A Stay in Marnersville

The lights of the town were dim in the distance - a glowing beacon on the flat landscape. I had been driving around in circles for hours, and I needed a place to spend the night. What was left of the night at least - a quick look at the clock on the dash showed the hour to be 1:30 already.

Never had I realized how boring the middle states of the U.S. could be until this goddamned trip to California. For miles there had been nothing besides farms and flat plains land. It stretched out to touch the horizon when the sun set, and somehow, I felt I was just driving in the same place for hours. There were no landmarks for hundreds of miles - nothing but the signs on the interstate whose numbers I began to loose track of.

The turn off I needed to make was probably still a half a day’s journey away.

I needed to get out and stretch, not to mention sleep, before I lost my mind entirely. I sighed to myself as I pulled off towards the lights of the unknown town in the distance. It was only minutes after leaving the highway that my tires started to grind against the hard surface of a dirt road, with a dilapidated green sign holding the words “MARNERSVILLE pop. 613” in bright white lettering. Well, at least they should have some chain hotel in the area, if not here then in some where close by. And there must be some sort of restaurant with moderately edible food there, and right now, that sounded good enough to stop for.

A few minutes later and my Honda was grinding down the main road of the equal parts old and dilapidated township of Marnersville, Kansas.

The first building I saw was an oddly shaped church, with a steeple that pointed not only to the sky, but in every direction conceivable from the center of the church roof. It pointed to the sky, to the east, west, behind, forwards and every other direction in between. Next on the dimly road were grim seeming stores and shops, whose paint was chipped and roofs falling apart at the shingles. Not a single human being or otherwise stirred - not on the sidewalk - not even a single illuminated window or sign.

Finally, I came to find a sign which read “Lucy Mayweather’s Famous Bed N’ Breakfast”. From what I had seen, it was the only place to stay in the whole of this godforsaken area.

Reluctantly, I pulled into the deserted parking lot behind the large Victorian style building. The Winter air was cold as I pulled my bulky suitcase out of the passenger seat and walked around to the expansive front door of the place. When I rang the bell, a chime struck exactly six times from inside the mansion.

Just as I was about to give up and get back on the road, I heard a latch on the door being unlocked. It opened with a creak to reveal a greatly aged woman, her black hair pulled into a tight bun on the center of her tan, wrinkled face.

She looked at me with beady eyes, full of suspicion.

“I...Do you have any vacancies? I would like a room for the night, please.”

She nodded sharply before opening the door for me to come inside. With my heavy suitcase in tow, I followed behind her staggered steps towards the front desk of the b and b.

She handed me a single key with a room number attached before promptly walking off, turning off the lights as she went. I was left to walk up the stairs by the light of the screen of my phone.

The room I had been assigned, number 136, smelled of dust and decaying fruit. I locked the door behind me before plopping down directly onto the center of the bed, same clothes on and everything. Within minutes, I was out like a light.

 

I awoke to the hums of some bizarre phrases, something from one of my nightmares, maybe? My eyes opened to a dozen blurry figures all gathered around my bed in a claustrophobic circle. They shifted from one side to another, one side to another, over and over again.

Now startled into being fully awake, my heart was beating fast once I noticed that my wrists and ankles were bound to the bed. The beady eyed old woman stood looking over me and speaking unknowable words from the foot of the bed. The rest of the crowd of simply dressed townsfolk repeated her every word, as though they had rehearsed this moment daily.

I struggled hard to scream before I realized my mouth was gagged with a dust strewn rag. All that came out were desperate grunts, unable to form into the screams that sounded in my head.

The beady eyed woman reached up to touch her face - but no, not touch. Her long nails started to dig deep into the fleshy face - until it’s skin had been pulled away with the ease of a mask. I tried to shut my eyes - to wake up from this hell - but could not stop staring in stupefied horror.

The wrinkled mask fell to the floor, revealing two pearly black, baseball sized eyes within a gaunt and high boned face. Worse than that, was the mouth full of razor sharp teeth that gleaned in the moonlight coming in through the room’s only window. The thing continued to speak in an inhuman language of hisses and guttural groans.

Every other person surrounding me on all sides - they each performed the same horrible transformation. They removed the human flesh to show faces of monsters, beyond the worst terrors any dreamer had ever imagined.

As the once old woman lunged with her mouth towards my exposed lower leg - I realized.

There was no escape from small town community.