I don’t even take my jacket, hoping it won’t arouse suspicion that I am most definitely not coming back. I can sacrifice my $29 jean jacket for the occasion. Thankfully, my purse and overnight bag are still in my car, my cell phone in my skirt pocket.
Megan took her stuff right in; I wanted to assess first. And it’s a good thing, too.
I will my body to be casual as I walk out. My knees are jittery and my hands are trembling, but I’m doing my best to not show it because by the look of the one grizzly dude, who is huge and probably three times my weight, he could try and grab me and this will turn icky and maybe even grisly real fast.
I lean into the car casually, without shutting the door because I see that the grizzly one is watching out the window. I rifle through my bag, keeping one eye on him and as soon as I see he’s turned his head, looking like he’s talking to someone, I climb in, shut the door, click all the locks, then reverse the heck out of there!
I reverse down the tricky, long driveway, past the three other parked vehicles and head out onto the main road. The whole proposition is daunting, because on my left there’s a hill going up and, to my right there’s a hill going down.
That cabin is a shack of ill-repute. Five guys and just two girls with a threesome happening just an hour into the night?
Screw you, Megan, for putting me in this position. I hope you don’t have to bang all five of them, unless, you know… it’s what you want. Grr. Bucket list? Bucket is right.
Fitting because in my high school, that was the name we had for slutty girls. Buckets. Megan? Definite bucket.
About Megan? I only met her two weeks ago. We were having a laugh; she was a fun distraction at work, one of those inappropriately funny girls with absolutely zero filter. She made my days go by faster despite a lot of schlepping and many roadblocks to get things just right for our grand opening. I found it surprising she was in management based on how she acted, but I’ve had all sorts of drama in my regular life so working with her was a fun distraction. I let myself get charmed into this weekend. And she charmed me all right because I have a car and she doesn’t. She insisted it’d be well worth the drive and the $200 and said she’d fill my gas tank, which she did. Megan said her friend organized these parties all the time and I was going to have a blast.
I queried that I thought she said it was her cousin and she waved it off that he’s practically a cousin. This was my first red flag. Too bad I ignored it. She told me he organized these parties regularly and rented swanky places for them. He’s had writeups in the club scene because his parties are that legendary. He’s had two couples get married in the past year who met at his parties. He usually charges $300 per person or more, she said, but she got me the friends and family deal.
She also said we were lucky to get this invite because usually his parties had a long wait list, but this one came up last minute. She said she was done a favor by him – we got to jump a long line.
After working our asses off at the boutique gearing up for the grand opening, which happens in a few days, this getaway was to be our reward.
I just got myself transferred to the new location because it was way closer to my apartment and while I got promoted to assistant manager, Megan got transferred from yet another location where she was already an assistant manager. We’d work different shifts but were on the same rung of the corporate ladder. The busyness and drama of the past few weeks had been exhausting. The getaway I let myself get talked into because I had a bad argument with my family over bullshit to do with my Bridezilla sister’s upcoming wedding, being tired of the tug of war between my recently separated parents, and my recent breakup and mostly because I felt like living it up and letting loose for once. I guess my judgement was clouded.
My bad. Because my judgement about Megan was clearly way, way off. She manipulated me. She didn’t care that we were the only girls and I suspected if she did know, she left that detail out worried she’d lose out on her ride there as well as have me asking for my two hundred bucks back.
Ridiculous. I wasn’t usually one to slut shame, but she only just met those guys. And she was being competitive. I knew it three minutes into arriving that she wanted to be the one they looked at. She’s attractive, but she’s one of those girls who needs to know she’s the most desired girl in the room.
Thankfully once the store opened, I wouldn’t have to interact with her much.
***
And now here I am, driving down a long and winding road in a densely forested rural area miles from any semblance of civilization. It’s dark. No street lights. These roads are not maintained, and I don’t even feel safe on them. Despite lack of streetlights, though, it’s already after nine o’clock and while dark, the moon seems exceptionally bright and it’s taking up what seems like a whole lot of space in the sky.
I have no signal on my phone and even my GPS won’t pick up my location. This was the road I took in, I’m sure I’m backtracking, which would mean I’ll get back to the gas station where we met Grizzly Grisly any minute now. From there, I can find my way back to the highway and I’m sure to have a cell signal again.
Ten Minutes Later…
Still no sign of that gas station. Or even another road. I’m driving slowly and carefully on this road, but it’s like it’ll never end. I’m sure I wasn’t on it this long on the way in. It makes no sense.
Out of nowhere, I see something large and dark in my headlights coming at me. It’s as if my headlights go extra bright for an instant, too bright for my own eyes, and as I squint I catch the flash of reflective eyes, but not on a cat, a big animal and at that same instant, hear the clunk of the animal sailing up my hood. Hard.
Oh no.
I swerve right and the animal slides left while I watch a spiderweb-like crack sprawl across my windshield under the mass of it. The animal falls off to the side and the damage to my windshield glints in the moonlight. The moon sticks out, a massive glowing three-dimensional orb directly ahead of me. I slam on the brakes, strangely feeling like I could actually hit the moon as my car veers way too close to that drop to my right. My gaze hits my rear-view mirror, catching motion. Whatever it is that I hit, it rises slowly like a dark and ominous shadow. It moves, staggering as it does, before it disappears from view. I give my head a shake. Was that a bear? A wolf? Too big to be a wolf but not quite wide enough to be a brown bear, I don’t think.
I turn the car off to the sound of nothing but nature – nature that sounds unusually loud in my ears. I hope that whatever it is, I didn’t hurt it enough that it’ll suffer a slow death. Poor thing.
I look ahead and it dawns I’m on a funny angle, pointing toward the sharp incline. I turn the car back on, but then my belly swoops. It feels like I’m sliding. I brake while I take a breath and then throw the car into reverse. The tires do nothing but spin and then my car lurches forward some more, sliding a good three or four feet, I think, and I squeal in shock.
It feels like I’m sinking.
It’s been a cool spring so far, but maybe the ground is finally thawing, because my car is clearly sinking into mud. When Megan and I got to the cabin, the ground was pretty squishy between the cabin and the car, so I tiptoed carefully in, hoping I wouldn’t ruin my new purple boots that perfectly match the new chunky streaks in my blonde hair.