In my hands was another letter from her; another letter written in beautiful calligraphy on the finest parchment you could find. She almost never sent gifts with her letters, so there must be something important in this one. As I opened the envelope, I was hit with an abominable stench. Some hellish concoction had tainted the whole room by the time I was back on my feet. A single digit fell from the parchment and bled slowly on the ground. The letter wasn’t in her stunning, hand writing, but piecemeal from magazines.

CoMe get mE.

I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. I tried calling the police station. Nothing. No service I tried 911, still nothing. I had to do something. I pulled all of my emergency fund to grab a plane ticket across country, where she was staying for work, and went to her apartment. The door was already unlocked. Two jakes were already in there, searching.  All it took was the door creaking and they were on me. After inquiry I told them about the letter. They told me this sort of thing happens all the time, and to come down to the station tomorrow. I called a cab and took a cheap hotel room. Come about 8 AM the next morning, there was a knock on my door.

Room-service, it said.

There’s no room-service in this motel, I said.

Yes there is, the knock said.

I opened the door, and was nobody on the other side. I poked my head out to search, and that’s when I was smashed over the skull with a bottle of cheap wine. I woke upside down, suspended by my ankles above a rather unclean floor. In front of me was more piecemeal.

It’s nOt niCe to Bring OtHers UninviTed.

Next to me were the same two officers. Their throats slit, heads at angles inhumane. I was dropped to the ground, and heard room-service say something along the lines of, Shouldn’t have cheated, johnny-boy. For a long time, nothing happened. I sat and waited, until I heard screams. Her screams. horrible, blood gurgling screams pleading for help and forgiveness and above all else for it to stop. It didn’t. I had to sit there and listen until her terror petered out into wet gurgling.

I screamed too, but nothing happened. Then it was silent again, and dark. I heard some shuffling above me, and then a sloppy thump. I found her.