Harrison Hightower disappeared in an event that had everyone talking.
His servant, Archibald Smelding, and the reporter Manfred Strang had investigated the disappearance.
Smelding was inconsolable.
Strang heard rumours about the Shiriki Utundu idol Hightower had stolen. Mainly that it was cursed. He was adamant the idol cursed Hightower, but couldn't prove anything either way.
Until twelve years later.
When he heard the New York Preservation Society was trying to revive the Hotel Hightower, he raged in his office, got on his typewriter, and typed out an article calling for the hotel's demolition. He didn't ordinarily believe in curses, but what he saw that night made him think twice.
A few impassioned arguments between him and Beatrice Rose Endicott, the head of the New York Preservation Society, later, led Strang back to the spot it all happened.
He got a weird feeling walking around the abandoned hotel, but 'a feeling' was not enough to suggest, or prove, a curse.
He poked around the penthouse with Beatrice. That's where he found it - the cursed idol. The Shiriki Utundu. He got a bit closer to it when the phone started to ring.
Which was strange, since the hotel had been derelict for over a decade.
Still he answered it.
Strang didn't recognise the voice.
The Shiriki Utundu idol opened its eyes. Its glowing green eyes.
The same glow from that New Year's Eve night.
Strang recognised the voice on the phone as Harrison Hightower's, warning him to leave now or be damned by the idol as he was.
He dropped the phone - he didn't hear the rest of the warning because he didn't want to stay there longer than necessary.
He grabbed Beatrice by the wrist and bolted as fast as he could out of Hightower's penthouse, a green glow following behind.
A/N
This is the whole plot of the Tokyo Disneyland Tower of Terror. They don't have the Twilight Zone one there. It has a much better storyline than the Twilight Zone one, I think. It's about a dude stealing an idol from a Congolese tribe and getting cursed by it. The Twilight Zone one just has a lift being struck by lightning. Where's the imagination there? Come on.