1981

“I need you to check on my wife. I haven’t heard from her.”

“Sure, I’ll put you through, sir.”

“No, no, it’s been six days, you’ve got to go—”

 

Jim, Sarah, and Deb parked the rental black Volkswagen Rabbit outside their cabin. Jim and Sarah sat in the front seat, and with his hand resting on his wife Sarah’s thigh, Jim looked at Deb and winked.

“Well, this is nice. A little small. Maybe it’s a good thing after all that Charlie couldn’t get out of work,” Sarah said. She was still looking out the windshield at the single-story yellow-painted log cabin, so Deb, feeling impulsive and daring and, yes, even a little sexy, snuck a smile to herself. Then she looked up through her half-opened eyes at Jim. He was still staring, and her stomach tightened when he licked his lips.

 

Ring.

Ring.

Ring.          Ring.           Ring.           Ring.           Ring.           Ring.           Ring.

Ring.           Ring.           Ring.           Ring.           Ring.           Ring.           Ring.

Ring.

Ring.

“Fucking damnit,” Charlie yelled to the empty air between rings. His stomach was tight.

 

“I’m so glad you could still come with us,” Sarah said as the three of them walked in a single-file line through the front door. There were daisies painted up and down in vertical lines.

They held their suitcases and stood in the small living room with a dirty braided rug and two loveseats on either side. Set for conversation. No TV. A round cafe table sat by a window with white cotton curtains. Deb thought it was too much. Too quaint. Too lovely. They all took it in very quietly. Very still. Then, not realizing that the moment was reverent or something near sacred, Sarah moved, charging into the room toward the bedrooms—everything about her too loud.

Sarah opened one door, then another. They each had an acrylic-painted sunflower. The yellow peeling at the edges of the petals. The chips and cracks obvious on the dark oak wood. There were flies making too much noise. They buzzed around in the corners of Deb’s vision. Almost like she had something in her eye. Deb even touched the corners of her eyes with her finger, though she knew they were not on her.

“They’re the same size. Full beds. Take your pick, Deb,” Sarah said with a smile.

Deb took the one at the front of the house. A window overlooked the porch. She could see the car. If she needed to leave quietly, she thought.

“I’m starving,” Jim said, and Deb wondered if he was saying it to one of the women in particular.

“I should call Charlie and let him know we made it,” Deb said, staring at the mustard colored phone on the wall in the kitchen. She had the distinct sensation, a premonition in her hand, in her right palm, that the receiver would burn her when she picked it up. Like a demon and holy water.

“Is he even home from work yet?” Jim asked. He asked it while he stretched his arms over his head. Trying too hard to be casual. As if Deb wouldn’t notice he was trying to put more space between them here, and Charlie, who was not here. Still, Sarah nodded and agreed with her husband.

Deb shrugged. “I guess you’re right. What time is it?”

“Time for a drink,” Sarah said.

 

“Sunset Lodge, how can I help you?”

“Do not transfer me, you little shit,” Charlie said.

“Sir?” said the twenty-year-old Thomas with two pimples on either side of his large and shiny nose.

“This is the 10th time I’ve called. You keep transferring me, and no one has answered. I haven’t spoken to my wife in six days. I don’t know if the phone is broken or if I should be calling the police. Do you understand me?”

“Yes, sir,” Thomas said, his heart sinking in his narrow chest.

“I want someone, maybe you, maybe someone who doesn’t have shit for brains, to physically walk your ass over to my wife’s cabin, knock on the door, and not leave until a Deborah Ann Fishly opens and says ‘Yes, I’ll call my husband right away.’”

 

Jim handed Deb a drink while she sat on the rocking chair on the front porch. Sarah was inside making them dinner. Something with ground beef. Sarah was singing to herself. She wasn’t looking. Jim put his hand on Deb’s shoulder. His fingers were freezing and wet from the cocktail he made her that Deb already knew would be overly strong. He walked his fingers up her neck and then held her jaw in his hand—standing over her, making her see him.

“Jim,” Deb said, but she didn’t move—or try to move. He stared at her, then he glanced at something behind her, just over her shoulder.

“Keep your window open,” he said.

“Bugs will get in,” Deb said.

“Let them.”

 

Thomas felt stupid. Like he’d just been yelled at by his drunk dad. Thomas saw the three of them come in on that first day. The one woman, who smiled too much, walked inside the main lodge while the other two waited outside. Thomas could see the other two, a man and a woman, and it was like they were trying not to stand too close to each other. At least the woman was. She had short, curly brown hair. Like Thomas’s mom, but she was younger. Maybe 30. Skinny. The man who stood next to her snaked his hand behind her back. Thomas watched as the tendons in the man’s arm tensed. He pulled the other woman toward him, pressing his body against hers as the woman who was checking in said her name was Sarah Braucher, her husband, Jim Braucher, was outside with their friend Deb Fishly, and they had rented Cabin 28 for 10 days. Charlie Fishly was on the reservation, but he would not be staying.

“Oh,” Thomas had said.

He felt bad for Sarah Braucher, then. But now, if the guy calling was the other woman’s husband, he was glad. Charlie Fishly sounded like a real asshole.

 

They drank, the three of them. They had brought with them an inordinate and disproportionate amount of booze. Even if Charlie had come, this looked like enough for a bachelor party. Sarah drank the most. It was noticed by everyone, but no one more than Sarah herself, who kept repeating, each time she struggled getting off the loveseat, that she shouldn’t have another, but they were on vacation.

Deb drank, but she was not drunk. She only wanted to calm her nerves because she was nervous. More than she expected. Jim, Deb realized after a few hours switching between talking about nothing and sitting in excruciating silence, only had one drink in his hand the whole time, and it was half full. The realization made Deb more nervous, and she had another drink.

 

Cabin 28 was the southernmost structure on the grounds. It was also the cheapest because it butted up against the highway, and you could hear the cars at night. Thomas thought about taking the golf cart, but then decided to walk. When he thinks back on this decision, years from this day, he still doesn’t know why he made it. He can’t remember, but it is because, just then, he wanted to make that asshole wait.

 

“I don’t feel good,” Sarah said slowly, trying very hard to get the words to sound right. She leaned over her knees, and then she threw up, like a child, all over the braided rug.

“Oh, jeez,” Jim said, before casually taking a sip of his drink.

Deb waited a moment, watching Sarah’s shoulders roll and her dyed blonde hair fall in her face, before she understood that Jim wasn’t going to do anything.

“Here,” Deb said, moving quickly to Sarah’s side.

“Sorry,” Sarah said before throwing up again. “I’ll clean this tomorrow, please don’t touch it.”

Deb swept Sarah’s hair up, and one lock, that was coated with vomit, slid between her fingers.

“Jesus,” Deb said, letting all the hair go and rubbing her hand on her shorts.

“Sorry,” Sarah said, again.

“Let’s go to the bathroom,” Deb said, grabbing Sarah’s arm with the same hand that had touched the vomit. Deb grabbed Sarah’s arm hard.

 

The car was there. The VW Rabbit was in the same spot it had been since they got there. Thomas knew that because it had rained and there were no tire tracks in the mud. The rain had erased the ones they made coming in. Like nature itself was covering up for these people. But there were other tracks. Large footprints. It looked like they walked to the cabin and then away. Back and forth. Back and forth.

 

Deb turned on the shower and helped Sarah out of her clothes.

“It’s cold,” Sarah said.

“It will warm up. Just give it a minute. Let’s get this out of your hair.”

Sarah pushed Deb’s hands off, tilting away from her but not falling, thankfully. “Don’t touch him,” Sarah said.

“What?” Deb asked, and her skin began to crawl and shiver.

“Me. Don’t touch me. I can do it myself,” Sarah said. Then she threw up again.

 

The absence of noise. The absence of any noise at all. It was starkly quiet at Cabin 28 in a way that it wasn’t twenty yards back, or twenty yards ahead. A car went by on the highway that Thomas could see through the trees. The song coming out of the open windows, something by CCR, curled up and died when it reached the cabin. Swallowed by nothing. Thomas thought about calling out. Maybe they were on a hike or walked down to the river. But he knew that wasn’t true. He had to knock on the door. But something about the painted daisies running up and down the front door made it look more like bars meant to keep him out or whatever inside, in.

 

Deb put Sarah in bed. She rolled the stiff quilt up over Sarah’s shoulders. Jim walked aimlessly around the kitchen and living room. He wasn’t quite pretending he was busy; it seemed like he was making it known that he was bored.

“Okay?” Deb asked.

Sarah nodded and turned onto her side, away from Deb. Deb thought she should get a bucket. There might be one outside. Sarah was still awake, she knew. Deb wondered if asking if she needed anything would set her off, again. If Sarah was now fortified with enough alcohol and humiliation to confront Deb about all of it. But just Deb. Not Jim. Deb guessed that Sarah knew there was no point in talking to Jim. About anything.

Deb left her. She walked across the living room and out the front door. She imagined Jim trying to stop her, misunderstanding what she was doing and reaching a hand out, but he just watched. On the front porch, in the corner, was a large white plastic bucket. It was filled with dead leaves and mucky water. Deb emptied it over the porch railing, and the sound the slop made as it sank into the earth continued somehow, even after the last drop left the bucket. She didn’t understand. A rustling of the earth. Then something moved. She didn’t see it, she sensed it, with her shoulders and the top of her head. Something came forward from the trees. She saw it, then, and she realized, with relief, that it was a car coming down the Lodge road. It was only that the headlights were off. And the car moved so slow. It started to rain.

 

Thomas was wrong. There was a sound. A loud kind of static that could be mistaken for nothing, at first. Something so loud that it filled the air and pushed out anything else, and you could be forgiven for thinking it was just air, or deafening silence, or you were having some kind of catastrophic medical event, and the first to go was your hearing. A flood. That’s what it was. Thomas walked up to the door and knocked, and that sound that wasn’t a real sound got louder.

 

Deb went to bed. She was still in her clothes. Her jean shorts and striped shirt now smelled like sweat and vomit. She lay on top of the covers. She knew she wouldn’t have to wait long. Deb watched the open window. She heard flies and mosquitoes buzzing uncomfortably close to her ears, but still, she did not move. Instead of using the window, he came right through the door.

“She’s dead asleep,” Jim said as he shut the door quietly. Which was confusing because he had just spoken at a normal volume. He was not trying to be discreet. He sat down on the bed next to her, putting his hands on her chest. In the dark, she felt like she was waking up from a night terror, and the dark figure she saw sometimes was over her. Pressing down on her. Not letting her move. Then Jim kissed her with his dry lips and struggled his tongue into her mouth.

 

“Hello?” Thomas yelled. He knocked again, and there was nothing. He stepped back and saw those same large footprints, the impression of a big man’s shoe in dried mud there. And there. And there. Right up to the window. The open window. That was the noise. Flies, hundreds going in and out of the open window.

 

Deb stayed quiet until she heard a noise just outside the window. Like walking.

“What’s that?” She asked, whispering.

Jim only continued to thrust, his hands grabbing and pinching her skin.

 

Thomas didn’t understand what he saw. Not at first. It was a black cloud of flies in the room, crawling and covering things that suggested patterns he understood, but his brain kept rejecting as not quite right. Not quite whole. A hand. Curly brown hair infested with movement. Khaki pants bunched in the corner, untouched. Those he understood completely. Jean shorts wrapped around an ankle wrapped in mottled skin.

 

“Jim, stop. There’s something.” Deb began to push him off.

“It’s an animal, we’re in the woods. I’m close, baby, come on.”

Darkness blocked out the window, then darkness started to crawl in, one leg at a time. His feet covered in mud. Like she always suspected, the terrors were real.

 

There was vomit on the rug. That’s the first thing Thomas told his boss. Again, this is something he would never understand. When he got older, how he communicated what he saw. First, he talked about the vomit. Then he talked about the woman in her bed. The one who checked in. She was on her side. Thomas could see parts of her that no one was supposed to see. She was facing the wall, but her face was covered with the blanket, like she had held it to hide underneath, but hadn’t gotten it all over her in time—another thing he said to his boss while he cried, like a child, unaware that he was crying. The man was facedown in the other room. His arms underneath his body. The other woman was everywhere.

 

And somewhere else, not there, Charlie waited to hear from his wife. He thought he might throw up.