The Blood Knows
By Erik Gustafson
Copyright 2011
Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
Alice had been staring out the windshield at a double lane highway, lonely and crying, for the past five hours. She was somewhere along Interstate 80 and darkness had taken away what little there was to look at. Her bladder was screaming, her stomach was groaning, and her eyelids were heavy. Despite all of these distractions, another weighed greater on her mind: Mike, the cheating asshole.
“Hell of a way to spend your thirtieth birthday, Alice,” she chided herself.
She had no business being on the road in her condition and felt a little childish driving over three hundred miles with no particular destination in mind.
Anger driving.
Alice wasn’t even sure which state she was in let along what towns were close.
She had to get out of the car soon.
Five years of her life she had given that man. Five years. This very afternoon she stopped by Kathy, her best friend’s apartment, and who’s little blue Honda is parked out front? Even walking up to the door, Alice believed Mike was there as part of a special birthday surprise. It was a special surprise all right. Alice never had a clue. Not once did she suspect anything was going on between them. She cut her thoughts off. She didn’t need to rehash that again.
An amber glow from the dash caught her attention: an icon of a gas pump.
“That’s great,” she sighed.
Dark shadowy fields whizzed by on either side of the car. A sagging ancient barn, blackened by the night, came into view then quickly vanished behind her. Past that a glowing green sign appeared.
Taking her foot off the accelerator, the white letters came into focus.
Hampton 3.
Hampton where? She wondered. Indiana? Maybe Ohio. Had to be one or the other. She leaned into the windshield and scanned the darkness; she was doubtful Hampton would have any services. Her doubts were relieved a moment later when a blue sign promised a motel and fuel. The sign didn’t state the name of the motel.
Alice pulled off at the exit ramp. There were no other cars around.
She sat at the stop sign for a moment looking in either direction. She either forgot to look for the sign that told her which direction services were or there wasn’t a sign. There were no clues which way to turn. Either direction yielded only darkness.
Everything above looked like black milk covered in sprinkles. A shooting star streaked across the sky.
She wished there was enough gas to keep going and find a bigger city, but that wasn’t a gamble worth taking. She turned right.
After a few minutes, she drove past a lone light post that looked like a long antenna with a giant eye clinging to the top. The road curved over a hill and revealed a small island of light. It was a gas station for sure, although it couldn’t be a big chain gas station.
No neon signs identified it.
She slowed to a crawl and inched her way onto the desolated concrete island.
The gas station consisted of two pumps and a small square building all of which were under a canopy. Hanging from the canopy were several bright lights pouring down onto the concrete. Her eyes combed over the property twice before she decided it was safe.
The car rolled to a stop past the pumps and she used her headlights to peer inside the building. The building was dark except for a few red glowing circles of light. The lights were probably power buttons to the coffee machine or something, she decided. She could see a row of various soft drinks and flavored waters lined up along the window sill. The attendant appeared to be off duty.
She glanced into the rearview mirror and backed-up to the pumps.
Alice filled her empty tank and looked around. It was quiet and still. Across the street was the beginning of a road that led up a hill. At the top of the hill was a small neon sign. In white letters was the word “Motel” and in blinking red letters below that was “vacancy.”
A sense of dread gnawed deep in her stomach. She didn’t want to go up there, didn’t even need to since her gas tank was full, but all day on the road had worn the woman down. In her head, she could hear Mike telling her to keep driving, that it wasn’t safe here. The days of listening to that jerk were over.
The gas pump clicked off and startled her. She replaced the handle, slipped back in the car, and drove across the empty highway onto the road leading up to the motel.
Her wheels crunched over the white gravel driveway as the car crept forward. The white rocks stood out in sharp contrast to the night swelling in around her, as if she were driving through a tunnel.
Alice pulled into the parking lot and breathed a sigh of relief. There were big SUVs, little two-door sedans, and even an old station wagon. The station wagon reminded her of National Lampoons Vacation and she smiled. She was surprised so many people were actually out here in the middle of nowhere but glad all those people were around just the same.
The motel hugged the parking lot and was a repeating pattern of windows and doors. The door directly in front of her had a “Do Not Disturb” sign half wedged in the jam. There were gloomy trees standing behind the structure staring down at her. She didn’t know what kind of trees they were but the leaves all seemed to be waving from an unseen breeze.
She pulled up in the space marked “check ins” by the lobby. For the first time during the journey, Alice pulled her Blackberry out of her purse. The light from the phone illuminated the space around her inside the car. Twelve missed calls and thirty text messages- all from either her ex-boyfriend or ex-best friend. She noted that her phone was about dead as well.
Alice’s eyes begin to burn and her bottom lip started trembling. She choked the tears back and shoved the phone in her purse. The lobby was blurry through her glassy wet eyes but seemed to be the only room in the whole motel that had any lights on. They go to bed early around here, she thought.
The lone traveler stepped out of the car into the chilly night.
Alice straightened her skirt and buttoned the top button on her blouse. She looked like hell but didn’t care. She was beat and just wanted to take a long bath and drift off to sleep.
Alice pulled the lobby door open and heard the jingle of a tiny bell overhead. The lobby was small. There was a counter towards the back of a room and a doorway beyond that. There was a low table littered with out-dated magazines and a coffee machine. There was still half a pot of old coffee in the pot waiting for a desperate tourist. Alice didn’t notice any of this.
She was awestruck by the crows.
There had to be a least a dozen of the huge black birds standing on pedestals and perched on shelves. The all stood properly and proud, wings astutely tucked into their sides. They were stuffed, of course. Frozen in time. Their sinister black eyes all focused on the new visitor.
Creepy place, she thought, folding her arms in close to her body and staying in the center of the room, which was the farthest point from any one of the crows.
“Evening, ma’am!”
Alice jumped. From the far doorway, a man had emerged. He was tall and had black hair that was combed straight back into a ponytail.
“Didn’t mean to frighten you, miss.”
Alice feigned a smile and approached the counter, keeping her eyes on the birds.
“Don’t mind them! They are actually quite comforting once you get used to them,” he said. “My name is Mitch, how can I be of assistance?”
“I just need a room please. It’s been a rough day.”
The man looked her up and down quickly and smiled again. “Well we all have bad days, ma’am.”
“You have no idea.”
“Yes, well you have come to the right place!”
Alice had her doubts but she opened her purse on the counter and dug around for her wallet to retrieve a debit card. Mitch finished getting a room set up in the computer and plucked one of the keys off the bulletin board behind him.
Alice thanked him, rushed past all the crows, and exited the building.
Backing out of the parking space, she noticed Mitch was standing close to one the crows and gesturing with his hands as if he was talking to it. Freak, she thought.
Ten minutes later, the door locked and chained, Alice submerged into a hot soapy bath and laid back. The hot water soaked into her tired body and she moaned. She leaned her head back against the tub and closed her eyes.
Her mind wandered back to her ex-boyfriend and her ex-best friend. That stupid expression on their faces that was both guilty and surprised at the same time. Mike calling her baby and honey then trying to convince her it wasn’t what she thought. “Pig,” she mumbled.
Then there was Kathy, just sitting on that ugly couch crying, saying she was sorry. “Little tramp,” Alice
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