- Adam is getting closer to the town where he plans on spending the night. He remembers the <em>Rest-A-While </em>motel where he stayed with his parents the year before.
- But when he arrives, the motel looks abandoned. He figures he'll spend the night there anyway, although it's spooky how much it has changed in just a year.
- He goes across the street and asks the gas station attendant if he can use his phone. Sure, why not? Adam calls Amy Hertz, this time asking the male operator to dial very carefully to be sure he doesn't get the wrong number again.
- The same man as before picks up at the other end. He is angry that Adam keeps calling someone who doesn't live there.
- Adam checks the number and insists that it's the number for the Hertz family. After a "no it's not" / "yes it is" match ("no it's not" wins), the man says he's had that number for three years.
- Adam is shaken, but he decides to try Directory Assistance. (Side note: the number for Directory Assistance is 411 – that's where we get the slang term for information.) He asks for the Hertz family in Monument, Massachusetts. No such family there. Yikes!
- Adam is confused. The world starts moving in slow motion. The gas station attendant is washing a woman's windshield. Adam asks him how long the motel across the street (where he and his family stayed last year) has been closed. Three years. Yikes again!
- Adam's world is turned upside down. What is happening to him? He suddenly finds himself running away and screaming, not realizing what he's doing, as the attendant and the woman stare at him from across the street.
- He begins banging on the door of the motel across the street, screaming and begging to be let in.
- Everything goes black.