An hour and a half later, Gabriella and Amelia were sitting in a sweetly furnished hotel room with half-empty Tupperwares of pasta on the table in front of them. Gabriella was sipping her soda still as she looked at the Wildwood website’s history section.

“They should just lean into the haunting,” she said, half-serious as she scrolled through the family history segment, which featured another solemn picture of Sarah and Herbert.

“I imagine the Girl Scouts wouldn’t be as eager to be here,” James said over the speaker on the table.

“You’ve clearly never met a Girl Scout,” Amelia said with a laugh, taking a bite of her pasta. “They’re going to descend on this place with EMF detectors and Ouija boards. And then we’ll recruit them for the Foundation.”

“I was a Girl Scout,” Gabriella said.

“Of course you were,” Bradley muttered.

Her face went hot as the pasta rose in her throat. “I mean-”

“Fuck off, Bradley,” Amelia said mildly, then took a sip of her drink.

Gabriella looked over with grateful surprise, but Amelia didn’t seem to notice. “When were you in Girl Scouts?” Graham asked.

“I was little,” she said, hoping her embarrassment wasn’t obvious over the line. “Just for a few years when I was, like, eight.”

“My mom would buy Girl Scout cookies off of you, then send them to me at college,” James said with a laugh. “I was the most popular kid in my dorm whenever that happened. You think you could hook me up with some more?”

“Considering it’s been fifteen years since I was a Girl Scout and you were in college, probably not.”

“That hurts, Gabs.”

Amelia laughed, then capped her pasta container and stood up. “Alright,” she said. “We’re going on to our next rounds. Cameras will be on in about two minutes.”

Gabriella’s was still hooked onto her chest, so she turned it on. “Got visuals?”

“Got it,” came Bradley’s reply.

“You take downstairs,” Amelia instructed.

Gabriella had done a quick round downstairs before now. The space was small enough that it had only taken her about ten minutes to note any differences, adjust the cameras as needed, and take some photos. Nothing had shown up, but they were going to be doing at least six more of these walks tonight.

She put her phone and an EMF reader in her pocket and walked out of the room, heading down the hall toward the stairwell. The hallway was narrow, with deep red carpet and off-white walls that glowed yellow in the overhead light fixtures. It was dingy, like Amelia had said. Worse than the front foyer, so they must not have gotten to it with any renovations yet. But still, there were some more artfully chosen historical photos on the wall and a few sad looking plants by the windows. Then the stairwell was concrete, a jarring change from the careful decor of the halls, rooms, and front of the building.

She exited the stairwell and started down the hall toward the rooms on the first floor. As she passed the doorway to the main foyer, she could see it was empty. That was a little strange, the nephew was supposed to be on a little while longer. Maybe he went for a snack or something, that wasn’t Gabriella’s business. Still, she made a note on her phone.

She passed the first set of rooms, which were completely ordinary, just like before. The hallway rug had gold threaded patterns weaving through the red, going threadbare in places from years of people walking on it. Her camera harness slid a little and she adjusted it on her shoulders as she passed another set of identical brown doors.

“All good here,” she said.

“Same,” Amelia answered from the comms.

The hallway seemed longer down here than it was upstairs, curving slightly as she passed an EXIT sign on her right. Had it curved like this last time she walked through here? Gabriella didn’t remember, but it could just be fatigue. After all, she was on hour seven of at least sixteen.

Another batch of doors, all blankly wooden with numbers neatly nailed onto the wall beside them and on them. The first ones hadn’t been wood, had they? They’d been brown, but dully so. Maybe she’d been wrong, and they were partway through their renovations down here? Gabriella kept walking, waiting for the stairwell back up to the second floor to come up on her left.

“I haven’t come upon the camera yet,” she said. “Amelia, is it still displaying on your tablet?”

“The tablet’s acting up,” Amelia said. “Bradley, can you see it?”

“Repeat that, please.”

Gabriella swore quietly as she passed a sconce with a lantern in it. It was pretty, how had she not noticed it before? The sconce looked original, maybe even from before the hotel was electrified. That was a detail she should have noticed before, but she marked it in her phone with a little bit of shame. She’d thought she did a good job originally inspecting this hallway, but she was seeing more and more things this round.

Another row of endlessly same doors. No, there was no way she’d just missed something. “I’m going to turn back,” she said, her face heating up as she waited for a comment. “I think I missed the entrance back up to the second floor.”

“It’s a straight line,” Amelia said. “There’s no way you could.”

Gabriella was about to go on the defensive, but paused as she realized what was wrong with Amelia’s tone. She glanced at the door beside her, noting it was Room Five. “Amelia,” she said, forcing an extra measure of calm into her voice. “Do these hallways seem longer to you?”

“Not on my end,” Amelia said. “But they are on yours?”

“I don’t know.”

Amelia started to say something, but static overtook her voice. “Bradley, can you hear me?” Gabriella said. “Something is strange here.”

There was silence on the other end of the comms. “Amelia?” she said.

Another round of silence. Shit. Gabriella turned around. She’d try again in a little while, but this was clearly something supernatural happening. She’d get up to the room, call Bradley at headquarters, and figure it out. Then she could finish her round and carry on with an ordinary investigation.

The doors rushed by her, eternal and dull, as she walked quickly in the direction from which she’d come. The sconces were on the walls every few doors apart now, definitely not what they were when she was walking down here. She’d only seen that single sconce before, she was positive of it. There hadn’t been anything on the walls, just that pale ugly yellow wallpaper.

And why wasn’t the turn toward the front lobby showing up ahead of her?

“Amelia?” Gabriella said again, trying to keep her voice from shaking. “Amelia, are you alright? I can’t find the exit.”

She was running now, full-tilt down the halls that hadn’t been this long when she started her rounds. “Amelia!” she yelled breathlessly, hoping maybe she or Lorraine would hear.

There was nothing aside from the dull pound of her feet on the carpet and the sound of her blood racing in her ears. The lobby wasn’t anywhere to be seen, just an endless stretch of identical wooden hotel room doors, warmly lit wall sconces between each one. Gabriella slowed to a stop in the center of the hallway and pulled out her phone with a shaking hand, dialing quickly.

“Gabriella!” Amelia said as soon as it connected. “Where are you? I just went downstairs and didn’t see you anywhere.”

“There’s something wrong,” she said breathlessly. “I’m in the first hallway, I didn’t go anywhere. But it’s strange. It’s like it’s not the same hallway, it just keeps going.”

“Okay,” Amelia said. “I think I know what’s going on. It’ll be okay. What I need you to do right now is hang up-”

“No!”

The word was out, childish and scared, before she could control it. “It’s alright,” Amelia said. “You need to call Bradley and stay on the line with him while I figure this out. Can you tell me what you see right now?”

Gabriella looked around. “It’s just the hallway,” she said. “The rooms all have wooden doors with numbers on them. I’m next to Room Six, but that can’t be possible.”

“It’s all impossible,” Amelia said, still calmly confident despite her outrageous words. “It’s okay. I want you to call Bradley, stay on the line with him, and start walking toward Room One. Can you do that?”

“Yeah,” she said, nodding rapidly.

“This happens occasionally with cases like this, it’s alright. I’m still on comms with the others, but I want you connected with someone outside of here in case I get caught in a time bend too. Call him now, it’s okay.”

Amelia didn’t sound easy by any chance, but she sounded like a professional. Time bend. Her hand shaking, Gabriella reluctantly hung up with her and called Bradley’s cell phone.

“Where did you go?” he snapped in way of greeting her.

“I’m in the hallway,” she said, still breathless and trying not to shake. “But it’s weird somehow, it’s not ending. I think I’m stuck in here. Amelia said to call you and stay on the line while she figured it out.”

“I’m putting you on speaker,” he said. “Don’t hang up.”

“Wasn’t planning on it.”

“Alright, I got her text. You’re heading toward Room One like Amelia said.”

She started walking, passing Room Four and Room Two. Room One came up on her left and it should have been the last room before a turn into the small lobby. But instead, Room Two-Twelve appeared just beyond it, a cheerful fern beside the door.

“I’m at Room Two-Twelve, but I didn’t go up any stairs. How-”

“Are the room numbers moving up or down from there? You want to keep moving down until you see a different door.”

She turned to check, then shrieked, dropping her phone. Sarah Morgan stood in the darkened doorway of the next room. Her skin was deathly pale, with a greenish tinge, but she smiled sweetly at Gabriella before vanishing into the darkness.

“I just saw the spirit,” Gabriella said through chattering teeth in the sudden chill.

“Did you get any readings?”

The part of her that didn’t want to scream at Bradley for his coldness here was grateful for it. She looked down at the EMF reader sticking out of her pocket. “It spiked,” she said. “But the energy looks weird anyway.”

“Because you’re stuck in a fucking ghost funhouse,” he said. “I’ve seen this before. Alright, keep moving. Are they going up or down?”

Where had they all seen this before? Gabriella intentionally looked away from the darkened doorway, not wanting to see what shadows were moving in the blackness. Along the wall, the sconces were now flickering in an unnaturally rhythmic pattern, the glow pulsing in a way that made her eyes hurt.

“Down,” she said. “What do I do?”

“Amelia is looking for you,” Bradley said. “She says she’s coming up on Two-Twelve now, on your left.”

Gabriella looked hopefully down the yawning hallway, but Amelia was nowhere to be seen. “She’s at Two-Fourteen.”

“No, she’s not,” Gabriella said.

“I’m here,” Amelia said over the speaker. “I can’t see you though. Bradley, do you think this is like when-”

“No, because I have her on the phone. We couldn’t get you on the phone, remember?”

“No.”

“What do I do?” Gabriella asked, trying her best to sound as calm and assured as they were and knowing she was failing horribly at it.

There was a pause. “Okay,” Amelia said. “So you’re still in the building, but I can’t see you and you can’t see me, even if we’re ostensibly in the same space. My energy readings are all over the place.”

“Should-”

The call cut out before she could finish her question. Gabriella swore, resisted the urge to scream and throw her phone, then started walking down the endless hallway again.

Her phone battery was fine, so it had to be the hotel that was causing this. She dialed Bradley and Amelia’s numbers over and over, the calls not even connecting. Time passed, not that it mattered here, apparently. She tried to stay calm like they’d been, but she was the one trapped in, what, some kind of pocket dimension? So if anyone was going to panic right now, she had to admit it was going to be her. No matter how hard she tried not to.

She kept walking on shaking legs, following their last instruction to move downward even as she continued to fail to reconnect with either teammate. Tears were burning in her eyes and just as they began streaming down her face, there was a new door.

Gabriella ran, a stitch forming in her side as she tore toward the small steel door with its frosted window, slamming into the metal push bar. It didn’t even occur to her that it might be locked until she shoved it open, the cool night air spilling into the hall.

She was in a rooftop garden. A small floodlight illuminated the space as she stood in the doorway, looking around in wonder. It was quiet up here, only the sounds of crickets and owls breaking the silence. In the misty air, flowers burst forth in rich reds, yellows, and purples, nasturtiums trailing over the sides of waist-high flower beds while others she didn’t recognize grew high on thick stems and trellises. There were trees too, small but hanging heavy with leaves as she stepped out, letting the door close behind her.

A quick peek over the edge from a safe distance told her she was still at the Wildwood Hotel, but she was definitely on the roof. And Gabriella was positive she had not climbed any stairs. Yet here she was.

She pulled out her phone again, dialing quickly, wiping her eyes as it connected. “Gabriella, great,” Bradley said, sounding less concerned than she would have expected him to after the long gap in communication. “I was about to try you again, you just cut it out.”

“I just cut it out?” she repeated, “No, that was at least twenty minutes ago. I’ve been trying to reach you or Amelia, but it wasn’t connecting.”

“We were talking two minutes ago, and the call dropped out,” he said, then paused. “Wait, what time is it on your phone?”

She pulled it away from her ear to look at the screen. “Nine oh four. No, that can’t be right.”

“Are you wearing a watch?”

She was. It was a recent habit, but it had come in useful more than once lately. “Nine forty-one.”

“Okay,” he said, sounding aggravatingly calm yet again. “A time bend, like we thought. This happens sometimes on cases like this, the energy in a space…It’s alright, just…where are you?”

“I’m on the roof,” she said. “There’s a garden and there was a door out here at the end of the hall, but I didn’t leave the first floor.”

The nasturtiums were a vivid red as she stared at them, phone still up to her ear. Gran used to make salads with nasturtiums in them. They were beautiful, but Gabriella hated the peppery taste of the flowers.

The door burst open and Amelia ran out. “I found her!” she said into her own phone.

She grabbed Gabriella’s arm, firm but not painful, more like she was anchoring her in place. “I have no idea what happened,” Gabriella said, feeling significantly less shaky now that another person was here. “All of a sudden the hallway was just weird. I wonder if it’s happened here before. I’ll have to check the archives.”

“First, let’s go back to our room,” Amelia said. “Wait til you see what the cameras have picked up.”

---

CONTINUE TO CHAPTER 6