Bated Breath

The roadside motel was barely a blip on the GPS, but it was five dollars a night. The night clerk, a gaunt man with hollow eyes, didn't even look up as he slid me the key to Room 4; he was too busy tracing a thumb over a cracked photo of a teenage girl. I collapsed onto the musty bed, exhaustion finally slowing my heart rate. Just as I drifted into the space between wakefulness and sleep, I froze. A wet, heavy rasping sound. Right. Beside. My. Ear. Terrified, I held my breath, straining to listen in the sudden silence. My eyes adjusted to the gloom, landing on the wall beside the headboard. There were deep gouges in the wallpaper. Strange... one set of frantic scratches was down low, near the baseboard, while the others were high up, near the ceiling.