The Cinder-Block Lullaby

The Motel Del Rey wasn’t the kind of place you’d find on a postcard. It squatted at the edge of a sun-bleached highway outside of Bakersfield, a two-story, cinder-block rectangle with a flickering vacancy sign and a pool that had been drained so long ago the deep end was now home to a family of tumbleweeds. I was there with my partner, Marcus, and his six-year-old daughter, Lily. We’d been driving cross-country from the East Coast, and the motel was a last-minute stop after our original reservation fell through.

We got two connecting rooms on the first floor. Marcus and Lily took one, and I was supposed to share with Marcus’s mother, Carol, but she insisted on staying in the adjoining room with her other son, David, and his wife, Elena. The rooms were identical: thin, cigarette-scarred carpet, two double beds with bedspreads that felt like sandpaper, and a single window that looked out onto the parking lot. The air smelled of stale smoke and bleach, and the walls were a dingy yellow that made you feel like you were inside a smoker’s lung.

We were exhausted, so we settled in quickly. Lily was already asleep on the bed next to Marcus, her small body curled around a stuffed rabbit. I was about to climb into the other bed when Carol came in, muttering about the room being ‘too small.’ She started rearranging the furniture—shoving the little round table and the two chairs toward the door, and then, before I could stop her, she grabbed the armchair and hauled it through the connecting door into her room. ‘There, that’s better,’ she said, wiping her hands on her jeans. ‘Keeps the draft out.’ I just shrugged. Ever since the car ride, Carol had been a little off—jumpy, talking to herself under her breath—but we’d all put it down to fatigue.

I didn’t sleep well that night. I tossed and turned, the scratchy sheets and the hum of the vending machine outside making rest impossible. At about three in the morning, I was finally dozing off when a sound cut through the silence. It was a laugh—but not a human laugh. It was a child’s giggle, high and sweet, but twisted, elongated, as if the tape was being slowed down and sped up at the same time. And underneath it, there was a wet, choking cry, like someone was trying to sing while drowning. The sound came from the wall adjacent to the bathroom, where the water pipes ran. I froze. I thought maybe it was Lily having a nightmare, but the sound didn’t have the muffled quality of a dream. It was too close, too precise. It felt like it was right next to my ear.

I tried to reach for the lamp, but my hand was trembling so hard I knocked it over. The clatter woke Marcus. ‘What’s wrong?’ he mumbled, sitting up. Lily stirred but didn’t wake.

‘Did you hear that?’ I whispered, my voice barely a breath.

‘Hear what?’ He looked around, squinting into the darkness.

The laugh came again—high-pitched, then dropping into a guttural sob. It was coming from the corner of the ceiling, near the air conditioning vent.

‘That!’ I said, pointing.

Marcus listened, his face going pale. ‘I don’t hear anything. Maybe it’s a stray cat outside?’ He tried to pull me back down, but I was rigid. ‘There’s something in the walls,’ I said.

Marcus sighed, threw back the covers, and grabbed his phone, shining the flashlight around the room. The beam swept over the peeling wallpaper, the cheap prints of desert landscapes, the dark gap under the dresser. Nothing. The sound stopped.

‘See? Probably just the wind,’ he said, but his voice was uncertain.

I didn’t want to argue. I lay back down but kept my eyes open, staring at the ceiling. The rest of the night passed in silence, but I didn’t sleep a wink.

When dawn broke, I told Marcus I wanted to leave. He was reluctant, but Lily had woken up with a fever, and Carol was acting stranger—muttering about ‘the woman in the walls’ and insisting that we move the dresser to block the connecting door. David and Elena were whispering to each other, and I caught them glancing at us. Something had unsettled them too.

As we packed the car, we noticed a plumbing truck in the parking lot. A man in a stained jumpsuit was working on a panel near the motel’s laundry room. I caught his eye and asked if there was a problem. He wiped his forehead and said, ‘Ah, just a clog in the main line. But you folks might want to be careful—there’s been weird noises in the pipes for a while. Old owner died in that room, years back. Drowned in the bathtub, they say. But the laughter? That’s new.’ He laughed, a short, humorless bark, and went back to work.

That sent a chill down my spine. I went back to the room to grab the last of our things. As I stepped inside, I noticed the small bathroom door was ajar. I could see the bathtub—an old claw-footed thing with rust stains. And there, sitting on the edge, was a small, waterlogged doll, its plastic face cracked into a permanent smile. It hadn’t been there before. I picked it up, my heart racing. The doll’s eyes were painted a little too wide, and they seemed to follow me. I dropped it in the trash can and hurried out.

We checked out that morning. As we pulled out of the parking lot, I looked back at the motel. In the window of our room, I saw a figure—a woman in a white dress, her hair hanging over her face. She raised a hand and waved, very slowly. Then she was gone. I didn’t tell anyone.

We drove almost non-stop for two days. The laugh followed me, though. Even with the windows up and the radio on, I could hear it inside my head—that bizarre, joyful wailing. And sometimes, when the car would slow, I could swear I heard a child’s voice singing a lullaby I’d never heard before.

It wasn’t until a week later, in a motel in Arizona, that I finally got some peace. I was in the bathroom, brushing my teeth, when I noticed something in the mirror. On the back of the bathroom door, there was a faint watermark stain—a smiley face, drawn in some kind of residue. I stepped closer. The eyes were dotted with small, dark spots that looked like dried blood. And just then, from the drain of the sink, I heard it again: a soft, giggling sob.

I ran out of the bathroom and never looked back. We moved to a house with no plumbing issues, but sometimes, late at night, when I’m lying in bed, I’ll hear a faint dripping sound. And I know, if I were to open the bathroom door, there would be a small, waterlogged doll sitting on the edge of the tub, its cracked smile welcoming me home.