New, spooky shorts! True Boos! "Off the Highway"

The story you're about to read is based on a real event. Names have been changed to protect the innocent. Locations have been changed to protect the curious.

 

 

The three friends sat at the roadside diner table, simultaneously yawning.

 

"Okay, that's it," announced Erebus. "I'm going to be the voice of reason and say we throw in the towel for the night."

 

"C'mon it's -- only -- sixty-ish mi-- miles," Teddi's argument devolved into another huge yawn. "Yeah, okay, I'll find a campground."

 

"No, no, no," Seth complained. "Not out here, in the middle of banjoland nowhere. That never works out for us."

 

"It's not like we're going to find a Hilton, honey," Teddi commiserated.

 

A redhead in the booth behind them piped up. "Maybe not a Hilton, but there's a little place about two miles up Highway 2 that's not bad." She left her booth, coming around to the end of their table. "It's cheap, but it's clean. My sister, Bonnie works the front desk." She pointed at the name plate on her waitress uniform. "I'm Connie. You tell her I sent you and told her to give you the best rooms she's got." She gave them a big smile and a little wave. "Be safe out there." Then she left the diner.

 

"We can just grab a campsite and crash for a few hours then head out again," Erebus reasoned.

 

"But showers, and big beds, and cable--"

 

"Oh, my," Teddi interrupted Seth's whine.

 

"Meanie," Seth pouted.

 

"No, I was talking about the nearest campground. We should definitely check it out! Look!" Teddi enthused, holding out her phone toward the guys. "It's by a lake, and it looks super clean, and there's a museum!" Her eyes twinkled.

 

"One of those little roadside attraction things?" asked Erebus, taking her phone and flipping through the images. "That could be fun."

 

"Save me from quaint--" Seth began.

 

"But Seth's right. Let's grab a place where we can shower and fall asleep watching reruns," Erebus interrupted, handing the phone back to Teddi.

 

"Two against one, and the lady pays for dinner," Seth celebrated.

 

"Boys suck," Teddi pouted, leaving the table to pay at the cash register.

 

"Some do, some don't," Seth agreed, smiling at Erebus. "So, why did Daddy vote my way?"

 

"I'm not your daddy, and I saw what kind of museum it has," Erebus replied, lowering his voice. "It's for Native American artifacts."

 

Seth frowned. "You have a problem with Native American artifacts?" He gasped comically, and his eyebrows raised. "Daddy, are you racist?"

 

Erebus eyed him with a helter-skelter stare. "The artifacts are from the area," he explained. "Because there's a legend that there was an Indian burial ground somewhere by the lake."

 

"I promise to be a good boy for the rest of the night," Seth promised, crossing his heart. "You're my hero."

 

"You're making him soft," Teddi complained, hearing the last thing Seth said, as she returned to the table. "Let's go get the two of you tucked into your comfy hotel rooms. I sure hope they have courtesy blow dryers for you." She sauntered away and the two men followed, smiling.

 

Only a few minutes later, Seth exclaimed, "There's the sign!" He pointed to the right side of the dark road and Erebus slowed the car, turning off the road.

 

"Why isn't the sign on?" Erebus wondered. "I almost missed it."

 

"They might have forgotten," Teddi suggested. "Sometime you think you do a thing, but you didn't do a thing. We can let them know when we check in."

 

"Oh, well this isn't too bad," Seth observed, as they rolled into the sparsely occupied lot of a small, but tidy, single story hotel. "Looks like they might have a lighting issue in general," he joked, pointing at the sign over the office that said, HIGHWAY 2 HOTEL, but the O and T were burned out.

 

After parking at the office, they exited the car, stretching. "Just get two rooms," Erebus called after Teddi, who was bouncing toward the office. "We need to save money."

 

In reply, without looking back, Teddi waved two fingers above her head to indicate she heard him. The office turned out to be more brightly lighted than it appeared from outside, due to the blinds being closed, and Teddi was glancing around the clean little space when a redhead came out of the back office.

 

"Connie?" she questioned, surprised.

 

The redhead beamed as Erebus and Seth entered the office. "Hello. No, my name is, Bonnie, but it sounds like you met my twin sister. And from the way you're all looking at me, I'm betting she didn't tell you we're twins." She laughed lightly. "I don't know if she does that because she doesn't think it matters, or she likes playing jokes on folks."

 

"You're right, she didn't tell us," Erebus agreed.

 

"Connie said we should mention that she sent us--" Seth began.

 

"And I'm supposed to give you the best rooms I've got, right?" Bonnie laughed again. "Well, all the rooms are identical so I guess they're all the best I've got. The good thing about that is, they're all pretty nice." She pointed at an open register. "Go ahead and sign in. How many rooms do you need?"

 

"Two," Erebus told her, and Teddi held up two fingers.

 

Each of them took turns signing in. "And who gets the keys?" Bonnie asked.

 

"One for me, and one for them," Teddi chirped.

 

"Here you go," Bonnie slid a key to Teddi and one to Seth. "Now comes the tricky part, I hope you nice folks carry cash or checks, because our machine is down. Some kind of weird power problem in the area.

 

"Oh, I was going to mention, your road sign is off," Teddi told her, looking in her wallet for cash.

 

"It's on," Bonnie said. "It's just the power glitch. Boyd, down at Public Works, said they'd see about it tomorrow. Probably got all the customers I'm going to get tonight, anyway."

 

After paying Bonnie with communal cash, the trio bid her good night and parked the car in front of the room where Teddi was staying, the guys had the room right next door. They all looked inside Teddi's room and the consensus was that it was spartan, but clean, and just fine for an overnighter. They agreed upon a time to hit the road, parting company for the night.

 

Teddi showered (briefly noting there was no bathroom door and assuming that, since it was a single room, who was going to be embarrassed), changed into a t-shirt and gym shorts, settling in to watch late night talk shows until she fell asleep, grinning now and then at the comical banter of the guys, in their room. She hoped they didn't annoy the other people occupying rooms on the opposite side of theirs. As things quieted down and Teddi settled back to sleep, something disturbing happened.

 

Drip. Drip. Drip.

 

She opened her eyes, staring at the ceiling.

 

Drip. Drip. Drip.

 

She turned her head, looking at the dark rectangle of the bathroom doorway.

 

Drip. Drip. Drip.

 

She sighed, getting up and slipping on her flip flops, going into the bathroom to check on the leak.

 

Drip. Drip. Drip. It was in the shower, the tile walls amplifying the sound. She fiddled with knobs, the shower head, and nearly asked Erebus to come take a look, but the silence from their room suggested they were already asleep. She finally folded the towel she'd used into a thick square, setting it under where the drops were landing. The drips became plips and she was satisfied they wouldn't wake her. She went back to bed.

 

Splat. Splat. Splat.

 

Teddi woke and glanced at her phone. It was just past midnight. She'd dozed off during a late show, and for some reason, the TV was off. She fiddled with the remote, but it wouldn't turn on. She sighed and got up, going into the bathroom.

 

Splat. Splat. Splat. The towel in the shower was completely waterlogged, the drops raining into a towel swamp. Splat. Splat. Splat.

 

"You win," she told the shower, changing into sweatpants and a sweatshirt, taking one of the pillows, her phone, and her purse, and going out to the car. She quietly got into the back seat, closing the door so that it made the faintest click, locked it, then made herself comfortable for the night.

 

Whispering. The sound of shoes on concrete.

 

Teddi woke up, reaching down to her phone, on the floorboards, poking it and seeing it was nearly two A.M. What had wakened her? Then she heard it, whispers, and footsteps clearly trying to be sneaky. The only reason she'd heard them was because her windows were cracked to prevent the glass from fogging up, revealing the car had an occupant. She slowly raised her head from the pillow, looking out the side windows then catching movement between the car and her hotel room door.

 

Bonnie was standing outside the door whispering with two large men. Each man carried a duffel bag, and one held out a fat manila envelope to Bonnie. She took the envelope then used a master key to unlock the door to the room where Teddi was supposed to be sleeping, walking away!

 

Peeking over the back seat, Teddi watched the men enter her room, and a moment later they hurried out, chasing down Bonnie, whispering loudly to her while she tried to quiet them. Teddi heard part of what Bonnie told the men.

 

"--must be with those guys," as she gestured toward the room shared by Erebus and Seth.

 

The men seemed aggravated, and the trio went into Bonnie's office.

 

Teddi turned off the interior light of the car before cautiously opening a door, slipping out, leaving it ajar, and sneaking to the room where Erebus and Seth slept. She tapped on the door, getting no response. She texted Seth, Bad men here. We need to RUN! And after a moment she heard Whitney Houston, inside the room, belt out, "And Iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii eeIiiiii will always love youuuuu!"

 

"Are you serious?" came Erebus' sleepy, annoyed voice. "Put that thing on vibrate!"

 

"It's from Teddi," Seth told him, clearly yawning.

 

Teddi began frantically tapping on the door again, trying to keep it quiet enough not to alert Bonnie, or the men with her.

 

"What's it say -- who's at the door? Where are you going?" Erebus' questions followed what was happening inside the room and Seth suddenly yanked open the door, Teddi shoving him back inside, closing and locking the door behind her.

 

"Look at my face! No time to explain. Grab your stuff and we need to run!" she told them.

 

Nearly an hour later, huddled together in an office in the nearest small town, the three friends sipped coffee, watching as officers passed the window, glancing in at them, talking, dispersing, returning, and finally the sheriff entered the room.

 

"Well, we believe your story," he said to Teddi.

 

"Did you get them?" she asked.

 

"No, there was nobody there when we got there," he told her. They had a generator hooked up for the lights, and they were stealing cable, that's why you had TV to watch, but there were only two rooms set up for tourists.

 

"But, all the cars," Seth remarked.

 

"Yeah, we're running the plates," said the sheriff. "None of the other rooms were occupied."

 

"What about Bonnie, and her sister, Connie, the waitress from the diner?" asked Erebus.

 

"Sorry, but that diner's run by Jim and Cathy Nelson, nice folks," the sheriff told Erebus. Cathy remembers a redhead dropping in now and then, dressed like a waitress, and just figured she worked in town and stopped in on her way to or from work. Never regular enough to get familiar with her, y'know."

 

"So, she and her sister set us up for -- what? A robbery?" Seth suggested.

 

"I don't think there were two women," the sheriff said. "I think this one woman, whatever her name really is, pretended to be Connie, then Bonnie. You were set up, but I don't think it was for robbery," he didn't finish, glancing at Teddi.

 

"Oh, my god! You think they were going to kidnap Mommy?" exclaimed Seth.

 

"Mommy?" the sheriff asked.

 

"Inside joke," said Erebus, slipping an arm around Teddi's shoulders.

 

"They went to Ms. Beres' room, probably paid to go in --" the sheriff broke off. "I don't know what they planned, but it's a good thing you weren't in there when they showed up," he told Teddi. "The three of you can go. We've got your information. I'll be in touch, when we have anything to tell you."

 

After the sheriff left, Teddi looked at Erebus. "I guess that sign was right after all."

 

"What?" asked Erebus.

 

"With the burned out O and T...that made it the HWY 2 HEL." They all looked around at each other.

 

 

Time passed, the redhead and the men were never found. The cars belonged to people who'd been reported missing, but no one ever found their bodies.

So, be careful out there. And if someone suggests a nice place to stay, just off the main highway, have another cup of coffee, and keep driving.

 

(Thank you to Bailey for making me look cute, and scared, and thank you to Erebus and Seth for helping me with the horror.)

Taken at Teddi Towne, where summer is truly endless. Tourists are welcome.

maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Hawaiian%20Islands/196/236/21

Done