Her Sweetness: Hey, guys, here we are again. And I would like to introduce you to someone you all know so well… and someone you may not know, but I doubt it. Anyway, meet my new Beta Reader, is Miss Heidi! (Yeah, yeah, the mastermind behind Friendship Journal.)

Shameless advertising! Huzzah.

Okay, so, now that's over with, let's get this show on the road.

Motel 37

Chapter 9:

Yami grumbled and shouted Egyptian curses on his way down the hallway. He'd left the dining room less than a moment ago and the last thing he heard someone say was 'Who is he calling crazy?' Yami thought it might've been Bakura, but maybe it was Marik. He couldn't stand either one of them, so it didn't matter. They just seemed so calm when people were dropping like flies!

"…!" Then it hit Yami like a ton of bricks. If people were being murdered, then someone would have to be doing the murdering. And that meant that person would have to be in the building, right? Who ever heard of someone murdering from out in the rain? Yami gulped and thought, 'Maybe it was that voice… Maybe it was that body I felt in the hallway. Oh damn it all!'

He stopped and noticed his surroundings. While he'd been storming down the hallway, fuming mad, he wasn't afraid of anything, not even thinking about it, really. But now, just when the notion of someone being there with him, not being seen, was enough to have the boy trembling, twirling around to check every angle. Although this proved harder than he thought, candles being scarce, far and few between. And of course, now he wondered if that murderer had gotten to his Grandpa. He sincerely hoped Grandpa was somewhere, anywhere, hiding and safe.

Yami, please… Please, Yami…!

His back straightened and suddenly he was even afraid to move. But this had been what he was waiting for, right? He had to get this voice to tell him something- anything about who or what it was. Yami took in a shaky breath, turning towards the darkness that surrounded him, "W-Who… who are you…?" It sounded like more of a whimper than a question.

Bring him to me… I am…

"What?" The whisper of that voice faded and soon Yami relaxed, thinking he'd been left alone. He blinked again, he'd been distracted from what he earlier came here to do. What was it again? Oh, that's right. Yami turned around and began walking. He could've sworn that when they first came into Motel 37, he saw a payphone around here, somewhere. He ended up back at their rooms and saw a metallic box hanging from the wall, across the hallway.

He strolled over, taking a moment to try and pull a quarter out of his leather pants. "What? Oh, come on…" It was stuck for a moment, then he ripped it out with all his might, thus tearing a bit of a hole… "… No one's gonna notice that."

The quarter went in and Yami dialed his hikari's cell number.

The sun was setting on the horizon over the sparkling water. All three hikaris were currently on inline skates and rolling peacefully down the boardwalk. Ryou and Yugi decided that it would be fun to go outside and enjoy the fresh air, as nice as it was. But the real reason they wanted to go was to get Malik out of his depression. Since that remark that Yugi made about him being a 'cradle-robber', Malik had slipped into a depression pretty deep.

They decided that the only way to make him forget about that was to get him out in the open.

Yugi skated along happily and did a little twirl, Malik, on the other hand, was skating like a zombie. Ryou looked at him and nudged the blonde with his elbow, "Malik? What's wrong?"

"I am a cradle-robber…!" He moaned, holding his head.

"Oh, you are not! You can't honestly take it seriously, me and Yugi were playing!"

"I'm no better than Michael Jackson!" Malik scratched the back of his head, "But I might not get off so easy…"

"Ugh! Yugi, please, tell Malik that he is NOT a cradle-robber."

"Huh?" Yugi looked back at the two and skated into a trashcan that was as tall as he was. He did a front flip right into it, his feet sticking out of the top, the wheels still rolling, "I… I'm okay…" Came the weak voice.

"Yugi!" Ryou ran over to him and Malik helped, lifting the boy out of the garbage. He had Popsicle sticks poking out of his hair, but otherwise he was no worse than before. As Yugi smiled meekly, his pocket started to jiggle, a little jingle accompanying it. Yugi blinked and Ryou and Malik put the boy back on the ground, so he could answer it. He flipped his cell phone open, "Hello? Yami!"

"Yes, hello, Yugi." Came his hushed voice.

"Oh, you don't know how glad I am to hear from you! You know, I was really worried, are you calling from Grandpa's cell phone? Because I called earlier and it just rang and rang."

"Listen, Yugi, I have bad news… Um, we would appreciate it very much if you came and picked us up."

The boy blinked and looked at the other two hikaris. Unfortunately, they didn't notice. Ryou was too busy trying to keep Malik from jumping into the ocean and drowning himself. He turned back to the phone and asked, "Yami, why? Did something happen?"

"Ahem… Yugi, this motel we're staying at… Three people have been killed already… and Grandpa was the first to go missing."

"…….."

"… Y-Yugi? Yugi!"

The cell phone dropped to the floor of the boardwalk and Yugi fell backwards, hit the railing and almost fell into the ocean. If it wasn't for Ryou, who had one hand trying to keep Yugi up and another trying to keep Malik sane. While Malik was clawing at the open sea, screaming, "Just let me die! Let me die!", Ryou sighed and whispered, "I believe I've lost them both."

"Yugi! Yugi, are you there?"

Yami yelled into the receiver and the line went dead in less than two seconds. The last thing he heard was what sounded like Ryou, yelling at someone to get a grip on their life. And that was it. He hoped that Yugi got the message before the line went dead. He didn't know if they could survive the rest of the night.

"…" He sighed and silently banged his head on the wall, "Not good, not good, not good…!"

Suddenly, he heard some odd laughter coming from a distance. Yami 'meeped' and hid behind the payphone. Which really didn't work because the only part hidden was his head… Even his hair was sticking out.

From around the corner came Bakura and Marik talking about something (probably a dirty joke). They stopped in their tracks and saw a leather body, minus the head, with points of red and black and blonde sticking out from a black and silver payphone.

Bakura rolled his eyes and tiptoed over, Marik behind him and stifling his giggles. Bakura grinned when he peeked around the black box and saw Yami, eyes shut, knees knocking and holding his breath. The Tomb Robber waved Marik over and they counted mutely, 1, 2, 3…!

"BOO!"

"AAAHHH!" Yami screamed and ran… smack into a wall.

Marik shook his head in pity, "… This is too sad to even laugh at."

"Huh….?" Yami blinked a few times and looked up, seeing a blurry Marik and Bakura starring down at him. He scrambled to his feet and jerked his head from side to side, "H-Hey, did you guys see anything around here? I swear, something just came and scarred the living daylights out of me!"

"That was US you idiot!" They shouted at him.

"… What?" Yami tilted his head, "Why would you do something so mean!"

"Because you're stupid!"

"Am not!"

"Are too!"

"Am not!"

"Are…" Before the boys finished their sentence, their heads went drifting to the side, looking at something apparently interesting on Yami.

He looked down at himself, "What?"

"Your butt is showing." Bakura pointed out and Marik nodded in agreement.

"Oh." Yami twisted around and, indeed, where he had ripped his pants earlier, there was an exposition of pale flesh, "Oh, yeah. I ripped these damned things with a quarter."

"You know, Malik could make those like brand new." Marik said.

Yami looked up, "Yeah? I saw him do a pair of spandex on this fat man before, so leather wouldn't surprise me. He's talented."

"Yeah, I guess. But I don't need fat man-spandex talents, I need world dominating talents."

He laughed, "Everything's useful."

Marik nodded.

"STOP!" Bakura's eyes were wide as he starred at the two, gasping for breath and grasping at his heart. "What the hell was that?"

"What?" They asked in unison.

"You two actually had a civilized conversation! Without fighting!"

Silence followed as the two boys starred at each other.

Marik was the first to turn away and fake-gagged, "No way! I did no such thing!"

"Neither did I!" Yami faced the other way as well, "That's just sick and disturbing!"

"Yeah, well you suck!"

"You suck even more!"

"… There we go." Bakura sighed, contently, "Back to our happy family."

"SHUT UP!"

Somewhere in Motel 37, on the other side of the building was a room. Due to the flood that happened earlier in the day, this particular room was covered in about three to five inches of water. There was something in that room that stirred. Someone in that room that moved his elbow slightly to the left, and off of his knee. It slipped and he fell with a thud onto the linoleum floor. "Oomph!" He cried, his face a brilliant red from the smack of the hard floor, though the water took most of the hurt away.

He blinked furiously and looked around, "W-Where am I?" The old man recognized his surroundings almost immediately and remembered what had happened. He'd gone to the bathroom after helping that Shivers fellow out in the kitchen the other day and fell asleep on the toilet. Of course, there was nothing to be ashamed of. That's what happens when there is no good reading material in a public bathroom.

He pulled his pants up and waded through the water, opening the door. Blinking, he'd forgotten how dark it was in this awful place. He stepped out of the bathroom and into the hallway, only one candle was visible, mounted on the wall. Thinking he might need it to get back to his and Yami's room, he took it and started down the dark hallway.

Not going very far at all, his travels were interrupted by voices. 'Hey, maybe that's one of the boys!' He thought and followed the sound. This mysterious voice led him to an even darker hallway with one door cracked open. He peeked in just a tad and saw that Shivers fellow with another man, talking, in a rather large room, surrounded by books.

"… But, sir, didn't the short Dark boy say he was calling out somewhere and they were going home?" Said the man, standing by Shivers' large chair.

"No. Even if they did call out, due to this weather, there's no way anyone could get out here before tomorrow. It's going to happen tonight, I can feel it."

"How do you know?"

"I have a feeling Mr. Motou has been hearing It. That's why he's so frazzled. But there's no way we're letting this one go, he's perfect."

"But, Mr. Marik might not-"

Shivers smirked, "Trust me, this time it's going to be different. Marik won't get out of here; he's the one we need."

The old man outside the door, blinked and wondered just what they meant by that. He decided it couldn't be good, not good at all. Speed walking away, he hopped that he could tell Yami and the others what he heard in time.