Ten

* Graphic content warning*

Owen walked into the office of the motel with a smile on his face and Liv right behind him, but the smile quickly disappeared when he got a look at Stephanie's face. She looks upset and worried.

“What's wrong?” He asks her,  moving closer. Was something going on with the motel or was it a personal issue?

When he had sent Sam home early, he had managed the office until Stephanie had arrived to cover his morning shift so that he could run some errands. He would work her evening shift for her so that she would have a night free for a date with her boyfriend. They traded shifts often, when one needed to do something or had plans. Despite her lacking work ethic and her obvious attitude problems towards him, she was cool about doing that. They did got on well in those regards. 

“We have had a few noises complaints coming from room seventeen last night, which is empty. This morning I have had a few reports of a foul smell on that hallway and from rooms near by. One couple said that if you walk by that room, the smell is so foul that it makes your eyes water. The key to the room is gone and I can't find the key ring with the master keys that you keep-” She looks at Liv as if she is about to divulge secrets from the Pentagon. “Well, you know where you keep them. But I can not find a key anywhere in this place to let me get in there and check it out.”

“They master keys should be in the drawer in the kitchen-” Owen begins but she shakes her head.

“Owen, I tore through your kitchen. They are not there. But room seventeen is empty. There is no one staying in there and it was cleaned well two days ago with the Hashels checked out. So no one should have been screaming last night.” Stephanie tells him quietly and he can tell that she is freaked out.

She is a firm believer in the supernatural and she thinks that the motel is haunted by all it's former victims. She claimed that over twenty women dying here, in such horrific ways, was too much evil spirit for the place to contain. That the evil with manifest itself in spiritual entities.

Owen thought she made be a few beers short of a six pack when she started spewing that mumbo jumbo crap. The motel isn't haunted or evil. The only evil thing in it had been Dave and Nate, but thanks to Lacey and Dave's old rifle, the two of them were no longer around to plague the place.

“What kind of smell is it? Like a natural gas smell? A trash smell? Does it smell like mildew, like maybe a water leak soured the carpets?” Owen asks her, curious but she just shrugs.

Maybe it is something with the building, like a water leak that got into the carpet and made them mildew, which stinks. It could have dripped onto the television causing it to possibly come on and malfunction.

Or it could be an animal got in there and they are hearing it make sounds. That hasn't happened before, but they are in the middle of nowhere and he sees racoons and possums all the time. If it got trapped in the room over in the night and died, then it could be what the horrible smell is.

“I don't know. I think it all sounds rather creepy, so I am going to let you check it out. Do you happen to have the master keys with you?” Stephanie asks and he shakes his head.

“No. I only have my keys to my private quarters with me. I don't carry around keys to the rooms. I leave the rings to the doors behind the desk for the workers to give the guests. If a guest loses their key, then we have a spare behind the desk. If not, I have the master key ring that opens every door in this motel.” Owen tells her, although she already knows this.

The master key ring opens everything, even his workshop and his room, which he keeps locked, in the case that one of his guests with a camera want to snoop through his home in the hopes of finding something good for their documentary.

“I am going to go get a screwdriver and get into that room. We will need to find the keys though. We can't have those be lost or in any of the guests possession.” Owen tells her.

He reaches behind the desk and pulls out the toolbox that he keeps in case him or Sam have to fix something that a guest reports broken. He takes the whole thing with him as he heads outside and down the walk way to the room in question.

He is by room fourteen when the smell hits him. It is a foul smell and it is so familiar that it nearly knocks him to his knees right then and there. It is the smell of death.

Owen stops outside of room seventeen and tries the handle, but it is locked, as he suspected. He takes out the screwdriver and works on removing the door knob, so that he can get in. He does not realize that he is not alone in the hallway until he hears Liv's voice from behind him.

“Geez, it does stink really bad. Is that smell.. blood?” Liv asks him and he looks at her, surprised that she made that connection as well.

He had hoped that it was in his head, the smell. That he was just having a weird deja vu when it was in fact just trash or wet carpet making the smell. Maybe a molded box of food under the bed that the housekeeper forgot to get. But if she smells it too..

“I don't know..” He answers her.

There is a new urgency in his motions, as he unscrews the screws from the fixture and pulls it from the wood. It only takes him two minutes to get the door knob off and the door pushed open. When the room is revealed, two things stop him in his tracks.

The over whelming smell of blood hits his nostrils and makes bile rise in his throat. The sour, metallic smell is so strong that it makes his eyes water. He hears Liv scream, making his body freeze and he turns to her. Her eyes are opened wide with horror and she is pale, shaking so hard that he fears that there is something wrong with her.

Owen pulls her into his arms, turning to take his first look at the room. “Oh fuck!”

Blood splatters the floor and the walls, covering the beige paint in speckles of deep crimson. The floor has large puddles of blood that are pooled up, steeping into the carpet to forever stain it.

He looks at the bed, seeing that the cream and green duvet is ruined by blood as well. But what catches his eye is a familiar leather bundle that lays open on the bed, next to the body of a woman that he has never seen.

Owen turns to Liv and pulls her face up to his so that she is no longer looking at the horrifying scene before her, but at him instead. “Liv.. Liv, honey, look at me.”

She stares into his eyes, but her gaze is vacant. He can tell that she is in shock, because he is sure that a sweet woman like her has never seen anything as gruesome as this before. “Go to the office and call the police.”

She doesn't seem to have heard him, as she just keeps looking at him blankly. He sees other people coming out of their rooms and he looks at them. “Get back in your rooms and stay there!”

People scurry back where they came from at the sound of his raised voice. He spots a man peaking out and he points at him. “You! Mr... Pines?”

“Y- yes.” The man says and nods, coming out of his room a little more.

“I need your help. Go into your room and call the police. Tell them to get here immediately. Then come and get Miss Jordan and take her to the office. I am going to need Samantha to keep all the guests from this hallway. Think you can do this for me?” Owen asks him and the man nods.

“Okay, thank you.” He gently moves Liv away from him but she clings.

“No.” She whimpers, wrapping her arms tightly around his waist. He sighs, holding her close to him. She does not want to let go of him and he does not exactly want to let go of her either.

“Forget Miss Jordan. Just call the police and get Samantha from the office.” Owen says to the man before turning back to face the room. The sight turns his stomach and he shakes with disgust.

“Close your eyes.” He tells Liv, lifting a hand to the back of her head and pressing her face into his chest. She buries in, sniffling as the tears soak his shirt.

Over her head his eyes take in the scene. The leather bundle is his wood carving set. It is a thick piece of leather that ties together with a string and when opened it is all of his tools. But the leather is empty, with no wooden handled tools in sight.

Owen moves his eyes to the body, finding them immediately.

A brown haired woman, young and slim, lays askew on the bed. Her arms are tied above her head and lay near the head board. She is slightly bent at the waist and her bound feet dangle off the bed. She has no clothes on, her bare body exposed. She is covered in blood.

Her eyes stare vacantly at the ceiling, her face frozen in terror and pain. Tear streaks smeared the blood on her face, cleaning a trail down her cheeks. The first tool that he notices is the wood riffler that is sticking out of the side of her neck.

A wood riffler is a double sided metal tool that helps him shape wood, such has knobs for dressers or the ends of posts on beds. One side is a sharp point, while the other side is usually wide and curved. The sharp side is embedded in the strangers carotid artery.

Buried in her chest, between her breasts is his sloyd knife. The wooden hilt is all that can be seen, as the thick, sharp knife edge is hidden beneath her flesh.

His skew chisel is poking out of her leg. Judging by the deep bloody holes in her leg, he would say that the killer tortured her before killing her, by stabbing the chisel in her legs repeatedly before they finally killed her.

Owen has slipped once or twice and cut his finger with the chisel, so he knows how painful it can be. His eyes water at the thought of it breaking through the girl's skin over and over.

“Mr. Matthews.”

Owen turns to face the sheriff, who is walking over to him with a frown. “What is going on?” The man asks Owen and Owen sighs.

“We had complaints of a smell on this hallway and coming from the room. No one is checked into this room so it should be empty. But there were reports of screams last night. When my workers were going to come investigate, the keys were missing. Every key that we have to get into this room was gone. The screaming stopped, so I guess that my employees did not give it another thought until the smell complaints came in this morning.”

The sheriff eyes him but Owen ignores it, continuing. “I used a screw driver to remove the door handle so that I could get into the room. I found this woman like this, so I had a guest call you, as we stood here to make sure no one could come by and see her.”

The sheriff pushes past Owen and Liv, to walk to the doorway of the room. When he looks in her begins to curse. “Son of a bitch!”

He pulls his walktie talkie to his mouth and presses the button. “Dispatch, this Is the sheriff. I am requesting back up, the ambulance and the coroner out at the Sleepy Oak motel, immediately.”

“Ten four, sheriff. All units will be dispatched to your location immediately.” Comes the garbled reply.

“I want you to walk me through this, Mr. Matthews.” The sheriff tells him and Owen sighs.

“Starting when.”

“How about you start by telling me where you were last night when all these screams were happening.” Says the man and Owen sighs.

“Well, since I don't know exactly what time the screaming happened, so I can't exactly pinpoint the time but I can tell you that I was out back in my workshop until around ten or so. Then I came inside and went up to my room, where I took a shower and brushed my teeth. I laid down to watch a movie, then when the news came on I flipped the tv off and went to sleep. I woke up at six and came downstairs to grab a poptart and an apple with my coffee, before I relieved Sam and sent him home. I worked the desk until ten or so this morning when Samantha arrived. I went to Miss Jordans room for a few minutes to talk, then she and I left and went to town. We just arrived back a few minutes ago and then I told you about what Samantha said and opening the door. Now here we are.”

“So you don't have anyone to corroborate the story of your where abouts last night?” The sheriff asks him and Owen tries not to roll his eyes.

“No sir. I was alone in my room all night, as I sleep alone.”

“Hmm.” The man says and turns away. He is looking through the room when the rest of the police arrive.

They watch as the cars arrive and the place turns into a mad house, with people coming and going. Sam arrives soon, at the request of the sheriff, via Owen. Samantha and Sam are questioned privately, before the officers take Liv's statement.

When an officer comes through with the leather satchel in an evidence bag and a glare at Owen, he knows for sure that they have jumped to the wrong conclusion. This is confirmed when the sheriff, Marty Palmer, comes back over to Owen and tells him.

“Mr. Matthews, we are going to need you to come down to the station with us and answer a few questions that we have.”