The Chosen

“You,” he croaked, and in the same instant of grim recognition he was grabbed from behind, by the throat.

««—»»

The Inn felt dead, its long halls muted, vacant, and quiet as a crypt. Vera couldn’t quite calculate what impression coaxed her on. It seemed to be a cluster of thoughts so swarmed together that none of them could be singularly deciphered. Down in the atrium the great fireplace exhaled dying heat from its pile of embers.

Her nightgown and robe shifting, she traipsed around the front reception desk. To her surprise, behind the back hall, one of the room-service elevator’s yawned open when she pressed the up button. Generally they were locked. She got in and went up.

Feldspar said The Inn was closed, she remembered, so she needn’t worry about any guests popping up to spy the restaurant manager wandering about in her nightgown. She got off on the third floor and found it immediately cold.

No, very cold.

What the goddamn hell? she wondered.

She peeked into each suite on the floor and discovered them to be not only empty but barren. No furniture, no carpet, no fixtures. And each suite felt as cold as the walk-in freezers downstairs.

Same thing on the fourth floor. Each suite empty, unfurnished, obviously never occupied.

Just like Feldspar’s suite, she recalled.

Feldspar certainly had some explaining to do. What could he possibly say? Why were all the suites empty?

One thing was clear: despite The Inn’s being open now for months, no one had ever rented these suites.

So where did the guests stay?

The elevator took her back down to the atrium.

She cut through the darkened restaurant to the kitchen, flicked on the overhead lights. The kitchen’s long rows of stainless steel sparkled cleanly. Then, in another unbidden impulse, Vera approached the inner door to the room-service kitchen. What are you doing, you idiot? she asked herself. That door’s always locked—

—click.

Vera’s hand froze when she pulled back on the handle.

The door was not locked.

How do you like that? Look’s like Kyle’s getting careless.

The room-service kitchen sparkled back similarly, a carbon copy of her own kitchen for The Carriage House, if not slightly larger and better equipped.

What am I doing here?

She had to admit, she had no idea. And just as she prepared to leave, she heard—

A distant, long drone, which seemed to be moving closer. And then—

A thunk.

Indeed, a familiar thunk, like the strange thunking she’d been hearing every night.

The room-service elevator, she realized.

But it couldn’t be. For she was standing beside the room-service elevator right now.

It was dead silent, obviously not in