Room 6

Barreling down the highway at over 90 MPH with no real destination, Frank Marsheton pressed harder on the gas pedal. Ghastly blue moonlight revealed stretches of farmland around him as he took another pull from his beer.

The windows were down. Cold night air rushed across his face, but it didn’t sober him. Beer dropped from his chin, and he wiped it lazily with the sleeve of his blue flannel before tossing the empty can onto the passenger floorboard.

Resting on the seat was a manila envelope that changed everything. He grabbed another beer from the six-pack. Just two left. His eyes flicked to the envelope, and his grip on the wheel tightened.

She didn’t even have the courage to tell me herself, he thought. She sent some chicken shit lawyer to deliver the papers.

The speedometer crept toward 100.

The road climbed into a low hill, and Frank stayed on the gas, engine roaring under him. As he crested the hill, headlights caught a flickering neon sign in the distance, Restmore Inn - VACANCY, perched beside a lonely off-ramp veering right into the dark.

Frank jerked the wheel at the last second, tires shrieking as he slammed the brakes. The truck fishtailed, gravel spitting from the shoulder as he barely made the turn. Frank cursed as he fought the wheel, swerving down the ramp like a drunk roller coaster.

As he pulled into the parking lot, the glowing red VACANCY sign pulsed like a weak heartbeat. The place looked abandoned—no lights in the windows, no movement, just a dead silence as he rolled into the cracked gravel motor court. The motel attendant looked at Frank with suspicion as he stumbled to the counter.

“I’d like a room for the night,” Frank said, trying to sound sober.

“Only got one left,” the attendant replied, eyeing him. “Queen bed. Sixty bucks. Cash only.”

“That’ll do,” Frank muttered, fumbling through his wallet. He slid the bills across the counter, and the clerk dropped a metal room key into his hand. The worn tag read simply #6.

Paint peeled off the motel door with the weathered, rusted #6 clinging stubbornly to the frame. A single window glazed over from years of dirt and grime sat to the right of the door. The motel was no showstopper, but it would do for the night. As Frank entered the room, the VACANCY sign now pulsed red, NO VACANCY.

He returned to the truck and grabbed the only things he had: a half-zipped backpack stuffed with a single change of clothes, two remaining cans of beer, and the manila envelope marked in block print, labeled “Frank Marsheton.”

Frank sat on the edge of the bed, and for the first time all day, the silence and stillness gave him room to think. The weight of it all hit him fast.

Tears welled up before he could stop them, and he naturally turned his head towards the wall, ashamed of how broken he felt. The more he tried to hold it in, the harder it was to swallow the rising tide, until it spilled out anyway. His body shook as grief finally took its turn.

He wiped his eyes and reached for one of the last two beers. His fingers trembled, and the can slipped, clattering to the floor and rolling out of reach. It vanished beneath the bed. Frank groaned and leaned over. He dropped to the floor and lifted the bed covering, then froze. Something was down there. A shape, a gap in the floorboards? As soon as he thought his vision was messing with him, he heard it. A slow, scraping sound, followed by faint whispers from underneath the bed. He couldn’t make out what was being said.

He leaned in closer to decipher the strange whispers and heard it again.

Scrape… Scrape.

A chill ran through him, and without thinking, he stood and shoved the bed to the side, the metal frame scraping against the floor like fingernails on a chalkboard. Staring back at him was a wooden-framed hatch where the bed once stood. The handle was made of iron and shaped like a ring, cold and black. Strange ornate carvings wrapped around the edges of the hatch frame, symbols he didn’t recognize but instinctively disliked.

Frank gripped the iron ring and pulled. The hatch resisted like it hadn’t been opened in decades, heavy, stubborn, groaning at every inch it gave up. As it creaked open, a wave of stale, musty air hit him in the face. He grabbed his cell phone and clicked on the flashlight. The beam reached the threshold, then stopped. It just vanished, as if the shadows beneath the hatch refused to be seen.

He hesitated and jumped into the darkness, eventually swallowed by the void. The air grew colder, heavier. On the other side, the blackness thinned, revealing that he was strangely back in his room, but it was more gray-scale. Everything was still in its place: the desk, the door, the bed, just all drained of color. The hatch beneath the bed was gone. In its place, clean hardwood. And there, just in front of the bed, was the perfectly still beer can on its side.

He turned and looked up. In the ceiling, a dark void, outlined in the shape of the hatch, marked the way he had come. It was still there, an exit, and for now, that was enough. A flicker of resolve steadied him. Frank turned away and began to explore.

Frank picked up the beer can from the floor and turned it over in his hand, eyeing it with suspicion. He cracked it open. The hiss sounded normal. He lifted it to his nose, and it still smelled like beer. Just as he raised it to his lips, a soft creak echoed from the front door. Frank froze. The door had opened, just slightly, but he hadn’t touched it.

Slowly pushing the door open wider, he looked outside to see that the parking lot was gone, filled with a void of darkness. He looked down the walls and saw the adjacent motel rooms to his, filled in with the same gray as his room. He hesitantly made his way down the walkway towards room 4. He saw a faint glow of light emanating from the slightly cracked-open door.

Peering through the door, Frank saw a middle-aged man in a black suit standing atop an end table.

“I’m sorry… I can’t… I just can’t anymore,” the man sobbed, voice trembling.

Frank noticed the noose, tightly wrapped around the man’s neck, tethered to a beam above. Frantically, he burst through the door and lunged at the man to stop him. As he reached towards the man, Frank stumbled forward and went through him as if he were smoke. Falling to the floor, Frank looked back, and he could see the man had kicked the end table away. The rope snapped taut, and the man swung lifeless like a pendulum.

Then, just as quickly, everything vanished. The room blinked back to its original state: the table upright, the man back in place, tears still streaming down his face.

The loop began again.

Frank stayed low, watching in stunned silence. The grief etched into the man’s face was bottomless, like he’d been repeating this final moment for eternity.

Leaving Room 4 behind, Frank made his way toward Room 2, dread tightening in his chest.

The door was ajar, just like before. That same faint, sickly glow spilled out into the walkway. He hesitated at the threshold, hoping, praying the room would be empty.

Peering inside, he saw no one. Relief flickered. But the bed was rumpled, scattered with women’s clothing and accessories, with heels on the floor, a purse half-unzipped, and makeup brushed across the sheets as if someone had left in a hurry.

Clink.

Frank jumped at the sudden sound of something small hitting tile. It came from the bathroom. He stepped forward, each footfall heavier than the last, and moved toward the partially open bathroom door.

Sitting on the floor, leaning against the wall, was a woman wearing a light blue tank top and jeans. Her eyes were glassy. Her head was leaning lazily to one side. She was holding a pill bottle. More bottles were scattered around her, some open, others spilled across the bathroom tile, little white pills lying like bones in dust.

In a final feeble attempt to speak, Frank heard her whisper, “They will appreciate me when I’m gone…”

Her voice was barely audible, like breath escaping a cracked window. She tilted her head back and emptied a fresh bottle into her mouth, swallowing the pills dry.

Her breathing slowed, and her eyes fluttered. Then, stillness.

A blink.

Suddenly, she was sitting upright again, the same bottle in her hand. The floor reset. The pills were back. The line repeated.

“They’ll appreciate me when I’m gone…”

Frank stepped back, heart pounding. He was watching death on repeat.

Seeing enough death, Frank ran to the front desk, desperate for answers, or at least an escape. To his surprise, someone was tending to the counter. A man, but when he turned to face Frank, it stopped him dead in his tracks. The clerk’s face looked as if it had been blown apart from underneath, his lower jaw twisted, shredded, barely held together by shadow and sinew. And yet… he smiled. He wasn’t in a loop, he was aware. The clerk reached towards Frank with a gnarled hand.

“Enjoying your stay, Mr. Marsheton?” he rasped.

Frank stood his ground.

“What kind of fucked up place is this? What happened to those people?”

The clerk’s head tilted unnaturally. “All is right, they came here for the same reasons you did.”

“No. No, they didn’t deserve this.” Frank’s voice cracked, angry and afraid. “They’re trapped, tormented, stuck in their last moments. You need to let them go. Now.”

The lights above flickered.

The clerk’s smile widened, skin stretching where no jaw should be.

Frank stumbled backward as the man began to shapeshift, arms stretching unnaturally, fingers splitting and elongating like tendrils reaching for him.

“Come now, Mr. Marsheton,” the voice rasped, growing harsher, more fragmented. “You belong here. Do what you came to do.”

Frank turned and bolted out of the office, heart hammering.

The walkway ahead stretched, warping like rubber beneath his feet. The numbered doors glowed with a hot, white light. From behind each one, screams tore through the air, voices of the dead, trapped in endless suffering.

He ran harder and faster, each step feeling slower than the last.

Behind him, the clerk was no longer a man.

The thing had sprouted too many arms, its limbs spidered along the ceiling. Its head turned full around as it pursued him, smiling with a jaw that no longer existed.

The creature screeched, a sound like metal tearing through bone, and it lunged.

Frank dove into Room 6, eyes fixed on the hatch-shaped void in the ceiling. He jumped and missed. Gasping, he scrambled back to the front door and slammed it shut just as the creature’s silhouette loomed outside. He shoved the bed beneath the hatch, leapt onto the mattress, and reached upward, still too far.

Thinking fast, he dragged both end tables across the room, stacking them on the bed. The furniture groaned under his weight as he climbed the shaky tower, the mattress shifting beneath him with every move.

The window exploded behind him. Shards of glass rained down as the creature smashed through, its tendrils whipping toward him.

One brushed his ankle as he pulled himself into the void.

And then, darkness.

Back in his room, the real room, Frank grabbed his backpack and the manila envelope, hands still shaking.

He bolted for his truck, started the engine, and peeled out of the parking lot without looking back.

As quickly as he had arrived, he was gone, alive, and certain he would never return to the Restmore Inn.

Some time later, beneath the same flickering neon sign, a disheveled man walks into the Restmore Inn and asks the front desk clerk for a room.

The front desk clerk looked up, a smile stretched wide.

“Only got one room available. Room #6.”