Blown in by the Wind
A lone man visits the sleepy town of Cedarcrest amid the frost of winter night, unaware of all that lies ahead.
Part One
For all David had said about the wonders of central New York, James’s long-time friend never bothered to mention the snow. An endless expanse of white meandered through the man’s vision along his lonesome drive, the transition between the soft glow of the snow below and the darkness of the night above marked only by the yellowed rays of his car’s headlights.
Having started his drive all the way back from Albany International Airport with the help of a red rental Taurus, James was only able to keep his heading amid the downpour of snowflakes by referring to the sparse signs that decorated the various roads and freeways. A grungy map of New York State was splayed across his dashboard, illuminated by the interior light of his vehicle flipped on.
His breath rose in clouds of vapor as his mind focused on the road ahead, careful eyes scanning the amorphous horizon for any new signage—or any sign of life, for that matter.
James was, currently, on the last leg of the journey, with the freeway stretching throughout an insular county of New York. With it nestled deep upstate, it was quite far off from even the graces of Albany. If what the map indicated was true, James was somewhere within the wide wilderness of Atkins County, his ultimate destination not far off.
The gnaw of sleep hung heavy over James’s mind; a feeling that he tried to dispel through the drone of the radio spilling generic pop beats. The biting cold that delivered stabs in bursts along his gloved fingers and covered arms helped, too, in their own miserable way. Finding out that the heater in the car broke halfway through the drive was not a welcoming sign, but the cold did keep him awake through the nightly haul as a sort of bittersweet aftereffect.
As the drive spiraled ever onward, a sign slowly drifted into view on the right side of the freeway. There, swallowed up by the dark green of the road sign, were the words “EXIT 19 — CEDARCREST,” printed in faded white. James sighed in relief upon seeing those letters, the welcoming fantasy of sleep now emerging at the forefront of his mind. He could see himself there and then, lying comfortably beneath the sheets of a modest motel bed, protected from the endless assault of winter.
Even with that pleasant thought in mind, James knew that he had to soldier through the last few miles ahead before reaching the motel that David had told him about.
He passed the sign with the remnants of a smile upon his face.
With his drive along Route 143 winding down to an end, James opted to stop at a sign-recommended Texaco gas station just prior to the entrance to the Cedarcrest township. He planned to pick up the last of the things he needed before heading into town: fuel for his car, and cigarettes for himself.
Peeling into the lot of the gas station, James could not see a single vehicle or person in sight through his icy windshield, all except for the front headlights of a lone car right behind the store, assumedly for whoever was attending the Texaco. Feeling the cold press deeper into his arms and legs, he quickly parked his Taurus alongside one of the many open pumps and turned off the engine, noting that he was at pump number five. He sat in the car, in the midst of the encroaching cold, and looked around the windows of the sedan before exiting.
James saw nothing but the descent of snow all around the station, the closest flakes blocked from landing directly on his car by the overhead roof. With his mental check complete, he opened the sedan door with an audible click, pushing it outward and revealing the full icy draft of the night.
He shivered as he stepped out, his boots making squelches against the frost and water that had accumulated on the covered concrete ground. Shutting the door behind him and locking it in turn, James took careful steps toward the welcoming lights of the store ahead. Each step was punctuated by the howls of the wind funneled through the pump station, and as he left the cover of the roof overhead, bits of snow began to fall on his shoulders and beanie.
He paid such things little mind as he finally approached the ice-licked glass door of the store and pulled it open, greeted only by the chime of an overhead bell.
Walking inside, his eyes immediately drifted left. A lone cashier was the only person working, their eyes carrying bags as they roused from whatever nap they had been taking mere seconds before.
James simply waved and turned right, his eyes dancing over the aisles with beer in select freezers.
Alcohol could help a bit with this cold, James thought, grabbing a six-pack of red-and-white Budweiser beer from a freezer before turning away and hearing it self-close with an audible pop.
Picking up bits and pieces of food to keep in the car—beef jerky and a few candies he could throw into the dashboard—James finally made his way to the cashier and placed his items down in a haphazard pile.
The employee, without saying a word, lethargically took the items and scanned them one by one as James spoke.
“Hey man, while you’re at it, can you throw in a pack of Marlboro Reds? Also, let me fill up my tank. Five bucks’ worth at pump five,” he asked, already in the middle of pulling out his leather-bound wallet.
As expected, there was little verbal exchange. The cashier turned around, grabbed one of the many cigarette packs adorning the back wall, rang it up, and put it alongside the rest of the items.
“Can I see some... uh... identification?” the employee said, tiredness dripping off each syllable in waves.
James nodded and handed over his Louisiana state license, which the cashier scanned for a few seconds before returning.
“That’ll be eleven forty-nine for everything.”
James handed over a twenty-dollar bill, swearing to himself that he heard the other man groan in response to seeing it. The cashier muttered thanks and, after giving his change and bagging his items, disappeared into the back office. James grabbed the bag and headed for the exit. He noticed that the snowfall had picked up quite a bit in the few minutes he had been inside.
Already accustomed to the warmth of the gas station’s interior, James cursed under his breath as he opened the door and stepped outside into the freezing air of the night. A white haze blanketed his sight as he walked onward, his boots digging prints into the accumulated snow as he marched toward the familiar red of his rental car.
He popped open the passenger door of the Taurus and placed the bag in the front seat, shutting it afterward with an audible bang. He then flipped open the fuel door and its gas cap, his gloved fingers finding both steps difficult due to the bite of the winter.
As he stuck in the pump and held its trigger, James’s mind briefly lapsed into a haze of extreme tiredness, the constant whistling wind and the ever-present coldness washing over him in waves of coaxing drowsiness. He shook these thoughts off as the pump finished, returning it to its slot.
As he rounded his way to the driver’s side and unlocked the door, however, James noticed something strange. Lying before him in the snow, leading back to the store, were three distinct tracks, their markings apparent even against the blanketing white.
His brow furrowed as he inspected what laid before him: his own tracks, going to and from the car, and one other that veered off some ways away. The new set was harder to spot at first, given the more circular indents in the ground compared to his boots’ own identifiable pattern. It danced around the periphery of the fuel station before looping to the other side, and in a twinge of curiosity, James leaned to one side of the fifth pump and looked beyond to where they strayed off.
Nothing. Not a soul in sight, animal or human.
James told himself that it could have been a mere trick of the wind, but he was still left in doubt. After he pondered it for a few seconds, he shook his head in dismissal and returned to the stagnant cold air of his sedan. He plopped into the driver’s seat and started the engine.
After fishing out the pack of cigarettes from the shopping bag, James grabbed the lighter from his back pocket and used it as the car’s engine warmed, putting the lit cigarette at the corner of his mouth while shifting the transmission into drive. He rolled out of the lot and came back onto the barren freeway, heading down the exit that ran parallel to the Texaco. A sign was perched nearby, with the cheesy phrase “Welcome to Cedarcrest!” affixed to a white board in red and blue lettering, rust frozen in drips beneath each letter. The sight gave James some relief about finally reaching the township, but the state of decay the sign was in came as a bit of a surprise.
Following this was a more modernized sign, reading “PINECREST — THE PINNACLE OF THE COMMUNITY” in a bolder affirmation. He knew Pinecrest was the first village in the township that one would come across, but it wasn’t where he needed to go. After all, the only motel in the area was in the Cedarcrest village proper, a mile or two up north...
James’s car pulled slowly into the desolate parking lot. His body felt just moments away from freezing into a human popsicle, shivering from the numbness that spread across his skin and down into his bones. He had lost track of the time—his dashboard lacking any visible clock—and yet he felt midnight pass hours ago. The moon hung far off in the sky, disappearing periodically behind the clouds of the snowy night. It held this dance with James for hours at this point, the only companion that he had on the lonely drive up to Cedarcrest.
James braced himself for the fierceness of the wind, reluctantly opening the Taurus’s door and stepping outside. His shoes landed with a crunch against the crusted snow that had accumulated across the concrete lot. Shutting and locking the door behind him, he walked forward through miniature rolling hills of white. His hands were buried deep within the comforting fleece of his pockets, eyes wincing against the flurry that barraged his face. The motel’s sign glowed with a snow-diffused light in the distance.
A beacon of hopeful rest.
James reached the motel’s office in a beleaguered state, relishing the brief respite from the cold once he stepped inside. He was greeted by the voice of the lone employee working at such an ungodly hour, tone marked with mild surprise.
“...Oh? Why, hello there, sir! It’s quite a surprise to see anyone come by at this hour, to be honest...”
The voice, more upbeat than James had expected, belonged to a portly middle-aged white woman seated behind a wooden desk. Her eyes peeked out at him from behind thick-framed glasses, head cocked in curiosity.
“Uh... hello there, ma’am,” James said hesitantly. “I... I didn’t plan to get here so late, really, but—”
“Ah, the snow, right? It’s falling like hell out there.”
“Yeah. It took me hours to get out here from Albany, even though it should’ve only been about… an hour or two, maybe?”
“Well then, you must be beat! The storms around here do get quite strong, but I guess that’s just how Atkins is for you. Are you still interested in getting a room?”
“Yes, please.”
James’s eyes shifted toward the clock behind her as she began listing available rooms and walking him through the payment process. It read just two minutes past one in the morning. His mind gave out a silent sigh; he’d hoped to get to the motel by midnight, to catch up on sleep without wasting too many daylight hours.
“Your lucky number’s 106, sir,” the woman said, dropping the room’s key into his outstretched hand.
“Thank you, ma’am.”
“You’re welcome. Say...” she added, stopping James mid-pivot as he reached for the office door. “What brings you to Cedarcrest? Don’t mind me guessing and all, but I’d reckon you’re from out-of-state. We don’t get many of those who stray off from the highway… haven’t, for a long while.”
“I’m just here to visit an old friend who lives around here. That’s all,” James replied. Her question put him off a bit, though he eventually chalked it up to his fatigue.
“Oh? Well, that’s good! I’m sure you’ll find your stay nice. Good night, mister.”
James waved a short goodbye to her, the door to the office shutting behind him. The cold of winter winds returned to lap at him, cutting their way into his cheeks as he walked back toward the car to retrieve what little belongings he had. His boots toppled the tops of small snowdrifts that stood in his way, coating his legs with dusty white specks by the time that he reached the passenger-side door. All that there was to collect, apart from the items he had purchased, was a large black duffel bag that he had stowed beneath the seat.
As he grabbed its black strap and looped it over his head, James couldn’t help but feel that something was… off. Squinting against the haze of frostlight, he looked around in an attempt to dispel it. The passenger door fell closed with a metallic bang as he stepped away from the car, its short echo across the snow-swept parking lot met with nothing but the buzz of lamp posts. With the gentle fall of the snow, they scintillated softly in fluorescent white rays.
James stood there for a moment, bag slung over his back, smiling just a smidgen even with the chill gnawing at his limbs. From Albany until now, he hadn’t stopped to observe the upstate winter without being in a rush.
Heaving an audible sigh that rose toward the sky in faint white wisps, he turned from the rental car and made his way back, finding refuge from the snowfall under the motel’s sloped overhang. He fished out the room key from his pocket and meandered down the concrete path until, finally, he had reached his home for the night.
James raised the key to the door of Room 106 and slotted it into the keyhole, the smooth surface of the numbered badge glinting beneath the dying lamp overhead. The hinges screeched out into the open air. He winced at the noise and stomped the ice off his boots before he stepped into the blackness that laid beyond.
James’s hand ran over the obscured walls around him until, finally, he found what he was looking for. He flipped the lone light switch to his left, a soft bath of orange over the entryway sent down in response. After navigating carefully through the door, he steadied himself to avoid slipping on his damp shoes. He shut the door behind him and locked it, soon finding himself standing alone in the dusky light. The duffel bag’s weight, heavy on his tired shoulders, was apparent now more than ever.
James slipped the bag’s strap off of him and tossed it down near the bed, landing with a muffled thump. He carefully stepped out of his boots and left them beside the door to dry. After he peeled off his outer layers and let them fall atop the duffel, he stood in the middling warmth of the room grateful to be in something that was less suffocating.
He took the quiet, hanging moment to look around. A small window sat on the other side of the room, its blinds drawn against the world. Above, a ceiling fan lay frozen, its plastic blades crusted with years of dust. The bed that laid below it was nothing special. At the very least, its white linens appeared clean... as far as he could tell. The only things that possessed any color, apart from the bed and carpet, were the muted beige walls that peeled to reveal the banal white beneath.
His attention was then caught by the television.
The gray plastic box was nestled atop a dark wood table and set opposite to the foot of the bed. As he approached it, James noticed the remote resting to its side, the text beneath its buttons barely legible in the room’s dimness. He grabbed it and lazily flipped off the entry light before throwing himself onto the mattress. He turned on the television, with the intent to help himself drift off into sleep with some white noise. Ever since he was a kid, James couldn’t fall asleep without some sort of monotonous buzz in the background—be it a fan or a TV.
Something about silence, especially in such a foreign place as this, unsettled him... if the tinnitus in his ears didn’t get to him first.
His eyes drifted toward the screen as he lowered the volume, watching the green ticks shrink until they hovered just above zero. He flipped through channels in search of something boring enough to knock him out, eventually landing on a weather channel.
In almost an instant, a deluge of dark blue washed across the bedspread. Soft music drifted from the television’s speakers as it played an automated broadcast of the weather in Atkins County. From what he could read through the blur of his vision, James saw that the snow would let up at around seven in the morning. The temperature outside was seventeen degrees Fahrenheit and would probably hover around that mark until the sun rose. He his eyes rested on the white text on-screen before the display shifted to a generated weather map of Atkins and the wider breadth of upstate New York.
The soft, wavering saxophone from the speakers, coupled with the room’s subtle chill and the bedsheet’s texture against his skin, lulled James into a gentle, hypnotic stupor.
The sleep that he’d been chasing for hours arrived.
It was almost pitch-black within the room.
James could not tell if he was still asleep at first. The strange dryness in his mouth, the screaming of his brain, and the cold sweat across his body told him the truth soon enough. His eyes drifted to and fro in surprise as his head simply refused to move; it felt as if it weighed a ton, his neck stuck in place. In some manner of luck, James was lying almost entirely on his back, allowing him to glimpse parts of the room.
The music that was coming from the television was still perceptible to him. It sounded drowned out, though, as if he were underwater. With his eyes now drifting toward the portion of the screen he could see, he saw nothing more than a flood of deep, dark blue light dissipating into the wider darkness. The edges of his mind panicked when he looked at the television, his consciousness still not fully grasping what was happening.
Then, all at once, it came together in his roused mind.
Beyond the incandescent blue that shone of the screen was something immersed in the wider darkness of the room. His eyes could have very well been lying to him under the excuse of sleep, but his mind swore unto itself that what he was seeing was real. A cresting hump of black, moving so close to the boundary of the television’s light, and yet so far from being revealed.
Beyond the muffled music, he could hear the slightest sounds of shuffling against the carpet. He was screaming at his own mind to move, but he just couldn’t force his muscles to work. They held him down, a captive to himself.
James’s heart felt like it would explode right out of his chest. His conscious mind could no longer deny what he was seeing: whatever that was in the room with him now slowly, surely, crept forward. A fringe of blue outlined its edges as it lumbered forward with an unsteady gait, crawling on all fours. It stopped for a moment, nearly eclipsing the light of the television as a round head raised up.
He felt the dagger of a singular thought piercing his brain, one that he failed almost immediately.
Don’t look at it…
There were no eyes.
There was nothing at all to see. It seemed a shadow made manifest.
The worst thoughts raced through James’s mind as the shape tumbled briefly to the side and disappeared back into the darkness, heading left—towards the side of the room that held the only meaningful escape.
The scuffles against the carpet grew louder with each agonizing second. Unable to take any more, James forced his eyes upward, staring into the blackness of the ceiling overhead. His mind rattled out an impromptu prayer that whatever was happening would end, only to be silenced by the sudden, undeniable weight of something pressing into the mattress.
James’s mind ceased its feverish ministration. It was now blank, focused solely on the darkness above him, as if his instincts had shut off all distractions.
No sound.
No light.
He did not know if it was the dark of the room or the dark of whatever was in the room with him.
From one minute of total mental isolation came the next—one of total panic.
James’s body jolted upright as his throat bellowed out a scream of terror. His eyes darted to focus on the thing that had been trying to clamber right on top of him and saw long, skinny limbs retreat in an instant into the dark. A distinct warbling, gurgling boom emanated from beyond the bed. He rolled and tumbled off the other side, crashing to the floor, and scrambled upright in primal fear, eyes now straining to locate the thing.
The warbled noises accelerated further in the darkness as something slammed against the walls, the entire room seeming to shake with the force of it. James’s body moved without conscious thought, rounding the bed in a frantic dash for the front door. The snow and cold outside were meaningless now.
The folly of the move, however, revealed itself instantly. Pain blossomed in his shin as something struck right into the center of it. He fell face-first into the carpet, unable to break his fall in time with flailing arms and smashed his nose against the floor with a sickening crunch.
Dazed, gasping, and with blood misting across his lips with the force of his next breath, James tried to push himself up. That was when he saw it, in totality.
Lit by the pale glow of the television glowing from behind him, he was subject to the full thing at last: skinny limbs held up a misshapen torso, crawling across the bed. Long and lanky, the figure—drenched in a pure, lightless black—moved unevenly on all fours, surging from one side of the room to the other. The warbles grew louder, more urgent, the bedsheets flying out from the bed in a violent arc. A loud crack echoed from the corner where James had just been lying.
There was no time left for him to think.
In nothing but his shirt, shorts, and socks, James bolted to the door, fumbling at the lock and nearly ripping the handle off as he threw it open. He hurled himself out of the room and right into the snowbound world, the cold slicing across his skin in stinging sheets. He slammed the room’s door shut with a bang and staggered beneath the overhang, legs barely cooperating with the rest of his nervous system. The blood that flowed from his broken nose slicked his hands as he reached the office, nearly slipping on the icy pavement in the process. He crashed against the door, twisting the knob with frantic energy, and shoved it open.
The attendant, who had been sleeping at her desk, her head lolling off the back of the chair, snapped awake at the raucous noise.
“...Huh? Oh, oh God!” she exclaimed, looking wildly at James as his eyes darted between her and the office window. “Oh my God! What the hell happened!?”
“Someone was just in my room,” he said, panicked. “I think—no, no, I know they’re in there still! Get someone here now, please!”
With a frightened expression, the woman nodded, reaching for the office phone to dial as fast as she could. As she raised the phone to her ear, she saw James now staring through the window, his face blank with shock.
“Your nose,” she said, spotting the trails of blood that led down towards his reddening shirt. “Jesus Christ...!”
“I don’t know who the hell it was, but they were watching me sleep in there,” James said as he steadied himself against the window, the dark red welt against the front of his leg throbbing with newfound waves of pain.
“When I woke up, they hit me right in the leg. I fell, and, well...” he continued, speaking through the pain in his nose. “Fuck, it hurts...!”
“Come and sit down!” she replied. “The cops are coming, don’t worry about that now. Tell me, mister; did you see who did this to you?”
“...No, not really,” he managed to say, accepting some tissues from her to stem the blood. “It was too dark to see anything.”
“I haven’t had something like this happen for as long as I can remember,” she said, walking to the door and locking it. “No point in going out there right now until they get here...”
For some minutes, an uneasy silence hung in the office as the woman retreated to the back. James sat alone with red tissue stuck up his nostrils, his eyes never leaving the view of the outside. He had direct sight down the overhang from where the window was; no one had left the motel room after him.
It did not take long for a police car to arrive at the motel. The red and blue lights bloomed in James’s peripheral vision, prompting him to rise and follow the woman—who had procured the master key to the motel rooms—out of the door.
A single deputy arrived at the scene, the stark white light of the parking lot lamps illuminating the bags under his eyes and the frazzled beard across his face. James and the motel’s lone employee remained under the overhang as the deputy trudged through the snow to meet them, his head turning to and fro in a slow scan of the area.
“Is everything alright with you tonight, Cathy?” the deputy asked, flatly.
“I’m holding in there, Danny,” the woman said, somewhat out of breath. “This tenant here said that someone broke into his room; they might still be there right now.”
“Which one?” he asked, accepting the master key from the woman.
“106, sir.”
“Did you see if the guy was armed with anything?” the deputy said, now turning his attention to James.
“No, they were just... they were crawling around. It was dark. I couldn’t see much of anything.”
The deputy’s eyebrows furrowed.
“Crawling?”
“Yeah, sir; they were on all fours, like... like a dog. Really skinny, too...”
The deputy stood dumbfounded for a moment, as if what he was hearing was pure nonsense. This sent a wave of anxiety through James, making him feel that the man didn’t believe a single word of it.
“Great. Well, you two should hang back for now—just in case anything happens, you know.”
The deputy turned to trudge toward James’s motel room, his right hand resting on his holster. After trying to get a peek through the front window blinds, he took stance somewhat to the side of the door as he rapped his gloved hand against it.
“Atkins County Sheriff’s Office. Anyone inside, make yourself known…”
James watched as the deputy tried the doorknob, realizing that it had been open the whole time. Rolling his eyes, the deputy pocketed the master key and flung the door open with his free hand, reaching for his flashlight with his silver pistol at the ready. James saw the man disappear into the black void of the motel room, leaving him and Cathy to return to the office and wait under the minor comfort of its heat.
Although time passed slowly for James, the deputy soon came out of the room with the same bored expression he had before. His gun was already back in its holster, and he spun the master key’s ring around his gloved finger as he reached the office door and stepped inside.
“No one’s in there, I’m afraid to say,” he said, confusing James even more. “I saw the stain your little fall made on the floor, but apart from that? Nothing at all, except for some drywall on the ground. The window’s locked, and there’s no sign of prints or anything of the sort near it.”
“They weren’t watching me from the window's side,” James said. “They were near the door...”
“You locked that door before going to bed, sir?”
“Of course.”
The deputy sighed, sizing up James as he spoke.
“Look. You seem like you’re well beat. From out of town, right?”
“Yeah...”
“I’m not going to tell you that what you saw was fake. Could very well have been some junkie for all I know. The thing is, all I saw in there is the aftermath of you falling down and some broken property belonging to the motel. Best thing that I can do is let you check if anything of yours was stolen and give you a ride to Pinecreek Regional before the sun comes up.”
James sat in silence, conflicted between the deputy’s words and the images from inside the motel room now burned into his mind.
“...Alright.”
Part Two
Everything after the motel was nothing more than a blur. After checking that his belongings were still in the room, James donned his winter clothing and took a ride with the deputy south towards the hospital that sat in Pinecreek. He was seen by the medical staff still lingering at the tail end of their graveyard shifts. Having been admitted around five in the morning, James was treated for his broken nose; his leg, although injured at the shin’s skin, had not suffered a broken bone.
While alone in the room where he was treated, he felt a looming anxiety—it was as if whatever had been back at the motel would somehow, and in some way, show up to terrorize him again. As the minutes passed by, though, the only thing that would show up was the same deputy who had brought him in.
“Well, everything’s been done and accounted for over here. You’re free to go.”
“...I don’t have a way back to town.”
“Sir, I’m afraid to tell you that I can’t ferry you everywhere you need to go. The folk up front can fetch a ride for you, I’m sure of it.”
“…Okay. Well, thanks for what you’ve done for me, man. I... I know that I sounded pretty crazy back there. I swear, though, everything that I told you is true, God as my witness.”
“It’s not up to me to decide those things while on the clock. Like I told you before, I can’t say you’re lying. Just try to be careful, you know?”
“Yeah. I forgot, in between all of this, to ask—what’s your name, mister... Chamberlain?” James said, his mind calm enough to finally notice the deputy’s name tag.
“Daniel,” he replied, turning as he spoke. “Have a good day now, sir. If you remember more—or have any questions—feel free to visit the office. Say you’re acquainted with me already. We’re just up the road north from where you’re staying at.”
Deputy Chamberlain was gone, responding to indiscernible chatter on his radio as he made his way out of sight. James rose with deliberate slowness from the hospital bed, pain dulled by medicine as he put weight back onto the leg that had been struck. He walked out with a gingerly gait and went to talk to the nurses gathered near the front desk, awaiting the end of the overnight shift. With their help, he heeded the officer’s advice and arranged for a cab to pick him up.
When the hospital lobby’s clock reached about six-thirty, it finally arrived; the words ATKINS TAXI emblazoned across a white sedan’s side, visible through the ice-slick glass of the lobby’s façade. James left and climbed inside the car, utterly tired from the combination of medicine and what happened earlier.
His consciousness lapsed once more as the cab took the country roads back up toward Cedarcrest, drifting into an involuntary, dreamless sleep with the help of the car’s heater.
The cab creaked slowly to a stop as it found purchase in the parking lot of the motel, where James was then roused awake by the driver. With the fare paid, James opened the door and stepped out, finding himself awash in the red and orange light of dawn flowing across the open sky. Although dreadfully tired at this point, James knew there would be little time today for long-term rest.
James plodded his way toward the motel office as the cab peeled off, finding a middle-aged man instead of Cathy sitting behind the desk.
“Hello there, mister! You’re that James fellow, right?” he asked, his face betraying some surprise.
“Yes, sir. Cathy, uh... she told me—”
“Oh, I know! She’s moved you to 110 now. No worries about the cost, too; we took that night off your bill for you.”
“...In that case, tell her I said thanks. I really appreciate it.”
“No problem,” the man said, extending a hand. “Almost forgot to say—the name’s Jim.”
James reached out and shook his hand in kind. “Good to meet you, Jim.”
“Now, we had to leave your belongings in 106 until the sheriff’s boys gave us the okay to do anything else. Want me to help you move your stuff to the new room?”
“Nah, I’ll be fine; it’s just a bag. Thanks for the offer, though.”
“No problem. Might be a little crude to say this to you now, but… I’m sure you’ll love being here in Cedarcrest. It’s just a real damn shame it all started off on the wrong foot. You’re staying for a week, yeah?”
“That’s right.”
“What for, if you don’t mind me asking?”
“I’m just here to visit a friend. From the Coast Guard, when we served together.”
“You served, huh? Well then, I should be thanking you for your service! What’s your friend’s name, by chance? I probably know him, given how close us folk are around here...”
“It’s David. David Hiers.”
James saw Jim briefly contemplate it, his hand resting on his salt-and-pepper chin for a moment.
“David...? David... ah, yeah, I think that I know him! He’s the guy who opened that boat and raft store some years back, if I’m remembering right. Makes sense now why he went and did that!”
“Yeah. Me and him talk regularly about the boating business. I have a little repair shop of my own down in New Orleans…”
“Ah, now that’s just quite nice! Well, I’ll stop badgering you. Must’ve been a long night, from what Cathy’s told me. If you need anything, one of us is always in here. 106 is open for you now—you can go in and get what you need.”
“Alrighty, then,” James said as he accepted the keys for the new room. He waved goodbye to the male attendant as he left the office, the sky now morphing into a light blue and yellow. As he gazed up at the display, the first bright inklings of sunlight began to reach over the treetops of the dark forest that lay across the street. He stood there, the gauze taped across his nose and the pain in his leg an afterthought, as he took in the distant chirps of birds awakening for the new day.
James felt, just for a moment, at peace again.
After a sluggish return to reality, he lugged himself over to Room 106 with pangs of dread beating in his chest. Opening the door, he immediately turned on the entrance light and dashed to open the blinds, sending in the soft dawn light to dimly illuminate what lay within. Apart from the duffel bag on the floor and the dark red stain near the now-silent television, there was nothing out of the ordinary. He picked up his duffel bag, scanned the room once more for anything he might have missed, and promptly left with an urgency in his step.
James shut the door and turned left, walking down the overhang toward the front of Room 110. Opening it with the new set of keys he had been given, that same chill crept down his spine as he looked into the dark, dispelling it with 110’s own entrance light. James placed his bag next to the bed and glanced around. This room, much like 106, was nothing more than a bed, a chair, and a television. Even so, there were minute differences he could spot between the two, such as differing bedsheet patterns. Not wishing to give it more thought, though, he left the room and locked it thereafter before heading down to the payphone that sat at the end of the motel’s wing.
After inserting some change, he dialed David’s number and stood in the morning chill, a free hand buried once more into his pocket. The buzz of the tone went on in his right ear for some time. It left James to look around idly amidst the cold dawn, watching his breath rise and drift away. Just when he thought this plan might be useless, his call was finally picked up.
“...Ugh, hello? Hello? Who’s this?”
“It’s James, man. Wanted to tell you that I finally got here. I thought you woke up earlier than this?”
“Oh, goddamn it! Is it seven already? Well, anyway, how are you doing?”
“Like total shit. I got here from Albany at around midnight. Then, at around four in the morning… someone broke into my motel room. I’ve even got the broken nose to prove it.”
“…What the hell!? Did you manage to fuck up that asshole in return?”
James laughed slightly at David’s words. “I wish. I’ll tell you more about it later.”
“Alright. Well, I’m sorry to hear that happened to you, brother. You can crash at my place if you want to.”
“Nah, I’m fine for now. I don’t want to make your wife upset or anything. I’m just too tired today to drive, though, and I spent money on a cab to take me back to the motel from the hospital. You might need to pick me up.”
“Oh, yeah, sure. No problem. I’ll be there in about… ten or so minutes? Yeah, ten. Let’s hit up a diner first—I’ll be buying for both of us.”
“Thanks, man. I’ll wait.”
The line went dead. James slid the phone back with a metallic clunk and, while turning to walk back toward his new room, noticed a yellow school bus chug along the street. Curious, he followed the bus with his eyes at it rounded a corner near the motel office. Behind the motel’s property sat a large expanse of buildings, with more yellow buses emerging and departing in kind, cars and trucks nearby letting out kids and teens alike. He realized that a school had been right next to him the entire time. One he hadn’t even seen the night before through the snowy haze, somehow.
This newfound fact sat low in James’s core, considering what happened to him a few hours ago. He hoped that whoever broke in wasn’t planning to hang around the school as well—for everyone’s sake.
James took out the pack of cigarettes he’d bought, putting one between his lips before lighting it with the fluid left in his lighter. He leaned against the wall next to his motel room and took a drag, the anxieties of last night briefly fading with the buzz he had so craved.
True to his word, David did not take long. As the day began to manifest in full spectacle, with a rich, cloudless blue blanketing the sky, metal grumbles from a beige Toyota sounded as it pulled up in front of James. He had gone through multiple cigarettes by this point, their ashen remains sprinkled around him on the concrete and snow.
After putting the car in idle, David stepped out and raised both hands in a welcoming gesture.
“There he is! Oh, damn,” he said, dropping his arms as he noticed James’s broken nose. “You look like you’re beaten to shit. A shame you didn’t punt the son of a bitch who did it.”
“Yeah...”
“You still haven’t quit the cigs, James?” he said, motioning toward the ashes as he rounded the car. James dropped the butt he had remaining and stomped it into the slurry on the ground before catching David in a brief but firm hug.
“I’ve been trying, man. But out of all the times that I want to... it’s almost like God knew I’d need it today.”
“Nah, it’s all good. I just hope you still want to eat something after all that shit, you know?”
“Not anything big, but yeah. I do.”
“Go ahead and hop on in, then,” David said as he returned to the driver’s seat. “This winter’s been a real bitch lately.”
James opened the passenger door and sat inside; the cold was shunted away by the heat blowing directly onto his face. Condensation formed on the windows as both men shut their doors, with James staring at the drops as they rolled down. With David pulling out and onto the main road, they spotted the tail end of the school’s morning activity.
“So, how are things back in your town?” David asked, breaking the silence.
“It’s just the same old shit. My cousins are helping run the shop while I’m gone, so I don’t have to worry about that at least...”
“Ha! That’s just like me with this kid, Barry, that I hired recently. I stick him in the shop four days out of the week, show him the ropes when I need to. Gives me time to hunt and range.”
“You fancy yourself a hunter now?” James said, curious. “I remember you back down south saying you hated outdoorsy stuff.”
“I changed, I guess. There’s not a whole lot to do up here if you aren’t the outdoorsy type, anyway.”
After a brief silence held in the air, James was the first to speak.
“What was it that made you move up here, really? You kept talking about going to New York City proper or just heading back home to Atlanta.”
“Honestly? It’s quiet. That’s what I needed. My parents left Georgia during our last years in the service, so there was no real point going back. And, having visited New York for a bit... the noise of it all was just driving me insane after a while.”
“A boat’s engine noise doesn’t annoy you, but city noise does?”
“I can’t explain it, man. I guess I’m just not tuned for the urban life, you know?”
“Fair enough. New Orleans is starting to get on my nerves, too, to be honest. It’s part of the reason I came up here... just needed a break for a bit. That’s all.”
“Oh, yeah; I think you’ll love it here.”
“The guy who runs the motel pretty much said the same thing to me. Is there some sort of PR campaign going on?” James joked.
“Is it PR if it’s true? I mean, it’s cold as hell, yeah—I’ll give you that much. But during the spring and summer, it’s almost perfect. The township as a whole is growing pretty fast, too. It ain’t so quick that the ‘spirit of it flies away,’ as some of the old-timers keep saying, but there’s enough new blood like me to keep things lively rather than be a nursing home.”
The conversation was cut short as David turned left across the breadth of the snow-swept road, pulling into a small parking lot that sat beneath a comically oversized blue dinner plate. Such a grandiose sign was held up by a stone pillar, the words “BLUE PLATE DINER” embossed across the snow-crusted rim of the plate. They were surrounded by the thickness of the woods, each tree laden with last night’s snow across every visible branch.
“You said that Cedarcrest’s growing fast, right?” James asked as the two stepped out of David’s car.
“Yeah. Have you been convinced to move here that quickly?” David said, pointing at his friend with a slight grin. “Must be something in the air.”
“You wish. Nah, I’m asking because of what I saw driving up here. Pinecreek has a whole mall and hospital, all looking brand new. I’m just wondering how.”
“That place is right off the highway between Albany and the western parts of the state, so it makes sense that it’s growing like that. Maybe the city folk are finally getting tired of the chaos.”
The two passed through the swinging doors of the diner’s entrance, soon finding themselves led by a waitress to a booth at its far end.
“Alright, then; do you want to get into it all while we wait?” David asked, clearly interested in what story was in store.
“I’m telling you, David—what happened ain’t as flashy as you’re thinking it is. It’s not a movie scene.”
“Who cares? Just hit me.”
With a sigh to start it off, James gradually began to tell his friend the timeline of his night terrors, their food arriving midway through. David started to eat his breakfast with eagerness while James picked at a small serving of eggs. He mostly opted to partake in the cheap coffee instead.
When the story reached the part about what the intruder looked like, the conversation began to shift in tone.
“...I couldn’t bear to tell the cops this, or even the people running the motel. The thing moved like... like a hurt dog, or some other animal. Limping, or something like that. It wasn’t like a person. I thought that there was enough light in the room for me to have seen something on its body, too, but... nothing. There was literally nothing to see. It was like looking into a fucking... I don’t know, nothingness? I know it sounds crazy, but honestly, I don’t know what to make of it.”
“It could just be that you were half-asleep when this started, right? Like, your mind still making stuff up—screwing you over with your own imagination. That sort of thing.”
“I don’t know. I’m really hoping that’s what happened.”
“Dude, what the hell else would it even be?” David said, stifling a laugh. “Come on, now. There’ve been times when I’ve woken up thinking I was on a whole ‘nother planet. Freaky stuff can just happen sometimes without it being a ghost.”
“I don’t believe in that shit either. You’ve lived here for how long, though? Almost four years now?”
“Yeah. What about it?”
“Have you heard of anything like this happening before?”
“...No. Doesn’t mean some drunk moron or homeless guy wasn’t trying to get warm, though. It’s been pretty damn cold—more than the usual winters are.”
“I guess...”
“Well, regardless—what’s done is done. Besides your nose, nothing else bad happened to you, yeah?”
“My leg got fucked up a little, but you’re right. They didn’t steal anything I had with me, at least.”
“There you go,” David said, pointing his fork at James. “Positive reflection—or whatever the hell the shrinks call it. Does wonders.”
James watched the steam slowly rise from his depleting coffee, ruminating over what David had told him. It didn’t bring him much comfort to think that what had happened was the result of his own brain running off the rails; on the other hand, the thought of someone truly breaking into his room as he slept was just as chilling.
He decided to leave those thoughts by the wayside, asking David a question to lighten his own mood.
“So... what’s the plan for after we leave, David?”
“Well, I can take you to the house to meet Rebecca—she’s been wanting to meet you ever since I told her that you were heading up here. After that, maybe we can go hunting down at Cedarfield if you want. It’s that stretch of woods you probably passed on your way here.”
“I don’t think I’m in good shape today for something like hunting, if I’m being honest.”
“Shit, I forgot about that. You slept like what—three hours at most? Damn... well, in that case, maybe you’d like to check out the shop I have? It’s not too far away; just between Cedarcrest and Ashleighville.”
“Sure thing, man. I’m interested to see what you’ve got going on.”
After paying for both meals, David left the diner with James in tow. They brushed through the short piles of snow back to the former’s car, the morning sun now rising higher above their heads.
“The work’s nothing too crazy,” David said, continuing the conversation as they got back in the car again. “People like to fish and raft around a lot in the lakes around here, so I mostly deal with small craft. The real boating work usually comes from the state government renovating their boats, or people from nearby counties looking for deals.”
“You get offers from the state for boating work? How did that happen?”
“Well, it wasn’t a good start, I can tell you that. There was a kid who up and went missing in Schenectady not long after I got the business up and running. Some guys from the state came to me, said they wanted to get their search boats up and running to look through the Mohawk.”
“Did they ever find the kid?”
“...Nope. It was a sad thing, all around. The locals say it reminded them of the crap that happened right here in Cedarcrest a few years back.”
“What are you talking about?” James asked.
“...Wait, what? The Lakeview Skinner, dude—you don’t know anything about him?”
“I have no idea who the hell that is, man.”
David let out a brief whistle of surprise at James’s genuine confusion.
“Really? Even my parents knew about that shit when they were all the way down in Georgia. It was all over the news back then! I’d just be doing the story wrong by telling you about it myself. You should hear it from someone who lived through it. My wife was right in town when all that horrible shit went down.”
“The hell?”
“Yeah, man, it was batshit insane. Not a lot of people here like bringing it up, and I don’t blame them. Besides Rebecca, I suggest you don’t bring it up with anyone else. You’ll just be seen as one of those kinds of tourists, if you know what I mean. We get those sometimes. Kids who want a tour of all the places where the bad shit happened...”
“Alright.”
As they made their way to David’s home, lying east of Cedarcrest’s town center, they spotted soft clouds of white puffing up from the road ahead. With each passing second, they drew closer—soon spotting the first in a line of cars traveling in the opposite lane.
A white Crown Victoria adorned with the livery of the Atkins County Sheriff’s Office flew by, followed by a similarly white van marked with the letters “CIU” across its sides. Behind this large vehicle was another Crown Vic, sputtering snow across portions of David’s windshield in its feverish rush to keep up with the others. All three vehicles sped westward, sirens and lights ablaze.
“What the hell!? Wow,” David shouted, annoyed as he engaged the windshield wipers. “Assholes are really in a rush today, huh?”
“What gives?” James asked, peering at the small convoy as it disappeared into a thicket of trees, rounding a curve in the road behind them.
“Maybe they found that hooligan of yours trying to break into someplace new. Watch it be some bum from New York City—or maybe even Buffalo. I’d put ten bucks on it.”
James didn’t respond, lost in silent thought. Even though David was clearly joking, a nagging feeling wormed its way deep into James’s stomach, tugging at his mind. He was safe now, that much was true. He still felt no real sense of closure.
He regretted the yearning in his heart to know the truth of last night. From the deepest pit of his soul, a whisper told him it was something he could never bear to speak aloud as fact.