by Alexie Aaron
Maggie found the cuddly man and barked, and then she let out a long howl before pushing her nose into the face of the near frozen man. She laid down and pushed her long body alongside the man, hoping to keep him warm. She howled again.
“Maggie’s found something,” Cid said, raising the back of the truck to let Ted out.
“I’ve got a tracker on her collar. Here,” Ted said, shoving a small box with a LED display on it to Cid. “Follow this. I’ll grab some blankets and follow you.”
Cid did as instructed. He couldn’t help calling Maggie’s name even though he could see that she had stopped and settled a few acres from the truck. His booted feet broke through the crust of the snow and found solid ground a few inches below. He maintained a steady pace, watching the display.
Ted caught up to him, holding an emergency backpack bulging with supplies. He flung it over one arm while trying to put his coat on the other.
“Whose idea was the GPS in her collar?”
“Mine. I’d have all of you wired if I could get away with it,” Ted said, sighing as he achieved the last sleeve of his coat and was zipping up. “I’d shoot a small chip…”
“Listen, Big Brother, you’ll do no such thing,” Cid warned. “Flashes of dystopia and a world in grayscale just filled my mind.”
Ted just sniffed.
Maggie heard the tall men approach and barked. The cuddly man wasn’t breathing too well. She tried to lick his face, but half of it was buried in the snow, and the other half was very cold.
“Good girl,” Cid said as he saw the protective stance Maggie had taken up.
Ted ran over and knelt beside Burt. “Burt, wake up. Now’s not the time for a nap. Come on, old boy, the night’s still young.”
Burt murmured something unintelligible.
“Spit out the snow and speak-a-da English,” Ted ordered.
“Asshole,” Burt managed.
“Cid, you can stop fretting. Burt’s spoken the universal word for Ted.”
Cid reached into the pack on Ted’s back and pulled out a blanket, along with some hot packs that he activated and began applying to the fallen man’s body.
“As soon as you can walk, we need to get you into the truck and into some warm dry clothing,” Ted said, urging the man from his prone position to a seated one.
Burt started to feel pinpricks in his extremities as the warm packs and blanket did their job. “Thank God you found me. The others, where are they?”
“I expect they are continuing the investigation,” Cid said. “Plan was to get you out and continue with the job.”
“Are you freakin’ crazy?” Burt asked. “I almost died in there, several times.”
“But here you are, safe and frozen,” Ted said as he lifted the investigator to his feet. “Never investigate alone.”
“We have four PEEPs on the job. And I believe a volunteer from the Tear Drop Tavern. Five of us. How many ghosts are we dealing with?” Cid asked.
“Two and a house. The house is an entity in itself,” Burt said, stomping life back into his feet. He bent down and stroked Maggie’s head. “Thank you, you saved my life.”
Maggie looked up at the cuddly man and noted the change of tone in his voice. She knew that her efforts had earned her some bacon. She didn’t smell bacon. Where was the bacon?
~
“Let’s see, I have two large rooms ready,” Mrs. Brewster said efficiently. She led the two couples up the stairs. She wasn’t sure why she suddenly had two sets of people to care for, but the inn seemed fine with it, and so she would do her damned best to be a good hostess. Mr. Hicks, with all his wanderings and questions, sure had tried her patience. “I can only put you up for the night,” she warned as she waited for them on the landing.
“That suits Stephen and me just fine,” Mia said, looping her arm through Murphy’s. “We have to be on the road early. Is that going to present a problem?”
Mrs. Brewster shook her head after a moment. Mia watched her hostess, observing that the woman seemed to be listening to a silent partner before she spoke.
“Would eight be soon enough?” she asked.
“Eight sounds fine,” Mia assured her.
Audrey watched how smoothly Mia dealt with the formidable woman before her. She didn’t fall out of character, nor did her voice have the nervous tone Audrey’s had. Mike too seemed confident with role-playing. Was it their experience that stilled their shaking hands, or were both of them natural born liars?
“Here we are,” Mrs. Brewster announced. “I have put you Murphys in the front blue room. Across the hall, Mr. and Mrs. Dupree will have the floral suite.” She swung open the door to the blue room, turned heel and walked across the hall, leading Audrey and Mike into the floral suite.
Audrey looked around at the tasteful floral décor and said, “This is so beautiful!”
Mrs. Brewster flushed with pride. “This is my favorite room. I can send someone up to start a fire in the fireplace for you.”
Mike waved a hand. “No thank you, I’m an old boy scout. I think I can manage, but I’m dying for a cup of tea.”
“How about you two coming down in fifteen minutes to the dining room,” she invited. “I’ll have Millie set out a table of pastries for you to enjoy too.”
“You’re a dear,” Mike said and grasped the woman’s hand a brief moment. Realizing he was touching the hand of someone that was long dead, his stomach did a flip-flop and tears flooded his eyes.
Mrs. Brewster thought the tears that sprang to his eyes were from his honest appreciation of her hospitality and was pleased. She turned and all but danced out into the hall, closing the door after her.
Mike sunk to his knees.
Alarmed, Audrey asked, “What is it? What can I do?”
“Give me a moment,” he said. He got up and grasped her shoulder as she led him to one of a set of wingback chairs framing the fireplace. “If I can trust my stomach as a barometer of paranormal weirdness, that Mrs. Brewster, beneath her hospitable demeanor, is a contradictory blend of hostess and warden. She, basically, freaks me out.”
A light tap on the door preceded Mia and Murphy walking into their room. “Excuse me, but you wouldn’t happen to have an aspirin? My hubby is sporting a hell of a headache,” Mia said. She pointed to her chest where she had morphed a tee shirt with something written on it.
Warning: the house is listening! And below it flashed, But it can’t read.
Mike smiled as he read Mia’s message. He pulled out his notebook and began scribbling. He encouraged the three to look at what he had written.
Mrs. Brewster is very protective of the inn.
Did Burt get out?
Nice tits, Mrs. Murphy-Martin.
“Very funny,” Mia said. “Yes, I hope so, and Ted likes them.”
Murphy looked up from the notebook and shook his head at the last entry. He pulled out his watch and tapped it.
The other three nodded as they were reminded that there wasn’t much time.
~
Millie moved quickly down the back stairs to the kitchen. Paul followed on her heels. She wasn’t sure how she was going to explain his presence but knew that she needed him next to her or she was going to lose her nerve.
“There you are! We have two couples. One, a delightful pair, I’ve put them in the floral suite. Dupree’s the name. In the blue room I put the Murphys. I suspect they aren’t married. The way he looks at her gives me a hot flash. Anyway, I’ve promised them a snack in the dining room before bedtime. Hello, Paul.”
“Good evening, Mother Brewster. I’m just waiting for Millie to finish. I promised her a meal and a movie. It’s our anniversary.”
“Really? My, how time flies,” Mrs. Brewster said. “Congratulations.”
Millie let the tension ease out of her shoulders. Her mother, or what was masquerading as her mother, had accepted Paul’s being there as just a daily occurrence at the Dew Drop Inn.
Mia and Murphy moved out onto the top of the por
ch. Mia held an energon cube Mike had secreted away in Audrey’s valise. Mia, worried that the cube could generate a problem with the house, had decided to sprout wings. She flew off the top of the porch and held the cube as far away from the building as possible but still close enough for Murphy to connect to it with the axe. The farther away from the inn Mia moved, the stronger she felt. The power of the ley line segment was different than the other lines she had traveled, but it did seem to nourish her all the same.
Murphy felt the power flow into him. He was able to feel, along with his strength increasing, the aches and pains of a normal man. His shoulder ached, and his lower back was stiff from years of planting. This he didn’t miss about being human again. With the cube extinguished, Mia moved back onto the porch and teetered on the edge. Murphy caught her and felt the thrill of being touched. This he did miss.
“Are you alright?” she asked him tenderly.
“Difficult to explain,” he said. “Don’t worry, I’m fine.”
“K. You say the word and we’ll bail. You’re more important than getting readings on this place. There are, according to fiction, hundreds of Fata Morganas, but there is only one Stephen Murphy.”
Murphy stepped back amused and endeared by her statement. “Thank you, Mia. Let’s see if we can free Paul’s wife from this place and get the hell out of here.”
“Your language is appalling,” Mia sniffed.
Murphy opened his mouth to say something but caught the twinkle in her eye and just nodded.
“Hey, you two, stop messing around,” Mike hissed from the window. “We’re to be at tea in five minutes.”
“I believe you and Audrey were invited and not us,” Mia reminded him. “We’ll explore while you keep Battle-axe Brewster occupied.”
Mike and Audrey left the blue room and headed for the front stairs.
“I see you’ve become acquainted with the Murphys,” Mrs. Brewster said from behind them.
Mike whirled around and smiled. “You gave me a start Mrs….”
“Amelia,” she supplied with a girlish giggle.
“Amelia it is then. Amelia, in my line of work I find it valuable to get to know my neighbors. You never know when you’ll make a good connection.”
“Didn’t you find them an odd couple? She’s so snooty and he, well, so common,” she said, linking her arm with Mike’s, causing Audrey to let go and fall into step behind them.
“Amelia,” Mike said, suppressing another bout of queasiness. “I think you’d be surprised just how uncommon Stephen Murphy is.”
Chapter Seven
Burt finished his report. Ted typed the account out while Cid plied the investigator with hot drinks and sugary snack cakes. Maggie was curled up under Mia’s lounge chair and was chewing on the rawhide bone Ted had produced from one of his many file drawers. This came from file drawer R, for reward.
“I’m out a backpack full of equipment, my computer bag with my laptop in it, and all the spare clothes I brought with me, including…”
“Your lucky shorts?” Ted asked.
“No I have them on. How’d you know I… never mind,” Burt said.
“We found your laptop, but it’s going to need some TLC before you’ll be able to use it,” Ted told him. “We found it abandoned in the snow,” he explained, “not far from your car. That’s where Murphy first saw the ley line segment. Mia and he would have taken a trip in it right away, but we all decided we needed more information before she chanced a trip in the disrupted line.”
“Mia shouldn’t be risking herself this way. Neither, come to think of it, should Mike and Audrey be in that place. I’m telling you, the Dew Drop Inn is a living thing.”
“If all goes according to plan,” Cid started, “Mike and Audrey will leave in the morning just like all the other lost travelers have, with the exception of you. Mia and Murphy will abandon the inn as soon as Paul Swanson can convince his wife to leave the inn with him.”
“Millie, Paul’s wife, does seem to be puzzled by the constant morning’s chores and flip flop weather,” Burt admitted.
“Let’s address that for a moment,” Ted requested. “You’re telling us that it is winter and summer at the same time?”
“No, but within minutes of each other.”
“It’s as if the place is trying to maintain the integrity of how it was when the meteorite struck,” Ted reasoned.
“What meteorite?” Burt asked.
“OMG, dude, you don’t know. We figured out what turned the Dew Drop Inn into a Fata Morgana,” Ted said and brought Burt up to speed on what they had discovered.
“So, if it’s bouncing between two ley lines happily, why did it turn on me when I challenged it?” Burt asked.
“Paul mentioned to Mia that the Brewster family made it their policy that no traveler would go without a bed for the night. Many times the family bunked out in the kitchen so any last minute guests could sleep comfortably in their rooms,” Ted said.
“So?”
“I know you’ve been in places, houses, stores, restaurants, where the personality of the owners seeped into the very walls of the place.”
“Are we talking atmosphere?” Burt scoffed.
“No, we are talking about a building evolving into a living entity, taking on the character of the people within,” Cid said. “Ted, Mia and I believe that the reason the inn stops to cater to lost travelers is because that’s what the owners of the inn would have wanted it to do. Somehow when lost and depleted travelers cross the ley line, their worry, and perhaps exhaustion, summons the inn. We took your calculations and used them to call the Dew Drop to us.”
Burt, who was just now getting a buzz from the coffee and sugar the boys had plied him with, lit up. “Eureka, Holmes, Watson, I think you’ve got it! All this time I was thinking that it was just my math that would predict when and where the inn would materialize.”
“You didn’t factor in that it doesn’t stop every time,” Ted said yawning.
“Are we keeping you up, Watson?” Cid asked.
“No, just experiencing suggestibility,” Ted answered. “You mentioned exhaustion, and I became tired. How about talking about something upbeat and dramatic?”
“Like your imminent death if we don’t get back on target?” Cid warned.
“That’ll do it,” Ted said, sitting up in his chair.
“How is it that I could survive or even enter a ley line?” Burt asked. “According to Mia, a flesh and blood human can’t see ley lines. How could a person walk through the line and not even get a tingle, let alone be pulled along in it.”
“We don’t know exactly how the inn is able to do all the things it does. We’re hoping Mike and Audrey will be able to bring back readings on the place. One thesis is that when the meteorite hit the ground, it sent an energy wave into the ley line along with the inn. This energy has maintained the inn’s integrity…”
“Just like it was on that fateful summer day,” Burt added. “But there’s more. The inn thinks. It expresses itself through Mrs. Brewster. She waffles between being a good hostess and a strict warden. She didn’t like me much.”
“Could be, the inn sensed that all wasn’t kosher with you. You used the inn’s hospitality and in return questioned its existence,” Ted deduced.
“So what’ll we do?” Burt asked. “Do we let it continue drawing in guests, performing its function?”
“You tell us. The test will be whether it lets Mike and Audrey leave in the morning. If not, it’s a sign that it has evolved into something besides the oasis it has been for the last few decades,” Cid said.
“Do you think I caused this change?” Burt asked.
“I don’t really know. Every guest that stayed probably left a part of themselves there. Not that they were aware they were doing so. We fear that the FM will build up too much energy and explode,” Cid said.
“It’s been stable for decades,” Burt argued.
So was Mount St. Helens…” Ted said, getting up to che
ck on his wife’s resting body. “Energy can’t continue to build without a release mechanism.”
“What happens to something that explodes in a magnetic gridlock?” Burt asked.
“What do you think happens?” Ted inquired.
“You’re the science guys; you tell me,” Burt insisted.
“It implodes, sucks in everything around it first then explodes outward. It may shoot downward into the earth or upward into space. All I know is that it will impact this area,” Ted answered him.
“When?”
“We have no idea. Soon. In the next few years. Without readings we have no clue.”
“How do we stop it?” Burt asked.
“Now that’s up for debate. Mia says we need to locate what is blocking the ley line. We pretty much assumed it was a meteorite on the Ashville end. But we can’t be positive what is stopping it on the other end,” Cid informed him.
“So if we dig up the meteorite…”
“That’s not advisable without removing the dam on the other side of the segment at the same time. If by a miracle we are able to dig in this frozen ground and locate the meteorite and remove it, the force of the pent up energy would shoot the FM into the existing line, probably killing any oobers on it. That part of the ley line extends to Cape Hatteras and is actively used,” Ted explained. “The same thing would happen if we remove the northern block. Itasca would take a hit, although it is a shorter segment. But there is a small possibility that it could still rebound.”
“Why did I get us into this?” Burt moaned. “I should have just left well enough alone.”
“Actually, I think you were meant to do this,” Cid said. “I don’t mean to get all Doctor Who on you, but the universe called to you and you responded.”
Burt lifted an eyebrow. “That’s a load of shit.”