by Ann Cro
It was a cold night in late October and the Rev. Arthur
Hagendoorn was returning home after a Christian Life Conference in the little
mountain community of Walden Springs. The meeting had been enjoyable and the
Rev. Hagendoorn had renewed several old acquaintances, among them a former
seminary classmate, the Rev. Miles MacGregor. MacGregor was pastor of a little
church in the mountains north of Walden Springs. After the meeting, he invited
the Rev. Hagendoorn to his home to meet his wife and family. The evening had
passed pleasantly and it was late when the Rev. Hagendoorn, turning down an
invitation to spend the night, set out for home.
Dark clouds hid the moon and the narrow mountain road wound
treacherously upward in numerous S-curves. The headlights cut two furrows
through the darkness and the Rev. Hagendoorn, who did not enjoy driving even in
daylight, hung tightly onto the steering wheel and peered nervously out the
windshield, fearing any minute to miss a turn and plunge down the side of the
steep, tree-covered slope. To make matters worse, it began to snow, lightly at
first, and then with increasing force, and the Rev. Hagendoorn decided that, if
possible, he would find a place where he could stop for the night.
The road was one he did not know because the visit to the
MacGregors had diverted him from his original route. So he drove slowly,
keeping a close lookout for a motel or guest house where he might obtain a room
for the night. But there was nothing but trees and the road ahead that was fast
disappearing under the snow.
He had almost despaired of finding a motel when he saw a dim
light ahead on the side of the road and, through the blowing snow, made out a
sign: Clark ’s Motel. It was a dreary looking
little place with half a dozen rooms stretching out on either side of a dimly
lit office. The Rev. Hagendoorn pulled up in front of the office and, turning
up the collar of his coat, made a dash for the door. There was a thickset,
dark-haired man behind the desk who regarded the Rev. Hagendoorn silently.
“Good evening,” the minister said hesitantly. “Do you have a
room?”
The man did not reply at once and when he did his voice was
rough and grating on the ear.
“Yes, there is one. You want to stay here for the night?”
“Yes, please,” said Hagendoorn, surprised at the question.
Surely that was what a motel was for. Why else would he have stopped?
The man nodded slowly. “Very well, number 5 on your right as
you go out the door.” He dropped the heavy key down on the counter with a thud.
Then he turned and yelled, “Elvira! Customer!”
A skinny little girl with dark eyes and curly hair slipped
out from the curtains at the back. She gathered towels from a cupboard and,
picking up the key, motioned Hagendoorn to precede her through the door. The
minister, noticing her thin dress and light shoes, protested, “There is no need
to show me the way. Give me the key and I will let myself in.”
“Nonsense!” the man behind the counter said robustly.
“That’s what she’s paid to do.”
The girl said nothing, only opened the door and led the way
out into the cold night. Hagendoorn followed her down the covered walkway that
only partially sheltered them from the blowing snow. She stopped before a
peeling doorway with the number 5 painted in white paint. She inserted the key
and indicated that Hagendoorn should enter ahead of her. The room was very cold
and had a musty, unused smell. Hagendoorn thought that he had never seen a less
inviting motel room. The carpet was worn and he noticed a water stain on the
ceiling. The girl dropped the towels on the bed and solemnly handed him the
key. “Is there any heating?” he asked.
She indicated an old electric heater under the window but
made no effort to turn it on. Hagendoorn was beginning to feel angry. He had
never stayed at a less welcoming place. If not for the snow and the dark, he
would have returned to his car and continued on his way.
The girl watched him solemnly. She seemed to guess his
thoughts. She motioned him to bend down and whispered in his ear, “Do not stay
here! Is a bad place! Get out!”
Hagendoorn was startled. “But why?” he asked. “What do you
mean, it’s a bad place?”
She shook her head and looked around as if she feared
someone were listening. “I cannot tell you more. Just go!”
She turned and left the room hastily. Hagendoorn watched her
in perplexity. What should he do? He wondered. But his fears of the storm and
the road were greater than any imaginary fears that the girl might have dreamed.
He closed and locked the door and prepared himself for the night. After a brief
struggle with the electric heater, he managed to coax out a little heat. He
turned down the cover of the bed and looked suspiciously at the yellowed
sheets. With great distaste, he folded them down and, still wearing his
overcoat, he took off his shoes and got into bed. He piled the two thin pillows
under his head and lay still looking up at the ceiling.
For some reason, he was loathe to turn off the light.
Instead, he lay awake, staring at the water stain on the ceiling. It was an odd
stain; as he looked at it, it seemed to change ever so slightly as if it were
adjusting itself to watch him. In the dim light, the shadows seemed to gather
in the far corners of the room where they waited, watchful, like living things.
Hagendoorn told himself he was becoming imaginative, but he felt uneasy lying
there. He decided to read for awhile and reached for his Bible. It had long
been a practice with the Rev. Hagendoorn that when he was perplexed, he would
close his eyes and open the Bible at random, selecting the first passage that
his finger fell upon. He did so now and read:
Be
sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion,
walketh about, seeking whom he may devour.
Not exactly a pleasant thought for a stormy night! He was
distracted by a scrabbling sound overhead. “Squirrels,” he told himself. Funny
though. It sounded like the claws of a large beast trying to get in. He really must
get himself in hand, he thought. He decided not to repeat his experiments with
the Bible but to read the Twenty-first Psalm and then try to sleep. The poetry
of the psalm soothed his spirit and he stretched out on his side, determined
not to look again at the watermark on the ceiling which a hasty glance
convinced him was growing.
He lay quietly repeating to himself the words of the psalm
when he became aware of sounds from somewhere close by. It sounded like different
voices chanting but he could not make out the words no matter how hard he
listened. He tried to close out the sounds but they seemed to grow louder the
harder he tried not to listen. Finally he got up and pressed his ear against
the wall, but no sooner than he did so than the sounds ceased altogether. Clearly
there would be no sleep for him tonight! He sat down in the old platform rocker
in the corner of the room, startling a mouse that scuttled out from under and
took refuge instead under the bureau. By this time, Hagendoorn almost welcomed
the mouse as something normal.
He lost track of time as he sat there and perhaps he dozed.
Outside the wind had risen and it sighed through the branches of the pines that
surrounded the motel. Once he seemed to be aware of voices speaking but he
could not distinguish the words. Then, on the night wind, he seemed to hear clearly
the sound of a bird calling. And, as if it were an good omen, he seemed to come
out of his trance and to start up out of his chair. There was a strong smell of
smoke in the air and, at first, it seemed pleasant, like the smoke from a
fireplace on a winter night, but it grew stronger, like the smoke from hundreds
of smokestacks that fired all the
factories of a great city. A reddish glow gleamed through the thin curtains.
With a very un-Christian oath, Hagendoorn leaped to the door and snatched it
open.
The fire was all around him as sparks from the building
caught on the dry branches overhead and burned. Gasping in horror, he thrust
his feet into his shoes, grabbed up his few belongings, and scrambled into his
car. As he drove away into the darkness and safety of the mountain, he heard a
loud whoosh as the building collapsed.
He stopped at the next town to alert the fire department.
They listened to his story with frank disbelief. “Hey, mister, what kind of a
joke are you trying to pull?” the captain demanded. “Clark ’s
Motel? That old place burned down twenty years ago. An old clergyman who was
staying there died in the blaze.”
© 2010 Ann
Cro. All rights reserved.
________________________________
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Ann Cro holds a Master's degree from
East Tennessee State University and is currently setting up a language
school in sunny Italy with her husband of thirty-six years. She is the author of the series, The
Bones Under the Oak, previously published in Black Lantern.
