Only One Bed
1. Abbie
Abbie
Abbie
“This is going to be the best Christmas ever ,” I declare. My fingers, already aching after three hours of white-knuckling the steering wheel, tightly grip the wheel again when my chained tires jerk over a rut hidden beneath the snow.
Hot Biscuit Slim—never the jolliest cat to begin with—yowls mournfully from his carrier on the passenger seat. No doubt he’s lamenting the day I fell in love with his grumpy little face and wishing himself back at the rescue shelter.
“It is going to be the best Christmas ever. And we aren’t going to die,” I mutter the last part forcibly, as if speaking the words aloud will prevent our likely imminent death on this narrow forest road.
At least, I hope I’m on the road. Rapidly falling snow has completely obscured the ground. I lost cell reception two hours ago, my GPS gave up any pretense of knowing where to go when I turned off onto the first, slightly less narrow forest road a few miles back, and my sense of navigation is reduced to ’try not to hit any trees.’
When a low-hanging branch burdened with snow scrapes across the side of my car, I amend that to ‘try not to hit any tree trunks .’
Hot Biscuit Slim yowls again.
“Oh, hush! The weather app said it wasn’t supposed to begin snowing until tonight. This is not my fault!”
The stink that suddenly erupts from the cat says he heartily disagrees. Frantically I roll down my window—and I’m hit with a wave of sheer mountain bliss. My lungs fill with clean, crisp air. Only a degree below freezing, it isn’t bitterly cold but delightfully refreshing. Fat flakes drift downward, so soft and quiet and lovely that for an instant, the painful tension of hunching over my steering wheel while trying to navigate an increasingly treacherous road eases from my back and shoulders. Then a branch overhead releases a giant glop of wet snow that bombs the edge of my open window and explodes. By the time I brush the worst of it off my lap, icy water has soaked my crotch.
Hunching over the steering wheel again, I grind out from between gritted teeth, “Best. Christmas. Ever.”
Fifteen minutes later, Harris’s cabin pops out of nowhere. One moment I’m crawling along with trees to either side of me, the next moment a clearing opens up and the road ends. Squatting beneath the tall firs is the log cabin where I plan to spend the next two weeks. I’ll give myself a perfect Christmas, the kind I’ve always dreamed of—which ought to be easy, since I’ll be alone.
Almost alone.
My spiteful ball of claws and orange fur growls menacingly as I lug his carrier through the snow to the tiny covered porch. After fumbling with the key ring in my gloved fingers, I open the padlock that secures the door to the frame, then the deadbolt. Cold, stale air greets me when I push inside.
My heart gives a happy skip. Though the shuttered windows allow in barely any light, what I can see of the interior is exactly as Harris described. Aside from the closet-sized bathroom, the cabin is laid out as a single large room. A queen bed is shoved into the far corner with a chest of drawers at its foot. To my right, two leather armchairs face a stone fireplace. In the center of the cabin sits a round table with two wooden seats tucked underneath; a kitchenette and cabinets fill the wall to the left. Altogether, it isn’t much bigger than my first studio apartment was, so I feel right at home.
Despite the exhaustion of my harrowing drive, renewed energy surges through me. I pull out Harris’s instructions, then go around igniting the pilot lights for the fridge, stove, and water heater. I find a snow shovel in the shed behind the cabin, clear the short path to my car, and begin unloading my bags and boxes. My efforts are accompanied by the merry sounds of Hot Biscuit Slim yowling in the bathroom, where I’d locked him in with his litter. The last thing I need is for him to escape through the front door while I’m carrying everything in. Undoubtedly he’d scamper out into the forest—forcing me to chase after him, probably only to get lost and freeze to death. Meanwhile, he’d scamper back to the cabin, tear his way into my Christmas ham, and not miss me one bit.
This is what I get for being charmed by a cute, grumpy face. But at least I’m not susceptible to a handsome face. I was vaccinated at an early age against that particular condition, courtesy of John and Reed Knowles—a father and son who might be the most beautiful men I’ve ever seen but who are also vengeful bullies and lawless cheats. Now I’m utterly immune to chiseled good looks.
They’re also the reason I’m hiding out here in my boss’s cabin, desperate to be alone, instead of spending the holidays at my own home.
Ugh. Why am I thinking about the Knowles? Those assholes don’t deserve to take up space in my head. And they definitely don’t have any place in the best Christmas ever.
Deliberately I shove them from my mind—along with all the horrible history that they represent—and start unpacking.
I wake up the next morning with fifteen pounds of feline disdain sitting on my chest and his right front paw smashing the center of my tit. Never would I accuse a cat of hurting me deliberately, but holy shit—it’s like he knows where the most painful place to step is.
Cursing, I push him off and roll out of bed. I instantly wish I’d had the forethought to lay out my slipper socks and fuzzy robe before I went to sleep. The cabin is freezing . But wearing any kind of pants or socks in bed drives me crazy, so I dance around on the frigid floorboards in my panties and flannel pajama top while I dig through the suitcase sitting atop the chest of drawers. My toes are nearly ice by the time I yank on a pair of fleece socks, then hurriedly drag on the flannel pants that match the top.
It’s slightly warmer near the fireplace, where embers remain from last night’s fire. I toss in a few pieces of wood, then stand there shivering with my hands tucked inside my sleeves and my arms wrapped around my chest. Hot Biscuit Slim winds his way between my feet, meowing for his breakfast.
My brains thaw out a few minutes after my toes do. I fill his dish, then check my phone out of habit.
No messages. Because, of course, no cell service. The cabin is completely off the grid.
And it’s only 4:54 a.m.
That effing cat.
I give Hot Biscuit Slim a look of disgust. Not that he cares. And I suppose that even though he woke me up early, I also went to bed far earlier than usual—around eight o’clock. So I’ve had a full night’s sleep and might as well get a jump on the day.
It’s strange not to begin the morning on my computer or my phone. Usually I have coffee at my desk, not curled up in an armchair in front of a fire. Weird, but nice to just sit and take stock of everything I need to get done today.
First will be removing the padlocks from all of the window shutters so that I won’t have to use my battery-powered lanterns during the day. Second will be to finish unpacking—although, since it’s still dark outside and will be for a few more hours, maybe unpacking should come first. Yesterday, my surge of energy lasted long enough to bring in everything from the car, but I only managed to put away my groceries before I crashed.
Once all that is done, I can start on my third—and most anticipated—item on the to-do list: hunting down a Christmas tree. Normally I wouldn’t go traipsing out into the forest alone, because I’d have a one hundred percent chance of getting lost. I won’t worry about that today. The snow stopped soon after I arrived but won’t melt anytime soon, and my tracks will leave a clear path for me to follow on my way back to the cabin.
So as soon as I finish items one and two on my list, I’ll unleash my inner Paul Bunyan and go get me a tree.
I’m unlocking the last shutter when the wind suddenly picks up and the temperature drops. For a few seconds, I think about going to look for a tree anyway. The icy burn against my face persuades me to head back inside.
Christmas is still four days away, so there’s no rush. Instead of playing lumberjack, I can decorate the cabin or start on a new painting while waiting for the weather to clear. And even if I never get a tree, this will be the best Christmas ever.
But then, just about any Christmas would be better than another year spent with my mom and my sister.
That thought immediately makes me feel guilty. Then angry for feeling guilty. Neither emotion is what I want to feel, so I get out my portable bluetooth speaker, load up Mariah’s Merry Christma s album, and sing along at the top of my lungs while aggressively threading a popcorn garland.
The next time I glance through the windows, there’s nothing but white. Not softly swirling white, either, but rushing sideways and driven by wind that—as soon as I pause Mariah—whistles and howls. I can barely see my car, though it’s parked only three feet from the porch.
“Holy shit,” I breathe, holding the plaid curtain aside. “Do you see this?”
Curled up sleeping in front of the fireplace, Hot Biscuit Slim doesn’t even lift his head. I stand there for a few minutes more, staring in wonder at a blizzard unlike any I’ve seen before. All the while, in the back of my mind I’m turning over any possible problems the storm could cause.
Electricity isn’t an issue. The well pump runs on solar, which should have enough juice in the batteries to last a few days, even if I drip water to make sure the pipes don’t freeze—and there’s a small gasoline generator in the well house that serves as a backup. The appliances use propane, which has a full tank. I’ve got a battery pack to charge my devices. If that empties, I can recharge it in the car. Wood fills the log rack by the fireplace, with more stacked on the porch and beside the shed. And I brought a lot of food, far more than I need. Just in case.
Really, I could be snowed in for several weeks without much problem. The only real issue might be boredom. This is already the longest I’ve been unplugged from the internet or any streaming service in…I don’t even know. A long time. But I knew I’d be off the grid, so I brought my paints and a few thrift-store canvases to work on—and if I finish those, I’ve got a ton of books downloaded to my phone. Even if my phone dies, Harris has paperbacks (all horror, exactly what someone needs to read while alone in the woods) tucked under the side table between the armchairs.
As long as I refrain from accidentally burning the cabin down, I should be fine for the duration of the storm—and however long it takes to dig myself out after.
But in all of the scenarios I pictured, of all the problems I considered, not once did I imagine someone would stagger out of the forest in the middle of a blizzard and pound on the cabin door.
Yet five minutes after I go to bed, that’s exactly what happens.