The House on Black Lake by Anastasia Blackwell, Maggie Deslaurier, Adam Marsh, David Wilson

says as we step from the elevator into an area resembling an exclusive health club. “It sounds like the maids left the water running in one of the baths. I let them use the equipment after work when we’re not here. All the machines are the newest models. Take a spin on the Ryccho.” She motions to a lineup of stationary cycles at the end of the room. “I’ll be right back.”
    I weave my way through an army of exercise machines to a replica of a fancy motorcycle. I am about to mount the seat when I notice a golden handle set into the wall in front of me, with mysterious-looking geometric symbols etched into its surface. The latch is mounted to a door nearly hidden in the surface of the wall. Moving to examine the handle, I see it is adorned with a series of overlapping concentric circles with an arrow piercing through the center. I pull down on the lever and it opens smoothly, releasing a blast of warm, stale air.
    “No!” I hear Ruth call from behind me. “You can’t go in there. It’s Ramey’s private room.”
    But, it is too late: the door is already open and I have switched on the light. Hanging from the ceiling is a skeleton of some horrible perversion of nature, dangling with another smaller version of something even more wretched. And there is more—too much to comprehend in a moment. Ramey’s room is a chamber of curiosities, a fantastical and bizarre collection of ancient and other-worldly artifacts.
    “The room is a catastrophe—not fit for human eyes. It’s unusual for him to leave it unlocked,” Ruth says, coming up from behind me. “Now you’ve seen Ramey’s little hobby, his secret obsession, his father’s legacy. Come, before the awful sight begins to haunt you at night. We need to get back to the lake; it’s getting very late.” Ruth turns off the light and closes the door to Ramey’s secret room.

C HAPTER S EVENTEEN

T HE A CCIDENT

    W E’RE DINING AT U NCLE R OGER’S ESTATE TONIGHT . T HERE WAS A men’s club meeting today and some of the boys are staying for dinner. I tried to get out of it, but no one refuses an invitation from Ramey’s uncle.” Ruth’s eyes blink rapidly as she speaks. She reaches into the glove box and retrieves a sunglass case, takes the glasses out, puts them on, takes them back off, replaces them in the case and returns it to the compartment.
    In the drowsy silence I watch the countryside melt into a haze of sun falling on stalks of grain. Up the road, a clapboard farmhouse with green shutters sits at the end of a long drive. Horses and cows graze idly in the pasture surrounding the house near the barn. To the right of the property, a burly man in a horse buggy whips a lean thoroughbred around an oval racetrack surrounded by a whitewashed fence.
    “When I was a little girl I used to sit on the fence at my grandfather’s farm and watch the neighbor’s horse and buggy races—”
    The car suddenly lurches to the right and then careens off the road.
    “Stop the car, stop the car, Ruth!”
    I lean over to grasp the steering wheel, but her hands are stiff and unyielding. “Stop the car!” I fight for control of the vehicle as we head straight down a slope towards an enormous tree.
    “The brakes! Hit the brakes!” I cover my face with my hands and am thrust forward in a gut-splitting lurch, then whiplashed back against the seat, as the vehicle slams to a halt. Through my fingers I look out the front window, beyond swirling dust, at the trunk of the tree—its bark broken by the vehicle’s front bumper.
    “Ruth, my God, what happened?”
    She sits rigid, with a frozen stare, and her skin is covered with ugly red blotches.
    “What’s wrong?” I ask in a shallow whisper.
    I want to comfort my friend, but there is something disconcerting about the angle of her neck.
    “Please talk to me. I don’t understand—”
    “Shut the fuck up. Shut the fuck up, will you. I can’t tell you what’s wrong, because you wouldn’t understand what the hell I’m