A Malevolent Portrait

A black Mercedes made an acute right turn in a narrow country road. Headlights lighting up the dark path ahead. It was late February, but still, the sun sank into the horizon before five this evening. Moreover, today it felt like there was barely any sunlight the whole day. 

“Are you sure we are on the right path?” Eve worried. 

“Huh,” grunted Dave, irritated. This was the fifth time she had asked this question, and to be truthful, he was not sure. The GPS had been taking them in circles, and this God-forsaken inn was nowhere to be found. “I don’t know where this street is, and I’m losing my patience.” 

“Give me that phone,” Eve said as she snatched the iPhone from his hand. Both were on the edge as this street had been eluding them for the past hour. They both were tired, hungry, and a little creeped out. The drive to this little town was fine, but for the last hour, the houses disappeared, the lights were non-existent, and what felt like eternity, they had been on this very narrow country road with no road signs or any sign of life. 

Eve looked through the map, and it looked like this inn was on an unpaved road with no name. 

“Who builds an inn on an unnamed road?” Eve said angrily. “How did you book this place?” 

“I didn’t, my friend Tom booked it for us,” Dave said as he clearly regretted that decision. 

“Why here? Why this town?” Eve asked irritated, looking at Dave, whose eyes were glued to the street in front of him. 

“He said this was the closest town.” 

Eve, who was now thoroughly annoyed, tried to zoom into the map to see if there was any connection to this unpaved road, but the Vodafone network was so patchy in this area that the map wouldn’t load properly. “Stupid network,” she hissed. 

“Look!” Dave pointed to something ahead. “That looks like an off-road. Maybe that might lead to the inn.” Now he had some hope in his voice, even though he would have sworn that road wasn’t there moments ago when he went past it. The unpaved road was extremely rough, and this front-wheel-driven Mercedes was not suited for this kind of road. He constantly heard bumps on the underside of the car, which visibly made him wince. 

“What the hell is that?” Eve almost whispered as a dark, looming structure came into view. There were no lights, but on top of a small hill, they could see a massive silhouette against the dark sky. Dave, who didn’t dare to stop, slowed down enough to see it was some kind of medieval-looking keep. It was completely drenched in darkness, and the front LED lights from the car showed an unpleasant, dishevelled-looking building which almost looked rotted. “That is just creepy,” Eve muttered, and Dave nodded. 

The road swung around this hill, so the keep was in complete view through the passenger side window, and as if mesmerised, Eve was not able to take her eyes off it. Even though it was pitch black, she swore she saw a flicker of dancing light from the keep. She thought the hypoglycemia was getting to her head.

After what felt like a mile, they finally saw a faint light ahead. The light grew bigger as they approached, and sure enough, it was the inn they were looking for – The Hollow Inn. 

“Thank God,” Dave said out loud as he pulled in front of the inn. “Let’s go and check in first. Then I will come back for our bags,” Dave said, looking at Eve, and she agreed. 

As they both entered, they were greeted with silence. There was no one behind the bar. Dave looked around and saw empty tables and chairs, and the whole place looked like it was lit by a single chandelier above the bar, which was not bright enough to reach all the corners. 

“Hello?” Dave called out. There was no answer. They only heard a whistling sound from the front door, which was not completely shut behind them. It brought in a cold draft, which made Eve go back and shut the door. It closed with a loud thud, which startled them both. 

“We both need a little rest,” Dave reassured her. “It’s been a long day.” Eve nodded, but something about this whole place didn’t sit right with her. And she was concerned whether she would get any shut-eye tonight in this strange place. 

“Can I help you?” a deep voice growled behind them, and it made them jump for the second time. A short man stood behind the bar, barely five feet tall, looked at them both with unblinking green eyes. His face was fully covered with a dark grey beard, and the attire didn’t belong to this century. 

“We have a booking for tonight under the name ‘Marshal,’” Dave said, a bit shaken. 

The odd man didn’t check anything, neither a registry nor a computer; he just turned around and started walking towards the steps that flanked the bar. “Follow me,” he growled as he reached the bottom stair and started climbing up without waiting for them. 

Dave and Eve exchanged worrisome looks but didn’t utter anything. Dave was the first one to follow him, and Eve, reluctantly, followed Dave. 

The stairs were made of stone and wound around like a castle tower. It was barely lit. Eve stumbled a couple of times as she missed the steps in the near darkness. The whole place was musty and smelled stale. Throughout the ascent, Dave couldn’t shake the feeling that they were the only guests in this whole inn. 

“Why is this place built in the middle of nowhere?” Eve asked from behind, and the man grumbled.

“This is a private road. Not many pass through it,” he muttered. 

“That can’t be good for business, right?” Dave asked, expecting an acknowledgment from the man, but he only received silence.  

“Here we are,” the man said as they finally got to the floor above. It was a tiny hall with barely enough shoulder room for one person to walk abreast. The carpet was so worn out it almost looked decayed. The whole hallway was just lit by a candle in the middle. There were four doors facing each other in this hall. Black doors with large round iron handles, which he twisted and let the guest into one of the rooms. The first thing Dave and Eve noticed was the eerie silence. Not a single sound apart from the creaking floorboard under their legs and the flickering candlelight.

As they both entered the room, they were welcomed by a warm-looking room. Small but cozy. A large Victorian bed took the centre, flanked by two bedside tables holding two large lamps. And a small chandelier hung above the room, lighting the place. Dave was quite happy with the room, the only thing that turned out to be satisfactory on an otherwise terrible day. However, Eve’s attention was on a picture that was hung over the bed. It was big enough to cover half the wall and it was placed in a rather decorative wooden frame. She unknowingly walked towards it. 

It was an oil painting and looked old. But it was the image in it that caught her attention. It was the same keep they saw on the way. The image was set during a sunset, and the dark keep was standing tall over a grassy hill. A large shadow was cast down by the structure as the sun was behind it. The more she stared at it, the more it came alive. She felt that the sun was setting behind that hill, making that shadow to grow larger. As if it was extending out of the frame and into their room. 

Dave touched Eve’s shoulder, which shook her off the trance. 

“Did you hear what I just said?” he asked her with a worried look. 

“What?” she tried to focus her vision back on Dave as if she just woke up from a deep slumber. She noticed that they were alone in the room and the man was nowhere to be seen. 

“I said I will go down and bring up the bags,” Dave said again. 

“NO!” she almost screamed. “Don’t leave me alone here,” she pleaded. 

“Baby, I’m just going down a floor to pick the bags up. I will come back in five minutes,” he said, touching her shoulder, and he could feel her shaking under his grip. “What’s going on?” he asked, concerned. 

“Something is not right,” she muttered, looking back at the painting. Dave followed her gaze. He froze when he saw the picture, as he knew it was the same building they had driven past. He saw a small golden plaque on the bottom of the frame which read, ‘Donnington Castle.’ 

“It must have some local historical value around these parts. So don’t be surprised that they have hung a picture of that building,” Dave said, looking back at Eve, but he knew she was not listening to him. And he was not able to shake an unnerving feeling off from that canvas. 

Once again something changed in that portrait for Eve. The sun was now barely present in the picture and the darkness had overtaken the scene. And to her horror she could see the shadow from the keep had extended beyond the frame and now casting onto the wall below. She heard a faint whisper. Initially she thought it was in her head, but it kept repeating. 

“Come…”

“Dave!” she called out as she turned around. To her shock she was alone in the room. He had left the room, and she wasn’t aware of it. The door was closed, and the room was getting dim as if the light from the chandelier above was getting covered. She froze in the spot. Pure terror took over her body as she heard the whisper more clearly. It felt like the voice was coming from everywhere, all at once. 

“Come to me. Come and see me…” 

The disembodied voice was low and almost felt like a growl of an animal. Shivers ran down her spine. She turned around as her body was shaking involuntarily and looked at the picture one last time. Her pupils widened, and she let out a bone-chilling scream! 

Dave heard the scream on the road outside as he was removing their bags from the car’s boot. He dropped everything and ran into the inn. He slipped and fell twice on the stone-cold stairs as he hurried up to the room. He almost broke through the door as he entered the room. To his disbelief, the room was empty. He called out for her; she was neither in the room nor in the bathroom. He ran out to the hall and called her again. Silence. He ran down and called for her. There was no reply. He kept screaming her name as he ran up and down the inn. The other rooms on that floor were empty, and that man was nowhere to be seen. 

He finally entered their room, panting and sweating. His voice was shaking, and his heart was beating out of his chest. As he regained composure, he looked up, and his jaw dropped. The portrait that was hanging above the bed was completely black, as if someone took a black paint and smeared the whole picture out of existence, and something was dripping from the frame. Dave inched closer and touched it. 

It was blood.