Motel
by Rik Hunik
Copyright 2014 by Rik Hunik
3020 words
A slightly different version of this story appeared in Abandoned Towers
“Don’t you dare slam that door,” Hanna shouted at him.
Dwight slammed the door of his house and walked away, his body stiff with anger, not looking back as his wife stormed out behind him. He jumped into his battered, blue Ford pickup truck and drove away, his radio drowning out what she yelled and screamed at him. It didn't matter, he’d heard it all countless times before.
Her rants all boiled down to the same thing, “I want out of this dead-end town.” But he liked it here; he had a tab at the bar, an affair with a waitress, and friends like Phil, who always had a place for him to crash when he had a disagreement with his wife.
Phil’s place was only a few minutes away. Anywhere in the town of McLeese Lake was only a few minutes away. Unfortunately Phil was away too. In the heat of the argument Dwight had forgotten that Phil was working up north in Yellowknife for another two weeks.
Dwight did not have a “Plan B” so his options were limited to crawling back to his cantankerous spouse or renting a motel room for the night. There weren’t many options in that department either. His first choice was full and the second was closed for renovations, which left just one, the Lakeside Motel, on the shore of the lake that gave the town its name.
The office was near the highway but the rooms were in two long, narrow buildings, the second at an angle from the first, following the curve of the shore. The light of the full moon reflected across the water in a gleaming path that only made the rest of the water look blacker and colder.
The “Vacancy” sign was not lit but he decided to try anyway. A thick bank of dark clouds obscured the moon as he went to ring the bell to wake the manager. While he waited rain started falling and a chilly wind blew it right under the tiny porch roof. Lightning flashed, casting Dwight’s shadow on the door.
Dwight saw a curtain move and a man with thin, mostly gray hair peered through the window in the door. He decided Dwight didn’t look dangerous so he unlocked and opened the door. The manager, a short, thin man, looked up at Dwight and tried to focus his sleepy, gray eyes.
Dwight said, “Do...” Thunder cracked and rumbled. He paused a beat, then continued in a louder voice, “You have a room for me?”
“And you are?” The old man cocked his head to hear the answer.
“Dwight Overholser.” He supplied his name without expecting it to get him a room.
The manager let him in, went behind the counter and flipped open the register. He stabbed with his finger. “Yes, booked last week, prepaid as per the usual arrangement.” He looked up. “Do you have I.D.?”
Dwight blinked. The old man had mistaken his question for a statement and was giving him what had to be somebody else’s reserved room. Dwight decided he might as well play it out and handed over his driver’s license, expecting to be turned away for sure. The manager barely glanced at the picture, jotted down the number, then handed it back and turned the form around for him to sign.
The name on the form was “D. Overholsar.” Dwight smiled as he signed. You certainly couldn’t notice the difference in spelling from his scrawled signature. The manager handed him the room key. “”Room nineteen, to your right as you go out, second to last at the far end.”
There was a dark blue car in front of his room so he parked his truck in front of room twenty.
The room was neat and clean, but the walls were old and the furniture, while still serviceable, showed considerable signs of age. It was just fine for tonight.
He stripped down and took a quick shower. Even if he didn’t have a change of clothes he could at least be clean for the night.
On his way to the bed he felt a draft on his wet skin and discovered that the back window had been blown open half an inch. He shivered and pulled it closed but, even though the handle was intact, the latch was broken. He had stopped the draft, but only until the wind blew the window open again.
It was pouring rain out there now. Even leaning close to the window and shielding his eyes from the interior light he could barely see the surface of the lake only ten feet away.
Dwight crawled naked into bed, shut off the light and was quickly overcome by sleep. He dreamt of an underwater town, with squat, stone buildings of a weird, totally unfamiliar architecture where no lines were quite vertical or parallel. The inhabitants lurking in doorways and windows appeared to be human but their eyes looked too big, there was something odd about the way they moved, and they always managed to slip out of sight just as he got almost close enough to see them clearly.
He followed a high, fast, piping music to the tallest building, a tapering stone structure nearly thirty feet high. The wide door stood open and soft, greenish light spilled out.
He moved closer, peered in, saw dozens of the townspeople gathered there, all facing forward. A woman spread-eagled across an altar in front of them looked like a sacrifice but there were no bonds and no one threatened her. She pulled up her skirt and started playing with herself with both hands, making him think it was some kind of mating ritual.
He woke up with a raging hardon, sweating under the covers, but the air in the room was too cool and it smelled like pond water. He could clearly hear the falling rain, which meant the window had blown open again. The room was almost completely dark but against the back window he saw the black against not-so-black silhouette of a woman.
Trying not to sound as scared as he felt Dwight said, “Hello?”
“Hello yourself,” a woman’s jaunty voice replied right away. “I saw your light come on and thought you must have arrived early. It might still be too early but I couldn’t wait anymore. You weren’t sleeping were you?”
“No” He sat up.
“I’ll grab a towel.” She flicked on the bathroom light and he caught a glimpse of her firm, round butt as she stepped naked into the bathroom. “What are you wearing?” she asked.
Reflexively he looked down but he already knew. “Uh, nothing.”
“Perfect. Neither am I.” Her voice drifted from the bathroom like a cool wind across a pleasant lake and she followed it out, still toweling herself dry. “Ready or not, here I come.” Her features were hidden in darkness but the light spilling from the bathroom door backlit her body, revealing the enticing curves of her figure.
The bedclothes were bunched at his waist but he found himself sweating as he drank in the smooth, liquid way she flowed across the room. The old bed creaked as her weight pressed on the mattress, her scent reached him and suddenly his fear took a hike as desire overpowered him. He could not resist her.
He reached for her as she reached for him. Her touch was cold but her embrace felt warm and it fueled his lust. He rolled on top of her, kicked away the bedclothes and, with one quick thrust, he entered her. She responded with enthusiasm.
When he rolled off her he was spent and she was satisfied. “That was terrific. It was my first time topside but I can hardly wait to get in the lake and do it again. It’s better under the water, don’t you agree?”
“Under the water?” After shooting his load he was thinking again and he was beginning to get scared.
“You’ve never done it down under? It’s so wonderful, David.”
“Dwight,” he corrected automatically, biting his tongue a moment too late.
She bounced away from him as if his polarity had changed, fumbled for the light and turned it on. It was his turn to pull back when he saw her fish-belly-white skin and the ghastly tinge of green in her hair.
“You have no gills,” she hissed, her own gills rippling open in her neck in her distress. Her wide lips peeled back, revealing her teeth, too narrow
and pointed to be fully human. Her arms reached for him, her fingers curled into claws and her legs bent for a leap.
Dwight threw a pillow at her. While she flinched he ripped the bedclothes off the foot of the bed and threw them over her. He launched himself off the bed, feeling like a wrestler coming off the second rope, and landed on her, slamming her down on the floor. He bounced to his feet and when she tried to get up he stomped and kicked her head in a frenzied panic until she lay still.
He stood over her for several seconds, breathing hard, trembling from the adrenaline still coursing through his body. His head spun and his stomach heaved. What kind of creature had he just had sex with? What if he caught some kind of strange disease from it? He sat on the edge of the bed with his head between his knees until his nerves had steadied.
The lump under the bedding wasn’t moving. He couldn’t tell if she was breathing or not but he wasn’t about to uncover her face to take a closer look.
It was clear now that he hadn’t been