The motel room was dimly lit and stank of cigarettes. She sat down on the double bed nearest the heavily-curtained window and peeled back the bedspread. On one of the cushions she noticed a faint stain, the outline of a spreadeagled person, like a gingerbread man, left behind by a previous occupant. It was much faded with repeated laundering, but still visible, pale brown as a scorch mark. She put her nightgown on, then lay down on the bed, listening to the cars rushing past on the highway until sleep overtook her.
She was driving along the highway in her rental car, her eyes transfixed by the license plate of the pickup truck just ahead, in its neon-lit chain-link frame. It was late evening, and the highway signs were whipping past. Mesmerized by the truck and the white lines on the blacktop, her eyelids drooped and she decided she had to stop at the next motel, providing it looked halfway OK. On her right, a motel, country-cottage style, shimmered faintly in the darkness, white woodwork and little wooden tulips in the gravel yard, “No Vacancy” on the flip sign. She drove on. The truck in front of her suddenly made a sharp right turn, and she found herself alone on the darkening highway. Twenty minutes went by, with fewer and fewer billboards, then a deserted gas station, the old-fashioned kind, with chocolate-box turrets, gas pumps ripped out and covered over. Across the street, the kind of motel with separate little cottages that Film Noir gangsters hid out in. It called out to her, but a sudden rush of traffic in the other lane made it impossible to turn. She kept going.
At last, a big yellow sign, crowned by a bowling ball. A few empty parking spots. She pulled up in front of the office and went in, hesitating for a few seconds, somehow expecting the door to be locked. Of course it wasn’t. Tiny bells jingled, announcing her arrival, as she entered. The desk clerk, a middle-aged man in shirtsleeves, who had been watching TV under the counter, looked up at her sleepily.
“Do you have a reservation?”
“No, but…”
“That’s OK – I have one room left on the ground floor.”
“That’s fine!” she said eagerly, needing to use the bathroom. He took her credit card, interacted intensely with the computer keyboard, then handed her a plastic keycard. “Room 14, at the end of this hall,” he indicated with a stubby finger, which spoke of impending circulatory problems. Dragging her suitcase behind her, she started walking, passing machine after humming machine – ice, soft drinks, chips, more soft drinks. The last door on the right – her room. Fumbling at first, as she always did, she finally got the card to work. She entered the room and switched on the light.
A queen-sized bed, covered by a floral bedspread, took up most of a pinkish room that reminded her of the inside of someone’s mouth. First things, first, though – she went into the bathroom. There were the usual little soaps and bottles, and a few hairs the maid had either missed or left behind herself. She avoided looking at her face in the mirror. Afterwards, she hung up her suit and crawled under the covers in her underwear.
She thought she had been sleeping for some time when she heard knocking. Startled, she looked around. It seemed to be coming from the window, not the door. Wrapping herself in the bedspread, she went to the window and parted the curtain.
She found herself eye to eye with a man, who was staring in the window at her. Because it was so dark outside, his features were indistinct, except for the eyes – his eyes, glowing like tiny flashlight beams.
She awoke to find herself sitting up in bed, screaming. With the back of her hand, she mopped cold sweat from her face. Then she heard the knocking – sharp, insistent, determined raps. They seemed to be coming from the window, not the door. She did nothing, not wanting to investigate. The knocking persisted. She could hear the window vibrate as if someone was throwing their full weight against it. Holding her breath, she sharply drew the curtain aside. The window was actually a sliding door, leading directly from the room to the parking lot. On the other side of the door a man was spreadeagled, peering in at her and grimacing fiercely.Pinned to the spot with shock, she started screaming.Someone from the room next door began pounding on the wall and shouting in unconscious counterpoint to the man outside. She threw herself back on the bed and reached for the phone to call the front desk, while picking up the pillow she had been sleeping on and hugging it to her chest. As she tried to explain what was happening to the drowsy desk clerk, she glanced down and saw the stain, shaped like the maniac at her window. The pillowcase man.
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