Stew lifted the camera off its side and powered it up, lifting up the back end to get an angled shot of the lobby below. It had been a wise decision to set up the camera the night before. Stew zoomed in on Joe’s face and grinned, waiting until he could get some incriminating evidence on tape against that dick. His days were numbered.
“Did anyone bring any food?” Sonia was lying on her back, her arm draped over her head. No one was better than Sonia when it came to dramatic posing.
“Here.” Kelly pulled some granola bars from her pocket, passing them out. “At least one of us is prepared.”
Kelly ate her granola bar and rested her head against the cool wood. The granola sounded so loud in her ears, crunching between her teeth. It felt as if everyone would come rushing in from outside to see what the noise was, but of course they couldn’t hear it. She swallowed the last bite and rolled onto her back, lying next to Sonia. She wondered how long they’d have to wait up here before this grand show of theirs was over. Maybe they’d known Stew was listening and made up the whole monster hunting thing to scare him. But she could sense it in the air. A storm was coming. Kelly shivered despite the warmth from the Inn’s interior. It occurred to her that they were now stuck up here on this small, narrow walkway high above the ground—without a bathroom. If they had to wander down to the lobby for any reason they risked being shot, or eaten.
You are being so careless right now.
Kelly closed her eyes tight and pushed the voice into the back of her mind, not wanting to listen. Even thought she knew it was the truth. They didn’t need her here. She wasn’t serving any purpose other than company for some casual conversation. Right now she could be on a bus heading toward a prepaid night in a hotel room, a possible romantic evening for her and Richard. But that had been the real reason. She’d stayed because he’d stayed. They hadn’t said those three magic words to each other yet, but she knew they were close. It wasn’t just great sex. There was a connection that followed them well beyond the bedroom, a rush of energy when they held hands or looked at each other across the room. She was risking her life because she wouldn’t let him risk his alone—plain and simple.
“Here we go.” Stew zoomed in but didn’t start recording. The VHS was only an eight hour tape and he didn’t bring a backup. He was saving his precious space for when things got heated. Of course he could only record when the thing was in the lobby, so he hoped it would eat its victims by the fireplace.
They watched Joe’s crew over and over again, laying an arsenal on the lobby’s center rug. Stew felt validated, knowing a forest fire didn’t call for rifles and floodlights. Now all they had to do was sit back, keep quiet, and wait for the massacre to begin.
39
T
he doors were chained from the outside, all but the emergency exit in the stairwell. They’d wrapped one end of a chain around the push bar and the other through the closest slat in the stairs, then padlocked it shut. They were locked up good and tight. Joe found that comforting and extremely disturbing all at the same time. No help was coming and there was no quick way out if the situation got out of hand. But this is what they’d agreed to do. It was important enough for Andy to grow a pair, important enough for Rita to turn back around and leave safety behind. So it better well be important enough to the man whose idea it was to get them all locked up in there. Whether or not that had been a good idea remained to be seen.
Joe had devised two teams, the four firemen to check the upstairs hallways and the three rangers to check the downstairs. He’d gone behind the front desk and searched the drawers, finding nothing but register tape, customer comment cards, and Gretchen’s fashion magazines. On the back wall, he saw a wooden cabinet. He opened it up and saw a key for every room in the Inn, but that’s not what he wanted. He thought back to two nights ago when he’d asked Gretchen to retrieve the key. He remembered her taking one off the hook to his right. He followed his memory to two keys hanging from a nail, two master keys.
“Here, you three check every room, one at a time. When you’ve completed the search, tear off a strip of this black tape and stick it on the door. Let’s avoid double dipping.”
Joe and Dale turned on the three floodlights, brightening the lobby enough to make them avert their eyes. They were unaware that at that moment, Stew was four floors above them, cursing the day they were born for killing his shot with their skyward floodlight. Dale got down on his knees, grabbed a flashlight and a shotgun, and using the tape he’d gotten from Joe, secured the light to the barrel. He repeated this seven times before passing them out.
“Be careful.” Joe cocked his shotgun and turned on the light.
“You too.” Dale gave a single nod and led his men up the first flight of stairs, moving slowly and covering every inch with his light.
Joe led his team into the restaurant, wishing he’d taken the upstairs and handed this one off to the firemen. The restaurant was cavernous and dark despite the overhead lighting; too many corners and tall ceilings, too many places for the creature to hide. Joe knelt down and lifted up the tablecloth from each table as he passed, but there was nothing there. He wondered exactly what he would do if there was something lurking beneath the cloth. In that split second before it leapt forth and reached for his throat, would he be able to squeeze off a shot? Or would he drop the shotgun and succumb to its attack? He could suffer a heart attack for all he knew. Knights have been known to run away screaming while a squire could fight to the death; no way of knowing how one might respond in the face of sheer terror. As for himself, he thought more along the lines of shitting his pants and then the heart attack. He could only hope to squeeze off at least one shot before the creature tore into him.
Joe pushed through the swinging double doors into the kitchen, shaking his head at a creature’s dream hiding spot of cupboards, pantries, and stoves; a million places for this damn thing to be hiding. He looked through the small glass door windows and saw his teammates searching the buffet table. Joe looked at all the knives stuck to magnetic strips, pans hanging from racks over the stove, sharp cooking utensils in canisters along the counter. Kitchens were just made for death. Everything before him could be used as a weapon. Suddenly he felt very uncomfortable standing among so many potential weapons, hoping this creature wasn’t a thrower.
There was a loud pop from the lobby, followed immediately by a loud hissing. Joe turned and ran, sprinting through the dining room on the heels of Andy and Rita. They skidded to a stop before the fireplace, looking down at the sparks flying from the severed floodlight cords running along the floor from the outside generator. The lights dimmed, faded and were finally dead. Joe knelt down and looked at the wire cut clean through as if with a razorblade.
“It cut the lights,” Joe said to himself, jumping at the sound of another loud pop, this time from down the hall. “It cut the power.” Joe looked up as all the overhead lights whined down and fell silent. He saw the firemen’s flashlights bobbing up and down on the second floor as they ran from the hall.
“What happened? Is everyone all right?” Dale yelled from the second floor railing.
“The goddamn thing cut the power.” Joe was in disbelief.
“How can it know to do that? It’s only an animal!” Andy was close to hysterics, rocking back and forth. It became too dark, pulling toward them as if the room were shrinking.
“Where are the main breakers?” Joe asked, meeting Dale at the base of the stairs.
“I know, follow me,” Bob volunteered, squeezing between them to lead the way down the hall and toward the stairs. He waved his hand as the back area behind the stairs filled with smoke. Bob ducked down beneath the stairwell and looked into the little room, frantically waving his hand to get a clear look at the damage. “Holy shit.”
“What?” Joe and Dale said in unison as they came around the stairs.
“The thing’s been shredded. All the connections pulled and severed.” Bob scratched his head. “This is way beyond repair, gentlemen. Whatever this thing is, it’s one smart son of a bitch.” Bob pushed through them and headed back around the stairs, eager to move clear of the smoke.
Dale and Joe turned as a black hand reached down from the second floor stairs and sank its three fingers into Bob’s face, digging its nails deep into his eyes and mouth. Bob could only thrash about, flailing his arms and legs madly as the shadow creature pulled him up the wall and into the darkness of the second floor.
“No!” Dale screamed, running out from behind the stairs to look up into the second floor, seeing nothing but a trail of blood along the wall.
A shower of blood rained down on them, hitting them hard as if dumped from a bucket. They both cradled their heads and dove into the hallway, sliding along the smooth wooden floor now soaked in Bob’s blood. Joe grabbed Dale by the forearm and pulled him along the ground, crawling their way back toward the lobby. Joe yelped as Rita took hold of his hand, helping them to their feet. They turned and ran back to the fireplace as a snarl drifted down the hall.
“Whose blood is this?” Rita pulled away from Joe, wiping the blood from her hands onto her pants.
Joe held up his hands and turned them back and forth, his mouth open in shock. He was covered in someone’s blood, drenched in it, soaked through his clothes. He could only shiver against the unsettling stickiness on his hair and arms, the red beads rolling down his back.
Dale dropped to his knees, shaking his head wildly from side to side. He’d never seen anything like that in his life; someone lifted off the ground by their face, gripped like a human bowling ball. Now he was wearing his blood like a damn coat. Dale picked some hair from his arm; little pieces of Bob left behind like confetti from a party. He’d throw up if his mind hadn’t temporarily shut down, blown a fuse trying to process what he’d just witnessed—the horrific death of one of his own firemen.
“We need to get these lights back on.” Rita motioned toward the overhead lights.
“No, we can’t.” Joe’s teeth were chattering. “The box is totally destroyed.”
Fred ran into the restaurant and ripped some tablecloths off the table, spilling the plates and silverware to the floor in a loud crash. He hurried back, draping them over Dale and Joe’s shoulders. The pristine white cloths turned a dark pink on impact. Joe eagerly wiped the blood from around his mouth and eyes, digging his nails in deep and yet still feeling dirty. He figured it would take more than a dozen baths filled with scalding water before he could feel clean again.
“How could some animal cut the power?” Andy was shivering, pulling away from Joe but not wanting to leave the light of the fire. Andy couldn’t get past it. He worked around animals, knew their behavior. He could recite the hibernation schedule of the bears throughout the park, how long the elks’ antlers can get. He can tell you migration paths of the buffalo. But not one of them could cut the power from a building. Andy knew where this line of thinking was heading, but he cut it off. There were people and there were animals, nothing higher and nothing in between. He knelt beside the fire and took shelter in its warm glow.
Joe looked at his hands, holding them out to the light of the fire. He could see Bob’s blood caked beneath his fingernails. Had he put his hands in his mouth since he’d been back? Chewing his nails was something he’d done since he was a little boy. His mother had often remarked that he’d gnawed his fingers down to bloody stumps. This might be the one thing to finally get him beyond the annoying habit. Having someone else’s blood drying beneath his fingernails made them look very unappetizing.
“We don’t have to go hunting this thing.” Dale looked up from the floor, his eyes flooded with woe. “This creature is hunting us.”
“No!”
Dale nearly fell off the bench, flailing his arms backward as the sound of screaming boomed down from the rafters.
“Who’s up there?” Joe yelled. “Get your lights up.” Joe aimed his flashlight at the walkways above, unable to pinpoint the exact location of the screaming. The voices bounced off the walls like a rubber ball, filling the lobby. “Who is up there?” Joe screamed.
A camcorder came crashing to the floor between them, hitting the ground with such force it bounce and shattered into multiple pieces. Andy dove, missing the camera by mere inches.
“Stew!” A woman’s voice shot out from the dark. “Stewart!”
Joe followed the voice to the third floor, aiming his light on a woman’s face, one he recognized. Kelly ignored the bright light shining into her eyes. She looked up at the fourth floor where Stew had been plucked up from the walkway and carried off into the rafters. Sonia and Richard pulled at her arms, nearly dragging her down the stairs to the second level.
“What happened?” Dale followed them with his light and the rest followed suit, lighting them up as they ran down the stairs to the first floor. “Who else is up there?”
“Stew was…he…” Kelly couldn’t say it. She just couldn’t quite put the words into a sentence.
“Something took him.” Richard wrapped his arm around her shoulder and pulled her toward the fire, toward people and light. “We were laying up there and it just took him.”
“What were you doing up there?” Joe shined his light right in their eyes, recognizing all of them. “Huh? What the hell were you doing hiding up there with a camcorder? Expecting a little show while we’re down here getting our asses chewed off?”
Stew’s body splattered down between them, landing on the remains of the camcorder with a wet smack. The impact popped his head off, hitting Andy just above the right knee. The color of his flesh had gone gray, dry, and cracked. Despite the torn remains, there was little blood to be found. Kelly and Sonia began shrieking, gripping the air with their hands.
“What is this thing?” Rita aimed her flashlight up to the rafters, the beam not strong enough to illuminate the high ceiling. “Like some kind of fucking vampire?”
“It’s some kind of shadow creature,” Joe said, running his light along the banister of the third floor. The girls hadn’t stopped shrieking. “Someone shut them up!” Joe shot the girls an irritated glance.
“How do you expect to find a shadow creature in a place like this?” Rita asked, suddenly wishing she’d opted to stay in Gardiner.
“Tell us what happened, why you’re here?” Joe shined the light in Richard’s face.
Richard mouthed the words, but nothing came out. He couldn’t take his eyes off Stew’s body, his severed head spinning in slow circles; the shredded flesh of his face forever frozen in a look of terror and surprise.
“Hey!” Joe slapped him across the face, leaving a red handprint across his cheek.
“We wanted to expose what you’re doing here.” Richard sheltered his cheek. “After we heard what was happening, we knew you weren’t going to tell the truth about Doug and Rowena.” Richard was furious; his voice shaking and close to tears. He did everything he could to keep his eyes up and off the dead body of his friend. “Stew hated you.” Richard began to cry, unable to stop.