by Willow Rose
I knocked on another door, then continued to walk as I spotted a door with a handle and pulled it.
"That's just the cleaning closet," Jon said just as I opened it and a body fell on top of me.
Then I screamed.
38
December 2013
LINE WAS STUFFING HER FACE with foie gras. She was eating with her fingers. Bread and foie gras. Meanwhile the chef and the two others working in the kitchen were watching her while working.
"Oh this is so good," she moaned. "This is sooo good."
"I'm glad you like it," the chef said with a grin while sautéing mushrooms in a pan. It smelled heavenly.
"Could I get some of those as well?" she asked.
"Sure." A second later, a plate landed in front of her. She found a fork and started eating them. It was like they melted on her tongue.
"So what's' going on out there?" the chef asked. "Someone told me a guy was hurt? Something with his eye?"
Line closed her eyes and tried not to think about them. She had long forgotten all about the others in the lobby. She really didn't want to go back. She opened her eyes and swallowed the mushrooms. "Yeah, one of the guests had a needle stuck in his eye."
"Ouch," the chef said.
"It's pretty bad. We're still waiting for the ambulance, but I don't think it can come through since a tree fell across the road and it’s blocking the entrance to the hotel.
"Guess we're all spending the night here, huh?" the chef asked and cut some more bread for her.
"Good thing we have enough food," Line said.
The roof above them creaked. The chef looked up. A couple of drops of water fell down.
"What was that?" Line asked.
"Just an old hole in the roof that seems to appear every time we have a storm. Better get some buckets from out back to put under it if it's gonna rain all night. Tim and Robert come with me." The chef looked at her with a smile. "Be right back."
"I'm staying here with all this delicious food," she said and stuffed another piece of bread in her mouth, along with some foie gras.
Line had never tasted this delicious food before and was overwhelmed with how great it was. She wished she could eat it every day. Maybe it was one of those pregnancy cravings she had heard so much about. She liked the thought.
The door opened and someone came inside. Line used her fingers to get more foie gras in her mouth.
"Hey, chef, do you think you could …" she turned on the barstool as she spoke, then stopped as she stared into the face of a wooden mask. "Wh … who are you?"
If the person behind the mask smiled, Line wouldn't know since the mask covered the face so well she could hardly even see what color the eyes were.
"What do you want?" she asked with a shivering voice as she jumped down from the barstool with her heart racing in her chest.
Oh my God, Line. You have to run. It's him. It's the masked person who stuck a needle in Preben's eye!
Quickly, the masked person lifted a hand in the air and it was too late to react before Line realized it was holding a needle. She tried hard to fight the person away, but she was overpowered. Line screamed as the needle pierced through her right eye. She screamed and fell to the floor when the masked person finally let go of her. Shocked, she watched as the legs wearing black pants ran out of the kitchen and the door shut. Overwhelmed with anger, Line managed to get back up and follow after. She stormed out into The Yellow Room still screaming so loudly she didn't even hear that someone was screaming upstairs as well.
"Heeeeeelp!!" Line yelled.
She stormed out into the lobby, still screaming at the top of her lungs, then she fell to her knees in pain. She tried hard to see with her one good eye, only to realize that there was no one there. Only Preben who was lying on the mattress still whimpering in pain. Now he turned to look at her.
"HEEELP!" she cried. "Help me. It hurts!"
"They're ALL upstairs," he said. "Even the last bell-boy left a minute ago when we heard Emma scream from upstairs. It’s just the two of us now. Scream all you like."
39
December 2013
SOREN WAS HIDING. HE STILL had the keycard and had used it to go through a big heavy fire door at the end of the hallway, closing it behind him, making sure Jacob couldn't follow him. The rooms in this wing had been hit by a tree and it was blocking the hallway, so he couldn't get any further. He had walked into one of the rooms where the tree had gone through the roof and found a closet he could hide in. It was freezing cold where he was and he was shivering. He found a blanket inside the closet and put it around him, but it didn't help much. The winds were strong and the rain was coming through the roof. The floors were soaked and the closet as well. Soren's shoes were wet and so were the bottom of his pants.
"Now what?" He asked in the darkness of the closet.
He could hear someone calling his name in the distance. It sounded like Emma. He wondered if she had come up there to look for him. Suddenly, he was afraid she would run into Jacob. Would Jacob hurt her? Would he kill her in his rage? Or would he tell her about how Soren stabbed him? Make them all think he was dangerous? Make them all think he was the one who had hurt Preben?
What's your plan? Wait for Jacob to find you? Way to paint yourself into a corner, once again. Why do you keep doing this to yourself?
Soren groaned. He knew Jacob would be looking for him and wouldn't stop till he had killed him. But Jacob was hurt, wasn't he? He was weakened by the stab in the back. Maybe, just maybe he would bleed to death or something before he found him?
If I stay here long enough.
But if he stayed there much longer, he might freeze to death. Or maybe the old house would fall on him and bury him alive. The roof above where he was hiding looked like it could cave in any moment. Soren had become very sober the moment he had struck Jacob with the knife. And now he felt the agony for the first time since lunch. The pain of what he had done and what was going to happen to him.
If he got out of there alive, he would still have to face Margit and the charges against him. He would rot in jail and maybe get killed on the inside. There was no way he would ever survive. Soren opened the door to the closet and walked out. What was the use of hiding anyway? No matter what he did, he was a dead man.
Might as well go out with a bang.
Soren stood in the center of the room while the storm raged above his head. He heard someone scream. It sounded like it came from the other side of the fire door. It sounded like a woman. Possibly Emma? A hope grew inside of him. Maybe she had found Jacob with the knife in his back?
Soren bit his lip. Would he dare to go back? Would he risk being found by Jacob who was probably lurking on the other side of the door, if he was still alive? Would he dare to stay and risk freezing to death or being hit by the falling roof or another tree? Oh what a mess it all was.
Soren looked around the room. Just a few hours ago it had been a nicely decorated hotel room. One of the nicer ones, he could tell. He sat down on the bed and threw a couple of branches on the floor along with a bunch of leaves. Then he stared at the small refrigerator in the corner. It was still intact and hadn't been hit by anything.
"Why the hell not?" he said out loud, got up from the bed and opened it. He found a couple of small bottles of champagne and pulled them out along with a chocolate bar and a white wine.
Might as well go out with a bang, right?
Soren popped the first bottle, put it to his mouth and drank insatiably. He was surprised to realize that he was able to empty the entire bottle without taking it away from his lips. He looked at the empty bottle while waiting for the buzz to kick in and make him forget his worries.
Yes, that was his plan. He did what he knew he was best at.
40
December 2013
HE KNEW SOREN WAS THERE somewhere. He couldn't just have vanished, Jacob thought to himself as he walked with heavy painful steps, grunting and groaning through the hallway as he neared the end o
f it. Jacob realized that Soren had the Master key and probably could be hiding anywhere by now, in any of the many rooms he knew Jacob couldn't enter since he didn't have a key.
Jacob reached the end of the hallway and realized it turned to the right a little and then stopped by an old iron fire door which had been set there in the building to separate the two parts of the hotel in case of a fire. With the door between them, they'd be able to prevent it from spreading from one wing to the other. He tried to open it, but it was locked. A small box with room for a card and a red light above it told him he needed some sort of key card to go through.
"Jacob? Soren?" The voice came from the other end of the hallway. Jacob walked back to the corner and looked around it. He spotted Emma walking with some guy knocking on doors. Jacob pulled his head back. He didn't want Emma to see him. Jacob was sweating now due to the pain in his back and he wondered if he should try to reach back there and pull the knife out.
Then he heard Emma scream. He jumped around the corner and sprang to her. He ran past the honeymoon room and wondered who had closed the door. He didn't give it much more thought as he continued towards Emma. She was lying on the floor with what looked like a body on top of her. The two bell-boys were both screaming too and tried to pull the dead body off of her.
"Let me," Jacob yelled as he grabbed the body's arm. The body slid off of her and landed on the floor with a thud. He turned him around and looked at the face.
"It's the clerk," Emma said gasping.
"It sure is," Jacob said without emotion. He examined the dead body and found marks from a string or something similar on the neck. "He was strangled with something," he said. "Could have been a cord. Or a very slim rope."
Emma gasped again and got to her feet. "Jacob?" she said and walked closer. "You … you have a … knife in your back?"
Jacob grunted. "Yes. Soren put that one in me. Don't think it hit anything vital though. It hurts like hell, but I can still move. I was lucky I guess."
"Soren? Is he the one? Did he do this to the clerk as well?"
Jacob nodded. He liked the idea of pinning everything on Soren. "I think he poked the needle in Preben's eye as well."
"But why? Why would he do such awful things?" Emma asked.
Jacob shrugged. It hurt like crazy but he tried to hide it from Emma.
"You're in pain, Jacob," she said. "Let's get downstairs and get some ice on your wound. Do you think it is best to leave the knife in? Or should we pull it out?"
Jacob could tell how appalled she was by the thought. It amused him. "So far the knife is helping to clot and stop the bleeding. Removing it would cause more damage to the surrounding tissue and nerves when we pull it out. Leave it in. They will remove it at the hospital."
He looked down the hallway again. "There is a door at the end of the hallway. I'm certain Soren is hiding on the other side. He has a Master key."
Emma looked at the dead clerk. "He might have one too."
"Good idea," Jacob said and started going through the clerk's many pockets. He found a keycard in the purple vest.
"Bingo," he said and pulled it out.
"So what do you want to do now?" Emma asked.
"You go down to the lobby and warn the others, then I'll try and get a hold of Soren. He can't have gone too far. We can't have him running around loose hurting more people."
Another scream suddenly filled the air and they both turned to look. "What was that?" Emma asked with a gasp. "It came from downstairs."
"I don't know. You go and find out. Take the bell-boys here with you and I'll pursue Soren," Jacob said.
"Be careful," Emma said before she left.
Oh I will.
41
December 2013
I RAN DOWNSTAIRS AS FAST as I could with the bell-boys following me and my heart beating hard in my chest. I recognized the screams and knew they came from Line. I feared the worst as I jumped into the lobby and saw her. She was sitting on her knees on the tiles, her body bent forward in pain. She was screaming while blood was flushing out of her eye. Both Jon and Jesper stopped when they saw her, then turned their faces away.
I gasped and ran to her. "Line!" I kneeled next to her. "What happened?"
"Someone stabbed me in the eye," she cried.
"Where? In the bathroom?"
"No in the kitchen. I was in the kitchen … oh my God … it hurts so bad, Emma, do something; it hurts so much!"
"Who did this? Did you see who it was?"
"NO!" she cried. "He was wearing a mask of some sort. All I saw were his black pants as he ran away. Oh God it hurts. Please make it stop, Emma. Please make it stop. Do something, do anything."
I looked around desperately. I spotted a pack of painkillers next to Preben and picked them up. Preben suddenly sat up and grabbed my wrist.
"They're mine, "he said through gritted teeth.
I pulled my arm loose. "You can spare some for Line."
"No!" Preben said.
I ignored him like I ignored my children when they wouldn't share and walked to Line and gave her two tablets that she swallowed with some water I gave her. "I know it's not gonna remove the pain, but hopefully it can numb it slightly. I would offer you alcohol, but you can't drink it."
Jon and I carried her to the couch and helped her lay down while I fought my tears. It was horrible to see her like this and I couldn't stop my anger from growing. I was mad now, furious with Soren and I hoped Jacob would manage to find him. I couldn't believe Soren had gone rogue like this. I knew he had been acting crazy all day and drinking heavily so it kind of made sense, but it was still so hard to believe that he would do this to his old classmates. I could understand if he wanted to hurt Preben and Jacob, since they seemed like they had bad blood between them all day, but Line? And what about the clerk? What had he done to him? Maybe he had just been in his way. Maybe he discovered what he was up to.
But Soren was in the lobby with the rest of us when we heard the clerk scream. How could he have killed him and put him in the closet?
I looked worriedly at Line and hoped with all I had in me that her baby was alright. I put an ice-pack on her head to cool the areas around the eye down, then pulled out my phone once again to see if I had reception. I didn’t, but I tried to dial 112 anyway, but it didn't go through. I tried to go online, but there was no Internet. I went to the counter and looked for a phone with a landline. I found one and tried to call, but it didn't work either. The winds were still blowing strongly outside and the wind howling through cracks in the old building. It was getting colder now and I was starting to freeze. Preben and Line were both moaning heavily. I couldn't believe this situation. It was such a mess. It made me so angry and, slowly, the anger pushed away my fear. I couldn't stop thinking about the secret host that the clerk was supposed to go and get, the same one who had invited us here, and who was supposed to be revealed to us at dinner. Who was it and why hadn't we seen him or her yet?
Could this host be working together with Soren on all this? If so, that meant that Jacob was in serious danger right now.
I looked at the stairs, then at Jon. "Do you have any weapons in this hotel?" I asked.
He shook his head with a whimper. He hadn't been able to take his eyes off of Line's eye ever since they had come back down. His entire body was shivering, his eyes wide and anxious.
Then it was like he remembered something. He looked at me. "Yes. Yes we do. We have hunting rifles for our guests who wish to go duck hunting on the plantation while they're here."
"Where? Where are they?"
"Locked in a cabinet in The Green Room. Down by the end wall."
"Who has the key?"
Jon shrugged.
"It doesn't matter," I said and stormed through the door leading into The Green Room. I found the cabinet next to the bar and grabbed the handle, but couldn't open it. I looked at the bar, spotted an icepick in a bucket and grabbed it. I slammed it against the glass in the cabinet, but didn't even make a crack.
I swung it again against the glass, but it slipped and I hurt my hand badly and still didn’t even scratch the glass.
I cursed and slammed my fist at the glass in anger, then took the icepick with me and ran back in the lobby.
"I'm going upstairs," I said and stormed past Jon. "You stay here and make sure nothing else happens to these two."
Jon looked frightened, then nodded.
"I'll be right back," I said and stormed up the stairs thinking only of Jacob and wondering if he was still alive.
"Jacob?" I called as I ran down the hallway with the blue carpet. "Jacob?"
I stopped in front of a double door with hand carved wood. It was closed, but something about it made me stop. I had a feeling, call it a hunch, but I knew I had to open it. I lifted my leg and kicked it till it opened.
Then I gasped. A set of eyes met me on the other side. They were familiar but belonged to a time long ago.
"Erik?"
42
December 2013
HE HAD BEEN WAITING. Waiting and listening to what was going on downstairs, waiting for them to come and get him like they had planned to. The clerk was supposed to come and get him when dinner was on the table and everyone was sitting down. Erik was supposed to make a big entrance to the restaurant and hear everyone gasp. But something had gone terribly wrong. The storm had destroyed everything. When the clerk told him it was coming, he had at first thought it was a nice little effect, a gimmick to make the effect of his plan much stronger. But he hadn't thought of the consequences. He hadn't imagined how bad the events could turn. A tree had hit the wing close to his room and he had heard people scream like they were being killed. The clerk had never arrived and there had been so much turmoil in the hallway that he feared that everything had gone wrong somehow. Many times he thought they had succeeded in finding him. Especially when Jacob and Soren had crashed through the door and fallen into the living room of the suite. Erik had been in the bathroom when he heard the crash, but by the time he had maneuvered the wheelchair out of the bathroom, they were already running out the door. Erik had considered yelling something, but knew it wasn't the right time. He would only ruin the moment of surprise that he had planned for so long. So he had rolled to the door and closed it once they were gone, while wondering what the heck was going on with all of them. They were supposed to be in the restaurant now starting the first course.