Polina, the brunette, tipped her cocktail at me andcontinued the conversation with Carson as if nothing was out of the ordinary. Steph focused on me.
"So, Michael, I like the silent type. They make me scream the loudest." She laughed and put her hand on my thigh. I jerked away. She was sloshed.Carson recognized me. We exchanged looks, and I could see it in his eyes that he knew who I was, but instead of calling me out, he kept the charade and inserted me into the conversation.
"Michael and I went to school together. Actually, him, me, and Delaney did."
"Which one is that?" Steph asked.
"The Hispanic girl, young, beautiful," Carson described.
"The one every male here wants," Polina said, her accent thicker than I had imagined. "Including you." She nodded to me.
"I saw her. The one dressed in all pink and going around telling everyone how pure she is. I was like that, once. I have half a mind to kick her out into the snow and lock the doors!" Steph announced. “Save everyone from that.”
"Calm down, no one's forgetting you," Carson told her."You're still The Vincent's reigning beauty."
"Damn straight." She lifted her glass. "I've stayed here far too long to be anything less."
Carson flicked a glance at me. "How long has it been, Steph?"
"What year is it?" She slurred her words. "Because I got here in 1980. Right after my summer at that shitty camp. They wanted to fire me, for the accident, but I told them I quit! I was done with my community service. I was going to come here and spend the winter prepping for the Miss... whatever pageant, and then I'd be famous!" She grabbed her drink. "I guess I was wrong."
"Don't listen to her." Polina waved her friendoff. "She should be the one at your writer's retreat! Always with the stories."
"It's true!" Steph gasped, putting a finger up. "It's true. I had big dreams and this place took them from me."
I looked around the table in utter confusion. Polina and Steph went back and forth, with Carson interjecting occasionally while turning to me and asking how I was enjoying the hotel. I answered with nods and head shakes.Suddenly, Steph reached under the table and grabbed my cock. I shoved her hand away and she tried again.
"Oh, come on. Don't tell me you're hung up on that girl. After what she did to you? She put you in that place, practically locked the key, and swallowed it."
I turned to her curiously. Why did she know so much about me? She grinned, but I noticed it didn’t reach her eyes.
"Didn't you stop to think of how surprised she was to see you? Almost as if she thought you were locked away forever?"
I gulped. I hadn't.Did this complete stranger know Laney? If so, that meant that Laney knew… everything.
"She knows what you did. She knows and that's why she was crying."
In a blink, everyone in the room was gone except Steph and I. The silence was deafening as she opened her mouth, and it began to stretch far past human capacity. I watched in horror as her jaw unhinged and her skin ripped away, exposing muscle and other red disgusting bits. I stood quickly, my chair falling to the ground. I didn't care. I needed to get away.
Steph's arms began to grow and stretch, just like her mouth had, stretching until it couldn't anymore and then it tore, her arms falling with loud thuds onto the ground.
"What's wrong? Am I not beautiful?" Her voice called out, despite having no mouth. An arm dug its fingers into the carpet and began to drag itself toward me. I fell flat on myback. "Do you want her more? Why? She's not special.I'm special."
I rolled over, narrowly escaping capture.
"You can hide behind the mask, but we all know the truth. Your beauty hides darkness. She knows it. She knows the truth. Confess!"
Sweat poured inside the mask, and I ripped it off my head, taking in a deep breath of chill air. The monster lifted her head to look at me, and with a quick shudder, her arms and head flew back to her, pulling together and righting her back to her original state.
"Don't want to hide anymore?" she asked, pouting her lower lip. My chest heaved as I stared at her, trying to understand what I'd just seen. The chair I'd fallen over was still on the ground. It hadn't been my imagination.
"What do you want from me?" I asked.
"Not me. Her." She pointed her finger to the ceiling. "Confess to what you've done, before she catches on. You can't hide the truth forever. About yourself, about the man you killed. Secrets are what this hotel feeds on. You don't want to end up like me."
A figure walked from the shadows, hands in his pockets. My entire body chilled as Moth stepped into the light, the large gash where I split his head down the middle just hours ago still bleeding and pulsing. He waved as if he didn't know the wound was there.
"Or me."
