Green - a werewolf story

3. Running

The worst part of being on the run was finding somewhere to sleep. She had technically stopped using the cheap motels. Sure, they gave you anonymity, but only to a certain extent. They tended to have male reception staff and men tended to remember her. Sometimes they tried getting into her room. She could easily knock them out of course, but it did ruin her sleep and made her cranky.

That being said, she had left with short notice and she needed to be far enough away that they wouldn't come back to check up on her. When she felt her eyes wanting to close she turned in at the first motel she saw.

It wasn't the worst place she had stayed in, but it still reminded her of something from a horror movie. She almost snickered at the thought. How fitting. The location was set, here comes the monster.

The reception was manned by an old man in jeans and a worn, checkered shirt. He was covering his bald head with a faded baseball cap and stared at her unblinkingly when she stepped in.

"Hi, I'd like a room for tonight, please," she said as she walked over to him, pulling her bag behind her.

"Sure you do. That'll be 40 bucks. Sign your details here," he said and put a paper on the desk.

Vanessa took out the cash and signed with a false name. She had several fake ID's, but she was pretty sure he wouldn't even bother to check. He didn't. Instead he took a key off the wall, motioned for her to continue along the hallway, and got back to watching tv.

Vanessa didn't bother saying goodnight. Instead she concentrated on getting to her room. She opened the door, prepared for whatever horror she might find there, and was pleasantly surprised. Sure, it was small and ugly, decorated in an undefinable shade of brown, but it was relatively clean and didn't smell of piss. I'll be okay, she thought.

She went to the bathroom and was careful to use the water from her water bottle for brushing her teeth instead of the water from the tap. It was 2 am when she hit the bed and she set the alarm on her phone for seven. She couldn't risk sleeping for longer than that. At nightfall she wanted to be far into the woods.

She regretted her decision the second the phone went off that morning. She tried to pry her eyes open and reached out with her hand to turn it off. She i only managed to push it down unto the floor.

"Urrrgh!"she muttered and tried to feel for the phone on the floor before she remembered where she was and flew out of bed. "Ow, that's disgusting," she muttered to herself and headed into the bathroom to wash her hands.

At least it woke me up, she thought and tried not to look at herself in the mirror. Her blonde, curly hair which was difficult to manage under the best circumstances was just one big mess. Her face was pale and her eyes swollen and red. Five hours of sleep was not her best look. She sighed and started to get ready. Ten minutes later she had loaded up the car and was back on the highway.

Vanessa pulled into a gas station three hours later. She was riddiculously hungry and she desperately needed to use the bathroom again. When she'd had a couple of sandwiches and a cup of coffee she headed back to the car, locked the doors and called her best friend.

"Trinkets and charms, magically at your service," Letitia said in a sultry voice.

"I thought you'd given up trying to find a slogan? That's your worst one yet, by the way," Vanessa said and opened her bottle of mineral water.

"Nessa! How nice to hear from you! I thought you'd died. That is the only possible excuse you can have had for not calling me for two weeks."

Vanessa cringed. "I'm sorry, I was completely swamped with work."