The Folks 2 by Ray Garton

Author:Ray Garton [Garton, Ray]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: horror, weird fiction
Publisher: Crossroad Press
Published: 2019-10-14T00:00:00+00:00

Eight

The River Front Motor Court was at the eastern end of the town of Mt. Crag, out by the old highway. Most of that end of town was boarded up now. It used to be the only part of town back in the mining days, but over the decades, Mt. Crag had grown west, and the eastern end had become the bad end of town, full of bums, drug dealers, addicts, and prostitutes. Eventually, even they had moved west, and that end of town had died completely, except for a row of motels along the old highway that remained in business to this day—the Cascade Motel, the Hightower Inn, and the River Front Motor Court. These days, people lived in those motels, but some still rented by the day as well.

I went into the office of the River Front Motor Court, which smelled of strange, unpleasant incense, to find it empty at the moment. Behind the counter was a doorway in which hung strings of colorful beads. There was a bell on the counter beside the register. I tapped it and it rang.

A short, heavyset Indian woman came through the clacketing beads. She wore a brightly colored shawl and had her black hair pulled back tautly. She was very dark-skinned and wore one of those round dots in the center of her forehead, just above the bridge of her nose, like a dark sequin. She looked to be in her forties.

“Yes, can I help you?” she said, speaking with a heavy Indian accent.

“I’d like a room, please,” I said.

“How long?”

“Well, just for the night, for now. We’ll see tomorrow.”

“We’ll see?”

“I’ll pay for one night, and then we’ll see tomorrow, okay?”

“We’ll see.”

“How much for one night?”

“Ninety-five.”

“You’re kidding,” I said.

“Why?”

“Ninety-five dollars?”

“You have rupees?”

“No, I mean—well, I just didn’t expect it to be so—” I sighed and opened my wallet, took out five twenties, and put them on the counter.

She made change, and I signed the register as Rufus T. Firefly at a Sacramento address that I pulled out of my ass.

“I’d like a room in the back, if possible,” I said. “As far back as I can get.”

“A room in the back, a room in the back,” the fat woman muttered as she looked over the keys on the board. It was on the wall behind the counter. She took one off its hook and turned around, handed it to me. “Numbuh nine.”

“Nine is in the back?”

“In the back.”

“Thank you.”

I got back in my car and my tires crunched over the gravel on the way to the back of the lot. Number nine was in the very back on the right, up against a canal, and beyond that, a steep embankment covered with blackberry bushes. I carried my luggage into the room, went back out and locked up the Lexus, then went inside and closed the door. I sat on the too-soft mattress and looked around.

There was a nightstand with a lamp bolted to it on each side of the bed. Bolted to one of the nightstands was the TV remote.

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