Visitors of the Twilight Inn

The fuel light popped on the dash, a red-orange to mirror the setting sun over the lake, right as Cedric and Emilia's car pulled onto the dirt road leading to the Twilight Inn. In the fading light, the lake did not at all look the deep blue the brochure made it out to be. The inn itself was worse.

A "Vacancy" sign flickered in the one window of the ramshackle wooden inn--also very different from the brochure.

"Are you kidding me, Cedric?" Emilia crossed her arms. "I thought you said this place was great."

Cedric shifted the car into park and dust overtook the car. He looked through the dust cloud over the lake. "It used to be. What do you want me to do, turn around? We're out of gas and it's too late to ask for a ride and a can to the nearest gas station. Besides, you like being in nature."

Neon reds and blues from the vacancy sign danced on Emilia's sour expression. "I do like nature. What I don't like are rooves coming down on my head."

"There won't be any roofs coming down on your head, dear," said Cedric. Normally he'd let the malaprop slide, but he'd been driving all day which made him feel like a toy soldier accessory for a car.

The door to the inn creaked and shuttered as Cedric carried the bags into the foyer. Emilia followed behind, waving off gnats. The front desk clerk smoked a cigarette as he lounged in a computer chair that should not have been able to lean back that far.

The clerk's feet clomped to the ground as he brought himself to a reasonable angle. "Welcome to Twilight, y'all. Will ya be stayin' with us?" His voice sounded silkier than Cedric expected. It didn't fit his acne-scarred face, his shaggy hair, or the smoke hanging above him. Cedric nodded, then gave the details of their stay to the clerk who wrote them down in a book.

"Yer room is up the back stairs to the left." The clerk gestured with his cigarette behind him. "Ya both need to know there are paths in these here woods. Watever ya do, do NOT go into the woods with bare legs. There's poison ivy, oak, you name it out there. Ya get me?" They both nodded. "Real beautiful trails otherwise."

"Got it. I'm not much of a woodsy person, but my wife is. Is there still a moonlit boat ride offered here?" Cedric asked.

"New moon tonight. No boats."

"For the love of--" Cedric said under his breath. "Is there anything we can still do here in the inn itself to unwind?"

The clerk took a long drag of his cigarette. "I s'ppose you could use this here camera." He tapped on an instant camera sitting next to the phone. "I'll charge ya by the picture, but if'n you take one I like, I'll give the whole lot to ya free. How about it?"

Emilia walked over to the camera and picked it up. "Hey, this thing is nice, Ced."

"Maybe we can take it on the trails tomorrow," Cedric said. He needed to look forward to something.

"Oh, I dunno you'd want to, but go ahead." The clerk waved a hand over his shoulder. "Just don't break it. And if'n you make it to the cave at the end of the trail, don't take no pictures of it. Word 'round these parts is you'll pick up a visitor of some kind in the photo and the visitors ain't always friendly."

Emilia took a test shot. The camera spit out a photo: the clerk and his smoke.

The couple tried to sleep on a rickety full bed in what amounted to an oversized closet. Cedric woke several times at the slightest creak of the bedsprings. Eventually he tried reading himself back to sleep, which worked.

Cedric thought the photo of the clerk was surprisingly good, but he noticed something odd. Just out the window, a faint gray dot hovered at the edge of the photo. Cedric shrugged it off and returned the photo to its place.

The following morning, the couple went down the path in the woods. They took photos of whatever they found. Emilia stuffed the photos in her fanny pack--she'd check them out later.

When they reached the cave, Emilia jumped onto a nearby boulder and said, "C'mon, let's take a picture."

"Did you hear the clerk? No pictures here." Cedric held the camera out to her.

"Oh he was just trying to scare us. There's nothing here and I'm finally having fun. Just take the picture. Please?" Cedric never could say "no" to those chestnut eyes. The shutter clicked and they walked back to the inn.

They brought the photos to the clerk, who flipped through them.

"Oh, I like this one here. Ya really got my good side, didn't ya?"

The clerk handed Emilia the photos. Had she inspected them then, she'd have seen the same gray dots in the corners. She'd have seen the visitors coming.

Cedric paid for their stay and asked directions to a gas station. They left grateful for their own beds.

***

As the dust from the car settled back on the road, the old clerk swabbed a pristine cloth over the camera lense with a level of care he never gave himself or the property. A toothy grin split his face in two.

He had once been a "visitor" too.