Chapter 5
Chapter Five
“Where does the water come from?” Doris pushed the faucet up and down, amazed that water came out. “We’re not hooked up to anything way out here in the woods.”
“Fresh water tank.” Marge squished up against her to help scrub the dirty dishes from dinner. “Bertha is luxury all the way. We just have to get topped off in a couple days so we don’t run out.”
I had to admit, Marge had done well.
From choosing the RV, which really did have far more luxury than I’d ever imagined one could find on wheels, down to the beautiful little campsite she’d rented us tucked back from the main road in a small clearing ringed by pine trees.
It was so quiet. So peaceful.
No traffic, no neighbors, just the occasional bird and the soft creak of trees swaying in the breeze.
We’d cooked outside on the little grill at our site—hot dogs and corn and some kind of campfire potatoes in aluminum foil that Marge had thrown together.
And it had been genuinely lovely. We’d pulled the picnic table behind Bertha onto the gravel pad and sat around it, talking, drinking wine, and laughing until we all held our bellies and complained we’d burst with just one more bite.
Just four best friends out in the wilderness on an impromptu road trip. The perfect Wilder Widows evening.
“When we get done with dishes, I’ve got stuff for s’mores.” Marge shoved a glass into the drying rack.
“Oh, that sounds good. I’m so full I have no idea how I’ll fit them in my stomach, but I’m sure as hell gonna try,” I said.
“There’s always room for dessert.” Doris handed Marge another clean dish to dry.
“I suppose I can eat some s’mores since I’ll probably lose all the weight if I end up getting chemo,” Alice said from where she sat in the little booth, examining her fingernails.
We all went silent.
She looked around, her eyes rolling as she said, “I brought it up. Remember? I’m allowed to bring it up.”
We all exhaled a breath as if we’d been holding it collectively.
“Sorry, I’m trying so hard never to mention it that I panicked when it came up,” Doris said.
And I had to admit, I felt the same. Trying to watch every word out of my mouth, stopping myself from saying things, was trickier than I’d thought.
It was like when someone told you not to think about food and then all you could think about was food.
We weren’t allowed to talk about the cancer, so all I could do was think about the cancer.
“I really am trying not to say anything,” Doris added. Then she pulled her fingers across her lips like a zipper. “But I know the rules. No bringing it up unless you bring it up. So, does this mean we’re talking about it?”
Alice quickly answered, “No. I just made a comment. Cancer talk over.”
And just like that, we were back to ignoring the giant purple polka-dotted elephant in the RV.
Tonight had been so peaceful, and today had been so fun.
It was hard not to think about what awaited us when we returned.
Appointments. Waiting rooms. Surgeries. Test results.
Having no control over what would happen to my friend.
Watching someone I loved disappear into a battle for her life and hoping it gave her back.
But I did what I did every time those intrusive thoughts clouded my mind. I pushed them back down as things we’d deal with later, after the trip, but I knew those thoughts would pop up again soon like some terrifying game of Whac-A-Mole.
We finished dishes, laughing and chatting, then we hunted through the groceries for the s’mores ingredients. Marge flicked her lighter on and off, telling us to hurry up.
“I’ll go get the fire started.” She moved toward the door. “At the rate you three are going, by the time you find the s’mores ingredients, I’ll have a fire roaring with nothing but a stick and some leaves like I did in Mexico that one time.”
“You packed a month’s worth of food in these bags with zero organization,” I defended as I pulled a bag of Funyuns out of the way.
“Oh! Toss those to me!” Marge waved her empty hand at me.
I chucked them over my shoulder, and she caught them with ease.
“Funyuns. Disgusting.” Alice wrinkled her nose. “I’m not sleeping anywhere near you with your Funyun breath tonight.”
Marge stuck out her tongue.
“I found the marshmallows!” Doris hoisted the bag in the air like a trophy. Then a crash came from outside, and Doris froze, her arm still stuck up in the air. “What was that?”
We all went still.
Another sound from outside. A thump, then a scrape, then another thump.
“Something’s out there,” Doris whispered.
“It’s probably just the wind,” I said, though the next bang made me disbelieve my own explanation.
Another thump. Then another.
“That is not the wind,” Alice whispered, panic filling her eyes.
Doris slowly slid to the floor, clutching the marshmallows to her chest like a shield. “Is it serial killers? We’re all alone out here!”
“I am too beautiful to die bloody in a Winnebago!” Alice hissed, sliding to the floor beneath the table. Reaching up over her head, she grabbed an empty wine bottle from the table and brandished it like a medieval club. “If they want this body, they’re going to have to work for it.”
Marge was already in a tactical crouch. She slunk along the floor, then grabbed a long, awning crank that looked like a bayonet in the dim light.
“You picked the wrong RV! I’m a… Navy SEAL!
” she lied, barking at the closed door. “I have survived two tours of duty! I am trained in seven different ways to neutralize a target with a blunt object! I have a high-capacity assault rifle, and I can hit a target at fifteen hundred yards!” She made a mock reloading sound with her mouth that was surprisingly convincing.
“If you want to find out what happens when civilians face the full weight of the United States military, then open this door and prepare to meet your maker!”
“Marge, don’t taunt them! You don’t actually have a rifle,” I whispered, creeping low across the floor toward the window.
“They don’t know that!” she whispered back.
I peeled back the curtain an inch, my heart pounding against my ribs as I prepared to see the face of a man in a hockey mask staring back at me. Instead, I saw something wearing a different kind of mask.
Raccoons.
Not one or two. A full, heaving mass of gray-and-black shapes pushing and shoving each other as they fought over our leftovers.
They were on the grill. They were on the steps.
One very bold individual was sitting on top of Marge’s good cooler, growling as another reached for its precious used tinfoil.
“Oh my God,” I breathed. “Raccoons. Like... a dozen of them.”
The tension in the RV deflated like a balloon. Alice lowered the wine bottle.
“Raccoons? That’s who I’m yelling at?” Marge stomped to the window and pushed up beside me to look. Her jaw tightened as she surveyed the carnage. “Oh, you little bastards.” Then she spun around and pointed at all of us. “Who left the food out?”
We all looked at each other.
“I thought Doris grabbed it,” I said.
Doris pointed at Alice. “I thought she grabbed it.”
“I grabbed the dishes,” Alice defended. “Someone else was supposed to grab the food.”
“The law of camping!” Marge shouted. “Rule number one: Secure the perimeter! Secure the rations!”
“Okay, it doesn’t matter who didn’t grab it. What matters is, what the hell do we do now? We’re surrounded by raccoons.”
Marge gasped, her grip tightening around her pole. “My jerky! They’ve got my jerky! That stuff is eighteen dollars a bag now! That’s highway robbery… and now real robbery! Look at them tearing it apart and not even savoring the flavors.” She gritted her teeth. “Bastards.”
Outside, a violent screech erupted. It sounded like two cats in a street fight.
“They’re fighting over it!” Doris shrieked, peering out the window from where she kneeled on the floor. Then she dropped down, back pressed against the wall as her eyes flashed wide. “Oh my gosh. What if they have rabies?”
“They aren’t rabid, Doris. They’re just hungry.”
“You don’t know that! I live on a ranch part of the year, and they always say raccoons are the primary carriers. They’re going to bite through the tires, smash the windows, and then they’re going to come for us!”
“They aren’t zombies, Doris. We’re safe in here,” Alice said, though she stepped further away from the door. “Right? We’re safe in here?”
Doris shook her head. “Safe? Of course not! Listen to them! They’re violent!”
As if on cue, the sounds of nails skittering across the top of the RV pulled our gazes up.
Alice grabbed the bottle of wine again, and Doris lifted a spatula, our gazes following the sounds as they scurried overhead.
The scratching sounds were frantic, and the chattering had turned into a full-blown turf war.
“We should drive away,” Doris pleaded. “Just start Bertha up and go. We can sleep on the side of the road. I can’t close my eyes tonight with the sound of rabid raccoons eating our expensive jerky just over my head. Please. Let’s just drive. Right now.”
“Hey! My cooler is still out there! We can’t just abandon it,” Marge argued. “That’s my good one I got last year when I renewed my AARP membership.”
“So it was free,” Alice countered. “And you get one every year when you renew. You have, like, six hundred AARP coolers. I’m with Doris. Let’s go and just let the trash pandas have it.”
“No.” Marge set her jaw tighter than a steel trap.
“And we can't drive away anyway. Remember?
We hauled the picnic table around behind Bertha so she'd block the grill smoke off us at dinner.
Now it's wedged right behind the bumper, and I'm not plowing forward through those pines and kissing my deposit goodbye. We're blocked in.”
“Great job, Marge,” Alice deadpanned. “Now we’re stuck.”
We all spun toward Alice, and Marge spit back what we were all thinking. “You were the one complaining the smoke was blowing on you and you wanted to use the RV to block it. This is your fault.”