Chapter 135: Hotel Horror

Chapter 135: Hotel Horror

It was an awesome night.

The girl was a blast, full of surprises, and up for anything.

They started messing around in the pool, then moved to the bedroom. They spent nearly an hour in the bathtub, the bubbles making her skin silky smooth, giving Manuel a thrill he'd never felt before. This was all new to him. But seeing her so into it, her face and body totally taken over by hormones, Manuel knew she’d done this plenty of times before.

Not that it mattered, as long as they were having fun.

She wasn’t his wife, not even his girlfriend.

After their wild time, the worn-out flight attendant crashed hard on the soft bed.

Manuel threw on some comfy clothes and headed to the bar on the hotel’s second floor.

He was beat.

The girl had really taken it out of him.

Right now, Manuel needed a glass of brandy, bad.

He’d picked up the habit in Rostov, hanging out with some buddies.

It was so cold there that without vodka, he couldn’t even tell if he could still move. They’d gone there to ski but got hit with a cold snap. So, they ended up stuck in the hotel, hugging bottles of booze. After that trip, Manuel had a thing for alcohol, especially brandy.

The bar was empty, dead.

Weird.

Usually, this place was hopping. Even late at night, hotel guests would come here for a drink. No pole dancers or women in lingerie shaking it on tables, but the vibe was always good.

“Anyone here?” Manuel called out from the entrance.

No answer, just an eerie silence.

He shook his head and headed to the bar.

Manuel needed a drink to fall asleep every night.

The shelves were lined with all kinds of booze. Feeling a bit annoyed, Manuel raised his voice, “Anyone here? You guys still in business?”

Just as he finished, a shadow popped up from behind the counter.

It was a short, chubby guy. He had on a white shirt under a black vest, a bow tie, and his sleeves rolled up—a typical bartender look.

The bar was dimly lit, and Manuel didn’t notice the guy’s bloodshot eyes. He felt relieved; at least someone was there. He sat on a high stool, pulled out a big bill from his wallet, and slapped it on the counter.

“Brandy, on the rocks.”

It was way past his usual drinking time, and Manuel needed it bad.

The bartender silently made his drink. As Manuel picked up the glass, he glanced around, finding no one to nod at or chat with. He liked talking to people while drinking, and this was just awkward.

“I’m never coming to this hotel again.”

Grumbling to himself, Manuel took big gulps, finishing the drink in a few swigs. The warmth spread through his body quickly.

He looked at the silent bartender and asked, “What’s up with this place tonight? No customers?”

The bartender’s vest had a few dark spots, like it was wet. He kept his head down and replied in a flat voice, “I don’t know. Maybe the hotel’s just not busy tonight.”

Made sense.

Manuel poured the last drop onto his tongue, smacked his lips, and muttered, “Feels like I walked into a graveyard. It’s so quiet, it’s creepy!”

The bartender glanced at him briefly. “Sir, need anything else?”

“Another one!”

Manuel usually didn’t drink this much, but tonight he was in a mood and needed double to sleep well.

The bartender grabbed the brandy bottle and got to work.

Just then, Manuel heard a scream.

It was sharp and piercing, like a knife cutting through the night. It sounded close, maybe from a room in the hotel or nearby.

Manuel jumped up from the stool, suddenly wide awake.

“Hey, did you hear that?”

Without turning around, he asked the bartender, his voice shaking, “What was that? Who screamed?”

Behind him, the bartender’s cold, flat voice replied, “Sorry sir, I didn’t hear anything. Not sure what you mean.”

That was no help at all.

Manuel felt a wave of anger rising. He turned to say something, but then he noticed the glass of brandy the bartender had just set down.

The color was off. It wasn’t the usual clear liquid; something had been mixed in, making it murky and giving it a dark red tint. It looked like someone had spilled tomato juice in it.

The bartender still hadn’t said a word or lifted his head.

Manuel realized that since he’d walked into the bar, the bartender had kept his face hidden in the shadows.

Manuel stood there, frozen, barely daring to breathe.

At that moment, he truly understood what it meant to be scared out of your mind.

“Oh! Uh, my clothes are in the room. It’s kinda cold; I’ll go grab them and come back. Here, take this…”

Manuel babbled nonsense, backing away towards the bar’s entrance. With shaking hands, he pulled out some bills from his wallet and quickly placed them on the stool.

He swore he’d never taken money out of his pocket so fast in his life.

The bartender didn’t seem to hear him.

Or maybe he was just busy with his own stuff.

Either way, he didn’t pay any attention to the panicked Manuel, nor did he come out from behind the counter to grab the money. He just stood there, motionless, like a machine that had lost its power.

I need to get out of this creepy place right now.

Manuel didn’t waste a second. He rushed into the elevator like a gust of wind, pressing the button for his floor with trembling fingers. As the elevator doors slowly closed, he noticed that the hotel service desk, which usually had someone on duty 24/7, was completely empty.

The door to his room was wide open, held by a magnetic doorstop on the wall. Manuel was puzzled; he clearly remembered locking the door when he left, and the key card was still in his pocket.

The room was dark, and Manuel groped his way along the hallway.

The light from the corridor outside was very dim, but with that faint light, he saw something moving on the bed.

It wasn’t the girl.

She was pinned underneath, unconscious. From Manuel’s position, it looked like a dark, shadowy mass.

He couldn’t reach the light switch from where he was, so Manuel pulled out his sleek metal lighter, flipped it open, and struck it. In the light, he saw everything.

It was an unfamiliar woman, lying on top of the naked flight attendant, viciously biting her throat and gnawing at her body.

The white sheets were soaked with blood, spreading and seeping into the mattress, looking like tomato jam in the firelight. There was so much blood that it had pooled in the depressions of the sheets, forming semi-solid clots that tilted and shifted with movement.

The woman biting the flight attendant was dressed in a business suit. Judging by her appearance, she was likely a hotel staff member. The sound of Manuel lighting the lighter made her alert; she lifted her head and turned towards him. When she opened her blood-stained lips, Manuel saw countless sharp teeth reflecting a chilling gleam.

Manuel felt utterly shocked and panicked, like hearing an alarm in a state of complete ignorance. He didn’t hesitate for a second, turning and running towards the hallway.

The woman stood up from the bed and staggered towards the door.

Manuel felt like he was going insane.

No, if he wasn’t the one going insane, then the world must be.

“Is anyone there?”

“Come out! Someone’s been killed! Someone’s dead!”

“Help! Help!”

He screamed and shouted frantically in the hallway, quickly dialing 911 on his phone. As he waited for the call to connect, Manuel kept shouting, but it seemed like he was the only person left in the entire hotel, with no response from anyone.

The call connected quickly, and Manuel explained his location and situation as fast as he could, then hung up and ran towards the elevator.

The display showed the elevator was on the first floor. Waiting for it to come up to the fifteenth floor would take forever.

The woman from the room staggered towards him.

She wasn’t wearing shoes, and her chest was soaked with blood. Behind her, Manuel saw something even more terrifying.

The beautiful flight attendant he had been with just hours ago also emerged from the room. She was completely naked, half of her face chewed off, her left breast missing, and a large gash in her chest exposing her ribs and various muscles Manuel couldn’t name.

Their eyes were lifeless, as pale as those of the dead.

Their movements and those horrifying eyes conveyed a clear message to Manuel.

They wanted to eat him; they wanted to make him their snack.