The Eaton would not make this mistake again.
twenty-seven
“Let me in,” purred the voice of Jonathan Wesley from behind the wooden doors. “We’ll talk about things. I can tell you about myself, about this place. We’ll have a nice talk. We don’t have to be enemies. You’re my family. You’re my grandson, Albert. A boy I never got to meet.”
Al placed his right palm gently against his side of the door, as a visitor might attempt contact with a prisoner behind bulletproof glass. Sarah stepped forward, alarmed at Al’s proximity to the danger. “Step back, Al. Come on.”
Al ignored her, or perhaps didn't hear her at all. He was transfixed, as if hypnotized by the familiar baritone voice just inches from his hand. He even had a decent idea of what the creature must look like, based on old photos he had inherited when his mother had passed away.
“You've been looking for me, haven't you,” said the voice.
“All my life,” Al whispered.
“Then let me in. We can talk.”
Sarah stepped closer once more, but Sam placed a hand on her arm and shook his head. “He's not going to let him in,” he assured her. Al still had his right palm resting against the door, but was making no motion to reach for the knob or lock. He was simply standing in place, mesmerized by the voice but not seduced by its message.
Al stifled a laugh that might have been a sob. “You know I can't.”
“Why can't you,” said the voice.
“Because,” Al replied with genuine effort, “I saw what you did to Janet.”
“She tried to escape,” the creature reminded him.
“But so will we.”
“Now, Albert,” the voice replied in the soothing, yet condescending tone Jon sometimes had used on Clem. “You must know you're never leaving here. You know that, right?”
“My grandfather left.”
“Did I? Oh, I wouldn't agree with that my child. See, you seem to think that just because Jonathan Wesley lived for years outside of this place, that means he isn't still here. But of course he's still here, because here I am. I retain his memories, from the innermost corners of his mind. That's more than I can say for his original, rotting body.”
“He lived a life after you. He lived decades after you, memories you can't possibly know. You're incomplete.”
“I know some of them,” Jon's voice countered. “Because I recorded them, and you heard them, and retained them. Recordings, too, that no longer exist, as I understand. So again, I am all of me that is left.”
Al said nothing to this. He let his hand fall from the wooden barrier before him, and turned to face his companions. Sympathy flooded Sarah's face when she saw him, as Al's cheeks were now drenched with tears.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
Sam shot Sarah an irritated scowl. “He's fine.” He turned back to Al, and his face held a mix of heartbreak and fury. “You knew about this place? You knew about…that?”
“No, not…not really. I mean, I've always wondered if his stories were real. I've imagined it…like any kid digging in his backyard imagines buried treasure, you know? But you never truly believe…” Al looked and sounded like a confused child now, without a trace of the sarcastic, weary man Sam had gotten to know. But this didn't dissipate Sam's anger. Sam was still carrying a full container of water, and was tempted to throw it at the bastard.
“You didn't think to mention it when we pulled up the floorboards? When we were standing in a fucking underground hotel lobby? Or even when you found the damned journal?”
The reel-to-reel tapes had offered few specifics, and Al had spent his younger years searching Michigan’s abandoned hotels, only later considering underground possibilities which might better match up with his grandfather’s recorded ramblings of “the dark.” It had been chance that he had met Sam a few months earlier, and learned of the kid’s plans to purchase the old depot, offering to help on a very slim chance of discovery. But once it became clear that they had indeed revealed The Eaton, making his grandfather’s legends true, Al couldn’t wake himself from the dream.
“Sam…I'm sorry.”
“Tell that to Kedzie's parents. Or Vaughn's.”
“Would you have believed me?”
“That would have been my choice to make!”
Sarah raised her hands in a truce-calling gesture. “Guys, we don't have time for this.”
“On the contrary,” interrupted the voice behind the door. “You have as much time as you like. You've destroyed the elevator. There's nowhere to go. And Albert,” it said, lowering its voice to a conspiratorial level, “I'll even tell you a little secret.”
Al, who had turned back toward the door and was still inches from it, leaned forward to hear.
“Unlike you three,” the voice insisted, “I am getting out of here.”
Before Al could process this, a single black talon pierced through the face of the wood and sliced deep into Al’s chest.
From behind, it took Sam and Sarah a moment to realize what had happened. Al's body just seemed to jerk suddenly, spasming in place as if he had touched an electric fence. Then he fell back, the claw making a thick, watery sound as it was freed from Al's flesh, and the blood spurted up in a deep arc, hitting the door and even the ceiling.
Sarah rushed to his aid, but Sam hurled the water through the crack beneath the door, and they all heard the creature squeal, not in the voice of Al's grandfather but something more primal. Sam raced to refill his container and repeated the maneuver. When he turned back to the others, Sarah was helping Al press down on a bloody mess a few inches above his navel.
“It's bad,” Sarah gasped. “Oh my God.”
Al nodded. He was still alive, but understood he wouldn't be for long, and accepted this fate. Maybe it was just the alcohol, or being down a pint of blood, but it felt somehow predestined, as if he had always known if he ever found The Eaton, his life would be in its hands.
“Listen to me,” Al commanded in a phlegmy whisper. “You can't let it leave. You need to destroy this whole place.”
“And how the hell do you suggest we do that,” Sam said.
“Steam pipes, everywhere,” Al coughed. “The huge machine and boiler. Sarah, you're technical right? Cars?”
Sarah nodded.
“Stuff the vents, override everything, set every dial to 11. Then get out. I can keep him weak here. Just prop me up by the bath closest to the door and give me some buckets. I'll buy you as much time as I can.”
“We're not leaving you,” Sam said, a bit unconvincingly.
Al chuckled in response. “You were ready to kill me a minute ago.”
They heard a moan, then a light tapping sound on the door from the other side. What, thought Sam, does it think knocking politely will change our minds?
Al winced with pain, then recovered. “Sam, you need to find the way out. It has to be the Mastersuite. I think that's where my grandfather was breaking out from, I'm not sure, but it makes the most sense.”
Sam frowned. “We couldn't open that door. It's blocked.”
“If that's where it got out to kill your friend, I think it unblocked it for you.”
“Al…”
“Look, now you are wasting time. Get going. One of you take the gun.”
“Absolutely not,” insisted Sarah. “Al, if that thing makes it through, just unload as much as you can. Even if it doesn't kill the thing, we might hear it, and know we're out of time.”
Al agreed. He was also thinking that, if the creature was not easily stopped, he would be glad for the chance to put a bullet in himself, too.
Sam stood up and poured more water under the crack in the door. Again, they heard groans of discomfort. Sam returned to Al and, with Sarah's help, dragged and propped Al up by the water supply closest to the doors. Sam filled two containers for him to start, and helped him load new cartridges into the revolver. Al motioned to the whiskey bottle nearby, and Sarah
retrieved it. Sarah and Sam each took a swig of whiskey from the bottle and handed the remainder to Al.
“Now get out of here, both of you. I mean it.”
Sam and Sarah steeled themselves, then sprinted for the stairwell door. Sarah flung it open, half-expecting to find some dark figure from her past smiling there, but it was empty. She began to run down the first flight, and caught Sam following her.
“No, Sam, you have to go up. Al's right, one of us has to find the way out and it might take muscle, okay? My part takes brains.” Sam winced a bit at that, but Sarah didn't care.
“I'm not letting you go alone.”
“Samuel, you will get your ass upstairs and find us an exit, or I'll kill you myself.”
He stared at her. She meant it. He turned and sprinted, the shot of whiskey sloshing in his cramping stomach.
After two flights, Sam had to stop to catch his breath. He wanted to vomit, but didn't want to reduce the alleged effectiveness of the alcohol against the creature's powers should he encounter them again. A few deep breaths brought his world back into focus, and he set a deliberate rhythm for himself, climbing the remaining steps in a sort of structured agony. On the tenth floor landing, he noticed the DJ light which had been left behind, and briefly considered grabbing it to use as a cane, but didn’t want to lose momentum. By the time he arrived at the eleventh floor, Sam's head was spinning, and he again was in danger of retching, but fought it back. Hands on his knees, Sam indulged in five full breaths before looking up at the door before him.
He had been expecting the door to have been forced open, reasoning, as Al had, that the creature must have used it as an exit when they were traveling up the slow elevator. But the door was just as they had left it hours earlier—unlocked, pushed open a small crack, apparently still blocked by a piece of furniture on the other side.
Still, he had come this far. It was the only logical exit. Sam closed his eyes for a moment, building up courage, and then threw his entire body into the door like a linebacker. The pain started sharp at his shoulder, then flooded over his chest and up to his head. He cried aloud but remained upright, checking to see if he had made any progress. The crack had indeed grown, but was still less than an inch of space, enough to see that the room behind the door was dark. If he did somehow break through, Sam would need a flashlight. He kicked himself for not grabbing the DJ light a floor below, and considered using his cell phone light instead, but decided he wanted to retain the phone’s remaining battery.
After another deep breath, Sam sprinted down the stairs, grabbed the DJ light, and climbed up again. He had to carry the light in his left hand, as his right arm was still aching from the attempted bashing of the door. As he considered ramming the door again with his left shoulder, it occurred to him that the sturdy aluminum and steel tripod he held could be used as a makeshift crowbar, at least now that he had a small opening. Sam unscrewed the LED light from the top of the tripod, tightened the legs into a closed position, collapsed the tallest section into the middle section to give the tube more strength, and inserted it into the crack about four feet off the ground. He kept his left foot on the ground and pushed his right against the stuck door, pulling on the base of the tripod while simultaneously pushing the door with his foot. The maneuver worked for a few more inches, before the space became too large, causing the tripod to become loose, hurling Sam backwards against the stair landing.
“Shit,” Sam said.
Encouraged, however, he got back to work, this time using the larger base of the closed tripod as a lever on the bottom of the doorframe, against the ground. This seemed to work better than his first attempt had, as heavy furniture was always easier to move from the bottom rather than the top, and soon the door had opened enough for his body to squeeze through. Sam moved the tripod out of the way, recovered the LED light, flicked it on, sucked in his gut, and pushed inside the Mastersuite for the first time.
He tried not to think about the dark cellar at Aunt Eleanor’s. He had steeled his nerves for the unexpected. But nothing prepared him for this.
The first thing the light hit was a broken skeleton, patches of mummified flesh visible under torn clothes. He flicked his light away, to another part of the room, but it only revealed another body. Then another. Then another. One skeleton seemed to have been cut in half somehow. Another corpse had fingers of both hands pressed deep into the skull's sockets, as if in the end he had clawed out his own eyes. It was too much. Sam couldn't hold it back this time, and dropped the light onto the carpet as he collapsed, vomiting and crying and choking back screams. The taste of the whiskey and the smell of the bile caused him to wretch again, until his body could give no more, and he gasped and dry heaved, kneeling and panting, the puddle of sickness oozing over his right fingers, but Sam without the strength to move his hand away.
Sam realized the LED light was still lit on the floor beside him, shining over and upward toward the center of the room. As his eyes adjusted, he began to make out a hole in the ceiling. Underneath the hole, someone had moved a heavy wooden desk, and two more bodies lay atop this desk, with pieces of another corpse strewn beside and around its base, mixed with what looked like wooden panels and plaster which had fallen. These dead people had been trying to escape, but the creature must have attacked them before they could.
We were right, Sam thought. It's a way out.
Sam wiped his hand off on his jeans, grabbed the light from the ground, and walked briskly to the center of the room, hopeful for the first time since Kedzie's death. He shone the beam into the hole, and his heart sank.
“No,” Sam whispered. “Jesus, no.”
The previous guests of The Eaton had indeed tried to escape through the ceiling. But it had been in vain. Above the ceiling plaster and wood supports lay solid, impenetrable rock.
To be sure, Sam pushed one of the bodies off the desk and climbed up himself, reaching to touch the stone. He clawed at it like an animal for a moment, then pounded it with the knuckles of his left hand, bloodying them in an instant. There was no use. It was the roof of a cave. And without incredible tools and a great deal of time, of which Sam had neither, there would be no exit through the Mastersuite.
It occurred to Sam that perhaps there was a way out after all. He hopped down from the desk, nearly slipping on what looked like a leathery femur, and raced to the other side of the suite, to the door to the elevator room. Faint light crept in from the cracks and missing chunks of the door, and Sam tried to concentrate on only these lit shapes to avoid being affected by the dozens of destroyed bodies around him. When he opened the damaged door and stepped into the light, his body shuddered with relief.
It took some effort, but Sam was able to force the exterior gate open, allowing him to look into and up the shaft. He held the gate with his left hand, allowing his body to lean over into the shaft, using his right hand to angle the handheld light. He thought there was a chance that he and Sarah could climb from the eleventh level to the twelfth. But Sam soon realized that this was also a dead end. The shaft itself was smooth on all sides, and the entrance lobby was not just a couple feet away but at least eight feet up. If the elevator had still been in place, there may have been a way to climb the cable. But that cable had snapped, and was now likely coiled around the roof of the worthless elevator car a dozen stories below.
He returned to the small lobby, but his knees buckled at the thought of entering that room of horrors so soon. He fell onto one of the nearby visitor's chairs instead, catching his breath and trying to make sense of what he knew.
The creature had somehow gotten to the surface while they were riding the elevator. Which meant there had to be another way out. But if it wasn't through the highest floor, and the stairs didn't reach the surface, and the elevator was in use, then what was left?
Then, it hit him.
“Oh, fuck me,” Sam said aloud, shocked by his own obliviousness. Of course there was another way out, because there had to have been a
nother way in. The hotel hadn't existed when the Native Americans had trapped the creature behind the boulder. It was just a series of caves. There weren't staircases and elevators in the age of petroglyphs. The caves must have reached the surface, at least back then. And, Sam realized, they almost certainly must have reached the surface when the hotel was being built, too—how else would the place have been tunneled out, and building materials moved in, in secret, underneath an existing train station? It would have been impossible unless the construction workers could come in from the side, already underground. And the exit still must be around, because the creature must have used it an hour ago. The Eaton wasn't trapped down here, after all; even without a cave tunnel, it could have taken the elevator years ago. It was choosing to be here. Which means it could also choose to leave. And so could they.
The way out was through the Transit level. Sam was sure of it. He had to tell Sarah.
He stood up, powering through the dull aches that panged his right shoulder and bloody knuckles. He hurried through the ghastly display of skeletons and fossilized flesh. He squeezed back through the opening he had made with the stairwell door.
And as he raced down the first flight of stairs, Sam heard the unmistakable pop-pop of Al's revolver.
twenty-eight
Sam froze on the stairwell, uncertain whether to continue down, or retreat. Al would only have fired at the creature if it had broken through the doors. Maybe The Eaton was dead. Or maybe Al was in trouble. Or, maybe Al was already dead, and now Sarah was in trouble. Or maybe the thing was coming for him.
Sam continued to descend the stairs, trying to make as little noise as he could and listening intently for any clues to what was happening below. He made it to the Transit level, and a part of him longed to escape this way, but he knew he couldn't abandon Sarah, and Al, too, if he was still alive. Sam kept descending, quickly and carefully, but only made it to the ninth floor when he heard the creature lumbering up the stairs to intercept him. He darted into the level, Gameroom and Apothecary, closing the door behind him. Sam observed that the door to the stairwell itself could be locked, as had been the case on the other common levels such as the Baths and Maintenance.
The Eaton Page 28