SSS 2 - Go to the car

You stare at Jenny and her notepad.

“Nope,” you say, grabbing your friends and dragging them into the rain toward the car. The rain pounds you. Everyone is instantly soaked and the gravel parking lot is now just a collection of puddles. You splash to the car, instinctively heading for the driver’s side as Bian goes around.

“Whoa!” you shout as you see the broken window.

On the other side of the car, Bian shrieks. You and Taytum fall over each other, scrambling around to the other side, sending water and gravel flying. You find Bian a few feet away, pointing.

“There’s someone out there!” she says, fumbling with her phone. She turns on the light and points it at the swamp.

You don’t see anything, but you believe her. The window didn’t break itself.

If not for the storm, the three of you might have stood there and stared like idiots. The situation just doesn’t compute.

Lightning strikes nearby, hurting your ears and making the lights in the diner flicker.

“Go,” Taytum’s saying, pushing Bian back toward the car. “Lyna!” she snaps.

“I know,” you snap back.

The broken window is the rear, driver’s side one. Safety glass and water covers the backseat. With the window broken, there’s nothing to keep the noise out of the car as you start it. Bian buckles up behind you as Taytum brushes glass off the seat in the back.

Your headlights light up the swamp and something moves.

“Holy fucking shit,” you mutter, trying to squint through the wet glass.

“Just go,” Bian says.

She’s right. It’s time to get out of here. You put the car in reverse and hit it, getting a curse out of Taytum, who is using her phone’s light to check the cargo space in back.

“What are you doing?” you ask, getting the car pointed toward the road.

“I’m making sure Jason Vorhees isn’t back here,” Taytum says irritably. “And that we didn’t just get robbed.”

That’s an excellent point. The idea of your car getting broken into at random on a night like this is absurd. First, people who break into cars probably don’t do it in the swamp. Second, they don’t do it in weather like this.

Someone knows what you came out here to do.

“Oh shit,” Bian says, and something tells you she just figured it out as well. “They want the money? Did they get it?”

“I don’t think so. There’d be water back there. There isn’t any,” Taytum reports, raising her voice over the roar of the storm. Lighting fills the car with blue light and makes you all jump. The Traverse flings water away in huge wings. This is crazy.

“We’re OK,” you say, checking the mirrors. It makes sense. It’s crazy, but you get it. Someone knows what’s going on, but they can’t know exactly where the money is hidden in the car. You got here before they could search for it thoroughly. “Anyone got a signal?”

“Nope,” Bian says and Taytum lets out a bark of laughter.

“Lyna, nobody’s got a signal tonight.”

That’s not good.

You see the motel ahead and pull into the parking lot, finding it a little bigger than it looked from the road. It’s still shitty, but it has a lot of rooms. The structure is shaped like an H, and at least the walkway immediately outside the rooms is covered.

You park directly in front of the office. There hasn’t been any discussion, but you don’t think it’s necessary. You have to do something about this window, then get out of the storm. In that order.

The others follow you into the office. You’re all dripping and frozen. Nothing can change that.

The girl behind the counter looks up from the paperback book that she’s reading.

You walk right up and try to smile, leaving wet footprints on the hideous, green carpet. This place is ancient and it manages to smell both dusty and damp at the same time.

“We need a room. But before that, we have a broken window. Do you have some duct tape? Maybe a shower curtain?” you ask.

She stares at you. “How about a trash bag?”

“We’ll take it. We’ll pay for it. We just need to cover it,” you say nervously. The broken glass, the mess… the idea of water pouring into the car all night… it all makes you cringe. You are a deeply organized person.

The girl is your height, but less bony. She’s a slim, pretty brunette with glasses.

“It’ll take a second,” she says. “I’m just filling in. I don’t actually work here.”

She checks you in and hands you a key after making a copy of your ID and credit card. For someone who doesn’t work here, she seems to have her act together, but you’re too distracted by the mess and the chaos to think too hard about her. A part of you is still in denial about what just happened. You need to think about this, but calmly.

Bian has the key.

Motel Girl returns with tape a trash bag.

Ask Taytum to help you with the window?

Or handle it yourself?