The Inn (10 page)

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nnabel wasn't pleased by how drunk everyone was. Even Zeke seemed to have had too much beer. The other three, including her husband, had polished off three bottles of wine. Her dinner had been a hit—Neville had asked for three helpings of the soup—but now Annabel wished she'd served something more substantial to soak up all the alcohol everyone had consumed. Everyone but herself, of course.

She was disappointed in Jack. He'd still had the occasional glass of beer or wine even after Annabel had come home from rehab. She didn't expect him to go sober just because she'd had an addiction. But he'd never gotten drunk in all that time.

Until tonight.

And he was flirting shamelessly with Priscilla.

Annabel stood. “I'm going to clean off these plates and make some coffee,” she said, scooping up her plate and Jack's.

“Coffee?” Jack blurted. “I don't want coffee. How about we open another bottle of wine?”

“I think you've all had enough,” Annabel said, piling the three other plates onto the two she held in her hand.

“Aw, come on, Annabel,” her husband said, “don't be such a spoilsport.”

“No, she's probably right, Jack,” Neville said. “I've had plenty. And Priscilla is such a lightweight.”

“Pretty girls usually are,” Jack said, winking openly over at Priscilla, who blushed a bright scarlet.

Annabel carried the plates out to the kitchen.

All she could think of was Rachel Riley. Her bleached hair and big tits filled up Annabel's mind.

She placed the plates into the sink. Neville came in behind her, carrying soup bowls.

“Thank you,” Annabel said.

“You're a marvelous cook,” Neville told her. His cheeks were flushed from drinking, his mosaic of pimples redder than usual. “Really, I'm usually a meat-and-potatoes sort of bloke, but this was superb.”

“I'm pleased you liked it.” She kept her eyes averted, focusing her attention on filling the sink up with soapy water.

“I do think it's a good idea to get the house fixed up and fireplace cleared. I wish you all the luck with that.”

Finally, Annabel turned to look at him. She smiled. “I appreciate that, Neville,” she said.

“You know, I've heard some rustling sounds from down there,” he added. “I'm afraid you might have some vermin to deal with when you pull up those bricks.”

“Yes,” Annabel agreed. “I've heard it as well. Maybe just a couple stray squirrels. At least, that's what I'm hoping.”

“Yes, well,” Neville said, and he seemed suddenly at a loss as to what else to say.

They looked at each other awkwardly.

“Can I help you here?” he asked finally.

“No, thank you.” Annabel nodded toward the door to the dining room. “I'm fine here. Please go back and keep Priscilla company.”

Neville smiled, nodded a little, and then headed back into the dining room.

Hadn't he seen the way Jack had been flirting with his girlfriend? Was he blind? Clueless? Or maybe he didn't care.

Annabel sighed, dropping her hands down into the soapy water. She couldn't go back out there quite yet. She hoped that Neville would take Priscilla off to bed. Then Annabel would tell Jack that they, too, should call it a night. She wouldn't mention his obnoxious behavior. No need to play the jealous wife. She and Jack needed to be united in the morning, when the contractor arrived and Cordelia started throwing up roadblocks to the renovation. Besides, Neville and Priscilla were leaving in the morning. They had to get down to Hartford to catch a flight to Florida late tomorrow afternoon.

But as Annabel washed dishes, the laughter from the dining room only continued and got louder.

She brought out the coffee. Zeke's head had dropped down onto his chest and he was snoring lightly. Jack was regaling Neville and Priscilla with a story about the time he'd been at some fancy restaurant in New York right after his book came out, and people as diverse as Anna Wintour and Mayor Bloomberg and Lady Gaga were coming up to him to congratulate him. That had never happened.

“Here,” Annabel said, pouring some coffee for her husband and pushing the cup over at him. “Drink this.”

He ignored her, continuing on with his story, which now had turned into how he turned down an offer to write a Broadway show because they wouldn't pay him enough. He described the way he'd told off these imaginary producers and he had Priscilla and Neville laughing so hard that tears were popping out of their eyes.

Annabel sat back and watched them. Drunk people were so ridiculous. She hated to think she'd once been like that, at some public function and as high as a weather balloon. She kept noticing the way Jack winked over at Priscilla when he was finished with one of his stories. She decided she couldn't watch any more, so she got up from the table and walked out of the dining room and into the parlor.

And suddenly the whole room was different.

It was as if someone had slipped a mickey into her coffee. Some sort of hallucinogen. The room seemed to sway and vibrate. Annabel had to reach out and touch her hand to the wall to steady herself.

From behind her the laughter from the dining room continued, only now it got absurdly louder and then seemed to disappear entirely for a few seconds, as if the merrymakers were holding their party underwater. Annabel tried to clear her head. She stood in one spot, holding on to the wall, taking long, deep breaths. She closed her eyes.

When she opened them again, Tommy Tricky was standing in front of her.

Gnashing his sharp blue teeth.

Annabel let out a small scream.

But the creature was gone. A figment of her imagination. The room continued to spin. What was happening to her?

The laughter surged. Annabel felt as if her legs would give out from under her. She made her way across the room by holding on to the wall. She reached the fireplace and looked down at the bricks that sealed off the opening.

She heard scraping coming from below.

Scraping, scraping, scraping.

A hand was on her shoulder. Annabel gasped.

Turning, she saw Neville, as if in a dream.

“Vermin,” he said, his eyes crazy. “Vermin.”

Annabel thought she'd pass out. She nearly fell onto the fireplace, holding on to it to keep from falling to the floor. Neville was gone. Had he ever been there?

Once again, Annabel made her way around the room, her right hand against the wall to keep herself steady. She turned the corner back into the dining room.

And there was Jack fucking Rachel Riley on top of the table.

Annabel closed her eyes and opened them again.

No, not Rachel. Jack was sitting very close to Priscilla and they were about to kiss. Her husband looked over at her and smiled.

His mouth was full of sharp, broken teeth.

Annabel cried out and ran upstairs, shutting herself in her room.

But it wasn't her room. She was in a closet. A very small, cramped, dark closet.

Daddy Ron had put her in there.

“Turn around, Annabel,” her stepfather's horrible, jagged, drunken voice rasped through the door. “Turn around and see who's behind you!”

“He's not real!” Annabel shouted, her hands in her hair.

“Aw, Tommy don't like it when people say he's not real. Gets him real mad.”

Annabel spun her head from side to side, looking into the darkness.

“Hear him sharpening his teeth?” Daddy Ron asked.

She could. She could hear the devil's teeth gnashing, anticipating the moment he bit down into her flesh.

“He's right behind you, Annabel!” Daddy Ron shouted, and then he laughed.

She had to get out of there. All around her, linens were stacked neatly on shelves. Her mother's linens. There was a hamper beside her filled with dirty clothes. It was a tight space. So small. She was stuck there, using up all the air. Pretty soon there would be no oxygen left and Annabel would die.

She had to break free. She began pounding on the door, swinging her arms out, knocking all the linens off the shelves.

Annabel was trapped! Her claustrophobia took over and she screamed.

That was when she saw the little boy's hand resting upon her shoulder.

P
riscilla staggered up the stairs to her room. What had happened down there? She was drunker than she had ever been before. She had allowed Jack to keep refilling her glass because he excited her. Excited her far more than Neville had ever done. More than any man had ever done.

But now she was lost in a fog of her own thoughts and desires. What had happened? Her blouse was unbuttoned. Where was everybody?

She took another step and tripped. She had to grab ahold of the bannister to keep from falling down.

“Neville?” she called in a small, whispery voice.

The stairs were moving. The whole house seemed to be swaying. Priscilla clung to the bannister for fear she'd tumble down the stairs.

“Neville?” she called again.

He had gone upstairs. She thought she remembered him saying good night, that he'd had far too much to drink himself and was calling it a night.

He had left her alone with Jack.

Zeke was gone, too, and Annabel.

It had just been Priscilla and Jack.

She tried to button up her blouse, but her fingers wouldn't work.

She reached the top of the stairs and stumbled into the hallway. It was very dark and very quiet. Priscilla could hear herself breathing. At least the house had stopped spinning. She took a step down the corridor. Her room was only a few feet away.

What had happened down there? She wished she could remember.

Ahead of her, a figure approached.

A figure in white.

“Sally,” Priscilla said softly. “Sally, help me. . . .”

Sally Brown approached her. She looked at Priscilla with eyes that seemed both sympathetic and accusatory. Priscilla reached out to her.

Sally smiled, and grabbed hold of her hand. A glint of moonlight reflected off Priscilla's opal ring. She followed the ghost down the hall, and then began climbing some stairs. At the top of the stairs was a door. Sally opened the door and they passed through.

The attic. They were in the attic.

But then Sally was gone and Priscilla was alone.

She turned around a few times, got dizzy, and dropped down to sit on an old stuffed chair that smelled like dust and mold. She sat there for a while, breathing heavily, until her head stopped spinning again.

It had started to rain outside. At least, Priscilla thought it had. She could hear a soft tap-tapping on the walls and roof of the attic.

Priscilla looked around the room. A small lamp on the table provided a very dim light. “Sally,” she whispered. “Sally, where are you?”

There was a small rumble of thunder off in the distance.

At least, Priscilla thought it was thunder.

The rain was hitting the house harder now. An icy rain, Priscilla thought. She imagined the long icy fingers that scratched the roof of the house. She shivered.

“Sally!” she called again. “Where have you gone? What have you brought me here to see?”

Despite her dizziness and confusion, Priscilla was excited. This was exactly why she'd come to the Blue Boy Inn. To see ghosts. And now Sally had brought her to a place where she'd see plenty of ghosts, Priscilla was sure.

All at once, a huge thunderclap made her jump, and the lamp went out.

“Oh, no,” Priscilla murmured. She loved her ghost adventures, but she'd prefer not to experience them in total darkness. That was just a little too creepy.

She breathed a sigh of relief when the light flickered back on again.

On the table in front of her, Priscilla spotted a candle and an old book of matches. The candle was little more than a stub. Priscilla considered lighting it, but seeing that it was so small, she didn't want to waste the wax while the electricity was still on. Should the power go out again, she'd light it. She kept the book of matches near her hand so she could find it easily if the darkness returned.

She smiled. Despite all she'd had to drink, she was still thinking clearly.

The lamp flickered. Priscilla felt her heart flutter.

She looked up. And she saw in the darkness a hand holding a knife.

Priscilla screamed.

It took her several minutes to calm herself. “Well, that was a good one, Sally,” she said out loud. “Who was that? The person who killed you? Does his ghost walk here, too?”

She had learned that ghosts could only hurt the living in very rare circumstances. Priscilla wasn't afraid of being hurt. She was afraid in a fun-house kind of way, the way she might feel watching a scary movie.

Thunder again, the loudest yet, directly over the house.

The light struggled to hold—

—shivered—

—and then went out.

Darkness.

Priscilla held her breath.

“Come back on,” she whispered.

But the darkness remained.

“Oh, well,” she said, feeling for the matches.

How terribly dark it was in the attic. Gripping the box of matches in her left hand, Priscilla felt around for the candle with her right. What if the power didn't return? The little stub would never last.... She moved her hand over the tabletop. Where was the candle? It had been sitting right there! The darkness was absolute. Deep and thick. The rain kept up its pummeling of the roof. She prayed for a flash of lightning just to show her the candle. But all she got was a low rumble of thunder.

There!

She felt something in the dark. The candle—

She moved her fingers to grip it.

And whatever it was that she touched—moved!

It was a hand! A human hand!

Someone was in the dark with her!

Priscilla gasped.

“Who's there?” she asked. “Who is it?”

Oh, this was exciting!

But she'd prefer it without the total darkness.

Finally, a flash of lightning. The room lit up for an instant. Priscilla saw she was alone in the room.

And there—there was the candle!

She grabbed it as the darkness settled in again. Fumbling for the matches, Priscilla found that her hands were trembling. But still she managed to strike a flame and shakily light the wick of the candle. A small, flickering circle of light enveloped her. She sat back in the chair, awaiting whatever vision Sally had to show her next.

The memory of the hand she had felt—

It was small
, she thought.
Like a child's
.

She lifted the candle and stood. She was far too anxious to stay seated. As she moved into the center of the room, Priscilla realized she was stepping in something sticky.

Was rainwater dripping in from the walls?

She lowered the candle.

And she could see plainly that it wasn't water.

It was blood!

She looked up. And there, in the candlelight, was Sally.

“Oh, Sally,” Priscilla said. “I'm glad you're back.”

But then she saw that Sally was the one holding the knife.

“Sally,” Priscilla said, “why are showing me this?

Sally took a step closer to her, pointing the knife at her.

“Sally! Please stop this!”

The ghost swung the knife, nicking Priscilla's arm. She drew blood.

Suddenly, Priscilla was terrified.

“Sally, no!”

The ghost kept coming closer. Priscilla turned and ran.

In her mind, still swimming from the wine, the small space of the attic suddenly seemed cavernous. She ran and ran, for many minutes it seemed, down an endless corridor that stretched farther and farther off into the distance. How could this be happening? How could she keep running for so long? What had happened to this room?

Behind her, Sally's footsteps echoed as she pursued her. Thunder clapped overhead. Priscilla just kept on running, down that impossibly long corridor.

And then she stopped, her head spinning as if she were riding an out-of-control carousel. She turned around. Sally was right behind her, smiling sweetly.

“Oh, Sally,” Priscilla said. “You gave me such a fright.”

Then the knife came plunging down into Priscilla's face.