Speaker 1: My family lives across the states in a small house.
I try to visit often, given I usually get a
lot of vacation time from my work. The drive is
something I find relaxing, so I don't mind the extra
couple days it takes to get there. Most of the time,
I try to stay at one hotel or motel along
the way, and when I do, I just check in,
sleep and get back on the road as soon as
I'm able. It's mainly because the areas along the drive
are bare and run down, usually in the middle of nowhere.
I find it hard to feel safe since I'm not
used to being in those kinds of areas. Last year,
I took the same road trip I always did to
my parents' house during the holiday season. I started my
drive early I want to stay around one or two AM,
and drove for almost twenty hours straight, aside from stopping
for food and coffee a few times. By then, it
was eleven PM and I was exhausted and struggling to
stay awake behind the wheel. I was just under eight
hours away, but I couldn't go much further. I was
in the middle of nowhere, so whatever the next possible
place to stay at was I planned on taking it.
About twenty minutes further, I turned off into a small town.
It pretty much just had a motel and gas station,
but that was all I needed. I pulled into the
mostly empty parking lot and walked over to the front desk.
An older lady greeted me and made small talk. Then
I got a room and headed back to my car
so I could part closer to the door. I was
extremely exhausted and left all my stuff in the car
and just went inside. I didn't care about the room
at all. I just went inside and immediately got in
the shower so I could get ready for bed as
soon as possible. During my quick five minute shower, I
heard a few tapping sounds. They sounded like they were
from outside, though maybe a tree branch knocking against the building.
I thought nothing of it and got out, putting on
the same comfortable clothes I was wearing, and then got
in bed. I set an alarm on my phone so
I wouldn't oversleep, and finally reached for the lamp and
turned off the light.
Speaker 2: Being at an old.
Speaker 1: Run down motel in the middle of nowhere seemed irrelevant
compared to how tired I was so I fell asleep
without trouble, though I didn't stay asleep for long. I
jumped awake, hearing something move in the darkness surrounding the bed.
I sat up, staring toward the front door, but I
could barely see anything. I was too scared to move
and reach for the light, afraid.
Speaker 2: Of what I might see.
Speaker 1: It wasn't long before I heard something from the other
side of the bed, outside the window. My heart was
racing and I could feel myself starting to sweat as
I was wide awake. At this point, I quickly turned
back around and switched on the light. The room was empty,
nothing seemed out of place until I noticed the closet
door was cracked open. Everything was going through my mind,
trying to understand every possibility.
Speaker 2: Hello. I decided to.
Speaker 1: Call out, but there was no response. Feeling like I
may have just scared myself for no reason, I got
up and slowly walked towards the closet. When I pulled
the closet door more open, I was confused. A large
bag was wedged between the back of the closet and
the door, falling to the ground as I opened it further.
Looking around, there was actually a whole stash of luggage, clothes, bags, appliances,
all clearly belonging to someone, not the typical stuff you
would see at a motel. While I was looking at
all this stuff, I suddenly heard the window slam shut
by my bed, followed by footsteps running away. I shivered
and froze, then took this chance to grab my phone
from the night stand and run out to my car.
Almost just as I got inside and turned the car on,
I looked up and made eye contact with a man
standing right by the.
Speaker 2: Door to the room.
Speaker 1: He looked at me for a second, then rushed inside
and grabbed one of the large bags from the closet
and sprinted off behind the building. I was terrified and
quickly drove closer to the front office, then ran inside
to tell the woman what had happened. She contacted the
police immediately and locked us both inside the office until
they arrived. What we found out next was confusing, and
the information came out over multiple weeks, but I'll try
to explain it the best I can. The remaining bags
in the closet were identified as they were found to
belong to several individuals who were robbed within the past month.
At several different motel locations in the surrounding area. It's
likely that the man was using the room I was
in as a place to temporarily stash the belongings, using
the unlocked window to access the room. One of those bags, however,
belonged to a young woman who was reported missing just
a few weeks prior, and the officers believed the crimes
are connected. But all the parted bags that were stolen
were found inside that closet, so the bag that the
man ran inside to grab was not accounted for. They
questioned me on it multiple times, making sure I was
confident that I saw him run out with another bag,
and asking me the approximate size of it. In everything,
my curiosity has really kept my mind from being able
to forget that night, as I wonder what he planned
on doing when he was outside the window while I
was sleeping. I knew it was closed when I went
to bed, so he had to have opened it while
I was asleep, which is even creepier. I also wonder
what was in that one bag that was so important
that he needed to grab it before running off. I
don't go on many vacations, nor do I stay at
hotels often, but last year I had a problem occurr
in my small house that required me to be away
for several days for it to be fixed. Given the circumstances,
I had to book a hotel nearby and stay there
until further notice. I wasn't happy about it, but there
wasn't anything I could do and nowhere else.
Speaker 2: I could stay.
Speaker 1: I looked for the absolute cheapest hotel in the area,
trying to save as much money as possible. The one
I went with was twenty five minutes away, but was
half the price of the ones closer. Although I knew
it was because the hotel was located in the lesser
part of the town, the extra money saved more than
made up for it in my mind. That was until
I got there. The place was disgusting, at least on
the outside. Trash was everywhere, and the building was very
clearly not taken care of. The pictures online only showed
the rooms in the lobby, but they looked clean and
somewhat nice, so I was a little bit confused. I
grabbed my small suitcase from my back seat and walked inside. Immediately.
When entering, I was relieved. The lobby was very small,
but it was nice, and I headed for the counter
to check in, but nobody was standing there. I stood
patiently for a minute looking around the main room. It
was very quiet and not a single person was anywhere.
It was only four pm, so I assumed people would
be walking around or hanging out in the lobby. I
took a few steps further into the hotel, looking down
the main hallway leading to the rooms. At the very
end was a man standing right outside a room door.
After watching him for a few seconds, it was apparent
that he was just facing the door, not moving or anything.
Feeling uncomfortable, I backed up to the front counter again. Finally,
a man came from outside and walked behind the counter. Honestly,
he looked dead inside. He asked for my name and
gave me the key card, then walked away. I glanced
at the cart, seeing the room number written with a
marker in the corner. Given the low number, I knew
it was on the first floor. I walked over it
to the hallway I was just at and looked at
the directions for where the rooms were, and my stomach
ached a bit when I realized it was down the
hallway where I'd seen that man. Even worse. As I
started making my way down, I realized it was at
the end of the hallway, right where the man was standing.
I couldn't tell if he was standing outside my exact
room or not because of how far he was when
I saw him, but it was creepy either way. Although
I hadn't been to many hotels previously, I do remember
the annoyance of the thin walls allowing you to hear
every noise from every room. What was strange as I
walked down the hall was that there was no noise
coming from any room. No TVs were on, nobody was talking,
no movement, nothing. It gave me chills, but when I
reached my door, I quickly scanned the card and headed inside.
Given everything, it was actually in good condition. It was
very small and was clearly old, but it was exactly
what I expected of the cheap room. I laid my
suitcase down on the floor, then took a look into
the bathroom to make sure it was good, and finally
locked the door and sat on the couch, not at
all surprised. The TV didn't work, though, so I was
left with just my phone. After an hour of trying
to keep myself occupied, a knock came from the door.
It startled me given it was just a single knock,
which sounded more like a hit. The door had no peephole,
so when I got there, I flicked the safety latch
over just in case, and opened the door a crack.
That same man from earlier was standing in the hallway,
only a foot or so from the door. We made
eye contact through the crack in the door.
Speaker 2: Hi, did you need something? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I paused, waiting for him to tell me what, but
he just stood there like he was waiting for me
to say something.
Speaker 2: Okay, man, what do you need? Then?
Speaker 1: I said, in a way to show that I was
clearly bothered by him. The strange man responded, claiming he
was the previous person staying in my room and that
he had accidentally left something important inside one of the drawers.
I said okay and told him I would grab it
real quick, and began closing the door and turning round.
But the man pushed the door back, slamming it against
the safety latch. I looked back at him, my heart
starting to race as I was getting a really bad
feeling about this. It's in the top dresser drawer. The
man muttered to me, then backed up, letting the door close.
I turned back around, heading to the dresser and opening
the top drawer. Inside there was actually a small sized
box taped shut on the top. Picking it up, it
was fairly light, though I mean like it felt empty.
I walked back over to the door and opened it,
seeing the man still standing.
Speaker 2: There. Is this what you were looking for? I asked.
Speaker 1: The man nodded and held his hand out. I went
to slip the box through the crack in the door,
but it was barely too big. I tried every possible angle,
probably looking like an idiot, but it was just slightly
too wide on every side. The man looked impatient, and
while I really didn't trust this place at the moment,
I thought the guy had told the truth about leaving
something behind, and I did see him standing by the
door before, so I figured it'd be fine to open
the door for a second, just to hand him the box.
As soon as I moved the latch over, the man
rammed his body into the door, knocking me down and
pulling a gun on me. He yelled at me to
back up into the living room and stand against the wall.
I was actually stunned at how loud he was screaming,
thinking surely he would alarm everyone in the building. He
grabbed my whole suitcase and continued looking around while holding
the gun at me. Then, just when he was about
to leave, he walked up to me, put the pistol
just inches from my face and stared me in the eyes.
I was shaking in fear staring into this man's rage
filled eyes. But after a few seconds he backed up
and ran away with my stuff. I stood in that
same spot for probably a whole minute, staring at the ground.
It happened so fast it almost didn't even seem real.
When I finally got myself together, I went outside my
room and went straight to the front desk. The guy
there was just casually standing there, like he didn't hear anything,
and nobody else was in sight. To sum everything up,
nothing was done. He got away with all my stuff,
and honestly, every authority figure I talked to didn't seem
scared or surprised in any way. They kind of just
looked at me like I didn't even belong here anyways.
I guess it was just normal and they expect you
to look out for yourself. The box was in fact empty, though,
and the whole thing was obviously just an interesting plot
to rob.
Speaker 2: Those who stayed at the hotel.
Speaker 1: Those last moments before the man ran away, though, are
what I keep thinking back to, the rage in his eyes,
holding the gun up like he was ready to pull
the trigger without thinking twice. Why didn't he My only
thought was that maybe he knew that if it was
just a robbery, then nobody would come looking. I don't know,
but I definitely won't be staying at a cheap hotel
in a bad neighborhood ever.
Speaker 2: Again.
Speaker 1: This happened while I was on a work trip. I
work for an insurance company and we can win trips
to our other two big locations, one of which happens
to be in Miami. I won the trip and went
with my boss and a few other people in the company.
Most of the trip was spent doing work stuff during
the day, and then at night we were left to
do what we wanted, like go to the hotel, pool
bars in town, and all that other stuff. It was
the second to last night I was there, and I
didn't have much to do the next day, so me
and a coworker went out to a cool looking bar
on First Street. We took an uber and got there
around eleven p m. Miami is a party city and
the night life there is amazing. The bar was packed
and it made me feel like I was in college again.
Speaker 2: I wasn't that old, but I'd.
Speaker 1: Been out of college for a few years now. My
coworker gets us shots, and throughout the night we have
some more, and he ends up inviting two girls to
the table and buys them shots as well. He hits
it off with one of them and the other one
seems to take a liking to me. I'd been single
for quite some time and work had taken over my life,
so I was honestly just excited someone was showing interest
in me. Plus I was on vacation and she says
she was too, so neither of us were expecting anything
serious out of this.
Speaker 2: I thought she was really cool.
Speaker 1: And extremely attractive, and throughout the night I offered to
buy her drinks, but she bought her own, which I
thought was really cool too. It was around two am
now and she asked if I wanted to go back
to her hotel, which I found out was only a
fifteen minute walk from mine. I agreed, but honestly was
pretty nervous. I knew this girl was way out of
my league, but I decided to have fun and take
a chance.
Speaker 2: We ubered back to her hotel.
Speaker 1: Which was insanely nice by the way, and.
Speaker 2: Got to the room.
Speaker 1: I'll spare you the details, but events occurred and afterwards
we ended up talking for a bit. After a while,
I noticed she was starting to get glued to her phone,
so I went to the bathroom to clean up and
get dressed. But while I was in there, I heard
a key card open the door to the room and
was confused. She never mentioned that she was here with anyone,
and I didn't see anyone else's stuff in the room either,
And that's when I heard a man's voice. My heart
dropped to my stomach. I quickly got dressed and checked
if I had everything. I had my phone and wallet,
which were in my pants pocket, but my shoes were
still out there. I decided i'd have to leave them,
as I could not deal with whatever this is right now.
While I was waiting for my time to slip out,
I heard him ask why there's men's shoes by the bed.
That's when I knew I was screwed. By the time
I made the decision to make a run for it.
There was a pounding on the bathroom door. It was
one of those doors that slide open and doesn't really lock,
so of course the cheap thing revealed me behind it.
Speaker 2: This guy was huge.
Speaker 1: I could not have been more unlucky if I tried
the cherry on top was. He also had a gun
and was pointing it right at me. He told me
to get my shit and get out, in the most
calm voice that made everything ten times scarier. I grabbed
my shoes and left my heart beating out of my chest.
He closed the door behind me, and then silence. I
didn't hear any fighting or yelling or anything, which I
thought was weird, but I wasn't going to stay to
find out. I got in the elevator and took my
wallet out to get my key card, and what do
you know, all my cash was gone, my credit card,
my debit card, even my gift cards were taken. I
don't even know when she had the time to take
all this stuff and how I didn't notice. I tried
thinking back to the bar and going into the room,
but the night had turned into a blur. I spent
the next hour canceling my cards, pissed that for the
rest of the trip, I would have absolutely no money.
The next day I told my boss and co workers,
who sympathized but also found it funny. And now that
it's been a few years since that incident, I can
look back and find the humor in it. But what's
stuck with me was one of my friends theorized it
might have been a setup that might not have been
her boyfriend at all. She could have taken me back
to the hotel, stole my stuff, and waited till I
went to the bathroom for the guy to come in
and scare me off before I noticed the money was gone.
If that's the case, it would explain why I didn't
hear any fighting after I left, and why the guy
wasn't more angry. I try not to think about it
too hard, and anytime I go out, which isn't much anymore,
I try to keep myself safer and make better decisions.