Room for One More

It was already dark when Darren pulled into the gravel lot of the Halcyon Pines Motor Lodge, a roadside relic squatting on the edge of the forest like a forgotten museum exhibit. He hadn’t meant to stop there—he’d passed countless better options an hour earlier—but fatigue had gotten the better of him. The highway behind him seemed to vanish into an ink-thick fog, and his GPS had died two hours ago without explanation.

The sign was flickering when he arrived:

HALCYON P_NES MOTOR LOD_E

Most of the letters had long since surrendered to time and rust. Still, there was a light on in the office.

Inside, the clerk looked like he hadn’t blinked in years. Thin as a lamppost, with a washed-out blue polo and yellowed eyes that followed Darren too closely. The walls were decorated with faded photographs—guests from another era posing beside vintage cars, all frozen in sepia smiles.

“Room for one?” the man asked. His voice was dusty.

Darren nodded. “Just for the night.”

The man slid a key across the counter. No ID, no credit card. Just: “Room 6. No smoking. No pets.”

And then, almost as an afterthought:

“Don’t open the curtains.”

Room 6 smelled like cedar and age. The bed was stiff but clean, the floorboards creaked when he walked, and the old TV bolted to the dresser clicked on by itself as soon as he plugged in his phone.

No signal. No Wi-Fi. Just static.

He clicked through the channels—only one showed anything other than snow: a looping black-and-white security feed of the parking lot. Every angle was fixed on the same vanishing fog, the same gravel lot… and, he realized, the same car he’d parked just minutes ago.

Only now, the footage showed someone sitting in the driver's seat.

He blinked. Looked out the window.

The car was empty.

He turned back.

On the screen, the figure in the car turned its head. Slowly. Deliberately. Staring through the feed. Into him.

Darren unplugged the TV.

He tried to sleep. Told himself it was exhaustion, a prank, or a glitch. But at 2:13 a.m., he was jarred awake by the sound of breathing.

It wasn’t his.

It came from beyond the curtains—long, low exhalations like someone pressed up against the glass, their mouth fogging it from the outside.

The rule rang in his head: Don’t open the curtains.

He sat up in bed, paralyzed. The breathing stopped.

Then a tap.

Light. Fingernail-light.

He reached slowly for the bedside lamp. Clicked it on.

There were no shadows in the room.

Not his. Not from the lamp. Not from the furniture.

Just… none.

He looked down.

He had no shadow either.

The next morning, he left Room 6 in a daze. The parking lot was the same—gray gravel, low fog, no one around. His car was there, but all four tires were flat, and the interior was dripping wet, like it had been left in a rainstorm for days.

The office was locked. No clerk. Just a yellowing note taped to the door:

“Room for one more.”

His key was gone.

Darren walked. For hours. The fog never lifted, and the road never ended. But eventually, a shape emerged—familiar architecture, worn wood, a busted neon sign.

HALCYON P_NES MOTOR LOD_E

He stood still for a long time. It was impossible.

He walked to the office. Inside, a different clerk sat behind the counter now—a middle-aged woman with a smile that didn’t reach her eyes. She looked up as he entered.

“Room for one?” she asked.

“I—I just stayed here. Last night. Room 6.”

She tilted her head.

“All rooms are vacant.”

“But I… my car is still in the lot. Look, it’s—”

He turned to gesture out the door. The lot was empty.

No car. No fog.

Just gravel and pine trees.

He took the key anyway. Room 6.

It was exactly the same. Same bed, same wood paneling, same faintly cedar smell.

Same warning:

Don’t open the curtains.

He didn’t sleep.

At midnight, the static TV came on again, showing Room 6’s exterior.

There was someone standing at the door.

A man.

Wearing his exact clothes.

Staring at the peephole.

Knocking.

Darren leapt back, heart thudding. But no knock came.

Just the sound of the doorknob jiggling.

Then—a whisper.

Low and dragging:

“Let me in. I forgot my key…”

The next morning, he checked out again.

Walked again.

Returned again.

Each night, the lodge welcomed him like nothing had happened.

Each time, the clerk changed. Sometimes an old man. Sometimes a child. Once, no one at all—just the key, waiting on the counter, already labeled Darren – Room 6.

And always, the same instruction:

Don’t open the curtains.

By the seventh night, Darren stopped trying to leave.

His body had become sluggish. He couldn’t remember his last name. When he looked in the mirror, his reflection blinked out of sync.

He opened the curtains.

The outside was not a parking lot.

It was… blackness. A kind of void that devoured light. Not just the absence of form—but the presence of something else.

It pulsed. It breathed.

He stepped back. The curtains closed on their own.

The next morning, the clerk asked, “Room for one?”

Darren answered yes without thinking.

The clerk handed him the key.

Room 7.