The silence after the chainsaw's roar was a physical thing, a thick, suffocating blanket smothering Room 217. It was broken only by the frantic, ragged symphony of their breathing. Leo was still pressed against the door, his ear to the cheap wood, his entire body rigid.
"What… what do we do?" Ben whispered, his voice trembling so badly the words almost disintegrated.
"We stay quiet. We stay put," Ray hissed, his usual sleepy demeanor replaced by a sharp, survivalist focus. He had grabbed the heavy, outdated phone from the nightstand, holding it like a makeshift club. "It's probably just some drunk asshole. A prank."
Even as he said it, the words rang hollow. The chainsaw's snarl hadn't sounded like a prank. It had sounded like hunger.
Ethan, meanwhile, had not moved from his bed. He was sitting upright, but his expression was distant, his eyes darting around the room with a calculating speed that was entirely foreign to his usual panicked flailing. He wasn't just scared; he was processing.
"A prank?" Leo hissed back, peeling his ear from the door. "Who pranks people with a chainsaw at a motel in the middle of the woods? That's not a prank, that's a prologue!"
"Just… just don't look," Ben stammered, pulling the floral quilt over his head like a child, as if the thin fabric could ward off industrial-grade cutting tools.
But Leo, driven by a filmmaker's morbid curiosity—or a profound lack of self-preservation instinct—couldn't resist. "I'm just gonna… take a peek. See if he's gone."
"Leo, no!" Ray and Ben said in unison, but it was too late.
With the painstaking slowness of a man disarming a bomb, Leo reached for the doorknob. He didn't unlock it; the deadbolt and chain were still securely engaged. Instead, he leaned in, pressing his eye to the narrow crack between the door and the frame, giving himself a sliver of a view of the exterior walkway.
The second-floor corridor was long and poorly lit, a tunnel of blood-colored doors and stained carpet stretching into gloom. For a moment, there was nothing. Just the buzzing of the faulty lights and the distant, indifferent chirping of crickets.
Then, a new sound cut through the night.
Ding.
It was the sound of the elevator at the far end of the corridor arriving. A soft, cheerful, metallic chime that was utterly horrifying in its normality.
Leo's breath caught in his throat. He watched, his eye glued to the crack, as the elevator doors slid open with a quiet hiss.
A man stepped out.
He was tall and lean, dressed in a crisp white business shirt, a black tie, and dark black jeans. The attire was mundane, office-ready. But the details were all wrong. The shirt was too white, unnaturally pristine under the yellowing corridor lights. The way he moved was stiff, mechanical, like a puppet with its strings pulled too tight.
And then there was his face. Or the lack thereof.
Where his face should have been was a smooth, featureless white surface, like a blank mannequin's head. No nose, no mouth. Just two perfectly round, black holes where eyes should be, holes that seemed to absorb the light, giving nothing back. In his hands, held casually at his side like a briefcase, was a chainsaw. Its metal teeth glinted, still clean.
"Oh, god," Leo breathed, the sound barely escaping his lips.
The Man walked down the corridor with a steady, unhurried gait. His polished shoes made no sound on the grimy carpet. He didn't look left or right. He had a destination.
He stopped two doors down from Room 217, at Room 213.
Leo felt a cold knot tighten in his stomach. He recognized the room. It was where a couple of the more rowdy frat guys from their class were staying. He could still hear the faint echo of their laughter from earlier.
The Man in the white mask stood before the door. He made no attempt to knock. He didn't try the handle. He simply raised the chainsaw.
There was no dramatic pause, no monologue. There was only the sudden, deafening explosion of sound as he pulled the starter cord.
VRRRRRRRRRRRRR-AAAAAAAP!
The chainsaw screamed to life, its roar magnified a thousand times in the confined space of the corridor. The door to 213 shuddered as the whirling teeth bit into it. Wood splintered, the deadbolt shrieked, and the chain snapped with a sound like a gunshot. It wasn't an attempt to break in; it was an annihilation. The door disintegrated in a shower of splinters in a matter of seconds.
The chainsaw's engine cut off abruptly, returning the world to that terrible, listening silence.
The Man stepped through the jagged hole he had created, disappearing into the darkness of Room 213.
For two heartbeats, there was nothing. Then, the screaming started.
It wasn't one scream, but two—high, raw, male voices torn apart by pure, unadulterated terror. They were cut short by the wet, chopping, thud-thud-thud-crunch of the chainsaw starting up again. The sounds were brief, brutal, and horribly final. A final, gurgling cry was silenced mid-syllable.
Then, silence once more.
Leo stumbled back from the door, his face a mask of ashen horror. He collapsed against the wall, sliding down to the floor. He tried to speak, but only a dry, clicking sound came out. He pointed a trembling finger towards the door.
"He… he…" Leo stammered, his eyes wide and unseeing. "The door… the chainsaw… he went in… and… and the screaming… oh god, the screaming…"
Ray rushed to the door, putting his own eye to the crack. He pulled back instantly, his face pale. "He's coming out."
Through the crack, they saw the Man step back through the ruined doorway into the corridor. His white shirt was no longer pristine. It was splattered and streaked with a vibrant, shocking crimson, dripping onto the clean black of his tie. The chainsaw in his hand was now painted too, dark and wet. He stood there for a moment, the blank white mask turning slowly, those black eyeholes scanning the corridor.
And then, it stopped. It turned towards Room 217.
It was impossible. He couldn't see Leo through the solid door and the narrow crack. But he did. They all felt it—a psychic chill, a primal awareness of being seen. The black holes seemed to lock onto their position.
Leo let out a small, pathetic whimper. "He's looking at me."
That was the final straw for his courage. With a surge of adrenaline, he scrambled away from the door, fumbling with the deadbolt and the chain, securing them with clumsy, panicked hands, as if the flimsy locks could do anything against the engine of destruction waiting outside.
"We're locked in! We're trapped!" Ben wailed from under his quilt, which was now shaking violently.
"The window!" Ray barked, his mind racing. "We can go out the window! It's a second story, but we can jump! We have to!"
They were a whirlwind of stress and confusion, their brains struggling to catch up to the nightmare unfolding just feet away. They were huddled together, a trio of terrified students, their world reduced to the four walls of a cheap motel room and the approaching footsteps of a faceless man with a chainsaw.
And in that moment of sheer, collective panic, a bizarrely coherent thought struck Ray.
He turned, his eyes scanning the room. Leo was by the door, hyperventilating. Ben was a quivering lump on the bed. The second bed was empty.
Ethan was gone.
"Ethan?" Ray whispered.
The others looked up, following his gaze. The bed where Ethan had been sitting was rumpled, but vacant. The window, which had been closed, was now wide open, the thin, musty curtain fluttering in the cool night air. Tied to the sturdy leg of Ethan's bed was a makeshift rope, expertly knotted from torn-up bedsheets and his own duffel bag straps, leading out into the darkness.
A fresh, different kind of horror dawned on their faces. Not the visceral fear of the chainsaw, but the profound, gut-punching betrayal of being left behind.
"He… he left us?" Leo said, his voice hollow with disbelief. "He just… climbed out?"
"That son of a bitch," Ray breathed, a mixture of fury and awe in his tone. "That selfish, cowardly, brilliant son of a bitch."
Driven by a new, desperate imperative, they rushed to the window and peered out.
There, standing on the asphalt of the parking lot below, bathed in the sickly yellow glow of a security light, was Ethan. He had somehow shimmied down the bedsheet rope with an agility none of them knew he possessed. He wasn't running. He was just standing there, looking up at them, brushing dust off his jeans with an infuriatingly casual air.
He saw their three faces appear in the window—a triptych of betrayal, terror, and utter disbelief. He gave a small, apologetic shrug, as if to say, "What can you do?"
Then, he raised a hand and gave them a cheerful, little wave.
It was the most Ethan thing he had ever done.
Leo's jaw hung open. "Is he… waving? He's waving! We're about to be turned into mulch and he's waving goodbye!"
Down below, Ethan cupped his hands around his mouth. He didn't shout, but he pitched his voice just loud enough to carry up to them, a stage whisper loaded with sarcastic urgency.
"Life's a journey!" he called up. "And my journey is currently heading away from the man with the power tool! I'd suggest you embark on a similar voyage! Pronto!"
He then pointed emphatically towards the sheet rope, mimed climbing down, and gave them two enthusiastic thumbs-up.
The absurdity of it was a bucket of ice water. Their panic was momentarily short-circuited by sheer, unadulterated outrage.
"I'm going to kill him," Ray muttered, already grabbing the sheets and testing the knot. "If that guy in the tie doesn't, I will."
"He tied it to the bed!" Ben squeaked, his analytical mind seizing on the practical. "If we all go at once, the weight might pull the bed against the window and trap us!"
"We go one at a time!" Ray ordered, taking charge. "Leo, you first! You're the lightest! Go! Now!"
As Leo, with trembling hands, swung his legs over the windowsill and began a shaky, terrified descent, the sound from the corridor changed. The slow, deliberate footsteps stopped right outside their door.
A deep, resonant THUD shook the door in its frame. The Man was testing it.
Then, the silence was torn apart once more.
VRRRRRRR—
The chainsaw roared to life, right outside their room. The sound was apocalyptic, vibrating through the door, through the walls, through their very bones. The teeth began to bite into the wood, sending a cloud of splinters into the room. The metal scream of the saw meeting the deadbolt was ear-splitting.
Ben screamed, a high, shrill sound of pure terror. Ray was halfway out the window, yelling at Leo to hurry the hell up. The door began to buckle, a gleaming, screaming tip of a chainsaw tooth punching through the wood, gnawing its way inward.
Ethan, from his relative safety in the parking lot, watched the scene unfold with the critical eye of a man who had seen it all before. He saw the chainsaw blade erupt through the door. He saw Ray frantically scrambling out the window. He saw Ben, frozen in fear, still inside.
He sighed, a long-suffering sound.
"Drama," he muttered to himself, shaking his head. "So much drama."
He didn't run. He just took a few more strategic steps back, positioning himself behind a large, rusting dumpster, ready to observe the impending bloodbath from what he considered a sensible and secure vantage point. His life was his first priority, but a good, safe view of the chaos was a very close second.