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Figured I'd get around to this at some point in my existence. There are some types of stories that every horror writer should have the chance to write, I read. This was one of them. Whatever you do once you have clicked on this page, read this story, and given your thoughts on it, I hope you at least gain a feeling mirroring what could be joy. If you did truly enjoy this, would you mind being a good critic and telling what you didn't? The concept itself might not be that original, of that I must admit. Dear reader, perhaps it might seem originalto you though. My spelling, language, and formatting might not be top marks but couldn't it be deemed readable if you tried?

Alas, without further await, let our tale being. With lack of a better title, this shall be known as the tale of the Terror Hotel. The hotel itself is not named thus, but it is the title of this story. Horror is hard to capture at times, is it not? How do we tell the difference between heart wrenching stories and ones that leave you in suspense, make you two minutes late for work, and earn you a notification of your deployment? If this short story provides you with an inkling of terror, for perhaps maybe at least a second or two after you read it, that would mean that I have written something that could be shifted into

This story takes place on Halloween night, if not just so I can enter it. The date this event happens, in fact, could be applied to any old day of the year. Can't let a silly old introduction have more text then the story itself though, can we? So off we go, on a darkly lit road.The road less traveled you might say, and this road is less traveled for a great, if not stupendous reason.

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The sole chapter since this is a short, if not minimal story. The story, never mind about what I said earlier, will be called Crooked Walls. Let's go, then.
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Night had fallen, and old memories were rising. It had been 10 years, it was the anniversary of the night he had been remade. Sitting besides the man which we shall soon get to know, was pills. He had to take nine of them, some numbers just love to follow you through life. Some were for physical pain, other for mental. He did not know which was worse. Maybe if his mind just fell apart, he wouldn't have to do this. He wanted to, though. More then he wanted to breath, and he needed it more.

Forget the pills, though. In front of him was his old recorder. With the old tape. Turning it on, it worked like a charm. Yes, the hinges that held his mind together might weaken and eventually fade altogether, but this tape would not. He could have burned it long ago, but burning it would be like burning off a part of yourself or telling a yourself not to exist. The man must listen to this every day, it was his service. Yes, it still worked. He could hear the truck brakes and the steady torrent of curses.

"Damn."

It was a sole and crude word, but expressed how the man felt. He had been running away, from his life. Now his life was wrecked, like his truck. His name was Josh Lawson, and he had been on his way to the end with his wreck of a life. A sweet end, maybe take some other wrecks with him. He carried a recorder with him always with plentiful tape and always on, he unknowingly grabbed it as he went out of the remnants of his truck. He loved to here his own voice on the road, he was his own companion. He wasn't drunk, no he only felt like this when he was the coldest of sobers. The wierd part was, he had just enough time to roll it over from the highway and into the parking lot of this... whatever here was. Looking at a sign on the top of the building which hoovered over this lot, he saw the sign read "Morty's Hotel - The Happiest Place on Earth."

Walking inside, he stopped and saw a cat by the bushes besides the door. Something wasn't right, it didn't go with the faulty cheering of the green. Black? A cat? Looking behind the bushes, not caring if anyone saw him, he saw that it had a "9 9 9 " carved into it. Oh. He was looking at it upside down. Suddenly feeling a little queasy, Josh hesitated before stepping inside. The inside was not very bright, and the portrait's eyes that hung above the sole person who appeared to be inside besides him seemed to shine brighter.

"I'd like a room," Josh asked quitely, advancing upon the man with what could be caution if examined.
"We are all out of rooms. Sorry," was the other man's reply.

Josh looked up, and saw one key hanging on the wall. Room 999. Big hotel, bigger then it appeared from the outside, that was sure. The point was, the man had just lied to him. He had done it with that smug smile, too. Josh was not in the mood to be shoved around, not now. He had been pushed around enough, but he'd give the other man a chance to redeem himself, Josh was just a nice guy like that. The other man's name tag read Philipes, he saw.

"What about that key?" he pointed innocently at the key on the wall.
"No."
"Why not?"
"Sir, I will give you a free room for a week if you promise me never to even mention that again. Never."

Josh immediately was curious. Who wouldn't be?

"Why not?" Josh repeated this again, except with a differenttone.
"Some hotels just have bad rooms, my good man. Hotels are like a body, and places where bad things pile up eventually turn bad themselves, yes?"
"I want the damn room. Do I have to get your boss?"

Was it just his imagination, or did-was it even possible-did the building itself shake at these words? The lights grew darker, also and the man in front of him, his eyes began to burn like the painting's above him did. "Just my imagination," he thought silently. He was stressed, and he wouldn't let some manager with a smug green and his fancy pens get the better of him.

With a sigh, the other man said, "Very well. I tried, though."

The last part the man seemed to say to himself though, and this worried Josh more then the cat outside had. Philipes made a motion for him to follow him to what appeared to be the elevator of this place, and Josh did. Once they were inside, the manager looked at Josh for the first time as a normal human being. They were headed to floor 14, nah. Half the hotels in the world didn't include the 13th floor, so this most be the 13th, not the 14th. Just cowardly mumbo jumbo. Like all of this. In the sanctity of the elevator, he realized that the glowing had been a trick of the light. The shaking, his own stomach for not eating in so long. The car,, well... kid's these days, huh? Some part that still valued his sanity, some primal part of his brain reawakened in this atmosphere, somehow still screamed "Don't go!"

Philipes spoke, in quiet tones. "Quick. This is the only place it cannot hear us. I must warn you, for even I, could not sleep if I did not. I do not care if you do not believe me, and I do not care if you listen or not. All I care is that this be said and said it must. This hotel is a bad place. All hotels are, like I said earlier. That room, though, that is the concentration point. No religion will save you, for no religion knows it. It wears many guises and takes pride in it's art. More so in the pain, the suffering. Each patron of it's show has never truly left. If you knew it's true shape as I do, perhaps you would be more afraid, would take me up on my offer. I have not been a religious man in all my life, but to whatever deity is listening out their tonight, I will pray for you. Leave. Leave before midnight if you leave at all."

Josh did not respond, and did not meet the other man's eye when he handed him the key.

"I will go no further. Please, if there is anything I could do for you..."

Josh shooed him off with the wave of the hand, the key wrapped around it somehow shining brighter then the lights did. Josh heard a ding as the elevator went back down, and he was alone. Later he would wish that last statement was true. For he was not alone, and the shadows this place etched within him would always be there. Always. The speakers were playing something and he hadn't even known they had been playing.

"You can check in any time you like; but you can never leave."

Ha ha. Very funny. The words were cut off, not even finishing the song. What's next? More animal cruelty? Time to go find his lucky door. Looking around, he finally foufound it and that was when he saw the first funny thing. It was at the end of the hall, not on the left or right side but at the middle. No other doors lined the hall, strange. "What? No 1000th room? I'm last again." He stuck the key in the door, and the hotel seemed to shake once more, this time he was sure it was shaking. "I'm always last," he said. If the building wanted to shake itself to the ground, so be it. The hallway had not been slanting down, but at this entrance it suddenly did. Not a drastic leap down, but a noticeable one.

Inside the room was the standard. Bathtub, balcony, T.V., radio, and a clock hung on the wall above the balcony. The works for a cheap bum. A nice place for even him to die in, which he might very well follow through with. One last night though, he wanted to die in the morning. Looking around, his mouth gaped.

The walls should have been perfectly even, but instead each were crooked. Starting at the doors, they went crooked. No, starting at the end of the room. No, no, no. It started with him. It went crooked with him. Where had that idea come from? "Your brain, idiot. Don't get paranoid over some stupid things." Were they really stupid, though? How many other filthy, dirty bags of flesh had stayed in this majestic room? There they came again. He might think of himself as a bum, but not a filthy bag of flesh.

This part was quite disturbing on the tape, for the tone. The tone, it bounced and was crooked as the walls were. It was constantly changing, and there was something in the undertone. Something like a constant buzzing, a horrible buzzing. It seemed to affect those that later listened, as it surely did Josh. Back to the voice, though. The voice was the voice of a man suddenly lost, one who was concentrating on something that just wasn't there. Yet he believed it was, and perhaps that was the scariest part, not the buzzing. The buzzing could just be, well anything. That voice, though... It did not belong. Not of this world, only in a condemned place such as this could it even be thought to exist.

Something was wrong with this room, maybe he should go request another room... He tried the doorknob, and realized it wouldn't work. This really worried him, but let rationality prevail. He had a phone, and this place still had to surely pay it's bills.Yes, they might have horrible knobs but the phone had to be good. It had to be, right? He silently dialed a number, anyone would be good.

"Hello. You have reached Morty's Hotel. Please leave a message at the beep," it was the voice of a nice, friendly female operator. Female? Couldn't he at least learn how to voice act while making all those reservations?
"Yeah. Get me out of here, Philipes. This isn't funny."

The Hotel didn't just shake, it growled. He could hear doors down the hall baging.There hadn't been any doors, had there? When the voice came back on, it was not human. It wasn't even machine. It was dry and raspy, and sounded like you could hear maggots silently eating it's insides out if you listened hard enough. No, the maggots had long ago ate whatever had served as this hotel's heart. Now they were it's heart, and they

"One, two. We're ****ing with you. Three, four. You'll be our entertainment whore. Five, six. You better get a fix. Seven, eight. Where's your hate? Nine, ten. We'll throw your soul in the den."

It was sung with a childish-ryhme like quality, and somehow it sent chills down his spine. He let the phone drop, and it began to repeat the phrase, Unknowingly he had begun to sing and hum along with it. At later reviews of his recorder, this part was mostly just speeded past. Something about it, they sad. The humming was like the buzzing earlier, and it was not in simple terms very pleasent. When asked what he said he was singing along to, further review noted that there was no other voice and no phone call was noted on the records of the hotel.

He touched his bed, and strange ideas began to pop into his head. "It's a prop, plastic This whole room is a prop. That's it. I'm the only actor left for it, how sad." When he felt the bed more, it did seem quit like plastic. Sleeping in it would feel like sleeping in a strait jacket, of this he was quite sure. Where were these ideas coming from? The room. 999.

"Get. Out. Of. My. Head!"

Stranger, later when he claimed he heard nothing to accompany this a laugh can be heard if the recorder is played. It is louder then the exclamation Josh makes, and Josh's voice has begun to sound like that of the one on the phone he claimed earlier. No longer human or machine, but something which is being eaten alive. The hotel was a wasp, and it had laid it's precious babies inside of him. Those babies were madness, and they were lining up to feed off of him. It wasn't so bad, he'd finally get to be a good daddy. This place would keep him in line, and together they could father their little babes. He would make his sacrifices, and feed them. He would feed Mommy, too. Mommy was always hungry.

The hotel room was spinning. Hadn't the clock said 7.00 PM when he walked in? It now said nine. Time passes differently in the spiral... This is a thought of the recorder's tape that is thought to be corrupt, possibly damaged. Various phrases by Josh's current voice are said, and there is a scraping sound coming from the shower.

Suddenly, he realized how dirty he was. A voice seemed to say something about dirt being bad, could that be his? He would not go to the shower. To bathe in it's juices would be to form a bond, and a bond with a place that screamed and crawled so would be no good. Worse then dirt. To even sleep here would haunt him. He could not leave, and he was stuck until the end. Suddenly, We're Only Just Beginning began to play from the radio, and for the first time he knowingly screamed aloud. When reheard upon the tape, it was thought to be the scream of a dying man, yet it was not the first time a scream was present on the tape. If reviewed at the highest of volumes, from what some can tell when he was near the walls screams could also be heard. They were not loud, but they were ddefinitely human. Of that everyone has agreed. A buzz covered this up if the volume was any lower though, and the volume that was required to even detect the screams were speaker-busting at times.

Josh puts his hand on the walls, and finds that they are slowly moving. The ground is, also. Where the bed was is now a spiral that runs into the ground that is slowly expanding, and if he stares hard enough he can make out teeth. He walks away from it after grabbing a cigarett, breaking his no smoking rule for the first time in five years. After getting a good inhale, he throws it at the walls and watches as it makes a minor spark.

Eleven, one more hour to go.

The wallpaper sagged and gave way to reveal that the wall is covered with names, and the names are slowly sliding across from the wall, to the floor, and to the gaping mouth at the center. It swallowed the names one by one, until the wall was clean enough for one more mark, his. It was making room for one last name, his. The mouth was no longer a mouth, it had expanded and developed enough to reach the wall the bed had been lying against. On the wall it was a face. It was like one of those pictures where it was a whole bunch of smaller images making up one big one.

The screams are louder now on the tape, and they are not screams of joy. The laughter now is also present, as well as the sound of shower water running. It was ether now, or never. He valued his life now, or else he would have just jumped into that "thing's" mouth. He grabbed his lighter, and threw it at the door. The fire spread to the walls, and white maggots began to crawl to the fire. More names were revealed, but those white maggots crawled to the fire. It seemed the face on the wall was also bleeding, but it was not blood. It was... names? The mouth in the floor was sending up black puffs of smoke. It was ether now, or never.

11:59.

He charged through the door, disregarding the maggots that somehow clawed his flesh. The instant he was outside of the room, they vanished. The clock struck twelve just has his left arm left the room. The end was still in there, though. He was glad that was all that was in there. He charged down the elevator and ran out of the door, not bothering to see PhilipeS observe him quitely with a grin. He was happy for him.

Josh eventually found a rest stop after two or three miles, and called an ambulance. People were startled of his appearance, and would be more so if he told his story. Instead of helping him they might help themselves, he was injured but not demented, right? Instead he just said he needed help, and they immediately complied.

Later studies of the arm found it was very potential for cancer. He did have some minor burns, but the maggots had absorbed most of the flames by the time he got there. The hotel was funded through a puppet, meaning the only one that could be held accountable would be the manager yet he was nowhere in sight. The tape survived and so did Josh. Most importantly, his story did. Yet, the room had inflicted some damage upon him.

He was scared to death of sleeping anywhere but his own house, and he always had the light on when he slept. He was shy of showers for a while. Most of all, the dreams. He has them every night, and no matter how hard he tried he knows they will repeat. For, he did not make it. The end of his arm was still trapped in the room, and the room will forever hold a small piece of him. Just as he will forever hold a large piece of it. In a way, he was it and Room 999 was him. Upside down mirror-images of each other.

Silently, Josh put the recorder back in it's hiding space. Somewhere, someone else was entering 999. Yes, the room might not need him any more, might not even remember him clearly. He might just be a name to it. To him though, the room was everything. For a brief moment in time he had seen it's true face like Philipes had, and it was beautiful.