Chapter 17:A message in Blood
AUTHOR'S POV
The air in the Continental Hotel's security center was thick with the smell of stale coffee and frustration. For days, they had been searching for Spencer Postlethwaith, a guest who had vanished after being the last person seen with the bartender who had turned up dead on Halloween's night. The case was a thorn in the side of the Head of security, a grizzled man named Jackson ville Thorne. He was a man who trusted his gut, and his gut told him Spencer was a witness, not a killer.
The bartender hadn't been shot or stabbed. He had been strangled by a force that left no fingerprints, no DNA, just brutal, inexplicable marks on his neck. Spencer had fled the scene, and Thorne believed it was out of fear, not guilt. He was convinced Spencer had seen something—something that couldn't be easily explained.
"Play it again," Thorne commanded, his arms crossed over his broad chest. His team, weary and skeptical, obliged. The grainy footage from the hotel's bar on Halloween night flickered on the large central screen for what felt like the hundredth time.
They watched Spencer talk to the bartender. They saw Spencer's sudden panic, his wide-eyed terror as he pointed at… nothing. Then he ran. The bartender, laughing, pouring a drink, and then collapsed out of frame after a choking up gesture, the actual moment of death obscured by the bar counter.
"Stop!" Thorne's voice cut through the monotony. He leaned forward, his eyes narrowing. "There. Go back five frames. Slowly."
The technician rewound. The footage played frame by frame. Thorne's finger shot out, pointing at the screen. "There. And there."
As the bartender laughed, a flicker of light, a distortion in the air like a heat haze, was mounted directly behind him. It was tall, vaguely humanoid, and shapeless,he also noticed another flicker of light beside Spencer, but they were different. But as they zoomed in,enhancing the pixelated image, one thing became horrifyingly clear. The shapeless form had a face—or the suggestion of one—dominated by a wide, grotesquely stretched, creepy smile.
"What the f*** is that?" one of the junior officers whispered, a tremor in his voice.
On the screen, as if hearing him, the smile seemed to widen as if staring directly at him, the pixels rearranging into an even more malevolent grin.
"What the f***," Thorne breathed out, a cold dread slithering down his spine. His eyes darted to another flicker in the footage, a smaller, denser distortion right beside the frozen image of a terrified Spencer. That was the spot he had been pointing at. He wasn't pointing at the bartender. He was pointing at the thing next to him.
Before anyone could speak, the whole room went dark,the power circuit was out.
The hum of the computers, the buzz of the fluorescent lights—it all died simultaneously, plunging the windowless room into absolute, suffocating blackness. A wave of panic rippled through the team. Chairs scraped, and confused, fearful curses filled the air.
"Everyone, stay calm!" Thorne's voice boomed, a practiced anchor in the chaos. He fumbled for his phone, activating the torchlight. The beam cut a swath through the darkness, illuminating the frightened faces of his team. "I will go check the power line. No one move."
He moved to the door, his hand finding the handle by memory. He stepped out into the corridor, which was equally dark and silent. He took a few steps toward the maintenance closet when, abruptly, the lights flickered back to life. Not in a steady stream, but in a frantic, strobing pulse that disoriented him. Flicker. Flicker. Flicker,and then the lights became permanently steady.
Thorne shrugged, a nervous gesture. The grid was probably just unstable. He turned around to return to the investigation room, the image of that digital smile burned into his mind.
He opened the door.
A wave of cold, dank air, carrying the thick, metallic scent of fresh blood, washed over him. The sight that met his eyes rooted him to the spot, his brain refusing to process the slaughter in his eyes.
The investigation room was a now butchering house.
In the mere sixty seconds he had been gone, the room had been utterly desecrated. Blood was sprayed and smeared over every wall, a violent crimson graffiti. The mangled bodies of his security team were scattered across the floor, their forms broken and twisted in impossible ways. Bones, white and stark against the red, were scattered like spreading corn to the sun. Computer monitors were shattered, their wires spilling out like intestines.
It was a slaughterhouse. A dreadful, silent site of mass murder.
And in the center of it all, every single computer screen that was still intact glowed with the same, stark white message on a black background:
HELLO EVERYONE, REST IN PIECES
R.I.P
Thorne's breath hitched. Panic, cold and sharp, seized his lungs. He felt a movement behind him, a subtle shift in the air. He turned around slowly, his body moving as if through syrup.
The corridor was empty. But the lights went out again, plunging him back into absolute darkness. This time, the silence was deafening, broken only by the frantic beating of his own heart and suddenly his scream echoes.
Then, the lights returned.
He was not alone.
Marcus Thorne was now on his knees, his hands resting on his thighs, his head bent. But his posture was wrong. It was too still, too rigid. Slowly, unnaturally, a small, creepy smile stretched across his face. It was the same smile from the footage, now attached onto living flesh.
He began to lift his head. His movements were jerky, puppet-like. As his face came into view, the smile widened, stretching far beyond a human limit, exposing rows of teeth that seemed too long, too sharp. Fangs he never had before.
His eyes opened.
They were no longer their familiar brown. They were a blazing, hellish sharp blue, glowing with an infernal light.
He spoke, and the voice that came out was not his own. It was a layered, discordant chorus, the sound of a thousand men and demons speaking as one, echoing with ancient malice and a very specific, personal excitement.
"We will finally meet once again, Spencer Postlethwaith..."
To be continued.....