The Creeps

Chapter One

Rule #5: Check-in will be no earlier than four p.m. and no later than nine p.m. No more than four guests permitted per room. Please enjoy your stay at the Good Night Motel.

It was a normal Tuesday when Dylan Vega watched his home disappear through the rearview mirror for the last time.

His mom was driving. She looked tired-he'd learned to read the signs. This time it wasn't because her illness was flaring up, though. Or at least, it wasn't only that. They'd had a busy morning. Behind them, in the backseat and trunk of their spluttering little beater car, was the proof-all their worldly possessions, crammed up against the doors.

Dylan had three boxes, and a trash bag filled with his bedding and clothes. His blue-painted bookshelf was on the curb. The graphic novels it used to house had been sold to the used-book store for fifty cents each. His bed frame, his desk, his spinning office chair-they were all gone, too.

He wouldn't need them at the Good Night Motel, his mom had said. She'd tried to sound cheerful, but Dylan was twelve, not four. He didn't believe everything she said in that chipper voice anymore.

"You okay?" his mom asked as they turned onto the highway. Away from the apartment complex, with its red-and-blue jungle gym. Away from the neighborhood where Dylan had learned how to ride his bike.

"Sure," he answered, staring out the window. Trying to memorize it all before it didn't belong to him anymore.

"It's not going to be so bad, you know," she said as she changed lanes. The boxes in the backseat wobbled alarmingly. "It'll be like a vacation. An adventure."

She had said some version of this at least eight times since they found out they were moving. Dylan pretended to believe her even though he knew people on fun vacations didn't stay at places like the Good Night Motel.

His mom needed to believe he was excited, though; he knew that. Just like she needed to believe Dylan didn't know the real reason they were moving. The truth was he had heard her on the phone the night before she told him. She'd been crying. Please, she'd said. I promise I'll get the back rent to you soon. Just don't kick us out. We have nowhere else to go.

But it didn't help. And it turned out there was one place left they could go.

The overstuffed car turned into the gravel parking lot right on cue, the sagging old blue-and-yellow building greeting them like a jack-o'-lantern, with dingy windows for eyes and a row of dingier doors for teeth.

They'd driven by it a hundred times-on the way to Walmart to buy school clothes, or to the clinic in the next town over when Dylan needed his vaccines for school. The motel looked like an old dollhouse left out in the rain. On the sign, a teddy bear with vacant eyes hugged a crescent moon.

Home sweet home, Dylan thought glumly as the car stopped. They'd only driven ten minutes, but it felt like they'd entered a different world.

Even after the car was still, his mom stayed in her seat, staring forward like she was getting ready to have a tooth pulled. Finally, she turned to Dylan. "This is temporary," she told him in a bracing tone.

It made him feel better, actually, that she wasn't treating him like a little kid. That she was acknowledging how much this royally sucked instead of pretending it was wonderful.

"I know," he said, trying his best to smile and mean it. "It won't be so bad. Like a vacation."

His mom smiled. "Ready?" she asked.

No, Dylan wanted to say, with every fiber of his being. He wanted to go home. But home was gone, so he nodded. It wasn't like not wanting to be here would make him magically appear somewhere else. Though he would have been willing to try it if he thought there was any chance it might.

They got out of the car together and walked across the dusty gravel parking lot to a little window. A sign above it said CHECK IN HERE with an arrow pointing down. The window itself looked like it hadn't been cleaned in years. Above it hung a faded yellow lace curtain, which just completed the creepy dollhouse vibe.

The desk was empty until the second before Dylan's mom rang the bell on the counter, and then, suddenly, it wasn't. Dylan did his best not to jump as two elderly people appeared in the window, smiling identical smiles. Their eyes were a weird shade of green that made them look as empty as the teddy bear's.

"Welcome to the Good Night Motel," they said in unison. Dylan couldn't look away from them. Were they twins? Or just one of those old-people couples that looked exactly like each other? He couldn't tell.

"Thank you," his mom said in her phone voice. "We called ahead. Vega?"

They didn't check their records or anything, Dylan noticed. They never looked away from his mom's face. At least only one of them spoke next, though. That was an improvement over the weird synchronized speech.

"Yes, Ms. Vega and one child, twelve years or younger," the shorter one said. "You're getting our special promotion. Three days free when you pay for a week. We have room eleven available for you. You'll love it."

"I'm sure we will," his mom said graciously, even though Dylan was pretty sure there was no way on earth they were going to love anything about this place. They were here because they had nowhere else to go.

"Here is your key," said the taller one, sliding it through the little circular hole in the plexiglass. It had a keychain on it featuring the dead-eyed bear and the moon, pink with a little smudge of green. Like paint. Or mold. Dylan tried not to look at it. It made him feel kind of queasy.

"Thank you," his mom said again, taking the key and turning to leave.

"Wait," the shorter one said, in a higher-pitched voice.

Dylan and his mom turned. "Yes?" his mom asked.

"Don't forget the rules!" she said in a fake cheerful tone that made even Dylan's mom's sound convincing.

"The . . . rules?" his mom asked.

"Yes, rules. They're printed on the inside of your door, and they must be followed to the letter."

Dylan looked at his mom, whose smile was painted on at this point. "We'll be sure to check them out," she said, and then she turned and ushered Dylan away from the window.

Neither of them spoke until they had left the check-in area far behind. Room eleven wasn't one of the doors facing the parking lot, but Dylan's mom seemed determined not to go back to the window and ask for directions.

They walked through an archway that led into a courtyard. It was a big rectangle with numbered doors all around. Dylan thought it might have been cooler-looking before weeds grew through the pavers and died, or when the plants and palm trees overflowing from the cinder-block planters were alive instead of bleached and brittle against the powder-blue wall.

At least it looked like a pretty good place to skateboard, he thought. And then he remembered he'd had to sell his skateboard to one of the neighbor kids at his old apartment. He got ten bucks for it, which his mom said he should keep.

He'd slipped the money into her wallet while she was sleeping.

"Okay," Dylan said when he was sure they were out of earshot. "Tell me those two weren't creepy."

He swore he saw a hint of a smile before his mom looked at him sternly. "Dylan Vega, not every elderly person you meet is creepy."

Dylan stared at her until at last her fake indignation cracked and she snorted.

"But those two were a little much, weren't they?"

"You think?" Dylan asked, laughing along with her. "Like, we get it, you guys look alike, you don't have to talk at the same time, too."

His mom stopped laughing before he was ready. Her face got somber again. "Even so, we're lucky they had a vacancy."

He felt the brief bubble of happiness their laughter had created pop. The heavy feeling he'd had since they left home was back in his stomach. "Yeah," Dylan muttered. "Who wouldn't want to stay here?"

His mom looked like she was feeling heavy, too. All the fight had gone out of her. He wasn't even in trouble with her for being sarcastic. She pushed her hair off her face, and her silver beaded bracelet flashed. A neighbor had given it to her, and it looked out of place here, like a relic from their old life.

"Look, I know this is hard," his mom said. "But let's just try to see the good in things, okay? Can you do that for me?"

"I'll try," Dylan said, scuffing his shoe on the dirt path.

"Good," his mom replied. "And look, here's our room!"

Room eleven's door was pale pink, with decades' worth of grime to season it. The doorknob had probably once been white, but it was closer to brown now, with worn spots right where you'd grab it to twist.

Dylan wondered glumly how many other people with nowhere else to go had walked through this very door. He hoped some of them had moved on to better things.

His mom inserted the key into the door and opened it. The smell greeted Dylan first. Like old cheese. And to make matters worse, everything was pink. The peeling wallpaper, the health hazard of a bedspread, even the carpet. With the color and the stench and the humid stickiness of the air, Dylan felt like he was walking into an open mouth.

He thought of the green spot on the key again-the one he'd thought looked like mold. His stomach did a weak backflip.

"How . . . unique!" his mom tried to say, but she choked halfway through as the stench hit her. "We'll just open a window and give it a minute to air out, how's that sound?"

This time, Dylan couldn't bring himself to smile. He doubted that even a year of open windows during a tornado would make a difference. And better still, when he tried to open the room's only window, he found that it was painted shut.

Reality began to set in as his mom quickly excused herself to start bringing in their things. Their old life was gone. Their apartment would be someone else's within the week. For the foreseeable future, this was where they lived.

Dylan felt sadness and anger and helplessness pour into him like liquid Jell-O into a mold. He got up and paced the room, then slammed the door his mom had left open, hoping to coax the fresh air inside.

That was when he saw the rules. They were listed in small print that started at the top of the door jamb and continued all the way to the gross carpet. Dylan didn't even need to read them to be positive that the Good Night Motel was officially the worst place in the world.