Room #37 at the Beachcomber Motel

Manistique Light

I'll start this one off by saying I think I'm fairly normal. I have a family and a job, don't drink a lot, and have never been institutionalized.

Now that I've got that disclaimer in, I have a story to tell about a stop I made in Michigan's Upper Peninsula a couple of Octobers ago.

I was roaming the UP taking fall pictures and stopped for the night in the town of Manistique. When I'm alone on trips like this, I stay in motels that, to say it kindly, have seen better days. Maybe it's because I don't want to spend the extra money, or maybe it's because some of their past charm is still hanging on, but those kind of places draw me to them. On this particular night I chose the Beachcomber Motel, just across the street from the Manistique Lighthouse.

It was a nice room. Straight out of the 60's. One double bed, small TV, pink and green bathroom, one of those pre-digital clocks where the time changes by number tabs tumbling over, and those big steel heat radiators that look like they would burn you if you even thought about getting close to them.

Nothing unusual about the night at all. I went to bed early and was having a good sleep. The only thing disturbing it was the tick-tick-tick of the radiators when they would first come on.

Then it happened. The radiator ticking woke me. I rolled over on my left side to look at the clock (it read exactly 3:33) and then I felt it.

Something, or someone, lifted up the bed covers on my right side and crawled into bed with me. I felt the covers lifting up and I felt the bed move.

I've told this story to a few people, first to Denise, and this is what they all ask, "what did you do?"

What could I do? I wanted to jump up and run for the door, but the door was on the side of the bed where my visitor was. I wanted to roll over and see what was really there, but didn't really want to know for sure. I simply only had one thing to do, lie there thinking all kinds of thoughts and listening to that tick-tick-tick of the radiator.

Thanks to that night in room number thirty-seven of the Beachcomber Motel, I have a story to tell.

(Let me refer you back to the first paragraph of the story where I claim I'm somewhat normal)

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