John Lexton's Story

Even though it was midday, clouds obscured the sun. The forecast said that a blizzard would be coming into town soon. The lodge was ready; upon their arrival, John and Carla Lexton had found the place nearly spotless, although there had been no sign of the rest of the staff. Carla was in the lobby, checking the clock every minute.

"John, have you got that phone line working yet?" She shouted, her voice carrying through the hallways. There was no response. "John!" she shouted again. She stood and started walking for the door.

"What, what?" John said, entering the room from the hallway.

"Have you got the phones working yet?"

"Not yet. There doesn't seem to be anything wrong with them."

"Then hurry up. I don't like it here. It's too empty. And where's the rest of the staff? I should fire them all for showing up this late! The guests are supposed to arrive any minute and we're the only ones-" John cut her off.

"It'll be fine. They probably just got the dates wrong. I'm sure-" The sound of a large vehicle pulling up outside can be heard.

"See? The guests are here!" Carla hissed at him. She hurried to the front desk. "Go on, we can't have the guests seeing you like that!" John shrugged and walked to the edge of the lobby. Carla turned towards the door as the first guest entered.

✧Miles✧

Miles was sitting in the warm shuttle playing with the strap of his duffle bag when the driver pulled onto the gravel driveway of the Ski Lodge. As the car slowly came to a stop Miles wondered if he should tip the driver.

Nah he gets payed enough.

He opened the door slowly and stepped onto the powdery snow that lined the ground lightly. The sky was overcast and the air was crisp. Miles felt himself shivering but walked slowly, making sure not to show that he cared about the cold. He reached into his back pocket and pulled out his iPhone 5.

No reception? Damn. No calls in or out.

As he approached the front door, Miles took a final look at his invitation making sure that he was right about the date and place. After assuring himself that he was, he slowly pulled open the heavy door of the lodge. He assumed that he was standing in the lobby which was cozy and warm. A man and a woman stood in the room.

The man was short but well built. Definitely someone that wouldn't tolerate any funny business so Miles just assumed that he wouldn't talk to him unless completely necessary. The woman, on the other hand, was standing behind the front desk wore a name tag that read "Carla". He looked her up and down, noticing her fake nails, fake hair, and, well, fake face.

"Um hey," he looked around slowly, "I'm Miles. Is this, like, the place?"

Tim
Tim waited as the shuttle drove them to the resort, bored out of his mind. This usually wasn't the kind of thing he did, but it was paid for, so he thought, why not? Could be fun? So far not. The drive seemed painfully long, and some guy couldn't stop fidgeting with strap of his bag. That was one among many things Tim couldn't stand. Fidgeting.

Another thing annoying him, as they got closer and lower, he noticed that the reception on his phone was getting worse and worse. By the time they got there, he knew there'd be none. If they didn't have phones that worked at the resort, Tim would freak out.

Tim tried to shut his eyes and sleep, to make time pass faster. However, by the time he was almost claimed by sleep, the car stopped. Fuck my life, he thought, immediately getting out of the shuttle after the fidgetter. It was cold, but Tim didn't mind. The cold was nice. Going inside, there was a girl and guy already there, and the fidgetter introduced himself as Miles and asked if this was "the place". Tim looked at him like he was stupid. Duh, he thought, before looking away from the barbie of a girl to the guy. "Where we staying?" he asked, wanting to get rid of his bag.

Smiling as wide as was humanly possible, Carla stood behind the front desk waving excitedly at each guest as they entered. "Welcome to the Shelter Lodge.", she announced to the first couple guests that made their way towards her.

The first guest, a young man that had a devious look about him, approached her with a question. She loudly replied, "Of course this is the place! Make yourself at home, everything is brand new, and ready to be tried out by you, our very first group of guests!" As she was saying this, she noticed the second guest looked to be a bit annoyed. Isn't this something, he gets a free vacation and stands here with such discontent!, she thought to herself as she moved over to the computer.

With the giant smile still plastered on her face, she looked up at the first guest, "If I could just get your last name and driver's license so I can verify your identity and get you your room information."


John lingered in the room long enough to see the first guests arrive. He didn't quite like the looks of them. To, him they seemed too young, and young people were always up to no good. He shrugged and walked out of the room. He still had some last minute things to do. Most important of all, he needed to get the phones up and working. Especially since this area seemed to be devoid of any cell phone signal. He made his way to the generator room to see if the problem could possibly be originating from it. This, he doubted, but it was worth looking into because he had found no other source for the problem, and the last thing the needed on opening day was for the guests to get their panties in a knot over the phones not working.

A loud bang caused Carla to jump, and snapped her attention from the departing guests to the front door where more guests were filing in, followed by a strong smell of exhaust.Her face contorted into a mixed expression of surprise and disgust. That man should be arrested, going around stinking up the world with that horrible, disgusting bus of his!

She quickly pulled herself together, displaying a big smile, and waving at the new arrivals. "Welcome! Welcome to the Shelter Lodge!", she called out cheerfully to them. "Just make your way over here, to the desk, and I will get you situated."



John heard the loud noise as he was closing the door to the generator room. Sounds like that bus is on its last leg, he thought to himself. He couldn't dwell on that though. The phones refused to work. There was no discernible problem, therefore there was nothing he could do to fix them. Yet, he knew Carla wouldn't let that fly. He sighed, and made his way to the staff room. He had done all he could do for now.

He sat down, sipping at his freshly made coffee. Taking a deep breathe, he looked out the window at the falling snow contemplating how he was going to explain the phone situation to his wife. The snow started to pick up, it took him a bit, but eventually it dawned on him. The blizzard! I'll blame it on the blizzard!

Snoring with his arms spread over the table in the staff room, John had fallen asleep after just a couple sips of his coffee. Suddenly he jumped awake, knocking his chair back slightly, and almost toppled onto the floor. His heart was pounding, and he was covered in sweat. Man that was some dream., he thought as he stretched and sat back in his chair, allowing the details of the dream to slowly dissipate until he could only vaguely recall that it involved a murder of some sort. Reaching for his coffee, he cursed noticing that he had managed to spill it during his nap. He cursed again when he noticed that his shirt had soaked up a good amount of the coffee, leaving a rather large brown stain on the left sleeve of his shirt. He go up to grab some paper towel, when his eyes fell on the clock that hung on the wall. His heart almost stopped, Oh shoot the tour!. Carla had made quite certain that he knew to attend the tour of the facilities. Her desire was to introduce all the guests to the employees to make them feel more at home, and willing to provide feedback on their stay. Forgetting the spill, and the stain, he took off down the hall towards the lobby. I hope she hasn't started yet, she'll never let me hear the end of it if I am late!

He arrived through the door located behind the front desk just as Carla was saying," All right, everyone, since we're all here we might as well get the tour started a little early. If you'd all gather around."

"Phew!", he panted as wiped the sweat from his forehead, and tried to calm his breathing down to normal.

Carla turned her husband, her smile quickly turning to a look of annoyance, and whispered severely," You dolt! Causing all this commotion, you're lucky the guests are here or I'd have your arse!" She then turned back to the guests displaying her phony smile, "I would first like to introduce you to the staff of this Shelter Lodge. Firstly, there is me. I am Carla, and I run the front end of the Shelter Lodge. Next, there is John, my husband, who is the mechanic responsible for fixing anything that breaks.", at the mention of his name, John, attempted to smile at the crowd of guests, but gave up and just lifted his hand and gave a small wave, "Feel free to take up any questions or concerns with either of us. Now let us begin the tour!"

Carla walked out from behind the front desk, and stood in front of the large fireplace. John trailed behind her, and stood a few feet to the left of her. Carla spread her arms out wide, proudly announcing, "Now this, as you all may know, is the lobby. From here you can easily make it to every other part of this resort. This is a place where you can rest, hang out, and call upon me to resolve any issues you may have. Any questions?"

Nara
Nara waved a short hello to the girl who said hi to her and Lacey, but her attention was quickly changed to the tour when it was announced it was starting early. Since they were all there, Nara didn't mind. She did notice however, that Lacey had slipped away. Her sister and Miles was missing too. Nara frowned slightly, thinking it was useless to go after someone who bullied you, but shrugged it off. They were sisters. Besides, Nara could right out a brief over of the tour and a map for Lacey if she missed the tour. Nara was usually good with those kind of things.

Nara looked over at a man who just arrived, probably working with Carla. Then, Carla began to talk about who they were. The man, apparently was John. A mechanic. "Now let us begin the tour!"
Nara smiled a bit, some what excited to get on with the tour. Carla came out in front of a fireplace, and began to introduce the lobby. Nara couldn't pay much attention though, she kept glancing around for any sign of the twins or Miles. They really might miss the tour.

Tim
Tim joined the crowd who was listening to Carla introduce herself and John, and then start the tour with the lobby. Tim had to resist rolling his eyes, since he knew that they ALL knew this was the lobby. Really, could people be that dumb to not figure that one out on their own?
Shaking his head, Tim stuck his hands in his pockets to wait for the tour to move on. Though he found explaining the lobby silly, he did want to see the rest of the resort. It seemed like an over all cool place. Even if the only people he'd really heard speak so far were a bit off.

Xander:

"Well, I can't ski either. So that makes the two of us." Xander said smiling. He was about to break away from her and smoke his cigarette but, Carla started the tour early. "Great, when I want a smoke, I get stopped. When I don't want one, I have all the freaking time in the world. As she introduced her husband, he was thinking about where were the maids, the cooks, and the Janitors? Xander raised his hand and asked, "Hey, I was wondering... Where is the rest of the staff. I thought a luxury resort would have a few more people working here than just you two." He figured he would be the one to address the elephant in the room.

Carla froze for a moment when Xander asked where the rest of the staff was. "Well..um..", she stammered as she tried to think of a good excuse. "You see, this is the trial weekend, if all goes according to plan, then we will be hiring more employees to care for our future guests." She started to sweat a little, hoping that this would serve as a good enough excuse. To prevent any other awkward questions Carla decided to continue on with the tour, "Now if you will follow me down this hallway,", she indicated the hallway with her left hand," we will be moving on to the dining area of the facility."

She led the guests down the hall, and into the Dining room. It consisted of one long, wooden table down the middle of the room that was lined with a large number of chairs. She led them around the perimeter of the room, stopping in front of the kitchen doors. "This!", she announced spreading her arms wide again,"is the dining facility. Three meals will be served here everyday at a set time. I will be providing a pamphlet with the meal times, and course descriptions at the end of the tour." As she spoke, Carla cursed the employees that had failed to arrive, I hope they rot in Hell, she thought spitefully. She did not allow her anger to show through to the guests, maintaining an overly cheerful facade she herder the guests into the kitchen. "This is our state of the art kitchen. All of our appliances are brand new, and very high end. Nothing but the best for our guests!" Carla was quite proud of the kitchen so she gave the guests a moment to gaze in awe at all the beautiful stainless steel appliances. "So what do you think so far?", she asked eager to hear their compliments.

John followed Carla silently. I don't know why she's making everyone go on this silly tour. Just give them a map of the place, I mean it is not like they have never been to a hotel before! Not only was he annoyed at Carla, the reminder of the lack of employees caused him to feel a deep anger towards them. They better not show their faces now, or I'll pound them to a pulp! The nerve of those people, leaving Carla and I to look after all of these people. He shook his head to snap out of his anger as his wife was leading everyone into the kitchen. The last think he needed right now was for Carla to catch him daydreaming in the middle of the tour she had be so looking forward to hosting.

Carla waited in vain for a few moments before clearing her throat, and leading the guests over to the walk in Fridge. She opened the large silver door, and pushed the rubber flaps aside to give them a glimpse at the food. "Our fridge is fully stocked with only the best of foods. All of it is organic, and hormone free." She boasted, closing the door, and leading the guests of the kitchen through a side door. She took them down the hall, and into the first room on the right. "This is the game room. Just like the kitchen, everything in here is brand new and very high end. For you to enjoy at your leisure are foosball table, air hockey, some arcade game, pool tables, and a self-serve bar." She pointed to each of the items as she mentioned them. Carla them moved over to the door that led to the staff room. She opened it, leading the way inside. "Now this is the Staff room. If you can't seem to find either me or John, you can always check in here, or if it is late at night you can always find us in our room, 301."

Carla gave the group a second to take everything in before leading them back to the lobby."Before I end the tour, I would like to point out how to get to our skiing slopes. Unfortunately, I am unable to show you at this time due to the bad weather." She explained apologetically as she pointed to the heavy snowfall that was taking place just outside the window. "To get there you simply need to follow the path labeled 'Ski Slopes' that starts just as you walk outside. There is also a small rental shop up on the hill where you can rent out skiis, boots, and jackets. Due to the shortage of staff, you simply need to come to me if you desire to rent something, and I will log into the database via the front desk computer." Carla paused to take a deep breathe before continuing, "Thank you for attending the tour of the Shelter Lodge, remember that if you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to approach either myself, or John and we will be happy to assist you."

Just as Carla made it back behind her desk, she realized that she had forgotten something. "Oh Wait!", she shouted, "I forgot to hand out the dining pamphlets!" She grabbed the pile of light pink pamphlets, and began handing them out to the guests. "The meal times are clearly marked, but I would just like to mention that dinner will be taking place in three hours. We will be serving oven roasted chicken with asparagus and mashed potatoes."

Once everything was over, Carla made her way back to the front desk, and motioned for John to follow her. "I need you here so I can get that meal started. We can't have the guests starving all because those pests didn't bother showing up!, Carla hissed this at John, and didn't give him a chance to respond before stalking off to the kitchen. It's going to be a long weekend, John sighed, while leaning on the counter hoping that the guests would entertain themselves so he could relax.