He shook himself out of that train of thought and could not help but laugh out loud. Don’t be ridiculous! They are all in on it: the old bellhop, the barman, that guest. It’s all a performance. My wife and her lover are orchestrating this all, to get the old drunk out of the way. Drive me to despair, jail… or worse. They are making me hallucinate all these horrible things.
What should I do? He thought about just phoning the house. Maybe I should call their bluff. If I heard Tony junior speaking, or… No, they’d have someone else waiting, pretending to be police. Another thought burst through. What if it was real? What if my family really were all murdered? Thank god I booked in under a false name here. He checked his wallet. He was reassured that there still was a large wad of cash. I could leave and go to another part of the country, far away from here. Dry out and find out exactly what’s happening.
That left the mysterious package with his pseudonym.
He was afraid to touch it. So he paced up and down the room, imagining what might be inside, trying to take clues from the indentations on the thick brown paper and the slight discoloration. He gauged its size and remembered how heavy it had been, the objects that had shifted inside it as he had brought it up…
Tony finally decided. I’ll find out what they’ve planted on to me. That seemed to bring him strength. I’ll know what their game is, then I’ll use it to my advantage. He strode over and, with aching hands, tore at the paper. It was a cardboard box that had originally held vodka bottles. He opened up the top flap.
Two bottles: dark rum, white vodka. His brands. There was a rush of relief. An emergency supply he’d stupidly decided to put to one side? He pulled both bottles out and placed them to one side. Now a scrunched-up cloth or pile of rags. He upturned the box and shook it out. There was a thud as steel fell onto the floor. Sweet Jesus, a butcher’s knife. It had been used: stained with thick, clotted blood. He kicked the rags over the knife, and collapsed onto the floor.
He grabbed the bottle of vodka and, cracking it open, poured as much of it as he could down his throat. As he sat, letting the drink burn through his throat and stomach, he noticed a white envelope that had also fallen from inside the box. It was addressed to Anthony and held something bulky inside it. With trembling hands, he ripped it open. He found an old key on a fob stamped Lake Manor Hotel on one side, and another piece of paper. It was the same wild scrawl of the first note, he was sure. It read: “Room ten tomorrow. We have business to conclude. Zwilling.”
Tony felt an anger rising. Perhaps the impetus of the fresh alcohol had chased away his fear. He glanced down at the knife, partially hidden under the cloth. I’ll definitely conclude this business, find out what’s your game and give you something back for all you’ve put me through.
~
Tony spent the day simmering with a rage. Sometimes he had to get up and pace away some of its energy, sometimes he sat with his back to the door, especially when he heard some activity close by and was determined not to let anyone in. The day festered into night; all the while, Tony thought and mulled over what he was going to do next.
He hadn’t seen anyone, apart from the two staff members and that one guest — and he was sure now that she was deep in it, too. There was no one else. Of course not, he told himself, this isn’t a real hotel at all, just a place to make me go mad. I’ll show them, I’ll go when they don’t expect, see room ten before they’ve had a chance to set it up, find out what charade they are putting up, then slip away unannounced. Or perhaps give them a fright.
When Tony judged it was time, he picked up the knife and, as quietly as he could, crept out into the corridor. He first went along to the landing to check reception. The air was thick and heavy, and he felt like he was peering onto some sort of submerged Victorian Atlantis. Tony waited, but all he heard was that incessant clock and just the faintest wisp of music. Nothing else stirred.
Deciding that he’d observed enough, Tony was eager to get to the room. He softly walked the corridor the other way, ticking off the numbers on the doors with the knife until he reached ten. He slotted in and turned the thick key, which gave a satisfying click. Then, gripping the doorknob, he readied himself to go in. Before he could move, a wave of revulsion swept over him.
Something dreadful is behind this door.
Taking a moment to steady himself, Tony fought that feeling and, taking low, deep breaths, regained his composure. I’m the one in control here, remember? He gripped the knife hard in his other hand and swung the door open.
The room was illuminated only by the feeble glow of the corridor lighting behind him and a sliver of light coming from behind the closed en suite door. The room, from what he could tell, was a mess: paper, clothes, and empty bottles of liquor. The stench of alcohol was very strong. Stepping in quietly, he slipped the door shut behind him, then felt for the light switch, finding that his fingers were weak and shaking as if his confidence was, starting with his extremities, draining away.
The light flickered on and revealed the room in obscene clinical detail.
Diane lay looking at him with motionless eyes, spread-eagled and naked on the bed, her chest and other parts of her torso ripped open, skin and viscera spreading from the deep slashes and cuts. She seemed to be smeared across the bed, its covers now stained in large patches of crimson. Her tongue was lolling out of her mouth, and there were already a few black flies feeding. Just like the dog. Tony buckled as he comprehended what he was seeing. His stomach contracted and he felt waves of pain as he tried to vomit. The knife dropped, and he found himself on his hands and knees, doubled up in dry heaves. When he had managed to get that under control, he looked up and saw, standing in the light of the opened en suite door, himself. An exact copy: his clothes, his face, even his mannerisms. Identical. It was truly a doppelganger. It looked at him with a blank expression, aloof and distant, impossible to read. But Tony noticed two standout differences: the copious amounts of blood that the doppelganger was drenched in; and its eyes — eyes that might have been bright with devilish, wild excitement and callous enjoyment.
“Time to go! This one gave me a bit more than fun and delicious, sweet blood,” it hissed at Tony. “We should get rid of the body now, though: she’s cold and old. Time to go!” The pain inside him just continued growing, expanding exponentially until he was totally overcome.
~
…I take and breathe. He’s almost spent. I can smell the end. But I take and breathe…
Tony woke up cold and shivering, with a painful thirst and a pounding head. He coughed damp, cold air. It took long moments for him to focus, but he knew he was outside. Picking himself up off wooden slats, he heard the little gurgles of water below him. He was by the lake on a rotten wooden jetty of sorts. The shoreline was dark with misshapen pines and thick, clotted vegetation. Dawn again. For a second there was nothing, just the silent black water, mist, the slowly brightening sky and his breathing.
He remembered that body. The blood. That smell. He retched loudly.
It was true, he’d seen that woman cut up and mutilated. But why was he here on the water’s edge? There was no one else. No sign of her, no evil twin speaking riddles. He stood up straight, wavering a little unsteadily as the jetty creaked. Off in the distance, through the thick mist, there were colors. Flashing reds and blues. Police at the hotel. He heard the yelps of dogs. Tracker dogs, probably, looking for me. He thought again about the body in the room; he’d left the knife there, the note, everything. It’s over.
It was light enough to see reflections in the dark waters of the lake, and he caught himself peering up from the water. He instantly recognized the image — it was his doppelganger, the same blood-soaked clothes and the same blank expression. But he knew what that expression was, now. It was the face of someone utterly defeated. He knew what he had to do next.
Opening his arms, he fell forward into the cold water and embraced his watery twin.
~
…and start again. I’ve rested, but now
I want to start again. Taste illicit pleasures, taste another body. Like that of the young man. I’m different now; he’ll want me. Maybe I’ll take him next when I need the blood. And start again….
“I have to say again, I’m so sorry about any inconvenience you’ve had while they’ve been doing their investigation.” Clay was polishing a glass at his bar. In the screen of the dead television, he could see the reflection of himself alongside the woman. She was looking at him intently. A bit old, he thought, but very, very attractive.
“No need to apologize for that.”
“You can never tell with those deranged people. I think we all had a lucky escape.”
“Why? I was questioned, but I couldn’t tell exactly what had happened. They just wanted to know about that guest.”
“Well...” Clay pulled in close. “Just between you and me, they say he went psycho and stabbed his whole family to death before coming here. Booked in with a year’s worth of spirit, drank it all and went crazy.”
She pulled an astonished face. “Really? Oh my god!”
“They found Hank’s – the bellhop’s – old dog, totally torn to pieces, the poor animal. He covered his room in its blood and entrails, before drowning himself in the lake.”
“That scares me. To think I actually talked to him.”
Clay smiled, remembering what he’d seen of those two out by the lake, exactly what they were up to. He couldn’t help but look at the swell of her breasts. She didn’t smile, but her eyes seemed to light up with excitement.
“Don’t worry, we’re here to look after our guests. So if there is anything I can do...” Clay gave her a warm smile and put his hand down on the bar. Her fingers brushed against his, giving him a tingle of sexual energy.
“It is quiet, I could do with the company.”
There was a moment of uneasiness when Clay thought he saw a flicker of something else in her eyes, a moment of maliciousness or hunger? But that moment passed.
“I’m Clay,” he said, confident that everything was going well.
“I’m Diane,” it replied.
Room 8: The Lure of Light
by Scarlett R. Algee
No service.
Lisa can just make out the tiny words through the spiderweb of cracks fanning out from the upper left corner of her phone screen, a corner that’s now jagged and missing pieces of its outer shell. She hadn’t meant to throw the damned thing down quite so hard, but after getting seventeen texts from Karen within ninety seconds of arriving at the hotel’s front doors, Lisa had just sort of... snapped.
The desk clerk, the sort of good-looking woman Karen might have called distinguished or academic (but never in Lisa’s hearing, not these days), had smirked at her, and almost by compulsion Lisa had found herself kneeling on the rich carpet to search for tiny shards of glass and plastic, trying to mumble an apology. Sorry about that. I told her I’d made the trip okay. It’s just a week, she doesn’t have to bug me, it’s just a week, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.
She was, Lisa realized in that moment, getting tired of apologizing.
~
Somehow, Lisa had checked in without further incident, getting her room key without her cheeks bursting into flames from embarrassment or any wayward bits of glass finding their way into her shoes. She’d been surprised to see that the key was an old-fashioned brass one, heavy and tarnished, on a ring that dangled a large steel 8. She’d shoved her fingers through the loops of the numeral, squeezed her broken phone in the other hand, and trudged up the great winding staircase several steps after the frowning old bellhop, who’d handled her two suitcases as if they were a personal affront and hadn’t yet offered her more than a tight-lipped grimace — in fact, he’d deposited her bags at the door to her room and turned back to the stairs without even telling her to enjoy her stay.
Odd people. Karen would be saying “I told you so,” if she were here now; she’d practically said it as soon as Lisa had found Lake Manor online. You don’t want a place like that, I hear it’s haunted and people disappear and it’s probably full of weirdos and anyway we can still afford something nice—
Dammit. Lisa feels a little better now that she’s ensconced in her room, her week’s worth of clothes hung up in the wardrobe and ten love-worn paperbacks stacked neatly on the dresser in fives, and she’s not about to ruin the beginning of a good mood by concentrating on her girlfriend’s endless worrying. It’s the reason she’s here, after all: to get a break. What she’d seen as Karen’s cute nervousness at the beginning of their relationship is wearing thin now, four years later, especially since poor student test scores had brought Lisa’s first-grade teaching career to an abrupt, apparently permanent, halt in May— and then in June, Emily—
Lisa closes her eyes and clenches her teeth. For a few seconds she just sits on the edge of the bed, stroking the worn silk comforter to calm herself, bouncing a little against the firmness of the mattress. Then she picks up her phone, wincing as another bit of glass flakes off in her palm, and nudges the screen.
It takes several taps on the fragmented surface before the device flickers to life, but at last Lisa’s finally rewarded. Never mind that most of the icons don’t seem to respond now: she can still see her wallpaper, her Emily.
Despite the screen cracks, her daughter still looks radiant. It’s Lisa’s favorite picture, Emily’s first day of kindergarten, last August. The five-year-old had insisted on a white dress and white shoes, despite Karen’s repeated warnings that they’d simply get filthy on the playground. In the shot, Lisa sees her own blonde hair, her own dimples, Emily’s ear-to-ear smile adorably gapped by a lost tooth. She can close her eyes tightly and still feel that warm little body in her arms, still smell Emily’s bubblegum shampoo. Emily had loved kindergarten, and had been over the moon at the thought of having Mommy for her first-grade teacher the next year.
Lisa had been over the moon too, before the budget cuts, before the accident.
It should have been simple: Lisa had been dropped off at the farmer’s market, Emily’s giggly “Be good, Mommy” still fresh in her ears, while Karen made the trip to the dentist to have Emily relieved of a wiggly front tooth that wasn’t coming out on its own. It hadn’t been Karen’s fault — Lisa knows that, intellectually; Karen wouldn’t have deliberately got their car plowed through that intersection by that idiot drunk driver — but there have been a lot of times in the past three months that she’s caught herself thinking how Karen should have been more careful, more watchful, more something, dear God, it’s not fair that Emily died and Karen walked away without so much as a scratch—
Lisa catches her breath. The phone’s gone dark, and the unbroken part of the screen is dotted with something. Tears. God, she’s lost it again. Swearing under her breath, she sets the phone down at her side and swipes her face with both hands. Even her shirt’s wet; she wipes her fingers on it angrily and hopes there’s no one in the next room who’s overheard her sobs. Lisa stumbles to her feet and toward the bathroom, vision blurred by a fresh wave of moisture. She feels her way to the sink, and splashes icy water across her face and into her eyes, avoiding the bleary reflection in the bathroom’s ornate mirror.
When she comes back out, she leans in the doorway, breathing hard, her cheeks stinging from being scrubbed with the tail of her shirt instead of a fluffy hotel towel. So much for her good mood; she needs something to do, to take her mind off Emily right now, but her eyes are too sore for reading, and neither room service nor the tiny hotel bar sounds the least bit appealing.
A nap. She’ll have a nap. No elbow-jostling, no wriggling in discomfort to accommodate an extra body, and when she wakes up, things will be better. They have to.
“It’s just a week,” she sighs.
~
Mommy?
Lisa bolts upright, nearly falling off the bed; the phone thumps to the floor. “Emily? Emily?”
No answer. She glances around wildly and then remembers where she is, heart hammering in her chest. “Oh,
Jesus.” Lisa pushes sweat-slick hair out of her face and slumps back onto the mattress, grabbing the comforter in her fists, her scalded eyes helplessly leaking tears. “Why can’t I keep my shit together? Why did it have to be Emily? Why couldn’t it have been fucking Karen?”
The words come out and she stops cold, shoving the knuckles of one hand into her mouth. “Oh, God, I’m sorry,” she whispers, rolling over to reach the fallen phone. “I’m so sorry. I love you, Karen. I still love you.”
Still apologizing. Lisa sits up, shaking her head to clear it. The light slanting through her room’s sole window carries the purple of oncoming twilight — how long has she slept? “You were right,” she murmurs, talking to the empty air, since her phone’s beyond picking up a signal. “I shouldn’t have come here like this.” Knees creaking as she stands, she goes to the window and pulls at the burgundy velvet drapes, grimacing for a second at the feel of the dusty, heavy fabric against her palm. From here she can see the lake the hotel’s named for, shrouded in thick rosy mist; someone’s walking along the cobblestone path that leads to the pier and the water’s edge, but their features are lost to her in the fog. She drops the velvet panel and turns away, back to the books on the dresser and the clothes in the wardrobe. “I don’t care about getting the money back. I’ll pack all this up in the morning and come home. I’ll find a job. We’ll work something out. Somehow.”
~
Even after a bath and a change of clothes, Lisa still feels too unsettled to eat. Never mind what Karen had said about haunting; she has enough ghosts of her own. Still, she guesses she needs something in her stomach, so she makes her way back downstairs, receiving a glare from the still-silent bellhop as he ascends with another load of luggage. Apparently she’s slept through the arrival of more guests.
Two of those guests are in the hotel’s sitting area, across the lobby from the front desk: an elderly woman in a pastel pantsuit, and a small girl, red-haired and freckled. Her granddaughter, Lisa supposes, and takes the time to get herself a cup of tepid coffee and a banana nut muffin before looking for a seat. “Hi. You just got here?”
The Haunting of Lake Manor Hotel Page 5
