Free Bad Things by Michael Marshall

street at the
    western end, offers a short run of wooden-fronted buildings holding
    an antique/junk emporium, a coffee shop/secondhand bookstore, a
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    burger place, a pizza place, a couple of bars, and not a great deal else.
    As I’d driven up into the mountains I’d refi ned my plan. Finding
    a motel was the fi rst step. I’d passed up a Super 7 and a couple of
    tired-looking B&Bs before suddenly fi nding myself confronted by a
    place I recognized. I’d known it would be there—I had lived in it for
    nearly a month—but it remained strange to see this particular motel
    still in business, looking the same as when everything had been very
    different. I didn’t consider turning into the entrance. On the road out
    the northwest side of town I found somewhere called Marie’s Resort,
    an old-fashioned, single-storied motel that had cars parked outside
    all but three of its twelve rooms. It was clad in rust-red shingles and
    stood right up to the woods on all sides except the front. I vaguely
    recognized it from the old days and thought it would do.
    Marie—assuming it was she—was a short, husky, sour-faced
    woman who looked like she’d seen most of what life in these parts
    had to offer and hadn’t enjoyed much of it except the shouting. Her
    skin was the color of old milk and the pale red hair piled on her head
    looked like it had last been washed in a previous life. Other than tell-
    ing me the rate and asking how long I wanted to stay, she kept her
    own counsel throughout the entire transaction. I told her I’d be there
    one night, maybe two. From a back room I heard a television relaying
    an episode of Cops . The woman kept glancing back toward it, perhaps
    expecting to hear the voice of a friend or relative as they objected
    unconvincingly to being hauled away to jail. Finally she pulled a key
    out of a drawer and held it out to me, looking me in the eye for the
    fi rst time.
    She frowned, the movement sluggish.
    “I know you?”
    “No,” I said. “Just passing through.”
    I moved the car to sit outside room 9 and took my bag inside. It
    was cold. There was a pair of double beds, an unloved chair, a small
    side table, and a prehistoric television, all standing on a carpet whose
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    texture suggested it was cleaned—if ever—by rubbing it with a bar of
    soap. I didn’t even check the bathroom, accessed via a stubby corridor
    at the back of the room, on the grounds that it would only depress
    me. Other than a badly framed list of the things occupants weren’t
    allowed to do, the room offered little diversion and no incentive to
    remain in it. I scrolled through the call log on my phone and clicked
    call when I found the number I’d been sent via e-mail the day before.
    It rang six times, and then went to voice mail.
    “Hey, Ms. Robertson,” I said, with bland cheer. “It’s John, from
    the Henderson Bookstore? Wanted to let you know that item you or-
    dered has arrived. It’s here waiting for you. You have a good day.”
    I cut the connection, feeling absurd. For engaging in Hardy
    Boys–level subterfuge to hide the nature of a call to the woman’s cell
    phone. For being in Black Ridge in the fi rst place. For being, period.
    I left the motel. If you have no idea where you’re supposed to be,
    movement is always the best policy.
    For the next hour I walked the town. It had evidently rained hard in
    the morning, and it wouldn’t be too long before the locals could start
    expecting the fi rst snow. Black Ridge was never a place I’d killed
    much time. The town wasn’t familiar and did not go out of its way to
    welcome me. Pickups trundled past down wet streets. People entered
    and left their houses. Teenage boys slouched along the sidewalks as
    if three-dimensional space itself was an imposition. The few Realtor
    signs I saw in yards looked like they had been in residence for some
    time, and more businesses seemed to be folding than opening. From
    the