The Retreat

By Rich Cole

Something strange is going on at the mansion – or so Diego thinks.

Diego wants to break through as a writer. But first, he has to find inspiration for his novel. There is no love lost between him and his pretentious wife, but when she books them a lush writers' retreat in the Alps, he thinks he's finally found his chance. But something seems wrong with the place from the moment Diego sets foot in it. The huge mansion is run by just one man, and strange facts pop up at every step. As he moves forward with his novel, a horrifying truth unravels in front of Diego's eyes, unnoticed by the other guests. But can we trust what Diego sees?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Seagull Editions
• Release date: May 18, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223742760

Book preview

The

Retreat

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"Dedicated with devotion to Stephen King,

visionary master of horror and storyteller."

© 2021 Seagull Editions s.r.l.

www.seagulleditions.com

Bolzano. Next stop is Bolzano.

‘I do wonder what people get up to,’ she said, ‘all the way up here in the mountains.’

Marianne was staring out of the window, the soft rumble of the train muffled. We’d taken a high-speed Frecciarossa, courtesy of my lovely wife. Incredibly, at least one hour had passed without her reminding me about it.

Marianne turned to face me. ‘Hmm?’ she said. The curtain cut her face in half, exposing a diagonal slash of it to the sunlight. A thin layer of foundation covered the creases to the side of her pouted lips.

I raised my eyes from my copy of The Shining. I usually never read anything this commercial, but I needed something to get me back into reading before the retreat – apparently the minimum page count for each guest was 150 pages per day. Of course, one could always lie, but that wasn’t the right spirit, was it?

‘I guess they do what people always do. Farming... I’ve heard they have good wine.’ I glanced out of the window. Fields lined with vines, low flat warehouses, mountains towering at the edge of the valley. ‘Besides, we haven’t even gotten to the mountains proper.’

‘You’re acting like the real mountain man, are you?’

I could sense her smile without looking up. I kept my nose in the book: Jack Torrance was driving his family up to the Overlook.

‘Tickets, please.’

‘Sure, one moment.’ I hadn’t even pulled them out of my pocket before Marianne took them from my hand.

‘Here you go,’ she said, beaming as she leant towards the ticket inspector. From behind the cover of my book, I watched her leopard top slide down to reveal the soft V of her cleavage. Of course, what did I expect? As the inspector walked off, I took the opportunity to scan the back of his head. A hoop in his left ear and a manbun. Little more than a teenager. Classic Marianne. I was lucky she hadn’t asked him to accompany her to the toilet.

‘I do hope we’re almost there, I can’t stand this train,’ she said.

‘You could have asked your friend there,’ I said, hating myself for it as soon as the words were out of my mouth.

‘Jesus, Diego. What are you even on about now?’

I was spared any further remark by the tug of the train brakes.

‘Here we go!’ Marianne said, jumping up in her seat. She looked out of the window. ‘Oh – these mountains will look so beautiful in my paintings.’

We stood outside the station’s main entrance. I panted from the weight of the luggage. (‘The elevator? You’re really past your prime, dear,’ she’d said, so I’d lugged the two leather Louis Vuitton bags down the underpass and up the station steps.)

‘I’ll wait here if you go wave down a taxi,’ I said.

‘Oh but dear, I’m sure they will have arranged a transfer for us. Don’t you think?’

Standard Marianne. Always thinking everything was provided for. I sighed, dropped the bags with a thump on the stone steps and made for the taxi rank. As if it were an effort to hail a bloody taxi.

A tap on the shoulder made me jump. ‘Excuse me, sir?’

‘Yes?’ When I turned around, there was no one. Then I lowered my gaze to a short balding man at my chest-height. He had the O-shaped John Lennon glasses, a bushy black moustache and grey tuxedo.

‘May I help you?’ I said, somewhat taken aback by this strange apparition.

‘You’re Diego Mendez, aren’t you?’

I nodded curtly. Had this forgotten land at the border of Austria provided me with my first fan? I reached into my jacket pocket for the Mont Blanc Marianne had bought me my last birthday. There it was coming useful, at last.

‘Great to meet you, sir. I am Michele, Mr Pichler’s personal driver. It will be my pleasure to drive you to the Pichler Mansion.’

‘Oh, right, right,’ I said, tucking the Mont Blanc away (it’s moment yet to come). So Marianne had been correct, for once. Pichler Mansion, that sounded intriguing. Overlook Hotel had nothing on it.

‘Thank you so much, you’re such a dear. Here will be fine.’

Both me and Michele turned. Marianne was smiling at a man in his thirties, a low-necked sweater exposing the beginning of his hairy chest. His whole frame was bulging from the strain of carrying both our bags. ‘I don’t know what I would have to do if I had to wait for him,’ Marianne said, flicking her head towards me and smiling with complicity at the guy.

‘Oh – thank you, really. There was no need,’ I said to the guy, who barely looked at me. I turned to my wife. ‘Dear, this is Mr. Michele. He will be driving us to the Pilcher’s.’

‘Well, hello, Michele,’ Marianne said, extending her delicate hand to him. The luggage-handling guy was already forgotten. He hovered next to us for a moment, then shook his head with frustrated wonder and walked off. ‘My husband didn’t think the Pilcher’s were nice enough to provide a driver, but I knew better,’ Marianne said to Michele.

I watched them walk to the car. This short man in black, and this tall woman click-clacking in high heels and ermine coat. I sighed. I hoped the mansion would be big enough to find some peace.

Chapter 1: The Mansion

Michele led us out of the city in his Mercedes. He had this tick where he twitched his neck back every five minutes as he drove, his mouth contorting to the side. He went at least 20 km over the speed limit, so I was sat upright the whole time, my eyes fixed on the road ahead. My mind was a constellation of images of us smashing out of the guard rail at a turn, or straight into a pine tree.

Marianne was oblivious, chatting away to Michele about the scenery, asking questions like: ‘How many inhabitants are there in this town?’ or ‘Is there any shop where we can buy a Sachertorte?’ This was all part of some big game. Like her art, although I’d never dream of telling her that. Chill out. You’d never have been able to afford all this, I told myself. She’s giving you an opportunity.

‘How much nicer this scenery already is, compared to that dreadful place you were looking up, close to Ancona,’ she said, as if reading my thoughts.

We’d had a fight over it, me telling her that if we wanted to go halves on the retreat, we’d have to go for a more modest option. The three-star hotel on the coast of the Tirreno would have been perfect. Just the two of us and the sea. After all, an artist’s life needn’t be all frills and luxury. But she’d had to make my life difficult. ‘I’ll pay for all of it, don’t you worry. Early Christmas present,’ she’d said, giving me that smile of condescending kindness. And of course she was going to remind me of that kindness up until the end.

‘It’s a very beautiful area,’ Michele said, ‘and wait till you see the mansion. It was one of the seven most luxurious hotels in the whole of the Hapsburgic dominion. The Austrian emperor and the princess Sissi are just a few of the renowned guests who have been hosted there over the centuries.’

‘So we’re all in one building?’ I cut in. Michele and his eloquent descriptions were already starting to get on my nerves.

‘Honey – I hardly think we’re going to be lacking space, we’ll be staying in a mansion –‘

‘The mansion is only the main building, the area where communal activities take place,’ Michele said. ‘Your accommodations are scattered in the wooded area surrounding the main building. The Pichler’s know how important privacy is for the creative mind.’

I grunted. I didn’t need this driver talking me through the workings of the creative mind. I would have been happy to open my book, but we were now twisting up hairpins. Each swerve made the mozzarella tomato panini churn about in my stomach like clothes in a washing machine. But the scenery was getting more picturesque, I had to allow for that. The last lights of the day shone intermittently through the foliage, as the road wound us deeper into the forest.

‘Will the Pilcher’s be at home tonight?’ Marianne asked. I could imagine her already making conjectures on how to present herself in the best possible way.

‘Mr Pilcher and his wife were very much looking forward to greeting you and the other guests, but unfortunately they have had to leave quite suddenly on a business trip. They should be back in the next few days.’

Marianne slumped back, barely capable of containing her disappointment.

As if sensing the next question, Michele said, ‘There is one other couple who arrived this morning, Mauro and Stella Marchiori. You might have heard of them before, both are writers. The other guests are expected by the end of tomorrow.’

Heard of him before? The Italian literary world was about the size – and level of maturity – of a second-year elementary class, so it was hard to miss Mauro Marchiori. He was your classic crime writer, pumping two books out on a bad year. I’d seen him once in an interview. When asked about how he could be so prolific compared to other writers, who took years to get one book out, Mauro had said, ‘I can’t speak for other people. I speak for myself. I just sit down and write.’

Prick. I’d leafed through one of his so-called ‘psychological thrillers’. Did he call spinning off a Netflix series, turning the hero into a more ‘troubled’ character and switching the sexual tendencies of the sidekick writing a book? Besides, if he could just sit down and write, why couldn’t he leave writing retreats to people who actually needed them?

‘Here we go, that was the last of the hairpins,’ Michele said.

Thank God, I was going to throw up with another one of our brilliant driver’s gut-wrenching swerves. Gran turismo is the other way, mate.

‘Here we are approaching the town of Passo Mendola, which straddles the mountain pass that gives it its name.’

I grunted. I was glad to hear Michele had read the brochure. I had too.

‘Oh but honey, isn’t it wonderful,’ Marianne said. ‘They look like the houses dwarves would live in.’

The buildings lining either side of the road were nothing like dwarf dwellings, in fact. They were two-storey mountain homes with polished wooden roofs. But there was an unlit vertical sign advertising ‘souvenirs’ on one of them; and across the street was a shop with bronze statues and shapes assembled in front of it, from clocks and suits of armour to sculptures of brooding crows.

‘Michele – is there much tourism here?’ I asked. Typical Italy, this was, too many settlements. Even the locations you thought to be the most remote had their own brand of exclusive tourism. Ah, to have the money to scoot off to Alaska. See how many souvenir shops you would find.

‘Oh – Mr. Mendez, you don’t have to worry about that. This place becomes touristic in the summer as a stop for bikers who tackle the pass – the one we