Return to The Quarry

Chapter Five

 The van sailed around the smooth driveway in an arc that was designed to unveil the hotel gradually to visitors in the most dramatic way possible. As they rounded the forest and came to the main lot of the building, the full scale of the grand hotel hit all of them. Kaitlyn caught the signs posted in stylish etched wood, directing visitors to their choice of hotel or boat launch. They were headed for the hotel.

Braden parked beneath a porte-cochere in front of the main entrance. More of the rubble masonry pillars and foundations surrounded them, gathering them all in and funneling them up flagstone steps towards elegant glass and chrome doors. As they got out, Emma eyed several tall, blackened iron tripods, each supporting a shallow metal basin. She had seen such things at premiers and product launches, where they would load them with some sort of liquid fuel and they would burn for hours with tall, dramatic flames. Whoever designed the look of events at this place knew exactly what they were doing, she thought.

Braden turned his attention to a numerical keypad on the door and punched in a series of numbers. With a loud tone and a deep click, the glass doors unlocked. Everyone filed into the hotel lobby which must have been quite grand when lit up and bustling with guests. White sheets lay over the receptionist desk and what were no doubt various pieces of expensive furnishings. A beautiful stone fireplace lay cold in the center of the lobby, its stony chimney rising up through the lofty timbered ceiling. Two grand staircases flanked the fireplace and met in a central landing. The spindles were polished branches of various shapes but painted a hematite gray, giving the arrangement an air of rustic elegance. A chandelier overhead was made in the same fashion, with sculptural metal antlers gleaming in the light of the burning bulbs once Braden located the switch. He went behind the reception desk and found the switch to turn on the air conditioning unit. Soon, a coolness began to permeate the still, damp air and this combined with the added light, made the place seem less dismal and abandoned.

Across the lobby from the reception desk, a circle of folding chairs were set up in front of a closed set of elevator doors. Braden led everyone in that direction, and Emma went cold.

It reminds me of those meetings I used to attend, she thought. Group counseling.

Settled in their seats, Braden balanced a legal pad on his knee, as well as his phone, on which he called up a voice recorder app.

"Here we are," he said. "Where everything happened. Granted, everything looks different in some ways. It's still very much the same in others. Let's throw out some words to describe how we're feeling."

"Nervous," said Emma, with no hesitation.

"Same." That was Laura.

Other words like paranoid, on guard, damaged, haunted, and held back followed.

"Good," Braden said softly. "You're being honest with yourselves. In a moment, I will meet with each of you privately to hear about your individual experiences where you can go into more personal detail. But it's important that we reaffirm that this is a safe space with no judgements or consequences. Only honesty. Healing from traumatic encounters, even those as unlikely as a bear attack, can and will happen."

Everyone in the circle looked at each other, unsure what to say to that.

Nick cleared his throat. "You know what really happened, don't you?"

Braden cast a glance around at everyone. "I think so. Um, bears, if I'm not-"

"It wasn't a bear attack," Max said in a low voice.

Soon, Braden was caught up to speed, about the werewolves, the night they spent running from them, how some became them, the lengths the Hackett family went to keep a lid on what was really going on, and how Ryan and Laura eventually stopped the cycle. They went into the harrowing details of how they were initially arrested, blamed for the murders of an escaped psychiatric patient named Silas Vorez (though the police claimed his surname was Hewitt), as well as Chris and Kaylee Hackett. According to the family, the nine of them were responsible for the deaths, however the evidence they themselves produced cleared their names. They were detained all the same, the state police conducting their own investigation which eventually involved the FBI. They were released in early September, but only on the condition that they signed non-disclosure paperwork, essentially preventing them from discussing the incident publicly as anything other than a bear attack.