Following the GPS guides the car into a parking lot behind the Hitcher's Post motel.
Dianes's car is parked in the parking lot around the back of the motel. There are ten spots with two lamps mounted to the exterior of the motel, designed to guide one's way in the dark. It was lucky that afternoon sun was beating down, for Diane's car would have been shrouded in darkness come nightfall. A quick glance up confirms that the light directly above is missing its bulb. The battered sedan is nondescript, except for the blinking red alarm light set into the dashboard.
From the parking lot, the closest thing is the front desk of the motel. It is a separate, squat building underneath an old light post. The front desk of the motel is the kind of quiet, depressing place that most people are thrilled to deal with and leave behind, as quickly as possible. The half glass window reveals no one in view.
Further down this quiet, desolate road are the only other two signs of human occupation that you've seen in thirty minutes of driving. The first is a run down gas station with attached convenience store, the dingy and faded sign proclaiming 'The Rest Stop'. The price of gas is exorbitant and you imagine the half dozen people before you who mutter under their breath as they pay, because where else would they go?
The squat wooden building across the street from the Rest Stop appears to be a restaurant. You can see two Honda sedans, about ten years old, parked in the small quaint parking lot of the building. The windows of the building are darkened. A red generic sign reads 'closed' across the front window.
Around the motel, old trees stretch up towards the sun. The heat is oppressive, the buzz of insects simmers from beneath the boughs of the trees. You've found the one preserved pocket of isolation and wild wilderness of Southern California in an age where most things are being paved and new condos are being slapped up. You hear the sharp, warning bark of a pair of angry, riled dogs from somewhere. The sound is coming from off in the trees. No road turns that way...
A glance around proves that no one seems to be walking by and there are no breaks in the cheap blinds that shroud the window eyes of the hotel. You note an old, dingy Toyota Tacoma in white at the last motel room, farthest from the check in office and convenience store. An old growth tree nearly blocks the last motel room completely.
Cayce Cross Djinn Justin