Post by orinocoflow on Nov 25, 2010 14:01:54 GMT -5
Let me give you a little background--a long time ago, ryankellyissexy started a story called Photo Shoot, but then said that she wanted someone else to finish the story at one point, so i took it up and completed it.
now, i was rereading it and decided to write the whole thing over in my style, and here is the result.
thank you, RKIS!
this is a lot of fun.
again, sorry its so long, but i really cant find a place to break it off
What is the whole point of photo shoots? Sure, we need pictures in the programs, but do we really need to do them before we’re actually done with the whole album? What if we need to practice more? I sighed, knowing the answer. At the moment, we were all asking ourselves the same thing since we were almost a week behind schedule, and the pressure was high since Sharon was not at all happy with that.
And so here we were, carefully walking down the narrow, crumbling staircase in this old, abandoned hotel called the Ambassador Hotel in the middle of nowhere simply because of the beautiful furniture left behind in one of the rooms that was in perfect condition, and Sharon had thought that that would be the perfect photo shoot. What, was she not worried that it would fall in on us? As soon as I had seen it, I was afraid of breathing lest to would fall over with the slightest puff.
The whole hotel seemed as though it was centuries old, and looked even worse. The walls had once been white in places and wallpapered in others with paper that must have once been very beautiful. Unfortunately, now the white walls were streaked with dirt and something that I did not even want to guess the composition of, and the wallpaper was shredding and hanging down in strips, mold growing in the plaster revealed. And what in the world could that have been caused by? I wondered, staring at deep marks in the plaster that looked like they had been placed there by claws. Shuddering, I turned away, knowing that I was definitely going to have nightmares this night.
Suddenly, a hand landed on my shoulder. With a screeching yelp, I jumped at least a foot in the air, whirling around to find Ryan staring at me with a mixture of surprise and amusement.
“You alright, Damo?” he asked, an eyebrow raised in a style he had stolen from Paul. Nodding numbly, I turned a bright red as I saw that the rest of the guys were looking at me. Shoving my hands in my pockets and tucking my chin into my jacket, I quickly scampered down the stairs, avoiding crumbling edges and puddles of…I have no idea, and I don’t think I want to find out.
“Keith! Get that away from me!”
I looked over my shoulder when I heard Paul yell at Keith. Grinning, I saw the blond holding a large spider right in front of a certain furious tenor; judging by the way the arachnid was trotting across his hand towards Paul, he couldn’t wait to terrorize the tenor. Muttering under his breath, Paul plastered himself up against one of the walls, preferring the dirty stone to the furry spider. Keith laughed and moved his hand closer, forcing Paul to slam against the wall as much as he could to get far away from the creature.
“Keith!” he shouted, raising his hand as if to swat Keith’s arm away, but then thought better of it, probably worried that he would end up hitting the spider instead.
“Aw, com’on, Keith, leave him alone. You know how he is with anything that is furry and has more than four legs,” said George, coming to Paul’s rescue. Winking at Keith, he stepped back quickly as the spider was carried his way. “And I am that way too, so don’t you dare get it anywhere within a foot of me,” he warned. Paul shook his head and shoved Keith for good measure, but then sprinted down the steps as Keith threw the poor spider at him. Fortunately for the spider, he managed to grab onto the wall and crawled away at lightning speed, delighted to be safe.
Just then, the door to the hotel finally opened and a well-dressed man stepped out, smiling slightly when he saw the commotion. I frowned slightly—he had one of those ageless faces, and I rarely trusted a man if I could not place his age.
“I’m glad that you made it,” he said, smiling broadly, showing all of his teeth. Again, I didn’t like people who smiled like that, unnaturally. Squinted, I took a step to the side to stand closer to Paul, who was probably the easiest guy to be with out of the five of us. He glanced in my direction and put a hand on my shoulder for a moment before letting it fall, but that was all I needed to feel more confident. Sighing, I leaned on the banister and watched the man.
“My name is John, and I will be your guide while you guys are here so that you don’t get lost. This is a pretty big place, after all,” he continued. “The photo crew is out back by the pools, and have been for a while, so we should hurry,” he said, turning and starting down the long corridor. We all hesitated for a second, but then Keith followed him and we all joined in single-file as soon as he broke the tension.
After what seemed like miles of dark, twisting, and narrow hallways, during which I had a slight case of claustrophobia, I began to wonder if we were ever going to get to the pool. The hallways were dimly lit by bare light-bulbs that had a mind of their own, deciding by themselves when they wanted to work and when they could scare us by flickering off and leaving us in complete darkness, and the floor was littered with parts of the ceiling that had broken off, ripped wallpaper, musty carpet, and other things that we were careful to step around. Feeling nauseous from all of this, I slowed and leaned on my knees, not wanting to trust the walls. I heard Paul come up behind me and place his hand on my back, the pressure comforting in the eerie corridor.
“You okay, Damo? We’re almost there,” he murmured. “Fresh air would do you some good, but there’s none here, so just hang on a minute or two more, true?”
I nodded, forgetting that he could not see me, and then continued, cautious so as not to touch anything that was not supposed to be there.
“How old is this place?” asked George at one point, his low voice startling as it broke the silence.
“No idea, but I think it was built at the beginning of the last century,” replied John. “Oh, and it’s haunted.”
Paul snorted behind me. “Yeah, right,” he muttered under his breath. Keith, however, seemed to perk up at that.
“Really? By whom?” he asked excitedly.
This time Ryan spoke up. “Keith, seriously? And here I thought you were our skeptic; there are no such things as ghosts!” he said, exasperated.
“Did I say this place was haunted by a ghost?” asked John oh-so-innocently, cutting off Keith’s response.
“Really now?” asked Paul, his voice dripping with sarcasm and fake curiosity.
“Com’on, tell! Ye can't let it go at that!” Keith exclaimed, his eyes sparkling at the prospect of a story.
I shivered inside; the last thing that I wanted right now was a horror story, especially since it apparently did not include ghosts but something worse. My stomach was turning at the very sight and smell of this place, and these guys wanted a horror story? What, wasn’t this horror enough?! Where they immune to this or something? Paul seemed to sense my discomfort, and I thought that he made a face at the eagerness of the other guys to hear the story, but I may have imagined it. Either way, I had no control over that, and John began to tell the story.
“Well, about fifteen or so years ago, this hotel was one of the more popular in the county, and was usually booked solid for months in advance. There was one guy that always requested one room in particular—the penthouse. He’d stay there for months at a time, but no one saw him, really, since he hardly ever came out and when he did, it was only for a minute or two and he never spoke. Well, at one point, he called to reserve the penthouse but it was already booked because of a wedding that was going on in the big ballroom. Well, he got really mad at that, started threatening us in some language we had never heard before, and then he spoke a few words and hung up.” John took a deep breath, glancing back at us to see if anyone was paying attention. Satisfied that he had an audience, he continued.
“Well, anyway, on the day of the wedding, everyone in the whole town seemed to come; it was so full! People could hear the music outside, and the whole place was filled with people, laughter, dancing, happiness…you get the idea. It was absolutely amazing! But then,” he paused for dramatic effect. I saw Paul roll his eyes out of the corner of my eye, and I smiled, feeling better; he had that effect on people, cheering them up regardless the situation.
“But then, the power went out. Well, I was there as a servant at the time, and I remember I went in to make sure that everybody was okay. Anyway, we heard these weird scratching noises coming from one corner, so I went outside to get a light and bring it back in since it was pitch black outside. At that point, when I came back, I heard all of this screaming inside, and tables getting flipped over, glass breaking…just this whole ruckus. I was frozen stiff, too scared to go back in.” He stopped, and I saw him shudder at the memory.
“What happened then?” asked Keith, his eyes wide.
“And then the lights came on. It was just…” he trailed off, shaking his head before continuing. “There was nothing but blood everywhere. Everyone was dead, and I mean everyone! The bride, the guests, the groom, the servants…” he paused, gulping. “Everyone. There were—” he broke off and looked at me. “Well, I’ll spare you the details, kid; you’re looking a little green there.” Turning back to the group, he continued. “All I could think about was all of those horror movies; it looked like someone had taken a chainsaw…” he trailed off again, shaking his head once more. “You get the idea.”
Yeah. I got the idea. My got the idea! I wanted this to stop, but Keith wanted more.
“Well, when the police checked the place later, they never found anything inside, but they did find something in the penthouse.”
“What was it?” asked Keith excitedly.
“I have no idea; they never revealed what it was, and none of us ever dared go up there again.”
“So the guy in the penthouse did it?” asked Keith. “I mean, you guys never found him?”
“Looks that way,” replied John, all horror gone from his voice.
Paul caught that change in his manner. “You know what I think? This sounds incredibly like it came out of a movie. The chainsaw part? VERY original.” He glared at John, his blue eyes glowing fiercely in the dim light.
“Thank you!” said Ryan. “A man with sense!”
Keith scowled at both of them. “Why don’t you believe it?”
“Well, according to him, this never made it out to the newspapers. Do you seriously expect us to believe that this many people died just like that without the newspapers saying anything? You said yourself that the whole town was there, and we’re supposed to believe that a whole town was massacred and no one said anything? How ignorant do you think we are?” Paul ranted.
John shrugged. “Well, that’s up to you, lads. But the guy was never found or heard from again.”
“Ooh, let me guess this part—now, no one stays here anymore because they hear creepy noises coming late at night from—dun dun dun—the penthouse!” he snapped, dancing his eyebrows mysteriously at the dun-dun-dun part. Laughing, he brushed past me, completely disbelieving. I wanted to be just like him, able to ignore something like this so easily, but the way John had told the story made it seem so real! Shivering, I ran to catch up with the guys, making sure to get in front of Paul—I did not want to be last in the dark, creepy hallway. Smiling, Paul gave me a playful shove as I darted past him, getting me into the safety of the group.
We were safe, right?
so, do you like it?
now, i was rereading it and decided to write the whole thing over in my style, and here is the result.
thank you, RKIS!
this is a lot of fun.
again, sorry its so long, but i really cant find a place to break it off
What is the whole point of photo shoots? Sure, we need pictures in the programs, but do we really need to do them before we’re actually done with the whole album? What if we need to practice more? I sighed, knowing the answer. At the moment, we were all asking ourselves the same thing since we were almost a week behind schedule, and the pressure was high since Sharon was not at all happy with that.
And so here we were, carefully walking down the narrow, crumbling staircase in this old, abandoned hotel called the Ambassador Hotel in the middle of nowhere simply because of the beautiful furniture left behind in one of the rooms that was in perfect condition, and Sharon had thought that that would be the perfect photo shoot. What, was she not worried that it would fall in on us? As soon as I had seen it, I was afraid of breathing lest to would fall over with the slightest puff.
The whole hotel seemed as though it was centuries old, and looked even worse. The walls had once been white in places and wallpapered in others with paper that must have once been very beautiful. Unfortunately, now the white walls were streaked with dirt and something that I did not even want to guess the composition of, and the wallpaper was shredding and hanging down in strips, mold growing in the plaster revealed. And what in the world could that have been caused by? I wondered, staring at deep marks in the plaster that looked like they had been placed there by claws. Shuddering, I turned away, knowing that I was definitely going to have nightmares this night.
Suddenly, a hand landed on my shoulder. With a screeching yelp, I jumped at least a foot in the air, whirling around to find Ryan staring at me with a mixture of surprise and amusement.
“You alright, Damo?” he asked, an eyebrow raised in a style he had stolen from Paul. Nodding numbly, I turned a bright red as I saw that the rest of the guys were looking at me. Shoving my hands in my pockets and tucking my chin into my jacket, I quickly scampered down the stairs, avoiding crumbling edges and puddles of…I have no idea, and I don’t think I want to find out.
“Keith! Get that away from me!”
I looked over my shoulder when I heard Paul yell at Keith. Grinning, I saw the blond holding a large spider right in front of a certain furious tenor; judging by the way the arachnid was trotting across his hand towards Paul, he couldn’t wait to terrorize the tenor. Muttering under his breath, Paul plastered himself up against one of the walls, preferring the dirty stone to the furry spider. Keith laughed and moved his hand closer, forcing Paul to slam against the wall as much as he could to get far away from the creature.
“Keith!” he shouted, raising his hand as if to swat Keith’s arm away, but then thought better of it, probably worried that he would end up hitting the spider instead.
“Aw, com’on, Keith, leave him alone. You know how he is with anything that is furry and has more than four legs,” said George, coming to Paul’s rescue. Winking at Keith, he stepped back quickly as the spider was carried his way. “And I am that way too, so don’t you dare get it anywhere within a foot of me,” he warned. Paul shook his head and shoved Keith for good measure, but then sprinted down the steps as Keith threw the poor spider at him. Fortunately for the spider, he managed to grab onto the wall and crawled away at lightning speed, delighted to be safe.
Just then, the door to the hotel finally opened and a well-dressed man stepped out, smiling slightly when he saw the commotion. I frowned slightly—he had one of those ageless faces, and I rarely trusted a man if I could not place his age.
“I’m glad that you made it,” he said, smiling broadly, showing all of his teeth. Again, I didn’t like people who smiled like that, unnaturally. Squinted, I took a step to the side to stand closer to Paul, who was probably the easiest guy to be with out of the five of us. He glanced in my direction and put a hand on my shoulder for a moment before letting it fall, but that was all I needed to feel more confident. Sighing, I leaned on the banister and watched the man.
“My name is John, and I will be your guide while you guys are here so that you don’t get lost. This is a pretty big place, after all,” he continued. “The photo crew is out back by the pools, and have been for a while, so we should hurry,” he said, turning and starting down the long corridor. We all hesitated for a second, but then Keith followed him and we all joined in single-file as soon as he broke the tension.
After what seemed like miles of dark, twisting, and narrow hallways, during which I had a slight case of claustrophobia, I began to wonder if we were ever going to get to the pool. The hallways were dimly lit by bare light-bulbs that had a mind of their own, deciding by themselves when they wanted to work and when they could scare us by flickering off and leaving us in complete darkness, and the floor was littered with parts of the ceiling that had broken off, ripped wallpaper, musty carpet, and other things that we were careful to step around. Feeling nauseous from all of this, I slowed and leaned on my knees, not wanting to trust the walls. I heard Paul come up behind me and place his hand on my back, the pressure comforting in the eerie corridor.
“You okay, Damo? We’re almost there,” he murmured. “Fresh air would do you some good, but there’s none here, so just hang on a minute or two more, true?”
I nodded, forgetting that he could not see me, and then continued, cautious so as not to touch anything that was not supposed to be there.
“How old is this place?” asked George at one point, his low voice startling as it broke the silence.
“No idea, but I think it was built at the beginning of the last century,” replied John. “Oh, and it’s haunted.”
Paul snorted behind me. “Yeah, right,” he muttered under his breath. Keith, however, seemed to perk up at that.
“Really? By whom?” he asked excitedly.
This time Ryan spoke up. “Keith, seriously? And here I thought you were our skeptic; there are no such things as ghosts!” he said, exasperated.
“Did I say this place was haunted by a ghost?” asked John oh-so-innocently, cutting off Keith’s response.
“Really now?” asked Paul, his voice dripping with sarcasm and fake curiosity.
“Com’on, tell! Ye can't let it go at that!” Keith exclaimed, his eyes sparkling at the prospect of a story.
I shivered inside; the last thing that I wanted right now was a horror story, especially since it apparently did not include ghosts but something worse. My stomach was turning at the very sight and smell of this place, and these guys wanted a horror story? What, wasn’t this horror enough?! Where they immune to this or something? Paul seemed to sense my discomfort, and I thought that he made a face at the eagerness of the other guys to hear the story, but I may have imagined it. Either way, I had no control over that, and John began to tell the story.
“Well, about fifteen or so years ago, this hotel was one of the more popular in the county, and was usually booked solid for months in advance. There was one guy that always requested one room in particular—the penthouse. He’d stay there for months at a time, but no one saw him, really, since he hardly ever came out and when he did, it was only for a minute or two and he never spoke. Well, at one point, he called to reserve the penthouse but it was already booked because of a wedding that was going on in the big ballroom. Well, he got really mad at that, started threatening us in some language we had never heard before, and then he spoke a few words and hung up.” John took a deep breath, glancing back at us to see if anyone was paying attention. Satisfied that he had an audience, he continued.
“Well, anyway, on the day of the wedding, everyone in the whole town seemed to come; it was so full! People could hear the music outside, and the whole place was filled with people, laughter, dancing, happiness…you get the idea. It was absolutely amazing! But then,” he paused for dramatic effect. I saw Paul roll his eyes out of the corner of my eye, and I smiled, feeling better; he had that effect on people, cheering them up regardless the situation.
“But then, the power went out. Well, I was there as a servant at the time, and I remember I went in to make sure that everybody was okay. Anyway, we heard these weird scratching noises coming from one corner, so I went outside to get a light and bring it back in since it was pitch black outside. At that point, when I came back, I heard all of this screaming inside, and tables getting flipped over, glass breaking…just this whole ruckus. I was frozen stiff, too scared to go back in.” He stopped, and I saw him shudder at the memory.
“What happened then?” asked Keith, his eyes wide.
“And then the lights came on. It was just…” he trailed off, shaking his head before continuing. “There was nothing but blood everywhere. Everyone was dead, and I mean everyone! The bride, the guests, the groom, the servants…” he paused, gulping. “Everyone. There were—” he broke off and looked at me. “Well, I’ll spare you the details, kid; you’re looking a little green there.” Turning back to the group, he continued. “All I could think about was all of those horror movies; it looked like someone had taken a chainsaw…” he trailed off again, shaking his head once more. “You get the idea.”
Yeah. I got the idea. My got the idea! I wanted this to stop, but Keith wanted more.
“Well, when the police checked the place later, they never found anything inside, but they did find something in the penthouse.”
“What was it?” asked Keith excitedly.
“I have no idea; they never revealed what it was, and none of us ever dared go up there again.”
“So the guy in the penthouse did it?” asked Keith. “I mean, you guys never found him?”
“Looks that way,” replied John, all horror gone from his voice.
Paul caught that change in his manner. “You know what I think? This sounds incredibly like it came out of a movie. The chainsaw part? VERY original.” He glared at John, his blue eyes glowing fiercely in the dim light.
“Thank you!” said Ryan. “A man with sense!”
Keith scowled at both of them. “Why don’t you believe it?”
“Well, according to him, this never made it out to the newspapers. Do you seriously expect us to believe that this many people died just like that without the newspapers saying anything? You said yourself that the whole town was there, and we’re supposed to believe that a whole town was massacred and no one said anything? How ignorant do you think we are?” Paul ranted.
John shrugged. “Well, that’s up to you, lads. But the guy was never found or heard from again.”
“Ooh, let me guess this part—now, no one stays here anymore because they hear creepy noises coming late at night from—dun dun dun—the penthouse!” he snapped, dancing his eyebrows mysteriously at the dun-dun-dun part. Laughing, he brushed past me, completely disbelieving. I wanted to be just like him, able to ignore something like this so easily, but the way John had told the story made it seem so real! Shivering, I ran to catch up with the guys, making sure to get in front of Paul—I did not want to be last in the dark, creepy hallway. Smiling, Paul gave me a playful shove as I darted past him, getting me into the safety of the group.
We were safe, right?
* * *
so, do you like it?