by Glenn Rolfe
Copyright©2016 by Matt Shaw and Glenn Rolfe
Matt Shaw Publications
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof
may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever
without the express written permission of the publisher
except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
The characters in this book are purely fictitious.
Any likeness to persons living or dead is purely coincidental.
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The Haunted Halls
Glenn Rolfe
For my happy family–
My lovely and amazing wife, Meghan, who believes in me and gives me the courage I would otherwise lack to chase my dreams. And my awesome monkeys who deserve the world, Ruby, Ramona, and Axl.
VOLUME I
Prologue - Night Swim
Edward Young stroked through the warm water of the beautiful, new hotel swimming pool–his heart rate steady, his muscles in full swing–thinking about one thing: Paula. He found her in the local newspaper in the classifieds under “companionship.” Paula was a hooker. No ifs ands or buts. For two hundred dollars, she let him in any hole he wanted to enter; sweet deal for this area, especially considering she wasn’t a complete swamp donkey. Besides her crooked teeth and pointy nose, Paula was pretty. He promised he’d call her again tonight. Three nights in a row, that was a new record.
He reached the center of the pool on his sixth lap when he swam into a cold spot, sharp and out of place. The ice pocket sent his nerves on end. He’d gone swimming in the northern Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Maine during a late May visit to Old Orchard Beach–this stark coolness, completely out of the realm of possibilities for the pool’s eighty-two-degree water, had that same unexpected bite. The bitter cold passed. He collected his thoughts, caught his breath, and finished his last lap. Walking up the pool steps, he sensed a presence. Something else was here and he had the goose bumps to prove it. The room was freezing. Not normally a man so easily spooked, Edward grabbed his towel from the plastic chair he’d left it on and made for the door.
Stepping into the long, empty corridor, he could see his own breath. The icy presence had followed him. Even the maroon carpet which ran all the way down to the inn’s lobby was cool beneath his bare feet. The immense chill permeated every available space around him, freezing every door handle in sight, and sparking to life an intense fear in him. He broke into a run, heading for the nearest restroom.
Edward reached for the silver lever, his mind two thoughts away from setting his axis permanently out of whack, and, despite the icy cold beneath his palm, shoved open the door. He spun around to the other side shutting out the cooling hallway of the Bruton Inn.
Something followed me.
Standing in the men’s room, clad in nothing but his swim trunks and a tiny pool towel that wouldn’t fit a child, he waited. He was shivering, his teeth chattering, heart pounding. He could feel the wooden door at his back growing colder by the second. The small pool of water puddled beneath his bare feet began to freeze before his eyes. He stepped out of the slick space his wet body had created, and stood before the mirror, face to face with himself, intent on talking some sense into the man looking back at him.
“This isn’t happening. This isn’t fucking happening. Get a hold of yourself, you stupid asshole,” he said through quivering blue lips.
A series of cracking noises stole his attention. He gazed back at the door. The floor beneath it began freezing over, the ice reaching out and to where he stood.
“What the hell?”
He turned to face himself and found his reflection blurred behind the frost settling over the mirror.
Another form began taking shape in the icy glass. He closed his eyes, took three deep breaths and tried to wrap his head around the insanity of this moment.
I fell asleep, I’m still in my room, this is just a bad fucking dream. I’m okay, I’m okay.
Forcing a smile, he opened his eyes. His gaze settled upon the girl now standing behind him.
Her cold breath prickled the back of his neck. Despite her beauty, he was more frightened than he’d ever been in his life. His lips quivered, pathetically mumbling out a prayer for help. Her frozen hand caressed his cheek, silencing the prayer and stealing his breath.
“I, I…” he said.
A shushing sound, like a mother comforting her stirring infant, reached his ears, yet in the mirror, the girl’s lips did not move. Her dark brown eyes, mesmerizing and powerful, held him. Long autumn curls hung over her pale shoulders like a collection of coiled snakes waiting to strike. She was beautiful, and though her full lips refused to part, he began to hear a whisper, so small and sweet. The message floated between his ears. He caught fragments of sentences:
“Watch…”, “…this way…”, “…with me.”
He tried again to speak, but his mouth betrayed him. He could no longer move. Ice encompassed him from his stomach to the floor.
How did I not notice this happening?
“Watch this,” the voice spoke to him.
His eyes returned to his reflection in the frosty mirror. He he could still feel her breath on his neck and her hand on his face, but he could no longer see her.
The cold touch on his cheek lifted, the skin beneath it pulled until he felt it tear free. He screamed through his frozen jaw in absolute pain and horror watching his own flesh rip from his face. The chunk of skin and blood hovered in the palm of the invisible ice queen behind him. His terrified eyes, shaking in their sockets, followed its decent. The torn flesh hit the ice covered tiles at his feet with a sickly plop.
The entity caressed his chin.
He began whimpering a preemptive cry as he felt the invisible hand begin pulling away from his face, the flesh of his stubble-covered jaw line ripping up and away with its cold, dead touch. A deep ache beginning somewhere in the dark tunnels behind his eyes pulled him deeper into this horror show. Tears dribbled down his cheeks as the cool hand released another chunk of him to the frozen floor.
The deathly touch landed upon his forehead returning for another pound of flesh.
“No…no…”
He tried his prayer again, even managing to get out, “Please God,” before his own voice became unrecognizable. The invisible demon tore the flesh of his forehead free from the top of his face. Blood rained down from the burning wound and into his eyes.
Let me out, let me out, let me out!
The cold presence landed over his right ear. Its icy touch penetrated his ear canal, funneled inside, and filled his head with a deep freeze that numbed his fearful mind.
In the mirror, his brain registered the condensation from his final breath as it made its escape past his blue lips. Seconds later, as his heart froze within his chest and the blood in his veins congealed to a halt, his pale blue eyes, reflecting in the mirror before them, frosted over.
The ice queen reappeared behind the body of Edward Young. She spared no smile, only a cold glance over the shoulder of the frozen soul before her. She slipped away, back to her place beneath the inn’s heated pool.
…
Jeff Braun fought to keep his eyes open. A born night owl, working third shift at the hotel was normally a cakewalk. He immersed himself in book after book and graphic novel after graphic novel, scoured the internet for naked beauties or chat room-ready clowns to aggravate, and once in a while, snuck in a movie in the back office. Occasionally, like tonight, working the audit became a battle of wills. Sitting on his stool behind the front desk, eyes closed, his head jerked.
An incessant beeping startled him from his fugue state. He rubbed his sandpaper eyes
, closed the graphic novel sitting on the desk, and walked into the back office to find out which alarm was going off.
“Where are you?” he said.
The fire alarm box in the entry way was silent. The busy chirp was coming from around the corner. He stepped to the other side of the partition and saw a flashing gold light on the settings box marked “Pool Room.” The temperature monitor read fifty-eight degrees.
“What the fuck?”
The pool was supposed to stay at eighty-two degrees. Second shift had scribbled a note in the log book about an alarm going off earlier this evening, he hadn’t really read it.
Jeff put up the be right back sign and headed down to the pool room.
He unlocked the door with his key and froze.
“Oh shit.”
A bluish body floated face down in the pool.
Chapter One
Timothy Laymon, speeding twice the posted limit of 35 miles per hour, watched the October-altered foliage blur past his window as he cruised down the desolate back road labeled Route 5. His destiny was in the arms of the secluded sanctuary otherwise known as the Bruton Inn. The cool stream of wind from the slightly opened window of his Ford Mustang let in just enough crisp freshness from the chilled Maine morning to keep him alert. The man and woman on the radio, who were under the assumption that they were somehow funny, spoke of a brothel in some small town that had disguised itself as an exercise studio before getting busted.
Sexercise, I could really use a workout.
It was a silly thought, juvenile even, but true. He hadn’t been with a woman since Beth Marston, and that had been over two years ago. Blue balls was a term he had learned to live with. He’d learned to live with a number of things beyond his control over the last few years. Losing Beth had caused him pain, sure, but the loss of his hair somehow cut deeper. He woke up one morning back in March ready to attack the internet with a can of Red Bull, and a couple of quick and easy book reviews for his paid blog, Timothy’s Horror Corner, when he noticed his hairline running for the hills, casting his large, greasy expanse for the world (and all the pretty little girls) to see. He’d since shaved it all off, going with the cue ball look. The clean scalp had been awkward for the first few days, but he’d acclimated to it just fine by the time the hundred degree mid-July days came rolling in.
He ran the palm of his hand over his baby smooth scalp, and smiled a crooked toothed grin at his reflection in the Ford’s rearview mirror—the dead girl in his backseat smiled back.
…..
“Hello,” Rhiannon said, “Earth to Kurt...” She waved her hands in front of his face.
“What? Oh yeah, me too,” he said.
“You too what? You didn’t even hear me. Sometimes, Kurt, I swear you’re on another planet. I said that Prince song you put near the end of side one was amazing. It was really familiar.”
“You probably heard the Cyndi Lauper version. It’s on the She’s So Unusual record. Prince wrote it. I still prefer his version.”
“Oh yeah, that’s where I’ve heard it. My mom used to listen to that record all the time.”
“Prince is another genius I could go on about for hours.”
“Hold that thought,” she said. “I have to go the bathroom.” She grabbed the Rolling Stone he’d brought in yesterday with Adele on the cover. Kurt looked like he’d zoned out again. “You sure you’re okay?”
“Huh, oh yeah. I’m just a little tired. I was up pretty late drinking wine and jamming with my guitar player.”
“Okay. I’ll be right back. Hold down the fort for me.” Halfway down the hall Rhiannon wondered if it might be something more on his mind. She’d loved the tape he’d made her. She’d listened to it all morning until the batteries in her Walkman died. She could be wrong, but she sensed that the songs told a story. Kurt’s story. He’d used her favorite artists, her language to tell her who he was, where he’d been, and what he thought the future held. There were songs about the love of rock ‘n’ roll, songs about heartbreak, getting burned, about meeting someone new, and songs of hope. It was hard to pick favorites since she loved each of them, but so far the Prince tune, “When You were Mine” and the Rancid song, “Corazon de Oro” refused to be ignored. Each dripped with vulnerability. The Rancid song translated to “Heart of Gold.” They reminded her of the lyrics from another song: Be gentle if you please, because your hands are in my hair, but my heart is in your teeth.
Coming back up the hall, she was startled by the girl standing behind the door to the pool room. Long brown curls, coiled next to dark, dusky eyes and pouty lips, seemed to be swaying in a breeze. Despite the girl’s beauty, the way she stood there and stared made Rhiannon want to turn away and run. The girl’s lips turned upward as she backed away from the door. Rhiannon hurried back down the hall and found Kurt checking in an elderly couple. The way the girl had stared, the creepy little grin, and Jenna’s ghost story from yesterday coalesced into a serious case of the heebee jeebees. Goose bump city made itself at home over Rhiannon’s body.
The elderly couple nodded at Kurt as he explained the amenities the inn offered. The little old lady glanced at Rhiannon and cracked a polite smile. Rhiannon feigned one in return. The gentle-looking woman standing across from her seemed half the world away. Rhiannon could only see the upturned lips of the strange beauty in the pool room.
…..
Timothy Laymon swerved his Mustang all over the empty road, crossing the yellow line over and over again until he slammed on the brakes, screeching to a halt in the middle of the deserted street.
Cold droplets of sweat busted out over his brow and down the length of his back. The gas station cheeseburger he’d ingested from a 2 AM pit stop, stirred in his suddenly nerve-racked stomach. He stared at his clenched fists in their white-knuckled death grip on the steering wheel. He was afraid to look again, afraid to confirm what he thought he’d seen.
“I’m real,” she whispered in his ear.
He spun to face the impossibility behind him. She was gone.
“Fuck,” he gasped out loud. “Holy fuck.”
The overnight drive must have worn him out more than he’d thought. He sat facing forward behind the wheel of the powerful car, rubbing his tired eyes, taking a few more seconds to reset. Once he got a handle on himself, he eased the car forward, gradually getting it back up to speed. He wanted to convince himself that the vision had been the work of his exhausted mind and tired eyes, but could not stop glancing in the rearview mirror, certain the girl would reappear. She did not. He passed a sign that read:
The Bruton Inn- “Better Beds, Better Service, Better Stay.”
5 miles
…..
Somewhere beneath the heated indoor pool of the Bruton Inn, Sarah smiled, patiently awaiting the arrival of the unsuspecting harmony to her dark melody.
Chapter Two
“I don’t know what to tell you. I stepped into the room and the light wasn’t on. That weirded me out enough, but I could see my breath. It was cold, like winter cold.”
“You heard what they said happened here, didn’t you?” Shannon said.
“Something about a guy having a heart attack in the pool?” Jenna said.
Rhiannon stood just inside the door to the laundry room after using the employee bathroom. Jenna and Shannon’s conversation about shadows and cold spots–a bunch of nonsense some of the housekeeping staff indulged their wild imaginations in–caught her attention. Being the new front desk girl, and admittedly not the most social butterfly amongst the female employees, most of whom talked about drinking and fucking and what happened last night on Teen Mom, Rhiannon had to eavesdrop for any gossip not pertaining to the aforementioned backwoods slut talk. She didn’t believe in ghosts, but this was at least halfway interesting.
“Well, yeah, but you know why he had a heart attack?”
“He was outta shape?”
“I don’t know about that, but I overheard Carla telling Pauline she thought it was the ghost.”
“Fuck you, Shan. You’re just trying to freak me out.”
“No shit. Carla said she’d felt it too. She said she’d been cleaning rooms and had to step out because it got cold all of a sudden, and that sometimes she thinks somebody’s watching her.”
“Oh yeah? And what did Pauline say to that?”
“She told her not to be so superstitious. That the hotel isn’t haunted.”
“Well, there you go.”
Rhiannon heard the door to the laundry room open with a loud clack. She quickly stepped back into the bathroom, flushed the toilet and walked back out pretending she’d been in there the entire time. Carla was giving the gossip girls the business.
“You two in here just jibber-jabberin’?”
“No we were just–”
“You get all the rooms down here finished already?”
“No, we still have a few–”
“I didn’t think so. Now get your butts back out here and hurry it up. We got a full house tonight.”
Rhiannon stepped around the corner and past the two girls with ugly faces.
“Hey there, Rhiannon, how are you doin’ today?” Carla said.
“Pretty good. We’ve already had some people checking in early though.”
Jenna walked between them, followed by Shannon. Shannon shot her a nasty “thanks for piling it on” look. Rhiannon smiled back. She wasn’t really friends with any of the females outside of Pauline the general manager and Carla. She mostly talked to Kurt, who worked second shift, and the overnight guy, Jeff. Keeping company with the boys rather than the catty girls didn’t do much for her reputation here either, but she didn’t really give a shit.
“Well, we’ll get the rest of those rooms ready for ya then. Back to the grind.”
Rhiannon followed the wider woman out the door and into the hallway. Normally Carla could be heard swishing down the hall singing some oldies tune or another. Today, she was all business and that’s what the girls were getting an earful of on their way back to their duties.