“Brandy! Can you hear me?! I need a camera!”
    Brandy turned her head when she heard Rochelle yell. She stood up from where she had been setting up one of data stations and yelled back. “Hey! Hey, is everything okay?”
    Rochelle didn’t answer. Brandy frowned. She stepped out of the room, into the hallway, and repeated herself, louder. Cursing, she abandoned the equipment bag behind her and start to navigate her way back over the treacherous floor. Brandy had to admit the cop had a point. ‘Condemned’ was a kind word for this place. It took five nervous minutes to get back to the only serviceable staircase in the place. The whole time, Brandy kept yelling and Rochelle never responded.
    Brandy descended the stairs, anticipating the creaks and wobbles. There were none. Brandy blinked. She stomped hard on a step. It was solid. Brandy marveled at it for a moment, before remembering why she was worried. Brandy hurried down to the first floor.
    The halls of the hotel wrapped around saloon in the center. The saloon opened up along the eastern wall to let out in the hallway. The western wall was solid. But it did have a door that opened to the back of the band stand. After trying to shift the handle, Brandy threw her weight against it. Like the stairs, the wood was solid. Brandy pounded on the door and called out to Rochelle. Faint music played on the other side. Brandy backed up to kick the door. She backed into another doorknob. She looked at the door behind her, surprised it had been so close, and when she turned back, she was no longer on the first floor. Brandy was looking through the open door of the second-floor room where she had left the equipment.
    “What the hell?”
    Brandy ran around the corner. The stairs were gone. Instead, the hallway continued twenty feet and turned another corner. She looked the other way and saw an identical hallway, an identical corner. Brandy dashed back to the room with the equipment and somehow found herself turning another corner. Panic rose up in her like gorge.
    “Whatthefuck-whatthefuck-whatthefuck-“ Brandy whispered to herself. She heard giggles and clattering heels behind her. Brandy twisted around to see a door slam shut. She ran up to the door. “Hey! Who’s there?”
    Voices whispered behind the door. Brandy pounded on the wood. It only made the voices choke with barely restrained laughter. Brandy’s anger sliced through her panic.
    “I said, who’s there, damnit!” Brandy pounded on the door until her wrist hurt. The wood felt like solid granite. Her efforts got nothing except more derisive giggles. Brandy stepped back to clear her head, when another burst of laughter caught her attention. Brandy turned just in time to see a lacey skirt disappear around a corner. She charged after it, only to be catch sight of another door slamming shut.
    Grunting with frustration, Brandy kicked a door. Someone giggled. Several other voices hushed them. Brandy screamed and started to punch and kick every door she could, traveling down the hallway. Peals of laughter echoed around her. Brandy’s body shook. Blood pounded in her ears. She bolted down the hall, barreling around corner after corner, rushing past door after door, until her chest burned. Brandy stumbled to a stop and looking around, couldn’t tell if she had gone anywhere at all.
    “I’m going crazy.” Brandy slumped against one of the meaningless doors. It fell away. Brandy tumbled backwards through tables and chairs. When her senses finally found their way through the pain, Brandy looked up at a high ceiling with exposed beams. Lamp light cast long shadows over the clean plaster. Brandy untangled herself from the furniture. She surveyed a large hall with a bandstand along one wall, complete with polished instruments. Another wall was covered by a fully stocked bar. The third wall opened up in a series of arches. Beyond it was a lamp-lit hallway and a handsome staircase. The fourth wall, directly behind Brandy, was blank. Brandy realized that was where the front door of the Singapore Flats was supposed to be.
    “You aren’t going crazy, sweet cheeks. You are being offered a home at this fine establishment.”
    Brandy turned around. A grey-haired woman in a turn-of-the-century dress examined the bottles behind the bar. It took Brandy a moment, but she could place the woman’s face.
    “Who are you?”
    “Why, girl, you know who I am.” The clucked her tongue disapprovingly as she ran a finger over the labels on the lower shelf. “My name is Magdellin Whitner, and I am own and operate the most magnificent Singapore Flats hotel.”
    “Cut the bullshit. You aren’t a dead woman. What’s happening?”
    “Girl, I tell you, I am she. And I mean what I say. I’m sure you’ve seen the state of my business. I need a few hale and healthy girls like you and your friend to help with renovations.” The Widow Whitner picked a bottle off the top shelf and turned to give Brand a dazzling smile. “Brandy, you strike me as a gin girl.”
    Whitner put a glass on the bar and filled it with gin. Brandy gasped. Hot pressure built up in her body, making her skin feel flush and sensitive. It felt like hours of foreplay pouring into her in seconds. Brandy’s knees buckled.
    “W-what is… how?!” Brandy gasped. She fought the urge to squeeze her thighs together. Her brain seemed to tilt back and forth. Whitner smiled and stirred a teaspoon of vermouth into the liquor. Brandy screamed and collapsed to the ground. She felt a thick phallus pumped and stirring deep inside her snatch. Brandy clawed at her crotch, but despite what her insides told her, Brandy couldn’t find anything to pull out. The phantom pressure pushed stirred inside her pleasurably.
    “Just enjoy it, girl.” Whitner slowly rotated the spoon, not taking her eyes off the glass of gin. “That’s all any of my girls have to do. Just lie back and enjoy it.”
    “You’re sick, you f-fucking-g…” Brandy groaned and pulled into the fetal position. “Fucking bitch!”
    Whitner sighed. She took the spoon out and flicked the droplets off. She watched Brandy for a moment, gasping for air and trying to get her bearings, and then Whitner smacked the spoon against the lip of the glass. Brandy bellowed, back arching as she cupped her crotch protectively. She looked up from the floor at Whitner, trying to find the breath to beg. Whitner slowly raised the glass to her lips and lightly sipped. Brandy screwed her eyes shut. Tears rolled up. Her breath sped up again, faster and faster, until she choked out sounds of pleasure.
    Whitner put the glass down. Brandy struggled for air. “Please… stop…”
    “I think you could have a lot of fun here, girl.” Whitner dipped her finger in the gin and swirled it along the rim of the glass. Brandy groaned in response. “Aren’t you enjoying yourself?”
    “How are you d-doing this?” Brandy panted. “Who are you?!”
    “I told you-“
    “She’s dead! Who the fuck are you?” Brandy pulled herself to her feet and dragged herself up to the bar. Whitner sat there, saying nothing, with a smug smile. She didn’t move to touch the glass. She just watched Brandy slowly advance. Uncertain, Brandy reached out slowly for the glass. Whitner didn’t move. Brandy gently picked up the glass and protectively cradled it.
    “Who… are… you…?”
    “Magdellin Whitner.”
    “I don’t believe you.”
    “We’ll cure you of the need to ‘believe’ things.” Whitner toasted Brandy with the glass of gin. Brandy looked at her own empty hands in astonishment. Not letting Brandy react, Whitner downed the gin in a single gulp. Brandy shrieked. She fell against the bar and clutched the edges. Her hips bucked wildly as the strongest orgasm of her life burned down her nerves.
    Her knees hit the wood of the bar. Brandy painfully gripped the edges harder. Finally, the rush faded, and Brady slowly became aware of her body again – her clenched shoulders, her trembling muscles, the bites on the inside of her cheek, and the watery tears sliding down her nose. She slid carefully from the bar top to the floor.
    Whitner had vanished. Brandy’s underwear felt filthy. She let herself breathe, wiping drool off her chin with the back of her hand. She didn’t know how to process any of this. Brandy heard a familiar, infuriating giggle. She didn’t have the energy to get pissed. She let her head flop to the side and watched a crowd of shadowy figures drag someone down the adjoining highway and up the staircase. Brandy realized she was looking at Rochelle.
    “Hey!” Brandy called to her. Rochelle, swept up in the crowd of girls, didn’t turn her head in acknowledgement. Brandy got up on her shaky knees. “Rochelle! Look at me! Hey!”
    She didn’t get a response. When the crowd disappeared onto the second floor, Brandy cursed and pursued them - sweaty, weak, and shivering. The shadowy girls were waiting for Brandy to come up the stairs and spot them peaking around the hallway corner. But this time, they didn’t run. They watched her, expectantly. Brandy saw that one of the doors was ajar. She looked at her audience suspiciously, then at the door, and finally opened it and went through. Inside was a massive walk-in closet.
    “Hello! Who’s there!” Rochelle called out from deep inside of the mess of outfits. Her voice had a slurred, sing-song quality. 
    Brandy pushed through the layers of velvet, leather, and satin. “Rochelle, it’s me!”
    “No, I’m Me, silly!” Rochelle cackled drunkenly. “You can be You. You’s cute.”
    “What is the matter with you?” Brandy asked. She broke through the hanging clothes to find Rochelle primping in front of a vanity mirror. The serious woman wore stockings and garters with heels. When she turned around, Brandy saw a pink bow around Rochelle’s neck that matched the gloss on her lips and the rouge on her nipples. Even though Rochelle was otherwise naked, she made Brandy feel under-dressed in her sex-stained clothes.
    “Brandy! Yay!” Rochelle scampered over, wiggling like a happy puppy. She wrapped Brandy’s shoulders in a loose hug. Smiling wide, she peppered Brandy’s lips and cheeks with sloppy kisses. 
    Brandy took the taller woman by the shoulders and pushed her away. It wasn’t lost on Brandy that the tall, broad-shouldered Rochelle had a handsome set of teardrop breasts. It made her embarrassment worse. “What are you doing?”
    “That’s how I’m supposed to say ‘hi’!” Rochelle giggled coquettishly. She smiled like she was selling toothpaste. “That’s how everybody here says hi.”
    “Are you drugged?” Brandy batted away Rochelle’s hands and grabbed her face, looking at her eyes. “Whoever that weird bitch claiming to be the ghost of the owner is, she like, hypnotized me or something and pulled this weird-ass voodoo trick. Do you remember if she did anything to you?”
    “Uh-huh. Miss Whitner kissed me a whole bunch and told me I was pretty and she’d give me a job and it made so happy, you should work for her too-“
    “Focus, damnit!” Brandy shoved Rochelle into the vanity table.
    “Owie…” Rochelle glowered in a way distressingly like a pout. “You’re just jealous because you just want Miss Whitner to say you’re pretty, too.”
    At the thought “Miss Whitner” and her forced orgasm thereby, Brandy saw red. Coppery taste swelled up her throat and over tongue. Before thinking about it, Brandy punched Rochelle. Rochelle’s nose collapsed inward and her head bounced off the vanity mirror in a sickening way. The rage left as quickly as it came, and Brandy’s stomach collapsed in horror.
    “Shit, Rochelle, I’m sorry, I don’t, I just, oh god, I didn’t mean-“
    “It’s… The pain is helping.” Rochelle looked up. Her familiar analytical gaze stared out over blood mixing with lipstick.
    “fuck fuck fuck fuck”
    “Brandy… listen, Brandy!” Rochelle winced from yelling. “This isn’t a trick.”
    “What?”
    “It’s not drugs. It’s not hypnosis. It’s… ghosts. It’s real and it’s ghosts.”
    “Slow down. I don’t… ghosts aren’t real.” Brandy backed away from Rochelle and bumped against the rack of scandalous outfits. A hot wind stirred them. Rochelle fixed Brandy with a dirty look and cradled her bleeding nose. Brandy grimaced. “Whatever. Doesn’t change that the fact that we’ve got to get out of here.”
    Brandy took Rochelle by the shoulders to lead her back out. But when Brandy turned towards the rows of clothes she had come through, a wave of heat hit her. Fire light shone through the billowing clothes. Sparks flew wildly. 
    “You are kidding me.” Brandy muttered. 
    “We’re down the rabbit hole.” Rochelle shook her head. “Whatever the rules are, they aren’t on our side.”
    “What are you saying? That this is like an alternate dimension or Hell or what?”
    Smoke gathered. Rochelle coughed, spraying blood. “I. Don’t. Know.”
    Brandy checked behind the vanity. The wall there was solid. Brushing past Rochelle, Brandy pulled down a faux kimono from the racks and tore it apart. She handed part of it to Rochelle to wrap her face. “We’ll have to go through it. Get those heels off.”
    Rochelle kicked her shoes away. After wrapping their faces, the two of them hunched low and charged into the heat.  They emerged into the hallway, long and straight with no doors or detours, with smoke but no flames. Orange light broke through the cracks in the floorboards. Brandy and Rochelle ran down the hall. As it stretched further and further, the floorboards warped and loosened, and sparks flew up every time one shifted. 
    Brandy yelled hopefully when stairs appeared through the thickening smoke. They were greeted with fire. An inferno blazed on either side, gnawing relentlessly at tables and chairs and bandstands and bars and rooms rooms rooms repeating endless fuel. Fireworks launched from the bottoms of the stairs. The sparks formed writhing tentacles, a wide mouth, and cruel teeth. The flickering beast reached out for them hungrily.
    The stairs cracked and listed. Brandy grabbed Rochelle around the waist to help her hold steady. She had to yell over the roaring flames. “It’s just sparks! I can see the door through it!”
    “I can’t see a thing!”
    “C’mon, I’ve got you!” Brandy pulled Rochelle forward. They had no choice. The stairs began to slide away. The beast loomed. The fire rushed up to meet them.

---

Rochelle landed face-first in cool dust. Her head spun. She carefully took stock of her situation. She wore her (disheveled) clothes. Her nose bled. The night was cold. Rochelle picked herself up. The car untouched. The hotel sat dark and silent. She could see her equipment where she had left it.
    “Brandy?”
    Rochelle was alone.