The Arms

The question is: why? Why does he hate me so much? I mean when you chip away all of the nonsense, when you filter out all of the extraneous crap, the question still remains. It is this question that troubles me so and it is a question to which I'm not sure there is an adequate answer.

My name's Robert Malcom, but to everyone around here I've always been Bobby. I live out here at the Irvin Cummings resort, about fifteen minutes southeast of Rawlings, Illinois. About five minutes west of here is a worthless little town called Lark's Grove. I went to school over there. We used to call it Fart's Grove when I was a kid. I guess all the trouble started when I was in third grade because that was when Jimmy McMasters moved to town. It's not that Jimmy was a bad kid, quite the contrary. We hit it off right away and we spent almost every second of the next eight years together, until that night when everything changed. But we'll get to that in a bit.

Jimmy was from a very Irish family. His dad, from whom Jimmy got his red hair, was named Sean. He was a big cabbage eating son of a gun, with arms about as big around as tree trunks. Jimmy was the oldest. Two more sons would come along later, Patrick when we were in sixth grade and Johnny when we were in eighth. Of course there was Mrs. McMasters, Mary if I remember correctly. She was very quiet and never spoke any more than necessary. And she was overly Catholic. All I ever remember her doing was cooking. Their house always smelled of cooking food. I'm sure she did other things as well, but I'll be darned if I can tell you what. Jimmy and his family came to Lark's Grove when Jimmy's dad was hired on as shift manager over at the paper mill.

As I said, Jimmy and I spent a lot of time together. We were kind of Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer-like when we were kids. We used to ditch school and go fishing sometimes. Not just fishing, but fly fishing. You see, whereas most kids get bicycles for their sixth or seventh birthday, out here the kids, boys and girls alike, get fly rods. The reason being that Shallow Crest Lake is home of some of the best fly fishing in the world, and as far as we were concerned, we were darn lucky to live so close to it. Sure, Kentucky Lake is pretty good too, but Shallow Crest leaves the rest behind. At any rate, the cinder-block cabin that we lived in was only about twenty yards from the shore. Sometimes, in the spring, the water would rise so high that we could sit on our back porch and fish. Now that was convenience. So Jimmy and I would sometimes hide in the woods until my parents left for work and then we would march down to our boat dock, fly rods in hand, and fish the day away.

By the time we were in high school, Jimmy was one hell of a fly fisherman. He'd just keep pulling line off his reel and pretty soon he'd have fifty yards of line suspended in the air in loops and coils, all the while making those exaggerated whipping motions with his rod. You'd watch him and think that surely to God he'd get that line tangled up around his neck and choke to death. But then he'd make a delicate flipping motion and all that line would go out, just as gentle as you please. Those were some of the best times, I think, I ever had. I wish things could have stayed as tranquil and magical as those days we spent fishing. They didn't, though. Things changed forever on Homecoming night of our junior year of high school. It was the night we went up to the old abandoned Shallow Crest Arms Hotel. It was on this night, for both of us, that the magic ended.

There are a number of things that you must know about the Shallow Crest Arms Hotel, the first of which is that I think that it has a rather silly name. The name was apparently an effort on the part of the owner to lend it a certain degree of majesty. The name did nothing to improve business, however. The hotel was built in 1858 to support the massive population influx brought on by the booming coal mining trade. This whole area, Springfield, Decatur, Rawlings, and little towns like Riverton, Mechanicsburg, and Lark's Grove, were originally supported by coal mining. So that was the original idea for the hotel. The only problem was the hotel's location. What's left of it, after about eight-five years of disuse, sits not too far away from where I'm sitting right now. Just across the little cove that the cabin sits on and northeast for about a mile or two. You see, nobody told the jackass that built the hotel that putting it out in the middle of Bumbledeehump, just across the way from Dogpatch, was not a good idea. It was too far away from everything, the nearest buildings being more than a mile away. It was, from what I understand, a monumental pain in the butt to get out to the hotel and an even bigger one to get back. You could forget about hitchin' up the ol’ horse and buggy and goin' for a quick jaunt into town. It was an all day event. So the hotel stayed open for about three years before it folded and went on the market. There were, of course, not buyers and the building began to decay and collapse. I suppose that technically it is still up for sale if you're interested. But I digress.

Everyplace has there own local myths about hauntings and the like, and those of us out here are certainly no exception. Ever since we were kids we heard horror stories about the Shallow Crest Arms Hotel. We always called it the Arms for short. It wasn't ghosts that haunted the Arms, though. It was vampires: an old man and a young woman. No one ever questioned this. It was a given. There were all kinds of stories about where they came from. Some said that the old man was a descendant of Dracula himself. Some said that he was a retired coal miner and she was his daughter. This was the story that always bothered me the most. The last local mine closed in 1897 so that made the man, who was supposed looked to be sixty or seventy, more than a hundred and fifty years old. Not only that, but since he was a coal miner, that kind of made him one of our own.

We told all kinds of stories like this, especially when one of us would have a sleep over. It was sort of an unwritten law that every time you got a group of boys together for a sleep over, the conversation would eventually turn to horrifying things of this nature in the attempt to scare the crap out of each other and the first person to fill their britches loses. I suspect that little girls are like this too, although I can't say for certain. My point is that all of the locals knew these vampire stories about the old man and the young woman.

Well, my hand's getting tired of writing and I imagine you're getting tired of reading, so let me cut to the chase. Homecoming our junior year was the second weekend in October. We had gotten together with a group of our friends, had a bonfire out at my parents' and my place, and drank our fair share of Wild Irish Rose. By about 11:30 most everyone had staggered home except for Jimmy and this other guy we were friends with named Felix Humphrey, but we always called him Bobo. Bobo was kind of slow witted, but we got along with him just the same.

We had polished off our last bottle of Wild Irish Rose by midnight. We sat in a drunken silence for a while, then Bobo said how cool he thought it would be to go exploring in the Arms. It's amazing how the dumbest things sound like such great ideas when you're drunk. Jimmy and I agreed and after getting a couple of flashlights, the three of us set off for the Arms.

I have no idea how long we walked but it was long enough to go from 100% drunk to only about 65% drunk. The Arms, back lit by the just-past-full moon looked just like something out of a movie. We were all scared and I'm sure I wasn't the only one who thought about leaving. Then Bobo whispered, "Let's do it," and we quietly made our way up the broken steps to the front door.

The door itself lay on the floor of the hotel, just inside. I shined the flashlight all over inside and looked around as well as I could without actually entering. I could see directly opposite the doorway in which we were standing, what had once been a registration desk. Behind it were the old fashioned pigeon hole mail boxes which looked to now be, very literally, pigeon holes. The stairs leading to the second level were off to the right of the desk. At the far left end of the room was a large doorway that appeared to lead into a lounge. Taking a deep breath and moving carefully so as not to make any noise, I entered, followed closely by Jimmy and Bobo.

The main room had a high ceiling that apparently had once boasted two crystal chandeliers. One was now in a million pieces on the floor while most of the other one still hung in its original place. After looking at the registration desk and finding nothing of interest, we moved into the lounge. It was a huge room with a much lower ceiling, and enormous windows looking out to the north and east. Most of the furniture was gone but for a couple of overturned sofas and high back chairs. At the far end of the room, on the east wall, was a fireplace. As we got closer we could see that squirrels had made a nest in it. To the right of the fireplace was a bookcase. While most of the books appeared to be in tatters, a cursory examination showed that some were still in tact. Bobo and Jimmy knelt down beside the books and began sifting through them. Not interested in such things, I made my way along the south wall, looking at what was left of a number of paintings. I came upon a doorway. Without thinking, I pushed the door open and went inside. I was standing in what had once been a kitchen. There were two or three long tables and a large oven along the wall to my left. There was another larger doorway on the far side of the room that undoubtedly led to a dining room. I was making my way across the kitchen when I heard Jimmy scream.

Almost dropping my flashlight, I turned and raced back into the lounge. I shone my flashlight to the bookcase as I ran, but I saw nothing. At the edge of the pool of light I saw movement. I redirected the light just in time to see a young woman tear Bobo's stomach open with her hands and throw his intestines around the room like streamers at a party. Bobo screamed. His entrails made a wet, spludgy noise as they hit the walls, the floor, the ceiling. He screamed again and she tore his head from his shoulders. Off to my right I heard Jimmy scream my name. I pointed my light in the direction of his scream and the sight transfixed me. Jimmy was facing me, some twenty feet away. An older man was standing behind Jimmy, holding him a good foot off the ground. He had Jimmy's left arm in a hammerlock and with his right hand he had Jimmy by the hair.

"Help me, Bobby! Please help me!" Jimmy screamed.

I was frozen with fear.

"Bobby, help me!"

The man looked at me and smiled, showing me his pointed fangs. He then plunged his teeth into Jimmy's soft awaiting neck.

I panicked. I turned and ran as fast as I could, never once looking back. I heard the man and the woman laugh as I ran. I didn't stop until I got home. I ran to my room, closed and locked my door, and dove onto my bed. Only then did I blackout.

My mother woke me the next morning. Two police officers were at the door asking if I knew the whereabouts of Jimmy and Bobo. Since I could see no other way out, I did what most anyone would have done in my situation. I lied. I told them I hadn't seen them since they left my house the night before. As they turned to leave, I told them that I heard Jimmy and Bobo say something about going to the Arms.

"Oh, dear God," my mother gasped.

"I was afraid of something like that," one cop said.

"Yeah," said the other.

With that, they left. I heard later that they did indeed find the dismembered body of Felix "Bobo" Humphrey. Although they searched the area, Jimmy's body was never recovered.


"Animals, most likely wolves," was the official report. They further stated that Jimmy's body was likely drug off by these same wolves. Interesting, considering that there haven’t been wolves in this area for probably a century, or more. Thus the official case was closed.

That was ten years ago. Years went by and I didn't think about the events of that night, until two months ago, the ten year anniversary. My parents were coming home from a show over in Springfield when their car was run off the road. Apparently at least one unknown assailant beat my parents to death with a tire iron. The police call it random, and I hear, strictly off the record, that considering the randomness of the attack, it is not likely that the assailants will be apprehended. I know better, though. It wasn't random.

I've been staying here at the cabin ever since, going through my parents' stuff. It feels kind of strange being back here, in the house in which I grew up. Everything is pretty much as I remember it, though I haven't been here in a number of years. My old bicycle is still in the garage. I also found my first fly rod that I broke when I was twelve; it got caught in the garage door. I was devastated. Dad told me he would try to fix it up for me. I guess he never got around to it. I thought about selling the place and going somewhere else and starting over. I don't know, though. Jimmy's still out there someplace. Last night I caught him looking in through my living room window. He can't get me in here, you see, because I haven't invited him in. And if you ask people about the Arms, they'll tell you that it's haunted by three vampires, an older man, a young woman, and a young man with red hair.

Jimmy really has it in for me, I know that. Occasionally people disappear around here. It's usually attributed to itchy feet. We know better, though, don't we? That's why I never go anywhere without my crucifix around my neck and my St. Christopher medal in my pocket. And when I cook I use garlic. A lot of garlic. One can never be too careful.

So if you're ever in the area and feel like doing some fly fishing, look me up. You could do a lot worse than to have me for a fishing guide. Come nightfall though, you best get in your car, roll up the windows and head for Rawlings or Springfield because Jimmy's still out there somewhere.

And he's very, very angry.