The Lodge

My rideshare started out just like any other.

I was on my way to the airport after visiting family for the holidays. My sister had this cabin up in northern California, secluded by a sea of sierras, and she insisted, well, practically begged, to drive me to the airport that night.

To this day, I think about that moment—the moment right before I walked out the cabin door and into the frigid cold—and how different my life could have been, if I had just let my sister give me a ride that night.

But instead, my driver arrived, and off I went.

We drove slow and we drove in silence. The road ahead was narrow, twisty, and dark, so dark, in fact, that even with the high beams on, you could only see a few feet in front of the car.

As we descended the icy path, I noticed the map on the driver’s touchscreen had completely disappeared. It appeared we had no service.

The driver was trying to restart the navigation system when it happened.

And it happened fast.

We were driving in that awkward, uncomfortable silence when, out of nowhere, the driver whipped his head around and whispered,

“Do you hear it?”

He caught me completely off guard and I had no idea how to respond. What the hell was that all about? I thought maybe he was trying to mess with me, but then suddenly, and more urgently, he turned around again and asked,

“Dd-don’t you hear it?”

His eyes were wide and he was trembling. I could tell by the way he was looking at me he was afraid. Actually, genuinely afraid. But, afraid of what exactly—

Without any warning, the driver let out a piercing cry so loud, it cut through the night like a knife.

And then the rest of it happened in a matter of moments.

He tore his hands from the steering wheel.

He covered his ears.

He shut his eyes.

And I watched the car veer too far to the left.

In those first few seconds, before we plummeted into a bank of snow, I heard the faintest sound of the radio flickering on. Of static switching into song, and that voice, her voice, she wanted me to—

There was the loudest crash, followed by calamity, and collision, and then everything went black.

***

When I woke up, the first thing I felt was the cold.

An icy breeze stung the left side of my cheek and nose, and as my vision came back into focus, I wiggled my fingers, my toes, then the rest of my body. Despite severe soreness, nothing appeared to be broken, and so with much effort, I unbuckled my seatbelt and opened the back side door.

And there they were, clean, crisp, and clear: Leading from the driver’s side door was an undeniable trail of footprints that descended into the thicket of woods, disappearing into the tree line.

The driver; where had he gone?

As snow fell with fury, I knew I needed to find the driver before his footprints were completely swallowed by snow.

I was confident that the driver had walked into the woods for a reason. He knew that area better than I did, maybe there was a house or something close by.

Not wanting to wait a second longer, I wrapped my yellow wool scarf tighter around my neck, took one last look at the wreckage, at the ivory skull now sleek with snow, then turned to face the forest and the footprints leading into it.

***

The maze of sequoias was absolute and overwhelming.

The further I followed the footprints into the forest, the narrower the path became. Soon, I was swallowed by sugar pines and white firs, their tangled mass of branches towering over me, twisting and contorting into one another, like locked limbs.

The surrounding forest grew denser and darker with each step, and after a while, it became quite difficult to make out the footprints.

If I had to follow the trail any longer, I might have gotten lost. But to my great relief, the trail took a turn up ahead, and I followed the natural curve of the path.

In the moments right before the trees gave way, before their branches fully parted, I heard it.

Like a bed of early morning fog hovering over lake water, the faint crooning of old-timey jazz floated all around me.

I’d heard this melody before. It reminded me of that dead singer my grandma would listen to. What was his name? Bing Crosby, I think?

With each step I took, the music got louder and louder still. Not knowing what I was walking towards, the forest finally split, and I spilled out into a large, open lot of land.

And there it was.

Waiting for me.

Watching me.

Sitting dead center in the wide-open space was a colossal, wooden lodge. From corner to corner, the L-shaped structure ran longer than a football field and stretched nearly three stories high. Though grandiose in size, it was clear the beaten down building was abandoned, old, and in shambles. Most of the windows were broken or boarded up, the shutters tilted and hanging half off. Tiers of crooked chalet-style roofs were curved like the points of a lop-sided crown, and the paint, though once, I suppose, a charming rustic red, now faded completely, dimmed to a watered down rose. And the wood, which wrapped itself entirely around the exterior, clinging on like frail, sagging skin, looked like it was chipping, and splitting, and rotting, and—

Wasting.

Not a car out front, not a movement in sight. There would be no reason to think someone was out there, no reason at all, were it not for the trail of footprints leading all the way up to the front door.

I shuffled forward, absentmindedly, my eyes falling on a bright red light illuminating the top far right window of the lodge. Glowing crimson and all wrong, I knew someone was inside.

And the truth was, I needed help.

I needed to get out of this storm, find coverage, find warmth, and hopefully get a call out for help. Inside had to be better than outside, surely.

Ignoring every instinct screaming inside me, I closed the gap between me and the lodge.

All that was left to do was go inside.

***

The front door opened with ease.

I hardly touched the wooden frame before it swung aside, gliding back against the floorboards. What happened next was immediate and all at once.

One second there was song. The next there was silence.

Like slamming the lid shut on a music box, it became so quiet so quickly, I began to wonder if I had imagined the music to begin with.

Standing in a stifled stillness at the mouth of a wooden monster, my other senses came alive. I was suddenly very aware of the deep, dark space stretching out before me, and knew that anything could be peering at me now, patiently hiding between the shadows.

As my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I turned to the left and observed a grand, spiral staircase coiled like a cobra and curling far up out of sight. To the right was a lobby area, complete with a faded maple couch, torn loveseat, and a long, narrow hallway, its end both black and bleary.

And then, I noticed it hanging there, mounted to the wall. Something red, plastic, and shiny with a receiver dangling by a curled chord.

I had found a telephone.

Wasting no time, I sprinted to it, picked up the receiver, and quickly pressed it to my ear. I was hoping to hear those loud, rapid beeping sounds, signifying a signal of some kind. But instead, I heard nothing. Absolutely nothing.

Not believing the line could really be dead, I placed the receiver carefully back on the cradle, then tried picking it up again. But still, no sound came from the device.

It was dead. It was actually dead.

Defeated, I placed the phone back on the cradle and turned away. I headed straight for the front door, determined to leave this creepy place and—

From behind me, the telephone rang, its shrill, high-pitched trill stopping me in tracks. I froze, then turned around, slowly.

The phone’s incessant cries called out to me, beckoning me closer. I reached forward, my hand hesitating to pick up the receiver. Unable to resist, I lifted the phone with trembling hands, then raised it to my ear.

At first, there was nothing, or almost nothing. Just this faint, light static quietly buzzing.

After a second, the static grew louder, and louder, until finally a song flickered in and out, and not just any song, but that familiar old-timey jazz my grandma used to listen to. I pressed the phone harder against my ear, straining to make sense of the sounds— But before I could, the melody was swallowed by static.

And static.

And even more static.

Then, without any warning, I heard a voice.

I heard his voice.

It was my rideshare driver, he was crying into the phone, calling out my name over and over again. He was asking for help, begging me to come find him.

“Where!?” I shouted, panic rising in my voice.

He didn’t answer me, he just continued to sob uncontrollably. I pressed harder, pleading with him to tell me where he was. The driver’s cries continued until his voice cracked, and then he whispered so low I almost missed it:

“Room 238.”

With a flicker, the call ended, the line went slack, and all the sound and all the static was gone without a trace.

I was enveloped in silence, listening only to the sound of my breathing.

Then, from far up and above me, I heard several loud thuds in succession, one after another. Something upstairs was moving. And before I knew it, I was moving, too.

Moving straight towards the grand staircase.

***

When I reached the upper landing, the air felt much, much colder than downstairs. It was as if the temperature dropped twenty degrees. In front of me stretched a long, narrow hallway, it’s end almost out of sight.

Almost.

For at the very end there was a door left ajar, its edges outlined in a red, ghoulish glow. The thuds were louder now, much louder, and I knew that they were coming from the other side of that door.

And so, I began walking down the hallway, each step accompanied by a creaking floorboard. I passed room after room, each one left with their door wide open. I glanced inside most of the rooms and noticed right away they all looked exactly the same: Ransacked and ruined.

Beds were dismantled and left in disarray, the curtains were ripped, torn, or missing, and the floors were scattered with litter from long ago.

After what seemed like ages, I finally made it to the final door, the one rimmed in crimson, its maroon shadows spilling out into the hallway like outstretched fingers.

Standing just outside, I stared at the three-digit number etched in gold and plastered to the door: 238. This was it, the room the driver had told me about. I made it.

I pressed my palm against the door, pushed it open the rest of the way, and jumped back.

Set against a scarlet backdrop and standing impossibly still, was my rideshare driver. As if frozen in place, the driver’s legs were locked in running stance, his torso twisted to the right. He had both his arms raised high above his right shoulder, his hands gripping something, like he was getting ready to swing a baseball bat. Only, there wasn’t a bat in his hands.

In his hands he held an ice axe.

Taking a step closer, I noticed immediately that something was really, really wrong with him. It wasn’t just the fact that he wasn’t moving, or that his skin was colored a dark shade of purple.

It was that his eyes were missing.

The driver’s empty eye sockets were—waiting for me, watching me—blank and blind with their stare.

I stepped even closer to him, transfixed by this grotesque scene, and noticed more oddities.

Not just his eyes were missing, but his tongue and his teeth, too. Stretching far too wide and far too long, his jaw was locked open in warped, petrified scream.

It was as if winter itself froze him solid, then picked, and plucked, and pried out his facial features with some sharp tool.

I knew a carving like this would mean blood. Lots of blood. But I remember the floor was spotless and the walls were bare. There wasn’t a stain in sight.

I didn’t know how to process what I was seeing. I still don’t. I only knew that something terrible had happened to this man, and something terrible might still happen to me too unless I got out of that lodge that very instant.

Knowing I needed to find a way to protect myself from whatever was lurking inside there with me, I reached forward and pried the ice axe from the driver’s frozen hands.

Gripping the ice axe tightly, I started shuffling back down the hallway. I just put one foot in front of the other and kept my eyes focused on the staircase still so far away.

As I crept along, I did not allow myself to look into the rooms. But that didn’t stop me from catching small movements in my peripheral vision.

A sheet falling. A door closing. A silhouette sitting up in bed.

I did not look, could not look, would not look, and continued on down the hallway. When I got about halfway down, I started to hear them.

All of them.

Nestled in between blotches of sound, I heard little creatures screeching, scratching, and scurrying behind the walls, beneath the floorboards, their warm bodies aggravated by my very presence.

There was a swarm of them.

An infestation of them.

They were right here, right now, right below my very feet—

I swung the ice axe hard at the floor, splintering wood. A deep gash in the ground grinned up at me from the floorboards, and I dropped down, peering into the hole.

There was nothing down there.

But I could hear them. Maybe they were in the walls…

I swung the ice axe with all my might at the wall, busting plaster and demolishing wood. I reached inside the new gap, groping for whatever it was making those awful sounds.

But there was nothing there. Absolutely nothing.

Then, from all the way downstairs, the phone suddenly began ringing again. Those shrill, high-pitch rings continued to blare on, and on, demanding a listener to pick up.

Every moment more was madness. The relentless pitter-patter of paws, the familiar yet haunting melody, the incessant ringing of the telephone, those heavy awful thuds from just down the hallway—

My skull was splitting open, I was sure of it, and I knew I could not make it to the front door, at least not while I could still hear this cacophony of chaos.

I needed to shut out the sounds. And I needed to do it fast.

Without a second thought, I began wrapping my yellow wool scarf tightly around my head, over and over again, until all of my facial features were fully covered. With each fold of the fabric, the sounds grew dimmer, and duller, until they faded out of existence.

Until at long last there was no sound at all.

From beneath the fabric, I grinned.

I didn’t care if I couldn’t breathe. I didn’t care if I couldn’t see. The only thing I wanted, the only thing I now knew to be true, was silence.

Silence that I could burrow down in, and stay always so very safe, and so very sound.

In this newfound state of tranquility, I gripped the ice axe once more and took my time walking down the rest of the hallway. There was no need to rush.

Not anymore.

I had just placed my hand on the staircase banister when they found me.

There was so much screaming and shouting, and their voices, though muffled, sounded frightened. I was scared too, so I listened to their commands. And I did as I was told.

I froze.

I dropped my weapon.

I raised my hands over my head.

I got on the ground.

They arrested me on the spot and the rest is history.

It was easy enough to pin everything on me. They assumed I had tortured and killed the man in room 238, right after he called 911 from the telephone upstairs, helpless and begging for his life.

They told me it wasn’t just the driver they found, but other things, damning things, like body parts pinned to walls, and missing belongings tucked away in the rooms of the lodge. These things they found could “put me away for life,” so they say.

Though, they never could explain how the driver’s body remained frozen solid. Only I knew the answer to that, apparently. But that wasn’t the main question they wanted the answer to.

What they really wanted to know was why had I killed my rideshare driver? And I told them what I’ll tell you right now:

I didn’t kill him.

I didn’t kill anyone.

Please, you have to believe me.

You do believe me, don’t you?

It’s that music that did this to me. That fucking, wretched, goddamn music.

It’s playing all the time, all around me—

Wait.

Do you hear it?

Dd-don’t you hear it?

Please tell me you hear it!