But my bag is inside, she thought. Lucey Harrison’s stomach began to knot, a prickly, unpleasant feeling.

She hurried down the stairs to the lobby — something I should have done immediately, she self-chastised. The first sign of things gone wrong sat in the fish bowl on the counter. Instead of the brightly wrapped candies, the bowl was now teeming with small snails — too many, really, for such a small container. Her eyes swept the rest of the room, noting the now-alphabetized mail boxes behind the counter, the artificial palm tree where once stood a display of vacation brochures. The old man still sat with his paper, but now the sofa was a deep burgundy.

“May I help you?”

The clerk was wrong, too. He smiled, and his teeth were too white. Perfect. His once-brown eyes had lost all color, and now reflected her startled image in their grey irises. Lucey looked at the key in her hand, but staggered a few steps away.

“You…you’re not…”

Lucey jumped as a hand patted her on the shoulder.

“Come with me,” the man with a newspaper said.

The clerk’s grey eyes sent a frost into Lucey’s chest. She allowed the newspaper man to pull her aside, close to the main entrance.

“Is this a joke?” She asked, her voice shaking.

“I wish.” The man smiled; not a warm smile, but one of knowing. “How’d they get you?”

Lucey frowned.

“Can I see your key?” the man asked.

She hesitated, but held it out.

“Oh. Second floor.” He pushed a hand into his pocket and produced his own key. “Me, it was numbers. See.” His hand opened to reveal a silver key with the number five.

Lucey’s hands began to tremble. “I–I don’t understand…where am I?”

“I don’t know, really. But wherever it is you want to be…well, you can’t get there from here.”