Chapter 3
Aloud crash vibrated through the room, ripping me out of my slumber.
My eyes flew open as my heart jumped and slammed against my ribs.
At first, I passed it off as thunder. The storm was still raging outside in full force. Wind battered the walls while rain slammed against the windows hard enough to rattle the glass.
But then another crash came. Too close to be coming from outside.
I pushed upright and scanned the room, searching the shadow I felt pooling around me. But I couldn’t see anything. The darkness was so thick it seemed tangible, as if I could reach out and touch it. The only light came from the red numbers on the bedside table clock.
3:15
The devil’s hour.
“Of course,” I snorted to myself.
That was some kind of sick irony. If horror movies and haunting documentaries taught me anything, it was that nothing good ever happened between 3 and 4 am, not that I necessarily believed in things like that.
However, it wouldn’t hurt to turn on the light.
If there were some horrible things waiting to devour me, I’d prefer to see them coming.
I reached out, clicked on the lamp next to the bed, and waited for my eyes to adjust.
Nothing seemed out of the ordinary at first.
The bathroom door was open, just as I left it. The bed, dresser, and other furniture all looked undisturbed. Even my keys were sitting on the vanity in the same position I’d tossed them. On the surface, everything was normal.
But underneath, there were little things. Decaying details that I didn’t remember seeing before.
Instead of draping out, the curtains seemed to be sagging.
The rich velvet material was browned and stiff at the folds, while the brocade trim curled up at the ends.
Up near the ceiling, the wallpaper had faded and cracked, making the fleur-de-lis pattern bleed down the wall.
In the shadows, they almost looked like tiny faces screaming.
And then there was the air. It was thicker, and a faint, mildewy scent had replaced the dried-out rose aroma. Every breath I took felt damp. It was awful. I almost choked on the flavor of stale water.
Had the room always been like this, and I was too tired to see it?
No. At the very least, I would’ve noticed those curtains. If death could touch material, then that cloth had been carried around by the Reaper himself. Maybe the storm got in? Mind you, if that were true, then the floor and walls would be wet, which they weren’t.
Something wasn’t right.
The sound came again, sharp and muffled through the wall to my left.
It was definitely coming from inside. More specifically, the room next to mine.
Should I be worried, or was I overreacting? It could be something completely innocent. Perhaps whoever was in there had too much to drink, or they were into some rough, kinky stuff. In the three years I’d been on the run from my parents, I’d seen some weird shit.
“Please, no,” a woman yelled, followed by a thud so hard the picture hanging on the wall bounced.
My stomach knotted. That didn’t sound like rough sex. It sounded like someone was shoved into the wall.
A scream tore through the air, followed by a man’s voice blaring out something I couldn’t make out. Then a panicked shriek, another thud, and… silence.
My throat tightened as I waited for another sound—a bang or scream, even a whisper would do. Anything that showed signs of life.
I got what I asked for in the form of a low rumbled groan followed by a lighter banging as if something was knocking in the other room.
Not sure if I should be scared or not, I rose to my knees and pressed my ear to the wall.
Someone with a deep voice was talking. I could make out a few words. Cry, pretty, and blood. If that wasn’t enough to make me jump off the bed, then the scream that tore through the air sure was.
I jumped onto the floor and backed away from the wall.
Nope. I was so out of here—storm or not.
Not caring about getting dressed, I turned to grab my coat and froze when the thudding turned rhythmic.
Two beats, pause, then two more.
Bump, bump…
Bump, bump…
They were soft, like the beat of a heart, but only because the storm screamed outside. And even that wasn’t loud enough to cover the noise.
That’s when I heard it.
A laugh so creepy it chilled my bones.
It was low at first, then it curled up through the wall, growing louder until it dragged across the air like a blade. In that moment, I knew I was in the presence of true evil.
My hand slapped over my mouth and clamped down hard, trying to muffle the sound of my breathing. I stood there, too terrified to move.
What if he heard me and came over here? I didn’t want to meet whatever fate that poor woman had, even if I deserved it.
Then the room went quiet, and that was so much worse.
All I could hear now was my own heart thundering in my chest.
The quiet pressed in on me until it buzzed in my ears.
It wasn’t the sound of safety or sleep. It was the deafening silence of trepidation.
I’d heard it before. That deceptive moment of quiet right before one realized the horrifying truth of their situation.
There was nothing heavier than that moment.
It had been pressing down on me for three years.
“Come play with me, Mazie.”
No. I wasn’t going to do this again.
I threw my coat over my shoulders and stumbled for the door.
The storm was a safer gamble than whatever was happening here.
My fingers stumbled with the lock, twisting the key this way and that while the brass tag clinked against the doorknob. Time ticked by while I fought to unlock the damn thing. Eventually, I managed to clumsily throw open the door.
Ignoring the shadows crawling up the warped wallpaper, I stepped out into the sconce-lit hallway. Air gushed past me as wind whistled through the cracks in the windows at the other end.
I turned to head for the stairs and stopped.
What the…
A figure stood in the corridor. A large man wearing a fedora. His size alone was intimidating, but it was white paint smeared over his face and dripping black circles around his eyes that sent a chill up my spine. The only color on him was the piercing blue eyes that seemed to glow in the dark.
He looked like a mime. I hated mimes. They were the Alfred Hitchcock version of clowns.
I looked down at the gloved hands hanging at his side and up to the black-and-white striped shirt stretched over his solid chest. Maybe he was seeking refuge from the storm as well?
If he was, then he had some high-quality makeup.
There wasn’t a single smear. The rain was coming down so hard that the few steps from the parking lot to the building would’ve been enough to wash it away. He had not been outside.
Was that better or worse? I didn’t know.
He stood there, staring at me, not saying a thing. All I wanted to do was get out of here, but I didn’t want to walk past him. A mime alone in a hall seemed more dangerous than the possible murder room next door.
Maybe he was lost? “Do you need help finding your room?”
His lips curled into a grin that had no right being on any living mouth as lightning flashed through the hall, causing his shadow to stretch across the floor.
I took a step back to avoid the twisted grip of his shadow’s hand.
He didn’t move.
He didn’t speak.
He only watched.
My pulse hammered in my throat. Every instinct told me to hide in my room and slam the door. Pretend I hadn’t seen him. But my body wouldn’t obey. It was as if his gaze alone had me pinned in place.
We stayed where we were, watching each other while I tried to figure out what to do. Seconds turned into minutes, and still, he had yet to move. He didn’t even blink. He just stared down the hall with that sinister grin frozen in place.
“Well, I’m gonna—”
I choked on my words when he tilted his head. Slow and precise. Just like a doll nudged off balance. The motion shouldn’t have been frightening, but I suddenly felt like I couldn’t breathe.
Then his gloved hand rose, showing me the knife in his grip. The blade was slick with something dark. I didn’t need light to know what it was.
Blood.
I could hear it dripping onto the carpet in small, little plops.
Plop…
Plop…
Plop…
The sound echoed through my ears, growing louder with each plop until it turned into the echoing drops of water.
Drip…
Drip…
Drip..
The soft hum of the filter running…
The smell of chlorine…
Moonlight bouncing off the water, lighting up her floating dark curls…
“Come play with me, Mazie.”
My stomach twisted hard.
Taking another step back, I shook away the memory. I didn’t have time for ghosts.
The mime lowered the knife just enough for me to see the smear across his sleeve. One large streak of red, staining the perfect lines of his costume. What did he do? Was it him I heard next door?
His grin didn’t change as my eyes briefly shifted over to the door next to mine. He just stood there, holding the blade.
The storm outside was the safest choice I had. Unfortunately, that meant going past him. A part of me wondered what I was afraid of. The pain of being stabbed couldn’t be any worse than the guilt I’d been carrying around. Death would be a release, wouldn’t it? I couldn’t do it myself. I’d tried.
The mime looked down at the knife, then over at me as if he could read my thoughts and was daring me to come closer.
But I was a coward. Instead of walking forward to my fate, I slowly backed into my room.
The mime didn’t follow. He simply raised his finger and pressed it to his mouth, silently saying, “Shh.”
I slammed the door shut, rattling the frame. My chest heaved as I stepped back and locked my eyes on the handle, waiting for it to turn.
It didn’t move.
I didn’t hear any footsteps in the hall either. Except that didn’t mean I was safe. I was alone in a room with nowhere to go and nothing to fight with, trapped like a rat in a maze.
At least in here, I had weapons. One of which was the back of the toilet tank. It was heavy and effective. I’d knocked a couple of guys out with it. Cities weren’t safe places, especially in the hotels I could afford.
Now, I just had to make it to the bathroom. I shuffled backward while cautiously keeping my eye on the door. Each step I took echoed through my ears along with my pulse. And all I could think about was a nursery rhyme my sister used to recite.
One, two, buckle my shoe.
Three, four, shut the door.
For some reason, the words gave me comfort. That was until I backed into something large and solid.
My heart stopped.
Someone was behind me.
A gloved hand clamped over my mouth before I could scream. The smell hit me next. Sweetness threaded with cologne gone sour. I dragged my eyes up and met the smile I prayed I wouldn’t see again.
The Ringmaster.
“Quiet now, Poppet,” he crooned, close enough that his breath grazed my cheek. “You’ll wake the neighbors.”
I struggled to get away, twisting and thrashing this way and that, but it did no good. He was bigger and much stronger. He easily held me back against him while slipping his hand into his coat. My eyes widened when he pulled out a needle.
Fighting was doing no good, so I did the only thing I could. I cried and begged him to leave me alone. His hand muffled all my pleas, but I begged him, nonetheless.
Amusement flashed through his dark eyes. “Don’t tell me you’re afraid of needles?”
Would he stop if I were?
“A needle hurts a lot less than a razor blade.”
What? Did he know? No, he couldn’t. Wait… Did that mean he was going to kill me? What was in that needle?
“Don’t worry, Poppet. It wouldn’t be any fun killing you.”
I screamed as he stabbed the needle in my neck. The world tilted fast, causing the walls to bend like paper while my knees buckled.
His deep voice followed me down into the dark.
“You’re already dead.”