What he saw forced a drawn breath. Indistinct, humanoid forms were scaling up the side of the building towards him. He couldn’t make out the shapes of what they were, but he saw what looked like beady, cherry-red eyes set in gelatinous, obsidian flesh. There were dozens of the things lurching up towards him.

  The Broker could be heard laughing quietly through the speaker box. Elijah pulled away from the edge and ran over to the stair enclosure, kicking the door in and charging down the stairs. He thought of nothing but descending away from the roof and those things. Even though he only scaled down a single flight of stairs, when he reached the door at the bottom of the well, the number ‘6’ was painted on the door.

  ‘Where was the seventh floor?’ he thought, but he didn’t have time to tarry.

  Moving through the door back onto the sixth floor, he found himself in a nondescript hallway. The carpet was dyed in dull wine adorned with generic floral patterns. The plastered beige walls featured Art Deco flourishes in the baseboards and crown moldings.

  There were several doors lining the corridor. It was a hotel, after all. He began to wonder about the mechanics of the place. Was he the only one being harassed? He ran up to one of the doors and knocked on it. The worst that could happen is that he might interrupt a couple mid-coitus or wake a drunk out of a sound sleep. It was worth the risk.

  He knocked again. Nothing.

  “Hey! You in there! Open up!” he exclaimed. Then, he listened quietly for any ruckus on the other side of the door.

  “Shy neighbors aren’t much fun, are they, Mr. Crowe?” the Broker asked through a speaker box a bit further down the hallway.

  Elijah ignored the attempt to vex and opted to pound his fist into the door. Nothing. He ran over to a door on the opposite side of the corridor and banged on it.

  “Building’s on fire! Open up! Life or death situation, buddy! You in there?” he yelled desperately, but there was no response.

  “My house, my rules. Carry on, good sir. Find your way down.”

  Elijah ground his teeth, seething through the skin. “When I find you…”

  The Broker chuckled. “That’s the last thing you want.”

  Composing himself against the obvious needling, he noticed a painting hanging on the wall beside the door. It was the kind of art intended to fill a space and not elicit any specific emotions. A generic landscape. Trees, a blue sky and a brilliant sun. A horrible suggestion entered his mind. He closed his eyes and turned his head away from the painting. Opening his eyes and looking back at it, he was shocked. The daytime landscape had flipped nocturnal. The sun was replaced by a moon.

  Elijah staggered away—overcome in incredulity—and ran down the hall until he came upon another door. This time, rather than knock, he opted to turn the knob. It wasn’t hot like the first time and the door opened. Beyond the door was a simple room like the one he awoke in with a door directly across from him. His nerves danced on edge and sweat pooled in cold beads on his forehead as he dashed across the room seeking the other door knob. As he emerged through the doorframe, he found himself in another corridor indistinguishable from the one he’d just left.

  “What is this?” Elijah asked breathlessly, eyes glazed over.

  “I told you, there’s only one way out: down,” the Broker’s voice resonated through another speaker box fitted in the crown molding in the wall directly across from Elijah.

  Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

  On the verge of panic, he scrambled back the way he came and when he went through the open door, hoping to find the painting with the nighttime landscape, he discovered it was no longer there and neither was the door beside it. In fact, the corridor ended and emptied into another that ran perpendicular. The entire floor-plan had changed in mere moments. His brain instinctively tried to calculate with a linear logic to bring order to the madness that surrounded him, but he was left completely perplexed.

  Pondering the endless labyrinthine tomb he’d found himself in, a low sound perpetuated in the distance. Almost imperceptible at first, the sound gained in volume and intensity; it resembled a heavy sack being dragged across the floor. He loosely pinpointed its origin and wandered out of the room into the hallway to pursue it. Running up to the edge of the corridor, he peeked around the corner.

  The elongated, intersecting hallway seemed to stretch far beyond the physical limits of such a building, but something else perplexed Elijah. Something was moving rapidly down the corridor and heading towards him. At first it looked like a rushing tidal wave that encompassed the dimensions of the hallway, but it was an unnatural, lush red. A wall of flesh-colored mass was careening rapidly down the entirety of the corridor, smothering the wall sconces lining the plaster walls in sections and blotting out their light. Within seconds, Elijah was able to discern details on the horrifying thing. The face of this flesh wall flexed large, pearl-colored fangs which sprouted forward and wreathed a textured, slimy maw which spewed translucent saliva.

  The realization of what he was watching surged down his back like a lightning bolt. The hairs on the back of his neck straightened and he stumbled from the wall. Sensing that this rushing mass of flesh wasn’t slowing down, he spun around to return through the door he’d just walked through, but it wasn’t there. Where the door was, a framed painting of a flower had replaced it. The rumble of the approaching flesh reached a fever pitch, shaking the building around him. It shook with some ferocity that the walls vibrated and powdered plaster shook free as Elijah was thrown to the ground. He finally pulled his pistols from their holsters and aimed them towards the end of the hallway, waiting for hell to arrive. The flesh wall suddenly hurtled past, revealing itself to be more like a train car made entirely of skinless sinew, an elongated, worm-like creature that undulated and pulsed, moving with an unstoppable fervor.

  Seeing it sweep by, seemingly unaware of his presence, gave Elijah a moment to seek refuge. He popped to his feet and charged down the hall behind him. As he neared the end of the corridor, the flesh train rumbled past through that intersecting corridor. He didn’t know if it was circling him like a shark or slithering about randomly. Both possibilities terrified him.

  He opted to round the corner, going in the opposite direction the creature had just hurtled through. He found that several doors lined both sides of this particular corridor. Part of him felt a spate of confidence that he’d evaded the monster; a smirk crept onto his lips thinking he was figuring out the madhouse. The hallway through which he ran seemed to stretch on forever like the others.

  Elijah peeked behind him to ensure the fanged maw of the creature hadn’t circled back, but it was when he turned forward again that the view tightened his heart...

  It was straight ahead!

  The hungry train of insatiable flesh was coming again. It had circled around to retread its recent route. Looking to the closest door on his right, he curved towards it and went to turn its knob, but the door wouldn’t open. He swung a heavy kick into it but no luck. Seeing the speeding train of death bearing down towards him, he gave a final, powerful kick that threw the door inward, but it emptied into a void! There was no time to think; Elijah leapt, snatching at the top of the door and hanging from it as the snapping worm roared past the open doorframe. Elijah looked down, realizing the door had opened to the outside of the building and there was a sixty-foot-odd drop to the street below. Impossible, but “impossible” was being redefined on a moment-by-moment basis now. He stretched his foot to touch the edge of the floor and pulled himself back inside.

  Not wanting to risk sprinting down this particular hallway, he tried for the closest door. Luckily the knob turned and he pushed it open. Another plastered passageway identical to the others revealed itself. This time, however, a descending stairway was just across the way, a few long paces away. But as he took a step towards it, he noticed that accursed bore-worm rushing in from the right. With all the courage he could muster, he tore off for the stairwell, leaping in the last stride, tumbling into the stairwell as the beast barreled ahead behind the fallen Elijah.

  Elijah heard it rumble away through the hotel, the sound lessening as it moved further away. He loosened up and rested his head against one of the stairs, closing his eyes and breathing deeply.

  “Hmm, congratulations, Mr. Crowe,” the Broker’s voice piped in through a speaker box in the stairwell. “The fifth floor has some surprises of its own. The game persists. Are you game?”

  Elijah sat up and stood, yanking his weapons from their holsters as he cautiously descended the stairs. “Yeah.”