A Short Story
Jeremy works as the night manager at a motel. An ideal job for a college student. But one evening when a creepy guest with strange trunk checks in, Jeremy’s life is changed forever.
Average Reading Time: 7 – 11 minutes (about 2,600 words)
Trunk of Caramel
Chuck Heintzelman
Copyright © 2011 by Chuck Heintzelman
I will never forget the events that evening last spring.
I worked the night shift at the Stars Motel. It’s just outside Warner’s Crest and doesn’t get many visitors because most folks continue down the freeway another twenty minutes to stay at a decent hotel in Spokane. The Stars Motel has eighteen units, two units per cabin, and is surrounded by woods. Actually, there are twenty units but the cabin with unit fourteen is no longer rented out.
The motel job was perfect for a college student. I’d spend my days at Eastern Washington University and my nights at the Stars Motel. I worked 6:30pm to 5am. A long shift and a low wage, but perfect for me. Joe, the owner, knew I often dozed and worked on schoolwork, but he didn’t care. As long as a warm body was in the manager’s office Joe was happy.
It was Tuesday, May 18th and we only had one guest. Just after 8pm I heard the door chime’s “bee-bah” and looked up from my laptop to see the strangest looking fellow I had ever laid eyes on. He was fence-pole thin and so tall he had to stoop his neck to get through the door. The guy must have been sixty or seventy years old and I could tell, even before he spoke, that he was foreign. His clothes looked straight off the rack from Goodwill. His black pants were at least five inches too short, the shortness accented by white socks and sandals. He wore a brown tweed jacket with his skinny wrists jutting out the sleeves like white bones. He held a cane, but seemed to carry it for style not purpose. He approached the counter and removed his fedora, revealing a bald head.
“Can I help you?” I asked.
“Yesss.” I couldn’t place his thick accent.
“A room?”
“Pleassse,” he said, “Number thirteen.”
I cocked my head at him. “We don’t have a number thirteen on account the boss’s superstitious. It goes from twelve to fourteen.”
“Fourteen, please.”
“I’m sorry fourteen’s unavailable. We have 2 through 12 and 15 to 21 available.”
He leaned forward on the counter, elbows propped, hands clasped, his eyes intense. “Must have fourteen.”
Although fourteen was empty Joe didn’t want it rented. Joe’s a bit superstitious and after what happened in unit fourteen back in April, he thought it best not to rent out.
The man noticed my hesitation and continued. “I pay double. Here isss nice tip.” He laid a twenty on the counter.
Joe would surely want fourteen rented at double the cost. I placed a clipboard on the counter and snatched the twenty.
The man took the clipboard, scribbled on it and handed it back.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “We need a credit card number.”
“I pay cash.”
“Well, that’s fine. But in case there’s damages.” I shrugged. “It’s just policy.”
The man laid two hundred dollar bills on the counter. “This for damage?”
I grimaced. “I don’t know.”
He laid another hundred dollar bill on top of the others.
“Fine.” I pulled the room key from the peg board and handed it to him and grabbed the cash. Joe could figure out how to handle this character in the morning.
“One thing,” the man said. “I need help for to carry trunk.”
“Uh, I can’t really leave the office.”
He peeled off two more bills from his wad of cash and laid them on the counter. Twenties. “Pleassse.”
“It’s pretty quiet tonight.” I took the cash. “Sure.”
I grabbed the keys to the office and followed the man into the parking lot, locking the office behind me.
I pointed. “Unit fourteen is about halfway—” I stopped, surprised at the car in the parking lot. It was a long, black hearse. “—I’ll meet you there.”
I couldn’t believe my luck. Sixty extra dollars in my pocket. I walked toward unit fourteen looking back at this bizarre dude and his car.
Even though the hearse was not small, the tall man had to fold himself double to get into it. I walked to unit fourteen and waited while the man backed the hearse into the parking spot.
Suddenly I feared the worst. He needed help with a trunk from a hearse? Was the trunk a casket? Even with the sixty dollar tip I wanted no part of this activity.
The man exited the hearse like a limbo dancer, sticking his legs out and standing but bending backward until his head cleared the door frame. He walked to the back of the hearse where I stood. I opened my mouth to tell him I changed my mind but before I could say anything he held up a hand with one long finger extended. He leaned on the back of the hearse for a moment, trying to catch his breath.
Just my luck. This guy looked ready to keel over with a heart attack. I’d have to call 9-1-1 and call Joe. I wouldn’t get any schoolwork done.
The man caught his breath. “Sorry, I drive two days to get here. I not young any more.” He smiled weakly.
Before I could say anything he opened the back of the hearse and pulled out a track on runners which was obviously designed to slide caskets in and out. A large, black trunk with brass corners and a brass clasp sat on the track. Thank god it wasn’t a casket. He motioned me forward.
I stepped up to the trunk. It was three feet wide and two feet deep and as tall as it was wide. I grabbed a brass handle and waited for the man to grab the other, but he fetched a small satchel from the hearse and made his way to the cabin.
I sighed and grabbed the handle on the other side and lifted. The trunk must have weighed eighty pounds. I’m not a weak guy, but I had to strain to heft it off the casket trolley.
The man held the door open while I trudged through it, shuffling my feet. “What are you carrying in here?” I asked. “Anvils?”
The strange man chortled. “No. Something much sssweeter. Here, next to bed.”
I set it down and scooted it across the rug to the foot of the bed and turned to leave.
“Wait,” he said.
He pulled out a key ring from his satchel, a large silver loop with dozens of keys, and picked through the keys for a moment before selecting one. He unlocked the trunk and flipped open the lid.
Caramels filled the entire trunk, little one inch cubes of light brown candy. He tossed a couple caramels to me.
I caught them. “Uh, thanks.” I nodded and shut the cabin door behind me as I left.
On the way back to the hotel office I tossed the candies into the bushes. I wasn’t about to eat caramels that were laying loose in a trunk. They weren’t even wrapped in plastic. Not very hygienic if you ask me.
I unlocked the office door, flipped the lights back on and when I turned around to shut the door I jumped backward bringing my hands up protectively. The old guy was standing right behind me. He had followed me back to the hotel office and I hadn’t heard him. Instead of bizarre, now he was outright creepy.
“Question.”
“Yeah?”
“Paper did not say how Miss Pottridge killed self. I am believing it wasss pills.”
For a minute I couldn’t respond. How did this guy know? And why was he interested in the suicide?
He stood there, holding his fedora in front of his waist with both hands, waiting for me to respond.
“Yeah,” I said. “Sleeping pills.”
He nodded. “I thought so. You find body?”
I shook my head in the negative. “I checked her in, but my boss found her the next day.”
The strange, thin man bowed and turned and left without another word.
How creepy. Was this old guy planning something similar to the old lady? That’s all I needed, some freak offing himself while I was working. And what was the deal with the caramel?
I shivered. The round clock on the wall behind me showed 9:10. I filled my mug with stale coffee and sat down to get some homework done.
I hated math and had avoided taking any math classes my freshman and sophomore years. Now I had three math classes required before I could graduate. I flipped through the pages of College Algebra, Third Edition, but my mind wasn’t in it. I kept wondering about unit fourteen. Finally, I could take it no longer and decided to go investigate.
I locked the office and walked to unit fourteen. Light showed through the curtains but they were pulled shut and I couldn’t see in. I listened at the door and heard voices inside. Must have been the television. I lifted my fist up to knock on the door, but hesitated. What excuse would I give for the intrusion? I sighed and turned to walk back to the office.
“Yesss?”
I turned. The old guy had opened the door and stood, neck stooped, in the door frame. He was naked, only a towel wrapped around his waist. His body looked like it hadn’t seen the sun in a century and he was so thin I swear his chest was concave.
“Sorry,” I said. “Just making sure you were settled in okay.”
“Going to shower.”
“Have a good evening,” I replied lamely and turned to leave. After a few steps I looked over my shoulder. The man had disappeared back inside the cabin.
My imagination may have been getting the best of me, but I couldn’t shake the idea that something strange was happening. It wasn’t just the weird man, but the trunk of caramel and the repeated reference to the suicide.
People are strange.
Actually, people are gross. Working the night shift, I seldom had to clean rooms, Joe cleaned up when guests checked out. But occasionally I had to launder the sheets and that’s one of the sickest jobs you can imagine. I’ve seen sheets so bloody you’d think a pig had been slaughtered on them. When I asked Joe about the bloody sheets he shrugged and said “shit happens.” One time I washed a pillowcase which was smeared with crap, as if the guest had used their pillow to wipe with. I didn’t even ask Joe about that one.
Back in the office I closed my math book. I didn’t feel like studying. For the millionth time I wished Joe had internet installed at the motel. After all, it’d be a perk for the guests and maybe he’d increase business.
The phone rang. It was unit fourteen. I picked up the receiver. “Office.”
“Help me.” His voice sounded urgent.
“On my way.” I dropped the phone and ran out the door, not bothering to lock it behind me.
I tried unit fourteen’s door, but it was locked. Damn. I forgot the key. I sprinted back to the office and retrieved the duplicate key and ran back to the cabin. Breathing hard, I fumbled the key in the lock and flung open the door. I stepped inside and froze.
The old man stood in the middle of the bed, using his cane to keep a strange creature back, poking at it like a lion tamer. The creature was a tiny, old woman—she couldn’t have been taller than four feet—and she was composed entirely of caramel.
The caramel woman turned and stared at me. Her eyes were missing. Just empty sockets. No light within. Yet she looked at me as if she could see without eyes.
I stepped backward, my mouth working but no sound coming out.
She advanced toward me. Her feet made a smacking sound with each step she took. Not when she put her foot down, but when she pulled it up. Smack. Smack. Smack.
I fell backward out the cabin’s door.
She continued advancing and reached out toward me, her arm stretching impossibly long. I screamed. But she wasn’t going for me, she was reaching for the door. She slammed it shut.
I scrambled to my feet and walked around in circles, trying to think. What could I do? What animated the caramel creature? Was it the ghost of the woman who took her life four weeks ago? One thing was certain, the man had lost control.
For a moment I considered going back into the office, locking the door, and hiding under the desk. Maybe I’d be safe until Joe came in. That was only what, another four or five hours? The wiser choice would be to hop in my car and head back to my dorm and leave this bizarre stuff behind me. I could turn on the No Vacancy sign and lock the office and call Joe in the morning and tell him I quit.
I decided to risk a glance inside the cabin and went to the window. The curtains were now parted enough for me to see inside. The old man lay on the floor and he wasn’t moving. She—or it, whatever it was—stood on his chest.
Without thinking I ran to the door, opened it, and rushed inside. I scooped up the man’s cane, which lay several feet from his body, and approached the creature.
Her back was to me and she twisted her head completely around, like Linda Blair in The Exorcist, and looked at me with her empty eye sockets. Her mouth opened unnaturally big in an inhuman grin.
I held the cane like a baseball bat and swung wildly. The cane imbedded itself in the side of her face and her head came off with a noise that sounded like a big kiss.
For a long second I held the cane out with her head stuck to the end. I shuddered and threw it onto the bed.
Without the head, the body crumpled, falling across the man.
He moaned.
I rushed to his side and kicked at the caramel body. It didn’t budge. How could I get it off him? I didn’t want to touch it. Instead, I grabbed the man under the armpits and pulled him free.
On the bed the head melted into a pool of light brown goo. The body did the same, losing all form.
The old man got to his feet. “You sssaved me.”
I couldn’t speak. I just nodded.
“Usually,” he said, “they are polite.”
I found my voice. “What was that?”
He produced a pair of plastic gloves from his pocket and put them on while talking. “Miss Pottridge’s spirit. I gave her form through caramel.”
“Why would you do that?”
“She killed herself. Her spirit isss stuck.”
“Why would you do that?” I repeated.
He opened the trunk and carefully picked up the blob of caramel that had been her head. “I give them chance to speak. To help move on.” He dumped her head-blob into the trunk.
I wanted to ask how he did it and then realized I didn’t want to know.
He pulled a large chunk from the caramel pool on the floor and tossed it into the trunk.
I shuddered. “I can’t believe you gave me pieces of this caramel to eat.”
He shrugged one shoulder. “Wasss fresh.” He put another chunk into the trunk. “Sometimes even caramel is not enough for their pain.”
Without saying goodbye, I left his cabin and went back to the office. He didn’t bother me again that evening and Joe never mentioned the strange, thin man.
The following day I gave Joe my two week notice. He seemed surprised and asked me why. When I explained the incident Joe’s face went from surprise to disbelief to concern for my sanity. He didn’t believe me, but I doubt he’ll ever rent unit fourteen again.
To this day I still have nightmares of the tiny, old, caramel woman.
~ The End ~