The Sun Down Motel

The wind slapped me in the face, and I pulled my coat closed. There was another whiff of cigarette smoke, and something brushed by me—actually touched me, knocked me back a step. In the yawning, empty darkness, a man’s voice said, “Goddamn bitch.”

I stumbled back another step. Goddamn bitch. I’d heard that—really heard it. A strangled sound came from my throat, and I turned to look back at the motel.

The lights were going out. Starting at the end of the L, the corridor lights were blinking out like a row of dominoes. The darkness sat heavier and heavier, gained more and more weight. A fuse problem, I tried to tell myself, though I’d never seen a fuse in my life. The darkness marched down one side of the L, then straight up the other, step by step, ending at the office. The light over the door blinked out, and then the sign. I was alone. There was no sound.

That was when I saw the boy.

He was around eight or nine, on the second level. He was sitting on the walkway floor, cross-legged in the dark, looking at me with a pale face through the latticed bars of the panel beneath the railing. He was wearing shorts and a T-shirt with colors splashed brightly on it, as if he were heading for the beach. As I watched, he put his hand on the panel and leaned forward.

“Hey!” I shouted at him in surprise. There weren’t any kids staying here according to the guest book, certainly none who were underdressed for the cold. I took a step toward the staircase. “Hey! Hello?”

The boy stood, turned, and bolted, running lightly down the corridor away from me. I heard his small, even footsteps on the stairs. I forgot about the smoke and the disembodied swearing and the rest of it and jogged down the length of the motel, hoping to catch the boy as he descended.

The boy hit the bottom step and vanished around the corner, toward the nothingness of the dark woods. “Hey!” I shouted again, as if I could make him turn around. I had a shiver up my back, along the back of my neck. Was that real? It looked real. What if it was a real boy?

I was at the bottom of the stairs now, and from above me I heard a familiar click. The same click from last night when the doors opened. I stepped back, tilting my head back and looking up through the slats of the railing. It was a single click this time, followed by the other sound I’d heard that night—the rustle of fabric. There was a footstep, the double-click of a woman’s heeled shoe. Then another.

I took another step back, looking up. The light from above the door to room 216 was out, but I could vaguely see. The door was open, like it had been last night. As I watched, a woman walked out into the corridor.

She was bathed in shadows, but I could see enough. She wore a dark, knee-length, long-sleeved dress. It looked purple, or maybe blue, with a flower pattern. On her feet she wore low heels with modest closed toes. She was slender, her calves slim beneath the hem of the dress, her arms pale and graceful. Her hair was curly and spilled over her shoulders. She put her hands on the rail and looked down at me, and for a second I could see the dark liner around her almond-shaped eyes, the pale oval of her face. She looked like any one of a million women in family photographs a generation ago, except that she was looking at me, and she was not real.

Her eyes were white-hot, harsh, angry, and incredibly sad. She was looking at me, and she was not real.

She opened her mouth to speak.

I made a terrified sound in my throat, and then a hand grabbed my arm—a big, strong, real hand. I spun and saw Nick Harkness standing there, staring at me, his blue eyes blazing.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he shouted.

I gaped at him. “I—” I looked up, but the woman was gone. I felt panic and unspeakable relief. “Did you see that?” I said to Nick.

He didn’t answer. His hand was still on my arm. I heard the snick of a door opening overhead, then another. Then another. The doors were opening one by one.

“Come on,” Nick said, tugging me toward the parking lot.

“Where are we going?” I managed.

“We’re leaving. I don’t know what’s going on, but I’m not sticking around for it. Are you?”

Fell, New York

September 1982

VIV



   She tried not to listen in on people’s phone calls once she learned the phone trick, but it was hard.

Jamie Blaknik, for example. He was a young guy in jeans and a worn-thin T-shirt who smoked cigarettes, ignoring the NO SMOKING IN MOTEL sign and messing with Viv’s ability to detect the smoking man every time he checked in. The smoky-sweet smell of him told her he was most likely a pot dealer, the kind of guy she had never talked to before—the kind of guy who would give her mother a rage fit if she ever brought him home. He was attractive in an edgy, I-won’t-be-nice-to-you way, and Viv’s neck and cheeks always got hot when he checked in and gave her that smirk across the desk. Nice night, he’d say, and she’d nod like an idiot, until one night she smiled at him when he walked in and he smiled back.

“Nice night,” he said, pulling a roll of bills from his broken-in jeans pocket and unwrapping a few twenties.

Viv looked at his tousled brown hair, his gray eyes—which were actually rather nice—and his unaffected slouch that went in an easy line from his shoulders to his hips, and said, “You come here a lot.”

“That bother you?” he said in an easy drawl as he picked up a pen and scribbled his name into the guest book.

“No,” Viv replied. “What is it about this place, though? Do you like the view?”

He looked up at her from the guest book and gave her a smile that had a thousand possible meanings to it. She just wished she knew which one. “Yeah,” he said with a touch of humor in his voice. “I like the view.”

“That’s nice,” she said, holding his gaze. “I’m not going to bother you. Just so you know. It doesn’t matter to me what you’re doing.”

Jamie straightened. “Okay,” he said, holding out his hand for his key. He wore a leather bracelet on his wrist, wound with one of woven cloth. “That works for me. I don’t bother you, you don’t bother me.”

“Right.” She rifled through the key drawer to pick him a key.

“Unless you want to party,” he added. “If you do, just come on over to my room and knock on the door.”

Whoa! That was a step beyond what she was ready for. But Viv handed him his key and batted her lashes, just theatrical enough for him to know she was kidding. “Oh, I couldn’t do that,” she said. “I might get fired.”

He laughed, and his laugh was just as pleasant as the rest of him. “Have it your way, Good Girl,” he said. “The party’s happening anyway. Have a good night.”