{"id":19539,"date":"2026-04-29T20:04:44","date_gmt":"2026-04-29T20:04:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.annemettehowland.net\/?p=19539"},"modified":"2026-04-29T20:04:44","modified_gmt":"2026-04-29T20:04:44","slug":"chapter-161","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.annemettehowland.net\/?p=19539","title":{"rendered":"Chapter 161"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Sunday, April 9, 2017<\/strong>

We got up early since we had a long drive ahead of us. As we were driving to our next destination, out of nowhere, Richard said he wasn’t feeling well. He wanted to stop at a motel and rest. He said we could continue our trip in the morning. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We drove past several motels. I asked why he hadn’t stopped at any of them. He told me he was looking for a certain one. I thought that was odd, so I asked him why it mattered what motel we stopped to rest at. I also questioned how he knew about this motel since we had never been in this town before. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He seemed agitated and didn’t have an answer. All he could tell me was that it was important he found that motel. The whole thing just seemed off to me.

Finally, he spotted the motel that matched the address that he had. It was an old, run-down motel in a remote area. I asked him where he had gotten the address from. He couldn’t seem to come up with an answer that made any sense.

We drove to the front of the Motel to check in. I went to get our luggage. Richard was adamant that I leave it in the car. Again, I thought it was odd. It seemed important to him, so I left it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We went to the front desk and checked in. The guy who checked us in gave us each our own card to open the door to our room. Richard quickly grabbed mine out of my hand. I told him to give it back to me. He responded, “You aren’t responsible for taking care of it, and besides, there is no reason for you to have one since we are together at all times!” I told him I would still like to have my own in case we got separated. It was clear that he had already made up his mind, and he wasn’t going to give it back to me. So I gave up asking for it.

Then he told me that we needed to go back outside because he needed to park the car somewhere else. I asked why we couldn’t leave the car where it was since it was close to our room. He said there was a much better parking place in the back. The whole thing was so odd to me.

I got in the car, and we drove around to the back of the Motel, then he parked. I went to reach for my luggage. He told me to leave it. He insisted that we go look at our room first. I was tired of arguing with him, so I went with him to our room. Once we got there, he told me he was going to lie down for a little bit. I asked him for my motel key and told him I would go get our luggage while he rested. He said not right now and that he just needed to rest for a little bit, and then he would go with me to get the luggage.

It was clear he was not going to give me the key, so I sat down and played on my phone while I waited for him to tell me we could go get it.

He kept checking the time. All of a sudden, he said, “We need to go get our luggage. Plug your phone in, so it can charge.” It seemed like a good idea, so I didn’t question it. I plugged in my phone, and then we walked out together. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once we were outside, he unlocked his side of the car and grabbed his luggage. Then he quickly locked the car and hurried back into the motel. I tried to run after him, but the door shut behind him.

I didn’t have a car key, so I couldn’t get my luggage. I couldn’t get back into the motel since he had taken my key. I couldn’t call or text him because my phone was inside. Something was terribly off!

I was about to walk around the building, go to the front desk, and ask for a key. On one side of the motel, there was a chain link fence, so I couldn’t go that way. On the other side, there were a lot of bushes. I didn’t feel safe. I thought if I ran quickly, nothing would happen to me. Just then, I got a sick feeling that something was terribly wrong!

I felt I was to stay where I was until Richard came back out. After I had waited for what seemed like an eternity, I wondered why he didn’t come to get me. I started to get impatient and wanted to hurry back into the motel. Then I got a strong impression to stay put because I was in an open area where people could see me as they drove by on the road behind the motel. I had to wait patiently.

When he finally came out, I was upset that he had locked me out. He was upset that I had not gone around the building. I told him there was no reason for me to do that, since he knew I was standing there and couldn’t get in. It got pretty heated between us. He insisted that I should have just walked around, and I insisted that he should not have locked me out in the first place. He told me it was an accident, and if I wanted to get back in, I should have walked around.

When we got back into the motel room, I looked at the time. I had been outside for almost 2 hours. I asked him why it had taken him so long to come get me. He told me he had forgotten I was outside. I told him that was not true. I asked him what he had been doing all this time. He told me he had lost track of time looking at his phone. The whole thing was so bizarre to me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Richard said he felt better and wanted to go to the mall. I told him we should get back in the car and continue with the things we had planned. He said, “Since he had already paid for the motel, we might as well stay.” Then he added, “When we get to the mall, you can buy yourself a new dress!” I told him I didn’t need a new dress. Besides, I didn’t have room for it in my carry-on. Richard told me I could just put it in his. I reminded him that he had told me I was not to put anything in his suitcase. Then he said, “Let’s go to the mall, and if you find a dress, I will let you put it in my suitcase!”

Once we got to the mall, Richard said he was going to stay at the food court to make a phone call. I asked him who he needed to call. He said his work. I knew there was no reason for him to be calling his work since he was on vacation and there were plenty of other people who could do his job.

Something just wasn’t right! I stopped asking questions since he was so agitated with me.

I didn’t need a dress, and I wasn’t in the mood to look for one. I was just going to wait by him until he finished his phone call. He firmly said, “Go window shopping, go do something!”

After I had looked at one of the stores, I walked back. He was still talking on the phone. When he saw me, he stopped talking and angrily shooed me off. I then went back to the stores and kept looking for a dress. To my surprise, I found one that I liked and bought it.

When I got back, he was done talking on the phone. I asked him if he wanted to walk around the mall with me. He told me that he wasn’t feeling well again and that we needed to go back to the motel.

As we were walking back to our motel room, Richard told me there should be an ice machine outside our room and asked me to help him locate it. I asked him what we needed ice for since we didn’t have a cooler to put it in. He responded that it was always good to know where the ice machine was in case we needed it. It all seemed so dumb, but I went along with it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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When we found the machine, I opened the lid I saw it was full of ice. <\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

I was about to walk back to our room. Then he said, “This machine is close to our room, but we need to know where the other ice machine is. It should be down the hall. I asked why we needed to know where the other machine was. He told me it was in case this one was out of ice.

The whole thing was so strange! Especially since in all the years that we had been married, I had never seen him put ice in his drink. Whenever we go to a restaurant, he always orders his drink without ice. If the waiter or waitress accidentally puts ice in his drink, he would ask them to take it back and bring another one without ice.

It seemed important to him, so I went with him down the hall to look for the other machine.

When we found the second machine, he excitedly said, “Here is the second one! So when you go get ice, and the one close to us is out, then you know this one is here.” The whole time, I thought he was being weird. I didn’t say anything because I figured he was just being his stupid self.

Once we got back to our room, Richard lay down. After lying there for a bit, he told me he needed some ice and that I was to go get it. He seemed fine, so I felt his forehead. He got mad and said he wanted ice so that he could feel better. I told him I was scared to go by myself since it was a scary, dark motel. He told me I needed to pull myself together and go get it. I asked him if he could at least just stand in the doorway and look out for me while I got it. He said he was too sick and that I would be fine since the ice machine was just around the corner from our room.

I finally agreed to go get it so that I could have peace. I told him I would agree to it only if he would give me the motel key so that I could let myself in when I got back. He tried to convince me that he would open the door, and I would be fine without it. I let him know I wasn’t leaving without the key. He reluctantly gave it to me.

I hurried to get the ice so that I could get it over with. When I got to the machine, there was a note on it saying it was out of order. I opened it up and saw it was empty. I thought it was odd because there were hardly any people at the motel. How could it already be empty? Besides, it seemed to be working just fine when we had walked past it about 45 minutes earlier. I knew Richard would be upset with me if I didn’t bring him some ice, so I started to walk towards the other machine that was down the hall.

It was a long, dark hallway. Something just wasn’t right! I walked slowly with caution. My heart was pounding! When I got halfway down the hall, I stopped because I was too scared to take another step. As I was standing there looking down the hall, all of a sudden I could see a man stick his head out. It was as if he had been waiting for me, wondering what was taking me so long. I turned around and ran back as fast as I could towards the room we were staying in. I had the card in hand, so that I could unlock the door. As I was running, I could hear the man running behind me. It sounds like he had almost caught up to me. I unlocked the door just in time and slammed it behind me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I told Richard what had happened. He seemed oblivious to what I had said. I thought he should have been concerned, but instead, he asked where his ice was and demanded I go back out and get it. I yelled at him and told him if he wanted ice, he could go get it himself! Then I picked up the phone in our room to call the front desk to let them know what had happened. Richard asked me what I was doing. I told him I needed to let the front desk know there was a man in the hallway who had chased me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He jumped up and grabbed the phone out of my hand. He told me, “You are not to call, they are going to think you are crazy!” I told him we needed to let them know what happened to me, since the man was still out there. He insisted that no one had come after me and said, “You lost your mind and think everyone is after you!” I went into the bathroom and cried. I felt sick inside. I had been in danger, and he acted like it was all in my head. I was confused and sickened by the whole thing. I stayed in the bathroom till I could pull myself together. When I got back into the bedroom, Richard was texting on his phone.

The rest of the evening, Richard was upset with me. I was sad that he hadn’t believed me when I had told him someone had come after me. The rest of the evening, we didn’t say much to each other.

That night, I had a hard time falling asleep. Everything that had happened today was so bizarre! I never wanted to take this trip with him in the first place, but he had talked me into it, making me believe it would be so wonderful. Nothing made sense!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sunday, April 9, 2017 We got up early since we had a long drive ahead of us. As we were driving to our next destination, out of nowhere, Richard said he wasn’t feeling well. He wanted to stop at a motel and rest. He said we could continue our trip in the morning. We drove […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19539","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.annemettehowland.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19539","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.annemettehowland.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.annemettehowland.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.annemettehowland.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.annemettehowland.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19539"}],"version-history":[{"count":104,"href":"https:\/\/www.annemettehowland.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19539\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19644,"href":"https:\/\/www.annemettehowland.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19539\/revisions\/19644"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.annemettehowland.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19539"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.annemettehowland.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19539"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.annemettehowland.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19539"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}