Something clutched at her arms and legs. Margaret opened her eyes. The water was murky. Blurred, shadowy figures surrounded her. They seemed to be nothing more than rags and sticks, but they pulled her down, into the thick mud, with fingers that were long, thin, pale, and strong. Laughter, as innocent as children at play, came from somewhere far away. The voices sounded familiar. They had been waiting a very long time.
~
Margaret dangled her hand in the cool water as David rowed. She loved the way the muscles moved in his arms. So calm and assured, as if nothing could ever go wrong.
“Watch your fingers,” David said.
Margaret sat up quickly, setting the boat rocking. Her fingers were coated with sticky black slime. She shook her hand as hard as she could, but it was like a part of her own flesh. She thought of washing it off. A quick glance at the water revealed that they were surrounded by it. A thick ebony carpet floated on the surface of the lake. It smelled of vinegar and ashes.
“Some kind of algae, I think.” David pushed against it with an oar. The boat moved slightly and settled back. “Stubborn stuff.”
By using both oars, they were able to make slow progress away from the slime. It was larger than the boat, an irregular oval that seemed to change shape slowly, as if it were searching for something. Margaret smashed her oar into its heart. Her fingers burned and throbbed where the stuff was stuck to her.
The sun was low by the time they fought their way back to the dock. The Lake Manor cast its shadow over them. The slime was a dark island in the distance. Margaret’s fingers were numb and cold. The slime had vanished from her skin somehow, but left its invisible mark behind.
~
Pain exploded in Margaret’s chest. She choked and gasped, spewing out water. She was no longer held fast by the lake dwellers. Instead she lay on her back, an angry sun blinding her. She sat up and vomited thin bile.
“Those are mighty strange clothes to go swimming in.”
The voice came from somewhere behind her. Margaret pushed herself to her feet and faced the man. He was short and thin, his dark face half-hidden by sunglasses and a cloth hat. He wore some kind of beige uniform.
“About five years ago, there was a fellow who drowned himself here,” the man said. He took Margaret’s arm and led her away from the lake. “Walked out of the hotel stark naked and jumped in the water. They found his body a few days later, bloated and swollen, bits of him chewed away.”
“Why are you telling me this?” Margaret tried to pull away from the man, but she was too weak.
“No reason. I just like to talk. They call me Constable Sam. They keep me around to yell at people for leaving garbage on the ground. You’re Mrs. Helder, right?”
“I don’t use that name any longer. Not since my husband —” Margaret fell to her knees. Her wet clothing felt like chains.
Sam lifted her to her feet. He was nearly as strong as David. “We’re almost back to the hotel. You better change into dry clothes and get some rest.” At the entrance to the Lake Manor, he left her. Margaret walked past the icy smile of the woman at the front desk and Freeman’s leer. They didn’t seem to care about the mess her muddy boots left on the carpet. She stumbled into her room, kicked the door shut, pulled off her clothes, and collapsed on the bed. She slept without dreams.
~
They drove away from the Lake Manor in David’s battered, gray Beetle. Margaret watched the shadows of pines race past them.
“Nobody else saw it,” she said. It was not the first time she had said it.
“Maybe it sank that night.” David shifted gears. The Beetle growled as it struggled up a hill. “It was getting late. We were all alone on the lake.”
“Sometimes I think it wasn’t really there at all.”
“I’ve got the sore muscles to prove it. That stuff was tough.” He coughed. It was a deep, hacking sound. “I think I might have swallowed some of it.”
“I know it’s foolish, but nothing has seemed quite real since we came here.”
“Married-lady blues?” David looked at her. “It’s not too late to back out.” He grinned.
“Sorry, mister. You’re stuck with me. I know you’re real enough. You and this dumb car of yours.”
David laughed. “OK, we’ll get a station wagon, I promise.”
The Beetle continued climbing. The pines were smaller here, and twisted into grotesque shapes. Soon they were no more than dwarves. Margaret pointed at a wide, flat spot next to the road.
“Stop there,” she said. “I want to see the view.”
The Beetle grumbled over pebbles as David parked. Margaret stepped out and looked back the way they had come. In the distance she could make out the gleaming white towers of the hotel and a sparkle of light from the lake. A cloud passed overhead, and the Lake Manor seemed to disappear, like a lost memory.
They took the long way home, and spoke of other things.
~
Behind the Lake Manor a dirt trail, nearly invisible under years of dead leaves, wandered between tangled bushes. It skirted sinkholes and ran between boulders, disappearing now and then to emerge on the far side of a whispering stream. Tiny flowers, white and yellow and pale blue, covered beds of moss. The air was heavy with heat and the scent of earth.
Margaret followed the trail for hours. Often it bent back on itself in order to climb a steep rise, then descended again into shadowed hollows. In the darkest of these, surrounded on all sides by giant trees, she paused to rest. There was nothing to remind her of people here, not even the beer cans and cigarette butts that marked the places where humans walked.
It was foolish to think that the lake could be her resting place. It was too full of echoes. Death was restless there. Here, surrounded by life, she could find peace.
Leaves crackled as Margaret lay back. Gleaming white rays of sunlight filtered through the trees. It reminded her of the statue of a saint she had seen long ago, her body pierced by a spear held by an angel.
Margaret closed her eyes. The only sign of passing time was the slow fading of light behind her eyelids, from pink to red to black. Sometimes she dozed. It would be easy to fall asleep forever here, and let the Earth take her body.
A sound, low and soft, came from somewhere in the woods. It didn’t seem to be an owl or fox. At times it almost sounded like words.
Margaret sat up. The sound was louder. It annoyed her that something dared to disturb her final slumber. She stood, half-awake, and listened. Yes, there it was, somewhere to her left.
Margaret climbed out of the hollow and walked toward the sound. Moonlight lit her way, but often she stumbled. She felt like an undead creature risen from its tomb.
It was a voice. Margaret couldn’t understand what it was saying, but it seemed to be someone in pain. She knew that sound all too well. David, wasting away all those months, moaning words in no known language. Dying from a disease no doctor could name. Killed by the Lake Manor’s slime, black filth that vanished as soon as it had done its work.
Next to the rotting corpse of a fallen tree lay a man. His breaths came slowly and deeply, with hissing sounds. Margaret made her way toward him. She recognized him as Constable Sam. He groaned again.
Margaret placed her hand on the dead tree. It was covered with moss, black in the moonlight, soft and moist. It reminded her of the slime from the lake. She forced herself not to move her hand, not to run. It had no power over her now. She had felt its touch and lived, tasted of its waters and found them sweet, offered herself to its people and escaped.
“Can you hear me?” Margaret moved closer to Sam. A lump of moss came away in her hand. She tossed it away.
“Fell. Blacked out.” Sam’s voice was a raspy whisper. “Leg hurt.”
Margaret placed her arms around him and pulled him to his feet. He seemed strangely light. “Can you walk?”
“Think so.” He leaned on her. “Not broken, anyway. I can limp, if you hang on to me.”
“Of course. What were you doi
ng out here?” They shuffled toward the hotel slowly, careful to avoid obstacles.
“Don’t really know. Had a feeling, maybe. Thought you might be out here.” Sam half-laughed, half-coughed. “I suppose I thought you might need rescuing again.”
“Maybe I did.”
Hobbling this way, it would take them a long time to reach the Lake Manor. They had to take the long way, avoiding shortcuts that would be dangerous in the dark. The sun might be nearly above the horizon by the time they were back. Somehow the time and effort seemed worthwhile, as long as they were together.
Room 6: Horseshoe
by Gwendolyn Kiste
The hotel appears at the end of the road, and Christiane sighs at the sight of it.
A horseshoe driveway, she thinks. Of course, there’s a horseshoe driveway. Anything to remind me.
She turns away from the passenger window and inspects the tattered upholstery of the yellow cab’s ceiling. This cramped backseat, with its divots in the leather and initials carved in the corner, has become her sarcophagus, somewhere to protect her from the world these last hundred miles, but it’s not meant to last. This new place — a foreboding hotel on the hill — is her home now.
Not two hours ago, Christiane’s mother ushered her into the cab.
“The country air will make you feel better in no time, darling!”
“And what happens after I feel better?” Christiane asked.
“Then you’ll have plenty of time to yourself to think,” her mother said.
Think. Christiane laughs. As if I need to do more of that.
The taxi rolls to a stop, and Christiane struggles to dislodge her luggage — a single bag she packed hastily last night — from the backseat. The driver doesn’t bother to assist. At the start of the trip, her mother paid him in full, along with a more-than-generous tip to get Christiane out of town — and fast. Why bother to help his fare now? He already has what he wants.
With a decisive tug, the bag is free, and Christiane staggers out of the cab. She barely has a chance to close the door before the driver speeds off.
She watches him go, the mustard-colored speck fading on the road like a bird vanishing against a blue sky.
Alone. She’s alone now at Lake Manor Hotel.
~
Tiptoeing through the front door, Christiane takes inventory of the place. Chandelier in the lobby. Front desk, bright and welcoming. A sign for the bar. The typical amenities, even though there’s no one around to enjoy them.
“Quiet place,” Christiane mutters, and taps the silver desk bell. It clangs cheerfully in refrain.
The isolation’s to be expected. This is the off-season, after all, and the receptionist warned Christiane’s mother when she made the reservations yesterday that there wouldn’t be much for a young lady to do this time of year.
“That’s perfect,” her mother had said while Christiane listened in quietly on the extension. “We want her to get the rest she needs.”
Rest isn’t so much the objective, though. Solitude away from prying eyes is what’s more important to Christiane’s mother. It hasn’t been a week since the accident, and already the local gossip columns are tittering about Christiane and her supposed breakdown.
Famed heiress and jockey Christiane Marmount on the brink? read yesterday morning’s headline, along with a photo of Christiane on the racetrack last Sunday, sobbing over her horse, Forio, and his two broken legs.
A hideous sight, and something no one should celebrate, let alone put on the front page. But journalists are good at picking over carrion, in particular the dead in Christiane’s family. Always another tragedy in the Marmount brood to keep the press’s ink running.
Christiane exhales to steady her breath, and something white and gauzy flashes next to her.
A woman stands suddenly behind the desk. “Hello,” she says. “I’m Lissette. You must be Christiane.”
“That’s me.” Christiane signs her name in the official check-in book before glancing at her cell phone. Zero bars.
“You won’t get much service out here,” Lissette says. “Part of the rest and relaxation of the country.”
“I should have figured.” Christiane takes her key and drifts toward the stairs. Then she glances back. “I didn’t pay attention during the trip here in the cab. How far is it to town?”
“Six miles,” Lissette says. “But if you’re thinking about walking, I wouldn’t advise it. No sidewalks or trails. Not much of a shoulder on the road either.”
Christiane nods and trudges to her room. She’s trapped here in the country with no cell phone service and nothing to do except think.
Her suite is bigger than she’s expecting, but the vaulted ceiling might just create that illusion. Christiane deposits her bag in the corner and brushes back the curtains. The lake below looks beautiful, glinting in the sunlight. Alive and alluring.
“Maybe this won’t be so bad,” she says, hopeful that if she only speaks the words aloud she might convince herself.
No luck.
Christiane sighs, and all around her, the walls creak and tremble like an embalmed body trying to speak.
She settles on the bed, atop a clean, white comforter embroidered with strange geometric shapes in pinks and blues, and lifts the phone — an old-school design with a cord coiled like a noose — to call her mother. No one answers. Now that Christiane is out of town, there’s really no reason for her mother to bother with her. PR crisis averted. Appearances preserved. That’s all that matters.
Resting on a silky pillow, Christiane closes her eyes. Besides the staff, there’s no one here. She really is alone. But then, she’s alone back in town, too. The only family she has left is her mother. No siblings or aunts or uncles or cousins. And she hasn’t had a sweetheart since college, an eternity ago. That means she’s no lonelier here than there.
What a terrible thought. She rubs her face and commands herself to sleep. The quiet would be welcome after the trip.
~
She dreams of white. Chiffon curtains blowing against an open window, a delicate fog like lace gliding over the lake. And something else. A figure in the distance, walking along the water, feet not making even the subtlest of splashes.
It’s a woman. Christiane recognizes her, but doesn’t know her name.
The silhouette moves closer, one fragile step after another, her lips parting, but no sound penetrating the air.
Christiane reaches out for her, and their hands touch. But only for a moment. Then the figure wraps her gaunt fingers around Christiane’s wrist and wrenches her into the black water.
Sinking down, Christiane drowns for the better part of an hour.
This is how it always goes. Sometimes, she wonders why she sleeps at all.
~
It’s dark when Christiane awakes in tears, her forehead blanketed in sweat.
“The bar,” she whispers to herself, and manages to claw her way out of the bed.
On the stairs, she sees movement in the lobby.
There’s a person here. A non-staff member. A guest like her.
He’s a middle-aged man, arrayed in a brown duster and riding boots. Benign enough. And anybody at this point is a welcome sight.
Christiane glides toward him, but she realizes he’s not here for long. His bags are stacked in the corner, and he’s surrendering his room key.
“Checking out already?” Christiane asks, but immediately regrets saying it. She sounds so desperate. Don’t leave, random guest! Please stay and be my friend!
The man laughs nervously. “I know it’s a little late in the evening for checkout, but what can you do?”
His face jerks abruptly, and he peers over his shoulder as if something’s there. Christiane glances behind him, but sees nothing.
“Everything okay?”
“Sure,” he says, and sighs. “Are you here with your family?”
Christiane shakes her head. “On my own.”
“On your own?” He studies her face. �
��Aren’t you a little young to be traveling solo?”
Christiane clenches her jaw and resists the urge to roll her eyes or say something snide.
“I’m thirty-three,” she says at last, and when she notices the man’s cheeks reddening, she adds, “Don’t worry. People often think I’m a lot younger.”
The man mumbles something that sounds more embarrassed than apologetic. Outside, a cab honks its horn.
“I must be off.” He gathers his luggage. “Be safe, young lady.”
“Safe?” She scoffs and looks around. “There’s nothing and nobody here to hurt me.”
“Yes, well,” he says, “please keep it in mind.”
Lissette clears her throat, and the man makes a strange choking sound before rushing into the night.
Christiane stands in the lobby, dumbfounded, thinking how this is already turning out worse than she’d expected. Her head buzzing, she makes a beeline for the bar. Dump some whiskey in her blood and at least she’ll have an excuse to feel so out of place.
Her suite might have been larger than she was expecting, but the bar is far too small. A few scattered stools and a collection of half-empty bottles honeycombed on the wall.
Pity, Christiane thinks, and settles in the nearest seat. No bartender in sight, so she rests her head in her hands and muses how she can’t blame the man for mistaking her for a child. Standing a full five feet tall and weighing no more than one hundred pounds soaking wet, she looks like a kid. For years, she joked how she wasn’t made for the real world. She was made for the racetrack.
“For horses and turns and riding crops,” she liked to say, and it was a fine joke until now. Now that life is gone, for good it seems, which means Christiane isn’t made for anything. Not horses or racetracks or the real world. She’s a person without a home, and this place — a strange hotel growing out of the hillside like a tumor on a tree trunk — suits her. It’s as lost as she is.
No one comes into the bar for a long time. Christiane catches herself falling asleep again, and she jerks awake. Or what she thinks is awake. For an instant, a white figure materializes at the periphery of her vision, and she’s not sure if she’s conscious or napping.
The Haunting of Lake Manor Hotel Page 11