This is the story I submitted for my final short story assignment in year 2. I considered extending and improving it for use on the blog, but I think it is probably best to leave it as it is, with all its flaws and inadequacies.
Our car was drifting at a terrifically high speed along the bitter and frozen road. The sky hung dark and sinister above our heads, and the only light provided to us was from the multitude of tiny stars which adorned the black canopy. No moon was visible and, as such, our vision was frightfully impaired.
I had informed Burnaby earlier that such erratic driving under these conditions was perilous, especially since, as travellers, we were towing behind us a large caravan, but he had shrugged off my comments, and I had swallowed my misgivings, gripping the edge of my seat fretfully, my knuckles turning white with the strain.
It was as we were passing through a seemingly-deserted village that went by the name of Skuldugg that we first began to feel particularly wary. I mentioned my unease to Burnaby, but he misunderstood, and believed me to be referencing his driving technique once again.
‘No,’ I informed him, ‘it isn’t that. There’s something else; something in the air. I don’t like it.’
Burnaby bit his lip and killed his speed dramatically. ‘Yes,’ he confessed, ‘I feel it too. There’s something very wrong about this place.’
Of course, the onlooker would have said the problem was that there was nothing right about Skuldugg: there were no houses to be seen for miles around, and not a soul walked the streets. It was almost as though the entire town had been utterly razed. It was as barren as the sparsest desert.
Without any hint of warning, we noticed several snowflakes begin to fall upon our windscreen. Burnaby tutted indignantly; he had never, even as a child, been particularly enamoured with the snow. Especially now, as he was entering the latter portion of his fifties, he felt unable to comprehend how anybody could relish the presence of such a substance was far beyond his comprehension, as he was so fond of informing anyone and everyone who would listen.
Something in the back of my mind told me we should stop the car, and I said so to my friend. He was not happy about it, but I informed him I was sure this was just the start of what was to be a horrendous blizzard, and that, while we were towing the caravan, we would at least have somewhere warm to camp out. Reluctantly, Burnaby agreed, and halted the vehicle immediately.
‘There’s one upside to this village being deserted,’ he told me, good-humouredly, ‘and that is I don’t have to go searching for parking.’ He chuckled at his own joke, and I smiled politely. We then got out, and were amazed that the ground beneath our feet was already covered in a white blanket. We simply couldn’t believe our eyes. It had only been snowing for a few seconds: of that we were certain. We looked up into the sky, and were astounded to see the snow falling to Earth in droves, pummelling the ground with such a tremendous speed that the impact upon one’s skin was almost akin to that of a hailstone.
‘Bloody hell!’ Burnaby’s voice, normally so loud, was reduced to little more than a whisper by the roar of the wind tearing through the atmosphere around us. I tried to look at him, to catch his eye, but I couldn’t even make out his form through the swirling flood of snow and ice.
‘Let’s get inside the caravan!’ I called. ‘We’ll be safer indoors!’
I could just about make out a nod from my ally, and we hurried around to the back of our automobile. When we saw the space where the caravan was – or, rather, should have been – I felt my blood run cold, and could swear my heart skipped several beats. We could see the distinctive tracks of the contraption’s large, solid wheels, could see the indent in the ground where its large frame had prevented the snow from settling directly beneath it, but the caravan had vanished.
We both looked around us frantically, trying in vain to see where the assailant responsible for the theft of our most prized possession had scarpered off to, but it was hopeless. Man could barely see further than the ends of his nose in such incapacitating weather conditions.
Burnaby, in his fury, ran up to our vehicle and kicked the wheel aggressively, filling the air with as many expletives as he could conjure up. I, on the other hand, began looking around for some sort of shelter.
It was as I was surveying my surroundings that I noticed another bizarre occurrence. We appeared to have parked in front of a large, crumbling building, but I was sure it had not been there when we arrived. No, there was no way it could have been there before; we had both looked directly at the spot where the building was situated, and seen nothing.
I pointed this phenomenon out to Burnaby, but, ignoring the peculiarity of the situation, he immediately suggested we go inside. I, however, was uncertain: there was definitely something unnatural about the place. But my bones were numb with cold and, in my desperation, I would probably have taken shelter in an opium den.
Once inside, my mind boggled, my eyes opening wide with the surprise of what confronted me.
Instead of what I had expected to be contained within the old, decrepit building, I saw before me the interior of a huge, grandiose hotel. Golden railings adorned the multitudinous staircases which rose up through all of the floors, and the walls were panelled with rich, brown timber. Behind an expensive-looking desk sat a young man, wearing a dark black suit. His skin was very pale, and his eyes were a very unnatural shade of violet! I had never seen a living person with violet eyes before! His face reminded me of something I had seen before – perhaps something I saw so frequently it was unnoticeable to me, for I could not for the life of me remember what it was. His fingers were long and spidery, and he sat with his hands clasped together. He was looking at us keenly, pleasantly. I wasn’t sure why, but I felt myself already trusting him; despite the strange goings-on of the evening, there was something about him which demanded friendship.
‘Excuse me,’ Burnaby said, politely, ‘but we were driving in the area and –‘
‘Welcome,’ announced the young man excitedly, interrupting my companion mid-sentence, ‘to the Golden Bat Hotel. My name is Severin. How may I be of assistance?’ He spoke very effeminately, smiling all the while. There was something very unnatural about his persona, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. Burnaby, I deciphered by a surreptitious glance to my right, apparently felt the same.
‘We were driving in the area and our caravan was stolen.’ Burnaby paused, unnerved. The man was staring at him, it was true, but I could have sworn he was looking through him, as though into thin air. ‘We were hoping you could aid us in acquiring shelter?’
He left the question hanging, eagerly awaiting the receptionist’s response.
‘Certainly,’ he eventually announced, ‘we have a room exactly matching that description.’
Burnaby and I looked at one another. Was this man ignoring us? Or was he sticking to some absurd script he had been forced to swallow during training? Either way, his responses seemed to be almost pre-ordained, more robotic than human. Yes, his pallid complexion had reminded me of a shop window dummy!
But I was sure we were over-reacting.
Well, I say ‘sure’: that is what we kept telling ourselves.
‘Erm, thank you.’ It was all I could think to say.
‘Certainly,’ the boy recommenced, as though I had not spoken, and handed us a set of old, rusty keys. They seemed to me to be more akin to the keys one would use for a pair of rather large, iron gates, like those you’d expect to see in a graveyard.
I thanked him once more, and we began to ascend the stairs.
Looking back, we noticed Severin standing, just as before, conversing with the space we had previously been occupying.
And it was as I looked back, that I noticed a large key protruding from the man’s back.
I drew Burnaby’s attention to it, and I could see in his eyes that it unnerved him just as much as it had me. But he continued with his tough-guy faรงade, and we continued our ascent.
Eventually, we reached our quarters. The door, in contrast to its surroundings, was carved from the blackest ebony, with an ivory handle. Upon it, ‘XIII’ had been crudely scratched into the wood, seemingly with the nails of someone sporting a pair of rather deadly claws.
Burnaby and I exchanged another glance, and cautiously proceeded to unfasten the door.
Within, the room was sparsely furnished. There was a double bed (upon seeing this, Burnaby became visibly uncomfortable, endeavouring to look at anything but it), a radio and an antique gramophone. Lying on the floor next to this were three vinyl records. But I was very disappointed – and, more so, confused – when I realised that the record player had no needle. On top of this, the room had no windows, instead being solely lit by a large, heavily-tarnished chandelier and, upon closer inspection, I noticed that several of the prisms were either cracked or shattered.
Suddenly, there was a knock at the door, and Burnaby opened to find another doll standing in front of him. ‘Hello,’ he said jovially. ‘I hope you are having a pleasant stay. Please, follow me to the dining hall, as the evening meal is due to be served. There is no need to dress.’ It then marched away. Deciding there was really too much of interest in this strange building to lock ourselves away in such an inadequate sleeping chamber, we elected to follow.
As we caught up with the doll, we noticed it walked very rigidly, never bending its knees; it appeared to waddle along the corridor, and we watched with baited breath as it attempted to traverse the staircase. It took a very long time, but eventually it reached the bottom, and continued upon its way.
We were shown into a magnificent dining hall, every corner of the room adorned with cobwebs. The formerly-white ceiling was heavily stained with water damage. The room was gloomily lit, and it was with an increasing sense of surprise that we noticed there was only one, small, two-person table situated up against the far wall.
‘Are there not very many customers at this time of year?’ Burnaby asked, echoing my own astonishment. The doll we were following elected to ignore us – or, more likely, was unable to hear us. He waddled stiffly over to the table, and indicated that we were to sit. We did so and, upon telling us that the waiter would be over shortly to take our order, disappeared out of the door, closing it and, to our astonishment, apparently locking it behind him.
We sat there in silence, each of us thinking the same thing – that we wanted nothing more than to leave.
It was Burnaby who ultimately attempted to break the silence.
‘How the hell are we expected to order food if these dummies can’t even hear us?’ I found it rather endearing that, in the face of all this absurdity and creepiness, Burnaby’s main concern still lay with satisfying his stomach.
We sat in silence, time passing at a snail’s pace. I was rather irritated to find that, upon checking my watch, it had apparently stopped. There was no sign of a timepiece anywhere in the room.
We were overwhelmed when, finally, the doors swung open. Another dummy was standing in the doorway, grinning manically at us. He held two bowls. ‘I apologise profusely for the delay, Sir,’ he said, earnestly. Then, turning to Burnaby, continued: ‘I do hope you were not too distressed, Sir?’
‘Yes, I bloody well was!’ my friend shouted.
‘Excellent, Sir,’ the mannequin replied. ‘I am so pleased to hear that.’
Burnaby looked at me, exasperatedly, and then, with a cry of utter despair, smacked his head upon the tabletop. He then straightened himself again, rubbing his temple frantically. The mannequin observed him, watching his every move; I began to wonder if we hadn’t somewhat underestimated the intelligence of our esteemed hosts.
The mannequin, with stiff, disjointed motions, placed the bowls in front of us. We both looked into them with distaste – they were filled with viscous, clear liquid, with heat visibly rising from the surface. The odour was a terrible, acrid smell. Burnaby grimaced. I raised my eyebrows curiously.
And the waiter simply stood there, watching us, waiting for us to begin to eat.
Me and Burnaby looked at each other anxiously. In the end, after attempting to rise several times, and each time being pushed back down into our seat by the incredibly strong arms of our tormentor, Burnaby nodded at me, dipped his spoon into the bowl, and rose a small amount of the liquid to his lips. He paused, and then he took the plunge.
Immediately upon swallowing, Burnaby began to choke. He gripped his throat with his hands and squeezed, as though desperately attempting to force some kind of corrosive liquid out of his oesophagus. His face began to pale, and his features seemed to me to be visibly dripping off his face. His cheeks bulged, tears began to stream down from his eyes, and his lips began to turn upwards at the corners, clearly against his will; the image I beheld was one of pain and ecstasy – that terrible expression of polite curiosity which I had seem fixed upon the faces of every one of these dummies was more appalling to my senses than anything else which I had seen upon that day.
I rose to my feet to make my escape, my nerves finally having left me. As I flew out of the doorway, I saw Burnaby rise to his feet in a rigid and inhuman manner, and to my horror, I noticed that where once there had been nothing, he now had one of those dreadful keys protruding from his back. His face as he looked at me was blank, expressionless, and I knew that there was nothing I could do for him now. I pushed my way out of the hotel, sending any doll which dared to stand in my way flying in all directions.
Finally, clutching desperately at my breast, I found myself outside in the icy cold of the night. I looked around me, but could see no sign of a hotel or, for that matter, any building of any description behind me. I ran up to our car and, forgetting forever our lost caravan and the horrors of that awful day, I drove away as fast as the engine would take me, leaving behind forever the nightmare of the ghost town of Skuldugg.
2011
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