Innkeeper

Jefferson, being an innkeeper, is suspectible to all sorts of people. Some are sick, some are not. Unfortunately, one of the people who stayed at his inn was sick. Sick with bugs. 

For the week beforehand, the innkeeper had stopped taking any medicine that the doctors had prescribed him, believing that he worked better without them. This unfortunately, made his mind unravel faster. Some of the bugs from the infected individual had a bit of a longer stay, finding the innkeeper quite habitable. The parasites rested in his brain and began to feed on the hormones resulting from his paranoia.

Flash back a week later, he meets Jack, Lily and Gerroson, who wants to stay in the inn. His now inhibited brain immediately does not trust the three, and he’s the most suspicious of Gerroson, who is wearing clothing that conceals all of his appearance. After a brief dispute, he lets them a room— even though he really rather not. In fact, he is so suspicious and bothered by them, he chooses to eavesdrop listening through the door; something he hadn’t done in a long time. 

He hears words like “witches” and other things, and this petrifies him. He deduces that the witch must be that small, cloaked child, and that the adults are pulled under its influence. Oh, and snakes. He believes the witch mind collaborates with the government and controls with snakes entering the mind, and wonders if he’ll be next. At this point, the bugs have manifested itself into sensory hallucinations, and advise that the only way to stop such a witch is to kill it. He mistakens it for his own thoughts and agrees. 

His plan is to suffocate Gerroson with bedsheets. He asks his wife to change the bedsheets in the room, and she informs that she was going to do that soon. He panics, and she asks if he is alright. Her implying he is not perfectly sane and alright agitates him.

At that moment, Jack and Lily have returned from where they were. He cursed this, and believes that his wife must have been stalling him. Maybe she’s controlled by snakes too. His own wife. How could you, Julia.

The bugs swirl in his mind, until they have fully convinced him that the only way he and his wife can be safe is if he kills all three of them to release the control the snakes have. Otherwise, he’ll be captured by the government and killed. It’s all so clear.

Finally, Gerroson tries to leave, but the Innkeeper holds him at gunpoint and informs him that he is a snake witch. Irritated by this, Gerroson calls the innkeeper a stupid idiot, but this doesn’t really change the circumstance any. As Jack hears, and sees Gerroson at gunpoint, he tries to diffuse the situation to no avail. Lily comes, and tells him that the service at the inn is dreadful. The innkeeper does not care at this point. 

Gerroson finally takes off his scarf and sunglasses, and tells him that he is just hiding himself because he looks freakish. Instead of solving anything, the innkeeper just believes that he was right, that the snake government is now producing snake witches to control the world. 

His wife finally comes in and sees what her husband is doing, and tells him to stop it for the love of god, not today. Feeling betrayed, and like he has no one else to depend on in this rotten world, he is told by the bugs to instead kill everyone in the inn. He agrees with them.

At this point, Lily realizes that the man has bugs, and is seriously close to becoming a witch. If he kills everyone in a shoot-out, that could be the trigger for the transformation. The situtation has a new light, and she pleads with him to realize the thoughts he is having is not his own. 

As he realizes that the voices in his mind are not his own, he mentally collapses, believes that he is controlled by the snake government, and tries to kill himself. Before he can pull the trigger, his wife grabs his revolver, cracks it over his head and knocks him out. The bugs having lost their control on the innkeeper die.

After he regains consciousness, and a more level-head, he apologizes to the two for thinking that Gerroson was an alien snake-witch and trying to shoot them. His wife, additionally, is upset he tried to kill her and not trust her good intentions. 

He never sees the three again, but recognizes them once he hears about them on the news. He advocates to not trust the government and support their cause. 

One day, a witch appears and demands for information on the three, whatever he knows. He refuses, even though the consequences may be vast.

When Jack, Lily, and Gerroson go to the Innkeeper’s inn again, they see that the inn is empty. Signs of struggle is everywhere. Everything inside is gone.