Then he’d realized that the reason she wasn’t content must have been that she didn’t have any children to take care of, and it made her less of a woman when she compared herself to others. That’s why she liked teaching high school. There were a lot of children she could mold. Once that clicked for Ted, the thought of a second honeymoon seemed obvious. He could give her what she’d wanted in the first place—an extravagant trip to Nashton Lake, and a baby.
That was all ladies needed to be happy—the old ways taught to him by his father had that right. The women who wanted to be doctors or pilots were confused and never attractive enough to land a man. Jill was stunning and didn’t have to worry about that. There were men in wrestling matches to get that crown jewel.
He flipped through the evening edition of the paper, to the sports section. “The Grace City Times delivers all the way out here?” Ted said, and then realized that Silver Hollow was likely way too small for any kind of paper other than a periodical filled with local gossip, if that. Grace City was far from here, too. Ted wondered why they chose this one over the closer cities, like Jewel Grove. The owners were from Grace City or Beanton. Their names were long enough. Grace City was filled with elite, pedigreed snobs that kept their family names and just kept adding on, and on, and on ad nauseam to “prove” they were Union royalty. Early in life, Ted tired of Beanton’s best and Grace City snobs lording their old money over the Braxburys. Even his father couldn’t measure up to their standards. Not really.
He thought about the woman at the front desk. A good looking broad—lean, the way he liked. Kind of like that film star in those mystery movies, the one who retired to marry that prince—only the woman at the front desk was older—by about ten years. The lines around her eyes gave that away, and the dark circles, too. She had pale skin that contrasted her dark hair, and gray eyes. Unusual—they looked like the start of storm clouds. Not dark, but not nonthreatening, either.
Ted reached for his pack of cigarettes in his pocket, then realized the suit didn’t have them. Once he found the pack, he lit up, and knocked on the bathroom door. “Jilly, come on, hurry up already.”
Jill didn’t answer, and he shook his head. No, he would not lose his temper over this again, so he sat and smoked, living in his thoughts while he waited.
Silver Hollow—this tiny little almost-town had presented itself to him in the strangest way, like a hand of fate. He’d been plotting out their trip to Nashton Lake for their second honeymoon, but couldn’t find a route on his atlas that would allow them to stop and rest for the night.
It was a long drive from their place to Nashton Lake—he wasn’t fond of driving, but did it because his father was fond of road trips. Trains made Jill motion sick, so the rail wasn’t an option.
So it was driving or nothing. He decided he would just drive straight through, and purchase a more detailed atlas before they left.
A few hours later, while going through the mail on his desk in the den, a brochure caught his eye. It had a lovely picture of the house and the grounds of the Hunter-Kellogg Bed-and-Breakfast (also known as the Dubbs House), and a couple pages about what a quaint and historical bed-and-breakfast it was.
At the newsstand on his way to work, he purchased a more detailed atlas. Silver Hollow wasn’t on the map, but the brochure showed where it was. It was right on their way to Nashton Lake.
Ted reached a pleasant sounding, husky-voiced woman (who wasn’t the other, husky-voiced woman, Elizabeth), and made reservations. Just for the night.
“How did you hear about us, if I may ask?” she asked.
“I received your brochure in the post,” he said, hearing the warmth in his tone and unable to help himself. He was a pushover for a good voice.
“Oh,” the woman, Mary, said. “How delightful. I didn’t know Elizabeth had started a brochure campaign.”
“I guess she did.” Ted wondered if she’d be in trouble for casting too wide an advertising net, or exalted for getting business from this far out. Maybe she’d get a spanking. Ted grinned at the images built up in his head about the face and body attached to that voice. He finished his business and hung up the phone.
Silver Hollow was a fair point between their home in Leightonville and Nashton Lake—just six hours to get from Leightonville to Silver Hollow, then another three hours to Nashton Lake. Ted couldn’t drive nine hours straight, it gave him headaches and tired him out, but six was just fine. Another three hours up to Nashton Lake on the border would bring them to paradise just in time for brunch. Ted thought it was a (miracle) pleasant coincidence that this brochure came to him in the mail the exact day he’d decided to drive straight through.
He hated letting Jill do too much driving. Not that she wasn’t a good driver. She was competent enough, making her trips to the market and running errands, never getting a single mark on her car. That didn’t make Ted any less grim when she took it.
Waking up breathless and scared in a strange bed-and-breakfast room brought him back to his childhood. That made him get ugly. Then he would take it out on Jill, and Jill would then ignore him for days.
He couldn’t let that happen this time. The last thing he wanted was to wind up a miserable old drunk like his father, with a nagging, bitch of a wife who wasn’t even satisfied with her husband building his own soda empire from the ground up. Sometimes, he could see Jill turning out that way—too smart for her own good, not wanting to keep her place—too much like his mother, and that wasn’t good for him.
With his cigarette down to a nub, he stubbed it out and checked his watch. It was eight o’clock. Before he could open his mouth to ask Jill if she was ready yet again, she stepped out. She was wearing a lovely little black dress with a white half-jacket, velvet piping.
“Excuse me, Miss, have you seen my wife, Jill? The last time I saw her, she stepped into that restroom.” He smiled.
Jill waved a slender hand at him and blushed. “Ted, you’re so funny. Thank you. I was just about to ask if I looked all right.”
“All right? You look wonderful.” He stood up and took her arm, jaw aching from clenched teeth.
They were not the last to arrive to the dining room. Elizabeth greeted them with rye and an apology. “Mary is making last-minute arrangements to the menu. Dinner will be served soon. In the meantime, please enjoy some hors d’oeuvres.”
The cat was nowhere to be found in the dining area to Ted’s delight—he thought that wouldn’t be sanitary. The tray of hors d’oeuvres, however, distracted him—he saw caviar, foie gras—but much more than enough for just six guests, eight people in total. It looked like a spread for at least twenty. He thought that was kind of the wasteful for such old money people, but helped himself to plenty. If they served it, he would eat it—dinner was included in their room and board.
Mary arrived about twenty minutes later, and she caught Ted’s attention, too—like Elizabeth had. Her blond hair and blue eyes shined, though time had graced her with lines here and there, she looked like a beauty queen.
He wondered what in Perdition these two were doing out in the middle of nowhere. No husbands to take care of them. Old spinsters by choice seemed odd to him. Maybe they were funny—not followers of the old ways.
After dinner, and dessert, Ted felt like he might explode.
“Cigars and brandy are served in the den for those who wish to partake,” Mary gestured with a small hand to the other room. “Those who don’t smoke, you’re welcome to socialize in here, or retire to the library.”
Elizabeth stood and showed the gentlemen to the den. There were only three men, and three women as guests. But boy, did these hostesses know how to show a good time. “We get much busier in the summer,” Elizabeth announced, looking over to Ted (as if she were reading his mind). “But we never skimp out on cigars and brandy, so long as we have at least one guest to enjoy them.”
Oscar greeted them in the den and then left with Elizabeth once she finished doling out the cigars a
nd brandy. The men discussed their businesses, and other things. Ted forgot his strange dream and waking from earlier in the evening. They talked late into the night, and Ted had to excuse himself to ensure he got enough sleep before driving again so early in the morning.
He made his way to the library, to see if Jill was there. The library—an enormous room with books stacked to the rafters in mahogany shelving—was empty. The doors shut with a soft click and he went back to his room, hoping that Jill would be awake, as he couldn’t find his key and was sure she had it.
She was not awake when he got to the room, but she had left the door unlocked. He stumbled inside, a faint blue glow of moonlight shining in through the window to guide him.
A sharp, searing pain hit his leg, sobering him. He must have barked his shin on the trunk at the foot of the bed. Ted put both hands over his mouth to keep from hollering and recited an alphabet of oaths in his head. The pain was akin to the time he’d broken his wrist from falling off his bicycle when he was twelve years old.
He took off his jacket and tossed it on the chair, eyes streaming with tears as he held back a scream. Ted bit his lower lip, hoping the pain there would distract him from his goddamn leg. In the morning, an angry bump and bruise would greet him like the sunrise. Had he broken his leg? No, or he wouldn’t still be walking.
The effort of throwing on pajamas was too much, so Ted threw himself into bed naked.
His leg throbbed now, and the pain surging instead of subsiding.
After a few minutes of lying there getting tears in his ears, he turned over and felt for the light on the night stand. He found the switch and flicked it on.
The leg was a bloody mass as if it had been chewed on by a wild animal. Ted yelped as his gut dropped. He thought of the weird red cat and fainted. Jill still hadn’t woken up, even when he yelped.
***
The clean white walls of a hospital room greeted Ted when he opened his eyes, a sterile smell wafting to his nose, coupled with the scents of bodily fluids. He could hear rustling and clattering, but couldn’t bring the place into focus.
After a moment, his surroundings became sharper. This wasn’t a modern hospital room by any stretch of the imagination. The walls were white, but they were wood up the bottom half and masonry at the top. He didn’t know what it was called, but the place looked like something he’d once seen in a book about The War of East versus West.
Ted sat up, glancing about the room. His heart hammered again, and beads of sweat broke out on his forehead.
“Where am I?” His voice echoed in the room as he looked around, pale face pulled into a scowl. There were other people in beds all around him crying for help, some with lost limbs, some delirious with fever. They were wearing uniforms. Uniforms? Yes, some blue, some red.
“Someone, please help me,” Ted’s eyes stung with tears.
A nurse in standard uniform for the era—a dark blue dress and white apron—came over, looking just like he’d seen in the books.
It was Jill.
Why was Jill being a nurse? What was going on? Was something in his brandy? Was he dreaming? “Help me, Jill!”
The nurse cocked her head and smiled with sympathy. “I’m sorry, young man, but I’m not your Jill,” she said, patting his cheek. “I’m your nurse. My name is Constance. I’m here to help you, soldier, but you need to be calm. You’re upsetting the other patients.”
Ted looked at her, his eyes wide and lips curled into a deep frown. “What?”
She put a cold compress to his forehead, wicking away the beads of sweat. “You’ve taken on a fever, Private,” she said. “It’ll pass. Just let it pass.”
“I don’t understand.” Ted shook his head and coughed.
“You were shot in the leg, soldier, and left for dead. Field rats gnawed on your wound. That’s what gave you the fever. But it’ll pass. It’s clean now.” The nurse kept talking, but Ted couldn’t hear the rest as darkness took over and the ringing in his ears grew louder and louder. A faint chanting of voices was inside the ringing. Those voices—he had heard them in his dreams as whispers.
“No, no—” he struggled to stay awake, but the blackness took over his mind, with whispers in the dark.
They were a chant in a language he didn’t recognize, and the voices were growing, overtaking the ringing. The blackness. The voices.
Then there was only darkness.
***
Jill woke up from her nap. She decided it was time to make dinner and finish packing. They were going on a road trip, in search of their second honeymoon, and they would leave soon.
Dressing the chicken in an aromatic mix of herbs, she thought about having a baby, Ted seemed keen on it. She wasn’t sure at first. Jill wanted to keep teaching and go back to school, get her master’s degree. Ted frowned upon it. She gave in because it wasn’t worth the fights every night. Jill supposed she loved Ted more than getting an education. So she stayed. Plus, she could teach the babies, couldn’t she? That was a mother’s job.
Just as she put the chicken into the oven, the doorbell rang.
“Oh Ted, did you forget your key again?” She said, smiling. Poor Ted. So forgetful when he was excited. He’d done nothing but talk about their trip for days on end, keen to tell her that this would be a perfect trip. A chance to start over again. Baby or not, they could at least try to be happy.
A police officer stood at her door, face grim. Jill felt her innards go cold.
“Missus Braxbury?” the officer asked.
“Yes?” Jill wiped her hands on her apron. She felt that bit of dread, sure of what his next words would be.
“I’m sorry, ma’am,” the officer said, “but there’s been an accident, and we believe Mister Braxbury was killed while driving home.” He looked at the floor when he said it, then finally met her eyes. “We need you to come with us.”
Jill opened her eyes and cried out into the darkness. Frigid air touched bare skin as she sat up, rubbing the grit from her eyes, forcing them to adjust. A silly dream. That was all. She was in bed at the Hunter-Kellogg Bed & Breakfast, crickets chirping and loons screaming in the distance.
“Hard to believe it’s spring,” Jill said. Her voice seemed to echo, even in the small bedroom. She could see plumes of condensation from her breath and shivered, drawing the covers around her.
The alarm clock—Ted’s faithful traveling companion—read six minutes past three. Jill smiled to herself. Maybe she’d wake him with a surprise before they left in the morning for Nashton Lake.
Moving closer, Jill put her hand on Ted’s shoulder. He didn’t awaken.
The crickets and loons stopped their songs.
A cloud passed over the full moon—or the room got darker. Jill put her ear to Ted’s chest. It was as silent as everything else.
She whimpered.
“Help me,” Jill’s cry didn’t echo now—it was as if she’d yelled into her pillow. Was she still dreaming? Please, let this be a nightmare, she thought as tears stung at her eyes. A sharp pain on her shoulder told her that no, this wasn’t a dream.
Once when she was a girl, Jill caught her tongue on a metal pole and her mother had to use water to get the girl unstuck. The pain of trying to free herself at first was worse than the switch that her mother used to tan her behind afterward. The pain in her shoulder was similar to the former.
Jill screamed again and tried to pull away from the source of the pain. She turned and faced an enormous black shadow. Heart leaping, her skin crawled, and she jumped from the bed, tearing away skin from her shoulder. Whatever that thing was, it seemed to have hooks on its fingertips. They sank into her skin with ease.
From the silence, a scratch. Two scratches. The door to the room rattled and Jill could see light and two tiny paws casting shadows underneath. Scratch-scratch-scratch.
Tears streamed down Jill’s face as she clambered for the door, tripping on the bedsheet tangled around her foot.
&nb
sp; “Help!” Jill caught herself before spilling onto the floor, but the shadow thing hurled itself off the bed and put its hooks into her trailing leg. Ice hooks, it has ice hooks. Jill shook her leg and kept crawling for the door, grabbing handfuls of the rug as she went.
The thing dragged her back, but she kicked with her free leg, feeling her foot connect with—its head? It was enough, and Jill crawled for the door. She grabbed the knob and turned it, but as she pulled, the shadow thing leapt on her, dragging her back into the room.
It was enough.
The cat, the one that intimidated Jill earlier, pushed open the door and ran into the room. He hissed and growled, and the growl grew in pitch and volume into a scream. Jill backed into a corner as the cat with the bright autumn-leaves fur leapt onto the shadow thing, biting and clawing with front and back feet.
The shadow tried to shake off the cat, and Jill backed up to the door, but couldn’t stand. Throbbing pain in her leg kept her bound to the floor, but her eyes were on the fight in front of her. The feline—Oscar—was relentless, tearing off chunks of blackness where it fell, sinking into the floorboards with a sizzle Jill could barely hear over the hisses.
With a shriek that rang in her ears, the shadow thing separated itself from the cat, and tumbled onto the bed. Oscar fell to the floor, landing on his feet, and stalked it, jumping back up onto the edge.
It shrank backward from the cat, slipping over Ted’s body, and for one moment, Jill’s heart felt like it stopped. If it entered Ted’s body, what then? Could it enter Ted’s body? Its fingers slipped into Ted’s gaping mouth and Ted’s eyes popped open. But the cat didn’t relent. He made another leap onto the shadow thing’s face and howled again.
The shadow gave another shriek and hit the wall to the side of the bed, near the open window.
That’s where it vanished.
Oscar hit the wall with his paws and made a rebound back onto Ted’s chest. He sat for a moment, inspecting. A sniff. Two sniffs. The cat lowered his head, then shook it to smooth his fur.
The cat jumped off the bed and ran to Jill, inspecting her wounds and purring as Jill wept. Oscar crawled into her arms, still purring, and she hugged him to her chest.
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