Four Lights Motel

Chapter 6

I swerved into the motel parking lot, tires squealing on the pavement, my hands shaking with rage. I leapt out of the car and practically flew all the way to the rental office. I rattled the doorknob, but it was locked. I then proceeded to pound on it, the glass rattling violently. When Sara didn't open the door, I made my way around the rest of the building, pretty sure I have seen a back door. Sure enough, there it was, right beside the garbage bins.

I tried the handle, and lucky for me, found it unlocked. I entered office, which was unusually quiet.

    "Sara!" I shouted. "Sara, I need to talk to you!"

My voice bounced off the walls, but no reply came. There was no movement anywhere, not the shuffling of papers, not the ringing of the phone, nothing. I made my way around to the front to find the registry counter empty.
    "Sara!" I tried again. "You crazy bitch," I added under my breath. I heard something move behind me. I whirled around, ready for a confrontation only to feel a splitting pain in my skull and the room turning black.

                                *    *    *

    I awoke to a massive migraine, the side of my skull throbbing painfully as something wet trickled down the side of my face. Blood, no doubt. My vision blurred, the room swam. I was sitting on an uncomfortable wooden chair, my wrists tightly bound behind me. I could see I was in a large, cold room, grey concrete walls imprisoning me. Large crates were clustered in one corner, old beaten up mattresses stacked against the walls.
I was in some sort of basement no doubt, but where was this basement was the more pressing question.

    "Oh there you go," Sara's voice came from the shadows. "I was beginning to worry that I may have killed you." I lifted my aching head to see her sitting on a chair like mine, a blood-stained wooden bat at her feet as she cleaned her nails with an antique hunting knife.

    "Why would you worry?" I sneered, my voice hoarse and weak. "Isn't that what you do? Kill innocent people?"

At that her eyes snapped forward, the smile dying from her face, eyes piercing and cold. She rose from her chair and stepped towards me into the light.
    "They were not innocent!" she hissed. "They were murderers and they had it coming!"

I forced a laugh which turned into a cough, the air thick with dust. "And how did they manage that?" Sara regarded me with a cold stare, her red lips twisted in disgust.

    "They killed my son."

    "What?"

    "You heard me."

I stared at her, the shock on my face evident. She laughed as I said "You're too young to have a son."

I watched her pull the chair she was sitting on in front of me and sit down, legs crossed, fingers thoughtfully tracing the sharp steel of the knife.

    "I was fifteen when I had him," she began as if she was telling me a bed time story. "My parents didn't approve, of course. They tried to convince me to put him up for adoption, but when I refused they sent me to live with my grandparents. I loved Michael to death. He was my pride and joy and something that was truly mine, something that no one could take away from me."

I remembered the photograph on her office desk and the handsome boy with a great big grin on his face as Sara kissed his cheek. I remembered the mournful look in her eyes as I asked about him. That wasn't for a long-lost brother. It was for a long-lost child.

I remained silent, my vision hazy, but my full attention fell to her.

    "I thought that no one could take him away from me. I was a good mother. I was practically a child myself, but I sacrificed everything for that boy. I got a job as soon as I was able, everything went to him. He was such a good kid." Her eyes filled with tears, her voice shook. "He loved to read, he was fascinated by everything. He always wanted to learn to play the guitar. I bought him one from a garage sale and he played that thing day and night until the inexperienced plucking began to sound like music."