"Lodging" Trivia Quiz

Answer: Its church bell starts to ring

Late one evening, while the town of Widow's Bay sleeps, the bell of the town church starts to peal repeatedly.

The next day, Tom and Patricia ride back to the office elated. The success of Arthur's "New York Times" article can't be understated, and in light of the extremely positive review, they've drafted up and printed boxes and boxes of brochures about the island. Tom is particularly pleased by the claim, from Arthur, that "Widow's Bay is the next Martha's Vineyard." It seems like nothing could go wrong.

At least, it seems that way until the police rush by.

Answer: It's haunted

The police, it seems, are headed out to stop Wyck from boarding up the door of the Breakwater Inn which, based on the tourist buzz, is fully booked. Tom is especially worried about this one as, while the business owners of the island have been preemptively investing in their services and wares, it's essential that they operate at their best in the coming weeks. Wyck, however, insists that the inn is not fit for guests; it's haunted.

The sheriff tosses Wyck into the back of the police vehicle while Tom takes a shot at damage control, but it only makes things a bit worse. it comes out that Tom has never even set foot in the Breakwater, but he admits he will.

At The Salty Whale, Tom speaks frankly with Reverend Bryce who, kindly, says not to worry all too much about Wyck. The town is slow to change, but not against it. Tom suggests, as well, that the reverend keep the church doors locked at night, just to make sure no one goes in and rings the bell again, but this seems somewhat startling to him.

Answer: The Captain's Suite

Tom picks up some food for his son and heads for the exit at The Salty Whale, but he's stopped by some of the locals on his way out, one of whom calls him out for the derogatory and impulsive comments towards Wyck earlier in the day. Tom reiterates that there's nothing wrong with the Breakwater Inn, but the locals remind him that there have been a lot of weird things going on there in the past. To make his point, he volunteers to stay a night there, a decision the locals up the ante on, offering to chip in and pay for a room that very night.

The locals insist that he'll need to stay in the Captain's Suite-- the room where the one guy lost his mind and cut up his family with an axe. It's just one of the many, many stories plaguing the place; even Tom's own town staff recommend a few. He writes them down but the others think he won't last. Rosemary just recommends that Kurt lock him into the building. Tom's okay with it, but only if the town stops with their superstitious nonsense after.

As he leaves, Tom catches the eye of the sheriff who, nervously, tells him not to stay the night.

Answer: Ruth

As night falls once again in Widow's Bay, Reverend Bryce unlocks the crawlspace leading to the bell tower and climbs up inside to investigate. Sure enough, he finds what he expected: the bell is chained to the rafters and physically should not be ringing.

At home, over dinner, Tom tells Evan that he'll be spending the night at the Breakwater to make sure it's set up for tourists to visit. In the meantime, Evan will need to stay at Ruth's, even though he doesn't want to. Evan decides not to make a fuss, and naturally, that's cause for concern in and of itself.

Soon enough, Tom arrives at the Breakwater. Patricia, who drops him off, says that the place freaks her out before she cheerily wishes him luck and drives off.

Answer: A camcorder

Tom heads to the reception desk inside the Breakwater and rings the bell, and while he waits he glances at the art on the wall, finding a piece showing a capsizing boat and a drowning passenger. Kurt, the innkeeper, notes that he took down some of the more provocative pieces already, on Tom's suggestion. Kurt hands over a camcorder-- the townspeople insisted on proof that he stayed the night-- and the keys to the Captain's Suite, and with that, he heads on up. The place is quiet and there's no AC, but he should have a pleasant night.

Before Kurt leaves, he takes Tom's rolling bag and nudges it into the room with his foot, seemingly uninterested in crossing the threshold himself. He departs, saying to Tom that if he needs anything, he can reach him at home.

At the church, Reverend Bryce pores over old records and finds the one he's looking for, indicating that if the bell rings on its own, there are steps that he must take.

Sheriff Bechir, meanwhile, speaks to his wife about needing to stay in Widow's Bay until, at least, Labor Day. Wyck overhears from his cell and insists that it's a smart move.

Answer: Hotel Hell

Tom starts to settle into his stay in the Captain's Suite by turning on his television, finding what appears to be a dedicated travel video about the town, It appears to be older, and all the more perplexing when they host volunteers to show the viewer around, only to walk away from the stationary camera. As Tom watches, the beam from the nearby lighthouse shines through the window.

Heading downstairs to the lobby, Tom finds the place warm and quiet, but when he opens the cupboard in the lounge he finds unnerving, dated board games like 'Daddy's Home', 'She Shouldn't Have Said That', 'Teeth' (which appears to contain nothing but a pair of pliers), and an action card game just called 'Run'.

He pours himself a drink from the bar and proceeds to take a seat, but Kurt, watching on a nearby camera, alerts him to fill out a form for the drink, per the honour system of the building, before he imbibes.

Answer: Hiding away in the crawlspace

Soon, Tom is setting up the camcorder and proceeding to embark on every activity he can get done to satisfy the locals, everything from trying to conjure Ugly Hortence in a reflective surface to searching for John Reynolds' ghostly severed head in the dumbwaiter. He seals himself into the janitor's supply closet as well, turning out the light and counting to five before leaving (though the door does get stuck). He even humours the decision to seat himself in the back of the crawlspace in the basement... until he sees it and turns tail.

Tom ends up returning to the Captain's Suite to call Ruth's place and check in on his son, but Ruth promptly forgets to do so, getting distracted mid-call. It doesn't much matter because Tom starts to notice more oddities in hist room. As he gets up to close his curtains and block the lighthouse's beam from shining in, he hears something akin to a New Years Eve countdown sounding in his bathroom vent, and the sound of footsteps rattles through the halls. When he goes to check, he finds the corridor outside nearly pitch black.

...but someone is in the hall.

Answer: False

When the lights come on in the hall, Tom realizes that someone else is in the building with him-- a man named William, who appears to be another guest. Kurt never told Tom there would be another tenant, but then again, innkeepers rarely do that. Tom locks himself in the room and attempts to watch TV only to find it's the same eerie tourism video on every channel, and when the TV goes on the fritz, he decides to head back down to the lounge with William instead.

William explains that he's in town as a member of a structural engineering firm; the township hired his team to check out the town dock for the expansion. Tom must be expecting a lot more tourist ferries, he notes, and his constituents must be excited. Tom is honest about this though-- they're not, and they're not thrilled with his choices as mayor as, after all, he only won the position because he was uncontested in the elections.

The two spend their time playing 'Daddy's Home' for a while but eventually Tom opens up about his past; his mom was from the mainland but her dad was from the island. As such, he only really spent his summers in Widow's Bay, and he used to dread it. He moved back when his father got sick and he stayed ever since, all this in spite of his father only really ever telling horror stories about the place. It's a shame, he says, that the only thing the island really seems to be cursed with is alcoholism. William sympathizes...but the conversation gets a bit dark on his end. He admits he might have had a bit much to drink, himself.

William reminds Tom that there's no such thing as ghosts. Maybe those things were real at one point, but they're not anymore.

Answer: A killer clown

Tom ultimately decides, on William's suggestion, to finish out his list to stick it to the locals who figured he couldn't commit to the night in the Breakwater, and with that he grabs the camcorder, heads to the basement, and crawls on his hands and knees into the dark crawlspace. Inside, he narrates that he's arrived in the dreaded spot, but before he can get right into the back, he hears a creaking from outside. He calls out to William, hoping it's just his kindly neighbour and, fortunately, it is.

William stands in front of the crawlspace hatch and asks if Tom needs any help, but Tom is unnerved by the situation. It only gets worse when William crawls onto his hands and knees and pursues Tom, his face done up in clown make-up, not unlike Willy the Killer Clown, said to haunt and murder in the Breakwater's past.

Before Willy can reach him, Tom wakes up in his bed in the Captain's Suite with dawn having broken. Down in the lobby, Kurt plays back the footage from the night before, indicating that Tom played 'Daddy's Home' on his own in the Lounge. There was never another guest checked in. Sheriff Bechir checks the crawlspace and comes up with nothing.

Answer: Black mold

Wyck stops by the Breakwater as well, right at the wrong time, to find that Tom may have encountered Willy the Killer Clown, and it only validates his belief that the Breakwater Inn is haunted. Kurt argues that it isn't and can't be, especially since he's invested so much money in the building. This said, he still won't step foot in the Captain's Suite. Even when he's goaded to, he only really places one foot into the doorway. Wyck has to urge him to go in and close the door while they count to ten. Kurt, interestingly, believes he was in there much longer than ten seconds.

When they leave Kurt inside for thirty seconds, they find him crying on the bed, the room having been trashed. He calmly leaves and sits against the wall in the hallway.

Wyck calmly tells Tom that he needs to shut down the inn; it remains unsafe and ethically wrong to lure tourists into their demise, but Tom still doesn't believe it's a problem. The real problem, as Sheriff Bechir discovers, is the black mold growing underneath the wallpaper near the window, something Kurt can have remedied and cleared out in seventy-two hours. For good measure, he'll even seal off the Captain's Suite. They reason that the mold was responsible for any potential hallucinations, and they can still plan to be in operation for the tourist wave.

When Patricia picks Tom up out front, he tells her the night went fine.