The Open Road Stories

The Empty Motel

Vincent Fitzgerald Episode 16

Exhausted from a long drive through Wyoming, Daniel stops at the isolated Desert Rose Motel for the night. The elderly motel clerk tells him he is the only guest, and the eerie silence of the place unnerves him. In the middle of the night, Daniel is awakened by three slow knocks at his door. When he looks through the peephole, no one is there. Unnerved but exhausted, he eventually falls back asleep.

In the morning, he finds the motel completely deserted. When he steps into the office, he discovers decades-old newspapers revealing that the Desert Rose Motel had been abandoned for years, its owner long dead. Shocked, Daniel turns to find the same clerk watching him. When he stammers that the motel is supposed to be closed, the clerk responds cryptically before Daniel flees.

As he speeds away, he glances in the rearview mirror—the motel is gone, replaced by empty desert. Hours later at a gas station, he mentions the Desert Rose Motel, only for the clerk to tell him it burned down over thirty years ago. Haunted by what he experienced, Daniel realizes he spent the night in a place that no longer exists.