Family Business

Chapter 6

Lanchester was not a particularly interesting place for most people. It was a dusty old town with small houses and broken windows. Most of the people there were tourists. There was exactly one tourist attraction and that was the "Giant Corn Maze." The town heavily depended on the tourists for income. Locals have been slowly moving away.

The Grand Maxwell hotel was not even close to being as big as the one in LA. John Maxwell was the businessman who started the series of Maxwell hotels. He seemed to know exactly what people wanted when they went to a hotel and he made sure it could be done. He had a charm and ended up always getting his way. In the early days of his business, John Maxwell took the advice of a board member and built a hotel in lanchester, he was fired immediately after the business failed miserably and the adviser was never heard from again.

One day he came up with a plan to boost tourism in that town. There was a tremendous amount of property behind the hotel so he decided to buy it. Investors thought he was a fool to make the same mistake and started backing out. To avoid letting this ruin the reputation of his other hotels, John Maxwell bought it privately and hired a man to take care of it. He built the hedge maze and installed cameras to watch people make their way through it. But cameras were not the only things he installed.

To make the maze more interesting there were solid steel door hidden between the fake hedges, these were set to seal through a control panel in the security room. The goal was to make their way across the maze. There was a cash prize for the winner and coupons for a few consolation prizes.

From the day the maze opened up, business for the Grand Maxwell also picked up. People from all over the country poured in to check out the new maze could not find a decent place to stay except for the hotel. Now business was steady and John Maxwell himself went to Lanchester with his wife and daughter to stay every now and then.

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There was a pub in Lanchester called Copper Pan, It was a cozy little place with copper pots and pans used to decorate the place. The pub was always busy because there was nothing else to do in the lonely town.

There was a man sitting at the end of the bar, almost completely covered by the shadow of the poor lighting in the bar, even so, he wore a black hoodie. He was watching another man drink alone. Signaling the bartender he got another round of whiskey. Just then the man he was watching began to cry.

"Please! Please!" he sobbed to no one in particular.

"ok now!" said the bartender, quickly moving to the man and taking away his glass. "I think you have had enough."

"NO! PLEASE!" he screamed, grabbing the bartender's hand and pulling him across the counter. Everyone in the pub fell silent. The hooded man came forward and pulled him off the old bartender. The drunk man immediately fell to the ground and began scratching the place in his arm touched by the hooded man. He scratched until he began to bleed all the while whimpering in pain.

"I'll take care of him." The hooded man told the old bartender before dragging him out of the bar. The drunk man cried louder at the touch of the hooded man but suddenly there was silence. The bartender looked around his bar and saw a few people staring.

"Just another drunken fool." He said calmly, waving off the stunned silence. Before long the people in the bar was back to buzzing again. Just another day in this Lanchester bar.

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Sorry!! I know this is a small chapter, but I wanted to give you a gist of what life in Lanchester was like. Looks like strange things don't only happen at the Maxwell hotel.

Why would Aaron come to a place like this?

If you like reading this do comment & vote to let me know!

<3 <3