by Mac Flynn
Contents
Title Page
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
All Romance Books
SENSUAL MOON (LOVERS OF LEGEND) (c) 2014 Mac Flynn
A short story in the LOVERS OF LEGEND Series
Genre: Contemporary Romance / Romantic Comedy / Paranormal Romance / Fantasy Romance
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Chapter 1
I decided I was a sucker for stupid-jerk men. That's how I ended up with Greg Benson as my boyfriend. We'd met at a rock-climbing class one rainy afternoon, and he must not have been himself because he offered me a ride home even though it was out of his way. I fell for him, and we started dating, but I took things slow. No paddy-cake until I was sure he was the one. That was my rule, and he reluctantly followed it.
My first hint that something wasn't quite right was the way he looked at other girls. I'll agree that guys will and should be able to look at other girls so long as they didn't touch what they hadn't bought through dinners and birthday gifts. Greg, however, looked at all the girls, and struck up conversations with them around corners where I couldn't see nor overhear them.
I knew I should have faced him, but this was my first serious romance and I didn't want the puppy-dog glow to fade. Instead I ignored his suspicious behavior. When Greg suggested we go to a fancy lodge for a week-long trip to hike and explore I thought things were turning around. Boy, was I wrong.
"You'll love the place, Ally. It's got great trails and a really nice lodge," he gushed to me for the hundredth time as we drove up the winding mountain road to said lodge. My real name was Alice, but everyone called me Ally.
I smiled and sighed. "I believe you," I told him, also for the hundredth time.
He sheepish grinned at me. "I've said that a lot, haven't I?" he asked me.
"Only about a hundred times," I replied.
"It's just that I want to have a great time here, and to be honest I've never been here before myself. I'm just repeating what one of the waitresses told me," he admitted.
"I'm sure it'll be fine," I told him. I glanced out my window at the tall trees that surrounded the two-lane, paved road. So far, so good in my eyes. "You said we were staying in a small cabin near the lodge?" I wondered.
"Yeah, one of those little things that have a bed, bath and TV, but we eat at the lodge," he explained. "There's also a swimming pool in there and a pool table room, and a big fireplace they light when someone wants to tell spooky stories. That way we won't get bored if it rains while we're there."
I looked at the sky. It was getting late in this summer evening. Another hour or two and it'd be dark. Some ominous clouds on the horizon meant night would come even sooner. "How much farther?" I asked him.
"Almost there." He leaned forward and squinted his eyes threw the dirty glass. We were in his small Geo and he wasn't the cleanest guy in the world. Hell, he may have been the dirtiest judging by the mounds of food wrappers at my feet, but I ignored them because I was stupid. He grinned and pointed through the grime. "Ah-ha! There it is!"
I peered through the glass and saw that the road crested the steep slope and widened into a gravel parking lot. The lodge stood on our left. It was a two-story, rectangular behemoth built two centuries ago of hewn logs from the surrounding area. A large deck surrounded the front and either side, and there were long, tall windows that looked out on the deck. On the ground floor were more windows, but these were interrupted in the center by two thick entrance doors. Its rear buttressed a gentle hill where I could see openings in the trees that bespoke trails.
Beyond the lodge along the road lay about twenty small cabins hewn from the same logs and lined up one beside the other. The four sides of the square buildings had a single window except the rear which had two, an extra for the bathroom. There were small porches in front of the sturdy doors, and each had their own parking spots on one side. They were quaint and cleaning-looking, and I was looking forward to staying in them.
"Wow. How much did this place cost to rent?" I asked him.
"Um, real expensive, but you're worth it," he replied.
Greg parked the car in front of the lodge and we walked inside. The lobby was open to the second floor which had an open-rafter roof. To our left was the fireplace of stories, to our right was the desk, and in front was a wall of doors. One led to the pool, and another to the pool table. The upstairs showed off an open dining room with round tables covered in white clothes. Diners could look across the lobby and out through the windows onto the deck. The upper floor was accessed via stairs to the far left close to the fireplace, and on either side of the dining area were doors that led onto the deck. Behind the stairs was a narrow, dimly lit hallway, and I guessed that led to the employee living quarters and the kitchen.
We headed over to the front desk and Greg leaned over the counter. Behind the counter was a middle-aged man in a simple white shirt and he wore a broad smile. "Good evening. My name is Brent Patterson, owner of the lodge and front desk clerk. How can I help you?" he wondered.
"We're here to stay in cabin fourteen," Greg told him.
The man turned to his left where sat a computer. After a few clickity-clacks he gave a nod. "I see, Mr. Benson, is it?"
"That's me," Greg replied.
The man glanced at the screen and raised an eyebrow. He looked over to Greg. "And you reserved the cabin for a week on the employee discount?" the man wondered.
"Well, yeah. Can't I do that?" Greg wondered.
"You can, but-" His eyes flickered to me and back to Greg. "And this young lady is?"
"Oh, a good friend," he told him. I frowned, but held my tongue.
"Very well." The man leaned under the desk, grabbed a set of keys and set them on the top. "The cabins are numbered with Number One closest to the lodge. The times for meals is posted in your cabins, and all meals are included in your package. There are also pamphlets listing group events, and I might add that tonight is a special fireplace storytelling time after sundown. The trails are open from sunup to sundown, and we are not responsible for any accidents should you not follow the rules."
"Sounds good," Greg replied. He grabbed the cabin key and turned to me with a broad grin. "Ready?"
"Yeah, sure," I replied. I looked to the desk man who stared at both of us with confused interest. Then we left the lodge and plopped into the car. "What was that about me being a friend?" I asked him.
"Well, you are. My girlfriend, that is," he pointed out.
"Uh-huh, and about this cabin being expensive?" I wondered.
"Well, they were before the discount," he replied.
"And it being an employee discount? How'd you get that?"
"Stop worrying about everything. We have the cabin, don't we?" he argued. He pulled the car out of the parking space and drove us to cabin fourteen. There were twenty cabins total, so this was just on the wrong side of being away from the lodge. Greg parked the car in the parking spot, got out, and breathed deeply. "Great air, isn't it?"
I followed his example and couldn't argue. There was the fresh smell of a summer evening's dew with a hint of heat from the long day. "Yeah, it is," I agreed.
"Come on, let's see how these things look inside," he suggested.
Greg led me onto the small porch and opened the door. The entrance swung open and revealed a single large room with two beds against the far wall, a door on the left wall that led to the bathroom, and to the right was a small living room with two chairs, a TV stand, and a TV. The floor was polished wood, and so was all the furniture. It was pretty snazzy, and very expensive looking.
I stepped inside, dropped my bag onto th
e floor, and dove onto the hefty-looking bed on the right. The mattress was crisp, but had a good bounce. I laughed and turned to Greg. I was surprised to see he still stood on the porch and his eyes were turned to the left toward the lodge. "Something wrong?" I asked him as I slid off the foot of the bed.
He whipped his head to me. "W-what? O-oh, no, nothing wrong, just thought I saw something," he replied.
"Oh? What'd you think you saw?" I wondered. I walked over to the door, but he stepped inside and partially closed the entrance.
Greg spoke in a clipped tone and he sheepishly grinned at me. "It's nothing, just shadows. It's getting really dark out there. Didn't that desk guy say something about a storytelling time about now? What do you say we go to it?" he suggested.
"Sure, it sounds like fun," I hesitantly agreed. I wasn't much interested in ghost stories.
"Then we'd better hurry or we'll miss the fun," he told me. He grabbed my hand and whisked us over to the lodge for spooky time.
Chapter 2
We hurried along the front of the cabins and the looming clouds above us spattered rain on our heads. The lodge was already crowded with other cabin tenants, and someone had started a small fire in the fireplace. The warm flames crackled contentedly in the hearth and people milled around talking and laughing. There was a refreshments table near the stairs, and Greg pulled me toward it.
I pulled loose from his grasp and shook my head. "I'm not hungry, so I'll just grab us a seat by the fire," I told him.
"Good idea. I'll get some food for both of us," he offered, and hurried over to the table. I didn't believe for a second that he'd share. His appetite was as great as two men, and there wasn't a large enough plate created to satisfy him.
Only a few older guests sat on the couches and chairs that surrounded the hearth, and they left me alone when I wandered over to lean against the mantel. I gazed into the warm flames and thought about Greg's employee discount, and his talk about that waitress giving him the tip. My natural womanly suspicions told me something wasn't quite right. I glanced at the refreshments table and noticed Greg stood on the far end speaking with a young woman. She wore the same crisp white shirt as the owner of the lodge and in one hand she held a tray of food. I frowned and moved to intercept their conversation, but my foot caught on the roughly-cut stones at the bottom of the hearth.
I tripped and would have fallen to the hard floor if a pair of strong arms hadn't caught me. They lifted me back onto my feet and I turned to find myself staring into a pair of beautiful blue eyes. The rest of the owner of those eyes was just as handsome with windswept brown hair, a thin but not narrow face, and a build I'd call lithe. He smiled at me and his eyes twinkled.
"Careful there," he lightly scolded me.
I reluctantly stepped back from his grasp and blushed. "Sorry about that. I'm a little clumsy," I told him.
"I think your attention was elsewhere, but no harm done. Just be careful when you go into the woods. Every root will be trying to trip you," he teased.
"I'll have to make sure there's a tree like you to catch me," I returned.
"Attention, everyone!" a voice yelled over the clamor of the company. I turned to see it was Mr. Patterson, and he held his hands over his head. "The storytelling will soon begin, so anyone with a story please come up to me and write down your names. Be warned that we do allow scary stories, so anyone with children might want to leave," he warned us.
I scoffed. "I bet these are just campfire stories. What do you think, Mr.-?" I turned and found my mystery man was gone. My eyes scanned the crowd, but he was nowhere to be seen. I leaned against the hearth and sighed. "Just my luck that he's scared of scary stories," I muttered.
"Who is?" someone asked me, and I glanced over my shoulder to find Greg standing there with a heaping plate of food.
I straightened and tried to act natural in my stiff pose. "Oh, nobody." I looked past him and saw the woman, too, had disappeared. "Did you leave any food for anyone else?" I teased him.
"There's plenty there," he defended himself.
"All right, there's food left, but let's find a seat before they're all taken," I advised him.
We found two seats on one of the three couches and were joined by about two dozen other people, among them a lot of nervous and excited kids. Outside I heard the faint sound of raindrops on the windows. The storm had finally come. There was ten feet between the front of the couches and the hearth, and Mr. Patterson stepped into that space with a clipboard in his hand.
"It seems we have a lot of shy people because no one signed up," he told us. There were a few nervous laughs and the children whimpered in disappointment. "But in these emergencies I have just the tale to tell myself. It's about this very lodge and the woods around the cabins." He gestured to someone behind the chairs and couches, and the lights were flicked off. The only light came from the glow of the fire. Mr. Patterson set aside his clipboard, took a small glass of alcohol from one of his employees, and stood in front of the fire. His front was covered in darkness, and his shadow stretched out in front of him toward us. He deepened his voice and it echoed around the cavernous lobby. "What I'm about to tell you is a true story."
Greg snorted. "Yeah, right," he commented. Everyone around us shushed him, including me, and Greg sulked over his food.
Mr. Patterson continued. "This is a story about the beast of the woods, and dates back to a time long ago, long before I acquired the lodge. A young man arrived one stormy night without money and his car on its last leg. He pleaded for a room in which to stay, and the owner granted him one of the unused cabins. Cabin thirteen." I stiffened. That was right next to our cabin. Even Greg paused mid-bite and whipped his head up to stare at Patterson. "The man was as pale as snow, and the owner asked him if he needed a doctor. 'No doctor can help me' the young man replied, and hurried to his cabin. That night, at midnight, the other cabin renters heard terrible sounds from cabin thirteen. It was as if the man was tearing the walls and floor apart with his bare hands. The cries of the young man were horribly mingled with that of an animal. They rushed to the lodge and huddled around the fire, as we are doing now, and complained to the owner. The owner took the bravest men and their guns, and they made their way to cabin thirteen. They found the door ajar and the cabin destroyed. Nothing was left untouched, not even the carpet tacks. The man was gone. All that was left were bits of torn clothing strewn about the room. The men found bare footprints in the ground in front of the porch, and they followed the tracks to the edge of the woods behind the cabins. As they followed the trail they noticed the feet changed. The twos melded together and the feet stretched and thinned. They flashed their lights on the trail and saw it was no longer a man they followed, but some wolf creature."
"Did it jump out and kill them?" a boy of six asked our host.
Mr. Patterson chuckled. "Not quite. As they were trying to decide whether to follow the tracks or return to the lodge three cars crested the hill and parked in front of the lodge. They were state police cars, and the group of men went to meet them. The captain in charge told them a terrifying tale about what brought them so high up in the mountains."
"Somebody didn't pay a parking ticket?" a man spoke up. A nervous giggle rippled through the crowd.
"No, a murderer had brought them to the lodge. He'd killed several people in the valley below here. Their deaths were horrible. He'd torn them apart with his bare hands and eaten parts of them." There were gags of disgust from the audience and Greg nearly lost his apptetite. "The officers had followed his trail along the road that led to the lodge. As they were speaking to the men one of them glanced at the cars in the parking lot, and his eyes fell on the one the stranger had come in. 'Who's that car?' he asked the owner. 'A young fellow who just came up here,' the lodge owner replied. The captain led the men over to the car and flashed a light inside the vehicle. The interior was splattered with blood!" Mr. Patterson swung around toward the fire and tossed his drink into the flames. The fire roared up the chimney and
lit the area in front of the couches as bright as day. Children screamed and women shrieked. Greg dropped his plate when someone knocked into the back of the couch.
The lights flicked on and Mr. Patterson stood there with his empty glass and a broad smile on his face. "Neat story, isn't it?" he asked us.
"You could have killed us all with that fire!" one man commented.
Mr. Patterson shook his head. "No chance. This hearth is built of good stone and I've thrown enough fuel in the fire to know how much I need," he explained.
"But you didn't finish the story!" a small boy spoke up.
"Yes, finish the story!" a woman pleaded.
"Not until we get this mess cleaned up," Mr. Patterson commented as he indicated Greg's spill. An employee was called and it turned out to be the woman from before. Greg helped her pick up the food and I noticed the woman glanced at Greg a few times trying to catch his eyes, but he kept his gaze to the floor. When the food and floor were clean everyone took their seats and the lights were again shut off. Patterson stood before us sans glass. "When the men and officers saw the blood their own ran cold, and the captain turned to the owner. 'Where is this man?' the captain asked him. The owner shook his head. 'We don't know where he is. He tore up his cabin and ran into the woods,' the owner explained. 'Show me,' the captain demanded. The officers followed the owner and the other men to the trail, and they shined their flashlights on the footprints. The captain took a few cautious steps up the trail, but shook his head. 'There's no way we'd find him tonight. We'll look for him in the morning,' he told his men. They stayed at the lodge and the next morning they scoured the trails. The footprints led them far into the woods, up beyond where anyone goes nowadays. They lost the footprints when they disappeared into the brush. After several days the officers were forced to give up the search, and left. Years passed, but nobody was able to forget about the strange young man. Over the decades rumors of strange sightings occurred. People swore they saw a large shape flitting through the trees behind the cabins, or they met a stranger on the trail that they never saw at the cabins. Even to this day there are still sightings of the stranger, and sometimes, after a rain like this one, you can find his tracks in the mud. They lead around cabin thirteen and sometimes the tenants of the other cabins here a scratching at their doors. Whatever you do, don't answer it."