Encounter at Motel Six

A Story by PWyates

Taking a pit stop a young man on a cross-country trip finds no respite, only a night of terror.

About two summers ago just after I’d graduated college it seemed like the best time to finally take a road trip across the country. It began as the greatest experience of my life; but soon devolved into a nightmare one stormy night after about a week on the road. I had just traded the pleasant dry heat of San Francisco for the thick humidity of Orlando, Florida. The alarming rate of sweat that had poured down my a*s all but screamed for me to fill my empty stomach, and get some rest. I stopped at the closest Carl’s Junior, loaded up on all the fast-food fifteen dollars could buy, and doubled back to a Motel Six I had noticed as I pulled off the exit.

I parked the car, and quickly moved towards the entrance. The front desk was empty when I stepped inside. The lack of air conditioning made me impatient, I began to ring the little bell every thirty seconds or so. It took nearly five minutes before the door finally opened, and a disgruntled old woman waddled out from the office behind the desk. Inside the small “office” I could see a lawn chair propped centimeters in front of a miniscule television which was tuned to some steamy soap opera. She silently took out a ledger and silently pointed where to sign. Then mechanically put her hand out and asked for forty dollars, which I readily supplied. Excited to finally be out of the car I rushed to the room, slid in the key and collapsed onto the bed spooning my bag of deep-fried treats. After I inhaled the food, the Sandman was quick to pay me a visit. Before I could even remove the remnants of my meal still scattered across my body and the bed.

I awoke what must have been several hours later, because it was clearly full dark out behind the blinds. I reached over and to my disdain realized that the television’s remote was bolted to the table. Luckily it was already programmed to HBO when I clicked it on. I drifted in and out of sleep to the most popular movies from the past year in the background. Until in a moment of lucidity, when out of the corner of my eye I was mortified to notice a set of eyes peering through the blinds.

In a state of complete shock and terror I jumped up and sprinted to the door stopping for a moment finally gingerly opening it. When I finally popped my head out I saw that the dimly lit walk way was clearly empty. I told myself that it must have been some drunken horse’s a*s in search of their room key, and headed back to bed.

Still a bit shaken up I could only perch myself on the edge of the bed. All my focus was beamed on the television. A Stephen Segal film I had vaguely remembered pining to see as a child, which decently diverted my attention. It was about a half an hour later that I began to hear a clicking noise at the lock of my door. Again I plunged into a complete state of panic, this time it took me several minutes to stand up; let alone investigate.

Just as I had built up the courage the clicking abruptly halted, and when I forced myself to loos outside; again there was nothing. At this point I was too riled up to do anything but pace the room. Intermittently looking through the blinds, trying to convince myself that I needed to get some rest. It would be completely asinine to have spent forty dollars only to leave in the middle of the night because I thought some boogeyman was outside. Again sitting on the bed I attempted to slow my thoughts and lull myself back to sleep.

I had finally worked myself back down into a lying position, and then a series of penetrating honks forced me to back to reality. This time, without hesitation I burst outside, and recognized that the sound as my car alarm. In the dark I saw my lights were flashing in time with the honks of the horn. The bulbs illuminated the silhouette of a large man holding a brick, standing about five feet away from my car. As soon as the other guests began to inspect the commotion he fell back, and disappeared into the darkness. That was it; I went back into the room, grabbed my backpack, dropped the keys in front of the office and hightailed it out of there for some more food before I left for good.

I stopped at Denny’s and forced myself to eat a Grand Slam that would have been mediocre under any other circumstance, paid my bill and went back to the car. When I was about to get back onto the exit I noticed about six police cars swarmed in the Motel Six’s parking lot. A perverse subconscious desire forced me to pull in.

Carefully working my way through the other rubber-neckers I was barely able to get a glimpse of what had exactly happened after I left. There was a young man’s lifeless and bloody corpse lying in the doorway of the room next to mine. He had a brick lodged half-way down his throat. Even more disturbing was that in this light the deceased young man was almost the spitting image of me.