Episode Recap: The Motel

When Doretta and Ron Johnson bought the old Windrift Motel, they knew it would require a lot of renovation work. It was a truly vintage property, but Ron thought it was just perfect; Doretta wanted a big house for children, and Ron wanted a place big enough for a business. The old motel was just what they were looking for.

Their young daughter, Ashley, got the biggest bedroom the house had to offer. Doretta did everything she could to make sure her daughter's room was as perfect as she could make it.

They began renovations with the house itself, doing everything from painting and wallpaper to putting in new windows. But nothing seemed to go as planned: the new paint job just peeled off the walls, and wallpaper refused to stick. Doretta thought the house was telling them to leave it alone.

Ashley began to have some unusual experiences as well. One night as she played alone in her room, she had the overwhelming feeling there was someone else with her. When she looked, she found a little girl standing over her. Excited for a playmate, she didn't think anything was strange about her new friend, Lisa.

Ashley was so enthusiastic about having a playmate that she would get up in the middle of the night to go find Lisa. Sometimes, Ashley would even go to the kitchen and set out snacks for herself and her friend. Doretta was concerned, but thought that Lisa was simply Ashley's imaginary friend, never considering that Lisa might be real ...

One night, as she was watching television, Doretta felt something in the room with her ... and then saw a small child running in the hall. Thinking it was Ashley playing a joke, she checked Ashley's room, finding her daughter asleep in her bed. As she went back to the living room, someone, or some thing, began pounding on the front door. Doretta quickly shut off the lights, grabbed the biggest butcher knife she could find, and hid, waiting for whoever was trying to invade her home to make their move.

Just as suddenly as it began, the banging on the door stopped. However, within moments, it sounded as though someone was trying to turn the knob. Doretta braced herself for the attack, but when the door opened, she was surprised to find her husband coming home. When she told Ron what had happened, he grabbed a baseball bat and went searching. He came up with nothing.

Ron insisted that it was all in her head. Doretta began to think she was losing her mind.

One night, Doretta was trying to sleep and she caught sight of someone standing outside her bedroom door. She followed a young blonde woman to the house's basement, where the stranger painted "CK" in large letters on the wall. Soon after, Doretta was suddenly jolted awake. Was it all just a dream? The next morning, she went to the basement ... and there in large letters was the same "CK." That was no dream!

Ron did not believe in ghosts at that time and tried to blame it all on Doretta. The couple fought like cats and dogs, and their fighting took a toll on Ashley. One day, while Doretta was bathing Ashley and washing her hair, she was distracted by the sight of something in the water. As she dug through the suds, Doretta was shocked to find a human head! She grabbed Ashley and took her into another room. When she returned, the head in the tub was gone.

Distraught, Doretta tried to get Ron to help, but her efforts only ended with more fighting. As the days passed, things got tense. Ashley then had a horrible nightmare about a dark man chasing her through the hall of the motel. Startled awake, Ashley tried to go to her mother, but Lisa stopped her. Ashley knew that something bad was going to happen with "the Shadow Man."

One day, as Doretta was in the bathroom putting on her makeup, the house decided to show her the whole story. The lights flickered, and in the mirror appeared her bathroom in a completely different time. There was a blonde woman in the bathtub, and a man appeared in the doorway. The couple in the mirror talked and then began to argue. Doretta watched in horror as the man drowned the woman in the bathtub. When a little girl ran into the bathroom crying for her mommy, the man grabbed a shovel and killed the child. Just as quickly as the display began, Doretta was back in her own bathroom.

Meanwhile, Ron was about to become a believer. As he walked to the house from his car one night, he could hear a second set of footsteps. He looked around, but saw nothing. As he bent over to pick up something from the ground, he stood to find the blonde woman standing right in front of him. She quickly disappeared. Ron knew that Doretta hadn't been making all this up.

Ron and Doretta knew they had to find out what had happened in the house. Who was CK? They sought out a woman who used to be a caretaker at the motel to get more information. She told them all about the motel, how it had gone from the "it" place to be on weekends to a den of prostitution and bootlegging. Several people had died at the motel, including the woman's friend, Caroline Kersey, and Caroline's daughter ... Lisa.

Doretta asked about Caroline's husband. What had ever happened to him? The former caretaker told her that Charles still lived in town.

Doretta and Ron hoped that now that they knew the truth about what they were experiencing, it might be enough to put the spirits of Caroline and Lisa to rest. However, the dark spirit that Ashley called "the Shadow Man" had other ideas. He took control of Ron and used him to chase down Doretta. Doretta was terrified that the spirit was going to use her husband to kill her. When Ron finally regained control, he was distraught over what had almost happened.

It all came to a head one day when Doretta took Ashley to the grocery store and spotted an older man who was alarmingly familiar. It was Charles Kersey, the man who had drowned Caroline in that bathtub decades before. Doretta confronted him, outing him as the murderer she knew he was. She could see his shock and fear that someone knew his secret, and knew from that moment that he had really killed Caroline.

Once Doretta confronted Charles, everything in the house lightened. She believes that she had done what Caroline wanted, and that had allowed Caroline and Lisa to move on. Doretta and Ron still live in the motel, proving that love can triumph over evil.