Whispering Oaks Motel

"Damn truck's blocking the highway!"

- Nick "We can cut through the motel..."

- Coach

The Whispering Oaks Motel is a classic American interstate highway motel comprising a reception block and two wings of bedroom units on two floors enclosing a large central car parking and swimming pool area.

It is located on Whispering Oaks Boulevard just southwest of Interstate 16. It is the setting for a major part of The Highway, the first chapter of the Dark Carnival campaign in Left 4 Dead 2, as well as the setting for the survival map Motel.

History
A conventional mid-budget tourist motel whose construction and architecture date it to the late 1960s or early 1970's, The Whispering Oaks Motel is located between Rayford and Whispering Oaks Amusement Park in Griffin County. Its primary purpose was to provide amusement park visitors with convenient overnight lodging in the form of 32 rooms and 24-hours-a-day access.

In terms of market position, its facilities are such as to offer comfortable but fairly basic accommodation for budget conscious families and couples. The motel evidently traded profitably as, apart from damage associated with the Infection, its facilities are well maintained and in good order.

The motel features what appears to be a dining/kitchen area so light breakfasts, free coffee (and possibly other meals) could be served to guests before they left for a day at the amusement park. Its sole point of competitive difference is an attractively sized outdoor swimming pool with a diving board and a sun bathing patio area. Like most motels and hotels, ice and vending machines are located near the bedroom units, which are in turn equipped with cable and color TVs, twin beds, phones and air-conditioning units against the hot and humid Georgia climate.

At the rear of the motel, a gravel path leads to a romantic viewing area, allowing motel visitors the opportunity to take in an area of native riverside bush fronting the Whispering Oaks Amusement Park's impressive vista on the distant skyline.

The presence of a chain-link fence around most of the motel's boundary suggests that the owners were security conscious; however, an ungated swimming pool, the presence of a diving board and an unfenced cliff at the rear of the motel hints that the motel's operating company was taking commercially unjustified liberties with its public liability insurance policy.

Current Status
At the start of the Infection, the motel was closed and CEDA set up an evacuation center at Whispering Oaks Amusement Park. Around this time, the military took an interest in the motel, most likely as a screening and control point for refugees fleeing along Interstate 16―at least that is as much as can be inferred from the presence of barriers blocking off the surrounding roads and channeling foot traffic towards the motel.

When the infected overran the area, CEDA and the military authorities evidently evacuated the motel and amusement park, although either by omission or design, the park's searchlights were left switched on. These lights, together with the Interstate billboard, are the beacons that draw the Survivors towards the park―and thus the motel complex.

On the basis of the visual evidence found at the motel, it is apparent that sentinals were posted up on the billboard overlooking the motel as well as on the motel roof. Civilian weapons found at these locations (and elsewhere) suggest that the military presence was short-lived (although a military Humvee was left behind) and that the people involved towards the end were most likely defensively organized refugees.

Most telling is the large number of incinerated corpses found in the swimming pool. This suggests a high level of organization and leadership was in place at some point. This is also supported by the presence of fences separating some of the motel rooms from the rest of the enclosed area. The survivors are only able to reach this area by travelling through two rooms whose shared wall was destroyed at some point. This would not be the way guests reached the main facilities of the motel before the infection, which indicates that the fence was erected after the infection as a defensive measure. Civilian survivors would not have had the manpower or supplies to install physical barriers of this caliber, so it can be inferred that the military fortified the area in an attempt to use it as some kind of base.

Overall, the motel's Infection history can be reconstructed in the following sequence: The motel was closed in the immediate wake of the Infection; CEDA took over the amusement park as an evacuation center and the military set up barricades and occupied the motel as a screening facility, fortifying its defenses in an attempt to keep the infected at bay; the first Infected were detected at the motel and the military burnt their corpses in the drained swimming pool; Infected numbers rose; the amusement park and motel were hurriedly evacuated; a few as yet uninfected refugees arrived at the motel from Interstate 16 and set up a defensive perimeter whilst they attempted to heal and rest, but they either turned or were overrun, leaving their weapons and supplies behind. The Survivors arrived on foot after being forced to abandon Jimmy Gibbs Junior's stock car.