Bates Motel Novels & Stories

On so many accounts she tried complaining or asking questions but she didn't as a result of all I said in the car and of course my facial expression wasn't a welcoming ground for her to speak to me. We got to the elevator that led to the hallway secluded and oblivious to everyone except the people aware of the real owner of the casino which is Don. Silence and darkness engulfed our presence into its thick aura as we walked towards the mighty black door. My face was recognized by the security scanner and I had to press a button to enable it scan Martina before we were granted the permission to get in. For the first time in six years since I began working here for her the full lights were lit

Haden chimes in suddenly and turns to the left. We pull into the parking lot of a run-down motel that appears to still be in business. It seems like a place that's been taken out of an old travel catalog, except worn out. The outside is painted in a shade that might have once been a cheery yellow, but now it is the color of piss. There’s a board on top of the three-story structure that advertised the name of the motel as 'Daisy Days motel', followed by a cutout of an ominously smiling sun. The parking lot is deserted. A single light shines over the entrance to the office.

The address on file isn’t familiar, so when the GPS takes me away from town, I wonder if I wrote it down right. Not too long later, the navigation tells me to turn right into a parking lot. I look up at the sign and do as it says, seeing that this is a motel that rents extended stay rooms. The place isn’t terrible, but it’s certainly not great. There’s a couple of guys standing in one of the breezeways, and when they see me they stare. I feel all kinds of eyes on me as I go into the front office and look around. There’s no one behind the counter, and when I knock on the glass, I hear someone call from the back. “What?”

Sure, she was still speeding, but now it felt like all four wheels were under us, which gave me a much better sense of wellbeing. We exited the highway less than an hour later, and Bea circled behind a very sketchy-looking bar into the parking lot for the Waystop Motel. Or rather WAP MOL, from the missing letters. I looked at the two-level dingy building with outfacing doors to the rooms (rooms that had three deadbolts on the door), and decided that if I owned a place this run-down, I wouldn’t have thought replacing the lights in the sign would help much, either.

The motel where Jason was last seen was in the dirtiest corner of East Oklahoma surrounded by rusting trailer parks, broken windows, and drug-fueled ghosts. I drove myself. No convoy. No noise. My car’s engine rumbled low as I coasted into the parking lot of the "Star Inn." Neon lights blinked overhead like a dying heart. A cracked vending machine hummed outside Room 12. I parked. Killed the engine. Slid the Glock from my coat and stepped out. Room 12 was dark. The door was shut. Curtains drawn. No movement inside. But I wasn’t fooled. I didn’t walk up like a stranger. I moved like a predator. Quiet. Controlled.

I just wished I knew why. “If she’s not better by morning,” I said, “then we’re going to a hospital.” “Agreed.” I didn’t like it. But I let it go. Eight minutes up the road, there was a motel set back from the highway behind a gas station and a sad-looking diner with a flickering sign. The motel itself looked like it hadn’t been renovated since before either of us were born. Two floors, exterior corridors, a parking lot with a couple of trucks and a minivan sitting in it. A bored-looking older woman at the front desk who barely looked up from her phone when Zane walked in.

"Traffic's bad on the main road." I tried to keep calm and assured myself that Bruce wouldn't do anything stupid. But we weren't heading toward any clinic. The realization hit me like cold water. Bruce pulled up in front of an old motel—the kind with peeling paint and a flickering neon sign that read "VA ANCY" because the C had burned out. There were no other cars in the parking lot. "What is this?" I demanded, my hand closing around my phone. Before I could pull it out, Bruce's hand shot out, gripping my wrist. "Don't."

It was completely beneath someone of Julian Whitmore’s standing. I slipped out again, using the same method I’d mastered the night before. When I arrived at the motel, the reality was even worse than the name. The neon sign flickered with a dying buzz, and the paint was peeling off the walls in thick, grey flakes. I walked into the lobby. It was cramped and smelled of stale cigarettes. The woman behind the desk had skin like parchment and didn't even look up from her phone. "I'm looking for Julian Whitmore," I said.

"Tuxedos in Queens on a Tuesday night." "Wednesday," Cale corrected automatically. "It is past midnight." "Right. Wednesday." Elion looked around. Down the block, a neon sign buzzed. STARLITE MOTEL. VACANCY. It looked cheap. It looked dirty. It looked perfect. "There," Elion pointed. "That establishment has a one-star rating," Cale said. "Structural maintenance is likely poor." "It has a door with a lock. That's all we need." They walked to the motel. It was a slow, agonizing process. Cale had to watch every step, calculating the distance visually because his feet couldn't feel the pavement.

We crossed the state line, leaving the city lights behind for the dark, endless stretch of the interstate. "We need to stop," Mark said from the back seat. He looked green. "I’m gonna be sick." "Hold it," I said, my eyes scanning the signs. "We need a place that takes cash. No cards. No names." Ten minutes later, I took the exit for a rundown motel off the interstate called The Sleepy Hollow. It was a single-story L-shaped building with flickering neon signs and peeling paint. I parked in front of the office and went inside. The clerk was an old man with a cigarette hanging from his lip, watching a static-filled TV.