Motel

The **motel** is a notable location in *Fears to Fathom: Norwood Hitchhike*.

### Description

The building has the appearance of typical American roadside motels from the 1980s-1990s. The architecture of the place consists of a central parking lot with some streetlights and 3 parked cars (indicating that there are sleeping guests) next to a tow truck that Tommy will use to pick up Holly's broken-down car.

There are 3 buildings, in which 2 are reflections of each other while the third is located in the North part. In the first block, there is the reception (which is separated from the room block), the building has two vending machines outside, Holly's luggage and a sign that says "VACANCY", in the window you can read that the Motel is not approved to be occupied.
Inside the reception, the most disturbing vibers possible are emitted. The interior has a sofa, a tube television in the left corner and a counter with a stack of books, a lamp, a cash register and a computer from the 90s, At the counter Joe is working and the words "RODEWAY INN" can be read behind him.

Separated from the reception are the first block of rooms that go from number 1 to number 4. In this same block you can find a coffee machine and the door of the room 4 will be open, but when you approach it, it will close.

In the second block (in the North part) the rooms will go from number 5 to number 7.

In the third block, the rooms go from number 8 to 12, in this same one you can find Holly's room (room 9). Inside the room it feels warm, but the strong musky smell of old houses will be felt in the air.
The room that is used for sleeping has a bed with 2 bedside tables on each side (one of them has a telephone out of service), there will be a tube television and next to it a table with a drawer that will have a some pills, on the walls there will be 3 paintings.
There will also be a small corridor that has a closet that can be used to hide, a sink and to the right of this a bathroom.

If you explore the alleys of the Motel, you can find only garbage.

## Background

After 20 more minutes or so, a pickup truck notices Holly and stops by giving care a ride the driver is no other than a customer in the Norwood gas station, Holly felt her tank from who strangely recognizes Holly, as if he was watching her. Holly then loads her stuff in the stranger's car, including the dog food she bought after her mom's request for the dog Milo, and hops quickly in the car after the strangers complained that he's in a rush. The stranger introduces himself as Jason and makes a bizarre remark that Holly is a brave girl which confuses her to why he would say such a thing. He continues on that the cashier is delusional, believing in such myths, indicating that he was listening in on Holly's conversation with the cashier. Jason then goes on a cryptic monologue about certain people or beings who possibly were the cause of Holly's car breaking down, and as long as she doesn't bother them, so wouldn't they.

After some small talk and a few hours of driving, Jason drops Holly at the nearest motel, which also happens to offer road services. The receptionist instructs Holly not to wake the other guests up, as they wouldn't take nicely on it, and he reassures Holly that a colleague offers will sort out her car early tomorrow.

Holly goes to her room, when suddenly, she gets jump scared by Tommy idling around in the bathroom. Tommy working there orders Holly to step outside until he prepares the room for her. After some time, Tommy prepares a room and Holly starts to rest on the bed, and drifting away. That's when a stranger starts peeping through the window, staring at Holly, which starts creeping around, getting off the bed, her feelings of anxiety taking over her exhaustion, Holly proceeds to leave her room and buy an espresso from the coffee machine, when suddenly she starts feeling dizzy and nauseated, quickly rushing to her room where she passes out.

After regaining her consciousness in a few hours, she realizes that she has been sedated. She subsequently hears creepy squeaks and sounds coming from her room, when suddenly, she's startled by knocks on her door. Joe, the receptionist, informs her that loud strange noises have been coming from her room, disturbing the other guests, which makes Holly become confused, as she was passed out and not making any noise. Joe notices Holly's unusual red eyes to ritually pleads that the coffee machine was tampered with. Joe confused to what she's talking about, as they don't have a coffee machine. He follows her to see what coffee machine she's talking about.

Being confronted with no coffee machine at sight, Joe as the result starts acting strange or daring calling to go back to her room quickly, where she could find some medication to relieve her symptoms, indicating as if he knows of what might have been happening, possibly someone installing a tempered with coffee machine just to drug and use the guests.

After some time staying in the room, starting to drift away on the bed, Holly hears someone with a soft voice trying to attract her attention. He then proceeds to knock on the door, asking Holly for help. Holly tries to ask who the person is but he dismisses the question and tries to persuade her to open the door. Holly creeped out by the person behind the door gets threatened that he just wants help and that he's not police, that's when Holly tells the man to go away before she calls 9-1-1. Losing his patience, the man starts kicking on the door with all of his power, making Holly run to the closet and hiding there.

The man manages to quickly break the door and look for Holly inside the room. He inspects the bathroom when Joe from the reception quickly gets to her room and knocks the man out taking him by surprise. Highly unsure to what just happened, with Joe withholding to give her any information and asking her not to call the police, he starts believing that this man might have belonged to a drug ring or an organized cult who dwelt within the area. The strange sounds Joe heard thinking he might have been Holly and with the squeaks coming from the room are soon revealed that they're from the strange man who was in fact hiding in the closet with Jolly being narrowly saved by Joe. When knocking on her door, the logs that were barricading the road and Holly's car breaking down seemingly all were due to the call tampering, including the coffee machine with spiked drinks, therefore the cashier talking about this appearance is Jason talking cryptically about the mysterious people who wouldn't bother her, as long as she didn't bother them.

With Joe acting strange, when Holly told him about the coffee machine, all indicate that they all knew about the presence of this cult whom seemingly were afraid to talk about them, just in case they would get targeted as well or in case of them giving Norwood a bad reputation. It's not mentioned what the cult is capable of and what they do to the people, they kidnap with myths and stories believing they might be mythical monsters hanging their victims on trees upside down, which could possibly hand out that the victims were in fact found that way before with the call to conducting such gruesome rituals.