Ocean Crest Motel
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The night was a dark and stormy one. Rain dripped down from the sky like blood from a corpse. It fell in sheets upon Ocean Crest Motel, coating every surface with ugly black soot.
Rain drummed on the roof of the motel, pounding out a relentless rhythm that drowned all other sounds: the roar of passing cars, barking dogs, and even people’s voices when they shouted for someone to turn off the TV set or bring them some beer.
Only then did the sound of the rain seem to fade away into silence as the raindrops plopped heavily onto the asphalt parking lot and pooled there like puddles. A small puddle formed under my feet, which I had sunk up to my ankles while trying to avoid being swept over by the rushing wind and driving rain.
But the water soaked through my jeans within seconds. It seeped inside my shoes where they gathered together to form pools in my socks.
The drops clung stubbornly to my body as well; they ran from the tip of my nose down across my forehead, dripping onto the collar of my shirt until my whole face glistened beneath the lights of the sign outside Ocean Crest. They splashed onto the windshields of passing cars, leaving behind streaks of dirty water and smearing any evidence that a human being might have been present.
My hands were numb and the moisture collected against my skin. My teeth chattered and my tongue felt swollen, but I refused to admit how cold I actually was. Even though I knew what was ahead—and the knowledge only made me colder, more miserable, and sicker—I couldn’t help myself. Every time the wind blew harder I thought about how I’d be safe once I reached Ocean Crest Motel.
A gust slammed against the side of the building, tearing a large section of tin siding loose and hurling it toward me. As I dodged out of the way, I caught sight of a man standing at the edge of the lot near the dumpster.
His eyes stared straight ahead; he didn’t see the flying debris or pay attention to the noise the wind made as it tore pieces of the roofing material free of their anchors and flung them around the lot. He stood completely still, seemingly oblivious to anything but his own thoughts, staring straight ahead with an intensity that chilled my very soul.
His head turned slowly back and forth as if he heard the words of another person speaking to him from afar. And I suddenly wondered whether this man who could stand in such silence amidst the roaring storm might also be deafeningly silent inside his own mind.
The man seemed almost to glow in the darkness beneath the clouds—but not because he radiated warmth. Rather, it appeared his skin shone brightly in comparison to the rest of his surroundings.
It was as if something in the world had been covered with a layer of oil, leaving nothing to reflect the light of the heavens above; instead, the light of day poured directly upon this single man and bathed him in an unnatural brilliance.
And he moved again, walking slowly toward the edge of the road, where his feet sank deep into the mud created by the heavy rain. Then he raised his hand into the air as if beckoning me to join him.
I took another step forward. Another gust of wind lifted the edges of my hair and whipped strands across my face. I brushed them aside, but then the wind shifted direction, blowing them back into my eyes once more. When I tried to blink, tiny droplets of water blinded me.
In frustration, I reached up and wiped away the moisture with the palm of my hand. But before I had even finished wiping my face clear, the winds whipped my hair once again, lifting it out of my grasp and tossing it across my face. The hairs were trapped between my fingers just as they had been in my vision; each strand felt oily and sticky like it had been coated with tar.
The hairs burned my flesh, causing a stinging sensation that made me flinch and recoil from the pain. With great effort, I tore my hands apart from my scalp, ripping the hairs free, and let them fall to the ground like wisps of smoke. My eyes filled with tears, but I blinked and forced my eyelids open, determined not to give into despair—not yet anyway. After all, the night had barely begun.
It was impossible to tell how much time passed. Hours? Days? I couldn’t have said. But finally, the wind began to slow as the storm eased. The last vestiges of daylight faded, but still, I walked toward my destination.
The parking lot was now deserted, except for one lone vehicle parked near the far end. It looked like a Cadillac sedan, but without windows and with a pair of headlights mounted on the front hood where normal headlights should have been.
The car had probably belonged to a tourist who decided to spend a few nights in this part of town and drive home during the day. I remembered seeing a similar car parked at one of the other motels along this stretch of road, so the driver must have gone back to wherever he came from. Now it sat alone under a dark sky, defying anyone who would approach it.
At some point, as I trudged onward toward the distant lights of Ocean Crest Motel, I noticed several things that caused me concern—a concern I could no longer deny. For one thing, when I’d first started out, I’d seen a couple of people crossing the highway in front of me, going somewhere to stay for the night.
But those people weren’t there anymore. Instead, all I saw were empty roads stretching into oblivion, devoid of life. And it appeared that the only way to get to Ocean Crest was through this stretch of road—which meant that whatever these other travelers might have planned for tonight wasn’t going to happen.
I’d come too far already to turn around now, so I pressed on toward the motel itself.
But after a while the road grew narrower and more crooked than before, and I lost sight of the hotel as I continued down its twisting path. I kept on walking, knowing full well that I couldn’t afford any more delay, but I felt a growing sense of foreboding about what lay ahead.
As the trees thinned and gave way to a barren field of dirt and weeds, I stumbled upon something unexpected: a small graveyard situated in the middle of nowhere. There were no stones or markers—only a collection of broken wooden crosses, each marked with a name written in faded ink.
A chill ran up my spine as I recognized names written there: Gertrude, Johnnie, Rosemary, Robert. A family’s final resting place—and I was standing over their graves with nothing but a flashlight to illuminate my path. It seemed as though every sign pointed toward the cemetery, so I pushed forward.
The sound of waves crashing against the rocks behind me echoed off into the distance. I tried to shake the feeling that I’d heard it all before, that I knew the voice and scent of the woman whose grave rested beneath the sod—a smell and sound that reminded me of the odor that had clung to her dead skin when she fell onto my kitchen floor.
The cemetery stretched on and on until it reached the base of a towering cliff overlooking the ocean. The land dropped sharply below me, and a long drop separated me from the sea, which was churning and surging like it wanted to swallow me whole.
The breeze grew stronger and carried a hint of salt spray; soon I could taste it on my lips. When I reached the edge of the cliff, I peered down into the waves below. They were black as ink and foamed like liquid metal, rising high up into the sky and bursting like balloons in an eruption of white froth.
I turned back to see if anything was coming toward me. Nothing was—but I could feel the eyes of others watching me from the darkness, judging me, judging me harshly. In that moment, I sensed that everyone was looking at me as though I were guilty of something, as though they believed that I deserved to die here in this place—as perhaps I did.
I didn’t want to be here any longer; so instead of continuing my journey, I turned around and walked back to the graveyard. I picked up a rock and chucked it at one of the headstones. It landed short and bounced over to where someone else lay buried under the sod.
It was Gertrude, her name now illegible because of the weather that had ravaged this little piece of land. I threw another stone at her headstone. This time it connected, and I watched with glee as it smashed in half, scattering pieces of granite and marble into the grass.
For a few minutes, I threw rocks at as many headstones as I could. Soon the sky above began to grow light with the dawn, and I could hear birds begin to sing their early morning songs. My legs felt tired, as though they’d grown weary from walking so far in one night—but I was still determined to go on.
When I returned to the cemetery, I found myself wandering aimlessly. The sun was now fully visible in the sky, and everything looked peaceful despite being so close to a dangerous place that harbored the spirits of restless souls who hadn’t yet crossed over.
As I walked past the old wooden gates and through the tall grass, I saw something that made me freeze in place. Something that made me forget my mission altogether. It was a single footprint in the dirt, leading from the graveyard to the edge of the cliff.
It was a man’s print, large and wide enough to be unmistakable. But it was gone now—no sign of where it might have led.
After staring at it for a while, I turned back toward the highway. Then I heard footsteps approaching from the woods behind me. Someone was following me, coming out of the shadows and heading toward the cliff’s edge. I spun around to try to catch whoever it was—to do whatever I needed to do to keep them away from this place, to keep them from making it home.
But the footsteps stopped when they reached the cemetery’s gate. And then I knew that whoever it was must have seen me first. He stood there for a minute, waiting, as though he were contemplating whether or not to enter the graveyard. Then after glancing around, he disappeared back into the thicket of trees.
My mind began to race. What was I supposed to do? How could I stop him without revealing myself, without letting anyone know about what I’d discovered here on the island?
All those questions raced through my thoughts just seconds before an enormous shadow emerged from the forest—an immense and dark beast that moved with such great speed that it seemed impossible to track its movements.
Its claws were like talons, and when it came upon me, it knocked me to the ground with a heavy blow. With its mouth full of wickedly sharp fangs, it bit into my flesh—and blood flowed out of my wounds onto the earth.
***
I awoke to the sound of someone crying softly nearby.
At first, I thought that maybe it was Gertrude—but it sounded more distant than before, as though she was farther away from where I lay now than I remembered her being last night.
I opened my eyes slowly. The moon was high in the sky, and a gentle wind swept over me. I was in a bed, surrounded by pale blue wallpaper and a canopy with white lace curtains.
I felt as though I’d woken in some other place, but then the scent of roses reminded me of my surroundings: the room belonged to Rosemary and was located inside the house where she lived with her husband—my friend Jack—alongside his daughter, Rose, who was just a year older than myself. The sheets smelled of rose petals; the air was filled with their fragrance.
I sat up carefully, wincing as the movement jarred my body, sending shooting pains through my bones.
The first thing I noticed was that I had two arms again—not three. My right hand felt as though it should belong to another person, as though it were attached to something strange or alien. I stared at it in disbelief as it flexed into a fist and then withdrew to my side.
“You’re awake.”
Rosemary sat beside the bed with a smile on her face. She was wearing one of her mother’s dresses; it looked as though she hadn’t changed since I’d arrived yesterday afternoon. Her hair was loose and hung down to her waist.
“Where am I?” I asked.
She gave a brief explanation—explaining that her father had brought me home after I’d collapsed on the highway, explaining how he’d called an ambulance, and that soon afterward, the doctor would arrive with a new arm for me.
When she was done, I tried to ask a few questions about who else might have been there last night, but I couldn’t remember anything about my trip here. All I recalled were glimpses of things that didn’t make sense.
Like a pair of footprints—one large, one small—leading from the graveyard to the cliff’s edge. A monster with sharp fangs and claws that had chased me down the highway. And the smell of roses…
And then Rosemary took my hand and said, “I know you probably don’t want to hear this right now, but I think we need to talk.”
She guided me toward the window and pointed out that the moonlight shone brightly outside. It was early morning, but the day promised to be warm and sunny.
“How is it possible that it’s already so beautiful out here?” I asked.
I wasn’t sure exactly what time of year it was, but if it was late fall, then winter would soon follow. And if the leaves were still green, then spring and summer weren’t far ahead either.
As I thought about the season and wondered what this meant about my life now, Rosemary explained that she wanted to tell me what she’d told no one else in town yet—that she believed that I’d found the grave of John Doe, the man who lived in the old cemetery.
As Rosemary spoke, I listened as intently as I could, trying to understand everything she was saying. But it all sounded strange to me. The idea that someone had once lived here on the island—that a family had once made this house their home—made no sense to me.
I hadn’t even known that the old cemetery was on the island until a couple days ago. And I certainly had never heard anything about a mysterious old man buried here somewhere within these grounds.
“What’s happened to me?” I asked. “How long have I been here?”
Rosemary hesitated and then smiled. She knew why I’d asked the question and so did I. I felt as though I should tell her what I’d encountered in the woods—what I’d learned from John Doe.
But instead of doing so, I told her only that it must have happened during my travels back from New York. That I’d gone to visit my grandmother on Long Island. That I’d seen a sign pointing to this island and decided to go there and see for myself what it looked like.
I added that it seemed very odd now—as though something unusual had occurred while I was there, or perhaps I’d come under some strange influence—because I remembered nothing at all about my trip. Just that the car had broken down in Pennsylvania and I’d managed to get to the ferry dock in time for the departure.
When I finished speaking, Rosemary nodded. She understood perfectly well how difficult it was for me to speak of these things when my memories were incomplete and confused. She didn’t press me any further.
Instead, she led me back to the chair next to her and we waited together in silence as the doctor and his nurse appeared in the doorway, followed by a police officer who was carrying my new arm.
Rosemary helped me into the sling that held my new limb, which was wrapped tightly in cotton gauze. Once the doctor had completed his examination, we left the room together and walked slowly toward the front door.
The End