Are you sure this is the right place?”, said Sarah.” She stared at a polaroid in her hands, confused, as if she was trying to decipher some strange code. In the picture there was an old A-frame cabin. What was a little strange to her was that the cabin standing in front of her looked immaculate and had a much larger addition attached to it. “Maybe they’ve done some remodeling”, she thought.
“I think so”, answered Eric. “Uh, I’m pretty sure we turned down the right road. I can’t say I remember the cabin being so large but this is definitely it!”
Sarah and Eric were the first to arrive at Zoe’s cabin. It was situated in the Ozarks of Northern Arkansas along the Boston Mountains. The year was 2020 and lately, not many people had been up here. The conflict in Ukraine had people on edge and not many people were willing to take time off to go and relax in the mountains – yet alone spend the money on it.
“Jewel!”, yelled Sarah. “Eric, look that’s Jewel’s car! I thought she wasn’t going to make it!?”, She shrieked.
“Yeah, that’s strange”, thought Eric. “Maybe something happened with her boyfriend?”, he said. “Nice! That means we have a full house!”
“And a guarantee that every single person here is going to be very well taken care of in the alcohol department!”, exclaimed Sarah. “Uh, remind me to drink water.”
Sarah was a health nut and a competitive runner. She didn’t mind having fun though. “Afterall, what’s the point of being healthy, if I can’t enjoy life every now and then?”, she’d often say. But even though Sarah tried to take the carpe diem approach, she couldn’t help but let paranoid thoughts get to her. “What if someone got in an accident while they were all up there? What if she needed to be fully aware in case a fire broke out? What if Jewel is just here as a temporary respite from that gaslighting asshole of a boyfriend? What if…” And so her smile slowly faded as the dust conjured up from Jewel’s car settled.
