Trying that writing thing again
It was late, dusk settling into dark, which likely explained how empty the cabin looked. The windows unilluminated, one with jagged lines of broken glass cutting dark lines against the white curtains.
As Bethany trudged up the smooth unmarred driveway, she considered that “cabin” was perhaps a deceptive term in this case. In the seedy bar where she had paid for the location of the rebel base, “cabin” had sounded rustic and cozy. Rustic and cozy in the bad way that meant Bethany would be cold and dirty and have no privacy among what sounded like a rather robust number of rebels.
Instead Bethany was considering the towering height of two stories built at the top of a shallow hill, the face of the building nearly as much window as stained wood siding. One snarky thought judged the rebels for choosing a luxury mansion as their base of operations. This snarky thought was immediately followed by the chilling realization that Bethany might be at the wrong cabin in the middle of fuck-all no where.
The price to get here had been ten dollars. The bartender had disappeared into the back and returned with a young man in dingy clothes that smiled too much. And clearly smelled like weed.
He said he could take Bethany but it had to be tonight. So tack onto the price riding in a car when the driver was stoned. Not that high, I’m good to drive, he had assured Bethany.
He took Bethany home so she could back a bag. It was a bizarre and unsettling thrill deciding to leave in the middle of the night with so many loose ends. There were three months left on the lease of the studio apartment where she lived alone. Had lived alone. When the landlord discovers she’s skipped out, he’ll surely throw away everything Bethany hadn’t packed that night. At least she had no pets to worry about. She had projects she was in the middle of at work. A workplace that would never hear from her again.
Unless she had been driven by a stoner to the wrong cabin three hours drive outside of town. Where there was no cell reception.
The stoner, Darren was his name, if Bethan is being fair, had stopped at a gas station after Bethany’s apartment. He had her pay for a tank of gas. With gas prices being so steep these days (taxing our freedom of movement conspiracy theorists say--except now Bethany agrees with them), that added another sixty five dollars to the price Behany had to pay. Darren argued that she wasn’t paying anything because digital money would be useless as a rebel. Bethany withdrew the maximum cash from the ATM with sticky buttons at the back of the mini-mart at the gas station: two hundred dollars. Snacks were another thirty dollars but that isn’t real money anymore.
Bethany bit off a piece of red licorice as the clunker thunders into life. Bethany doesn’t know about cars, but she suspects the muffler fell off. A chico-stick would have been a better choice for the last candy she knows she’ll get to choose.
At least it was a nice night to be murdered. Late summer so the night air was still warm enough for a light coat. Clear sky shifting from pink to gray.
Bravely, Bethany willed herself up the stairs to the artistically rustic front door and jammed her finger into the doorbell. No sound issued inside the house. Broken door bell? The house is so big that guests can’t hear the doorbell themselves? Bethany pounds on the door. Knock. Knock, Kna-knock knock. Knock knock. Her knuckles smart.
There is no response from the house.
None.
Just a big empty quiet house in the middle of the woods where it’s starting to get dark.