Pepper, the Highlander & the Dead Guy

Cardboard boxes sat piled along one wall, but had collapsed on top of one another, the cardboard having rotted away. Amy joined me in giving the contents a quick look. They contained nothing more than old booking and billing receipts. Willow Lake Lodge opened long before the computer age and even when they started to come into use the programs were nothing like the ones of today. There were a couple of pieces of wood furniture that had rotted with time and some rusty mechanical parts were piled in a few baskets that had also partially rotted. There was nothing of importance or interest just items stored, lingering in limbo.

“There’s nothing of help to us here,” Amy said. “It looks like Max just used this place as storage for things he wasn’t sure what to do with.” She stopped suddenly, staring into the darkness ahead of her.

I had forgotten, my one time down here having been swift, that the area beyond had been divided into separate spaces. That’s how Max had frightened Amy so badly. He had popped out of one of those spaces scaring her half to death, not realizing we were down here. The terrifying memory was the reason she hesitated to continue.

“There’s no one here but us,” I reminded her, hoping it would ease her fear, though remembering her screams I wondered if anything would ever soothe it.

“How about the spiders and bugs and probably rodents and who knows if Max’s ghost isn’t hanging around here.” Amy pointed out.

“I think Max would prefer the comfort of the lodge to the cellar,” I assured her. “Why don’t you search one room and I’ll search another, this way we’ll get done faster and we can get out of here.”

“You want me to search alone?” She shook her head. “Do you recall what happens in those horror movies when people separate?”

“There’s nothing down here to worry about,” I said.

“They say that in the horror movies too.”

“Fine, we’ll search the rooms together,” I said, and Amy stuck close to me.

Each room produced more of the same; furniture stored and forgotten, old signs that once graced the wood paths around the lodge, benches that once sat along those paths for people to rest and enjoy the views, and endless other items, but nothing that required an old key to open it.

Amy was almost flat against me, the darkness heavier in this part of the cellar, when we turned a corner and there sat an old teacher’s desk, probably from the 50s. But that wasn’t as important as what sat on top of it. An old wooden box with a spot for a key.

“Bingo!” I said and hurried over to it.

“Wow,” Amy said sticking close to me.

I brushed the cobwebs away that had glued the box protectively to the desk and then the dust that covered it. It was a plain box, not a single design on it and it had an old type of keyhole.

“We’re done,” Amy said, turning around. “Let’s get out of here.”

That’s when we both froze at the sound of heavy footsteps descending into the cellar.

26

“Someone is down here with us,” Amy whispered to me.

“Maybe it wasn’t footsteps,” I whispered back and cringed when footsteps sounded again.

“What do we do?” Amy asked, trembling next to me.

Amy always relied on me to get us out of things but that was probably because it was usually me who got us into things, like now.

I thought fast and kept to a whisper. “We make our way to one of those rooms we passed and slip inside. Once the footsteps pass by us, we hightail it out of here.”

“There they are again,” Amy whispered so low I barely heard her.

I grabbed the box off the desk, tucking it under my arm. “We need to get going.” I worried whoever it was might reach us before we had a chance to hide. “Wait, switch off your lantern.”

I turned my flashlight to low and started moving with Amy nearly plastered to my back. We treaded as quietly as possible along the narrow hall to one of the rooms off it. I turned the flashlight off once we got situated. I did give a fleeting thought to jumping out and scaring the person senseless, but the practical side of me warned that the unknown person could mean us harm. I waited none too patiently for him to pass.

Amy gripped my arm as the footsteps grew closer and I heard her slight intake of breath as she held it when the footsteps hesitated just outside the room, we’d ducked in, then hurried off.

Hiding deep in the darkness didn’t allow me to see who it might be, but safety was a priority.

Amy wasted no time in pushing at me to get going once the footsteps faded. I stepped out of the room first, keeping my flashlight on low once I turned it on, and made sure all was clear. Then I stepped aside to let Amy go ahead of me, but not before I gave her the wood box we had found. Anxious to get out, she ran into something along the wall, sending whatever it was crashing noisily to the floor and the sound reverberating throughout the cellar.