Sins of the Father

   Some time before dawn, rumblings of the countless vehicles on the interstate could still be heard in the empty street around three miles from the Atlanta exit. Of the eight streetlights along the road, only three were working, leaving the 24/7 motel across them in grey shadows. 

  The motel was a squat little building of two storeys, each with eight rooms. The peeling lime-yellow paint matched the sky behind the building, heralding dawn. The neon sign over the entrance only illuminated part of the name “Dixie Motel” but the recently added 24/7 sign shone like a lighthouse. In the tiny lobby, a yellow lamp cast a bleak light over the concierge who was slumped over his desk, drooling on top of a newspaper, deep asleep. The register lay open beside him, showing only three names that had all been assigned rooms on the second floor. 

  The inhabitants of 203 and 205 were likewise asleep, but a weak light shone through the crack at the bottom of the door to 208. Room 208 was, by far, the cheapest in the budget-friendly hotel and not just because it overlooked the dumpsters in the alley behind the motel. Unlike the other rooms, there was no threadbare carpet covering the cold tiles, a few of which sported curiously coloured stains. The fan on the mildewed ceiling only worked in sporadic bursts. There was a black knapsack and a half-emptied plastic bag from Maryland’s Convenience on the single bed underneath the fan. 

  Most of the bag’s missing contents were on the plastic table propped against the bare opposite wall. The few other objects were in the cubicle-sized bathroom, along with the room’s occupant. 

  The occupant was a woman in her early twenties who stood facing the small mirror nailed to the bathroom wall. Cut tresses of blond hair and two packets of cheap black hair dye were littered around her feet. She held a pair of barber scissors by the handle in her mouth while attaching fake dark eyelashes to cover her blond ones with glove-clad hands. Done with the disguise, she swept all the trash into a garbage bag. Straightening up, she stared in the mirror, and an unfamiliar female with choppy shoulder-length hair and bangs wearing large non-prescription glasses stared back at her. 

  Satisfied with the stark difference, she strode towards the bed. Removing two cans of beer from the plastic bag, she dumped the rest of its contents - crackers, bottled water, first aid, and a cap - into the knapsack. Turning to the table, she picked out a few more knick-knacks to take with her. A set of keys, a passport, a credit card - these were all that remained on the table. Both passport and the credit card had the name Sierra Maddison Jones-Kirby.

  Returning to the bathroom, she picked up the garbage bag and emptied the cans of alcohol on the floor to cover up the lingering smell of the hair dye. Casting a last cursory glance around the room, she headed to the open window. The sky was much lighter now, a pale blue with occasional streaks of yellow and red. Tossing the knapsack and the garbage bag out of the window, she climbed on the sill. After judging the drop to the lidded dumpster for a few seconds, she jumped down. Landing with a thud on her side, she rolled over and dropped to the tarmac. Now on her feet, she shouldered the knapsack and picked up the garbage bag, intending to trash it in the next dumpster. 

  The thud had awoken the slumbering concierge. He glanced around in confusion before guiltily wiping the drool off the newspaper headlined ‘Crazy Kirby’s Fourth Death Anniversary: Where Is The Mystery Child?’. 

  Not long after, a tall man with a scarred face knocked on the desk. He wore a brown jacket that bulged suspiciously on the right side of his waist. Reaching into his jacket, he pulled out a wad of cash and slapped it on the desk. He then pushed a picture towards the concierge and raised an eyebrow. 

    After all, the sins of the father shall be visited upon the son...

                                                                  or daughter.