to save Andy…one last chance to change my life too.
I was just doing the dishes to take my mind off things and in the dusk I caught sight of my old half built garden sauna again.
I was thinking…how hard would it be to finish that off…and have a gateway to that strange world whenever I needed it?
And just as that thought occurred I could have sworn I saw something move inside that dilapidated shed. Something dark but human shaped…and with eyes learning burning coals…and a knowing smile. Just like…
Andy?
My phone rang, and by the time I looked up again the shed was empty.
It was just my wife leaving a voicemail to say she’s staying out again this evening. “Save on the commute”. As if I don’t fucking know what she’s up to.
But that doesn’t matter. If the sauna can save Jen’s life then in can change mine.
That makes this stupid decision even easier…no need for lies. I’ll just steal away in the dead of night and maybe she’ll never see me again.That doesn’t change the facts though does it…this is a bad idea…isn’t it?