The Haunting of Anna McAlister (33 page)

* * *

Ariene screamed and vowed revenge.

* * *

When they reached room 531, no one said a word. Joselyn knelt down in the hallway, crossed herself and began to pray. The men pushed open the door and walked quickly into the room. Joselyn watched the door close behind them and heard the lock sliding firmly into place.
 

* * *

Anna, as Ariene, heard the door open and watched the men walk in. “It is about time,” she shrieked at them. She saw the knives and assumed their purpose. “Cut these scarves,” she ordered. “And then send Joselyn to me.”
 

The men stood still and silent, as if unsure of what to do.

“I’ll pay you well and fuck you later,” Ariene purred.

One of the men stepped up to where her right hand was tied.

“Hurry,” she snapped. “I will not tolerate any further delay.”

The man moved his knife forward, but instead of cutting Ariene free, he plunged it through her hand, impaling it to the bedpost on which it was tied.
 

“
Diable
,” he said as he pushed the knife deeper into the wood. “Devil.”

Ariene screamed. Anna felt the blade piercing her palm, splitting bone and emerging from the other side. Other men used their knives in similar fashion on Ariene’s other hand and both feet. Each time she would scream. Each time one of the men would strike her across her face with his fist. The first blow broke her nose, the second her jaw. The final two shattered teeth and filled her mouth with blood, turning her screams into choked gurgles. Anna felt it all.

“Stop! What are you doing?” Renee tried to rise, but two men pushed him back onto the chair and held him in place to watch.
 

Anna could feel Ariene’s blood running down her arms and legs. She spat more blood and teeth from her mouth.

“Stop. Stop now. I will give you all what you want many times over,” Ariene’s voice sounded seductive and soft. Anna saw that it had no effect on the men.
 

One of them climbed onto the bed and knelt between Ariene’s legs. He pulled down his pants and worked his cock until it was hard. “You will suffer as they all suffered.” The man positioned his member at the lips of Ariene’s vagina. Anna felt its head start to penetrate.

“And you will die as the demon dog you are.” Blood sprayed from Ariene’s mouth as she cursed the man.
 

The man pulled his cock from her vagina and lowered its head. He pushed it deeply into her ass in a single stroke.
 

Anna screamed as she felt the pain of Ariene’s anus being ripped and torn open. The man fucked her as hard and savagely as he could.

“You will all die!” Ariene shrieked. “Your children’s children will all die!”
 

Another servant removed his shirt and shoved it into Ariene’s mouth, breaking more teeth and splitting her tongue.
 

The man inside her pulled from her ass and pushed into her vagina as he finished.
 

In the chair, Renee cried as each man followed the path laid by the first.
 

“Now it is time for the devil to die,” a man said as he held a knife up to Ariene’s face. He looked into her emerald eyes and quickly backed away. In them he saw pain, but no fear. He also saw fury, hatred and pure evil.
 

The man moved to the bottom of the bed, “
Diable
,” he said again before pushing his knife into Ariene’s vagina until only its handle remained visible. He was handed another and he pushed it into her ass. Blood spread out like a flood between her legs.
 

“You will destroy our children?” Another man said. “I think not.” He cut a deep slit from the inside of Ariene’s right wrist down to her elbow, while another man chopped at the fingers on her right hand. All of the men took turns stabbing her breasts and stomach.
 

By the time the men decided to remove and burn Ariene’s head, Anna McAlister was dead.
 

* * *

Anna lifted her head from the table. The flames from the candle danced in her emerald eyes. “
Bonjour
Renee,” she smiled.
 

Detective Malmann bowed. “
Bonjour
Ariene.”

Epilogue

Before leaving room 531, Detective Malmann shot Phillipe three times, once in the head and twice in the chest. He also ran a knife down Stacey’s slit stomach and across Inspector Cerone’s open throat, making sure it was covered with blood from each before placing it in Phillipe’s hand. It wasn’t difficult for the police to believe his and Anna’s story of how Phillipe had gone mad at the séance. They described how he had brought in a knife and killed Inspector Cerone and Stacy before Detective Malmann had a chance to draw his gun and fire.
 

* * *

While the Medical Examiner found it almost impossible to comprehend how Tom’s wounds could have been self-inflicted, he also knew that the prisoner had been alone in his cell when he died. Suicide was the only logical explanation, and was therefore listed as the official cause of death. His report was added to the file on Madam Lapautre’s murder and the case was officially declared closed.

* * *

On the recommendation of Detective Malmann and the concurrence of the Paris Police Department, the door to room 531 was bricked shut. Wood was placed over the bricks and plastered and painted to match the rest of the hallway and conceal the fact that the room ever existed at all.

Despite their substantial value, the antique furniture, rugs and tapestries in the room were left untouched, sealed away forever with the rest of the secrets room 531 possessed.

* * *

Anna and Detective Malmann remained in Paris for two additional weeks. By then, the talk of the town had shifted to a new series of grizzly murders. Each victim had been sexually mutilated before being, as the news magazines put it, butchered like cattle. No connection was made between them until many years later when a criminology student, studying the case, discovered the apparently unimportant fact that each victim was a descendant of someone who had at one time been in the employ of the Hotel Baronette.

* * *

The morning of their departure from Paris was cool and clear. Anna and Detective Malmann laughed as they got into a cab in front of the Baronette at 6 a.m. for an 8 o’clock flight to the States. Neither of them cared to look up at the fifth floor, where candlelight could be seen in the fourth window from the left. If they had looked, they would have also seen that the curtains were slightly parted . . . as if someone was watching.

– THE END –

As an author, journalist and international consultant, Jerome Harrison’s work has taken him from the inner sanctums of the United Nations headquarters, to the bloodied jungles of eastern Congo. He’s walked the war-ravaged earth of Afghanistan and the haunted hallways of the hotel in Paris upon which this book is based. Harrison and his wife Natalia currently live in the New York City area.