NONE OF IT WOULD HAVE HAPPENED IF THEY HADN'T GONE TO THE CASINO.

If the three friends had driven straight to the hotel after the bars closed, they would have found a desk clerk on duty. They would have gotten their key, found their nice anonymous room, and crashed in their nice anonymous budget-priced beds.

But the friends were out for adventure. It was Aaron Howard's 28th birthday, and he, Kenzie Brooks and Noorain Dobani, all from the Atlanta area, were in Nashville to celebrate. The centerpiece would be a Wednesday night concert by one of Howard's favorite bands, the Arctic Monkeys. But the first stop when they arrived in town on Tuesday was to hit Nashville's famous bars, where they partied until closing time.

On their way to the hotel, with Dobani behind the wheel as the designated driver, they saw a sign for a casino in Kentucky.

Oh, heck yeah!

They couldn't resist one last stop. They got on the highway and headed north. The pals had fun even if they lost a few hundred bucks, and now they were all ready for bed.

Next stop: the La Quinta Inn & Suites near the airport, an utterly unremarkable, yellow-painted box by the interstate, catering to tourists and long-stay guests. It was 5 a.m. when they arrived. They didn't expect valet parking or a uniformed doorman. But they were expecting, well, somebody.

"No one," says Dobani. "We're in there waiting, and there's absolutely no one."

There was no one behind the big front desk, there was no one in the lobby, there was no one in the office.

The friends started to prowl around and soon found somebody, a housekeeper, who seemed as befuddled as they were. With no place to sleep and no way to get a key to their reserved room, they could have gotten back in the car and started looking for another hotel. But then they heard... a woman's screams.

From the elevator.

Coming their way.