Luggage in hand, Eddie, Becky, Brian, and Deidre stepped from the elevator and quietly crept into the main hall of the lodge, moving as if they were walking on glass. It was 6:45—only fifteen minutes until the breakfast buffet would open—but the area was deserted. They’d been told that most of the other guests had left the day before, but the group of local kids that had been stranded there should have been gathering for breakfast. But there was no sign of them or anyone else.
Eddie quietly opened the door to the dining room and peered in. The breakfast buffet was ready and waiting. “Someone is expecting a big breakfast crowd,” he said to his friends.
Deidre went to the front desk and rang the bell on the counter. Then she turned to her friends. “Why don’t you guys go on out and put the luggage in the truck. I’ll check out for all of us and see how soon they’ll be clearing off the road.”
Eddie and Brian left with the bags and returned a few minutes later. Deidre and Becky were still waiting for the manager.
“How does it look out there?” Becky asked.
“It hardly seems possible, but it’s snowing even harder than it was last night,” Brian said.
“Where’s Artie?” Deidre asked.
Eddie shrugged. “Maybe he’s packing. We might as well grab some breakfast while we wait. The way the snow is coming down, it’ll be a while before the road is cleared. We may be here till this afternoon.”
The four entered the dining room and went to the buffet. They filled their plates and sat at the small round table they’d occupied the day before.
“I had the weirdest dream last night,” Deidre said.
“Me too,” Becky said. “I dreamed that Artie was running in circles and—”
“And running from some ghastly face in the clouds, until he collapsed in the snow?”
Becky stared at her. “Yeah. How did you know?”
Everyone put their forks down and looked at one another.
“I had the same dream,” Eddie said.
Brian let out a long breath. “Me too.”
Eddie stood up. “I’m going to check on Artie.”
“I’m coming with you,” Brian said.
“We’ll all go,” said Becky.
The four friends stood up, strode briskly out of the dining room, and headed for the staircase.
Outside room 213, Eddie pounded on the door and called Artie’s name. There was no answer. Brian pressed his ear to the door for a moment and then shook his head.
“Stand back,” Eddie said. “I’m going to bust the door down.”
“Wait,” said Becky. She grabbed the doorknob and turned it. The door swung open. Eddie went in, found the light switch on the wall, and flipped it on. The bed was rumpled, but there was no sign of Artie. His suitcase was on the floor, open but unpacked. They checked the bathroom and closet. Both were empty. There was no sign of where Artie had gone or what had happened to him.
“Maybe he took the elevator and we just missed him,” Becky said. “You know how he is. He probably slept in and rushed down to meet us before packing his things.”
They returned to the dining room, but it was still deserted.
“It’s nearly 7:15,” Deidre said. “Somebody should be in here by now.” They went to the front desk, and Deidre rang the bell repeatedly. No one came.
“It’s freezing in here,” Becky said. “What’s going on?”
“It feels like it’s dropped down to zero in a matter of minutes,” Brian said.
Eddie pointed toward the hearth. “I could’ve sworn there was a fire burning when we came down this morning.”
They walked to the huge fireplace and peered at the soot and cold ashes lying there. The hearth looked as if it hadn’t been used in months.
Brian began to call out for the manager. Eddie dodged back into the dining room and went into the kitchen, looking for a cook or kitchen helper. The kitchen was empty, the cooking utensils stacked neatly or put away. He left the kitchen and went back into the dining room. As he passed the food bar he realized that it wasn’t giving off its usual savory aroma. He stopped and looked. The food on the bar was moldy and rotten and crawling with maggots. He looked at the table where they’d been sitting only minutes before. The food on their plates was swarming with maggots and roaches. Overwhelmed with fear, he ran from the dining room.
“What did you find?” Brian asked when Eddie returned to the main room.
“We’ve got to get out of here, and I mean right now!” Eddie said. His face was ashen.
“What about Artie?” Becky said.
“Let’s check the basement,” said Brian. He looked at the two women. “You two stay here, Eddie and I will go.”
“Forget that,” Deidre said. “We’re going with you.”
They headed down the steps that led to the basement, shouting Artie’s name as they went. The lights were on, brightly illuminating the game room and swimming pool areas. Video games were lit up and running and making a variety of digital sounds, but there was no sign of human activity. There was a click, and they saw a ping pong ball bounce up from a table and drift over the net. They ran past it and into the locker room that led to the swimming pool. Eddie and Brian checked the men’s locker room, and Deidre and Becky checked the women’s. Both were empty. They met up again at the pool. It felt like a freezer. The pool was frozen over like a pond in January.
Deidre stared blankly at the sheet of ice. Feeling dizzy, she thought she might faint. She heard Becky gasp, heard Brian and Eddie swear. Her mind was racing, and she couldn’t control her thoughts. She squeezed her eyes closed and opened them again, but the sight that would haunt her dreams for the rest of her life was still there. Floating just below the frozen surface of the pool were dozens of children, trapped like flies in amber. Deidre screamed, and Brian took her in his arms and gently pulled her away from the horror.
Eddie knelt down at the edge of the pool and rubbed some frost from the surface. The manager’s face stared up at him, and he jumped back, nearly colliding with Becky.
“What is it?” Becky asked in a trembling voice.
“The manager.”
He stepped toward the edge of the pool again and looked down. The manager opened her eyes and stared back at him. She began to claw at the ice. Blood flowed from her fingernails and clouded the water.
The other bodies trapped under the ice began to move. There was a muffled sound as dozens of children began to beat on the underside of the ice. The ice broke and a young girl rose from the chilly water as if she were levitating. Others broke through the ice and surfaced, and they stared with hungry eyes at the four people standing at the edge of the swimming pool.
“Let’s get out of here!” Deidre screamed.
They ran. They called for Artie as they went, but their shouts were in vain. Back upstairs, they raced for the front double doors and threw them open, but an unnatural gust of wind blew them back into the lodge, sending them sprawling. The blizzard was inside now, screaming in their ears, blinding them, stinging their skin.
The four scrabbled away from the door and huddled behind the couch in front of the hearth. They heard the sound of breathing and felt a warm breath on the backs of their necks. They turned and saw that the portrait above the hearth had come to life. The cold blue eyes of the man in the painting stared down at them, and then his solemn face broke into a leering grin, cracking the paint.
A sound like fingernails on a chalkboard filled the room. Eddie looked up. One of two screws that held the portrait began to unscrew itself. It came loose and dropped to the floor, and the picture went askew. A familiar cackle filled the room, and they heard footsteps on the stairs leading up from the basement.
“It sounds like the groundskeeper,” Brian yelled.
“Forget him,” Eddie yelled back. “We’ve got bigger problems.”
Doors and windows began to open and close, banging and thumping as if they were being slammed by a crazed giant. Deidre winced at every slam, but another, deeper sound set her heart pounding in her chest. She heard it again, a growl that sent shivers down her spine. There was a heavy thud, and Deidre found herself face to face with the stuffed bear. It was down on all fours, gazing at her intently. Clamped in the great beast’s mouth was a pack of Marlboros.
Deidre screamed, and the bear reared up on two legs and roared, dropping the pack of cigarettes. Brian dived on top of his wife, and Eddie grabbed Becky and pulled her behind a chair. The bear roared again and then bolted for the door, leaving Artie’s cigarette pack behind.
“We’ve got to get to the Escalade, Artie or no Artie,” Brian yelled. “When Eddie and I open the doors, everybody crouch down low so the wind doesn’t force you back.”
They got up and ran toward the entrance. Eddie and Brian looked at each other and nodded, then threw open the double doors. Everyone ducked low, and they fought their way through the raging wind and stinging snow. Fueled by fear and adrenaline, they made it outside and onto the porch, even as they felt a sensation like dozens of tiny hands touching their shoulders and backs.
The wind ceased. The snow stopped falling. They stood up and looked out from the porch. Huge drifts surrounded the lodge. The trees were covered with snow.
“Oh, no,” Brian said.
“What?” said Deidre.
“The Escalade—it’s gone.”
They stared at the snow-covered parking lot. All the vehicles were gone.
“I’m freezing,” Becky said. “But there’s no way I’m going back inside.”
None of them were dressed for winter, but no one wanted to venture back into the lodge.
Eddie peered in through the window. “I don’t believe this.”
“Now what?” said Brian.
“The fireplace. There’s a nice fire going.”
“I don’t know what the game here is, but I’m not playing anymore,” Brian said.
“I agree,” said Eddie. “We’re definitely not going back in. Whatever this thing is, it doesn’t want us in the lodge.”
Brian pointed toward the empty parking lot. “What’s that?”
Eddie peered in the direction Brian was pointing. “It looks like tracks.”
“I saw the same tracks in my dream,” Becky said.
The group left the porch and followed the tracks, which circled the lodge. They called Artie’s name as they went.
“Wait a minute,” Eddie said, and they all stopped. “There aren’t any other tracks coming out from the lodge or in from the woods. It’s as if whatever made these tracks just landed here and started walking.”
“Or running,” Becky said. “These footprints look as if they were made with shoes with cleats.” Her lip quivered, and she began to cry.
“Artie!” Brian called out, but his shout was met with silence.
They circled the lodge again. When they returned to the front, they saw a depression in the snow that hadn’t been there before. It looked like the outline of a body.
“Something or someone was here, lying in the snow,” Brian said, an edge of panic in his voice.
“What happened to it?” Becky asked. “Where is it? Where did it go?”
“Something must have dragged it off,” Deidre said.
“But there aren’t any tracks,” Eddie said. “It’s as if a body were dropped here and then just melted or disappeared.”
“What do we do?” Becky asked.
“We have to get off this hill and back down to the road,” Eddie said. “Come on, let’s head into the woods, find the road, and just keep walking. We’ll get help, find the authorities, and then come back for Artie.”
The other three nodded and followed Eddie into the forest. They were silent as they went, focused on putting distance between themselves and the lodge. They were still frightened but glad to be moving, glad to be taking some action.
Deep into the woods, Becky grabbed Eddie’s shoulder and stopped walking. “Do you hear that?” she whispered.
They all stopped and listened. A breeze whispered through the trees and rustled the few remaining leaves still clinging to branches.
Do you hear that?
“What was that?” Deidre asked. “Was that you, Becky?”
Was that you, Becky?
“Stop it!” Deidre screamed at the trees.
The trees seemed to whisper back. Stop it. Stop it. Stop it.
They heard the sound of movement somewhere behind them and turned to look. Becky caught a brief glimpse of a child disappearing behind a tree. “Hey there, wait a minute,” she said and began walking toward whatever she had seen.
Hey there, wait a minute.
Becky felt Eddie’s hand on her arm. “Where are you going, Becky?”
Where are you going, Becky? Becky? Becky?
There were more rustling sounds, and in their peripheral vision they saw what appeared to be children flickering in and out of view behind trees.
“Come on, let’s head for the lake,” Brian said.
Head for the lake. Head for the lake. Head for the lake.
The group turned to head back down the hill. A wall of trees stood directly in front of them.
“This way,” Eddie shouted, and he grabbed Becky’s hand and took off to the left. But the forest was too thick, and they couldn’t find an opening through the trees. They veered left again, and then again, and wound up back where they’d started.
“Where are the others?” Becky asked, her voice vibrating with fear.
They heard Deidre scream. They moved toward the sound and saw her kneeling on the ground, pointing into the woods. They looked and saw Brian, a dozen yards away, entangled in the branches of a tree ten feet off the ground. Shadowlike apparitions of children flickered into view, levitating toward Brian and touching him before winking out of sight.
Brian saw his friends and screamed. “They’re burning me! They’re burning me alive!”
The branches holding Brian seemed to slither and tighten around him. His mouth worked, but no sound came out of it. His eyes bulged as he stared at his three friends. The ghostly children had arranged themselves in a ring around the tree and were moving around it like dancers in a circle dance, each one reaching out to touch Brian as they passed him. The branches were squeezing him to death. His eyes bulged, and his tongue lolled out of his mouth, but he couldn’t cry out any longer.
Deidre and Becky screamed, and Eddie charged toward the deadly tree. A tree limb hit him hard on his forehead, staggering him. He got to one knee and tried to shake off the pain and dizziness. The branch struck him again, and he sprawled backwards. He tried to crawl toward the tree, but something picked him and hurled him back. He rolled away and saw Deidre running toward the tree. He grabbed her ankle but she twisted out of his grasp. She took two steps and stumbled, crying out as she went down. Eddie heard a rustling sound and saw thick vines entwining around Deidre’s feet. She tried to get up, but the vines held her feet fast, and she sprawled and shrieked as she fell. Other vines were slithering toward her, wrapping around her body.
Suddenly Becky appeared with the axe. She bellowed like a berserker and began hacking at the vines. The vines let go of Deidre and slithered away, and Eddie went to her and helped her get up. Becky was swinging the axe like a madwoman, and a sound like whispered moans filled the woods.
“Come on!” Eddie shouted, and he pulled Becky away from the mayhem. He looked at the tree that had attacked Brian. His friend hung there, lifeless. The ghostly children were gone.
They found a path through the trees and kept going until they reached the lake. They collapsed on the shore, next to a log that looked as if someone had begun hollowing it out to make a canoe.