“Lucia, what gives?” Jazmin said. “You said this was important.”
“This room was full of junk!” I kicked the fallen door, but instead of venting my frustration, I only succeeded in procuring a sore big toe. “Newspapers and articles! Pictures of Oliver and his family. It’s the Watsons, Jazmin. Odette—the girl haunting me—is Oliver’s sister. He’s hiding something about the fire. I know it.”
“We’re not going to find anything here,” Jazmin said. “Let’s go back up before this gets creepy.”
“Wait.”
The flashlight beam caught a reflection in the far corner of the room. One last photo remained face down on the floor. I picked it up and flipped it over. Jazmin shined her light over my shoulder.
“Is that—?”
“Oliver’s family.”
The date on the photo was 1988, the same year the fire ruined King and Queens’s reputation by killing so many guests. It was the same picture from the photo album in my room, but whereas my copy was too ruined to make out the faces of the subjects, this photo was perfectly intact. It showed the Watson family in its entirety—Richard, Stella, Oliver, and Odette—standing beneath the trademark stone archway in the old King and Queens lobby. I examined little Oliver. At eight years old, he had a dashing smile and bright, inquisitive eyes. Time and stress had stolen those qualities from him. The child in the picture looked like a different person than the Oliver I knew in real life.
“It’s terrible, isn’t it?” Jazmin muttered. “Everything he went through.”
“The worst.” I tore my gaze away from the image but tucked the picture into the pocket of my jeans. “Let’s go. If Oliver’s not here, he’s causing trouble somewhere else.”
A loud slam echoed above, and my heart dropped into my stomach. I knew exactly what the sound was, and from the horrified look on Jazmin’s face, she knew too. We sprinted out of the room and down the hallway. Jazmin reached the tunnel first and stared up.
“No,” she breathed, horrified. “Lucia, someone shut the trap door.”
I shoved her aside and climbed the ladder. There was no circle of light at the top like last time, no escape from the dark confines of the basement. I reached the trap door and tried to push it open, but it wouldn’t budge.
“Come one, you piece of junk!” I growled, shoving with all of my might.
“I don’t have cell service down here,” Jazmin’s voice echoed from below. “I can’t call Daniel.”
I grunted as I heaved my shoulder against the door, hoping to pop it open. With every attempt, my shoulder got a new bruise. Something murmured far below, and I heard Jazmin’s shoes squeak against the lower rungs of the rusty ladder.
“Lucia, how it’s coming with that door?”
“Doing my best.”
“You might want to hurry.”
My shoulder felt like ground beef. I switched sides. “Why’s that?”
“Because we’re being watched.”
I looked down. Jazmin’s face was level with my shoes. She’d climbed as high as possible to get away from whatever was at the bottom of the ladder. A pair of yellow eyes stared up from the darkness. Heavy breathing echoed up the tunnel. It smelled of rotting corpses. A sporadic drip accompanied it, like drool oozing from a dog’s muzzle. Every nerve in my body stood at attention. This was the creature of my nightmares, the one that guided me to the old wing when Riley was in trouble. The one that breathed across the back of my neck because I couldn’t bear to face it. Frozen with shock, my flashlight escaped my grasp. Jazmin dodged the heavy-duty metal casing, and it fell into the abyss below. The creature’s eyes moved to the side, as if it had sidestepped the accidental ballistic. For a brief moment, the flashlight rotated upward, and the beam illuminated the creature’s face. Once, it had been a man, but the flash of bared teeth and melted skin was more demon than human.
“Lucia,” Jazmin whispered. Her entire body shook, rattling the frame of the ladder. “What is that thing?”
“I have no idea.”
The creature’s eyes moved upward. Toward us. One foot. Then another. One rung on the ladder. And another. Jazmin wrapped her fingers around my ankle.
“It’s coming,” she whispered.
The creature leapt, covering several feet in less than a second. Jazmin’s yell yanked me out of my stupor, and I heaved against the trap door with renewed vigor. Blind panic and adrenaline prevented me from acknowledging my injured shoulders.
“Odette!” I screamed, pounding on the door. “I know you can hear me! Get us out of here!”
The creature’s cloying smell crept up the tunnel. It prowled toward Jazmin, as if it knew it had us trapped and was enjoying our terror. Jazmin climbed higher, tucking her feet up to her knees.
“Lucia, hurry!”
I shouldered the trap door, one hit after the next. “Odette, please!”
Jazmin screamed, and she dropped several feet as the creature wrapped long black fingers wrapped around her ankles and pulled. I abandoned my struggle with the trap door, dropping my feet off the ladder and using the tunnel walls to slide uncontrollably to Jazmin.
“No, you don’t!” I said, teeth bared at the creature. It was made of darkness, blending in to the tunnel’s walls. Only its eyes were visible as it tried to take my best friend with it. “You’ll have to burn me alive if you want my best friend. Jazmin, take my hand!”
She made a wild grab for me, and I locked my fingers around her wrist. Her eyes were wide and panicked. “Don’t let go. Lucia, please don’t leave me.”
“Never.”
The creature jerked hard on her ankles, and her sweaty hand slipped out of mine. The flashlight slipped out of her belt, fell, and joined mine at the bottom of the tunnel. The bulb shattered and went out, leaving us in total darkness. I couldn’t see anything. Without the flashlights, the underground tunnel might as well have been outer space. I groped beneath me, hoping to find Jazmin’s hands, but all I felt were the tunnel’s grimy walls.
“Jazmin!”
She screamed again. It echoed from farther away. The creature was taking her from me. My chest tightened. My throat closed up. My heart pounded in my head, blood rushing through my veins like river rapids. I couldn’t do anything. I couldn’t save her. Not when I couldn’t see where she was.
Moonlight poured into the tunnel from above. Someone had opened the trap door. My eyes adjusted to the dim light. Jazmin was near the bottom of the tunnel, struggling to free herself from the creature. When it flinched away from the light, Jazmin aimed a kick at its eyes. It howled—an inhuman gargle—and let go of her ankle. She leapt up the ladder and climbed toward me. Something dropped onto my head—a packet of complimentary King and Queens matches.
“Move!” I ordered Jazmin as she reached me. She flattened herself against the wall of the tunnel as I struck the head of a match. On the third attempt, it caught fire, and I dropped the match into the cavern below. The miniscule flame fell in slow motion, barely making a dent in the darkness, but when it reached the creature below, it blossomed into the most beautiful fire I’d ever seen. The creature roared as the flames engulfed its body, and it retreated from the tunnel.
I grabbed Jazmin’s hand and pulled her up and out of the trap door. When we emerged in the library, I swiveled around, slammed the door shut, and locked the bolt. Then I shoved Jazmin to her feet. Together, we ran from the old wing, and we didn’t stop until we’d cleared the lobby, the ballroom, and the restaurant. When we reached the outer corridor, Jazmin collapsed against the wall. The adrenaline was gone, and panic threatened to take over.
“You’re okay.” I wiped muck off her cheeks with my sleeve. She sobbed so violently that she couldn’t draw breath. “Jazmin, we got out of there. We escaped. It’s going to be okay.”
She buried her face in my collar. “I thought that thing was going to kill me, Lucia.”
“Not on my watch.”
She grasped her ankle with both hands and winced. I rolled up the leg of her je
ans to check the damage. Her skin was blistered, black, and inflamed where the creature had touched her, as if she’d inexplicably come down with a case of gangrene.
“Is it bad?” she asked. She wouldn’t look at it herself.
“It’s not good,” I said. “Let’s get you to the first aid office so I can clean it up.”
I heaved Jazmin to her feet, pulling her arm over my shoulder to support her as we limped toward the lobby.
“You got the trap door open,” she said feebly.
“It wasn’t me.”
“Who did it then?”
“Odette,” I said. “I felt her as we were running. She gave me the matches too. She knew that thing would be afraid of fire.”
Jazmin breathing hitched and buckled. “What was it?”
“If I knew, I’d tell you,” I said. “It’s stalked me before. The first time, it told me where Riley was when she ran off.”
“It helped you?”
“I guess.”
Before we could reach the first aid office, Nick Porter stumbled out of the far hallway. His cane slipped from his grasp. As it clattered across the floor, he fell to his knees. “Lucia! Jazmin! Oh, thank goodness.”
I lowered Jazmin to the floor beside the front desk then picked up Nick’s cane and rushed to his side. A massive laceration stretched across his forehead. Blood ran down his entire face, dripping into his eyes and clogging his nose. “God, Nick! What happened to you? Where’s Daniel?”
“I lost him,” Daniel gasped. His eyes struggled to focus on my face. “We were searching Tyler’s room. Things started happening. The TV fell off the wall. The glass doors shattered. The bookshelf fell over.”
I pulled off my sweater and pressed the fabric to the gash in his head. “Is that how you got hurt?”
He nodded and winced as fresh blood poured from the cut. “It was like the room was alive. I could feel things. I could feel them. I ran. I didn’t look back. When I reached the lobby, Daniel wasn’t behind me. Oh, God, what if he’s gone?”
“Stop,” I ordered. “We can’t panic. If we do, everything goes to crap. Stick to the plan. Give Daniel fifteen minutes to show up. I take it the two of you didn’t find Oliver?”
“Nowhere.”
“Neither did we. Get in here. We can’t do anything until you two are patched up.”
The normality of the first aid office—the organized medical supplies, the water cooler with its disposable paper cups, the stethoscope hanging in the corner—helped calm the three of us. I cleaned Nick’s head wound, closed the gap with steri strips, and wrapped it in fresh gauze. Jazmin’s ankle was a different story. I wasn’t sure how to treat a monster-delivered burn mark, so I smothered it with antibiotic ointment and covered it too. There was nothing to be done about my shoulders. They were red, raw, and bruised from my struggle with the trap door. I couldn’t raise my arms above my head. Jazmin found a few ice packs in the medical freezer, so we strapped them underneath my T-shirt with several layers of medical tape. By the time we were finished patching everyone up, fifteen minutes had come and passed with no sign of Daniel.
“Maybe in the lounge?” Jazmin suggested as the three of us emerged from the first aid office. I stood in the middle, supporting both Jazmin and Nick.
“Let’s check,” I said.
More problems waited for us in the Eagle’s View. It was empty.
“Riley?” I ducked out from beneath Nick and Jazmin to check beneath the tables, but the twelve-year-old was nowhere to be found, and neither were any of the employees. “Ari? Imani? Anyone?”
Frantically, I leapt over the bar and shoved the door to the kitchen open. A blur of motion caught my peripheral, and I raised a fist in anticipation of an attack, but it was only Riley emerging from her hiding space in the storage cupboard. She ran straight into me and buried her face in my torso.
“You’re back!” she said with a small sob of relief. “I was so worried.”
“Riley, what happened?” I cradled her head, taking comfort in the familiar artificial strawberry scent of her regular shampoo. “Where are all of the employees?”
She drew away, wiping her eyes. “They left.”
“They what?”
“As soon as you guys left the lounge, they decided to get out of King and Queens,” Riley said. “They stole a bunch of snow equipment from the rental store, dug their way out through the café’s back door, and left. I think they’re going to try and make it to White Oak.”
“Are they crazy? White Oak is miles away. They’ll freeze to death!”
“I tried to tell them,” Riley said. “They wouldn’t listen. They kept saying how it was safer trying to get through the snow than to stay here. To be honest, I’m not sure I really blame them. Did you find my dad?”
“No, and Daniel’s missing too now.” I led her into the lounge, where Nick and Jazmin rested at a booth. I poured everyone glasses of water from the bar and explained the situation.
“What now?” Jazmin asked, sipping slowly.
“We go look for Daniel,” I said.
“Then what?” Nick gingerly checked his bandages to make sure they were still in place. “We need to get out of here. I say we follow the employees to White Oak. We’ll be safe there.”
“If we make it through the snow,” Riley reminded him.
“About that—” Nick began.
Someone stumbled into the lounge, soaked in blood from head to toe. The four of us shrieked as the figure lumbered toward our table, and we dove off in different directions to avoid the bloody, reaching fingers. The figure went for the easiest target: Riley.
“No!” I yelled as he wrapped his slippery hands around Riley’s neck. She screamed as he pulled her away. I lunged toward the man, but when I found myself looking into the nose of a gun, I froze in place.
“She’s my daughter,” the man croaked. It was Oliver. This close, his features were visible beneath the layer of blood. It caked his eyelashes. Dripped from his hands. Coated Riley’s shirt as she heaved for breath under her father’s grasp. Oliver backed up, taking Riley with him. “She’s safe with me. You can’t have her.”
“That’s Daniel’s gun,” Nick whispered from behind me.
Oliver trembled, his fingers slipping over the trigger. My teeth clicked together as he aimed at my head. I raised my hands.
“Oliver, don’t do anything rash,” I pleaded. “I’m trying to keep Riley safe.”
“That’s my job,” he said.
“She’s scared,” I told him. “Look at her, Oliver. She’s terrified of you. You can’t take her.”
“Don’t tell me what I can and can’t do with my own daughter!”
Riley shuddered in her father’s grasp, tears falling off her chin. She tried to worm away from him, but he kept her locked against him with one arm across her chest. The other kept the gun level.
“We’re leaving,” he announced. “We’re going somewhere safe. Just me and Riley. If you follow” —he pointed the gun at my shins when I tried to take a step toward him— “I’ll blow your feet off.”
“No!” Riley, her hair now matted with whoever’s blood covered Oliver’s body, wrestled with her father’s arm. He yanked her down the first couple of steps. “Lucia, help!”
There was nothing I could do while Oliver held the gun. Nick darted forward, coming at Oliver from the side, but Oliver was too quick. He swiveled toward his rival and fired. Nick ducked, but Oliver’s aim was off. The bullet hit the top shelf of the bar. A bottle of booze exploded, showering the lounge in tequila.
“I’ll kill you, Porter!” Oliver said, his eyes bulging out of his skull. “Don’t think I won’t!”
Riley braced herself as her father stumbled backward, his arm around her neck. I tried once more to leave the lounge, but the gun came up to face me again.
“Not another step,” Oliver warned. He’d made it to ground floor of the lobby. A trail of smeared blood marked his path. “I mean it, Miss Star.”
“It’s o
kay, Riley,” I called. “Everything’s going to be okay. I’m going to come find you. I promise.”
The crack in my voice betrayed my lack of confidence in fulfilling that promise, but as Oliver turned his back on us and forced Riley to run from the lobby, a burning sensation filled the pit of my stomach. It was a combination of rage, fear, and impatience, all mixing together to create a roiling storm in my core. I returned to the lounge, wiping tears of frustration from my cheeks. My shoes tracked blood across the carpet.
“We need to get out of here,” I said. “I don’t care how we do it. I don’t care if we get to White Oak or if we make an igloo in the snow.”
“What about Riley?” Jazmin asked.
“I’m going to go get her.”
“How?” Nick said. “You saw Oliver. He’s deranged. If you go anywhere near that little girl, he’ll shoot you.”
“I’m not leaving without her,” I said. “Jazmin, go upstairs and pack whatever you can for me, you, and Riley. Not too much, just whatever you can carry. Make sure you get all our camera gear. Nick?”
“Yes, ma’am?”
“You know the area better than anyone, right?”
“I like to think so.”
“Good,” I said. “Find us a way out of here, preferably one that doesn’t result in all of us freezing to death. Contact White Oak. Tell them to expect us tonight. If we don’t turn up, ask them to send out rescue skiers to find us. Then raid what’s left of the equipment in the rental shop and grab anything to prepare us for the trip.”
Nick saluted me then grimaced when he accidentally grazed the bandage around his head. “You got it, boss.”
Jazmin hooked her arm through mine. “What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to go find Daniel and Riley.”
It was both better and worse to traverse the dark resort by myself. On the one hand, I didn’t have to worry about Nick or Jazmin once I located Oliver. On the other hand, I’d never felt more alone. Thankfully, I had some unearthly backup. As I crept down the hall, following the trail of blood Oliver tracked through the resort, Odette appeared beside me.
The Haunting of Riley Watson Page 37