The Wet Floor

The Sea Breeze Motel stood alone on a stretch of coast highway, its peeling paint and flickering vacancy sign a testament to better days. My family arrived in late October, the sky a bruised purple, and the wind carried the salt and rot of the tide. I was six, and the place felt like a forgotten toy, its charm worn thin.

We took the room at the end of the second-floor walkway, number 14. The carpet was damp underfoot, and the wallpaper was beginning to curl. My father joked about the ‘authentic seaside atmosphere,’ but my mother just shivered and pulled her cardigan tighter. The only other guests we saw were a surly fisherman and a young couple who seemed to be fighting about something.

That night, I lay awake in the fold-out couch, listening to the groan of the building. Then I heard it: the sound of bare feet slapping on wet tile, and the high, thin laughter of children. Two of them, running back and forth outside our door. I sat up, but my mother was already awake, her eyes wide in the dim light. ‘Maybe they’re heading to the pool,’ she whispered, trying to sound cheerful. ‘Let’s go see.’

We opened the door, expecting a rush of kids, but the walkway was empty. The laughter had stopped, replaced by the groan of the ocean. My father stepped out and scanned the parking lot below. No one. We went back inside, but the sound returned, closer now, right outside the door, like they were waiting. My mother pressed her ear to the wall, and I could hear her breath quicken. ‘It’s coming from inside the walls,’ she said.

The next morning, we packed in a hurry. My mother wanted to tell the manager, a wizened old man with a milky eye. She started, ‘The children next door kept us up all night—’

He cut her off, his voice flat. ‘You’re the only ones in 14. The rooms on either side have been empty for months. The water damage, you see. The pipes, they make a noise like that. Sometimes the air, it sounds like laughing.’

We didn’t believe him. But as we drove away, I looked back at the motel, and I saw a small face pressed against the window of room 12. It was a girl, her hair wet, and she was smiling. I waved before I could stop myself. She didn’t wave back. She just pressed her palm to the glass, and I saw the water drip from her sleeve down the glass, leaving a streak like a tear. I never told my parents, but I knew then that the laughter wasn’t children playing. It was the sound of something wanting to be let in, and the wet floor in our room was the only door it had.