Detective Jack Ross was encased in the tight confines of the Hostage Negotiation Team (HNT) vehicle, a high-tech nerve center that stood in stark contrast to the arcane horrors it now faced. Monitors flickered with footage of the Grand Anomaly Hotel, while radios crackled with the terse exchanges of the officers on site. The vehicle was a bubble of modernity in the shadow of a building that was a festering sore of ancient malevolence.
Ross was hunched over a makeshift workstation, reports, and historical documents spread before him like a cartographer’s puzzle. The HNT vehicle’s overhead lights cast a stark, clinical glow on yellowing newspapers and grainy black-and-white photographs that chronicled the hotel’s grim history. Each document peeled back another layer of the Grand Anomaly’s legacy—satanic rituals, séances, disappearances. Unsolved mysteries orbited the hotel like dark moons.
A knock on the vehicle’s door broke his concentration. “Come in,” Ross called, his voice tinged with the distraction of his thoughts.
The door opened, and a figure stepped into the artificial light—a woman, tall and composed, her presence a stark note of academic rigor in the midst of chaos. “Detective Ross?” she asked, the lenses of her glasses catching the light as she glanced around the vehicle’s interior.
Ross met her gaze, finding a curiosity there that mirrored his own. “That’s me. And you are?”
“Dr. Emily Reid,” the woman introduced herself, offering a hand that Ross shook briefly, noting the firmness of her grip. “I’m an expert in Occult History. I believe I could be of assistance with the… situation at the hotel.”
Ross raised an eyebrow skeptically. “Occult history? That’s an actual field?”
“Indeed, Detective,” Dr. Reid affirmed, her eyes scanning the cramped space, taking in the disarray of paranormal paraphernalia and surveillance equipment. “Particularly relevant to places like the Grand Anomaly. May I?” She indicated a narrow seat amid the electronic equipment.
Ross gestured assent, and she folded herself into the chair, her attention drawn to a photograph that depicted the hotel’s original owners—figures as enigmatic as they were unsettling.
“The Abernathys,” she remarked, tracing the outline of ceremonial daggers captured in the sepia-toned image. “Devout occultists. They sought immortality, believing they could architecturally and spiritually align the hotel with dimensions beyond our ken.”
Ross’s disbelief was evident. “Immortality? By turning a hotel into a gateway for who-knows-what?”
“In essence, yes,” Dr. Reid said, replacing the photo amidst the clutter. “Their rituals opened rifts in our reality. Predictably, something went awry, and they disappeared, leaving behind a spiritual scar.”
“And now we’re dealing with the repercussions,” Ross grumbled. “Spirits with demands is a new one for the books.”
“Or merely the latest chapter in a lengthy saga of darkness,” Dr. Reid suggested, her voice a note of calm in the cramped space.
Ross exhaled deeply. “So what’s our next move, Doctor?”
“We must understand the wound before we can hope to heal it,” she proposed. “And for that, Detective, you need more than just reports and records. You need allies.”
Their eyes met, an unspoken pact forming. “Are you offering to be one?” Ross asked.
Her smile was enigmatic. “It appears I am.”
Ross nodded, then turned his attention back to the documents. “Then welcome aboard, Dr. Reid. Together, perhaps we can navigate this maze—without becoming part of its ghostly lore.”
The two bent over the documents once more, but outside the HNT vehicle, a shadow stirred—a darkness that seemed to take note of their newfound alliance, a whisper of movement that suggested the night itself was watching.
Not. The. End.
MADD FICTIONAL 