Checkout #3
“Whoever did this has bad information.”
Maya looked at the wet footprints forming beneath the refrigerator.
They led out of the kitchen.
Avery followed them.
The prints crossed the corridor and ended at the service stairs.
Bare feet.
Small puddles darkened the dust.
Tessa stood behind her.
“Felix.”
“Not me.”
“This is your kind of thing.”
“My kind of thing includes witnesses.”
Cass lifted her camera.
“You’re filming?” Maya asked.
“Someone is inside.”
“So your instinct is content?”
“My instinct is evidence.”
Nina took out her phone.
“No signal.”
“There was signal outside,” Malik said.
“There isn’t now.”
Avery checked hers.
One bar appeared, then vanished.
Tessa looked at Felix.
“Where does the service stair go?”
“Every floor.”
“Can it be locked?”
“From the staff side.”
“Do it.”
Felix looked toward the dark stairwell.
“I also need to check the locker room.”
“Why?”
He hesitated.
“When I took this jacket, another hook was empty.”
Maya stared at him.
“You found two uniforms.”
“I found one uniform and an empty hanger.”
“You didn’t think that mattered?”
“I thought Hollis had taken one.”
“You met Hollis in a bar.”
“Yes, Nina. I remember the conversation.”
Tessa said, “Nobody goes alone.”
“The locker room is one floor below us and twenty feet from the service stairs.”
“Felix.”
“I will lock the corridor, collect the bolt cutters I saw down there and return before you finish arguing about whether ice is paranormal.”
Maya caught his sleeve.
“Take it off.”
“The jacket?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because if there is somebody else in one, I want to know which one is you.”
Felix’s expression shifted.
He removed the cap.
Then, after a moment, the jacket.
Underneath he wore a black T-shirt damp with sweat.
He handed the uniform to Maya.
“Better?”
“Marginally.”
He picked up a flashlight and disappeared into the service stairwell.
The beam moved downward.
A door opened below.
Then closed.
Tessa looked around the kitchen.
“We search the rooms we’re using. Together.”
Maya held Felix’s jacket away from her body.
“And if we find someone?”
“Malik asks politely.”
Malik was six-foot-four and built like he resented doorways.
He sighed.
“I hate being included in plans based on my body.”
“You love it,” Jude said.
“Sometimes.”
They took flashlights, the table leg and one of the cordless drills.
Maya left Felix’s jacket folded across the kitchen counter.
They climbed the main staircase.
The second floor had been transformed into a museum of their first year.
Cass had projected old photographs across the walls. Avery saw herself at nineteen, wearing a funeral veil and drinking from a plastic gasoline can they had cleaned badly. Jude stood behind her with his mouth against her neck.
They had not been dating then.
Tessa appeared in nearly every image, usually on a table or speaking into a microphone.
Felix had taped index cards beneath some pictures.
FIRST NOISE COMPLAINTFIRST EVICTIONFIRST HOSPITALIZATIONFIRST TIME JUDE CRIED IN A BATHTUB
Jude pulled the final card down.
“That was private.”
“You told fourteen people,” Tessa said.
“I told Felix.”
“You were crying loudly.”
They checked the bedrooms, bathrooms and closets.
No one was there.
Room 208 contained six old televisions stacked in a pyramid. Cass had connected them to a media player, but the screens remained dark.
Avery checked the cables.
“Not powered yet.”
One television turned on.
Static filled the screen.
Then another.
All six activated in sequence.
Cass raised her camera.
A video began playing.
The image shook violently.
Someone had filmed through a crowd at Red Room.
Avery recognized the basement before she recognized the people. Red plastic covered the walls. Bodies moved beneath strobe lights. A naked man stood on a washing machine.
The camera pushed toward the bathroom.
Maya stopped in the doorway.
“No.”
On the screens, Felix kicked open the bathroom door.
Maya lay beside the toilet.
Her dress had ridden above her hips. Her eyes were open but did not move.
Felix dropped beside her.
The camera continued filming.
Cass lowered her own camera.
“I deleted this.”
The video showed Jude entering the bathroom and shutting the door behind him.
Avery remembered what happened after.
Jude checking Maya’s bag.
Tessa telling everyone to remain calm.
Felix carrying Maya toward the kitchen.
Avery asking whether they should stop the music.
Tessa saying stopping it would create panic.
The bathroom door opened.
Avery entered.
She saw herself crouch beside Maya’s abandoned bag.
She removed Maya’s phone, entered the code and deleted photographs from the camera roll.
Maya looked at her.
“You told me you never touched my phone.”
Avery could not answer.
The televisions went black.
Across the center screen, white text appeared.
YOU ALL REMEMBER DIFFERENTLY.
No one spoke.
A second line appeared.
ROOM 307.
Maya left first.
“Maya,” Nina called.
She kept walking.
The others followed her into the corridor.
At the far end, the service-stair door stood open.
A burgundy sleeve disappeared through it.
Avery stopped.
“Felix?”
No one answered.
Jude aimed his flashlight into the stairwell.
Only the lower landing was visible.
“Felix,” he called again.
A door closed somewhere below.
Tessa looked at the time.
“He’s been gone almost twenty minutes.”
Maya looked toward the dark stair.
“He said he was coming back.”
Malik moved toward it.
The third-floor telephone began ringing overhead.
Once.
Twice.
Maya looked up.
Room 307 waited directly above them.
Tessa said, “We stay together.”
They climbed.
Room 307 stood at the far end of the third-floor corridor.
The door was closed.
A red light glowed beneath it.
Felix was not in the hall.
Maya reached for the handle.
Nina caught her wrist.
“You don’t have to.”
“Yes, I do.”
She opened the door.
The room had been rebuilt to resemble the bathroom from Red Room.
Red plastic covered the walls.
A toilet stood beneath the window.
A mannequin lay on the tile wearing a copy of Maya’s black dress.
Beside it were eight objects.
Avery’s silver lighter.
Jude’s old fraternity pin.
Cass’s first camera battery.
Nina’s hospital parking receipt.
Tessa’s pearl earring.
Malik’s red wristband.
Felix’s pocketknife.
Maya’s student identification card.
Every object had come from that night.
Maya picked up the ID.
“I lost this at the party.”
Jude looked toward the corridor.
“Where is Felix?”
No one answered.
Malik crouched beside the mannequin.
A plastic tube extended from its mouth.
The other end disappeared beneath the dress.
“Don’t touch it,” Nina said.
He lifted the fabric.
A bag of red liquid had been taped to the mannequin’s stomach.
The tube ran into it.
“Fake blood.”
Maya stared at him.
“How does that make it better?”
“It means this was staged.”
“Of course it was staged.”
“I mean nobody is dead.”
A telephone rang in the hallway.
They all turned.
The sound came from the wall phone beside Room 307.
It rang again.
Tessa looked toward the service stairs.
“Felix?”
No answer.
Jude stepped toward the phone.
Maya blocked him.
“No more phones.”
“It might be him.”
“It is a hotel phone.”
“It might connect to another extension.”
“The building has no service.”
“It has power.”
Jude lifted the receiver.
Nothing came through at first.
Then a voice spoke loudly enough that Avery heard it from the doorway.
“How many are staying?”
Jude looked at Tessa.
The story said the caller was supposed to lie.
Tessa mouthed, Six.
Jude gripped the receiver.
“Six.”
The line clicked dead.
The red light inside Room 307 went out.
Somewhere below, the ballroom music started.
Bass moved through the floor.
Malik ran toward the stairs.
“My laptop.”
They followed.
On the second-floor landing, Avery saw a figure waiting near the rear of the group.
Burgundy jacket.
Bellhop cap lowered over the face.
For a moment relief loosened something in her chest.
Felix had found the missing uniform and decided to punish Maya for making him remove his.
“Asshole,” Avery said.
The figure did not answer.
It lifted one gloved hand and pointed down the stairs.
Then followed them.
Avery did not stop to ask why Felix was wearing gloves.
The ballroom music ended before they reached the first floor.
The speakers emitted only a low electrical hum.
Malik crossed to the sound table.
“My laptop is unplugged.”
Nina swept her flashlight toward the kitchen entrance.
“Felix?”
The burgundy figure remained at the rear of the group, face hidden.
Maya turned.
“What the fuck are you wearing?”
The figure stepped backward into the shadow beneath the mezzanine.
Avery lost sight of it.
Cass lifted her camera.
The flash illuminated an empty archway.
Maya looked toward the kitchen.
Felix’s borrowed jacket no longer lay on the counter.
“He came back for it,” Tessa said.
“Then why won’t he answer?” Maya asked.
The front desk bell rang.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
They turned.
The brass bell sat in the center of the counter.
A drop of red liquid marked the top.
Cass approached with her camera.
Maya caught her shoulder.
“Do not turn this into footage.”
“If somebody is here—”
“Then help us.”
Cass lowered the camera.
Avery looked toward the mezzanine.
A man stood above them.
Burgundy jacket.
Matching cap.
His face remained in shadow.
Tessa called up.
“Felix?”
The figure lifted one hand.
A brass room key hung from the fingers.
ROOM 413.
Malik stepped forward.
“Who the fuck are you?”
The figure ran.
Not away.
It vaulted the mezzanine railing.
Everyone shouted.
The body dropped toward the ballroom.
A rope snapped tight above it.
The figure stopped ten feet from the floor.
The burgundy jacket opened.
It was Felix.
The cap had been stapled to his scalp.
His eyes were open.
A luggage strap had been looped beneath his jaw and pulled so tightly that his tongue protruded between his teeth.
His abdomen had been opened from breastbone to pelvis.
Hotel keys hung from the wound on thin red cords.
They clicked softly against one another as his body rotated.
Maya walked beneath him before anyone could stop her.
“Felix?”
His blood struck her forehead.
She reached up as though he might take her hand.