Short story about a haunted hotel room with a stain on the wallpaper

Question

The story is about a man who comes to a hotel as part of his travels. He has stayed there before and even notices that the man at the front desk is acting in a more formal fashion to him than usual. The traveler requests a specific room that has a water stain on the wallpaper that is shaped like a joker or a jester. I think the name of the short story may even be "The Joker" or something similar. He knows that there is something paranormal about the stain and wants to take the opportunity to learn more about it. The traveler moves the tv in front of the stain and wakes up later to see that the stain has moved to a different spot on the wall so it is no longer hidden behind the tv.

The story ends with

The man's consciousness gets sucked into the stain and some force from the stain takes over his body. The man is observing this as if he is looking out from the wall. I think he can tell that there are others in that place with him and even suspects that this may be the reason that the man at the front desk was acting strangely.

I thought it was a Stephen King story but I might just have been confusing it with his short story 1408. I know that I read it in a book that was a collection of short fantasy/horror stories, possibly a year's end collection. This could have been an older story as I don't recall any modern technology in the story itself and it certainly was at least 5 years ago that I read it.

I am looking for the name of the author and the story and if possible, the name of the collection it appeared in.

Answer 1

I finally found the story in The Year's Best Fantasy & Horror: Eighteenth Annual Collection. It was titled Clownette by Terry Dowling.

516 is an overflow room, a room few want because of the “rush of weird” that greets one at the threshold, an electric charge, a brief, ominous sensation impelling the visitor to flee. But-—the Clownette or nothing? No other hotel in the entire city? Surely Jackson’s predicament is an exaggeration, a contrivance. Not so; Dowling has deftly and elegantly foreshadowed the compulsion of morbid curiosity as it afflicts the human mind and how it drives poor, foolish Bob Jackson to tamper with things best left undisturbed.

The “rush of weird” isn’t the main attraction, however. No, that would fall to the bizarre stain on the wall, a large discoloration that bleeds through any paint job. They say covering it up with furniture is equally fruitless, because . . . because the stain moves, you see.

According to this review, it originally appeared in a 'zine called Sci Fiction.