May 28, 2017
Day 47
San Bernardino Mountains, CA
Miles driven: 5480
Currently Reading: Great American Short Stories
Currently listening to: Fleetwood Mac on repeat
Murder Motel
We left San Diego in a storm. We had been in San Diego long enough and the wilderness was calling. The next place on the trip was the San Bernardino mountains. We would find that this journey, especially on Memorial Day weekend, would be an exercise in futility. And terror.
The first place was a hot springs just north of the National Park’s boundaries. It was on the desert end of the mountainous park. We drove all the way past the park and circled around on its north side. After driving for about 3 hours we arrived at a locked gate and 10 miles of trail between us and the hot springs. It was over 90 degrees outside, so a 20-mile round-trip hike to a hot springs in the desert would not be the destination for the day. With heavy hearts, we set our focus on the mountains. Lake Arrowhead, deep in the national park, was the destination of choice. I had no idea what we were getting into.
We went deep into the mountains. We took an old goat-esque trail twisting through towering sequoias and massive rocks. The road was narrow and steep. Grades of over 15% were regular, even to the point where I had to pray that the wheels of the Jeep wouldn’t slip careening us to our deaths. We passed broken down cars with blown out engines every few miles. But Red continued, pushing herself up the mountain. (also I just named the car Red, for future reference).
We finally reached a crest, and what a crest it was! We had stumbled upon the Rim of the World road at the top of the San Bernardino mountains. It is a narrow road that runs parallel to the mountainside, but just a few feet off the edge is a 5,000’ drop into the Sand Bernardino valley. I have never experienced vertigo before, but it hit hard. Dazed and confused, I puttered on with a train of angry drivers behind me, honking and swearing at my pathetic pace. We would drive this stretch of road another dozen times in the next few days.
We finally pulled into the campsite at Arrowhead lake 6 hours later. Traumatized by the road and still exhausted from San Diego, we were all ready to call it a day. To our dismay, we were informed by the attendant that not only Arrowhead park, but every single campground in the entire national park was completely booked for the rest of Memorial Day weekend.
“Damn tourists,” I thought. This wasn’t the first national park they had ruined.
I stopped to collect myself. Another stick in the proverbial wheel of this adventure. The only option was to get a motel and figure everything out in the morning. Once I found cell service, I called around. Everything was booked. Finally I found a place to stay, the name of it will remain anonymous because of what happened next.
We pulled into the parking lot of the motel. It was a delapidated wooden three-story building that leaned to one side. I went into the office and met the motel attendant. He was a middle-aged man with a wildly unkempt white beard. He had the dark black eyes of a rat cornered in an alleyway. He was cordial, but there was something off I couldn’t put my finger on. He excitedly gave me the key to room 19, the “America” room.
With a dark smirk growing on his pointed face, he said, “It’s my most favorite room in the building.”
Exhausted and at the end of my rope, I shrugged it off, took the key and walked up to the room.
I climbed up the two flights of rickety wooden stairs and found room 19. Upon opening the door, a dank wall of thick air hit me hard in the face. I walked in and realized exactly why it was nicknamed the “America” room.
Across the walls were disjointed scribbles of pointed American figures and events, from Ben Franklin’s kite to the dropping of the atomic bomb. They looked to be crafted by either a 9-year-old child or the criminally insane. Above the bed was a giant bald eagle and paintings of American flags. In the bathroom hung horrendous paintings of worn-out celebrities long past their prime, smoking cigarettes in bohemian bars. Again in the same style of the rest of the room.
I flopped down on the bed. I was so tired, I didn’t even care. After laying on the bed for a moment, the mind-piercing squeak of a smoke detector with empty batteries shattered my soul. I would have to get it replaced if I would maintain my sanity for the night.
I went down to the office and found the attendant out back smoking a cigarette. I informed him of the problem and asked him for either another room or to fix the smoke detector.
“You just keep that room, I will get what I need to fix it.” He said. I went back up to the room to wait.
A few minutes later he came up with a handful of dark objects that I couldn’t make out. He fumbled with the detector for a few minutes, jumped down from the chair he was on and said with a smile:
“It’s all good to go. Sleep well.”
As I was bringing the things up to my room, I noticed the attendant speeding off in his car. Odd, I thought, but again, what other option did I have?
I laid down in bed with Boss and vegged out on TV. After a while, I got ready for bed and turned off the lights. The strange figures all over the wall stared at me as I tried to go to sleep. But something didn’t feel right in the room. I tried to calm my mind by saying my prayers and as I was doing so, I looked up at the smoke detector.
A small lime-green light about the size of a quarter was shining through the detector. I thought that was odd, I had never seen a detector with a light like that on it before. I stared at the light, pondering its design. Suddenly, a dark black shadow eclipsed the light for a moment, then the light returned.
A fire shot down my spine. I had read about motels with cameras and peep holes where people would watch the tenants, and everything about this place fit the stereotype. All the red flags that had come up before suddenly fitted into a creepy puzzle that terrified my mind. I stared at the light; maybe in my exhausted state I was imagining it.
A few minutes later, it happened again: lime-green light shining through the smoke detector suddenly eclipsed by a dark shadow, then after a few seconds the light was shining again.
I shot up and grabbed every weapon I had. I clenched them under my sleeping bag—I slept ON the bed, not IN it. My mind raced. What could happen? Was this just a sick peep show, or something worse? I was exhausted, but I wouldn’t allow myself to fall asleep in case a darker plan was slowly hatching in the recesses above room 19. It was midnight. Sunrise came around 6 am.
For hours I laid there, completely exhausted from the day’s events, but completely terrified about what could happen with the shadows behind the smoke detector. I gripped my knives with white knuckles, fighting sleep with every ounce of my being.
The shadows came again around 3 am. I snapped. Knives in hand, I jumped out of bed and flipped on the lights and walked over to the smoke detector.
“Either come at me, or F-off!” I yelled. I stood there for a minute, staring into the green light. Nothing happened, so I flipped off the lights and laid back in bed, still clutching my weapons.
The rest of the night was calm. Around 6 am as the crest of the sun was rising, I finally fell asleep with knives still in hand.
I woke up at around 8 to a shaking sound on the second-floor walkway. A strange man in a red bandana paced past my window, then returned the opposite direction, stomping. He repeated this again. There was no one else staying on the second floor and I had not seen this man at the motel the day before.
A half hour later, I got up and started packing up my things. With an armful of gear, I walked down to my car. Immediately the rat-faced attendant came rushing out of his office.
He looked at me with his beady eyes, a sly smirk growing on his face.
“Did you sleep well last night?”
Note: There is a photo of the room in the photography section in case you think I am making this up.