Page 51 of Love & Other Disasters

The woods cleared, and before them stood an old farm house a short distance away. The lawn in between contained square shapes full of shadows. In front of them, a well-worn path, a fence, and a cattle gate but no cattle in sight. Jill crossed the path, but Violet grabbed her arm.

“This is breaking and entering… can’t you just get another laptop and start over on your story?”

Jill looked appalled. “It’s not breaking and entering. The doors are unlocked.” She shook off her sister’s hand and crossed the path to the cattle gate and, to Violet’s horror, hoisted herself over.

She could either sit there and become a victim of whatever else was wandering around in the woods or follow Jill and possibly commit a crime. A rustling in the underbrush behind her propelled Violet up and over the gate. Did this group have security? Any security system had already alerted the occupants to the intruders in the woods.

Was it possible that someone had stayed behind to watch the house? Violet had no experience with stealth and only knew what she’d watched on television and movies. Crouching, she followed Jill through the vegetable garden.

At the edge of the garden, Jill turned and gestured for Violet to stay quiet and low. Then, she pointed to the house and made a few other signals that Violet didn’t understand. They crept across the lawn under the cover of darkness to the rear of the house. Up close, the paint on the banister was peeling. An old fashioned cellar entrance sat about twenty yards from the back door. Jill grabbed the door handle and pulled, but it wouldn’t budge. Her hands trembled as she helped Jill pull on the cellar door, but it still wouldn’t move. They tried the second cellar door with the same results. The doors wouldn’t open, and they collapsed on the ground, out of breath from the exertion.

When their breathing stabilized, Violet pointed back toward the woods, but Jill shook her head, pointing up at the back door. Her sister crawled to the porch and up the steps, over to a window and peered inside. She gave Violet a thumbs up and motioned for her to follow. Violet’s life flashed before her eyes. This was an insane nightmare; she should have stayed in the car. Heck, she should have told Jill no back at her house. If they survived, she would kill Jill. She followed Jill’s path on her hands and knees and crawled up the back porch steps.

“They’re still out in the woods on the other side,” Jill whispered when Violet made it to the back door. “Up the back staircase to the right. If he’s moved it, we may have to search.”

Who went into the woods at midnight? These people were bizarre. Jill opened the back door, and adrenaline, not common sense, carried Violet inside behind her. The door led to a disastrous kitchen. Pots and pans sat on the stove with food still inside, the counters were littered with items, from food to paper and books. Wallpaper that may have been original to the structure peeled from the walls, dangling.

Violet’s feet stuck, and when she took a step, the floor made a ripping sound under her feet. Stealth was impossible, she froze. What if someone was still inside or they came back?

Jill had to find the stupid laptop pronto. She followed Jill to the staircase, her skin crawling at every time their feet sounded like they were waxing a giant. The entire place had the fragrance profile of an old gym locker room. How did Jill stay here?

Upstairs, they found clothes piled outside of each bedroom door, and more nasty smells hit her nose. They crept down the hallway and a sound made her stop in her tracks, a thumping, and then the unmistakable sounds of two people going at it. At all the grunting and moaning, she almost stuck her fingers in her ears to muffle the sound, but she needed to know if these people stopped. Jill motioned for her to follow, and she hoped the computer wasn’t in the room with the people getting busy.

Jill pushed open a door and disappeared; Violet followed. Inside a bedroom with a mattress on the floor the mismatched bedding, disheveled. A bookcase sat on the other wall and was full of worn out paperbacks and notebooks. What was in them? Jill held up the laptop and motioned it was time to go.

They exited the bedroom and came face to face with a stark naked Geoff standing in the doorway to another bedroom. Violet averted her eyes from his junk, and Jill gasped.

“What?” Geoff squinted at them, scratching his stomach.

“We broke up like five hours ago, and you’re already screwing someone else. You bastard.”

“We’re not broken up, darling,” he slurred. “You ladies want to join us? Give me a few minutes, and I’ll be ready to go again.”

Violet gagged.

Jill growled and charged at Geoff, slamming a knee into his balls. Geoff cried out and buckled, dropping to the floor. It would take more than a few minutes for him to be ready.

They bounded down the stairs, feet thudding on every step, they hit the bottom. Jill grabbed Violet’s arm and jerked so hard that she stumbled into another room. Jill shut the door, plunging them into darkness.

Why?

Then the blood pounding in her ears subsided enough that footsteps moving through the house were audible. They had to get out before Geoff alerted the others.

Violet took a deep breath and tried to squelch the panic raging through her. Her eyes adjusted to the darkness. There was a washer and dryer along one wall, a cabinet on the wall over the machines. On the far wall of the long, narrow room, she made out a square shape, a window. How far up were they and would they die hitting the ground from

here? The movement and voices came from inside the house, they sounded boisterous and happy. She moved to the window and found a blackout shade pulled, she moved it and peered out the window to assess the situation. Jill stood next to her.

“No one’s outside,” Violet whispered. “It doesn’t look that far.”

Jill raised the window shade and pressed the lock, but rust had formed around the bottom and it refused to turn. They took turns finagling the window latch until Violet’s fingers were sore, and it gave way. Violet pushed the window sash up as far as it would go, and pressed the screen, popping it out to fall to the ground below.

They stared at each other, and then the window, and Jill appeared as befuddled as Violet.

“We have to jump,” Violet whispered.

“What if we break something?”

“We don’t have a choice; we’ve come this far.”

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