The Blood of Athens by Amy Leigh Strickland

He knew he had to hurry. There was another
set of stairs at the other end of the hall; the killer wasn't
completely trapped on the girls' floor.
    Evan turned
and looked down the stairs. He hated stairs. His limp made him
slow-going. Stairs in the dark were really no good. His hand fell on
the smooth railing, though, and Evan sat on the edge of it. He had
never slid down a bannister before. There was a first time for
everything. Evan slid down the first one and stumbled on the landing.
The second railing brought him down to the boys' floor. As he
approached the door, he tripped on something at-once soft and solid.
Evan caught his balance against the door. He groped around in the
dark below him. Whatever he had tripped over was warm and wet and
squishy. He realized, as his fingers mapped its features, that it was
face with the skin peeled off . There was a dead body slumped before
the door.
    Evan threw the
door open and fell into the hall. A german tourist stood, ready to
strike anyone who came through that door with a raised
fire-extinguisher. He stopped before he struck Evan, his muscular
frame highlighted by the moonlight coming in through the window of
his room. “Sind Sie verletzt?” he asked.
    “ Huh?”
    “ Are you
injured?”
    Evan shook his
head and held up his blood-stained hands. “Not my blood. There's a
body in the stairwell. I need to get to the power. I need to put the
lights back on.”
    Lewis came out
into the hall.
    “ Evan! Where
the hell were you? Where's Astin and Peter?”
    “ I was
upstairs. Jess Silver forgot her wallet today and was paying me back
for--”
    “ Doesn't
matter. Are the other guys alright?”
    “ I think
Peter tripped the killer for me. The guy went down and there was
nobody else in the hall.”
    The German
looked confused.
    “ Listen,”
Evan said to Lewis. “I need to fix the power. The screaming started
right after the power went out, so unless there's two of them, the
killer took out the lights on this floor before he started his
spree.”
    “ Yeah, he
got the guy refilling the soda machine first,” Lewis said. “Then
this woman who was getting ice. He turned for me next, but I bolted.”
    “ So any idea
where he fried the power?”
    A beam of
light shone from Nick and Teddy's hotel room. Teddy stood in the
doorway, holding up his iPhone to cast light on his allies. “I've
got a flashlight app. I'll help you look.”
    “ Do you need
my help?” the German tourist asked.
    Evan nodded.
“Go down the the lobby through the stairs and make sure they're
sending help.”
    “ Do you
think it's the serial killer?” Lewis asked.
    Teddy nodded.
“Probably. Did you see his face, Lew?”
    Lewis shook
his head. “Naw. It was too dark.”
    As soon as the
German went into the stairwell, Lewis took Teddy's phone and dashed
around the hall. A few seconds later he shouted, “Down here!”
    Evan ran to
the light. Lewis was standing next to the soda machine. A door with a
Keep Out sign in multiple languages stood open. Two bodies, a man in
coveralls and a female tourist, lay in a shared pool of blood in
front of the door. They were beyond help. Evan stepped over their
bodies, trying not to look at them, and stepped inside. “Hold the
light,” he said to Lewis. “This should only take a minute.”
    Celene dialed
Penny's room number.
    “ Uh, hello.
The power's out,” Nick said.
    “ Landlines
still work when the power is out.” She slammed down the receiver.
“That proves it's not just a power outage. Someone cut the phones.
I'm going out there to get Penny.” Their
cell phones didn't work in Europe. She would have to go there
herself.
    Nick stood in
front of the door. “No way. You're not opening this door. You heard
that downstairs. A generator would have kicked on by now if it were
just a coincidence.”
    “ Nick
Morrisey, don't you get between a mother and her child. I'm going out
there.”
    Nick shook his
head. “I don't feel like dying today, Dr. D.”
    “ Then