Mark

Lobby

20:45pm | October 27

Mark awoke groggy with a pounding headache and on the cold floor. 'I must have fallen out of bed' his mind reasoned. The very last thing he remembered was crashing after a late night with Kate and Murray. Hell, the sun had been coming up by the time he'd collapsed in bed since he and Kate had thrown themselves into another one of their arguments. His vision was blurry so he blinked rapidly as he rolled onto his stomach and pushed himself up onto his knees only to fall back on his ass as dizziness tried to overtake him.

"Aw fuck, what the hell did I drink last night?"

Then his brown eyes glanced around and his heart dropped into his stomach. This wasn't Mark's apartment, this was a place he'd never wanted to see again. Those brown eyes went wide and shot to full alertness because he knew the lobby was the entrance to Hell.

"No! No-no-no, this isn't real, this cant be real! Fuck no!"

He backed up like a skittish cat until he slammed into the reception desk hitting his head hard enough to prove himself away. The nightmare was real. Sconces flickered as Mark snapped his head around in a panicked search for the murderous madman known as Du'Met but Mark was all alone in the creepy lobby. The cops hadn't ever found his body despite searching the whole area and, for some strange reason, Mark had never fully believed that anchor had killed the masked man. That anchor should have killed him. Why hadn't the anchor killed him? Another type of panic flooded his veins then – Kate. Mark had been with Kate, they'd gone to the party, argued over her using their survival as a way to get ahead especially with the anniversary hanging over them, then gone to bed angry. Where was she?

Mark shot to his feet, something his dizzy head didn't appreciate. "Kate?! Kate, where are you?!"

If Du'Met had taken him then he had to have taken Kate as well. The photographer tried several doors but they were all locked and when he started up the stairs he stopped in his tracks upon seeing what they'd originally chalked up to some weird gimmick now say 211. It had registered 180 the last time he'd seen it which meant Du'Met had killed thirty-one people since Lonnit Entertainment had escaped. Well, thirty, Charlie hadn't been so lucky.

"I never should have listened to Erin." He sighed. "What sort of sound engineer can't tell a conversation was faked?"

No, Mark couldn't dwell on Charlie's death now, not when he needed to find Kate. He took a few steps more up the stairs only for Kate's voice to pull him back down them.

"Mark?! Mark, is that you?"

He rushed across the lobby, through the door – 'weren't there steps there before?' - and burst into the bar just as Kate rose from the floor with her head in her hands. Kate was clearly just as groggy as Mark but that didn't stop the dark-skinned man hugging her tight.

"Can't breathe."

"Sorry, sorry." He released her. "Just glad to see you."

"What happened? Pease tell me we aren't where I think we fucking are."

What would be for the best: tell her the truth, say nothing or try to reassure her? To be honest none of his options looked good.

"It's Du'Met." Confessed Mark. "He did this. He's got us again somehow." He raked a hand down his face. "I don't know how he's even alive but it's fucking him, Kate."

"So what the hell is this?" Demanded the redhead as she threw her arms up gesturing to the dimly lit bar stocked almost entirely with whiskey. "Revenge?"

Before either could make another utterance they heard a thud and a muffled scream come from across the hall inside the restaurant. Neither thought, they just rushed through the double doors to find the mannequins Du'Met had meticulously designed to mimic them arranged around the dining table as they had been a year earlier, but, more importantly, Jamie and Erin were there looking just as confused and groggy as Mark and Kate had. Erin had likely been the one to scream and now had her hands over her mouth to prevent another escaping.

Jamie cocked an eyebrow at her former collogues. "Mark? Kate? What's happening?"

"It's Du'Met." Announced Kate almost before Jamie had finished her question. "That bastard fucking kidnapped us again."

"How?" Jamie thrust a finger out at Mark. "You said he was dead. You said he was impaled on a goddamn anchor."

Part of Mark wanted to snap at Jamie as she pulled her girlfriend close to comfort her, but he decided to be diplomatic about it instead.

"I thought he was, okay? I – I saw it go in his chest. I have no idea how he could have survived that but he must have."

"He's the horror movie villain, Mark. You think he's dead and then before the credits he pops back up ready for the sequel."

"This can't be happening. It can't be happening."

Erin fretted while Jamie continued to rub at her shoulders in an effort to calm her down, and that was what got Kate to quit her snark about horror films and take a proper look at the terrified younger woman.

"Is she okay?"

"She'll be fine. After we got out Erin was having a real hard time. Her therapist is helping though. She was getting better every day and -"

Suddenly Erin started struggling to breath as an asthma attack took hold, but when Jamie rooted around in Erin's jean pockets, the inhaler was nowhere to be found. They all started to search around for it because if Du'Met had gone to the extensive trouble of tracking them all down for round two, or whatever the fuck this was, he wouldn't want Erin to die from something as simple as an asthma attack: he hadn't the first time. Sure enough Mark located it quickly sat beside the gramophone and gave it to Jamie who automatically pressed it into Erin's hand so she could take a puff. With nothing else they could do, the three just watched and waited for Erin to calm down. The whole time Jamie essentially stood guard over her girlfriend and when it seemed as though the asthma attack had ended sympathetic words poured out of Kate's mouth.

"I didn't realize she struggled so much after – after everything."

Jamie glared at the redhead. "Well you wouldn't, would you? You were too busy trying to get a book deal or a reality show off of everyone's suffering like the self-centred bitch you've always been. Me and Erin had assholes pounding on our door all year because every single time things started to die down, you stirred it all back up to get back in front of a fucking camera."

"No I didn't-"

Mark cut in swiftly to play the voice of reason. "Please, let's not do this. Du'Met is the enemy, not each other. We need to stick together right now. We all got away from him before."

"Not everyone." Whispered the sound engineer sorrowfully and they all paused to think of Charlie.

Guilt had been what haunted Erin, not spotting that the recorded conversation between her boss and Du'Met was a fake had truly weighed on her heavily. Constant nightmares of Charlie fashioned into one of those godforsaken animatronics dripping blood and screaming at her 'why did you kill me' over and over again. Her therapist had tossed around much medical jargon including the term 'survivor's guilt' but Erin knew the truth and it had eaten away at her, it had done more damage than all of Du'Met's traps and trauma. For the others Du'Met had been a common nightmare which had only intensified as the anniversary approached, but Erin had mentally punished herself for causing Charlie's demise, that had been her nightmare.

"We need to think about this logically," began Kate to end the silence. "We know what he wants and we know how he operates. He'll try luring us into traps again and again just to get himself off. He thinks he's smart but we've outsmarted him once already. He tried to kill us and we handed him his ass so we can sure as shit do it again!"

"All right, get the fuck down off your soap box."

Erin grabbed Jamie's hand for comfort. "Could we go sit in the bar until we figure out what to do next, please? I can't look at those things any longer."

"That's a good idea," agreed Mark as he waggled a finger loosely at Erin. "We aren't getting thrown into this blind this time around, we can actually make a proper plan."

So that was what they did, they moved to the bar and awkwardly sat down for a few minutes as they quietly discussed what to do in a huddle so Du'Met wouldn't be able to listen in, then, because something about the hotel just hadn't been sitting right with her, Jamie left for a few moments only to return swearing under her breath.

Mark's brow furrowed deeply. "What? What is it?"

"He's got another fucking one. Two! He has two of the damn things!"

"Two of what?"

"Hotels, Kate. He has two fucking hotels. Look around you, actually look. The restaurant looked different, there aren't any steps between the lobby door leading down here and the hallway, the lobby looks pretty spot on but there were two doors between the stairs and the reception desk and now there are three. This isn't the same hotel as before. He built a second one."

"No." Erin shook her head emphatically. "No, wha- how would he even do that? Just build another hotel, that's impossible, right?"

"We figured out he was rich as all fucking hell last time, he must have used that."

"Or, Mark, maybe he has these murder boxes set up all over the fucking country and is hopping between them for shits and giggles."

Things fell silent after that for a few minutes as they all tried to get their thoughts and heart rates back in order.

Mark hated that he'd listened to Erin about their boss, Charlie was many things but he hadn't been a murderer. Unlike Erin though, instead of blaming himself, Mark had blamed Erin for the whole thing. He'd deflected the responsibility of it because, if he hadn't, he'd have broken just like she had. Out of the whole team, Charlie had only deemed Mark to be a friend and Mark knew that so he'd pushed away his guilt selfishly.

"If this is a different hotel then it's on a different island, you know the cops guard it like a hawk ever since we got out."

"So?" Demanded Kate which got an eye-roll from Jamie.

"So, everything we thought we knew about this place isn't true. Layout, traps, terrain, it's all different. Oh, and I bet there's no lighthouse, he wouldn't let me pull that again."

Erin threw her hands up. "So what do we do? Just sit here?"

"Actually that might not be so bad."

"The fuck are you talking about, Kate?"

"No, Jamie, just listen." The redhead shuffled forward in her seat a little. "What if we just refuse to move from this room? We just don't play his games."

The black woman sighed deeply. "Okay, I see your point but if we sit around here isn't Du'Met just going to come down here and kill us anyway?"

"And when he does there are four of us and one of him."

"Kate, as much as I want to agree with you and just not play his games-" She glared at Mark but he persisted. "He knows there are more of us than there is of him. He knows that and he'll have thought about how to deal with the situation if we do that. We'd just be sitting ducks."

"Well, we can't play his games!" Erin yelped. "Last time we did, Charlie died."

"He never should have insisted we took up Du'Met's offer in the first place. He got himself killed."

"That's not fair, Kate, and you know it."

Kate sighed and folded her arms over her chest, she had the common courtesy to actually look apologetic.

"You're right, I'm sorry."

Silence lingered again for several moments before they heard the bell on the reception desk ring and that noise sent shivers down their collective spines. Each one of them glanced around at the other three as if to quietly confirm they'd all heard the bell but, as the practical one, it was Jamie who eventually led the group back to the lobby. As far as Mark and Jamie could tell, nothing had been added or removed since they'd both poked around in there but that didn't mean they'd let their guards down. Erin stuck close to Jamie while Kate glanced upward to confirm Du'Met hadn't decided to lurk on the balcony level.

"Bastard!" Growled Mark when he finally noticed the piece of paper that had been tucked underneath the bell.

"What is it?" Erin queried quietly.

They all turned their attention to the slip of paper which read 'welcome back' in Du'Met's recognizable handwriting. Erin rushed back to the door leading to the bar and restaurant but found it locked.

"We can't just escape this time." Jamie whispered again so Du'Met couldn't overhear them. "We can't just get out and call the cops. We have to kill him. We have to make sure he's dead this time because otherwise he'll keep doing this."

"She's right, we have to."

"Fucking hell, if me and Kate are agreeing then we must be fucked."

The extra door between the stairs and the reception desk fell open then as the magnetic lock released, and the four stared at the dark stairs beyond suspiciously. This was Du'Met's game but unlike all the other people who'd played it over the years, they knew the rules and would beat him again. They'd survive him again, and this time they'd not lose anybody.

~X~

Du'Met watched them inspect the doorway once he'd returned to the nerve centre after placing the note and ringing the bell. They'd tried to hide their conversations from him but he'd still heard most of it. They wanted to kill him, did they? Well, they'd tried before and failed so he doubted round two would be any different.

As anticipated, Kate had already started to alienate herself from the others and Erin had hardly released Jamie since they'd woken up. Then there was poor Mark, the only man amidst an ocean of women who didn't like one another; had he been the sort for mercy, Du'Met might have felt bad for him.

The four of them didn't know it but those mannequins hadn't been the same ones as before. He'd packed up the clothing he'd used before and brought it to the second castle with Charlie's aid, but the mannequins themselves were new, an ultimately pointless detail he supposed but Du'Met liked to be precise. He'd only been able to take so much when he'd fled the first castle, he'd been working with a time limit and the boat was only so big after all, but he'd managed to bring almost all of his irreplaceable items thanks to Charlie kindly providing a second pair of hands. Du'Met could still remember handcuffing his phoenix to that steamer trunk all that time ago and, while he still liked the idea of cuffing his boy to something, such bindings weren't needed to keep Charlie behaved any longer, just head pats and love. The occasional root beer didn't hurt things either. Speaking of root beer, Du'Met grumbled internally when he notice an empty bottle left haphazardly beside the control panel. He supposed he'd let the annoyance slide this time since Charlie had been quite so distracted all day. Du'Met straightened his latex gloves, grabbed the empty bottle and went to toss it down in the glass trap before he got to hunting.

~X~

Jamie

Basement Stairs

21:22pm | October 27

With a complex combination of trepidation, anger and irritation, Jamie led the way down the narrow stairs with one hand in Erin's and the other wrapped tightly around the keychain flashlight she'd had hooked to her belt. Regretfully, part of Jamie thought she should have been thankful to Du'Met for not taking it away. The lighting tech had done her very best to bury what had happened inside Du'Met's hotel of horrors, she'd tried to be strong for Erin and keep them going. A year, it had been an entire year and they'd been doing fairly well. They'd cut ties with Kate and Mark mostly to avoid Kate's ambition and urge for fame off the back of their harrowing story – fuck, because of Kate they'd had reporters and serial killer groupies on their doorstep for months. Things had finally gotten better, Erin had been a little more like her old self each day and Jamie had managed to land a decent job with reasonably good pay. The damn anniversary though, she'd not known what to expect of it but being kidnapped a second time hadn't been it; at most she thought she'd get woken up every half hour by her girlfriend's nightmares. She shook her head, there would be time for those thoughts later, there and then surviving Du'Met's sick game was of the upmost importance.

Jamie paused before she reached the bottom of the steps and made sure there wasn't any trap door waiting to swallow one or more of them up, pleased there wasn't they all moved further into the tiny prick room lid with a red light, and, as soon as they did, the door to the lobby slammed shut making them all jump.

"God, I hate that fucking asshole and his games."

"Preaching to the choir, Jamie." Muttered Mark as he carefully inspected the closed metal door opposite the stairs. He tried the handle. "It's locked."

"… Is that a key?" Erin extended a shaky finger out toward a key hook which did in fact have a silver key hanging from it.

When Jamie grabbed it she saw the fob read 'prison key' which was rather ominous but she paid that no mind, the whole hotel was a prison. Sure enough the key opened the door and the group found themselves in a set of fairly narrow brick hallways lit sporadically with overhead red lights. The floors were dusty and scuffed, a horrid chill lingered in the air and every little noise echoed like a violent cacophony. Brown eyes turned to her right to find the hall had been blocked by several heavy crates filled with fuck knew what that they'd not be getting passed.

"The left it is then."

"God, I keep expecting him to just jump the fuck out with that damn ax again."

"Not helping, Kate!" Erin shrieked.

Mark paused in the hallway then which had Kate bump into the back of him while Jamie and Erin turned to face him.

"Hey, guys, I just had a thought. Em, are we sure it is actually Du'Met doing this? I mean, what if he had like a protégé or something? I saw that anchor go into his chest, I know what I said earlier, but could he actually have lived through that?"

Jamie could have been kinder about it, but she let her fear and anger snap at her former colleague instead. "A protégé? A protégé, really? Are you fucking serious?"

"Mark, he'd never let somebody in on his work." Kate said while putting that masters in criminal psychology to good use. "He's a loner, doesn't do well with people. He wouldn't ever train somebody to be like him because he thinks people are beneath him so no one could ever take his place. No, it's him, Mark, it has to be him and only him."

"Okay, okay, it was just a thought."

With that moment over, they slowly continued down the dark hallway until they reached another door. Unlike the last, this door swung open easily and left them practically blinded by the strong florescent lights that lit the storage room. Confused they looked around wondering where the trap was or what the hell Du'Met was trying to get them to do. The shelves were crammed with random stuff like paint brushes, rags, various broken pieces of plastic sat in crates and all manner of other bits of junk. On the floor over in the corner by yet another door were even some acetylene canisters.

Since she knew she'd have to, and since Jamie had chosen to be the brave one, she pushed open the new door by the canisters only for her brow to furrow deeply. There were even more canisters on the other side of the door and a few wooden boxes, but what really caught her attention was the cell crammed into the corner. A small thing best described as a slightly generous prison cell, and suddenly the fob on the key made sense because, curled up at one end of a cot which only just fitted in the space, reading a dog-tired paperback, was someone she'd thought dead.

"… Charlie?"