CHAPTER 13: SHADOWS AND STAINS.
Meanwhile, in the enclosed room where Jamey, Harvey, and Stinson stood, a stale, breathless silence had settled—an unnatural quiet that crawled beneath their skin.
Harvey stood by the liquor shelf, arms folded, eyes darting toward the plasma TV that had shattered moments earlier without warning. Its glass was embedded in the carpet like glittering ice. Stinson was hunched over the grand piano at the center of the room, fingers dancing uneasily across the ivory keys. Each note rang hollow, discordant. He leaned closer, squinting at the soundboard as if expecting the mechanism to cough up a secret. The floor beneath the stripper pole had vibrated not a moment ago. All of it had happened too quickly. Too precisely.
Jamey stood at the far end, arms crossed, tapping his foot, sweat gathering at his temple. Something was off. They all felt it—had felt it ever since the last chapter of this nightmare began—but no one dared say it out loud. Not yet.
Then—
Bang!
Bang!
Bang!
The door boomed like a shotgun in the silence, making all three men flinch. Glass rattled. Stinson’s fingers froze above the keys.
Less frightened than alert, they turned slowly toward the exit.
A voice followed—syrupy, familiar, and soaked in something foul beneath the surface.
“Jamey… Harvey… Stinson... Don’t you three miss me? Don’t you wanna play?”
Harvey’s breath hitched. “Amy…” he whispered, his face turning a ghostly white.
Jamey and Stinson stood still, jaws clenched tight, brows furrowed in disbelief as the voice curled around the room like fog slipping through cracked windows.
“Come on, Jamey,” the voice teased, thick with sugar but dripping venom. “Remember? Our fun was just beginning… until you got cold feet.”
The doorknob began to rattle, twitching as though caressed by invisible hands, but the lock held.
“What’s the matter now, boys?” the voice asked, tilting into mocking. “Scared of the outside world?”
Her voice began to change—a grotesque metamorphosis. The girlish charm warped into something guttural and inhuman, her final words oozing through the gap under the door like sewage gas:
“Come. Out. And. Play~ Confidence isn’t immunity~ Harvey… isn’t that right?”
Harvey’s heart thudded in his ears. That voice—those were his own words. He had said that to calm himself earlier while they searched the lounge. How…?
His face contorted in rage and disbelief. Without thinking, he stormed to the bar table, grabbed the room pass card, and marched toward the door.
“Wait, what are you doing?!” Stinson called, stepping forward.
“I’m ending this myself!” Harvey barked. He yanked the door open—and vanished through it.
The door slammed behind him with an unnatural bang. Jamey lunged, but the lock snapped red. The pass was gone.
“Harvey!” he yelled, jerking at the handle. “No—goddamn it, NO!”
He slammed his fists against the metal. The door dented slightly. Blood streaked from his knuckles. “You reckless son of a bitch!”
Stinson stood stunned. Then, snapping to action, he bolted to the corner and picked up the old-fashioned service phone. His fingers stabbed the buttons.
“Who the hell are you calling?!” Jamey snapped.
“Bob!” Stinson barked.
"Who's Bob?" He asked with a deep exhale.
“My lead bodyguard. He’s bringing the whole crew to wipe this Amy freak off the face of the Earth!”
But his bravado bled from his face in seconds. His mouth hung open. His eyes widened, horror creeping in.
“What? What is it?” Jamey demanded, approaching.
Stinson’s lips trembled. “It’s… her. She answered.”
“No.” Jamey shook his head violently. “No way. That’s impossible.” He snatched the phone from Stinson and jabbed in a number—his wife’s. “She should’ve been here by now—with the cops.”
The phone rang.
Then clicked.
“Hey, honey—thank God—listen, I need you to call the police, every damn force you know—get them to the hotel, now! I’m in some deep sh—”
A low rasp poured from the receiver.
“Jaaamey…”
It was her. That thing. Warped. Echoing. Rotten, like spoiled meat dipped in honey.
Jamey froze. Eyes wide. He clenched his jaw, teeth grinding, then snarled through the fear.
“Hear me, Amy. If you touch my wife or child, I swear, I will make you bathe in your own blood. I’ll wrap your intestines around your goddamn throat and choke the hell out of you, you hear me?! I’ll—!”
Click.
Dead silence.
Stinson backed away, running both hands over his face. “Bro… this is unreal… I’m losing my damn mind, bro...”
Jamey stumbled backward and dropped onto the velvet couch, chest heaving. He pulled a small pocket knife and began flipping it between his fingers, eyes empty, jaw tight.
---
Meanwhile…
Harvey prowled down the dim corridor alone, jaw tight, fists swinging by his sides. Shadows flickered around him like living ink.
“You’ll get paid... once you satisfy one of us~”
Amy’s sultry, morbid whisper slithered through the walls.
“Good thing all the cameras on this floor are down. Otherwise, this little reunion would’ve ended too soon~”
The corridor narrowed. Lights buzzed above, flickering in anxious rhythm. The air was thicker here—old, chemical, and buzzing with static.
“You can’t hide forever, Amy—or whatever you are!” he barked. “Come out and face me, you black bitch!”
He winced immediately. Too loud. Too raw.
Then came a laugh. A broken, shrill note that morphed into a beastly gurgle—half-human, half-nightmare.
“Finally, you assless whore,” Harvey growled, fists clenching again. “I know you’re not the real Amy. You’re just some freak wearing her skin. The real Amy’s rotting in the basement. I don’t know what trick you’re using—but I cracked it. I cracked it!”
He stormed down the staircase into the old powerhouse section of the hotel.
At the bottom, a shadow darted past at the far end of the hallway.
Harvey gave chase.
Rounding the corner, he halted.
Shlick…
Shlick…
Shlick…
Each sound echoed wetly through the corridor.
He crept closer.
Then he saw her.
Dead Amy knelt in a pool of blood, her dress blackened with gore. Her arm jerked mechanically, stabbing again and again into a mutilated man’s armless torso. Bones crunched. Blood spattered across the walls like an artist’s rage.
Harvey’s sunglasses slipped from his nose.
“So this… this is it,” he whispered. “This is what’s been haunting the hotel.”
Dead Amy froze.
Crack.
Her neck twisted unnaturally, vertebrae groaning like rusted machinery. Her head turned—too far—to face him.
Her smile widened grotesquely, lips splitting her face almost ear to ear. Blackened teeth glistened behind torn gums.
Harvey should’ve run.
Instead, his eyes lit up.
“I was right…” he whispered, a manic grin spreading across his face. “I was right! I figured you out!”
With trembling fingers, he pulled a sleek revolver from his jacket and raised it.
“You like games? Try this, bitch!”
He fired.
Boom!
The bullet struck—but Amy was gone. Vanished.
Then—
A shriek ripped through the hallway like a buzzsaw through flesh.
She was in front of him.
Too fast.
The dagger slashed. Harvey ducked. Fired again. Missed.
She spun. The blade sliced his arm. Blood sprayed. He fired blindly—boom, boom—but she danced like a marionette on cracked strings.
“COME ON!” he roared. “COME ON, THEN!”
She did.
Amy lunged. Her hand dropped the dagger. Instead, her black claws plunged into Harvey’s stomach.
His body jerked. He gasped.
She grinned into his face, eyes wide with joy, teeth bared in a smile too wide, too wrong. Her fingers dug into his shirt—no, into his flesh—and with a sudden jerk, she yanked her hands apart.
Harvey's stomach split open like wet paper, skin and muscle tearing with a sickening sound. A splash of warmth hit the floor. His intestines slithered out in lazy coils, steam rising from them in the cold air.
He gasped—a wet, choking sound—and fell to his knees, eyes bulging in shock. His mouth opened, but no words came. Just blood.
Not until—
“...I told you... that's not her…” he rasped, blood blubbing at his lips.
Dead Amy tilted her head, watching with childish fascination as Harvey’s torso divided—skin, bone, and organs tearing
like wet cloth.
His eyes rolled back. His lips twitched once.
Then silence.
His corpse remained kneeling, split clean in two, still upright—like some broken offering left for hell itself.