Roadway Inn E-Book

Woody Kallen

• Herausgeber: BookRix
• Kategorie: Abenteuer, Thriller, Horror
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017

Beschreibung

Johnny and his parents stop at a small roadside inn on their way home from a family vacation in Florida. They’re soon to discover that dark forces lurk there – hungry for blood.

Leseprobe

Woody Kallen

Roadway Inn

BookRix GmbH & Co. KG81371 Munich

Roadway Inn

1

This tale I’m going to tell you – it probably never happened. That’s what the psychologists all told me. They said it was a figment of my imagination, and I suppose they’re right. It’s only that – only that there’re a lot of odd things about that inn we stayed at during the night between the fourth and fifth of January 2000. For one thing, Mom and Dad remember almost nothing of that night, and they remembered almost nothing of it a few days later too. Also, I looked up the Roadway Inn. As far as I can tell, it had been abandoned in 1971 – nearly thirty years beforehand.

Something happened that night. This is how I remember it. It probably isn’t true. God, I hope it isn’t.

2

Rain pounded against the car’s windshield. Our headlights illuminated the falling rain, and bits of the woods which surrounded the narrow highway. The car drove through a puddle, splashing water in all directions.

“Should we stop here, Ella?” Dad asked. He was driving. Mom was sitting in the passenger seat next to him. I was sitting in the back, in the middle seat, so that I could see through the windshield, which was the only window not totally fogged up. I was eight then. My parents were in their thirties.

“Where?” Mom asked.

“The Roadside Inn; just saw a sign for it.”

“I didn’t see any sign, Eric.”

“You must have missed it, dear,” Dad said. The road curved. Ahead, a wooden sign with the word inn on it pointed to a dirt path.

Dad signaled – even though we were probably the only car for a mile – and turned onto the dirt road. A small animal darted across the path in front of us, and lightning flashed through the storm. Something about that dirt path felt very wrong to me, but I didn’t know what.

The path turned out to be surprisingly long; it took nearly five minutes to drive down. Dad finally drove around a bend, and the inn itself came into view. It was pretty much a large house, built in the Victorian style. It was old too, and didn’t seem to have undergone much maintenance. A bunch of the windows were boarded up, but most of them still had glass. There were lights in some of the windows. Most of them were dark.

Four cars and one motorcycle were parked before the house. Away from them – closer to the trees – a fifth car sat on four flat tires, and with three of its windows shattered.

Dad brought our car to a stop beside the other four – as close as he could to the front porch, which was covered.

Mom turned to me. “We’re here, Johnny.”

I rolled my eyes. “I know.”

“Zip up your coat,” she said. “You don’t want to get cold.”

Mom and Dad left the car to get our luggage from the trunk. I zipped up my coat and followed them out. The rain was stronger than I had expected, and the wind was probably strong enough to make small animals fly. 

I made my way to the trunk. Dad handed me a suitcase. “Is this too heavy for you, young man?” he asked.

I took it from him. “Of course not.”

He patted me on the back. “That’s my boy.”

“I don’t think I could carry that,” Mom said. I didn’t think that was true. Mom did almost as much physical work around the house as Dad did. It felt good all the same.

I waited for Mom and Dad under the porch’s roof. They were both wearing jeans, although Mom’s jeans were white, so I’m not sure that really counts. Dad’s hair was only a bit too long. He had glasses that he claimed he was blind without. Mom had curly blond hair that was almost always messy. They both taught English literature at the State University.

“You didn’t need to wait for us out here, honey,” Mom said. “It’s cold.”

I shrugged.

Dad opened the inn’s door and the three of us went in.

We found ourselves in something which was probably an entrance hall. The air in the room was a bit stuffy (and – coming in from the cold – that felt wonderful). There was a counter straight ahead of us. To the right, a wide archway led to the common room. I couldn’t see much of it from where we were standing, but I could see a young couple sitting on one of the couches. Piano music was coming from the common room, and I didn’t think it was a recording. To the left, a column of stairs led to the second story. A man was sitting on the reception desk and reading some magazine.

The man on the desk looked up at us. He was wearing a black suit, a gray vest, black bowtie and a white shirt. He smiled at us. It was a pleasant smile. “Anything I can do for you?”

“We’d like a room for three,” Dad said.

“I’ll need your signature,” the man said, pointing to an open notebook on the counter. “And credit card. Or cash. Or gold coins.”

Dad reached into his pocket and handed a credit card to the clerk. “Gold coins?”

The clerk shrugged as he swiped Dad’s card. “We accept them.”

He handed Dad back his card, together with a key. “Room two hundred and one. It’s on the second floor.”

Dad nodded. He slipped the key into his pocket.

“Did you eat supper yet?”

“No.”