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  As we neared the beach, I saw dark, slumped forms emerging from the water. Dozens of skeletons and corpses in varying states of decay were invading the island, all draped with the creeping seaweed. I believe they were people who had died on boats or in the kelp forest over the years. No doubt Yagdolak had taken many of their souls. Many of them wore the remains of scuba outfits. One was so fresh that a few ragged shreds of intestines still dangled from a ragged tear in the abdominal cavity.

  It was lucky that I still held the machete. As Emerald and I hurried toward the dock where the boat was moored, many of the undead things rushed our way. The machete made short work of their rotted neckbones. Once their heads were chopped off, their putrefying bodies fell harmlessly to the ground.

  When I returned to civilization, I checked in at a top clinic for the treatment of cancer. I decided not to give up on myself, even though my doctors had said there was no hope for me.

  All that was seven years ago, so apparently those doctors were wrong. The chemotherapy wasn’t easy, but it was better than dying. And after all, I had already fought a hideous sea-thing and an undead horde. Any other challenge would seem like child’s play after that.

  I haven’t returned to the island yet, and I’m not sure I ever will. I don’t want to sell it: I’d be selling any new owner the creature as well. I still need to figure out what to do with it.

  But in the meantime, the ocean looks lovely tonight. Serene.

  And yes, serenity can be deceiving. All oceans are beautiful, but their depths can conceal nightmares. Something horrible lurks in the Pacific, deep down in that kelp forest off the coast of California. That’s why I now live near the beach in Florida.

  This stretch of the Atlantic holds no kelp forests.

  The Nightmare In Delapore Tower

  by Mark McLaughlin & Michael Sheehan, Jr.

  On July 16, 2016, I checked into Delapore Tower.

  Every time I need to finish one of my novels, I gather up my laptop and all my notebooks and check into a hotel for a week. My notebooks are filled with ideas, outlines, and chapters written on my lunch-hour at the ad agency, at the laundromat, and while I’m watching TV. Most people I know are surprised that I write books and still hold down a full-time job. They think it must be impossible, but it can be done. And when it’s time to type up the chapters, I use my vacation time to do it. I’ve written eleven published books that way.

  The book I was writing at the time was a horror novel set during the Great Plague in London, which took place from 1665 to 1666. It had required a great deal of research, and all of the facts I’d uncovered were written up in my notebooks. It was clear that the project would require a great deal of concentration, so I’d decided to check into Delapore Tower, a high-rise hotel that could see to my every need, giving me all the time I required. I checked into a room on the twelfth floor, so that I wouldn’t be distracted by traffic noises. The building was a lot higher, but I didn’t want to spent forever riding up and down in elevators.

  As with all my books, the reward for completion of the project was waiting for me: an expensive bottle of brandy in my suitcase. I’ve always thought that a man should be rewarded for a job well done. If I decided to reward myself … why not?

  The first day of my stay was especially productive. The room’s decor was a study in beige, and I hid the remote so I wouldn’t be tempted to watch TV. I ate light meals and ordered plenty of coffee. The only thing that occasionally ruffled me was a slight pattering or rattling noise that came from overhead every now and then. I wondered if it could be a rat, but figured that such a thing was highly unlikely. A disgusting, filthy rodent, so high up in a modern hotel? Surely not.

  I went to bed fairly early, at 9 p.m., so I could get an early start on the next day. But around midnight, I was roused from my sleep by that curious pattering sound. What could it possibly be? I thought about asking for a different room, but decided it was a minor problem, not worth the fuss.

  It then occurred to me that since my Great Plague novel was filled with rats, maybe my imagination was getting the best of me. Perhaps I was simply hearing a piece of paper caught in the ventilation system. Eventually the noise stopped and I went back to sleep.

  When morning came, I went down to the hotel restaurant, Lisa’s Place, to hit the breakfast buffet. I went right after they opened, so for a while, I was one of only four customers there. As I ate my Denver omelet, I noticed a thin, black-haired woman in a navy-blue suit looking over the buffet, a few feet from my table. She appeared to be about fifty, with pale-blue eyes and maroon lipstick. She wore a name-tag so I figured she had to be an employee.

  She noticed I was glancing her way. “Good morning!” she said with a big smile. “How is everything tasting today?”

  “Fine, thank you. Are you Lisa?” I was only joking, really.

  “As a matter of fact, I am!” She pointed to her name-tag as she approached my table. It read LISA DELAPORE, GENERAL MANAGER in silver letters on a pattern of blue-veined back marble. As she drew closer, I noticed that she smelled of strong lilac perfume. “Are you enjoying your stay with us?” she said.

  “Certainly, yes.” I decided not to bring up the pattering noise. I didn’t want to be one of those customers who starts a conversation with a complaint. “This hotel looks so amazing – all that glass and steel, and those elevators on the outside of the building. The view coming down this morning was just marvelous. I’ve always wanted to stay here. I pass this place every day on the way to work.”

  “Oh, you live in town? Is your house being painted? Sometimes locals stay here when they’re having work done like that.”

  I briefly explained to her my process for writing my novels. She seemed genuinely interested, so if she was faking, she did a great job. By that time, more people had entered the restaurant, so she thanked me for visiting Lisa’s Place and went to greet the new guests.

  A waitress came by to refill my coffee. She was a young redhead with wireframe glasses who informed me that her name was Elizabeth, but I could call her Beth.

  “I just met your General Manager,” I said. “She seems really nice.”

  “Yeah, Lisa’s okay,” the girl said with a shrug. “She doesn’t yell at us or anything. We don’t see her all that often. She spends most of her time on the M floor.”

  “M...?” The phrase made think of something I’d seen recently. “I saw an M button on the elevator panel. Is that what you’re walking about?”

  She nodded. “The M is for Maintenance floor. Really it’s the thirteenth floor, but nobody wants to stay there, so we call it M … 12, M, 14. I think she stores a ton of old paperwork up there. She should convert it all to digital.”

  Another customer beckoned for Beth, so she said, “Gotta go. Nice talking to ya!” and zipped off to the other table.

  Apparently the Maintenance floor was right above my own. I figured that what I’d heard was the sound of some equipment, though I couldn’t imagine what kind it might be.

  On the way back to the elevator, I decided to stop and look around on the M floor. If I was caught there, it wouldn’t be a big deal. I could always say I’d hit the wrong button. A simple mistake.

  Before I left the restaurant, I looked to make sure that Lisa was still in the dining area. Once I was inside the elevator, I hit M and got off on the Maintenance level. It was fun, actually. I felt like I was part of an espionage mission.

  This level was very plain, with none of the beautiful paneling and paintings one might find on the other floors. Here, the walls were all painted gray and that was pretty much the extent of the decor. I tried a few of the doors and they were all locked, which made sense. They wouldn’t want the public to have access to any important papers or equipment.

  I did notice, however, something rather disturbing. The farther I wandered into the Maintenance area, the more I discerned a definite stink. It wasn’t a strong odor, but still, it wasn’t pleasant. It smelled like someone had opened a package of spoiled
ground beef. That meaty reek was strongest around a door I came across marked PRIVATE.

  I felt like I had already spent too much time away from my novel, so I returned to my room. I actually finished six chapters that day, which was an incredible record for me. I usually completed about half that amount of content in the same amount of time. I wanted to get as much done as I could, so I’d have some time the next day to look around on the M level. Of course, I’d first look to make sure Lisa was busy playing hostess in the restaurant.

  At one point, I’d been toying with the idea of moving to a different floor. Now I wouldn’t have moved if they’d paid me.

  That night, I visited the website for Delapore Tower to see what I could learn about the family and its business. The ‘About’ page noted that the history of the Delapores was long and distinguished, and that the family once owned a property in England called Exham Priory. The text waxed rhapsodic about how the Delapores have always loved grand structures and Old World hospitality.

  I went to bed at nine. Around two in the morning, I woke up to use the bathroom, and as I headed back to bed, I heard that pattering noise again. This time, however, it was considerably louder.

  I decided that two would be a perfect time to visit Maintenance again, since Lisa – and everyone else in the hotel – would be asleep. I also decided that I would take an ice bucket with me. If somebody asked what I was doing on that floor, I could always say I was looking for an ice machine and I figured that M stood for Machines. Sure, I wasn’t really that stupid, but they wouldn’t know that.

  I slipped a robe over my pajamas, popped my room card into my robe pocket and my cellphone into the pocket of my pajama pants. A minute later, I was in the elevator, on my way to the level below.

  Ice bucket in hand, I headed through the halls of the M floor toward the door marked PRIVATE. I soon noticed that the bad-meat smell I’d noticed earlier was now considerably stronger. Before it had been just a hint of an odor. Now it was a full-strength assault on my nasal passages. It made me gag a couple times, before I found that I could tolerate it if I took shallow breaths through my mouth.

  At last I rounded a corner and found myself in front of the door marked PRIVATE.

  It was wide open. Inside, I saw only darkness. The stench was appalling … a sour, horrific mixture of old meat and fresh feces.

  I set the bucket outside the door and walked slowly into the darkness. I felt around the wall just inside the room, searching for the light switch. A few seconds later, I found it and flicked it on.

  Lisa Delapore stood three feet in front of me, naked and coated with filth. Her lips and teeth were smeared with gore. Behind her, dozens of equally filthy man and women, all naked, were bound and crammed into metal cages. Their mouths were covered with duct tape, and many were dead and decayed. Large chunks had been carved out of the arms and legs of the corpses. Rats crawled throughout the hellish scene before me. Lisa stared at me with rage for just a moment before rushing up and slamming her fist into the side of my head.

  I remember catching a whiff of her strong lilac perfume, just before passing out.

  When I woke up, I found myself in semi-darkness – naked, bound, and crammed into one of the cages. My mouth was taped shut and my head was throbbing with pain. The door of the room was open, but the lights were off.

  “Hello, writer-man,” said Lisa. I could discern the dark silhouette of her head about six inches in front of me. “You really should have stayed in your room.” I could hear that she was chewing on something while she was speaking. She walked away from me, laughing. She slammed the door as she left the room, plunging her victims into darkness.

  My hands and wrists were tied behind my back, and my ankles were tied as well. As I tried to figure out how I was going to escape my bonds, I suddenly heard a voice somewhere in the room – a soft, very old male voice. “Writer-man? Where’s the writer-man?”

  “Here!” I tried to say through the duct tape. I kept repeating the phrase until I suddenly heard someone walking toward my cage. A moment late, someone ripped the tape off my lips.

  “Writer-man?” said a disturbingly eager voice.

  “Yes, I’m the writer-man,” I said. “Can you get me out of this cage?”

  A moment later, I heard a few clicks, then the cage door creaked open. Strong hands pulled me out of the cage and dragged me through the darkness. The door of the room opened and I found myself pushed into the Maintenance hallway.

  “Let me untie you. She’s not very good at knots, so this won’t take long.” I squinted in the bright light. In a moment, I saw a gaunt, elderly man, wearing the gray and orange jumpsuit of a maintenance man, or maybe a mechanic. He soon finished removing the twine.

  “I found this – I think it’s yours,” he said as he helped me into my robe.

  “How about my pajamas?” I said.

  He shook his head and shrugged simultaneously.

  Fortunately, my room card was still in my robe pocket. “Let’s go to my room,” I said. “I have to talk to you. I need to find out what’s going on around here.”

  The old man nodded happily.

  In my room, I took a shower and threw away my robe, which was now filthy. I decided that I would call the police after I talked to the old man. I had to know what Lisa Delapore was doing, and he was clearly part of it.

  I got dressed and joined him on the couch. I finally had a chance to really look at him. Agewise, he appeared to be about sixty-five. The childlike, overly eager expression on his wrinkled face was certainly friendly, but it was clear that he had mental issues.

  “First things first. Who are you?” I asked.

  “I’m Hector Delapore,” he said. “I’m Lisa’s brother.”

  “Brother?” I said, amazed. “How can that be? You two are years apart! Decades!”

  “Oh, we’re only about five years apart,” he said, “but she eats the flesh. Ya see? The flesh has powers. It keeps ya young, because it’s more the same. I don’t eat as much as her, though, because I can’t stomach the taste. She loves it, though! Eats it like candy!”

  “Being a cannibal keeps her young? How old is she?”

  “About two-hundred,” he said. “I forget the exact number. Like I said, I’m a little bit older. That makes me the smart one! That’s why I respect writers so much! Oh, I love the book. I read it every night.”

  “The book? Is that the Bible?” I wondered if perhaps Lisa and Hector were religious fanatics.

  Hector cackled with insane glee. “We ain’t interested in any Bibles! I”m talking about the Necronomicon. That Abdul Alhazred wrote it. He did a good job, too! Though I’ve never had the gumption to try any of the spells to open the gateways.” A look of horror suddenly crossed his face. “Oh, but don’t tell Lisa I have a copy of it! I’ve been hiding it from her all these years. If I told her, for sure she’d use it to open the gateway to Yog-Sothoth, and we don’t want that. He’d change the world so much, people couldn’t live on it anymore.”

  I’d heard enough. I started to call the police on the room phone – only to find that the line was dead.

  Lisa must have turned off my phone connection. I looked at the room clock – 3:23 A.M. She might have turned off all the hotel’s room phones. At that time of night, who would know? I suddenly realized that my cellphone was still in my lost pajama bottoms. “Do you have a cellphone?” I asked Hector.

  “Lisa won’t let me have one,” he said. “That’s fine with me. I don’t have anyone to call.”

  I looked at his orange and gray jumpsuit and a thought occurred to me. “Do you work here?”

  He nodded happily. “Oh, sure. I’m on the payroll! The paperwork calls me a Kitchen Assistant, but really, I monitor the Maintenance floor and feed the special guests in that room. If folks get nosey about that floor, we just add ‘em to the guest list! Usually two of my cousins are here to help, but they’re on vacation right now. They’re Delapores, too, though they don’t eat the flesh. Not yet, anyway! The
only employees allowed on that floor are all Delapores.”

  I didn’t want to return to Maintenance to get my phone, so I decided it would be best to leave the hotel and take Hector with me, so he wouldn’t wander back to Lisa and tell her what was happening. Then I could just find and use the nearest phone. I walked to the door and opened it.

  Outside the room, the floor was teeming with hundreds of rats, heading toward my door from both ends of the hallway.

  I immediately slammed the door shut. “The hall’s filling up with rats! What the hell is going on?”

  “Lisa controls ‘em. She can make ‘em do whatever she wants. All the Delapores who’ve eaten the flesh have that power.” An insane grin spread across his face. “Delapores and rats have been eating that meat side-by-side for years. She probably saw ya were out of your cage. She can’t have ya talking to folks. Now they’re here to kill ya.”

  An idea on how to deal with this ghastly situation popped into my head. I quickly decided it was my best strategy.

  “She sent those rats to eat you, too,” I said. “She thinks you’re a little bitch, Hector! A little bitch who needs to die!”

  The expression that sprang up on his face was a bizarre combination of rage and utter fright. “Why? Why would she want me to die?”

  “To double her power, of course!” I cried. “Once the rats kill you, she’ll swoop in here and eat your flesh! She’s also jealous because you’re friends with a writer-man and she’s not! You have to save yourself! And me, too! Your friend!” As if to punctuate my comment, a sudden rattling and scraping of rat claws erupted around us – in the air-vents, in the hall, and especially at the door. I also heard screaming from the guest rooms around me. No doubt others had opened their doors to see what was happening.

  “What can I do?” he screamed. His bloodshot eyes bulged from his head in fright. A line of drool spooled down from the corner of his mouth.