Page 21 of Cora

“We’ll see about that when we get home. Are we done here?” he asked, shoving the jerky he had dumped back into Trent’s backpack.

On the way back, Derrick led the hike, stomping down the road like a man on a mission. When we returned to the cabin, he immediately went into the kitchen and searched all the cupboards. The rest of us sat in the living room munching on the jerky we had planned to eat at the tower before getting rushed out for Derrick’s nonsense.

“Where the fuck did this come from?” he shouted.

Isaac sighed. “I’m really just not in the mood for his theatrics today,” he said softly before raising and projecting his voice toward the kitchen. “Where did what come from?”

“The spam, cereal, and peaches!” Derrick exclaimed.

We all looked at each other briefly before scrambling to get up and run into the kitchen. “What spam?” I asked, sliding into the room a fraction of a second before Trent and Isaac.

He held up two cans of spam for me to see.

“Where did you find that?” Trent asked.

“On the top shelf of that cupboard,” Derrick said, pointing.

“Impossible,” Trent replied. “I searched that cupboard myself, and there wasn’t anything up there!”

“Well, isn’t this quite the mystery,” I said. “We’ve got food going missing, but also food appearing out of nowhere. Maybe it’s a magic house.”

Derrick and Isaac rolled their eyes, but Trent cracked a smile. That was all I cared about. I went to speak again, but Derrick held his finger to his lips and started looking around.

He crept out of the kitchen and into the living room, tip-toeing around the coffee table like he was hunting for something, or in this case, someone.

“That’s what is off about this place!” Derrick finally announced. “I knew something felt weird, but I couldn’t put my finger on it until now. Have you guys felt the same way?”

We all nodded. Truthfully, something had felt a little off since we arrived here, but whatever the cause, it was subtle enough that you couldn’t pin it down.

“It’s too fucking clean!”

I looked around and, this time, really looked at everything. Derrick was right. There was virtually no dust on anything. If the house was truly abandoned, wouldn’t it show signs of it? Like… being dusty?

“He’s right,” Isaac said.

“Ok, it’s a little too clean, but are we saying that this girl,” Trent said, picking up the picture of the girl and who I presumed was her father, “is here in this house with us? We all realize how insane that sounds, right?”

“Listen, I don’t know how, but I do know that something weird is going on around here, and I’m going to figure out what that is one way or another,” Derrick replied grimly.

“Well, I think we’ve all learned a valuable lesson today,” I chuckled.

“What’s that?” Isaac asked.

“Don’t mess with D’s bear jerky, or he’s gonna getcha,” I said in a mocking drawl.

I ducked out of the way just as the can of spam came sailing toward my head.

“Asshole,” Derrick muttered.

Chapter nine

Cora

My eyes blinked open, not that I saw any better in the pitch-black bunker. I lay in my bed, listening for any sound from above that would give me any indication if anyone was home or not.

I’ve had to be much more careful with my movements over the last few weeks. Taking the jerky and leaving them food raised their suspicion levels, especially in Derrick. They started taking turns keeping watch at night, limiting my ability to leave the walls.

I heard a slight creak and got up to investigate. It was Isaac’s turn to stand guard last night, and it sounded like he was moving around. After three years, I had grown accustomed to the house’s usual creaks and groans. The house was making some new sounds with my guys here, but I was beginning to learn the difference between each man’s footfall.

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