Tattooed Hearts: Ep1.2 The Inn

Episode 2: The Inn (Part 2)

1

Now within the inner circle, Tom and Cynthia forged their way through the empty field to where the burning glow of the bonfire beckoned them. Cynthia couldn't help but take fearful glances over her shoulder, expecting the man in black to be behind her at any moment.

The man never moved from his spot.

In fact, the man in black was still silently guarding the entrance to the field. He never spoke a word, not even to welcome them or to say what the entrance fee was. He simply stood aside to let them pass. It was all very strange.

On the other hand, Tom was headstrong in his reserve to find out exactly what they were getting into. It was clear that fear never entered his mind. There was an anxiousness, almost childlike wonder, that drove him forward. He was so ensconced in the moment that he barely registered that his wife was hanging on tight to him as they walked.

The closer they came to the bonfire, the more that came into view. The apparent exclusivity of the event held up as they could clearly see that there was only one person seated on a large stone on the other side of the fire. No other patrons or visitors were in sight. "How could that be" Cynthia wondered. "How could this even be an event if we are the only two people coming? I mean, how good could this actually be."

Her unconscious summoned all those doubts in a faint effort to provide a calming solace to the fear that they were in for something terrible. The nerves lit like electric sparks all over her body, raising the gooseflesh on her arms. Her guts danced around and around, making her feel ill. Still, she marched on. “This is just some sort of prank," she continued to coax herself.

They reached the outskirts of the bonfire. The figure seated on the large stone raised her head and smiled as if to welcome them. Her long bony fingers reached up and pulled back the dark red hood that had adorned the top of her head. The couple looked upon the features of their host and saw a face that unnerved them both.

Much like the man in the bar, Jonah, the woman seated before them was missing an eye. The cold black glass eye fixed in her dead socket focused on them. It was demonic-looking. The rest of the woman's features were equally as off-putting. She had a jagged scar originating on the top of her forehead, near the hairline, and traveled the length of her face until it hit her jawline. Her one remaining good eye seemed bloodshot and swollen. A patch of pockmarks dotted her cheeks and her lips. Despite the welcoming smile, her lips seemed to curl in a portentous signal.

"Please, take a seat," the hostess remarked as she used her long fingers to gesture to two large stones to either side of her. "We will begin momentarily."

The couple did as they were bidden to do.

"What exactly, I mean, what are we doing" Tom questioned, trailing off, as his bottom hit the top of the stone.

The hostess never altered her forward-focused gaze. "You're here to see death, are you not?"

The one line was delivered as a succinct matter-of-fact rhetorical question. The robed woman didn't need an answer. Why else would they be there? Why else would Jonah have sent them her way? He never sent her people that didn't seek death. Never people that were looking for the commercial thrill. No, he only sent her people that wanted the real deal. As she took in the couple before her, she knew they wanted it, despite divining that the wife was afraid to see or believe what they may encounter.

"Well, um, I guess so," Tom responded, unsure how to make these proceedings less awkward. "I mean, we don't have tickets or anything and haven't paid."

The robed hostess raised one straight, slender finger in the air and shook her head. "Please, no discussions of money. This isn't an amusement park. This is a once-in-a-lifetime event, one night only. This is for those who seek the truth in their hearts, those who desire to see what others cannot see, to feel what others cannot feel, and to witness what most only will witness once in their lives. Tonight, you have the opportunity to embrace death and live."

There wasn't even a warble in her tone. The prose came out fluid yet unrehearsed. Cynthia felt that if the woman acted, she was damned good at what she did.

Their hostess reached behind her and pulled a rather large and antique-looking spirit board from the grass. Not one of the store-bought Ouija boards that kids play with. No, this was something different. The planchette that sat atop the board was hand-carved and filled with symbols that neither Tom nor Cynthia fully recognized, save for a small pair of eyes – one painted white, one black – that were etched at either side of the place where their fingers would lay. The center oculus seemed grey-washed.

After she placed the board on the stone table before her, she reached into the interior of her robe and extracted an onyx-colored pen knife. Sliding the blade out, she slowly turned the palm of her left hand over and proceeded to cut into the worn flesh of her hand – flesh that visibly showed this process had been done many times before. The rush of blood flowed quickly. She coiled her hand into a tight fist, turning it perpendicular to the board. Tiny droplets of blood squeezed themselves from the grip and splattered softly onto the board below. It only took her a few moments to complete this part of the ritual, but the realism of this act was enough to quiet Cynthia's unconscious mind that had tried its best to calm her. She could feel the waves of panic start to hit her.

The hostess looked back at her patrons as she relaxed her grip and wiped the remaining blood from her wound onto the robe on her lap. With her other hand, she proffered the pen knife to Cynthia first.

"Please, take. Just a small drop of blood is all we need to proceed. One small prick into the center of the white eye of the planchette. Just one small offering of yourself. It's all we need."

Her voice was smooth and convincing, but Cynthia wanted none of it. She shook her head violently from side to side and began to rise off the stone seat. She was two seconds away from saying to hell with all this and leaving.

"Sit back down," the hostess spoke in a controlled but forceful murmur and, after a moment’s pause, continued, "Please, don't make me ask again."

Cynthia stared wide-eyed at her husband, her mouth agape, her voice inaudible but clearly asking for help. She genuinely feared that if she didn't comply with the woman's request, the man in black would appear and force her to. This started to feel more extreme than a typical paranormal hunt. After all the hunts they had been on, none of them asked for any personal sacrifices like this.

She was sorely disappointed if she were expecting her husband to step in, be a man, and bail her out. She couldn't believe that when Tom engaged her stare back, he dared to stammer out the words, "C'mon, Cyn, it’s just a little Halloween fun. Won’t even hurt."

Was he serious? The pain of even a little finger prick was nothing compared with the possibility of disease spreading from a shared knife, the man in black torturing them, or whatever deranged thing this strange woman had planned next. This was how it always started in those movies she watched. This was just the teaser point, executed shortly before the escalation to something that they would live to regret. No, no, she wouldn't do it. And to show her protest, she stood bolt upright from where she stood and proclaimed in livid disbelief of the situation, "I'm leaving."

The robed hostess bowed her head and, keeping her composure, whispered something completely inaudible under her breath. It was a chant of some sort, a prayer perhaps, but one that neither member of the couple could make out. She continued to whisper the sounds repeatedly, and the more she did, the more Cynthia felt compelled to buckle her knees back into a sitting position slowly. The more the woman chanted, the lower Cynthia's bottom went till it was firmly fixed upon the stone once again. She couldn't explain what had come over her. She couldn't express why she would give in that quickly. And she couldn't begin to will her body to move in the previous direction towards the exit she had started moments ago. It was as if she was paralyzed from the waist down.

The woman took a deep breath, exhaled slowly, and raised her head. Once more, she proffered the pen knife to Cynthia, who, for further unexplainable reasons, took possession of the tiny weapon and did as she was asked. The ruby-stained tip pricked against the tip of her right index finger quickly and efficiently. The blood pooled up in a small bubble before bursting to run down the sides of her finger. Her hand turned over with the help of something unseen, and her finger depressed itself onto the white eye of the planchette marking her offering.

2

The wind rustled through the treetops, whipping through the bonfire's flames. The rolling warmth from the fire cascaded over the three people sitting around the antique spirit board. After his wife put her mark on the planchette, Tom followed suit without any pretense of a fight. Drops of their blood now covered the painted eyes on the planchette like any number of untold times before.

"The blood is the part of you that gives birth to the communication with the spirit world. You see death and the world of the dead need to latch onto something real, tangible, and alive to visit our world; else, they remain lurking in the shadows."

"Is that why the other tours never deliver anything we can see?" Tom asked, interrupting the woman's flow.

The robed hostess gave the man an annoying glare as she hesitated before continuing. "Please, grasp my hand and repeat after me," she urged, extending her skeletal hands in their directions.

Tom quickly reached out and grabbed the hostess’ hand. It was unearthly dry, and he could feel every crevice of the bone structure underneath the scant layers of skin. Cynthia did the same, though she was unnerved to find that in her palm, she felt something wet and her mind quickly remembered that this was the hand the woman had slit during the initial ritual. It revolted her to know that the woman's blood was rubbing against her skin.

"Winds of night, dead of night," the woman began urging the couple now attached to her to echo her.

"Spirits of the night. Spirits of the hallow. Spirits of Samhain. We call unto thee."

Tom and Cynthia continued to echo in a delayed chorus.

"Take the blood offering from the willing and open the veil so we may see what lay beyond."

The woman grasped their palms tighter.

"For these are willing recipients of thine word. No sacrifice is too great. No fear too much. Reveal thy self so that we may bear witness!"

Tom could feel the ridges of her bones dig into his flesh. Her unsuspecting firm grip was starting to cripple the feeling in his hand.

"Touch us, oh dark master. Feed us your nourishment so that we may know that you live." Cynthia's shoulders shuddered at the dark turn in the incantation.

The woman's voice rose in the final crescendo. Her one good eye rolled back in her head until almost nothing but the white showed. "Bring forth unto us a gift from the other side. Bring forth unto us a lasting connection with the dead until the time we close the veil. We ask this in all your glory."

Tom expected an Amen to follow and almost slipped one out but fell quiet once the woman's hand slipped from his grasp. Turning her attention to the couple, she motioned for them to place their hands on the planchette. "Only two fingers," she encouraged.

The crackle from the bonfire reverberated loudly against the silence of the field. It was the only sound that could be heard for a brief time. Everything else had become still. The trees ceased to rustle. The chirp of insects in the field dwindled into nothingness. An uneasy stillness, a stillness unlike anything they had ever previously experienced, gripped them as they sat motionless, waiting for whatever the woman had in store for them next. It was as if their bodies had fallen into a shrouded void that blocked out any form of life.

"Do you feel that," the woman asked them?

Both halves of the couple nodded that they understood and did feel it, though they could scarcely comprehend precisely what it was.

"The veil has been lifted. Can you feel it," the woman asked again with a slight tinge of enthusiasm in her voice. "Can you feel the quiet? This is what it's like.”

"What's what like," Tom asked, though Cynthia was sure she already knew the answer.

Dramatically, the robed hostess paused and slowly uttered one singular word that raised every hair on the couple's skin.

"Death.”

3

"Spirit of the night, we summon thee to speak with us. Come to our knee so that we may suckle at your breast."

So far, nothing had moved on the antique spirit board. Though they still had that feeling of unnerving emptiness around them, the longer it took for any further action to occur was starting to wane the magic of the whole event. It had been at least ten minutes of the woman speaking in random conjuring, yet nothing happened.

"We plead with thee; speak with us," she continued, not losing faith in the experience. She had done this many times before. She had made many sacrifices to raise and lower the veil; had provided the spirit world with many believers, non-believers, and those in-between over the years. She had seen the spirits come quickly and others take time. She had witnessed those that lurked silently near the fire, unable or unwilling to move forward. And she had watched some play with those that sought them out.

It was the latter that she was witnessing, starting to take form. She knew she could see it and knew they could not; they weren't strong enough, seasoned enough to see it. The couple continued to sit with their fingers pressed against the planchette, impatiently waiting for something to happen. She knew it, could feel the impatience emanate from them, could smell it like a stink.

But she also saw it.

The thing stalked slowly up behind Cynthia. The woman watched, expressionless yet knowing. Step by step, it inched closer to Cynthia, like it was afraid to come too near too fast or it might scare its prey away. Oh yes, the woman knew Cynthia was its prey. Its moves suggested nothing short of it. The thing moved closer like a lion lurking in the tall grass hunting its meal.

It was within feet of her now. Its energy was mighty, and the woman could feel that much – she drank it in as it fueled her to continue her pleadings. She kept up the pretense of pretending that something wasn't there. That was part of her job, after all. Never knowing what she would get on any night, she knew this was one real possibility. Unlike other occurrences where there's a benign spirit that just wants to chatter against the spirit board, what she saw, what she knew was there was something of a different sort altogether.

The thing that stalked slowly behind Cynthia was something that never lived, had never walked on the other side of the veil before. It was hungry. She could feel it wanting to feed. Death is a hungry beast; it is never satiated. Its thirst for the living will never go unabated. That is why she plays a tight show with those that seek her out. For if she were to give warning that a thing of pure death was lurking behind Cynthia or someone like Cynthia, they would run. They would break the seal of the veil, leaving her behind to contend with whatever death creature sprang forward. No, she could not do that. She could not be the sacrifice, for she was not the one seeking death; she was just the guide.

The death creature was upon Cynthia now. Its long slender tendrils that served as fingers caressed Cynthia's neck. An icy chill ran down her spine and caused her hips to shiver. She felt the depression on her neck. Felt a coldness whisper nothingness into her ear. She sat rigid, waiting for the robed woman to speak, to say something else, but there was nothing new, just more pleadings to the spirit world to show themselves. She could swear that something was behind her, leaning into her.

The hostess watched with her remaining good eye as the death creature crouched down behind Cynthia. Watched as it ran its shadowy arm down the length of Cynthia's. She watched as its hand descended on Cynthia's and slowly began to move the planchette.

The couple's attention jumped to the board.

"H-E-"

The planchette moved quickly over the board.

“R-E”

It paused.

"Here," Tom asked curiously. "Who's here?"

The hostess ignored the board and kept eyeing the death creature behind Cynthia. It was not her job to save someone from this. It was not her place; however, she could not help but watch as the creature took hold of its prey."

“I-“

The planchette moved again.

"A-M-H-E-R-S"

Befuddled, Tom tried to make sense of the letters. "IAMHERS. Is that name?"

For the first time, the woman saw the eyes. Ashen, grey, lifeless yet devilish all at the same time. They rolled in the creature's head as it breathed Cynthia's smell. The woman could tell it was salivating from the other woman's fear. The scent of her fear was so strong it permeated throughout their space in the veil. It was that fear that had drawn the death creature near. It was the smell that made its hunger rise. She had seen it many, many times before. It was the reason why something more benign did not appear, as those once earth-bound spirits dare not impede upon death's hunt.

The planchette moved again, taking time to spell out the words, placing pauses in between.

“I"

"A-M"

"H-E-R-S"

Cynthia had seen enough. She wrenched her fingers from the planchette quickly and jerked her arms back, hugging herself as if to protect herself from whatever was out there. Only two women around that stone, so the odds against her were pretty good.

Tom let out a little chuckle. "Nice trick," he said, insinuating an accusation that the hostess had staged something. He, too, pulled his hands back from the board.

"I assure you, sir, no trick."

"C'mon, Tom, let's get out of here, huh," Cynthia prodded.

Excitement waning, Tom agreed. "Yeah, ok."

Turning to the hostess, "Listen, um, thanks for the thrills. Definitely better than most of the ghost tours, even though you didn't produce a ghost. But some cool Halloween thrills. If you have a website or something, I will leave a good review," he mentioned offhand as he stood up.

"Please, sit back down. We must close the veil," the woman in the robe pleaded.

"Close it yourself," Cynthia said as she started to saunter off past the fire back towards the car. She was curious when she did not see the hulking figure of the man in black any longer, but at that point, she didn't care. She was sufficiently creeped out enough that she just wanted to leave. She wasn't sure how the woman had pulled off those theatrics, but the feeling that something was right next to her during the performance was enough to push her to the limit. Maybe Tom was right; perhaps it was some good Halloween fun, the kind that exasperated the senses. Still, she had enough for one evening and just wanted to get back into the warmth of her bed back at the inn. She hoped that the ghost hunt there was over because she didn't want any fools knocking on her door late at night. Right then, all she wanted was a good night of uninterrupted sleep.

4

The robed woman muttered a closing prayer to shut the veil. She didn't need anything else unwanted creeping out of the night toward her.

She whispered a short prayer of safe travels for the woman that was walking away from her with the death creature riding on her back.

5

It was well past the witching hour when Tom and Cynthia made their way back into the Sara Black room at the Farnsworth. Cynthia was doubly quick to turn and lock the door to the room behind them. She had hoped that the further they got away from the field near Sachs Covered Bridge, the more she would start to feel herself again, but anything resembling normal was far from regaining control.

"What a great night," Tom exclaimed as he threw himself upon the bed. "I mean, sure, we didn't see any ghosts, but, man, that was fun!"

He waited for his wife to reply, and when he didn't get any agreement, verbal or otherwise, he pressed her. "You didn't have fun?"

"Honestly," she reluctantly replied, "no. There wasn't anything fun about that."

"C'mon, Cyn, you can't tell me you were that scared. It was clearly a show. I mean, for the love of God, you called it from the jump. That man, Jonah, set us up!"

He paused, reflecting for a second. "Still, I can't figure out what his angle was. It's not like they made any money tonight."

"It's not that, Tom. I just felt.." she trailed off. She couldn’t quite figure out how to frame it; the words just didn't come. "I just didn't feel right about it. Maybe it's all in my head, but I could swear something was out there with us, with me!"

Her husband glanced at her sideways, giving her that look that said everything and nothing all at the same time. He hadn't felt anything other than a slight creeped-out sensation when they were in the veil. Otherwise, nothing out of the ordinary had struck him, but he had to give the woman running the show her props; she was very entertaining, and he undoubtedly knew they got more out of it than if they were on another routine ghost hunt. Even if none of the stuff was real, it had to be about the show.

"Black magic," she picked up. "It was like dabbling in some sort of black magic. That type of stuff just creeps me out. I don't like it. I told you I didn't like it." She was getting defensive at that point.

"Then why did you go," Tom fired back. He was getting a little upset at how his wife was acting. She was making more out of it than what was there.

"Seriously?"

"Yeah, seriously! If you didn't want to go, you didn't have to. You can't say I forced you into it!"

She had had enough. Fighting was not going to put her mind at ease any quicker. She put up her hands out of desperation and just said, "Goodnight, Tom, I don't want to talk about it anymore."

With that, she retired to the bathroom, shutting the door behind her, and took a position just staring at herself in the mirror. Her heart was still racing, and she felt just a little alone time would help bring her back down. She wasn't aware how long she was in the bathroom, but by the time she emerged, Tom was lying on his side, eyes closed and drifting off to sleep. She slipped out of her clothes and put on a pair of plaid PJs. Rest, she told herself; sleep was what she needed. In the morning, they would grab some breakfast and probably joke about the whole thing, but at that moment, she needed to get some rest and reset. Grabbing an Ambien from her night case, she knocked back the pill with some water and nestled into bed beside her husband. She lay on her side, back to his back, facing the opposing wall and closet doors. She didn't even bother turning off the little night table light. The extra light would do her good; just in case something came out of nowhere to get her. She had enough of the darkness for one night.

It didn't take long for the pill's effects to kick in. The lids of her eyes drew heavy and sagged slowly until nothing visible was left. The drug did wonders to shut down the spinning wheels of her mind. She could feel her breathing slow, her heart rate drop, all her alertness fading into the ether. The dramatic pull of sleep tugged at her. Every muscle in her body relaxed to the state of tiredness beyond that of fatigue, and as she drifted off, she felt at peace.

The hours ticked by, the minutes toward a new dawn speeding by unnoticed. Cynthia had entered a dreamless state. That was common for her when she was on the pills, and ordinarily, it was one of the side effects that she least liked about the drug, but for that night, it was a welcome relief. To have no images floating through her head, jaunting her awake because of some ill-conceived nightmare, was what she needed. As the night pressed on, she started to feel safe in her bed.

The arousal from the deep slumber came as a shock to her system. She was flat on her back when her eyes shot open. The light from the nightstand was still on, providing a dim glow to the room. The inn was dead silent. Not a creak of a floorboard, no prattle of voices, no sound of air rushing through the room. Suddenly, she felt like she was back in the field near the Sachs Covered Bridge. She felt like she was in the void that raising the veil created. Her mind roared back to life, sending nervous energy to her eyes to explore the room.

But nothing else moved. No other part of her body moved. Try as she might to turn her head, raise an arm, flip her torso, nothing moved. She was frozen in place and fixed in a rigid state of paralysis. She tried to move her mouth to call out for Tom, but no sound came from her throat. She wasn't even sure her lips moved. Her mind spits out a thousand different thoughts causing her heart rate to accelerate once again. That feeling of dread washed over her once more.

Beads of sweat started to form on her brow. It was a cold sweat, and she could feel the cold liquid seeping from her pores; she still should not move. The only faculty she possessed was that of her eyes, but the narrow focus was starting to wane even then. It was becoming increasingly difficult for her to assess the environment around her.

That was when she saw it.

Out of the corner of her eye, with the reduced range of motion that her field of vision was granted by whatever was holding her body in place, she saw it. In the corner of the room, crouched down behind the closet door that, until that moment, she had not noticed had come ajar, were a pair of ashen grey eyes.

They glowered at her from the darkness. They trained their ominous gaze on her. It seemed like they were trying to eat her alive with their stare. They slowly raised from the closet's lower half as whatever they belonged to stood erect in the shadows. The dim nightstand light was barely enough to cast illumination into the recesses of the closet. When fully upright, the eyes were near the top of the closet door.

Cynthia shrieked, wanting desperately for her voice to become audible and wake Tom from his slumber. She had to be dreaming. Her mind had to be playing tricks on her. She had to be asleep, just had to be.

The door to the closet creaked open, audibly squealing against the pressure that was being put on it from the other side. The bottom of the door dragged eerily across the wooden slats of the floor. The more the door opened, the more she could determine what the eyes belonged to.

A dark creature of disproportionate features leered at her from the closet doorway. Its face was incomprehensibly grotesque. Its arms ran the length from the shoulders to the well below the waist. The torso was ripped in places it should not be if the thing were alive. The sinewy muscles flexed as the body stepped from the closet and into the room.

Cynthia panicked inside. The grotesqueness of the creature facing her resembled something stuck between a man and a gargoyle. It had a slight forward lean of its spine but strode across the floor with ease. The creature's long arms stretched out, pawing the air as it moved towards her.

Her heart thudded in her chest.

She willed her mind to move her body, but nothing gave. Her once-reliable frame remained limp and motionless to the danger looming toward her. She struggled internally to scream but still found no voice. As the creature moved silently toward her, all she could hear was the thudding beats of her heart.

Step by step and inch by inch, the creature moved, slowly yet purposely, toward her. The long fingers of the creature's hand found their home against her leg. They slipped under the covers and ran icily up and down her thigh. Her fear heightened, and the creature breathed in deeply as it did. The thing's eyes closed for a split instant as its head rolled to the side in ecstasy.

The creature's fingers continued their search of her body. Slowly up her leg, then to her pubic mound and between her legs. When it touched her, her body was involuntarily relieved of what was held in the bladder.

The creature was beside her. Dragging its long fingers backward from her wet crotch back up over her stomach, it continued to search, to touch her. The creature leaned in low next to her face and sniffed hard, capturing her scent. The hand now caressed her face. The ashen grey eyes were inches from her own.

She could hear her voice inside screaming. She could feel her body wanting to move. She could feel the nerve-ending fire and go out. Still, she could not move. She could not even close her eyes anymore, forced to fix on the gaze of the creature that had, at that point, rolled on top of her.

Next to her, Tom stirred in his sleep. Please wake up, she screamed inside. God damn it, wake up!

Tom didn't wake. He had unconsciously readjusted himself but was still in another world.

The dark creature was less than an inch from her face, like a lover would be in a fit of sexual conquest. Its left hand grasped at her chin. For the first time, the thing's mouth parted, and she could see multiple rows of teeth hidden behind the non-existent lips, the hole that held them just as dark on the inside as it was on the out. Drawing out the conquest, the creature deliberately bit into the soft tissue of her cheek.

The interior of Cynthia's mind and body shuddered hard, but her body did not move.

This is all a dream; this is all a dream; this is all a dream, she repeated to herself.

She could smell the breath of the creature, hot against her skin. The smell was rotten and perverse. It lilted its head to the other side of hers, pressing hard against her flesh.

Her heart rate grew rapid, and with it, the remainder of her bowels emptied themselves. The more her fear grew, the more enticed the creature became. It became clear to her that the thing was feasting on her. She could feel the weight of the beast becoming more and more oppressive. Its rotten breath bathed her as it drank in her fear pheromones. The ashen grey eyes, unblinking in their stare, reflected nothing but sinister death.

The thudding of her heart was the only sound she heard as the dark creature parted her lips and slid its mouth onto hers. The thudding of her heart was the last sound she heard as the thing pulled her soul from her body.

Nothing else moved in the Farnsworth moved that night. In the morning, the inn would be with one less tenant.