Checkout #9
An exterior camera showed the gate.
A shuttle bus waited outside. Four cars had stopped behind it.
People stood in the road wearing black dresses, masks and costumes. Several held bottles. One man had climbed halfway up the gate.
Music played from a speaker mounted near the trees.
The invitation track.
“They think it’s part of the party,” Avery said.
A laptop on Owen’s desk was connected to a cellular antenna.
Three bars of service glowed in the corner.
Avery opened it.
The screen was locked.
A single password field appeared beneath the question:
HOW MANY ARE STAYING?
Avery typed SIX.
ACCESS DENIED.
Maya tried SEVEN.
Denied.
Nina looked at the names inside the broken mask.
Felix.
Cass.
Jude.
Tessa.
Avery.
Maya.
Nina.
Owen’s name had been written beneath theirs.
“Eight,” she said.
Avery entered EIGHT.
The desktop opened.
“He still counted himself,” Maya said.
A folder titled CHECKOUT occupied the center of the screen.
Avery ignored it.
She opened the messaging platform connected to their invitation list and typed:
DO NOT ENTER HOTEL VANE. FELIX, CASS, MALIK AND JUDE ARE DEAD. THERE IS AN ARMED KILLER INSIDE. CALL 911. MOVE AWAY FROM THE GATE.
Maya read it.
“They’ll think that’s part of the theme.”
Avery added another line.
THIS IS AVERY. MY DEGREE WAS DELAYED BECAUSE I FAILED SENIOR INTEGRATION SEMINAR. I HAVE LIED ABOUT GRADUATING FOR ELEVEN DAYS. THIS IS NOT A JOKE.
She sent it.
Maya looked at her.
“That might work.”
Avery called emergency services through the laptop.
A dispatcher answered.
She gave the hotel name, road and county.
“How many injured?”
Avery looked at the monitors.
“At least four dead. Four alive, including the attacker. One hostage.”
Four alive.
Owen counted too.
“Is the attacker armed?”
“Yes.”
“With what?”
“Knives. A hook. He built traps. He controls the doors and power.”
The dispatcher began asking for descriptions.
The laptop screen went black.
Owen’s face appeared on it.
Not behind them.
On a live feed.
He stood somewhere in the hotel without the mask.
The surviving half of his face was calm. The burned side pulled the expression into something harder to read.
“You told them,” he said.
Avery looked toward the camera above the desk.
“Yes.”
“You told them about school.”
“Yes.”
“That was yours.”
“So was the lie.”
Owen considered her.
On the exterior feed, people at the gate checked their phones.
The man climbing down lost his footing and fell. Others dragged him away.
Several ran toward the cars.
The shuttle began reversing.
Owen looked toward something outside his camera’s view.
“You ruined the ending.”
Maya stepped beside Avery.
“You murdered four people.”
“Four people watched.”
“Felix carried me out of that bathroom when none of you did.”
“He filmed first.”
“He stopped.”
“After he had something worth keeping.”
Maya’s grip tightened around the brass spike.
Owen looked at Nina.
“Cass kept everything.”
“You wanted the archive,” Nina said.
“I wanted her to see herself.”
“You suffocated her with it.”
“She understood.”
“No. She was scared.”
“She watched.”
“So are you.”
Owen’s good eye shifted.
Nina stepped closer to the camera.
“You put cameras in every room. You built an audience because nobody wanted to look at you anymore.”
The monitor went dark.
Every red floor light extinguished.
A steel door on the far side of the room unlocked.
Beyond it waited a basement corridor.
A brass sign pointed toward:
LAUNDRYBOILERLOBBY SERVICE
Maya looked at the open doorway.
“He wants us to follow.”
Avery searched the shelves.
A pair of bolt cutters leaned behind the cot.
She picked them up.
“We have what we need for the gate.”
Nina looked at Tessa’s monitor.
“We also have a way out.”
Tessa lifted her head on-screen.
Blood ran from her nose over her mouth.
She looked toward the camera as though she could hear them.
Avery said, “We could leave.”
Maya stared at her.
“Yes.”
“He wants us to go after her.”
“Yes.”
“That is why the doors are open.”
“Yes.”
Avery carried the cutters toward the corridor.
Nina caught her arm.
“What are you doing?”
“What we should have done at Bellwether.”
Maya looked at Tessa.
“She would leave us.”
Avery did not disagree.
“Probably.”
“And you still want to go.”
“I don’t want another version later where we say there was nothing we could do.”
Maya’s face tightened.
“That sounds like something Tessa would say.”
“No. Tessa would say it after leaving.”
The words were cruel.
They were also true.
Maya looked once more toward the exterior monitor.
The gate area had nearly cleared.
The final car turned onto the county road.
She slid the brass spike into her belt.
“All right.”
They entered the basement corridor.
It passed the hotel laundry.
Industrial washers stood open along one wall. Rotted sheets filled wire carts. Someone had scrubbed a rectangular section of tile recently.
Felix’s truck keys lay there on a folded burgundy jacket.
Nina stopped.
“He keeps offering choices.”
“No,” Maya said. “He keeps showing us he can.”
A telephone rang inside the laundry office.
They continued.
It rang until they reached the service stairs.
Then stopped.
The stairs opened behind the ballroom stage.
Avery looked through a tear in the curtain.
Tessa remained at the front desk.
The clock above the ballroom doors read 10:31.
The party should have begun.
No guests entered.
Owen stood in front of Tessa wearing the repaired mask.
The broken half had been tied back with black cord. Scarred skin remained visible through the split.
He adjusted the microphone.
“Good evening.”
His voice traveled through the ballroom speakers and the exterior system.
No one remained outside to hear it.
Tessa raised her head.
Owen placed one gloved hand on her dislocated shoulder.
She inhaled sharply.
“You were supposed to welcome them.”
“They left.”
“You told them to come.”
“Felix posted it.”
“You approved the invitation.”
“I approve everything. That doesn’t mean I cause it.”
Owen pressed down.
Tessa screamed.
“Say their names.”
She looked toward Felix.
Then Malik.
“Felix Navarro.”
Owen waited.
“Malik Thompson.”
“Upstairs.”
Tessa’s mouth trembled.
“Cass Morgan.”
“Passage.”
“Jude Mercer.”
Owen moved behind the desk.
“Why did they die?”
“Because you killed them.”
He grabbed her injured wrist.
The telephone cord tightened inside the wound.
Tessa cried out.
“Why?”
“Because you’re fucking insane.”
Owen pulled harder.
The wire sliced deeper.
Two of Tessa’s fingers curled inward and did not straighten.
She screamed.
Avery stepped from behind the curtain.
“Because we left you.”
Owen turned.
Maya and Nina emerged beside her.
Tessa looked at them.
Relief crossed her face before she could shape it into anything else.
Owen released the cable.
“You came back.”
Avery held up the bolt cutters.
“We always make the worst choice available.”
The mask tilted.
“Put them down.”
“No.”
Owen reached beneath the desk.
Nina raised Felix’s knife.
“Move your hand.”
Owen laughed.
The damaged side of his mouth made the sound leak through the brass slot.
“You became brave when Cass stopped filming.”
Nina crossed the ballroom.
Avery caught her shoulder.
“Not alone.”
They moved together.
Owen drew a long knife from beneath the desk.
Its blade had been polished bright.
Tessa looked at Avery.
“There’s wire beneath the chair.”
“Connected to what?”
“Nothing. He wanted me to think it was.”
Owen slapped the back of her head.
“Hosts do not interrupt.”
Tessa spat blood onto his jacket.
“You worked nights at a motel. Stop making it a personality.”
He struck her across the face.
The chair tipped but remained held by the cords.
Avery ran.
Owen came around the desk.
The knife passed close enough that she felt air move beside her throat.
She swung the cutters.
The handles struck his forearm.
The knife fell.
Maya kicked it beneath the desk.
Owen caught Avery by the hair and drove her forehead into the brass bell.
The bell rang.
White light filled her skull.
He hit her against it again.
The edge split the skin above her eyebrow.
Maya drove the room spike into Owen’s back.
It entered beside his right shoulder blade.
He released Avery.
He turned and hit Maya with the back of his fist.
Her head struck the mail cubbies.
Wood cracked.
Nina cut through the cords around Tessa’s chest.
Owen tore the spike from his back.
Blood spread across the burgundy jacket.
He raised it toward Nina.
Tessa kicked his injured knee.
He staggered.
Nina cut the cords around her legs.
“Can you stand?”
“I can do better than sit.”
Tessa tried.
Her dislocated shoulder shifted.
The damaged arm swung uselessly.
She nearly collapsed.
Nina caught her around the waist.
Owen seized Nina’s hair.
Tessa grabbed the brass desk bell.
She struck the burned side of his face.
The base split the repaired mask.
Owen reeled backward.
Tessa hit him again.
The mask fell away.
The third blow opened the scar beside his exposed teeth.
Owen caught the bell.
He tore it from her hand and drove the stem through the wound in her wrist.
Tessa screamed.
The brass spindle passed between the bones and emerged through her palm.
Owen twisted it.
Her knees gave way.
Nina slashed his forearm.
The knife cut through the sleeve and opened the flesh beneath.
Owen swung the bell with Tessa’s hand still impaled on it.
Her body followed.
She struck Nina and knocked her across the counter.
Avery closed the bolt cutters around the bell stem.
She forced the handles together.
The brass snapped.
Tessa fell free with several inches of metal still through her hand.
Owen hit Avery in the throat.
She dropped the cutters and stumbled backward.
Maya came from behind the desk holding the polished knife.
She drove it toward Owen’s chest.
He turned.
The blade entered beneath his arm.
Owen trapped Maya’s wrist and bent it.
The knife fell.
He lifted her by the throat and threw her across the desk.
Maya landed beside Tessa.
Owen looked at the four women gathered behind the counter.
Avery saw what he saw.
The final composition.
The surviving founders behind the front desk.
The host bleeding on the floor.
The hotel waiting around them.
He reached for the microphone.