Afton Teachout has been an outcast in her small town for twenty years—ever since she was accused of murdering her mother’s lover in a blackout fit of rage. That is, if one believes the malicious lies.
Living with her grandmother, working a hotel night shift, and relying on pills to get a day’s sleep, Afton is due a little luck. It comes in the form of an unexpected financial windfall. With her newfound wealth, Afton sets a secret plan in motion to help her only friend, Sydney, flee a toxic husband. But the best intentions soon spin out of control.
Afton is getting unsettling calls from a restricted number, and someone has been lingering outside her home. As Sydney’s troubled marriage comes into focus, so does Afton’s past. Her second chance—for herself and for Sydney—isn’t what she dreamed of at all. In fact, it’s becoming a nightmare.
Universal
I pace from one side of my desk to the other, tracking old Millie’s beady gaze as she tracks me back.
Working nights does this to a person. I’m always finding novel ways to entertain myself during these quiet, never-ending hours when the rest of the world is asleep. Sometimes it’s crossword puzzles and sudoku. Other times it’s library books and laughably horrible attempts at sketching. We’re allowed to do anything that doesn’t involve being on our phones—understandably. While this isn’t the classiest hotel in the area, it’s the oldest and best preserved. We can’t tarnish our reputation with a night clerk who can’t be bothered to look up from her dead-eyed Reddit scrolling to properly greet a guest.
Outside, the wind howls, creating whiteout sheets of snow that obscure my view of the parking lot. The forecast is calling for seven to nine inches tonight, which means we’ll likely get half of that, but hey—at least the grocery stores will get to clear out their old milk and bread inventory.
It never fails . . . some people grow up with these kinds of winters their whole lives, but one day of higher-than-usual snowfall and the next thing you know, every store shelf in a thirty-mile radius is empty and there are lines twenty cars deep at every corner gas station.
Sometimes I think people enjoy panicking. It’s exciting. Not exciting-good, but exciting in a way that it gives them something new and novel to worry about; a break from their usual first-world problems.
Watching the snow pile up by the minute, I make a mental note to shovel the front walk when I get home later this morning, and I smile when I think about how excited Gram’s going to be to wake up to this. Despite my grandmother having spent the last two decades indoors, nothing brings her more joy than a crisp blanket of alabaster snow. She’ll stare out the window for hours, just watching it in a trancelike state.
I like to think it brings her peace . . . or maybe it reminds her of happier times.
Sometimes I imagine Gram as a little girl, laughing and making snow angels with her friends, unencumbered by life’s complexities and blissfully unaware of the cards she’ll be dealt one day in the distant future.
The speakers in the ceiling play a cliché Frank Sinatra song that’s been covered to death by every crooner wannabe who’s ever lived. The hotel owner insists we play “classic” music 24-7, and while it gets old not being able to choose the songs that haunt my every working minute, at least it’s better than hanging out alone in silence.
The Grantwell Hotel has been a mainstay in Shelter Rock since the beginning of time—or at least 1904, when it was built across from the courthouse on the square. A few people have died here over the years—natural causes, but locals like to claim it’s haunted. Years back, some TV network came and did an overnight show here. They brought all kinds of gadgets with them as well as a psychic medium. I refused to watch the episode when it aired. I’ve never given much credence to the whole haunted hotel legend. If there’s one thing Shelter Rock folks are skilled at, it’s spreading lies and believing rumors.
The grandfather clock next to Millicent reads 3:14 AM. I’m less than halfway through my shift, but this is the time of night I start to get a little stir-crazy. Making a move for the bottom desk drawer, I make a sly effort to check my phone for any texts. The bartender I’ve been seeing should be getting off work by now, though Thursday nights tend to be busier for him, requiring extra cleanup. Sometimes he messages me on his way home, sometimes not. Since we’re taking things slow, we’ve yet to establish those kinds of expectations. I hold my breath, tell myself not to get my hopes up, and exhale my disappointment.
There’s no text waiting for me.
No social media push notifications.
Not even a spam email.
It’s only when I’m placing my phone back in my bag that my fingers graze a crumpled piece of white paper slightly thicker than a store receipt. Peeling off the spearmint gum stuck to the back, I unfold the Missouri Lottery ticket I forgot I’d purchased last week.
The other day, I overheard one of our guests claiming the jackpot winner purchased their ticket at the Qwik Star on Newmont Road here in town—coincidentally the same place I purchased mine. The gas station happened to be all out of my go-to crossword scratchers when I stopped to fill up my tank that night. It was payday. I was feeling unusually lucky. And I didn’t want to leave the cash register empty-handed.
I shake the mouse on my computer, pull up an incognito Chrome browser, and search up the winning numbers.
36-16-47-54-7
And lastly . . .
21
Comparing the numbers on the screen to the numbers on my wrinkled ticket, I choke on my spit when I realize they’re a perfect match.
There’s no way . . .
I double-check them again, this time reading them out loud, slowly and carefully.
“Thirty-six . . . sixteen . . . forty-seven . . . fifty-four . . . seven.” I swallow. “Twenty-one.”
Once again, the numbers are a dead match.
My skin flushes, hot then electric, as I check the numbers a third time.
Then a fourth.
This can’t be real.
These kinds of things don’t happen to people like me.
Minka Kent has been crafting stories since before she could scribble her name. With a love of the literary dark and twisted, Minka cut her teeth on Goosebumps and Fear Street, graduated to Stephen King as a teenager, and now counts Gillian Flynn, Chevy Stevens, and Caroline Kepnes amongst her favorite authors and biggest influences.
In her non-writing life, Minka is a thirty-something wife and mother who equally enjoys sunny and rainy days, loves freshly cut hydrangeas, hides behind oversized sunglasses, travels to warmer climates every chance she gets, and bakes sweet treats when the mood strikes (spoiler alert: it’s often).
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