text: If you're not from California, it may come as a surprise to you that the state is not all pristine beaches, towering redwoods, or even grimy urban hellscapes. Dividing the north of the state from the south is the Central Valley, a 450 mile stretch of farmland, desert, and not much else. City boy and chauvinist that I am, I always saw it as a passing through place. There are a few towns scattered along the highway that cuts across it, but most consist of a motel, a gas station, and a couple fast food joints. Even with the windows rolled up, the air there is fetid with the stench of cowpies. Still, there is a kind of beauty to the place. On either side of the highway are arrayed row upon row of almond trees which stretch to the horizon like vast armies, and at night, one can see the lights of lone homesteads shining in the distance like ships at sea. I live in Orange County, but my business takes me back and forth across the state, and I always opted to drive rather than fly because I found a strange romance to the Valley. Until a couple years ago, that is. It was fall when it happened, and the valley was shrouded in a thick blanket of fog. It was almost midnight, I was bone-tired, and by the light of my low-beams, I could make out only a few feet in front of me. I was driving along a two-lane highway, my only protection from oncoming traffic the two painted lines on the tarmac. Fighting to ward off sleep, I guzzled cheap, bitter gas station coffee and blasted the AC on the coldest setting. On the few radio channels that I managed to pick up, I found old country songs, fire and brimstone sermons from evangelical preachers, and solemn testimonials of UFO encounters. I would never have driven in such conditions normally, but my business in San Francisco had kept me longer than I anticipated, and I had to be back in OC that next morning. The rest stops along the way called my name, but I stubbornly soldiered on. It took until about the third time I fell asleep at the wheel, nearly swerving into the path of a tanker truck headed the other direction, for me to admit that it wasn't going to happen tonight. I pulled in at the next likely place I came across, a three-building affair consisting of a dingy Shell gas station, a sleazy dive bar, and a rather squalid motel bearing the name of the Thunderbird Motel and Inn. In the whole center, I saw only one other vehicle, a truck parked on the ramp beside the station. As I pulled in, I noted with amusement that the big neon "S" had sputtered out, so that the sign simply read "HELL". A chill desert wind buffeted me as I walked to the door. Pasted to the glass was a poster of a smiling teenage girl. MISSING: ALLISON MURPHY, SIXTEEN YEARS OLD. It wasn’t the first I’d seen on the long drive through the valley. Inside was a crappy little kmart. The shelves were half-empty and one of the manically glaring lights was strobing continuously. There were two men in there: a trucker in overalls and a baseball cap eyeing the beers, and an older man with a haggard face and sallow skin who sat behind the counter. The trucker nodded at me as I entered, but the cashier stood staring blankly into empty space. He took no notice of me as I approached the counter “Hello,” I said, clearing my throat. The old man snapped out of his reverie to look at me. “Right, twenty-five dollars on pump three, please.” “Burning the midnight oil, huh?” He said as he took my card. His voice was dry and raspy, like a thing gone rusty with disuse. “Yeah.” He nodded at this and said nothing further, his conversational abilities apparently exhausted. “Those posters-I’ve seen them everywhere. What’s the story there? What do they think happened to her?” His eyes seemed to light up for the first time. “Oh, that? No one really knows, but everyone thinks they do. We had helicopters and patrol cars up and down the county all lost summer and not one found a single trace.” “What do people say?” “Some say the desert got her. Nights here it gets cold-cold enough to stop your heart in a matter of minutes. Theory goes she just froze like a popsicle and the coyotes gnawed her bones.” He laughed, as if it was actually funny. “You know what I think though?” I was beginning to regret asking him. “What’s that?” “I think she got taken. Pretty thing like that? Though she probably wasn’t very pretty when he was through with her.” He smiled at me then, a smile with all the warmth and friendliness of a chimpanzee baring his teeth. “Right, well, goodnight.” I hastened out as quickly as I could. The incident unnerved me, and I briefly considered moving on to the next rest stop before dismissing it. The fog had grown even denser, and there was no way of knowing when the next stop would be. Resigned, I filled up my car and drove over to the Thunderbird Motel. The glaring neon sign at the front of the building depicted a huge eagle, talons shining and wings outstretched. I walked past it and entered the main office. The air was drafty and musty in there, the lighting dim. The décor looked as if it hadn’t been updated since the seventies. On one side of the door stood a statue of a cowboy brandishing two pistols, and on the other side stood a racist caricature of an Indian, complete with peace pipe and headdress. Mounted all along the walls were the heads of dozens of animals-cattle, bears, deer, rabbits, wolves-all gazing out with expressions of mute terror. A rusted wolf trap hung in a far corner of the room. Sitting at the front desk was a young woman with red hair and a pretty face. She seemed entirely out of a place in a shithole like this. When she saw me, she shifted in her seat and shot me a knowing smile. “Just passing through?” She asked as she rang me up. “Yes ma’am.” “I figured. Most people are. The only attractions around here are the date farm and the creationist museum.” Her laughter was bright and winning. “It must get pretty boring around here, I guess.” “Oh, I make my own fun.” “I bet you do.” “Customers keep things interesting. All sorts of strangers pass through here. Some are even handsome.” I had no response to this. My mouth was suddenly dry. “You traveling alone?” I managed to nod my head. “What a shame,” she said. “You need some company?” With an enormous exertion of willpower, I raised my finger to show her my ring. “Tempting, but I’m spoken for.” "Oh well.” She shrugged. “Here’s your key. Sleep tight.” This last remark was punctuated with a wink. I was grinning like a fool all the way to my room. My lodgings were about as comfortable as could be expected-dead roach in the bathroom, walls yellow with decades of cigarette smoke-but I was past caring. As soon as I sat on the bed, I was overcome with drowsiness. When I fell asleep, I dreamt of her. I was back in the lobby, but all the lights were out. The door was open, and the night winds were sweeping the fog in. She stood by the door, a hungry look in her eyes and a wicked smile at her lips. She beckoned me to her with a crooked finger and then stepped out the door and into the mist. I made to follow her, but something gave me pause. I looked around at the animal heads on the walls. Only they weren’t animal heads anymore. They were human. Men, women, children. Mouths agape as if frozen mid-scream, tongues lolling, eyes pleading. Then I saw her. Mounted above the main desk was the head of the missing girl, Allison Murphy. Her lips were moving but I couldn’t hear what she was saying. I moved closer and put my ear right up to her lips. “This is a bad place,” She whispered, her voice so soft. “You must go. This is a bad place. You must go. This is a bad place. You must go.” Then her voice was drowned out by a piercing scream sounding through the night. I jolted awake, sitting bolt upright in my bed, all my hairs on end. I looked to the door-closed and locked against the night. The clock on the nightstand read three am. I listened for a moment. Silence. I was about to lie back down when I heard it again: a high, shrill scream of a woman in pain. I jumped from the bed and went to the window to lift the curtain. The motel was an island in a sea of mist, the gleaming neon sign a lone light in a pall of enveloping darkness. I could make out little beyond the vacant parking lot, but no one seemed to be out there. Then I heard it again, louder and closer now. I imagined her out there in the fog, bleeding, weeping, scared. Running from someone or something. My hand was halfway to the doorknob when I froze. This is a bad place. I pulled my hand away. The scream sounded again. What are you doing? I thought to myself. Someone needs help. Go. But I stayed where I was and watched out the window. Suddenly, across the parking lot, a door burst open, spilling a little square of light into the mist. Out of the door stumbled a fat man in a t-shirt and underwear. It was the trucker from the gas station. He visibly shivered against the cold. “Hello? Who’s out there? Are you okay?” He called into the night. Bleary-eyed, blinking back sleep, he looked around the lot, but he didn’t see me at my window. The scream sounded again. It was coming from somewhere in the darkness at the edge of the lot. He looked off in that direction and made a few tentative steps forward. “Hello? Ma’am? Are you hurt?” He called again. Another scream, this one ending in a choked sob. He walked to the edge of the lot, mist curling and wreathing around him. “Hello? Walk towards the sound of my voice!” That was when I saw them. Two forms sidling and slinking out of the fog. They were hairy and hunched over, and they creeped forward in an awkward, erratic gait. I could barely make them out in the mist, and at first, I didn’t believe what I saw, but when I blinked and rubbed my eyes, they didn’t go away. When they got closer, I saw what they were. Coyotes. But wrong somehow. They were standing on their hind legs, and they were bigger and longer than coyotes had any right to be. More emerged from the mist. Four, five, six. They were padding into the parking lot from both sides of the building. The trucker was still looking off into the night, oblivious. I opened my mouth to shout out a warning, but it caught in my throat. Soon they were all gathered behind him, close enough that I could see the light of the motel sign glinting in their eyes. Their bodies were tensed, their hot breath steaming in the chill air. They seemed to take no notice of me. The screams had stopped. The trucker scanned around one last time, and then he turned and saw them. “What the-”he started, and then they fell on him. I dropped the curtain, sank to my knees against the wall, put my fingers in my ears. But it was no use. I heard it all. His screams and cries. Their triumphant yips and howls. Growls and the ripping of flesh and bone. “It’s not real it’s not real it’s not real it’s not real,” I muttered over and over again, rocking back and forth. I had been doing this for I don’t know how long when I realized it was over. I took my fingers out of my ears. Silence. I sat there with my back to the wall for what felt like an eternity, listening for the faintest sound, but I heard nothing. Trembling, I got to my feet, went to the window, and pulled up the curtain. They were all gathered there, their faces pressed up against my window, their breath fogging the glass. They grinned at me then, their eyes all too human. One of them reached up a clawed paw and scratched down the length of the window. Then it opened its mouth as if to howl but the sound that came out was no howl but the scream of a human woman in terrible agony. That was when I fainted. I awoke the next morning facedown on the dirty carpet. It smelled like old beer. Groaning, I pushed myself up and sat against the wall. Sunlight was filtering in through the curtains. All at once the events of last night hit me, and I began hyperventilating. Standing on wobbly legs, struggling to get my breathing under control, once more I went to the window and grabbed the curtain. Opening the curtain then may have been the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do. I took one more deep breath and let the sunlight in. There was nothing out there but empty parking lot. No mangled corpse, no gnawed bones, no bloodstain on the pavement. Just old, cracked stone. The window bore no traces of any scratches. It was just a nightmare then, a crazy fever dream induced by sleep deprivation and shitty road food. I tried to feel relieved, but I did not. I had pissed myself the night before, my underwear still damp with urine, but I didn’t take a shower. I was not going to stay at the Thunderbird Motel a moment longer than I needed to. I dressed into fresh clothes, packed up my stuff, and left the room. As I walked over to the main office to return the key, I looked across the center at the Shell station. The trucker’s tanker was gone. The same woman was seated at the desk when I entered. “Well, you look like you’ve seen a ghost,” she said. I ignored this. “Listen, that trucker-the only other guy here-did he check out last night?” She frowned. “Yeah, he did. About an hour after you checked in. Said he got an emergency call. Why?” “Forget it. Here’s the key.” Her hand gripped mine a little too long as I passed her the key. “You didn’t sleep very well, did you?” she said, and then she smiled. “Up late with thoughts of me?” I ran out of there then, past the cowboy and the Indian and the watchful eyes of the mounted heads. I jumped into my car, screeched out onto the highway, and didn’t fall under eighty miles per hour for the next two hundred miles. Something about her smile was all too familiar.