AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Well, that’s good.”
They set off across the parking lot, dodging potholes and waist-high weeds until they reached the door to the main office. It stood ajar, but the years and exposure to the elements had warped the frame so much Dave had to put his shoulder against it to get it to open fully. Something scurried away through the papers, leaves, and other trash on the floor, and they both jumped.
“I’m not so sure we should spend the night here,” Dave said.
“Don’t tell me one of the Bower boys wants to turn tail.”
“After this Bower boy lived through a werewolf invasion, he’s learned when it might be prudent to avoid a situation.”
Oliver chuckled. “Fair point. Let’s investigate the rooms and then decide what to do.”
The rooms were a mixed bag. The ceilings of the first three off the main office had caved in long ago, spewing acoustic tiles, wood, insulation, and, most likely, a heaping dose of asbestos, onto the furniture and carpeting. Plants grew in the dirt and leaves that had blown in through holes in the roof. In one of the rooms, a sapling draped in tender green leaves had taken root in the middle of the mattress and now stood as tall the roofline.
“The latest overnight experience,” Oliver said. “Spend a night in your compost pile.”
“Ironically, coffee grounds are not provided,” Dave added.
The farther away they moved from the office, the better condition the rooms were in, and Dave reasoned that some fault in the roof at that end of the building had caused all the damage. There were ten rooms, all of them with the same furniture arrangement of one bed with a full-sized mattress, a low dresser, a round table flanked by two chairs near the window, and a closet across from a bathroom door. All the television sets and toilets had been taken long ago, and most of the components of the heating and cooling units were missing. In many of the rooms, they found evidence of kids partying or people squatting. Dave was oddly relieved when they discovered a few used condoms in one of the rooms, which he pointed out to Oliver.
“Someone was paying attention in health class,” Dave said.
“Probably the girls.”
“You don’t think it might have been a gay couple?”
Oliver looked around the rundown room, then back at Dave with an arched brow. “I don’t think a gay kid would have anything to do with this place.”
“You never wanted to investigate spooky places like this when you were in high school?”
“Well, yeah, sure. But I doubt I would have been able to be convinced to have sex here. Something or someone could sneak up on you. Have you never watched a horror movie?”
Dave laughed. “If you’re so freaked out about it, why the hell are we here?”
Oliver laughed as well, but spread his arms wide. “For the story!”
“Ah, the story. That’s right. We’re here to get clicks on Beauchamp’s barbecue ads on your blog.” Dave gestured toward the door. “Shall we choose our room?”
“You’ve decided it’s okay to sleep here?” Oliver followed Dave out of the room onto the crumbling concrete walkway that ran the length of the front of the motel. An overhang provided some protection from sun and rain, though it sagged ominously in several places.
“Now that I’ve thought about it, I’m not sure we have a choice. It’s springtime in the Pennsylvania back country. There won’t be a hotel or bed and breakfast room available for months. I packed a tarp I’ve used for camping that we can throw across the mattress to keep any bugs off us. We packed old sheets and a blanket, so we should be warm.”
“What about the toilet and shower?”
Dave laughed. “I don’t think they worked when the place was open, so no great losses. We’ll have to do a standing wash up and probably dig a shallow latrine in the trees.”
“Gross.”
“Just glad I thought to pack toilet paper. Never know what kind of leaf you might grab to wipe with in the dark.”
They returned to the car for their bags and other items, and, after looking through the rooms once again, finally came to an agreement that room eight appeared to be in the best condition. They left the door open to air out the musty smell as much as possible as they set up camp. Dave kept stopping to listen, however, thinking he’d heard sounds from the back of the motel, where the woods grew up to within ten feet of the walls. Each time he shook his head and went back to what he was doing, writing it off to nerves. He hadn’t been camping for years, and never in an abandoned motel. Correction: A haunted abandoned motel.
The mattress felt drier to the touch than Dave had anticipated, and as they spread the tarp across it, he managed a few stealthy looks at Oliver. They’d been together long enough now he was able to recognize Oliver’s “busy face,” as he had come to think of it. It wasn’t much of a shift from Oliver’s normal expression, but Dave had picked up on subtle differences: a couple of shallow furrows across his brow, an almost imperceptible downturn to his mouth, and the tendency for his eyes to drift off to the side, as if looking at something no one else could possibly see. All of these minute changes were clues to Dave that Oliver was going about daily tasks and interacting with people while another part of his brain was mentally working out a problem in a story or constructing a new blog post. These mental withdrawals from the world didn’t last long, at most maybe a day or two, and Dave had learned that if he was patient and didn’t push, Oliver would work out whatever he was mentally focused on and return his full attention to the world around him, usually happier than before.
And knowing this small tidbit about Oliver made Dave love him even more.
Once the bed had been made, Dave set up a small propane camping stove on the dresser while Oliver situated an ice-filled cooler nearby they had packed with bottles of water and cold food items. They sat on the foot of the bed, the tarp crinkling beneath them, and looked at each other.
“Wanna make out?” Dave asked, grinning.
