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“I thought you said that we had one other guest?” Richard asked, looking down at his wife.
“Oh, my,” Marilyn mumbled. “We do, but…” She let out a deep sigh. “He’s probably going to sleep right through dinner.” She started nodding her head sadly. “The poor young man has been traveling for days without sleep. Poor thing.”
“He said that his name was Trevor,” Lulee volunteered. “And he did mention something about sleeping right through tomorrow.”
“Well, maybe I’ll slip a note under his door, letting him know about the vending room,” Donovan suggested. “He might wake up in the middle of the night and find himself starving.”
“Oh, honey, that’s a splendid idea,” Marilyn rushed out, looking weirdly happy. “We can’t have him tiredandhungry.”
“I’ll do it before I head home,” Donovan remarked.
Looking back over the room, Richard said, “Once dinner is served and cleaned up, my wife, son, and I make our way back to our home, about a mile down the road. The phones in the room are all programmed with our house number, so please don’t feel unsafe or like you’ve been abandoned here. Since this place is for couples, we like to give our guests as much privacy as possible.”
“But we’re back in the morning, plenty in time for breakfast,” Marilyn added. “Again, while the wi-fi service here is very spotty, you just need to call us if something goes awry, and one of us can be back down here in five minutes.”
“Thank you,” Verity replied. “That’s very nice of you.”
“Oh, pish posh,” Marilyn chuckled like she was in a different century altogether. “It’s just what we do here at Amity Expectations.”
“Well, alright,” Richard said. “How about we leave you kids to get better acquainted, and we’ll just go start dinner. Now, remember, nothing fancy here. Just some homemade hamburgers and fries.” Richard pointed over toward the entrance. “If you prefer something stronger than ice-water, the vending room has bottled drinks, plus a soda fountain machine on the back east end of the room.”
With one last smile for the table, the Clarks all took off to go start dinner, and even though Marilyn Clark seemed weird as fuck, her husband and son seemed just fine, making me feel better about things. After all, this place still looked like it could star in a horror flick.
Chapter 12
Verity~
Dinner had been simple, but good. Whatever seasonings Marilyn Clark added to her hamburgers, it worked. Not only had they been full of flavor, but they’d also been accommodating enough to cook them to preference for us. My guess was because there hadn’t been a full table, but whatever the reason, it’d been nice of them.
“Well, as we’ll be heading home soon, I think now is the time to warn you of the trails,” Richard Clark announced.
“Oh, Richard, we were having such a nice time,” Marilyn replied unhappily.
“Honey, I know,” he told her softly. “But it’s something that needs to be addressed, and you know it.”
“C’mon, Mom,” Donovan added. “This is important.”
“No, of course,” Marilyn muttered. “You’re right. You’re both right.”
Richard began to look over all of our faces. “At the end of the courtyard, you’ll come across the beginning of a nature trail.”
“Yeah, we saw it,” Cree told him. “Saint and I both smoke, so we were looking for a place far enough away for a cigarette.”
“Oh, as long as you’re not smoking inside the rooms, you’re free to smoke anywhere,” Marilyn said, and that kind of surprised me. With the way that she had reacted to Lulee’s teasing about threesomes and her disdain for Lulee’s independence, I would have sworn that smoking would have been on her list of deplorable habits.
“With respect to our other guests,” Richard added, and that was fair.
“Of course,” Saint immediately replied. “That’s the reason why we’d gone searching for a more secluded spot.”
“Well, the nature trail reaches about a mile out before hitting the cliffs,” Richard explained. “The drop is far enough to either kill you or paralyze you, depending on where you fall. The terrain at the bottom is nothing but rock, no foliage for cushion.”
“It’s not blocked off?” Sarah asked.
“There’s a wooden guard that runs about fifty feet across, and more warning signs than a state prison,” Richard answered. “There are also ropes that are strung up in between the guard and the nearest tree on each side. So, you would literally have to climb the guard or untie the ropes to see over the edge of the cliffs.”
“However, that’s not the problem,” Donovan said, taking over.
“Then what is?” I asked.
