(Okay, lemme take a little time to explain what's going on. For Halloween, I'm making a genuinely scary story. This will be continued in several more chapters, and it's going to be a sort of satire of Scooby-Doo.)

Hunter, Spyro, Akiro, and Elora ran back to the girl's room. "Bianca! Is the water that cold?" asked Elora. No answer. She went inside the bathroom. "Oh....my...." she barley had the words out of her mouth when the others came in. The room was virtually untouched. The water was still running, and the curtains were still. On the floor was a plushie that looked exactly like Bianca. On the mirror were two words. 'Hound Dog'.

"Can anyone make sense of this?" asked Elora, at the same time when Sabina walked in carrying an armload of plushies. "Make sense of what? OOO! LOOK! A Bianca plushie! I wanna see!" she squealed, dropping her load. Elora grabbed her tail as she ran past, making Sabina do this really interesting flip.

"Sabina! It's not a Bianca plushie!" Elora snapped. Sabina picked it up. "Well, what is it then?"

"Isn't it obvious?" asked Hunter. "Someone's trying to tell us something!" he paused dramatically. Spyro blinked. "By replacing Bianca with a plushie that looks exactly like her and writing Hound Dog on the mirror? What's that supposed to tell us?" he asked.

There was a moment of silence, and then a knock on the door. "I'll get it." said Akiro. He opened the door. The tall balding guy was standing there. "I heard some noise." He said slowly. "I trust you are finding your stay enjoyable?"

"No, it's not that enjoyable at all." shouted Spyro. "We wanna talk to the manager!"

"I am the manager."

"Oh." Spyro paused. "Yeah, I got a complaint. Bianca disappeared, and I'm pretty sure it has something to do with this hotel." he said. The guy nodded. "Very well." he proceeded in his slow speech. "I'll do all I can to help."

"Okay, good." Spyro said. He turned to Hunter. "Hear that Hunter? We'll get Bianca back in no time." he turned back to the man, who had vanished.

"How does he do that?"

They all left the bathroom and went and sat on the beds. "Now, what should we do first?" asked Spyro. Everyone thought hard. "I know!" exclaimed Hunter, setting the Bianca plushie on the dresser. "We should search for clues and figure out who did this and why!"

"Good idea!" said Akiro. "Let's see. Bianca's gone, the fiend replaced her with a plushie, the shower is still on, and the words 'Hound Dog' were written on the mirror in lipstick. What does that tell us?"

"Not much except this guy likes to waste water and lipstick." suggested Sabina. "Maybe we should look closer."

They all went back into the bathroom. "Check this out!" yelled Hunter. He pointed to the open tube of lipstick. On it was a clearly visible fingerprint. "But that doesn't help." said Elora. "We don't have any way to analyze it!"

There was a bright flash of lightning and the lights went off. "AAAA!" shrieked Elora. They bumped around in the darkness. "Wait!" shouted Spyro. "Everyone hold hands!" He grabbed the first two hands he felt flailing around in the dark.

"Something touched me!" squealed Sabina. Spyro felt something glide past him. "What was that?" he exclaimed. Suddenly, the lights came on again. "Is everyone here?" asked Elora. They looked around.

Sabina was gone!

On the hardwood floor was a Sabina plushie. Traced in the dust were the words 'Heartbreak Hotel' "She's gone!" wailed Akiro. Elora dashed to the phone. "Okay, I've had enough of this, I'm calling the manager. She listened into the receiver. "The phone's dead!"

"Great, now we gotta go downstairs." muttered Spyro. "Hunter, get the plushies. They're evidence." Hunter picked up both plushies and Akiro and Spyro went and got their flashlights. They were ready. The hallway was lit very dimly as they walked down it. Only a few of the light bulbs hadn't been burned out yet. They stayed close together. "This place is starting to give me the creeps." whispered Elora. "If the phones weren't dead I'd have called the cops by now."

They went on down the hallway until they came to a fork. Hunter looked down both ways of it. "Does anyone remember which way we came in?" No one answered.

"Let's split up." suggested Spyro. "Whoever finds the stairs yells for the others." Elora quickly slid up to him. "I'm going with you."

"Fine with me." Spyro said. "We'll go right, and you guys go left." Hunter and Akiro went down the left fork of hallway. Elora and Spyro continued on down the right fork. "Do you think the stairs are going to be this way?" Elora whispered nervously. Spyro shone his flashlight around the hallway. Old, deteriorating, dusty furniture adorned with cobwebs lined the hall. Nothing could be seen beyond the beam of light. "I'm not sure." he admitted.

Meanwhile Hunter and Akiro were going down their section of hallway. "Man, it is dusty in here!" Hunter exclaimed softly. "No wonder no one ever comes here."

"Let's change the subject." said Akiro. "I want to get my mind as far away from here as I can."

"Okay. What's the difference between a cobweb and a spider web?"

"Not helping..."

Then Hunter saw something. He shone his light on it. "Hey! Look! It's the stairs." he announced. Akiro went and peered down the stairwell. "Yep, those are stairs allright."

Hunter turned around. "Hey, guys!" he called. "We found the staaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!"

"Hunter!" shouted Akiro as he turned around. The flashlight flew back and hit him in the face. "Ow, Hunter!" He fumbled around for the light and grabbed it. Akiro whipped the flashlight around, looking. Suddenly, he spotted something on the floor. It was a Hunter plushie. Written in red beside it was the word 'Surrender'.

(Sorry this took so long to update. I had problems uploading this. The next chapter will be posted tomorrow, so stay tuned!)