Do Not Disturb(10)

Once he’s taken care of that, he goes behind the wooden counter. He leans his elbows on the counter as he looks at me. “So usually we charge fifty dollars a night. Is that okay?”

“Is cash all right?”

“But of course.” He rifles below the counter. “Are you planning to stay just for the night or longer?”

“Just the one night.” And maybe not even that long. “Am I the only person staying here?”

He hesitates. “No. We have another guest. But she’s more… long term.”

He doesn’t explain what that means, which is fine. I just want to feel like I’m not the only person in this semi-deserted motel. Yes, this guy seems harmless, but this is how scary campfire stories start. “What about you and your wife? Do you stay here?”

Nick shakes his head. “Nah. We live in that old house right behind the motel. But I’ll stick around for a while in case you need anything. I’ve got to fix that leak, anyway.”

He finally finds what he was looking for under the desk. It’s a sheet of paper, old enough that it’s turned stiff and yellow. It looks like some sort of information form for guests. He blows a layer of dust from the paper. “Would you fill this out for me?”

“Um, sure.”

I pick up the ballpoint pen on the desk, but my hand feels frozen. I don’t want to fill this out. I’ll have to falsify every piece of information here. Starting with my name.

At some point, I’ll have to shell out the money for a fake ID. But in the meantime, I should have a fake name to give people. Except what? It should be something common that rolls off the tongue. Nothing memorable.

Mary? Jennifer? Carol? My best friend in college was Kelly. That’s innocuous enough. So I scribble down the name Kelly.

And now I need to think of a last name.

“I have to tell you,” Nick says. “This is the longest anyone has ever taken to write their name.”

My cheeks burn. “Oh…”

“Listen…” He reaches for the yellowing piece of paper. “Don’t worry about the form. You’re just staying for the night.” He looks down at the one piece of information I gave him. “Okay, Kelly?”

“Okay,” I say gratefully.

I reach into my purse and extract fifty dollars to pay him for the room. He takes the money and shoves it into the pocket of his jeans. Then he grabs a set of keys from under the counter.

“I’ll show you the room,” he says. He glances at my luggage. “Let me get your bag for you.”

I start to protest, but what the hell? I’m exhausted, and he looks strong. May as well let him carry my bag.

I follow him up a set of stairs to the second floor. The stairs aren’t lit at all, and with every step, they groan like the whole staircase is about to collapse at any second. I grab onto the banister for support, in case the stairs really do collapse, and it immediately shifts under my weight. This whole motel feels like it’s about to fall apart any second now.

Nick notices and flashes me an apologetic smile. “I need to tighten a few of the screws. Sorry about that.”

“No problem.”

The entire second floor seems to be lit by a single lightbulb. There are three doors, two on the left and one on the right. Nick takes me past rooms 201 and 202, and then we stop at 203. He fishes the keys out of his pocket.

As he’s getting the door open, I noticed the door to room 202 has cracked open. I turn around, and I feel rather than see somebody watching me from within the room. I tilt my head, trying to get a better look, but then the door slams closed.

“Is… is there somebody staying in room 202?” I ask.

Nick glances at 202, then back down at the keys. “Yeah. That’s just Greta. She sort of… lives here. She won’t bother you.”

I can’t shake this uneasy feeling that I should leave this motel right now. Grab my bag and get back on the road, no matter how hard it’s raining or snowing. This place is trouble.

But that’s silly. It’s warm and dry in here. And there’s an actual bed that I can sleep in.

Nick throws open the door to my room for the night. It’s about what I expected. A small double bed with a stiff looking bedspread, and an old dresser with a small TV balanced on top. And a rickety wooden chair in the corner of the room.

A crease forms between Nick’s eyebrows as he watches my face. “Is it okay?”

“It’s perfect,” I say.

He nods. “The TV has an antenna… It’s not cable or anything. We might get a little reception, but I’m not sure if you will in the storm. And there’s a phone… But it only calls the phones on the first floor. Most people have cell phones these days…”

I think about the cell phone I tossed in the back of that pickup truck. I wish more than anything that I had a phone right now. But it’s better I got rid of it. I don’t want anyone to track me here. Plus, if I could call Claudia, I’m not sure if I could resist the temptation.

“And there’s a private bathroom,” he adds, a touch proudly. “So you can… You don’t have to leave the room or anything. There’s a shower and everything.”

I shiver. “I don’t shower at motels. When I was a kid, I saw this movie where this woman got murdered while taking a shower at a motel. It scarred me for life.”