The Inn (27 page)

A
nnabel sobbed against the closet door. Chad was dead. The poor man . . . he had come into this house on her request. He had come up here, trying to rescue her. And now he was dead.

The door shifted as she leaned against it.

Annabel pushed. The door creaked open. Chad had succeeded in breaking the lock.

Slowly, fearfully, Annabel stepped out of the closet. She had no idea who might lunge at her as she did so. Tommy Tricky? Daddy Ron? The woman in the pink slippers who had killed Chad?

His body lay crumpled on the floor in front of her. She tried not to look at it. She feared she would start to cry so hard she'd never be able to stop. Poor Chad. She thought of him at the tile store, telling her it was nice to see her smile. Oh, poor, poor Chad.

She couldn't afford to break down. Not yet. She had to find a way out of the house.

She had no idea where Jack had gone to. Or the woman who had stabbed Chad. Who was she? Annabel thought she knew. She was the same woman she'd seen her first day at the inn. The woman in the woods. Perhaps she had been the killer all along.

But even if so, Jack was helping her. Jack was somehow under her sway.

Annabel knew she didn't have much time. At any moment, one of them could come back into this room. She had to get out.

But first she had the presence of mind to reclaim Jack's boots. If she was going out in that snow, she'd need them.

To get them, however, she had to step over Chad's body. The very act of doing so nearly sent her over the edge again. She was shaking uncontrollably as she pulled on the boots, both of them sticky with Chad's blood. It was all over the floor, coating the soles of Annabel's feet.

She then headed for the door. Zipping up Neville's coat, which she still wore, she hurried into the hallway, pausing only briefly to make sure the coast was clear.

Then she ran down the corridor toward Cordelia's room.

Her plan was the same as before. She would go out the window onto the small roof over the front porch. The snow was at least as high as that. From there she would trudge off, as best she could, hoping the snow was hard enough that she wouldn't sink too far. Hoping, too, that she could brave the cold and the wind until she got to Millie's.

She made it to Cordelia's room. Once again she had the presence of mind to close the door behind her. She didn't want Jack to come walking past and spot her as she went out the window.

Annabel's heart was thudding in her chest. She could see the window. She could see freedom!

But then she heard a two-note whistle. The same sound she'd heard that day in the woods.

Annabel stopped and looked frantically around the room.

And all at once, the woman who had killed Chad, crouching behind Cordelia's bed, stood up.

They locked eyes. The woman had long gray hair and was wearing a diaphanous white dress and fuzzy pink slippers. Her dress and hands were splattered with blood.

“Hello,” the woman said, emotionlessly.

Annabel turned to run, but was stopped in her tracks when, directly in front of her, two little blue men suddenly ran past, scurrying under the bed.

Annabel screamed. This couldn't be happening!

The woman was now directly behind her. Annabel felt the cold blade of the knife pressed against the back of her neck. She didn't dare breathe.

“Where are you going?” the woman asked in Annabel's ear. Her voice didn't sound angry or threatening, just curious. “It's really bad outside.”

Annabel didn't answer.

“You have to stay here,” the woman told her. “You have to take care of the house.”

“Who are you?” Annabel asked in a little voice.

She felt the knife move away from her neck and she breathed a little easier.

“Zeke is very angry with me,” the woman said. “I can't find him. Have you seen him?”

She moved away from Annabel, but not very far. She still held the knife upright in her hands. Annabel saw that, despite her long, stringy, unkempt gray hair, the woman was not that old. She was quite pretty, in fact. Her skin was pale but very smooth.

“I haven't seen Zeke, either,” Annabel said, latching on to an idea. “Maybe we can go out looking for him.”

The woman smiled. “No. You'll try to run away.”

“No, I won't.”

“Yes, you will.” The woman touched her fingertip to the blade of the knife. “I don't want to have to do to you what I did to that young man.”

“No, no, please don't,” Annabel said, shrinking back. “I won't run away.”

“I had to kill him, you know.”

“I know,” Annabel said, desperate to appear cooperative and understanding. “You had to, because he was trying to run away and take me with him.”

“That's not why I had to kill him.”

“No?”

The woman shook her head, her long gray hair swinging from side to side. “I had to kill him to feed the house.”

“Feed . . . the house?”

Now the woman nodded vigorously. “That's my job.” She looked intently at Annabel. “It was supposed to be yours, as well.”

“Mine?”

“Yes,” the woman insisted. “You have to feed the house for me, because no one is supposed to see me.”

“Okay, okay,” Annabel said. “I'll do whatever you say.”

The woman's eyes narrowed as they studied her. “You're afraid of the house, though, aren't you?”

“No,” Annabel lied. “I'm not afraid of the house.”

“Then crawl under the bed.”

Under the bed. The little men had run under there.

“No,” Annabel muttered.

“Prove to me that you aren't afraid of the house.” The woman thrust the knife in Annabel's direction.

“Please, don't make me go under there. I know . . . I know what's under there!”

“Do it!” the woman commanded, waving the knife back and forth in the air.

I've got to overpower her. I've got to jump her, wrestle the knife away from her
, Annabel thought.

But the blade was suddenly at her throat. Annabel had no choice but to drop to her knees.

“Good,” the woman said. “Now crawl under the bed. They're waiting for you.”

Annabel looked under the bed. Two pairs of eyes blinked in the darkness.

“No,” Annabel cried, trembling uncontrollably.

“Come join us, Annabel,” a little voice called to her. “It's time you learned that we are real.”

R
ichard thought he had the hang of this. He was cruising pretty easily along Main Street on Danny's Ski-Doo, taking the kid's advice and staying strictly to the middle of the street. It was easy for Richard to do that here, since the buildings of the town center were on either side of him and it was clear exactly where he was. But when he had veer off and follow Route 7A up into the woods, it became increasingly difficult, with all these mountainous drifts of snow, to know what was road and what was not.

The chief did the best he could, squinting to see through his goggles, occasionally having to reach up and wipe the snow off them with the back of his glove.

The weather report had said the blizzard was winding down, but it sure didn't feel that way to Richard. Even in his thermals and heavy parka, he shivered against the deep chill. And the snow was blowing and drifting as fiercely as ever.

He needed to get to the Blue Boy before it got dark. After nightfall, it would become impossible to make it through these woods. On the back of the Ski-Doo, there was room for one other person. If Annabel wasn't the only one in need of help—if, as Richard feared, Chad was trapped there as well—then they might have to make several trips back and forth, and that could take the rest of the afternoon. Richard hoped Adam could scrounge up some other snowmobiles fast.

He glided over the snow. What would he find at the Blue Boy?

What he knew for a fact was that human blood had been found in the chimney. Chad reported that he'd heard animals eating something at the base of the chimney. But the space had been nearly cleaned out when Richard inspected it. Neville had reported that he'd been locked in his room shortly before that inspection, suggesting that someone in the house didn't want him to witness the cleaning of the chimney. And the only two people in the house, as far as Richard knew, were Jack Devlin and the caretaker, Zeke.

Devlin, of course, had been desperate to prevent a search of the house. The scenario had all the hallmarks of Devlin being guilty, of at least covering up a crime.

But he was very possibly guilty of much, much more.

He could be using this storm to finish what he started
, Richard reasoned.
He thinks we can't get to him, so he's free to continue killing the rest of the people in the house
.

He prayed that Annabel would still be alive when he got there.

Richard turned the handlebars, steering the snowmobile up the narrow, wooded road that led to the Blue Boy Inn. He thought he was safely in the middle of the road. But apparently he had strayed off the path.

He felt the machine suddenly shudder beneath him. The snowmobile stopped, churning up a geyser of snow and throwing Richard clear over the handlebars.

Plop! The chief found himself head-and-shoulders deep in cold, fluffy snow.

Moving his arms as if swimming, he managed to pull himself upright. He stood, with some difficulty, as the snow was not packed all that hard. In this case, that was a good thing. The snow had cushioned his fall. If it had been hardened with ice, Richard might have cracked his head open. His goggles had stayed in place, but he'd lost a glove as he'd flown through the air, and his scarf was askew, allowing a cold draft to slip down his sweater.

Breathing heavily, Richard assessed the situation. The Ski-Doo was about four feet away, no longer spitting snow. Caught on some bush below the snow, it appeared to have stalled out. Richard said a silent prayer that he could get it started again.

Just getting back over to it was a chore. Every step he took, he sunk to his knees, and sometimes up to his hips. The wind was blowing so fast and furiously that even his goggles couldn't keep his eyes from welling up. His exposed left hand was freezing. There was no way he'd ever be able to walk the rest of the way to the Blue Boy. He had to get that snowmobile moving again!

Finally, he reached the machine. The first thing he needed to do was push it away from the spot, so it wouldn't get stuck on the branches of the bush again. It took some muscle, but finally Richard shoved the snowmobile farther out into the clearing, where he was certain that the only thing beneath him, some five or six feet, was the dirt road. Hopping onboard, Richard started the ignition as Danny had showed him. But the Ski-Doo was unresponsive. No matter how many times Richard tried, the motor remained silent.

“Goddamn it!” he shouted into the wind.

Had it been damaged in the accident? Had Richard damaged it pushing it off the bush? What could he do to fix it? He had his cell phone, carefully stowed in an inner pocket of his coat. But what was he going to do? Ask Danny to trudge on out here? Even if he made it, it would take hours. And hours Richard did not have.

His mind was racing, trying to calculate the risks and the possibilities of heading up to the Blue Boy on foot. He'd have to try. He couldn't just give up. He'd have to walk. If there was danger up there, however, he wasn't sure how he and Annabel or anyone else might escape it without the snowmobile.

Richard was ready to slide his leg back over the machine and start on his trek when he decided to try the ignition one more time.

Below him, the Ski-Doo hummed back to life.

“Hallelujah!” Richard shouted into the blowing wind.

In moments, he was back to gliding over the snow, heading up into the hills toward the Blue Boy Inn.

“P
lease don't make me go under there!” Annabel cried, as the little eyes under the bed blinked at her in the dark.

“Get up off your knees, Miz Wish.”

Annabel's head snapped up. The woman with the long gray hair was gone. Standing in her place was Zeke, looking very weary and sad.

“Zeke!” Annabel jumped to her feet. “Please let me go! Please don't keep me here!”

He placed his finger to his lips, a sign for her to keep quiet. Looking over his shoulder, he said, “Keep your voice down. I'll take care of things.”

“That woman,” Annabel whispered. “She killed Chad.”

The old man nodded with great sadness. He looked as if he might cry.

“Where did she go?” Annabel asked, terrified she'd come back with her knife.

“I sent her away,” Zeke told her. “For now, you're safe. I'll see to that.”

Annabel pulled back from him. “How do I know I can trust you?”

“You don't. But you don't have any other choice.” Zeke looked at her coat and boots. “If you were thinking of going out there, forget it. You'd get swallowed up alive by this nor'easter. I've seen many of these storms in my day, and this is by the far the worst.”

“But I can't stay here,” Annabel said, wrapping her arms around herself. “Where is Jack?”

“Walking through the house, muttering to himself.” Zeke shuddered. “The house has gotten to him. Just as it did his father and his grandfather.”

“What do you mean?”

“His grandfather fed the house for years in exchange for great success. Cordelia finally made him stop, but then young Mrs. Devlin showed up—Jack's mother—and like you, she had grand visions for the house. Even her death wasn't enough to keep Jack's father from falling under the spell of the house. But when they came for Miz Cindy . . .”

“Who came for her?”

Zeke looked at her. “The house. And when Mr. Devlin saw what happened to his precious little girl, he finally woke up, and sealed over the fireplace once again. It stayed that way for many, many years.” The caretaker's ancient yellowed eyes found Annabel's. “Until you arrived, Miz Wish.”

“The . . . fireplace?”

Zeke suddenly held up his hand, as if he'd just heard a sound. “I will be back,” he told Annabel. “Stay here. I will lock the door so no one can get in.”

“No, please, don't lock me in again. I can't bear it! Not with that thing under the bed.”

Zeke looked at her uneasily. With great difficulty, he bent down. “There's nothing under there now,” he reported as he stood back up, breathing heavily.

“I don't believe you,” Annabel said.

“Then don't. I don't really care if you do. But if you want to be safe, stay in this room. If you go out the window, that's your choice. But you'll never make it off the hill.”

Zeke hobbled out of the room. Annabel heard him turn the key in the lock.

She hurried over to the window. She could see the way the snow was blowing. Ten-foot drifts were forming right before her eyes. Zeke was right. She'd never make it down the hill to the road, let alone all the way to Millie's. The snow was too soft, too unsettled. It would swallow her up alive, as Zeke had said.

But stay here? Out in the storm, she risked death from cold and exposure. Here in this house, she risked death from an insane woman roaming the halls with a knife.

Or worse—she risked death from her worst childhood nightmare.

She would be eaten alive by Tommy Tricky.