The Haunted Halls (5 page)

Chapter Eight

A day off from work meant Rhiannon could catch up on some much needed shopping. First up was the Goodwill. She managed to pick up a couple of cool new vintage t-shirts and scored a rare find: a purple pair of Chuck Taylors. Next up, she grabbed a sandwich at Subway, then headed to Barnes and Noble to hit up the only Starbucks in forty miles and grab a couple of new magazines to read at work.

A poster for an in-store signing this afternoon hung by the stack of “New Arrivals.”  An author named Lee Buhl. She’d never heard of him or the series of books next to his picture. He was pretty cute, but had that smug writer look: condescending eyes over a cheap perfect, white smile. A lavender button-up shirt opened so you could see a wooden Indian pendent hung over his fit chest, and more rings on his fingers than any man should be allowed. Okay, maybe the “condescension” in his eyes was her projecting upon the guy, but she’d met enough uppity jerks at the hotel to recognize the type. Lee Buhl may be the sweetest guy in the world, but she had her doubts.

She grabbed the new
Entertainment Weekly
and the new
Fangoria
. She wasn’t a huge horror fanatic, but Jeff would probably appreciate it, and she enjoyed bringing in rags that her buddies could flip through as well. Her generosity ended at Maxim.  She stepped in line and couldn’t help but notice the man who walked through the front doors. It was the author from the poster. He stopped just inside, reached in his shirt pocket and threw on a pair of sunglasses.
Yep. Definitely a schmuck.

She laughed to herself and decided between the magazines and this jerk, she had enough reason to swing by the hotel and see Kurt.

…

Lee Buhl liked to get a feel for a book store and its customers prior to his autograph sessions. Some towns, like Dalton, Ohio, were overrun by scummy trailer trash. Others, like Portland, Maine featured a nice mix of wealth and character. Hollis Oaks seemed to be one of those in-betweens–not too ugly, not too pretty, just a bunch of regular folk. Plain was his preference. They were just happy to have a pseudo-celebrity in their midst. Their smiles were sincere and their requests were humble–a quick picture here, a “with love” there.  In a place like Dalton, their smiles seethed with jealousy, in the bigger, hipper cities, the crazy fans or wanna-be writers were out in droves.

Lee smiled at a couple of blondes by the Nooks next to his poster, and then made his way to grab a shot of caffeine. The blondes strafed along behind him. No doubt recognizing him from the mini-billboard. He watched them from behind his shades as they whispered to one another, eying him. Dressed in tight jeans and t-shirts that left little to the imagination, the two girls looked dangerously young. They waited until he had his iced Frappuccino in hand before making their move.

He signed copies of his book they grabbed from the “New Arrival” table. One of them asked him to sign it to Sexy Lexi. He did. Before they moved along, he produced his business card and scribbled his cell number on the back for “Sexy” Lexi. Nine out of ten times, they chickened out from making the call. He figured her a bit young to have the balls, but you never know. Young girls these days are full of surprises.

Another shiver danced through him. This time, he was pretty sure it was from the cold drink, but he’d been wrong before. He needed to find out if there was really something special in this town. He made a mental note to meditate on it when he got back to the motel.

Chapter Nine

Timothy Laymon pulled his purring blue 2012 Ford Mustang into the back lot of the Bruton Inn. In the two days since checking in he could not find one thing to complain about. Everything had been perfect. The breakfast was terrific (bacon and eggs). The indoor pool was 9-feet-deep, had a diving board and two Jacuzzi’s to boot. The inn, which seemed empty when he arrived on Thursday morning, was now crawling with beautiful college girls, and unfortunately, their parents. According to the cute young girl at the front desk, this was a parent’s weekend for the nearby college. The sights around the pool the night before were unbelievable. Blondes, brunettes, red heads, and even a punker girl with blue hair, all hanging out around the crystal clear water, wet from head to toe and showing off their nubile bodies in bikinis and hot shorts. He couldn’t believe his luck. Timing is everything.

He strode into the lobby clad in a midnight blue dress shirt, a Henry Jacobson black and white striped tie, and a pair of skinny jeans, armed with a case of Maine’s best beer, Shipyard Summer Ale.  There were two dark-haired girls who could have passed as sisters watching him. He smiled behind his shades. They smiled back, the taller one on the left giving him a quick wave.
This is going to be a great weekend
.

He got into his room, unloaded the beers in his fridge, and flipped on HBO.

There had been one girl last night at the pool with long, dark curly hair, swimming around in a silver two piece bikini that was barely big enough to hold her in place. She’d made eye contact with him numerous times, but seemed to stay in the pool forever. By the time he finally gathered the balls to get into the pool and talk to her, she was gone. He hadn’t seen her leave, but figured she must have slipped away while he was busy gawking at the plethora of other beauties. Still, she was all he’d been able to think about since. Something about her seemed familiar, but he couldn’t quite figure that one out. Whether it was that she looked like someone else, maybe a celebrity or something, or whatever, he felt drawn to her.

Timothy sat back, killing time watching a showing of
The Departed
while he waited for the evening to come on. Hope whispered in his mind of getting another crack at the beautiful mermaid from the pool.

Chapter Ten

Kurt Costello watched the elderly couple from room 106 pouring themselves tea at the coffee station off to the right of the front desk. Something about them seemed off to him. He couldn’t really explain why he thought this. Maybe he was just projecting his own state of disenchantment. His date last night with Rhiannon had not gone as well as he’d hoped. The movie had been great, but she had been distant, just out of his reach the whole evening. He couldn’t shake the feeling that their date would be a one-time gig. Sure enough, she called out of work today, leaving him flying solo for the Saturday afternoon shift. Jeff, the night audit guy, was sleeping upstairs. He’d told Kurt to call his room if it got too busy. Things were quiet at the moment, but there was a strange currency flowing through the fading rays of the sun-brightened lobby.

Stepping out from behind the front desk, Kurt watched the elderly couple shuffle back down the first floor corridor. As their cup-free hands reached for each other, a small bit of warmth penetrated Kurt’s somber vibe at this ancient display of affection. He watched as they came to a sudden halt halfway down the hall. The old woman with the long gray pony tail hanging down over her worn-out pink cotton sweater turned her face back in his direction. He could sense, more than see, a blackness reaching out for him from behind her eyes. His stomach tensed. Bile rose in his throat, making its way to his mouth. Engulfed by a sick flash of terror, he cupped a hand to his lips and rushed to the employee restroom in the back office.

The little old lady’s wicked smile faded. She wasn’t sure why she had stopped here. Their room was two doors down. She glanced past her husband, Harold, through the glass door of the pool area. Standing there, like an angel from a dream, stood a young woman with the eyes of the devil. Millie Kafka dropped her steaming cup of tea, and clenched the little gold cross hanging around her wrinkled neck. There was evil here. She had never been so sure of anything in her long life.

Harold began coughing, his hot cup of lemon tea joining Millie’s on the maroon carpet. After a few more body shuddering barks, he brought his rough and wrinkled hands away from his face. His palms were full of blood.

“Harold, Harold? Oh my, oh my, Harold? Someone help!” Millie cried as her husband collapsed to the floor. She glanced back up at the girl in the pool room. The she-devil with the features of a beauty queen, smiled behind the blackest eyes Millie Kafka had ever seen.

Kurt, his sudden illness past, heard the woman’s pleas for help as he came out from the back office. He grabbed the portable phone from the desk, and dialing 911, rushed down the corridor to where the woman stood staring across from where her husband lie convulsing on the floor.

“Yes, yes, I work at the Bruton Inn out on Route 5. We n-need an ambulance. Oh my God, oh my God, there’s a man having a heart attack or something,” Kurt said. “Yes, I don’t know, I don’t know. He needs help, please hurry.” The line went dead. “Hello? Hello?”

Kurt reached the elderly couple, and tossed the phone on the floor. He knelt next to the quivering body of the old man. There was blood all over the guy’s mouth, neck, and hands. Kurt looked up at the wife for help, finding her still gazing across the hall, clenching her necklace and quietly chanting something he couldn’t understand. He turned to see what could be more important than tending to her dying husband. There was nothing–just the door to the pool room.

Despite the inn being at ninety percent capacity, the hallway remained eerily vacant, cold even. The man’s body stopped its convulsions and lay perfectly still. He was gone.

Millie Kafka prayed against the demon. The demon that looked like a pretty young girl and smiled like an arsonist watching their work go up in the brightest, most wondrous conflagration. The devil’s eyes dissolved into black hollows, her skin draining of color, leaving her epidermis ashen in its wake. Millie watched in horror, oblivious to the young man kneeling at her dying husband’s side trying to speak with her, ignorant of the blood running from her palm that clenched the gold cross her granddaughter, Abby, had given her for Christmas last year–the thing before her continued to change, revealing its true self.

The grey skin tightened, highlighting every bone in the body of the ghastly creature behind the glass. Millie watched the long flowing brown curls surrounding the skull-faced demon turn from a dark auburn to a flat white. Pain, blossoming to life in her right arm and chest, whispered of her fate.

The succubus passed through the pool room door, and spoke empty promises to Millie Kafka’s ears. It made good on only one–the demon swallowed the elderly woman’s last breath. In a final, vulgar display of power, the creature surged forward, disappearing in a flash of invisible energy, blowing the brittle body of the old lady off her feet, and slamming her into the wall at her back.

An impossible chill permeated the hallway. Kurt stared at the elderly woman crumpled on the floor. The black-and-white framed photo of the Maine capital building lay shattered at her feet. He stared into her dead eyes, holding her husband in his arms, slipping into a state of shock himself. The doors at the entrance flew open. Two paramedics came rushing down the hall. Kurt’s mind swayed. His skin tingled, prompting a rash of goose bumps. He could no longer feel the deceased man in his arms or the emotions that had swam through his mind like a school of fish darting from one direction to the next. He turned to face the man with the white mustache speaking at him, but didn’t hear a word. The corridor went dark as he collapsed to the floor next to the old man’s lifeless body.

…

In room 211, Eric Gentry was reunited with the thing that changed him.

VOLUME II

Spellbound Moments

There is a magic in these haunted halls.  She knew the moment she set foot within its confines, all those years ago, that she could make this place something
more
. She was referred to, more in her victim’s thoughts than actually spoken aloud, as the Mermaid, the Dark-haired Devil, the
Ice Queen
, but somewhere, lost in a pool of sorrow and rage, this lonely young girl once known as Sarah, waits. This powerful
thing
waits. For those who open themselves up to its glorious crimson charms, to its blood soaked memories, to its spellbound moments of desire–there is a dark promise waiting to be fulfilled.

After years of lying dormant, silently preparing, her little tribe of breathing ghosts has finally started to come together. Each one of those chosen and blessed with her wonderful talents holds within their fragile psyches their own unique potential. Eric–big, strong, and obedient–is the ultimate weapon.  She feels his rage, his love of death, and his compulsion to please. Watching him immerse himself in his work at her whim is something truly invigorating. And then there is poor, broken Kenneth. Sodomized by a friend of the family, and banished to this out of the way inn, left to rot and
to remember
. So small, lost, and frail–
even in his dreams
. Through her gifts he shall ascend to a level of depravity and usefulness he has never known. There’s also the pretty girl, Meghan, so easily possessed. Sarah shall play her with delicate precision, like the most dark and beautiful of classical pieces–a dramatic Chopin. There is a special plan for her...soon enough.  For now, it is sufficient to toy with her, using her loveliness to play with the little overnight clerk, Jeffrey, and his romantic reveries. His fun is just beginning.

Of course, there is one other not yet mentioned, for he is not fully aware of their connection. Oh, their eyes met, briefly, her presence already working its way within him. His secrets can hear her whispers, for they speak the same tongue, they dance to the same rhythm, bleed the same song, and share the same vocation.

Soon, my sweet Timothy, soon
.

The Ice Queen’s much anticipated gathering would not be rushed. Not a single decadent moment. Not now, not when it is all so close at hand. On the contrary, her intentions are to bathe in every act of wicked defilement, every splattered droplet of blood, and every ounce of pleasure and pain. She waits with desires unbound; as they were in the flesh, so are they now in death. All will be attainable soon enough–once her path of wicked wonders is leveled, once this collection is complete, she will be free to roam these haunted halls.

Before she could rest, Sarah, the
Ice Queen
, had a few more enchantments to cast.