Page 12 of Can't Stop
“Creepy,” I whisper.
Samuel turns to me and smiles. “I know. Isn’t it glorious?”
I smile and turn to Dalton, hoping to see some excitement on his face, but he still seems to be processing the fact that we’ll be staying the night at Samuel’s house. I’ll just have to set his mind at ease once we’re behind closed doors.
It’s really too bad those closed doors appear to be behind basement stairs, as that’s where Samuel is currently leading us. Dalton files behind him on the narrow staircase, and I tuck in close behind Dalton. Eerie spaces don’t normally make me feel so uncomfortable, but something about this feels very . . . off.
A large metal door waits at the bottom of the stairs. Samuel pushes it open, but it doesn’t appear to lock, so that’s encouraging. At least we can’t get locked in.
But that also means we can’t lock anything out.
“The spare room is in the basement?” I ask. “I figured you would keep your shop down here.”
“The shop is through the woods. It’s larger than the house, actually. I wanted a detached workspace to avoid all the chemicals and such. Too much exposure is bad for the brain, you know.” He throws me a sly smile.
Once he’s through the doorway, he flicks a switch to the right, and dim overhead lights give us the gift of sight. The bulbs cast a yellow glow on everything, or maybe that’s just from the age of the decor.
A low wooden bed hugs the far wall, the foot huddled near the rustic stonework fireplace. Some sort of large brown fur covers the bed—probably buffalo, judging by the pile. Elk, deer, and other antlered ungulates line the walls. If I weren’t fighting off a bad vibe, I’d be in heaven.
“Did you . . . kill all of these animals yourself?” Dalton asks as he peers at the death masks. “If so, you’re quite the hunter.”
Samuel tips back his head with a laugh as he opens a wardrobe, revealing a television. “No, I don’t kill animals for sport. The trophies were taken by my brother. He enjoys the killing. I enjoy the art of preservation.” He tosses a black remote onto the bed, then heads for the door. “I have local channels, but not much else. The bathroom’s through that door”—he nods at a narrow doorway near the back of the room—”and I’ll prepare breakfast around nine. If that isn’t early enough for you, you’re welcome to head to the inn, so long as it’s after seven.”
“Nine is fine,” I say.
Samuel offers a final smile, then leaves us alone in the basement. I had originally planned to relieve Dalton’s worries, but now I’m starting to have some worries of my own.
I sit on the edge of the bed and run my hand along the rough fur. “Dalton,” I whisper, “I’m not so sure about this.”
Dalton’s hands drop to his sides, and he stares at me. “Now, bones? Now you aren’t so sure about this? Once we’re in the killer’s basement, deep in the fucking woods? Now you’re concerned?”
“Well . . . yes. Better late than never, though.”
He sighs and drops beside me on the bed. “Tomorrow, we get Van Gogh, injured or not, and we leave. Deal?”
I nibble my lip and nod. It’s probably for the best. Something really doesn’t sit right about this place, and I don’t want to find out why.
Chapter Seven
Rayna
The alarm blares at nine, pulling Dalton and me from a restless sleep. To be fair, I don’t know if Dalton slept at all. Each time I woke and turned to look at him, he was staring at the multitude of dead things in the room. At least he knows what’s bothering him. I still can’t put my finger on what’s making me so uneasy.
It’s just a feeling. An intuition. And I should listen to it.
A thick perfume wafts beneath the door as I blink back the little bit of sleep I found overnight. The aroma of bacon, eggs, and rising dough shifts my stomach from a nervous twist to a roiling growl.
“How’d you sleep?” I ask Dalton.
“Sleep? What is this foreign concept?” he growls as he sits up and rubs his eyes. “Doesn’t matter. We’ll eat some breakfast to be polite, and then we’ll grab the squirrel and put this place behind us. We can get him fixed up somewhere a little less creepy.”
“It’s really saying something that this place is making both of us uncomfortable,” I say with a shiver.
We rise from bed, but we don’t bother dressing. We slept fully clothed. In the backs of our minds, I think we both recognized the very real possibility that we would need to run. This place just exudes that ominous feeling.
When we reach the door, I fully expect to find the damn thing locked, but we breathe a collective sigh of relief as it groans open with the slightest tug. Dalton leads the way as we climb the stairs and step into the kitchen.
The creepy feeling recedes as sunshine streams through the gauzy yellow curtains. Light catches on a crystal vase in the window and casts a rainbow burst along the sill. A smiling taxidermy racoon holds a wine bottle in a miniature canoe on the counter. It’s all very quaint. Peaceful. Almost kitschy.
