Hummingbird // AHS Hotel

Chapter Four: The Visit

♪ Bloody Mary - Lady Gaga ♪

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My finger hovered over the touchpad on my laptop. All I had to do was click it, and I'd have a room booked at a hotel a few streets over. Then I'd just have to walk down to the front desk and tell Iris that my trip had been cut short and I would be out by the end of the day. I would pay whatever cancellation fee they demanded from me. It would be worth it if I could put this all behind me: whatever I once had going on with James, the dead man in his room, and whatever other secrets this horrifying hotel held.

It had been a full day and a half since the incidents that led me to want to leave the hotel. The first thing I did that night, after I returned from the Countess' penthouse, was barricade my door from the inside with what little furniture I had. I spent my shower trying to scrub away the memory of that man's blood, and then laid awake in bed, thinking of how the man's lifeless eyes would never close again. I tossed and turned for hours, replaying the entire thing in my mind.

The last time I had felt this dreadfully alone was during the height of quarantine during the pandemic. In a way, it was like I was quarantining myself here in my room, protecting myself from whatever James was.

I thought of my parents. They had texted me to check up on me, ask how the hotel was. I had also been texting a little with the few friends I had. I had replied to everyone who asked that my stay here was going well, even though it was admittedly not. How was I supposed to explain that I had hooked up with a man and then walked in on him killing someone, only to find out the one I hooked up with was apparently the ghost of a serial killer?

Thinking logically, there was no way anything the Countess told me was true. That James, who was very much a living person, was actually the murderous ghost of the man who built this hotel? But I'd had the urge to believe her regardless.

My suspicions were confirmed yesterday morning as I was getting my breakfast. From yesterday morning on, I decided all my meals would be from room service. I would no longer be roaming the halls or visiting the bar and chatting up strangers, lest another one of them turn out to be a killer.

The room service arrived so I'd opened the door to get the food. I was glancing around the hallway and saw nothing peculiar, just a man walking from one end of the hallway to the other. As he passed by the room service employee and I, our eyes met for a second, and then he continued on. He seemed familiar for some reason, but I couldn't place it. I thanked the employee and took my food inside. As I was eating my breakfast I realized where I'd seen the man before: on the floor of James' suite, covered in blood. Dead. That was the same man. Walking around, breathing, blinking.

Whether the man was a ghost or was somehow reanimated was none of my concern. All I knew was that he was definitely dead before, and now he wasn't. Meaning there was at least some truth to what the Countess told me.

Last night I had lain awake, this time questioning whether I actually saw the living version of a previously dead man, a ghost, or if I was just going crazy. The more I thought about it the more sure I was that it was the same man, which only left me two options: ghosts were suddenly real, or I was hallucinating.

Presently my finger hovered over the touchpad, ready to press the button and reserve a room somewhere else. Time to put this all behind me.

Suddenly a knock on my door startled me. I wasn't expecting anyone, so any visitor was anxiety-inducing in itself. Not to mention the fact that one of my acquaintances here was a literal serial killer.

"Who is it?" I called, not moving from my bed.

"Elizabeth," she responded through the door.

"Is James with you?" I asked hesitantly, that being one of the only things that alarmed me about the Countess; her strange bickering friendship with this serial killer, alive or dead.