Haunted: Devil's Door by Lee Mountford

Author:Lee Mountford [Mountford, Lee]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2020-11-25T16:00:00+00:00

24

September.

Rita’s head hurt. A lot.

It was another dead weekend—not a single guest. The hotel was dying, and it made Rita feel like she was trying to push a river of water uphill. Nothing she did worked and nothing was good enough.

Ray had suggested, given the weather was nice, that they spend the day outside in the garden. They worked on tidying up the space a little, which was a welcome reprieve from being stuck inside the house all the time.

She had agreed and was now kneeling on a foam pad, trowel in hand while she churned over a soil bed that surrounded one of the lawns. She picked out any weeds that she could find as she went. Given the heat, Rita was dressed in only a light summer dress—which was strapped at the shoulders—and sun hat. Though it wasn’t a lot of clothing, it still felt like too much, and her brow was sweating.

Ray was manning the riding lawn tractor up and down one of the long stretches of grass, and the machine gave off a constant and annoying hum as it rolled along. Chloe was playing outside as well, free to roam around the gardens as she pleased.

Vincent and Marcus, as ever, were tucked away up on the top floor.

After scooping up another pile of dirt, movement in the soil drew Rita’s attention. In the dirt, she saw the frantic wiggles of a long and thin worm as it desperately tried to burrow its way back into the muck. Creepy-crawlies had never bothered her, but looking down at the pathetic, writhing thing, she had a sudden urge to bring up her trowel and split the fucker in half. In fact, her trowel was already rising up when Rita caught herself.

She instead reached down and pinched the small worm between her gloved fingers, then dropped it farther along the soil bed, in an area she had already finished. That would allow the little guy to burrow back to safety.

She and Ray still weren’t on the best of terms. It had been close to two months since the fight, where Ray had brought up the idea of leaving the Blackwater Hotel. He wanted to cut and run like a coward.

He’d tried to push the idea a few more times as well, coming at her with what he called ‘logic and reason.’ Each time it had happened, she’d cut him off, telling him in no uncertain terms that they weren’t leaving. If he wanted to, he could go alone.

Rationally, Rita knew she should try and find a way to patch things up with her husband. However, she couldn’t bring herself to do it. She felt like he’d betrayed her by not believing in her abilities. It was only a few days ago that he’d insisted she ‘wasn’t herself at all, acting like a completely different person.’

Well, maybe she was a different person. Maybe she had become a person who was tired of being walked on.

No more.

Rita would make the Blackwater Hotel a success if it took her the next ten years.

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