This has got to be the creepiest and saddest motel I have ever seen. The Motel Glen Capri is definitely a place I would never want to visit. Standing next to Isaac in front of the bus, I eye the two story motel with a curled lip. This looks like the kind of place criminals would come to to hide from the cops. My duffel bag weighs down my body, but I keep myself from slouching. I may have overpacked.
Scott and Stiles hop off of the bus, one of the last few to disembark. Stiles' own face crinkles up in distaste because of this motel. I think I would rather sleep on the bus.
"I've seen worse." Scott announces.
"Where have you seen worse?" Stiles questions.
Coach blows his whistle. "Listen up. The meet's been pushed up til tomorrow. This is the closest motel with the most vacancies and least amount of good judgement when it comes to accepting a bunch of degenerates like yourselves. You'll be pairing up. Choose wisely."
Students trudge forward to grab a room key from Coach's hand. I bump into Isaac's side to get him to walk forward.
"You'll be pairing up. Choose wisely." Coach says as I pass him with Isaac and Boyd.
"Can I share a room with you guys?" I walk in between the two of them. I peer at the room key in Isaac's hand. Second floor.
Isaac throws an arm over my shoulders. "Of course, sis."
I glimpse at Boyd and pat his arm. "Don't worry, Boyd. I'll share a bed with him, so you don't have to."
Boyd chuckles on our way to the stairs.
"And, I'll have no sexual perversions perpetrated by you little deviants. Got that? Keep your dirty little hands to your dirty little selves." Coach yells at all of us.
"Coach is way over his head tonight." I lean against Isaac.
We walk up the stairs to the second floor, followed by other students. The stairs creak a little under us and I hurry up the rest of the way. This motel is old and creepy. Definitely reconsidering sleeping on the bus. We walk down the walkway until we reach room 121. Isaac unlocks the room, walking inside first.
The room smells strongly like mothballs and dead animals. I groan. It's just one night. I can survive that. I toss my bag on the bed closest to the door. Boyd sits down on the other bed. A red duffel bag flops on the bed next to mine. Shivering from the chilly temperature in the room, I unzip my bag for my black, zip up hoodie.
"I'm going to go see Scott." I say once I have my hoodie halfway zipped up.
"Whoa, wait." Isaac grabs my arm, stopping me. "Uh, can we talk for a second?"
I nod once. He leads me back over to the bed. I sit down on the edge. Boyd peers at the both of us before heading for the bathroom. Isaac scrunches his face up.
"Look, you've changed a lot, and I'm so proud of you." Isaac pats my leg once. "Just- Are you ready for a relationship?"
I tilt my head to the side in confusion. A relationship? What is he talking about? I open my mouth, only to quickly shut it. "What are you talking about?"
"Scott."
"What about Scott?" I ask, completely befuddled.
Isaac scratches the back of his head. "He's totally into you."
"No, he's not." I shake my head. "We're just friends."
Isaac rolls his eyes. "Uh, no. He's smitten with you. He's holding your hand all the time, always checking to make sure you are safe, protecting you ever way he can- Scott likes you. I trust him, though. Scott wouldn't hurt you-"
I abruptly stand up. "Stop! Scott doesn't like me. We're just friends."
"Chloe, I'm not trying to upset you." Isaac tries to stand up.
I back away. "This is ridiculous. I'm going for a walk."
"Chloe!"
I storm out of the motel room. What is he talking about? Scott doesn't like me. That's just crazy. Yeah, we get along really well, but I consider Scott to be like my best friend. I could tell him anything. I jog down the set of stairs, plopping myself down on the fifth one from the ground. I place my face in my hands. I'm so confused. So what if Scott is protective of me? That automatically means he likes me. Why would he like me? I'm nothing special.
Why would anyone love you? You're worthless. Dad appears a few feet away.
I jump on to the next step, wide eyed. "D-Dad?"
He steps closer until he is in front of the stairs. "You think Scott would like you? Why? He could have someone way better. Someone who wasn't scared of every little thing."
"I've changed." I scoot further away from him, climbing down the stairs.
"Please. You can put up this facade, but everyone still sees past it. You're worthless. You belong in that freezer where you can rot." Dad slowly follows me as I try to get away from him. "You're still that little girl that no one cares about. I should have killed you when you're mother died. You made me like this!"
Something slams in my back and I stumble in to the wall.
"Whoa! Chloe, hey, sorry." Stiles reaches out to stable me.
I choke back a sob that was about to erupt from my body. I whip my head around, searching for dad, but he is completely gone. Where did he go? He was right in front of me before Stiles collided into me.
Stiles has his hands full of snacks from the vending machine. His eyes lock on my watery eyes. "Hey, are you okay?"
I wipe away the single tear that escaped. "Yeah, I'm fine. A-A piece of dust or something must have flown in my eye."
"Ahh." Stiles says, like he doesn't believe me. He shifts the snacks in his hands. "Well, do you want some Twix, sunflower seeds, or mini chocolate chip cookies?"
Forcing a smile on my face, I pluck the cookies from his hand. "Thanks."
"I gotta get back up to my room. This motel kind of freaks me out." Stiles moves towards the stairs. "Coming?"
I look up to the second floor. Scott's up there. "Uh, no. I'm going to be out here for a little bit longer. Enjoy the fresh air."
As he walks back to his room, I scan the motel perimeter for my father. How did he vanish so quickly? How was he even here? He's dead.
"Is there a reason why you are standing out here in the cold by yourself?" Lydia walks up to where I have been standing by the stairs for the past ten minutes. A pile of dirty towels are in her arms. She must have noticed that I didn't want to talk about it, so she hands one of the towels to me. "Come on. You can walk with me to the office. The buddy system might come in handy at this place."
I open the door to the office for the both of us. The lighting is dim, just enough to add to the creepy look. A counter is right in front of the door, a few feet away, with a glass window separating us from the receptionist. There's a small rectangle cut out through the glass to talk through.
Lydia struts forward, dropping the towels on the counter. "Excuse me? The card on the dresser says we have a non-smoking room, but somehow all of our towels reek of nicotine."
The receptionist spins around. Okay, this place just got even creepy. The receptionist is an older lady with thin, gray hair, beady eyes, and a pipe hooked up to her throat. If that's not a good reason to not smoke, I don't know what is.
"Sorry about that, sweetheart." The receptionist speaks in a gruffy voice.
I might have to sleep on the bus tonight. This is not my idea of a safe place to sleep.
Lydia looks up to a number on the wall. "What's that? That number?"
The receptionist looks over. "It's a kind of inside thing for the motel. My husband insists on keeping it up."
Lydia side glances at me, frowning. "What do you mean?"
Is she not creeped out by this lady? By this whole hotel? I just get a really bad vibe from all of it. Seeing my dead dad earlier sort of just added to it.
"It's a little morbid, to be honest. You sure you want to know?"
"Tell me." Lydia doesn't break eye contact with the creepy lady.
The lady grins. "We're not gonna make the top of anyone's list when it comes to customer satisfaction."
I set the towel Lydia gave me down. "Obviously." I state with lots of sarcasm in my voice.
"But, we are number one in California when it comes to one disturbing little detail. Since opening, more than any other motel in California, we have the most guest suicides."
My breath hitches in my throat. Most guest suicides? A sick feeling fills my stomach. My eyes flick back to the number on the wall. One hundred and ninety eight. Oh, my god. They keep a count of how many suicides have happened here. Are they proud of that?
"One hundred and ninety eight?" Lydia whispers.
The receptionist grins, proudly. "And counting."
Her creepy, evil laugh follows us as we quickly hustle out of the office. We left the nicotine scented towels on the counter. That was the cherry on top of the rotten sundae to officially make me hate this motel. I just want to get back home, far away from this place. Lydia and I book it back upstairs, except I join her in the room she is sharing with Allison. Normally, I would sort of be against this, but I don't feel like going back to see Isaac.
Allison seems a little surprised when I step in the room with Lydia, but quickly brushes it off when Lydia goes straight into telling her what just happened. I awkwardly perch myself on one of their beds. It would seem as if Lydia is frozen on the other bed.
"One hundred and ninety eight?" Allison questions from the bathroom. She's been towel drying her hair from her shower.
"Yes, and we're talking 40 years. On average, that's... 4.95 a year, which is... actually expected. But who commemorates that with a framed number? Who does that? Who?" Lydia remains seated on the bed.
Allison steps out of the bathroom while pulling a black sweater on over her head. "All suicides?"
"Yes. Hanging, throat-cutting, pill-popping, both-barrels-of-a-shotgun- in-the-mouth suicides-"
I hold up both of my hands. "Lydia, please stop. I don't need these images in my mind. I'm already not going to sleep well."
"I don't know about you, but me, I..." Lydia pauses. "Did you hear that?"
"Hear what?" I briefly look her way.
Lydia, looking beyond confused, swivels her head to the air vent. "I don't know." She stands up, eyes fixated on the air vent.
I stand up myself, but to back up to where Allison is standing. Lydia steps up on the bed. I glance at Allison to see if she has any idea of what our friend is doing. She creeps closer to the air vent, not saying a word, almost like she can hear something we can't. Her breathing picks up, like she is about to cry.
"Lydia?"
"Oh, my God, oh, my God." She whispers to herself. Something freaks her out and she clamps her hand over her mouth. Allison and I move forward, prepared to catch our strawberry blonde friend if she falls off of the bed.
"What is it, Lydia?" I ask her.
"What happened?" Allison follows me with her own question.
Lydia spins around, on the verge of tears. "Did you hear that?"
"Hear what?" We ask, simultaneously.
Lydia gasps while stepping off of the bed. Her eyes filled with tears, mouth agape. "The two people in the other room... they shot each other." She breaks out in a run, dashing out of the room.
I sprint after her with Allison. Lydia bursts through the door to the next room. We follow her into the empty room There's no one in here. How did she hear two people shoot each other?
"Hello?" Lydia flips the light switches on and off, except the lights don't turn on. No power. She creeps forward in the dark room.
Allison glances around, afraid someone is going to see us. "Lydia, what are you doing?"
Lydia slowly walks in the room to a construction light. "Hello?"
The light fills the room, illuminating everything inside the room. It looks as if the the room was in the middle of being painted. Sheets cover the floor, empty paint buckets, ladders.
"It had to be right here. It was a guy and a girl, and, I mean, they sounded younger, but...they were here." Lydia says.
Allison steps forward. "I believe you. After everything we've been through, I believe you."
The room suddenly becomes too hot for me. I stumble out of the room, grasping the railing. This motel is too much. For the creepy vibe and now the one hundred and ninety eight suicides. Not to mention that I saw my dead dad. I must be going crazy. This motel is making me go paranoid or something.
A gentle tap on my arm has me spinning around. Lydia waves me along as she jogs down the stairs with Allison. Where are we headed to now? Unfortunately, we find ourselves back in the office. The receptionist is gone, but there is a sign up one the glass window, saying 'Back at 6am'. Automatically, I look up at the number on the wall. I grab on to whoever I can.
That person was Allison because she notices the numbers on the wall. The new numbers. "Didn't you say the sign said one hundred and ninety eight?"
Wide eyed, Lydia peers at the sign. "It was one ninety eight. I swear to God it was one ninety eight."
"I-I was a witness to that." I swallow. I can't seem to tear my eyes away from the new numbers on the wall. Two hundred and two. I'm almost scared to ask why it went up.
"Okay, what does that mean, that there's been four more suicides?"
"Or four more are about to happen."
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
As you can tell, Chloe is acting a little strange. I'm excited for the next chapter. I am literally going to start it right away. Maybe you'll get lucky and I'll update once more today. Otherwise, it will be tomorrow morning.
Isaac can tell that Scott has a crush on Chloe. How cute. However, she kind of freaked out. Maybe because she is insecure or she strongly believes they are just friends.
Be prepared for the next chapter. Everything is going to go down.
Question: What do you think is going to happen next? Any ideas?
So, yeah!