“Joe had cancer?” Amber asked.
Alan nodded. “That’s why we had to learn to call them. We used them to cure our son.”
“Technically, they say he’s in remission,” Liz said. “Of course, that’s what they said about the Prescotts, too. When they moved away, they didn’t last long.”
“Prescott?” Amber asked.
“Yeah,” Liz said. “The road that goes near your uncle’s house was named after them. They used to be a big family in the area.”
Amber nodded.
In her experience, ghost stories usually evaporated when they were probed. It seemed that around here, probing only proved that they ran deep.
# # #
“Ricky,” Aaron said, “point your light down that way.”
Ricky aimed his light towards the end of the hall, at the door to the honeymoon suite.
“It looks like the door is open, and I left it closed,” Aaron said. “Maybe she came back.”
He took a few quick steps in that direction and then gestured for the others to follow him.
“No,” Ricky said. “I mean, yes, we should check on that, but first let’s go down to the front desk and see if the phone is still working. I want to get a call to local authorities and see if there’s another broom in that maintenance closet. I think I saw one.”
Aaron glanced between him and the door in the distance.
“Just real quick?”
Ricky shook his head.
“If she’s there, she’ll still be there in a minute, Aaron,” Nick said.
Aaron finally nodded and followed as Ricky led the way to the stairway door. Before opening it, he scanned his light down the hall in the other direction. All the doors were shut. There was no sign that any of the other guests were up. It didn’t make a lot of sense to Ricky—it seemed like at least one or two would have gotten up to use the bathroom and discovered the power outage. If it were him, he would have walked down to the desk to find out about the situation. Even the door to the room neighboring Amber’s was shut, and they had heard tapping coming from that room.
“What?” Nick asked.
“Nothing,” Ricky said. He opened the door to the stairwell.
The railings sent moving shadows off at strange angles. It always looked like something was shifting in the shadows just around the next landing. Ricky stayed close to the wall and stepped silently as he descended. Behind him, the others were just as cautious. They were all waiting for a surprise that never came. Ricky breathed out a sigh when they finally reached the lower landing. On the other side of the door and across the landing, they might find a phone and then he could start the wheels in motion.
Ricky put his flashlight against his torso to dim the light before he pushed open the door to the lobby. At the first sign of movement, he was ready to pull the door shut.
He didn’t see a thing.
The sky had cleared a bit outside and thin moonlight was seeping through the windows. At the door, the mop handle was still taped between the door handles. The desk was unmanned.
Even from where he was standing, across the lobby from the reception desk, Ricky could see the flashing light on the desk phone.
Ricky clicked off the light and handed it to Aaron.
He leaned in close and whispered, “You two stay here. I’ll go see if I can make a phone call. Don’t move unless you see something coming for me. If you do, distract it with that light so I can get away.”
Aaron and Nick nodded. Ricky took a deep breath, waited for his heartbeat to slow down, and then took off, trying to keep himself low to the ground. His eyes were on the patch of parking lot that he could see through the lobby windows. The shadows were moving out there. It could have just been the clouds across the moon, but Ricky thought that there was more to it than that.
He came around the end of the desk and ducked down below the level of the counter. Once he caught his breath, he rose up slowly to scan the lobby. Nothing stirred. The door to the stairwell was still cracked open. Aaron and Nick were waiting in those shadows. Ricky lowered himself back down and crawled towards the phone.
His eyes were adjusting to the shadows even before his hand touched the body. Ricky froze when his hand landed on the ankle. Her skin felt cold. He couldn’t see her face—that was hidden in the blackness below the desk—but he thought he recognized her anyway. She was the woman who had been manning the desk.
Ricky forced himself to squeeze her ankle. He was hoping for a reaction or any sign of a pulse.
Her ankle didn’t move, but something was stirring in the shadows. Ricky clamped a hand over his own mouth to prevent himself from screaming in surprise.
“Ricky?” The voice from the blackness was a whisper. Pinpoints of light came out of the darkness. It wasn’t enough to illuminate the woman, but Ricky was able to fix his attention on the moving thing that had just called his name.
“Ricky?”
This time he recognized the voice.
“Riley?”
“Ricky you have to get out of here.”
Ricky couldn’t believe his own ears. He knew he had to run but he couldn’t find the strength to make his legs work.
“Riley, how did you get here from the hospital? What happened?”
“I walked. I was weak at first, but I got… You have to get away from us.”
“Us?”
“I’m fighting it, Ricky, I really am, but I don’t know that I’m going to be able to control myself much longer. I was bitten. The heat—it started at the bite, but it’s moving all through me.”
Ricky managed to tear his eyes away from the pinpricks of light that floated in the shadows. His strength returned as soon as he looked away. His eyes landed on the flashing light of the desk phone. It was only a few feet away, but it might as well have
