Raven's Heart

1

The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years; but one night, a candle burned in the window.

It was officially on the property of the Rook’s Lodge, a hotel on the highway. Cabin 22 remained perpetually vacant, though, awaiting a special occasion, or a specific guest. And when she arrived, the candle was lit.

Raven Dark arrived at the Rook’s Lodge, feeling as good as dead. She was a mere shadow of her former self, with her ever-present heartbeat the only evidence she was actually still alive. She’d fallen so far; circumstances had taken away her self-respect and sense of well-being, as well as her highly-prized good looks.

Raven had once been beautiful to behold, with a certain odd yet appealing quality to her appearance. She was heart-shaped, it could’ve been said. Her face, for instance, was somewhat broad at the temples but pointed at the chin– with large eyes, a small nose, and a drawn-up (also heart-shaped) mouth. Her torso was similarly wide at the shoulders and narrow at the waist, and her hips were broad enough to make her bottom look like a heart turned upside-down.

Her beauty had faded, though, as the girl inside her slowly died. She’d grown thin, to the point of emaciation. Her skin had lost its former rosy glow, and it seemed to bruise so easily. Her eyes were either glassy or bloodshot, depending on her state of despair, and always puffy and dark. She blamed many factors for her decline– bad luck, big debts, blindness to the obvious, and brain-numbing addictions.

Most of all, though, Raven Dark blamed herself.

***

Raven came to the Rook’s Lodge in great pain.

She might’ve appeared sedate to the casual observer, but that was merely because of physical exhaustion. Inside, she was suffering from a sense of panic so complete she could barely function. Her heart pounded in an irregular rhythm, her legs felt numb, and she honestly believed she would drop dead at any second. She desperately needed a hit of something– a drag on the pipe, or a shot of 90-proof liquid gold– to calm her. But she couldn’t afford either one; not only was she worse than broke, but that cure might kill her.

It was 2 AM on a winter night when she was dropped off in front of the hotel by a taxi, protected from the chill by a man’s topcoat too big for her. She entered the lobby by the double front doors, which were never locked, and stepped up to the desk. Her face was frozen in an expression of vacancy– complete with empty eyes, slack features, and a look of being elsewhere.

“Can I help you?”

She was just a bit startled, as if her mind really had been a thousand miles away. She finally looked up to see the man who was speaking. He was young, but not particularly handsome or well-dressed. His nametag, which she had to squint to make out, read JACKSON ROOK.

“Yes,” she said, in a low voice. “I have a room here already. Under the name Mickey Dark. . .”

“I have it.” He found the prepaid registration card in its proper place. “How many in your party?”

She cleared her throat. “Just one,” she replied, after a pause. Then: “And. . .and somebody else might drop by for a little while. Will that be okay?”

“Fine.” From a drawer beside the desk he retrieved an item of interest that had nothing to do with the business at hand. It was a palm-sized cutout in the shape of a heart, made of a stiff red fabric with a velvety texture. Jackson handed it to her, along with the key to Cabin 22.

Raven merely stared at it, confused. Her vision was too blurry at the moment to read the gold-embossed lettering on the heart. She looked back at Jackson, her mouth halfway open.

“It’s February fourteenth. Just a token for all our guests on the holiday.”

Raven’s eyes cleared long enough to make out the words printed there. In her present state, she’d forgotten all about days and dates and such trivial things. She had more important matters to think about. It read:

H A P P Y V A L E N T I N E ’ S D A Y

F r o m t h e R o o k ’ s L o d g e

“Where a good night’s sleep is guaranteed”

2

Raven Dark, alone in Cabin 22 of the Rook’s Lodge, was truly terrified.

She felt as though she’d just awakened in a strange place, unsure how she’d arrived there. Her trip to the hotel by taxi seemed like a disjointed dream to her, and she had to keep reminding herself why she was there. She’d reached a mental plateau of forced forgetfulness, until the desk clerk had given her that velvet valentine. It truly frightened her, for reasons she didn’t quite understand.

Raven Dark– too pretty, smart, and talented to be taken advantage of– had fallen so far. To her perpetual disgust, she was about to sell her precious flesh to a man she’d never met. To guarantee her future, she was willing (for one night, at least) to become a whore-for-hire.

The thought of it brought tears to her eyes. Things like that didn’t happen to regular people, and definitely not her. Giving herself to a man she loved was one thing– a necessary sacrifice, she thought– but bring forced into something so wretched and perverse was a nightmare, with eyes open. She would’ve done almost anything to avoid that torture, but it was too late for that.

Raven had debts, always mounting and never-ending, which had to be paid. And she had the sworn promise that this one foul act would erase all of them, forever.

The steep descent to actual prostitution felt like a tumble down a long flight of stairs, with the same resulting permanent injury. But it wouldn’t be a full-time job, she kept telling herself; it was just this once, and never again. She could only imagine the worst and hope it wouldn’t be quite that bad. Because she hadn’t met her customer; that “date” had been arranged by Mickey Dark– no relation, since Dark was a fairly common name and there were a lot of Darks in Chawasee. He was a local photographer, who owned a strip joint down by the river called the New Diamond Club. Which meant it was probably one of the creepy regulars from his club, who would demand things from her she wasn’t willing to try.

Feeling exhausted and craving the closest narcotic, she lay down on the queen-size bed (still clad in her oversized topcoat) and waited for her mystery man to arrive.

***

The lights in Cabin 22 went out suddenly.

It was the darkness of sleep, except Raven was still wide awake. Unless, of course, she was dreaming; and her dreams, colored by hallucinogens still in her system, had taken on the unmistakable sensation of reality.

Either way, she was (still) terrified. She sat up straight on the edge of the bed, hoping the lack of available light was only a brief power failure. The room was so dark, though– darker than it should’ve been. And Raven believed, for more than a few fleeting seconds, she’d gone blind in the blink of an eye.

It took her a minute longer to realize she wasn’t alone in the room. She couldn’t see anything, of course; but somehow she knew somebody else was there, closeby. But the door hadn’t opened, and the curtained window was still locked tight. Which caused a chill, like a flood of icy water, to run through her.

If she weren’t actually having a vivid dream, become a drug-induced nightmare, then someone must’ve been waiting there in that cabin for her (in the closet, or adjoining bath) all along.

***

Raven couldn’t hear anything, but she sensed someone else’s presence.

And then she saw the glowing tip of a cigarette floating in the corner of the room, right at mouth level. He must’ve been enjoying a smoke before the main entree. Raven’s heart raced like a greyhound. At the moment, she didn’t care about paying off debts with a night of sexual sacrifice. She desperately wanted to be anyplace else.

“How did you get here?” the stranger asked, in a husky voice that sounded just a bit. . .feminine, somehow.

“I took a cab,” Raven whispered.

The stranger laughed, sounding like the hiss of an old radiator. It could’ve been a woman’s laugh; Raven couldn’t decide. Which was something she hadn’t planned for– a lesbian thing. But she had to stay calm. This was her customer, and it was her job (for that one night, at least) to satisfy desires, however bizarre. If that meant doing it in total darkness, to hide someone’s gender, then so be it. If the stranger were a demented dyke or a horribly deformed freak, then Raven preferred it that way.

Her customer stepped forward then, put one firm hand on top of Raven’s head, and aimed her face at the opposite wall. “I mean, how did you get here?” he (or she) said, with definite stress.

Raven made no reply. She didn’t speak or scream. She wanted to see his (or her) face, though the lights were still out, but she couldn’t move. She seemed, for the moment, to be paralyzed.

A source of light, coming from the wall in front of her, caught her eye. Its glow was faint, then grew brighter. Raven realized what it was right away– the mirror over the dresser, which must’ve been reflecting something shiny behind her.

From where she was sitting, she could see the outline of her own head and shoulders in that reflection. As the strange light intensified, she saw her own face. And she strained her unfocused eyes to see the person who was right behind her, but there was only darkness– as if she were sitting in front of a thick black curtain.

In the reflection she saw new things, which couldn’t have been there, staring back at her. And she realized the stranger wasn’t asking about her trip to the hotel; she wanted to know about the journey from relative normalcy to selling her precious flesh. Because the image in the mirror was her, but so much younger. The girl who looked back was Raven Dark, no doubt, but in a still snapshot– from her high school yearbook, in fact.

That was six years ago, right after her mother died. She and her stepfather (whose image she also saw in the mirror, in a photograph of the two of them together) argued constantly, fighting about her future. So she left home to get away from him, and moved to Braxton with one suitcase. She hoped (eventually) to become a movie star– willing to take parts in low-budget local stage plays, and even wait tables, until she got her big break.

But life was more expensive than that, of course. She struggled and nearly starved, then fell into heavy debt. Mickey Dark, the lowlife photographer who’d taken her publicity shots, overcharged her unmercifully with a contract she hadn’t bothered to read. He was willing to let her pay him a little bit each month, but he insisted on some unusual collateral. He made her pose nude for some pictures, which he said he would sell to the highest bidder if she reneged on that deal. And he introduced her to certain substances, to be smoked and snorted, to help her through that ordeal.

Raven came apart after that. At the tender age of twenty-two, a sense of paranoia seemed to rule her daily existence. She didn’t trust Mickey Dark, of course; so she feared everybody she met had seen those wretched photos of her with her legs spread wide. She became afraid to leave her one-bedroom apartment. She turned to the bottle and the pipe. She lost ten jobs in two years. And before long, she was flat broke.

She stared at those pictures as they appeared in the glowing mirror– Raven Dark, in very compromising positions; naked, without even the garters and highheels the girls at Mickey’s New Diamond Club wore, exposing her breasts, and so much more. And now she’d fallen from pornography, which might (or not) have been published already, to prostitution. She wept openly at the shame of it all.

Becoming a whore, if only for that one night, was supposed to settle those accounts, though. She would finally be free.

3

Raven still stared at the mirror, as more of those images scrolled across it.

“Do you want to see the future now?” the stranger– definitely a woman– said.

She nodded, with great reluctance. The future, to her mind, had to be better. With her debts finally paid, she could go back to the way she had been. She could get bigger parts in local plays, get a break, and end up on the silver screen after all. But she doubted the things she was about to see would be anything like that. And she was right– to a degree that chilled her very soul.

In the mirror, the snapshots of the past became a motion picture– like a security video, tinted blue, shot from a high angle in one corner of the room. There was an image of Raven herself lying on the bed, asleep. Then a man wearing a ski mask let himself into Cabin 22 with a key. Like something out of a cheap thriller flick, he dashed to the bed and covered her mouth with one gloved hand. She was jolted awake, but couldn’t scream.

She was expecting to see perverse sexual acts, as bad as the ones she’d imagined, played out before her eyes. But what she actually witnessed was worse– by a thousand times, or more.

The man in the ski mask wasn’t there for sex, but its modern companion– violence. He tore off her topcoat, which she’d been willing (with verbal persuasion alone) to remove; but only after he’d slapped her across the face. Raven, watching, could nearly feel the sting of his hand as it struck her twin self in the mirror. She wanted to look away, but her eyes seemed glued to that scene– until his next attack. With her coat and clothes torn, she was savagely beaten. The sight of blood– her future blood, allegedly– finally made Raven shut her eyes.

“That’s enough,” she whispered, tears staining her cheeks.

“He’s just getting started,” the (female) stranger said, her voice much clearer. “Wait till ya see his knife. . .”

Raven didn’t want to see. So she only glanced, with eyes narrowed. Her mirror twin had been stripped; and blood, bright red on that colorless image, streamed from her split lip and nose. Her attacker, as predicted, drew a knife from a sheath on his belt. Its distinctive diamond-shaped blade reflected the light like a camera’s flash. But he didn’t stab her; he kicked her body with steel-toed boots instead, until she was down and out on the floor. Before he could fall upon her and use the knife, Raven turned her head.

“No,” she said, through clenched teeth.

“You can look now,” the stranger said, a minute later. “It’s over.”

Raven wouldn’t look, though. Until the lights in the room came on again, bright enough to penetrate her eyelids. Convinced she wouldn’t witness any more horror and gore, including her own mutilated corpse, she opened her eyes. She wanted to see the woman who’d been hiding in that room when she arrived, who (she still assumed) was her customer for the night– her “john” (or “jane”, maybe)– despite the dreamlike weirdness in the glowing mirror.

The woman, older than Raven and wearing an identical topcoat, looked like she’d been run over by a truck. Her hair had been cut with (what must’ve been) garden shears, leaving a mess of chopped and ragged ends and stubble. A gash like a lightning bolt ran from her forehead, over the bridge of her smashed-in nose, and ended near her ear. One of her eyes was swollen closed. Her open mouth, surrounded by puffy lips, showed no teeth within.

“Who the hell are you?” Raven demanded, shocked by that sight.

“My name’s Misty Winger,” the stranger said, lighting another cigarette.

4

Raven felt sick, just looking at the other woman, Misty.

“What happened to you?” she asked.

“The same thing that’s gonna happen to you,” Misty said. “Just like in the mirror, Raven. That’s exactly what happened to me.”

“But. . .”

“Mickey sold me, body and soul,” Misty continued. “Just like he did to you. I got into debt and dope, and went to work dancin’ at his club. And he made me look like I do right now.”

Raven shuddered. Mickey Dark– the photographer she owed, owner of the New Diamond Club– was a creepy guy, she had to admit, who dressed in faded polyester and usually had liquor on his breath. But she couldn’t imagine him selling another human being; not even one of the dancers in his club.

“I don’t believe it,” she said. “How did you get away?”

“I didn’t,” Misty replied. “See what they did to me?”

And she opened her own topcoat, to reveal her naked body. There were dark bruises all over her. The blonde hair between her thin thighs was matted with blood, which had run down her legs in dark streaks. Misty’s left breast was gone; in its place there was a gaping hole full of gore. Dried blood caked the surrounding skin, and bits of bone could be seen sticking out. What was most shocking about that wound, though, was what wasn’t there where it should’ve been. Misty had no heart, beating or otherwise.

Raven wanted to jump up and run from the room, screaming bloody murder. She wasn’t physically able to, though; she only made it as far as the adjoining bathroom. Her knees hit the tile floor with force, her guts seized up, and she vomited violently into the open toilet.

Because the woman who’d been waiting in that hotel room for her, with her body beat up and broken, was actually dead. She walked and talked, but her heart had been cut out. Like something right out of a bad B-movie, she was a zombie or ghost, appearing just as she’d been at the very moment of death.

It was all a cocaine nightmare, Raven repeated to herself. It had to be. It felt like she were awake, but she couldn’t have been. . .

Except the woman– Misty Winger, by name– was standing right outside the bathroom door, waiting for her; with her hair cut to shreds, her face smashed in, and her heart ripped out of her chest by the man who’d bought her.

“Your customer’s comin’,” Misty said.

Raven’s blood ran cold, and she suffered a bout of dry heaves. The late Misty Winger wasn’t the one she’d been hired to please. The real john was still on his way. And he would be wearing a ski mask and carrying a knife. And he would have a key to the cabin.

“When?” she demanded.

“He’s leavin’ the front desk right now and headed this way,” Misty said, as if watching the whole thing on a movie screen.

“It’s not that weird desk clerk, is it?” Raven said, thinking of Jackson Rook and the cutout heart he’d given her. “He’d not the one who. . .killed you?”

“No,” Misty said, sounding suddenly angry. “The Nightman didn’t do it. The Nightman is the greatest human being alive. Do ya understand?”

Raven wondered what she’d said to cause that reaction. The “Nightman” she was talking about must’ve been the desk clerk, since he worked at night; though she couldn’t imagine him being described as the greatest human being alive. Not that she was in a position to judge at the moment– willing to sell her flesh, and waiting for her killer to arrive any second.

“I understand,” she said.

“We want you to do somethin’ nice for him,” Misty went on. “And, in exchange, you will not die tonight.”

Raven’s heart jumped. “What are you talking about?”

“Do ya want to live?”

“Yes,” Raven replied.

“Then you must sacrifice,” Misty said. “You must give your heart to the Nightman. Or else your customer will be glad to take it by force.”

Raven trembled. She was supposed to give her heart to someone, or it would be cut out the same way Misty’s was. She didn’t understand what it meant, and she didn’t care. To escape the fate she’d seen played out in the mirror, she would’ve sold her body to science.

“Will ya sacrifice?” Misty asked, impatient.

“Yes, yes. . .”

“Will ya give your heart to the Nightman?”

“Yes.”

“Good,” Misty said. “Close the door and clean yourself up. Your customer’s almost here.”

Raven finally stood and stared at herself in the mirror. She looked worse than death warmed over.

“And don’t worry,” Misty added, “he won’t be expectin’ me.”

***

Raven Dark was dizzy and confused.

She’d been having a crazy dream, brought on either by dope or the lack of it, which seemed so real. She opened her eyes with great difficulty, but she couldn’t seem to focus. Her head felt like it was spinning. She was having trouble seeing her own reflection in the mirror over the bathroom sink.

The truth dawned on her slowly. She heard the key in the door of the adjoining room. Her customer had arrived. A man with a ski mask and knife had come to kill her.

“Raven? Daddy’s home,” she heard a man’s voice sing out, as if he’d just dropped by for tea and cookies. She knew right away it was Mickey Dark himself. He’d not only arranged for her to sell her body for that one night, but he’d also come to collect that bill in person. But, instead of enjoying a few hours’ worth of sexual frolic, he planned to take her life– and her heart.

“You’re not Raven,” she heard him say, which meant Misty Winger must’ve made her presence known to him. And that impossibility– since he’d been the one who killed her– must’ve scared the life right out of him. “Oh, God, no!” Mickey screamed, as if he’d seen the Devil himself.

The sounds she heard next nearly made her sick to her stomach again.

***

Raven stood over the sink, hoping not to faint.

“You can come out now,” she heard Misty say. But Raven had no desire to leave that bathroom anytime soon. “It’s time for your part of the bargain.”

Raven opened the bathroom door very slowly, then stepped out. She didn’t want to open her eyes, for fear of whatever hellish scene she might see. Misty was there, with her topcoat all buttoned up again, hiding her fatal wounds. Raven couldn’t help but notice there was fresh blood running down her chin, though. And, when Misty smiled (without any teeth), she saw the bright red stains on her gums.

“Mickey won’t hurt anybody again,” she said.

Raven looked past her, to see Mickey Dark in the corner. And what she saw made her wish she hadn’t. It was the same man she remembered (and despised), but she barely recognized him. For one thing, he was stripped bare, and his body was pale as eggshells– as if his blood had been completely drained. The expression frozen on his face was one of utter terror, with wide eyes forever unblinking.

He had been decorated, as well. Carved in his chest, by something quite sharp, was the word PIMP. But that wound did not bleed.

Raven was only sorry she hadn’t been there to see it.

Or, after staring at that ghastly corpse once more, maybe she was glad she’d been out of the room during that whole ordeal.

5

Raven Dark only wanted to get away from that horrible place.

Despite the deal she’d agreed to– something about giving her heart to the Nightman– in exchange for her life, her present inclination was to run like hell, until the Rook’s Lodge was far behind her. The things she’d seen there, whether real or merely vivid dreams, would disturb her sleep for some time to come. The quicker she escaped from that horror show, the better.

She was disoriented and dizzy, though. Leaving Cabin 22, where she’d seen nightmares come alive, she didn’t know which way to go. It was dark, and the narrow trail through the surrounding woods there looked like a bottomless pit of blackness, where she wouldn’t dare set foot. She turned and ran back towards the main building, where the only door led into the lobby.

The word Nightman rang in her brain. And the images that word inspired flashed before her eyes. A man so dark, he couldn’t be seen. . .or a man who came out of the night itself. . .to hunt and kill, and cut out her heart. . .

She stumbled into the lobby, frantic and very afraid. Her heart, still safe within her chest, raced. Adrenaline pumped, as she made her way to the front double doors. Which were still unlocked, but stuck fast, so she couldn’t get out. Frustrated, she burst into tears and nearly collapsed.

Jackson Rook came out from behind the front desk, to check out the ruckus. She looked up to see him through her tears.

“I. . .I’m. . .,” she stammered, too terrified to speak clearly, “I’m supposed to give you my. . .my heart. . .”

He tried not to smile. “It’s in your pocket.”

What he’d said made no sense to her, but she dug a hand into the side pocket of her topcoat anyway. There she found the fabric cutout with the velvety texture– a token of the holiday, he’d explained when he’d given it to her not long before.

She stared at it, barely able to read the gold letters on the front. “‘Happy Valentine’s Day’,” she whispered, trying to make out the words. “‘From the Rook’s Lodge. . . Where a good night’s sleep is guaranteed’.” Despite her state of pure panic, that last line nearly made her laugh out loud.

He stepped closer to her. “Read the back.”

She turned the velvet valentine over, where there were more embossed words printed. It read:

Redeemable at the Front Desk For One (1) Life

Raven wept and handed the heart to him, her fingers trembling.

Jackson took it. “Do you really want your life back?”

“Yes,” she said, her lips quivering. “My old life. . .”

He suddenly seized her head with both hands, before she could react. She felt paralyzed again. Her whole body went stiff, her face turned up towards the ceiling, and her eyes opened wide.

Jackson held her head tightly. “Do you want the poisons out of your body?”

“Yes,” she said, having trouble with the word. She wasn’t sure what he was talking about; unless he meant all the crap she’d smoked, drunk, and snorted in the recent past– the things she believed she couldn’t live without.

“Do you feel them leaving you now?” His hands pressed against the flesh of her face.

She did. Unable to see anything, she felt plenty. It was as if a thousand insects were crawling on her skin, departing her body by its pores. She was sickened by it, as that sensation crept all over her. She could picture bugs (and worse)– hairy spiders, slugs, and the creatures that lived under slimy rocks– moving across her flesh, down her arms and legs. It was horrible, and her stunned brain raced with revulsion. It seemed to go on forever. . .

Until Jackson released her, and she collapsed on the lobby floor.

6

Raven Dark awoke in bed, in a hotel room.

It was Cabin 22 of the Rook’s Lodge, in fact. But it was clean and bright, with early-morning sunlight streaming in through the curtained window and a single candle burning. Misty Winger, the walking dead, was no longer there; Mickey Dark’s ruined corpse was also gone; and all evidence of their presence must’ve been removed. Raven’s topcoat was folded over the arm of a chair in the corner, and she’d slept quite comfortably in her frilly underclothes.

On the nightstand beside the bed, she found a palm-sized cutout in the shape of a heart, made of a stiff fabric with a velvety texture. Raven was beginning to believe everything she’d experienced in that place had been a bad dream, until she read the golden words on that valentine.

MY NAME IS RAVEN DARK

And I Am Alive

The phone on the nightstand rang, making her jump. With great reluctance, she answered it, though.

“Good morning.” It was the desk clerk, Jackson Rook.

“Yes, it is,” she whispered, still half-asleep, but feeling better than she could remember.

“This is your wake-up call.”