MANAGEMENT NOTICE: Motel Gift Shop + Art Exhibit Now Open

I’m going to say this in the cleanest way possible, because people love “clean” right up until it becomes obvious they’re standing in a place that refuses to stay that way:

The Motel Gift Shop is now open.

And before anyone gets excited and starts imagining keychains and postcards and cute little trinkets you can buy to prove you survived a roadside stop without catching tetanus… relax.

Yes, there are souvenirs.

A hoodie. A shirt. A mug. The normal stuff. The “I went somewhere” stuff. The harmless stuff.

That’s not what this announcement is really about.

This motel didn’t open a shop because we got inspired.

This motel opened a shop because we kept ending up with things we were told not to keep.

The first warning was never the rooms.

People always think it starts in the rooms because they want horror to behave politely, like it waits behind a locked door and only happens in private, but the truth is the lobby always speaks first, because the lobby is where the building meets you and decides what kind of story you’re going to become.

It started with a smell.

Not mildew. Not smoke. Not a cheap cleaner trying to pretend it’s disinfecting anything besides people’s consciences.

Copper.

Wet pennies.

That metallic tang you can taste in the back of your throat like the air itself is bleeding. And the most important part wasn’t that the smell existed — East Texas has plenty of smells — it’s that it kept coming from the same place, night after night, week after week, returning to the same corner of the lobby like it was loyal to it.

Right where the wall hangings were.

That’s where guests would slow down without meaning to, stare too long without knowing why, and then step away like their instincts had tugged their sleeves. And I know what you’re thinking — that people get spooked by anything if the lighting is bad enough — but this wasn’t “spooky”. This was consistent, which is a management word for “something is wrong and I can’t file it under coincidence anymore.”

Then the camera footage started skipping.

Not going out. Not glitching with static like it’s trying to entertain you.

Skipping time.

A missing chunk. A frozen frame. A timestamp jump so clean it looked edited. And it didn’t happen all over the lobby either, because that would’ve been easy to blame on wiring. It happened in the same corner, the same damn spot, the same wall, like the motel didn’t want witnesses in HD.

I replaced the camera.

It still skipped.

I had wiring checked.

Still skipped.

And because I’m management, I did what management does best: I smiled, ignored it, and kept checking people in anyway. Because if you run a motel you learn fast that “something feels wrong” isn’t a reason to close the place, it’s just a reason to keep the lobby lights bright and act like confidence is security.

The rooms started later.

That’s the part people want to jump to, like the lobby was just atmosphere and the deaths were the real plot, but the lobby wasn’t atmosphere — it was a warning label, and the rooms were what happened when the motel got tired of whispering.

Yes, people have died here.

Not once.

Not “years ago.”

Here.

In these rooms.

In incidents spread out just enough that the public can pretend they aren’t connected, and close enough that the staff can’t pretend they’re not.

The police come, obviously.

They investigate the scene like they’re reading a language the rest of us were never taught, taking photos, bagging evidence, keeping their voices level while standing inside a room where the air still tastes like metal, and then they leave because their job is to collect what matters to a case.

My job is to deal with what’s left behind when the case drives away.

And that’s what people don’t talk about: after the investigation, after the tape, after the last flashlight beam disappears down the hallway, the room doesn’t get “resolved.”

It gets released.

Released back to management, which is the world’s nicest word for “congratulations, Loretta, this is your problem now".

That’s when cleanup begins. Not housekeeping. Not towels and little mints. But the kind of cleanup where they don’t even look at the bed first. Because they already know the bed is gone, and they start with anything porous because porous things don’t just hold stains, they hold what happened.

Carpet.

Curtains.

Bedding.

And wall hangings.

And I need you to understand this part, because this is where the Gift Shop and Gallery were born. Police don’t tell me to keep anything. They tell me to destroy it. Anything “contaminated". Anything that can’t be sanitized. Anything that could hold trace. Anything that could make someone ask the wrong question later.

Especially wall hangings.

Because walls can be painted.

Tile can be bleached.

But fabric absorbs.

Fabric holds smoke, sweat and fear. Fabric holds the moment right before impact and the moment right after silence. And if you’ve never watched a wall hanging get pulled down after a release and noticed how the smell changes the second it moves — like the air trapped in it finally gets to breathe again — then you don’t understand what “contaminated” actually means in a place like this.

So the instruction is clear.

Destroy them.

Get rid of them.

Make sure they don’t exist outside the motel. Because if they do exist outside the motel, then the motel isn’t just a building anymore.

It’s evidence.

And somebody always wants evidence gone.

Here’s where management becomes a problem.

Because I did remove the wall hangings.

I did follow procedure.

I did what you do when you’re handed a released room with a history still clinging to it.

But I didn’t complete the last step.

I didn’t destroy them.

Not all of them.

Some things don’t even make it to inventory, because I’m not an idiot and I’m not trying to get haunted for fun.

But the pieces that came off that lobby wall — the corner that warned first — and the pieces that came off certain guest rooms after release, after cleanup, after the motel tried to wash itself back into innocence…

Those I kept.

I logged where they came from.

Lobby.

Room Numbers.

And I stopped treating them like trash.

Because you don’t destroy proof just because someone in uniform tells you to.

You destroy proof when you’re afraid of what it says.

So no.

I kept the pieces.

And I put them where they belonged.

On display.

For sale.

That is what the Motel Gift Shop really is.

Not a cute storefront.

A counter in a building that keeps surviving things it shouldn’t.

Yes, you can buy souvenirs there — clean, normal items meant for people who want to flirt with the motel without touching the crime scene.

But the Motel Walls Gallery is the real opening.

That’s the exhibit.

That’s the collection.

And if you’re wondering why new pieces will be added over time, I’ll explain it with the honesty management isn’t supposed to have:

It’s because this motel is still operating.

The lobby still warns.

The rooms still collect.

The police still release.

And I’m still told to destroy what I’m not going to destroy.

So the gallery will grow.

The inventory will grow.

And the Gift Shop will remain open.

Bright lobby lights.

Vacancy sign flickering.

Smiles that don’t reach anyone’s eyes.

Because out here in East Texas, the motel doesn’t need to chase you.

It just needs you to check in.

— Loretta

 Management | Unmasking Evil

 Enjoy your stay. The motel already knows you’re here.

AVAILABLE NOW (APPROVED BY MANAGEMENT)

TAKE A SOUVENIR

VIEW EXHIBITS

*The Unmasking Evil Motel is a fictional setting. The art is original work.