8

The sound of drums woke Sonny from her nap. She was back in her room on the second floor with the bathroom window over the front of the hotel. Alex had emptied her closet from her suite in the back of the hotel of everything she needed and had moved in with her. Room 237 was big and gracious, but after hearing Teddy Duncan claim that someone had died of a mob hit in the room, or that Delbert Grady had dumped the bodies of his murdered family in it, or of the woman who took her life in it, she did not want to sleep in there another night as long as she was in this hotel for the winter. She said she'd much rather take her chance with frostbite trying to walk the narrow mountain pass down to Sidewinder. Maddie and Gabriella crowded into the bed in the spare bedroom. Jessie, Kat and the other recent captives of this place had taken over other nearby rooms in the same area. Opening her eyes and lifting her head, Sonny listened for several seconds then laid her head down to the pillow once more; closing her eyes and trying to dream herself back home to Los Angeles.

The beat of drums occurred once more over her head. It was coming from upstairs in the apartment over their heads.

"Alex?" She whispered in the darkened blue darkness. "Alex…"

Alex was too deep into sleep to be wakened. From over head, Sonny could hear the drum start up again, joined by a muffled trumpet and then other instruments. It sound like a high school band practicing a marching beat. She could hear the drums, the woodwind instruments and a tuba with a steady beat starting up. It sounded like several people altogether. First thing she thought that it might have been Teddy, Stella, Keely and Lily, but they hadn't retired to rooms on the third floor. They had retreated to rooms on this floor because of the proximity to the lobby. Could one of them have got up to explore, found the instruments and encouraged the others for a late night movie session? It didn't sound likely. After Teddy's ghost stories confirmed what Kat knew about this place, no one wanted to explore this hotel without two to three others. Meanwhile, she heard the muffled pounding, the woodwinds blaring and the stomping of several feet from several people moving up and down the hallway upstairs over their heads. Didn't this noise bother anyone else?

"Alex? Alex, wake up!" Sonny turned and tried jostling the sleeping brunette in bed with her, but Alex refused to rouse from her sleep. Her lips partially apart, her head partially lolling back and forth from Sonny trying to wake her, she looked dead to the world. Sonny leapt to her feet to try waking Maddie and Gabriella, but as she did, the marching band upstairs started for the stairway, horns blasting, drums pounding and feet stomping the floor. Sonny heard them coming down the steps to her floor, and stopped outside the spare bedroom. She had to see who was waking all the noise. Her feet felt the vibration through the floor of the stomping, she heard the blaring horns getting louder as they got closer, the cymbals crashing as they came down into the open, but descending the few steps to her entry, she swung open the door expecting to see a phantom band just as the sounds stopped. The hotel drew quiet again.

Standing in the door in a white t-shirt and panties, she heard her breath passing in and out of her lips, her lungs hissing with air passing through her trachea and a light creak from her jaw muscles as she closed and parted her lips taking in her breath. It was not as spectacular a performance as the ghosts did to Gabriella, but now, Sonny realized she had a story to tell. Blinking her eyes tiredly, she turned to close the door then heard a fresh creak come from upstairs. Looking back, she heard a dull thunk followed by another creak. Another thunk followed accompanied by another creak, and Sonny looked back out to the hall…

Someone was coming down the stairs in a long dress. Sonny could see their feet taking each step through their night gown making each creak and the thunk was from the tip of a long axe whose splattered head struck each step in sync with the creak just three steps behind. Sonny watched as the figure descended low enough to reveal her identity, and finally she recognized Jessie's mottled face and drenched hair coming down in a gaze from the third floor. The front of her dress was splattered in dark blood, trace amounts littering her white zombie-like face. Passing Sonny, she looked up with a weird smile then dropped back into her trance-like state, dragging the axe behind her as she descended to the next floor. Sonny's heart was pounding faster, her widened eyes watched in cold terror unable to look away as the specter of the young Manhattan nanny drifted downstairs haunting the hotel. Stepping back, Sonny closed the door in shock and retreated back into her apartment. Her hands quickly locking and latching her door, Sonny stumbled backward up the steps to her living room and turned around in terrified shock.

Jessie had been asleep and curled up under a blanket in the large easy chair of her apartment the whole time!

"Stella, are you asleep?" Lily Truscott rested in a t-shirt and shorts in a room with Stella Malone down the hall from Sonny's apartment separated from them by the staircase and the elevator. Their apartment was a mirror copy of Sonny's with a bathroom window also perched over the front of the hotel. She was a bit worried. If she did not get back to college in time, she could lose her credits, and she wasn't sure if getting kidnapped, dragged across state lines and left to live by herself in a remote nearly inaccessible hotel in the Colorado Rockies would allow her to keep her scholarship. By her side, Stella stirred and sighed tiredly

"Kind of…" She responded.

"Do you really believe someone dumped us in this hotel just to live with ghosts for the winter?"

"I don't know."

"Why would anyone do that?"

"Someone with way too much time on their hands…" The gifted seamstress answered. "Are you really friends with Miley Stewart? Did you always know she was Hannah Montana?"

"Seriously?!" Lily lifted herself up on her arms next to her. "We've been dumped in a hotel with ghosts, and you want to ask me about my friendship with Miley?"

"I'd just rather talk about something other than ghosts."

"Well…" Lily lowered back down to her back. "Tell me about yourself… where are you from?"

"Okay…" Stella turned to her back and stared up to the faint crack crossing the ceiling of the bedroom. "Like yourself, I grew up with celebrities, Joe, Nick and Kevin Lucas of the band Jonas…" She paused briefly. "We went to Horace Mantis Academy near Teaneck, New Jersey and between school assignments I made and designed their clothes for the boys to wear to their concerts. I fell in love with Joe and we dated…"

"I liked Nick…" Lily confessed. "Miley and I once dressed up as a boy band to get close to them."

"That was you guys?" Stella had heard Joe tell that story once or twice. "You were Milo and Otis?"

"Let's just say Improv is not one our strong suits…" Lily rolled over to her side and yawned. "Miley was always dragging me into weird schemes…" Her demeanor turned depressed again. "Stella, do you think we're going to make it home?"

"We have six months here…" Stella exhaled deeply. "Maybe someone will find us before Christmas and will carry us out by helicopter so we can look back on this place and never look back…" She yawned tiredly as her mind drifted further and further away into the realm of sleep. Lily turned to her side and pulled the blankets up. Stella pulled on them too for her share, but Lily surrendered to her bit to cover herself up in bed. Tomorrow night if they were still in this place, they each get their own blanket or at least replace the bed with two twin cots. Trying to drift off, Lily listened to Stella's breathing then closed her eyes and wondered if she was listening to her breath. Holding her breath to see if it got a reaction from her, she heard the wind outside pounding on the hotel and the pitter of snow scattering on the place. It must have been getting colder and colder out there, but at least she was protected inside this creepy hotel. She then heard the creak of a faucet being turned and water running from another apartment. It sounded so close, but then she realized there shouldn't be anyone in the apartment beyond the wall. Everyone she knew about… Teddy, Alex, Keely, Sonny, Gabriella, Kat and the rest… they were either in the adjacent bedroom in this apartment or in the apartment down the hall beyond the elevator. Worst yet, the creaking faucet sounded as if it was coming from her bathroom right next to her. Stella was still next to her in bed. Who was in their bathroom?

A full-figured presence with long dark locks emerged from the bathroom door wearing a form-fitting white shirt and tight blue shorts, stopping at the end of the bed and looking back to Lily.

"Miley?" Lily lit up with a grin as her best friend strided into the living room area in her bare feet. "How did you get here?" She pushed her bedcovers aside and followed after her, stopping in the exterior room of the apartment as Miley pushed a chair over to the light fixture in the landing over the door.

"Miley, I'm so glad you're here!" Lily talked to her best friend having come to join her. "Can you take me home? There's a bunch of other girls here too, but… what are you doing?" She watched as her best friend stepped on to the chair and tied some rope to the fixture with a noose then sticking her head through it. Stella stirred after hearing Lily's voice then not finding her next to her. In front of her, Lily watched unable to react as Miley strung herself up, kicked the chair out then watched her neck stretched out by her falling body underneath. Her terrified scream resounded through the hotel as the image dissipated before her horrified eyes.

"Lily?" Hearing the screams, Stella came running just as Teddy and Keely came running. Keely struggled with a robe.

"What happened?!"

"I don't know!" They scrambled for the terrified former celebrity sidekick. Alex, Sonny, Jessie had gathered outside their apartment looking for answers.

"What happened?"

"Where'd she go?!" Stella asked urgently as Alex pointed to the stairwell and followed behind after them. Several feet ahead, Lily tore through the first floor and raced north looking for a way out of this place. Right now, she didn't care about snow or ice, but she wasn't staying in this place another second. Discovering the doorway to the parking lot, she quickly flew through the locks with her breath racing through her teeth and her heart pounding against her chest. A burst of cold wintry air hit her as she pushed the door open and raced into the cold snow covered veranda. The warmth of her body dissipated fast, her bare feet turned to numb stubs upon hitting the snow and she fell forward into the frozen icy ground. Behind her, Teddy, Alex and Sonny screeched to a stop from the cold and reacted with their natural first instinct to quickly dodge back inside into the warmth. Looking out, they saw Lily lifting herself up frozen, weeping and terrified and unprotected from the Arctic-like weather and trying to crawl to freedom. Unsure what to do, Alex and Teddy gasped and looked at each freezing inside the doors, mentally committed themselves then took deep breaths to dash out themselves barefoot and uncovered into the snow to get Lily back. The weather sliced through them just as fast. Robbing them of warmth and transforming them into shuddering, shaking and trembling masses needing rescue themselves. Maddie, Kat, Jessie and Sonny joined the frozen slumber party outside as they struggled to get each other back inside the hotel and its heated walls. Lily tried to push Alex away than go back inside the place, but Teddy suddenly found a personal wind and lifted her up on her trembling shuddering legs. If it was this bad just fifteen feet out the door, had bad would it be trying to hike down the mountain? Getting back inside took longer than it took to get outside, but looking up to the second floor, Jessie thought she saw two little girls staring out from a darkened room, holding hands and grinning as they forced Lily back into forced safety within the Overlook Hotel.