The Eaton

by John K. Addis

  Oliver glanced at Jonathan, who was making more notes in his journal. He tried to read the man’s expression when he looked up from his book, but was unable. Jonathan had the detached countenance of a scientific observer. Thankfully, he didn't look like he was going to speak, but his wife beside him was one of the few remaining skeptical faces. Oliver knew Niamh’s vision had been dramatic and personal, and she would be less likely to dismiss her experience as a simple, temporary delusion.

  “I have a proposition,” Oliver announced with renewed confidence. “I overhead a few of you discussing the possibility of cutting your stay short.” He raised his hands up in a playful, defensive gesture. “Now, of course you are always free to leave. You're my guests, not my prisoners, after all! But the last train out of Eaton Rapids has already left, and as you know, the station is closed. So there really wouldn't be anywhere for you to go tonight, except for the few of you who live in the village. Therefore, since you're stuck in this luxurious place until morning anyway, I say you enjoy a night of free wine and spirits on me, and music as long as you like. We have more than 100 records available for the ballroom gramophone, and since most of you are dressed so lovely already, I encourage you to dance and be merry with me. And if anyone still wants to leave tomorrow morning instead of Monday morning, my feelings will not be hurt.” He flashed the group another genuine smile, and saw that now, finally, he seemed to have won them all over.

  After dinner, Jonathan approached each of the people who had experienced a sighting and jotted down some basic information in his journal. He thanked each individual and assured them that Dr. Carr was likely correct, and not to worry. But as he reviewed his notes, and mapped the approximate times that each person reported an hallucination with a rough sketch of the hotel’s vertical layout, he knew his suspicions had been correct. Before he could bring the information to Oliver’s attention, Niamh entwined an arm in his, and asked Jon to stop working for a moment and to come dance with her. He smiled, closed the journal, and accompanied her to the ballroom floor.

  The alcohol poured freely throughout the night, and only a handful of guests turned in early. Oliver noticed that even Jonathan and Niamh seemed to be enjoying themselves. Before long, the crowd thinned, and Jonathan took Oliver aside to announce they, too, were heading to bed. But he asked Oliver to be honest about his claim of hallucinations from weeks earlier. Oliver wasn't prepared for the question, and accidentally revealed the truth, that he hadn't had any hallucinations at all. When Jon's face hardened in response, Oliver protested that he was only trying to make people feel comfortable, and that his theory was supported by Dr. Carr.

  “Be reasonable, Jonathan,” he said. “There aren't ghosts. What else could it be than hallucinations triggered by the magnetic springs? It makes perfect sense, and now people aren't scared anymore.”

  “But you don't know that,” Jon warned. “And I have to be honest with you, Oliver—what I saw didn't seem like a hallucination. It seemed as real as you are. I believe I could have touched those flies. And my wife believes her brother was in her room.”

  “Did you get a chance to talk to Dr. Winchell?” Oliver asked. “Surely, a man of his credentials might have greater persuasive powers than a mere building owner.”

  “Dr. Winchell is a century old,” Jon scoffed. “I did look for him after your speech, but he left with his wife right after dinner, for a good fifteen hours of rest I imagine. But from what I understand, he can barely hear anyway.”

  “Well, what alternative explanation are you proposing,” Oliver asked with manufactured innocence. He knew perfectly well what Jon was going to propose. He had been obsessing over those damned stone carvings, and had demanded details about when his team had moved the boulder blocking the empty cave.

  “Oliver,” he said, lowering his voice even though no one seemed in earshot. “As my dear wife reminded me earlier, there are many things I cannot explain from my travels across this great world. I have heard legends told by the peoples of six different continents, and while my scientific mind might demand proof, my gut requires no such evidence to be persuaded.” Jon looked around to assure the conversation remained private, and then lowered his voice to a near-whisper. “Did you know that every civilization known to man has myths about demons who can change their physical appearance? Every one?”

  A fleeting look of doom flashed across Oliver's face, but was soon masked by his usual, good-humored charm. “Jonathan,” he said, licking his lips. “How much have you had to drink?”

  “Not much at all, thank you,” he said stiffly.

  Oliver's face melted into an expression of benevolent pity. “My dear man, I assure you there is nothing to worry about. It's just—”

  “If you tell me it's just a hallucination one more time,” Jon shot back, “I will wring your damned neck, I don't care who you are.” As soon as the words has escaped his lips, Jon realized that perhaps he had indeed imbibed more than he had estimated, and he held his hands up in an apologetic salute. “Sir, I am sorry.”

  Oliver was unfazed. “Jon,” he asked, with a conspiratorial raise of his right eyebrow, “do you believe in ghosts?”

  Jon shook his head. “No, I do not.”

  “Then why in our Lord’s name would you believe in demons?”

  A memory from Jon's childhood, one he had tried to suppress most of his adult life, came rushing into his brain with such force he actually shuddered. He was a child of ten, living in the Michigan town of Kalamazoo, which had still been named Bronson back when his family had settled in the small village. Titus Bronson, the town’s original founder, was Jon’s great uncle, and although he had passed on years before Jon himself was born, his family related many an amusing tale of the eccentric old coot. Indeed, the town had been renamed in 1836 precisely because of Titus’ wild actions, including the bizarre theft of a full-sized cherry tree from a neighbor’s property. Jon could only imagine how low the opinion of the townsfolk must have been of his uncle to have replaced the sturdy-sounding town moniker “Bronson” for the rather ridiculous mouthful of “Kalamazoo.” Titus’ youngest sister, Jon’s grandmother Edwina, defended her late brother the best she could against the town’s persistent accusations that the man had been crazy, but as she descended into a similar manic dementia in her later years, her defensive claims convinced others that the entire family was out of their minds.

  Edwina had lived alone for years, but there had been an incident involving Edwina and a neighbor which resulted in a judge declaring her incompetent. Jon wasn’t told the details, but his father Charles had explained that his grandmother was “sick in the head” and would have to come live with them. Unfortunately, it meant that their already modest house had to make room for an extra bed, and Jon had to share his bedroom with Edwina until their father could complete a long-overdue addition. An only child, Jon had been proud of having his own room, as most of his friends shared a room with at least one sister or brother. Even at ten years of age, he had understood the benefits of privacy, and knew that his days of staying up late to read by candlelight, or exploring his own body under the blanket as he thought of his attractive blonde schoolteacher, had come to an end.

  The first two nights had been uneventful. Edwina fell asleep quickly, and didn't snore or move around much, so Jon was unaffected by her. But the third night was different. He awoke to her choked screams of nonsense, writhing around in her bed as if in pain. Jon wasn't sure what to do. He debated waking her up, which he felt would be merciful, but was also terrified that she would begin screaming at him instead. His father had been awoken by the noise, and had come into the room to see what was wrong. He shook his mother awake, and she bit him on the arm, not knowing where she was or who the man shaking her had been. He slapped her across the face, and she came to, sobbing uncontrollably and apologizing for her behavior. Jon pretended to be asleep, but listened to all of it, as his dad spent a good half an hour calming her down and whispering to her until she slept aga
in. But Jon couldn't fall back asleep. His eyes stayed open in the dim moonlit room, hoping his grandmother wouldn't have another episode and bite him, too.

  The next few weeks were worse. Jon learned to sleep lightly, to respond to and prepare for unexpected sounds and behavior through the night. Once he awoke to found his grandmother peering over him, frozen like a statue, only to cackle like a hyena when Jon asked if she was okay. Another night, he awoke to find her missing altogether, and left the room to look for her, only to discover she had never actually left, but had crawled underneath the bed to sleep in total darkness. On yet another night, she couldn't fall asleep at all, and recited her rosary aloud for hours and hours, her voice growing weaker and more panicked with every run, as if the fate of the world depended upon her successful iteration of a thousand Hail Marys.

  Jon complained to his parents, begged them to find another room for grandma to sleep in, but although they were sympathetic, they insisted it was temporary, and to try and have more empathy for his grandmother's plight. “She's not well, is all,” his mom would say. “She's still the same person who brought you treats on Sundays and bathed you when you were little. And she's your only living grandparent. We need to give back to her, after she's given so much to all of us.” Jon would feel guilty at this, and chastise himself for complaining. After all, his own life was better than hers. What gave him the right to be so judgmental? Didn't he, too, hope to be old someday, cared for and surrounded by family he loved?

  For several nights after that conversation, things seemed better. Jon no longer felt sorry for himself, but felt sorry for Edwina. He went out of his way to help tuck her in at night, tell her how much he cared for her, and even read her poetry to help her fall asleep. She, too, appeared to have calmed down, her erratic behavior now seeming eccentric rather than scary. She would tell him “you're such a good boy,” and “I'm so lucky to have this family.” Which made it especially shocking when Jon awoke one night to feel his grandmother's frail, naked body pressed against his, under his covers, her breath against his neck, her hands under his pajamas.

  He tried to scream, but no sound emerged from his throat. It felt like someone was strangling him. His heart began to race, and his face broke out in a sweat. Was this a dream? What was happening?

  “Love me,” Edwina whispered harshly into his face, her sour breath drowning him like viscous syrup. “Love me, love me now. Show it to me, oh Jesus. Oh Jesus.”

  He could feel her sharp nails pierce the delicate skin of his abdomen. He was sure he was bleeding. Again, Jon tried to cry out, for his father, and again no sound came.

  “Oh Jesus,” she repeated, her whisper evolving into a sort of croak, her body stiffening against his, her nails digging deeper.

  Jon’s voice returned to him. “Father! Father!” He was shouting now, repeating the word over and over like a man on fire screaming for help. He felt he said it a hundred times before his dad stormed through the door, accurately assessed the situation, and pulled his naked, clinging mother off the body of his terrified son. The shriveled, wrinkled pile of flesh on the floor began to shake and shudder, and even in the dim filtered light, Jon could see her wide, black eyes darting about, demanding answers. She had a wild, caged animal quality that seemed as awake and alert as Jon had ever seen her, and he was struck with the notion that this could not be his true grandmother, but instead was some demonic imposter. She did little to help disprove this fear when she bit her tongue so hard that it began to spray blood across the rug, adding yet another level of horror to a macabre performance.

  Jon's father was sure she would come to after he shook her, for this must all be a terrible nightmare for her, but she didn't return to normality. Edwina tried to bite her son, but he was ready this time, and slapped her hard across the face, only to be greeted with a bloody smile and a dark, humorless chuckle.

  “Go on,” she teased in a tongue-injured lisp. “Hit me. Hit your mother again, you ungrateful child. Hit me in the face.” She stared him down, blood trickling from her lips to her impossibly thin, wrinkled neck, coating her translucent onion-skin flesh in streaks of crimson. Her voice grew deeper then, as if all light had been extinguished from her soul. “I will kill your son. Sweet merciful Jesus, he will die slowly and horribly, praise God.” And then, confronted with stunned silence, she filled the void with the loudest, more gleeful laughter Jon had ever heard.

  Charles Wesley sent his son out of the room to get chains from the cellar. When Jon returned, Charles tied up his naked mother and methodically chained her to the iron bed posts. She didn't say a word in protest, but panted with exertion even though she had stopped all voluntary movement. Jon had to explain the situation to his mother, who held him tight and rocked him back and forth, promising everything would be okay. He spent the rest of the night in his parents’ bed, too scared to go back to sleep, as his father stood guarding the monster who had once given him life.

  At noon the next day, two priests arrived. Charles had sent Jon's mother into town for them at the crack of dawn, to explain the situation, and they had come prepared, with crucifixes, holy water, and a Bible Jon thought looked a thousand years old. Although forbidden to enter the room, Jon could hear the priests' Latin verses, his grandmother's screams, and his father's sobbing. Even when he left the house for air, the terrible sounds of exorcism followed him into the yard, and even into the nearby woods, where Jon collapsed by a tall tree and cried like an infant, until his exhausted body fell asleep on the mossy earth.

  When he awoke a few hours later, all was quiet. He crept back to the house, one side of his face caked with dirt and both arms covered in bug bites, but still heard nothing even as he stood by the open front door. A fear crept across his body that his grandmother had killed his parents, and the priests, and had freed herself from her chains, and was now looking for him. But then he saw his mother, sitting still and silent on the uncomfortable divon, eyes wet but staring ahead, seeing nothing and somehow everything, uncertain what to say or do.

  “Mother?”

  She turned to him, and offered a small, hopeful smile.

  “Hello, my son.”

  “Mother, what has happened?”

  She said nothing at first, out of kindness rather than uncertainty. She didn't want her baby to grow up this fast.

  “Come sit by me,” she offered at last. He did.

  The house was empty save the two of them. There was no sign of his father, or the priests, or Edwina.

  “Jonathan,” his mother said sweetly, placing a hand on his. “Do you know what a demon is?”

  Jon nodded. He knew of the Devil, and demons, and Hell. He had learned such things from school and church.

  “Well,” his mother continued, looking down at where their hands touched, “a demon was possessing your grandmother. A vicious, cruel demon had taken over her body, and her mind, and voice. It wasn't her fault, you understand. The Devil is much stronger than a man or a woman. She was not a bad person, I promise you, child. It was not her fault.”

  Jon became vaguely aware that his mother was referring to Edwina in the past tense. “Did the priests get the demon out?” he asked.

  His mom smiled. “Yes, I expect they did. But Jon, it cost her. To save her soul, they had to end her life. Do you understand?”

  Jon nodded again. He did not understand, but saw the importance of understanding for his mother's sake.

  “The world is full of demons, my love. Full of them. They creep in every shadow. They hide beneath the earth. In dark places, in caves, in holes in the ground, closer to hell, protected by blackness and dust and silence. They took hold of your grandmother's spirit, and they tried to suck its life away, tried to suck all that was good and Christian in her, until she was just a shell, an empty shell, which they filled with hate, and evil, and lust, and sin. It's important that you know it wasn't her, Jonathan. You must forgive her, if you hold any ill will against her for making you uncomfortable. She was not an unvir
tuous woman. Her soul is with God now. But her body belongs to the earth, and your father, along with Father Mark and Father Thomas, have gone to put her where she belongs.”

  It was a hard lesson. Jonathan had loved his grandmother once, before he had grown fearful of her. He took comfort in the idea that the wrinkled, naked woman who crawled into his bed and touched his body with her sharp fingernails was not his grandmother, not really. Perhaps his grandmother had been an empty shell for some time, filled by the demon's dark energy before she had even moved in with them. She had not been herself. She had been possessed. And maybe now, with the demon expunged and her body empty of consciousness, she could find peace.

  In The Eaton, Jon recovered from this memory, and looked at Oliver with a touch of embarrassment. “I do not know if I believe in demons,” he said at last. “I have seen much in my life to suggest their presence, yet there have always been possible alternate explanations. And I agree there are multiple interpretations of the past day's events. But that doesn't mean we stop trying to find the right interpretation. Whether or not I believe in demons, I do believe in answers.” He opened his journal. He had sketched a cross-section map of the hotel’s floors, and made notes concerning the location and time of each known vision.

  Oliver leaned in to see what Jon had written. “Answers,” he repeated.

  “Look here,” Jon said, tapping his pen at each point of interest. “The first reported hallucination is on the second floor, around two o’clock. Then another, here, on the third floor, at half past two. Then another, here on the fourth floor, at a quarter past three, and then my wife’s, at four o’clock right here, and the one I witnessed, also on our floor, at a quarter past that.”