The Loop of the Cinder Fox

The highway unspooled like black thread through the Pennsylvania hills, and by the time the headlights caught the faded wooden sign for the Cinder Fox Inn, my back had that deep, grinding ache that comes from too many hours behind the wheel. My partner, Mara, was asleep against the passenger window, her breath fogging the glass in slow, rhythmic pulses. We’d been driving from Buffalo to Asheville, and the GPS said we were still four hours out. The sign flickered in the high beams: a leaping fox, its tail a coil of smoke, and the words ‘Vacancy’ in a sickly orange glow.

I shook Mara awake. ‘We’re stopping. I can’t keep going.’ She stirred, rubbed her eyes, and squinted at the sign. ‘What is this place?’ I shrugged, pulled the wheel, and the tires crunched up a gravel driveway that wound through dense, black pines. The inn itself came into view, half-buried in a hillside like a creature burrowing into the earth. The main building was a two-story Victorian, but the hill had swallowed its northern end, and a new first-floor wing jutted out of the slope, its windows dark and blank.

The parking lot was nearly empty—just two other cars, both dust-covered, looking abandoned. I parked under a buzzing floodlight that attracted a halo of moths. ‘Creepy,’ Mara said, but she was already unbuckling. The night air was cold and smelled of wet soil and something faintly metallic. We walked down a stone path that hugged the hillside, passing a sign that said ‘Check-in at Front Desk’ with an arrow pointing up a set of stairs carved into the embankment.

The lobby was a time capsule: shag carpet the color of dried blood, wood-paneled walls, and a TV that looked like a prop from the eighties. The desk clerk was an old man with watery eyes and a name tag that just said ‘Roy.’ He didn’t smile, just slid a registration card across the counter. ‘You’re in 112,’ he said, his voice a dry rasp. ‘End of the hall, right next to the hill. We don’t get many folks this time of year.’ I asked if it was quiet. He stared at me for a long moment. ‘No one gets in or out without me knowing.’ He handed me a key with a plastic diamond fob.

We found the room via a corridor that sloped downward, the floor uneven, the walls bulging as if the hill were pushing in. The door was heavy, solid oak with a peephole. Inside, it was exactly what you’d expect: floral wallpaper, a twin bed with a thin, scratchy comforter and two stiff pillows, and a TV that was absurdly large, a dusty CRT box with a slot for VHS tapes and a digital timer on its front. ‘Wow, blast from the past,’ Mara said, running a finger along the console. ‘I dare you to set the timer.’ I did, just for laughs, pressing the buttons until it read ’10:00.’ The screen glowed blue with static, and then went black. ‘Good investment,’ I joked. We set it for a few test runs—five minutes, then two—and it worked perfectly, turning on and off as if obeying some long-dead ghost.

We were exhausted, so we fell into the bed without changing. The last thing I remember was Mara’s breathing slowing down, and the faint sound of the TV static hissing from the dead screen. Then I was somewhere else.

I was on my stomach, pressed against a cold surface. There was a heavy weight on my back, like a tree trunk had fallen across me. My limbs were numb, and I couldn’t move my head. I tried to call out, but my voice was a raw croak. Then the pressure began to pull—not upward, but downward, as if I were being dragged through the mattress into the floor. I could feel the vibrations, the groaning of wood, the sensation of being slowly swallowed. My heart thudded against my ribs, and I could taste dust and iron. I tried to twist, to kick, but my body was a dead weight. The pulling intensified, and I felt something like fingers, cold and hard, gripping my ankles, tugging me into a blackness that had no bottom.

I woke with a start, gasping, my face buried in the thin pillow. The room was dark. Mara was still asleep beside me, her hand limp on the blanket. I was drenched in sweat. The TV was on, but the screen was a black void with three words in stark white letters: ‘YOU ARE HERE.’ I blinked, and the words vanished. The TV turned off by itself. I lay awake, staring at the ceiling, until dawn seeped through the curtains.

The next morning, I told Mara about my nightmare. She laughed, said I’d probably eaten something weird. We decided to leave early, but as we walked to the car, we noticed the parking lot was emptier—the two other cars were gone, replaced by fresh tire tracks that led straight into the hillside, disappearing into a storm drain. Roy was standing on the porch, watching us. He didn’t wave.

We drove on, and for a while, the road was normal. But then, as the sun began to set, the GPS started blinking, showing us driving in circles. The needle on the compass spun, and the road ahead seemed to repeat—same pines, same curve, same faded billboard for a diner called ‘The Blue Plate.’ Mara pointed out that we’d passed the same truck stop twice. I pulled over to check the map, and that’s when I saw the tire tracks leading off the road into a dirt path, winding up a hill. On the hill stood the Cinder Fox, its windows dark, but the porch light burning.

We were back. We stepped out of the car, and Roy’s voice came from the shadows: ‘You forgot something.’ He held up my key with the plastic diamond fob. ‘Your room’s still waiting. 112.’

I looked at Mara. She was pale, her lips trembling. ‘I dreamed too,’ she whispered. ‘I dreamed something pulled me down, and there was a light at the bottom, and a voice that said ‘Stay.’ ‘

Roy smiled, revealing yellowed teeth. ‘The hill is hungry,’ he said. ‘It’s been hungry since the fire of ’72. That TV was the only thing that survived. It learned to count down. It knows when you’re due.’

We tried to run, but our legs wouldn’t obey. The ground beneath us sagged, and the hill opened like a mouth, and we were swallowed into the dark, the last sound being the click of the TV timer: 3… 2… 1…

And then we were back in room 112, lying on our stomachs, the weight pressing down, the pull starting again, and on the TV screen, a new message: ‘You are here. Forever.’