The Inn

by William Patterson

Annabel’s eyes moved around the kitchen. She seemed to smell something.

  “Yes, that’s gasoline you smell,” Zeke told her. “I’ve sprinkled it all over the house. Upstairs and downstairs. Every room.”

  He walked across the room and lifted the can, shook some more of the liquid onto the floor.

  “It’s the only way,” he told Annabel.

  “The only way,” she echoed dully.

  He heard the scuttling then. The sound of dozens of little feet running toward him.

  “No!” Zeke shouted, frantically running across the kitchen for the box of matches.

  But the old man couldn’t run very fast, and he slipped on the floor, falling flat onto his stomach, knocking the wind out of him—just as thirteen little men came scurrying around the corner from the parlor and crawled all over him.

  “Nooo!” Zeke screamed.

  But it was too late.

  105

  Annabel watched the events unfold as if from some faraway place.

  The little men—so many Tommy Trickies everywhere all of a sudden—grabbed on to the old man on the floor. With uncanny strength for their small size, they lifted him and carried him off. Zeke writhed and kicked, but the little men paid him no mind as they carted him out of the kitchen and back in toward the parlor.

  Annabel stood. She followed them, as if in a daze.

  “No, no, please, no!” Zeke was screaming.

  The little men marched him in front of the fireplace.

  “Nooo!” Zeke shouted.

  They pressed his feet into the ash dump door.

  Annabel watched. Only gradually did she come back to her senses, and begin to comprehend what was happening.

  When she finally understood fully, she screamed.

  But her scream was drowned out by Zeke’s, as the old man was pulled down inside the fireplace by several sharp tiny blue hands sticking up out of the ash dump.

  The last to disappear were Zeke’s outstretched arms and hands, frantically twisting and opening and closing as the creatures below ravenously consumed his body.

  When finally he was completely gone, the thirteen little men who had delivered him leapt into the air, cheering and laughing over a job well done.

  They’ll come for me next, Annabel realized.

  She also realized that she still had the keys to the car in her hand. She turned and bolted out of the parlor, back into the kitchen.

  And ran right into the arms of Jack.

  106

  “I really appreciate this,” Deputy Adam Burrell said as Danny’s friend Melvin started the snowmobile for him. “You guys are the best.”

  Melvin gave him a freckle-faced smile. “Hey, dude, anything to help out the Woodfield finest. When Danny called me to say the cops needed a snowmobile, I didn’t hesitate to hop on mine and zip right over here.” The teenager leapt up off the seat so that Adam could slide on. “Remember that, okay, next time you catch me with a little weed.”

  “I’ll look the other way one time only,” Adam said, taking the handlebars, “and then we’re even.”

  Melvin gave him a little salute.

  Unlike the chief, Adam knew how to handle a snowmobile. Growing up in these parts, he’d been riding the machines since he was a kid. Adam wished Richard had let him go in his place. He would have been able to handle the Ski-Doo with ease. As it was, they were all wondering if maybe the chief had had an accident. It had been a couple of hours now since they’d heard from him, and Adam was beginning to worry. Had he crashed?

  But maybe a snowmobile crack-up was the least they should be concerned about.

  Setting off down the road, Adam didn’t know what he’d find at the Blue Boy.

  The snow had stopped, but it was still blowing pretty fiercely. It would be days before everything was plowed. The department was definitely going to need to invest in its own snowmobiles, if storms like this were getting more frequent. As it was, their call to various private citizens had rounded up three more Ski-Doos. Their owners were riding them in even as Adam headed across town. They were coming from a bit farther out in the woods than either Danny or Melvin, so it would still take some time for them to get to the police station. But at least Adam knew he’d have some backup of more officers at the Blue Boy eventually, if it turned out he needed it.

  And need it, he might. He’d gone over everything they’d learned about what had been taking place at the inn. The disappearances, the blood in the chimney, the sounds that had been heard, the fact that the Englishman had been locked in his room. Something really weird was going down at that place. The fact that there had been no word from the chief unnerved Adam the most.

  He sped on across the snow.

  107

  “Give me the keys to the car, Annabel,” Jack said, Gholding out his hand.

  Annabel had no choice but to obey.

  “What am I going to do with you?” he asked, stuffing the keys down into his jeans pocket. “First you threaten to shoot me and lock me in a closet, and then you try to run off.”

  “Those things—” Annabel could barely speak. “Those things that took Zeke—”

  Jack smiled. “They’re real, Annabel. And they don’t like it when you say they aren’t.”

  He was deliberately mocking her. She had told him all about Daddy Ron.

  “How is it possible?” Annabel asked, gripping the back of a kitchen chair to keep herself from falling down. Her head was throbbing. She couldn’t make sense of all that she had witnessed this afternoon.

  “Sit down, angel cakes,” Jack told her. “Take a load off. I’ll make you some tea.”

  “No,” Annabel said.

  Jack laughed. “Afraid I’ll poison you? I suppose you should worry. You’ve been a very bad girl.”

  Annabel thought she might faint. She pulled out the chair and sat down in it, holding her head in her hands.

  She was going to die here. Jack was going to kill her.

  Or worse—he was going to put her down the fireplace. She would die crammed into a tiny space, unable to move, eaten by a dozen Tommy Trickies.

  Her childhood nightmare come true.

  “Please, Jack,” she cried.

  “I should take no pity on you after everything you’ve done,” Jack said, and Annabel could hear the teakettle whistling on the stove. “I should really punish you, you know.”

  “No,” Annabel sobbed.

  “But success would be no fun on my own,” Jack continued. His wife could hear him pouring some hot water in a mug. “Do you want chamomile or Earl Grey?”

  “No, no, no,” she muttered.

  “I guess I’ll give you chamomile. It’s more soothing. And you need to calm down.”

  He placed a steaming mug in front of her, the tab of a tea bag dangling from its side. Annabel didn’t touch it.

  Jack sat opposite her at the kitchen table. “Sweetie, I want to do this together with you. The only reason my father didn’t have the heart to go on was because he lost my mother. If they’d been a team, they would have had so much success here.”

  Annabel wouldn’t look at him.

  “I want you to remake this place into a grand destination, just as we planned. You’ll redo this kitchen, make it all sparkling and modern.” He leaned toward her. “And maybe you could learn how to make Gran’s rabbit stew. You don’t have to eat it, sweetie, but it could become the inn’s signature dish. Carry on a little tradition, you know, for our guests.”

  Finally, she snapped her eyes up to look at him. “Our guests? Who’d be picked off, one by one, dragged down screaming into that pit of hell?”

  “No, you see, sweetheart, that’s why I need your help. We can control the house.” He chuckled. “I admit, right now, it’s a bit out of control. But if we give it only what it needs, it will take care of us. It will make us successful. That was the promise given to my great-grandfather when he bought the house over a hundred years ago.”

  “By whom?” Annabel asked.

  “By th
e house.” Jack looked at her as if she was being thickheaded. “And the house keeps its promises.”

  “And kills those who live here.” Annabel’s eyes hardened. “Or it does worse things to them. Like your sister.” She spat the word, watching Jack’s face to see how he reacted. “Look what it’s done to her.”

  “My sister,” Jack said softly. “Yes, you’re right, Annabel, Cindy’s a problem we have to deal with. Again, this is why I need your help.”

  Annabel saw an opening, maybe a way to appeal to whatever reason and sanity Jack might have left. “Cindy needs help, Jack. We need to get her help.”

  He stood and began pacing the kitchen. “Gran thought she had everything under control. With the fireplace bricked over, the only way to feed the house was through the door in the chimney in the basement. She kept it padlocked, but Cindy—well, she’s very strong. And she kept breaking the lock, and feeding the house through the door.”

  “Feeding it with what?” Annabel asked.

  Jack shrugged. “Whatever she could find. Rabbits, mice, dead raccoons, skunks.” He made a face of disgust. “But the house was starving for something better than that. Cindy understood this, and of course, she would do anything to please the house. The house had spared her, and she was grateful.”

  “Spared . . . her?” Annabel asked.

  “Yes, sweetheart. Drink your tea. And I’ll tell you the story.”

  108

  Jack was just a little boy, he told Annabel, when he came down the stairs to find his father sitting in the parlor, his head in his hands, sobbing.

  “They took her,” his father was saying.

  His grandmother had been standing over him.

  “Brick it up,” she was telling him. “Brick it up now!”

  Jack had been so young he couldn’t understand everything that was happening. He had just stood there watching and listening.

  Cordelia had approached the fireplace. “You filthy monsters! Do you think we haven’t read the books? Do you think we don’t know how to put an end to this?”

  Jack’s father stood. “Don’t, Mother. Don’t provoke them. They’ll come back. . . .”

  “Brick it up!” Cordelia shrieked.

  “Stop, Mother! They’ll hear you! They’ve taken my wife and they’ve taken Cindy! They’ll come back—for us—for Jack!”

  Jack had shrunk back at hearing his name, suddenly terrified.

  His father had rushed to the fireplace then, speaking into it.

  “Give her back if it’s not too late,” he pleaded. “Give Cindy back and I will make sure we give you what you need, always! We had a bargain! You would make me successful if I gave you what you needed. I will keep my end of that bargain. Just give me back Cindy!”

  Jack had watched from around the corner of the parlor.

  He had heard a rustling sound. Scratching.

  And then he had seen a small pink hand reach up from the ash dump in the fireplace. . . .

  109

  “They . . . they let her go?” Annabel asked, unable to truly comprehend what she was hearing.

  “Yes,” Jack told her. “They made the bargain with my father—which he failed to keep. But I intend to make up for what he did wrong!”

  “Jack, all of this is madness!”

  He still seemed miles away, lost in his memory. “I had blocked it all out. Because, you see, when Cindy came back to us, she wasn’t the same. She was wild, uncontrollable. My grandmother decided to keep her here when my father and I left. She bricked up the fireplace because the house was very angry at being deceived.” He smiled over at Annabel. “And it’s no good to have the house angry at us, as you have witnessed.”

  “Jack, please, listen to what you’re saying. . . .”

  He sighed. “Poor Cindy. The house had let her go, but it still had her mind. If my father had reneged on his promise, she was determined to make it up to the house. She fed the house, gave it what it needed. . . .” He looked over at Annabel sadly. “Until recently. She kept sneaking out of the attic—Zeke was getting far too old to control her, and Cindy had become far too cunning—and finally she went out and killed that man, chopped him up, fed him piece by piece to the house.”

  Annabel thought she might be sick again.

  “Jack,” she said, when she was finally able to form words, “this is crazy talk. Can’t you see that? It makes no sense!”

  “It makes perfect sense, Annabel, if you let it make sense.”

  She struggled to show him how absurd his words were. “If Cindy could open up the door in the basement, then why didn’t those things get out that way? Why did they have to wait until the fireplace was unbricked?”

  “That’s just the way it is, Annabel. That’s what it says in the books. They can only come out through the fireplace.”

  “What books?” But then suddenly she remembered. The books she’d found—those books about demons and witchcraft hidden in that secret panel—the same sort of panel that must exist all through the house, Annabel realized, allowing the creatures free rein. “No,” she mumbled. “It can’t be possible.”

  Jack remained calm. “You only think it can’t be, because you don’t believe in the house.”

  Annabel ran her hands through her hair. “You think this house—those terrible things—those creatures—they can somehow make you successful? Why do you think that?” She thought of those hideous books once more. “Is it like some terrible pact with the devil?”

  “Call it what you like, Annabel.”

  She shook her head. “And success comes through feeding the house?”

  “Yes, now you’re getting it.” Jack sighed. “But here’s the dilemma. Cindy is determined to keep giving the house what it craves, yet the truth is, she doesn’t need to, anymore.” He laughed. “The house has been freed to take what it wants all by itself!” He smiled broadly over at her. “You freed it, Annabel.”

  The tears were running down her cheeks.

  “But you’re right, angel cakes.” Jack was nodding, as if he were thinking things over. “We’re going to need to find a way to control Cindy. We can’t allow her to disturb our guests. We need to find something productive for her to occupy her time with.”

  This was utter madness. Annabel put her head down on the table and cried.

  Jack wandered across the kitchen, lost in thought. “She was such a sweet little girl,” he said dreamily. “You know, I had blocked all of it out . . . all of what happened to her. I was so young and my father told me that I was mistaken. I hadn’t seen Cindy climbing out of the fireplace, all bloody and sooty. Dad insisted that she’d wandered off into the woods.”

  Annabel looked up at him. “Jack, you have to help your sister. All these years, the way your grandmother hid her in this house, it wasn’t fair to her.”

  “But Cindy wants to be here,” Jack insisted. “She belongs here. So do I.” He took a step toward Annabel. “So do you.”

  “Jack, please—”

  They heard the sound of a motor out in front of the house.

  Jack rushed to the window.

  “Another cop on a snowmobile,” he seethed.

  “Jack,” Annabel pleaded, “let me talk to him. I’ll tell him that none of this was your fault, or Cindy’s. Please, just let me talk to him—”

  “You think I’m a fool?” Jack growled. He grabbed Annabel, pulled her up from the chair, and clamped his hand over her mouth. “You’ll say nothing, you hear? You won’t make a sound, baby cakes, or I’ll have to break your neck. I won’t like doing it, but I will.”

  He dragged her across the kitchen toward the pantry.

  “Cindeeee!” he called.

  Then he banged open the door to the pantry with his shoulder and took Annabel inside.

  110

  Pulling into the snow-covered driveway of the Blue Boy Inn, Adam could see Richard’s snowmobile, already nearly covered by drifting snow. He could also see a path that had been dug out from around the side of the house, leading to
an SUV, which had also been cleared of snow. That’s convenient, Adam, thought, as otherwise, he’d have to try to gain access to the house by crawling up the side and going through a second-floor window. The first floor was almost completely covered in snow.

  I’ll bet the chief shoveled out this path, Adam thought, steering the snowmobile over to the clearing. I’ll bet I’ll find him inside, having coffee with Annabel. Everything’s going to be fine. The only reason we haven’t heard from him is because there’s no cell reception out here.

  For some reason, the shoveled path reassured Adam. He thought he’d find everything peaceful inside. They’d been wrong to worry.

  He didn’t look too closely at the front of the house, or the pink snow near the front door.

  Adam brought the snowmobile to a stop. He dismounted and headed over to the path that led to the kitchen door.

  “Chief?” he called as he approached the house.

  He peered through the one window that had been cleared of snow. He looked into the kitchen. He didn’t see anyone. But there was a steaming mug of what looked like tea on the table. Things couldn’t be too bad if they were sitting around drinking tea.

  Adam rapped on the door.

  There was no sound, no movement, from inside.

  He rapped again. “Hello!” he called. “Chief! Are you there? Mr. Devlin! Ms. Wish!”

  Why wasn’t anyone answering?

  Adam tried the door. It was open. He let himself in.

  Something wasn’t right. He felt it as soon as he stepped inside the kitchen.

  He held his gun in front of him with both hands.

  “Chief!” Adam called. “Hello! Anyone here?”

  A woman suddenly appeared in the doorway that led to the parlor. She was pretty, but her hair was long and gray. She was wearing a long blue dress.

  “Hello,” the woman said.

  Adam lowered his gun. “I’m Officer Burrell. I’m looking for Chief Carlson.”

  The woman looked at him as if she didn’t understand.

  “Who are you?” Adam asked her.

  She just smiled and took a step into the room.