Cabin Fever

by Annabelle Costa

  That’s my brilliant idea. If he tows the car, I can stay in here and not be raped by a yeti.

  The man quickly shakes his head. “No, that’s not gonna happen. But my house is just up the road and you can stay there till the storm blows over.”

  I chew on my lip, unsure what to do. In spite of his hulking build and creepy eyepatch, his voice isn’t scary. He doesn’t growl or hiss. He’s sounds like a regular guy. Not a man who will chop me up into bits and feed me to his dog. Except…

  “My boyfriend,” I croak. Well, he’s my ex-boyfriend now, but I don’t need to explain my love life to this stranger. “He… he went for help. We need to find him.”

  The man’s single blue eye goes wide. “How long ago did he leave the car?”

  “Maybe… forty minutes ago?”

  “Shit…” he breathes. He straightens up and stares into the darkness behind me. “Yeah, okay. We can look for him.”

  I let out a sigh of relief. We’re going to find Chase. And when we do, I’ll be safe from this creature. Chase may not be my boyfriend anymore, but he won’t let this guy hurt me. Everything is going to be fine.

  I unlock the door and the man pulls it open for me. The cold feels like a knife against my bare ears. I scream out in pain and clutch at my face. God, it’s cold.

  “Where’s your hat?” the man asks me. Now that I’m standing next to him, I see he isn’t quite as tall as I’d thought. Definitely several inches over six feet, but not eight or nine feet like I’d originally thought when I saw him.

  “I don’t have a hat.”

  He looks at me like I’ve got two heads. “You came up here in the middle of February and didn’t bring a hat?”

  “I did have one, but I gave it to my boyfriend.”

  “So where’s his hat?”

  “He didn’t bring one.”

  The guy rolls his eyes. Well, eye. He fumbles at his collar and eventually pulls out a thick, black scarf. It’s gigantic—I could easily wrap my whole body in it. “No, it’s okay…” I protest.

  “Take it, Princess,” he growls at me. “Put it on. I don’t have time to argue with you.”

  I inhale sharply. Princess? What’s that about? Just because I’m out in a blizzard without a hat or scarf?

  But I do as he says. I wrap the scarf first around my head and ears, then circle it around my neck. It’s thick and warm and smells like pine cones.

  “Pop the trunk and I’ll grab your bags,” he says. “That way we don’t have to come back after.”

  I do as he says this time without question. He trudges around to the trunk while I struggle to get the door to the car closed. He stares at the contents of the trunk, his brow furrowed as he stares down at my Louis Vuitton Neverfull over the shoulder bag in brown with red lining and our Louis Vuitton limited edition luggage. “How long were you planning to stay here?”

  “Just the weekend.”

  “Just the weekend?”

  “I know it’s a lot,” I mumble. “Look, I can take my bag and if you can grab the other…”

  But the man isn’t listening to me. He throws two bags over one shoulder and one over the other, then slams the trunk closed. Chase could barely lift one of the bags, but this guy seems to be handling all of them without much effort. He doesn’t even grunt when he lifts them. His only struggle is walking through the heavy snow back to his truck, where he tosses both bags in the back. I follow him, trying my best to ignore the slap of wind against the parts of my face that aren’t covered by his scarf.

  The truck isn’t one of those shiny new ones I see zipping around the city. It’s old and the parts I can see under the snow are tinged in rust. There’s a dingy yellow snow plow attached to the front of the vehicle, which is how he must have gotten through the snow. As I approach the passenger door, I notice the chains on his tires. He’s certainly prepared for this storm—much more so than us.

  The engine is running in the cab and he’s got the heat on. I hold my hands in front of the heating vent and my fingers tingle. The man pushes off his hood, but doesn’t touch the bottom half of his ski hat, so he looks like he’s about to mug a liquor store.

  “No gloves either, huh?” he remarks.

  “I didn’t know there was going to be a blizzard.”

  He just snorts at that. “Any idea which way your boyfriend went?”

  I point into the distance. “The way we came.”

  He lets out a long sigh. “Okay. Let’s see if we can find him.”

  It’s obvious from his voice that he thinks we won’t. But I can’t believe that. It hasn’t even been an hour and Chase was on foot. How far could he have possibly gone?

  Even with the snowplow attached, the truck struggles to make it through the snow. It looks like there are at least two feet of it on the ground. The man is driving slowly, his left hand gripping the wheel.

  “I’m Natalie,” I tell him, breaking the silence between us. I know I probably shouldn’t talk now—I sense it with every fiber of my being—but Drew always teases me that I can’t ever “shut the hell up” when there’s a silence. I always feel a desperate need to fill any break in the conversation.

  “Jake,” he grunts.

  “Have you lived out here long?” I ask.

  “Yes.”

  “Is it just you?” I hope there’s a wife. That he’s not some creepy loner woodsman who lives out in a desolate cabin where nobody will ever find me.

  “Just me.”

  Great.

  “Are you from Vermont originally or…?”

  Jake doesn’t even bother to answer this time. He just keeps driving slowly through the blizzard, his good eye pinned on the road. I probably should shut up and let him concentrate.

  We pass dozens of barren trees, their branches thick with snow. I don’t see any sign of footprints or anything that would indicate Chase has been by here. Jake has his brights on, but it’s still very hard to see. We’ve been driving ten minutes—surely there would be some sign of him by now? Is it possible we’ve passed him? Could he be lying in the snow somewhere, slowly freezing to death?

  “I don’t see him,” I whisper, a lump in my throat.

  Jake is still quiet. He yanks down the part of his hat that’s covering his face, and now I see he has a thick, wild beard. I wonder how long he’s been living out here. I wonder how often he sees other people. Probably not much.

  “We’ll keep looking,” he finally says.

  “But…” Tears well up in my eyes. Chase never had a shot of making it to any sort of civilization—I sat in the car and let him march off to his doom. If we don’t find him now, he’ll die for sure, and it will be my fault. Maybe he wasn’t the best boyfriend ever, but he doesn’t deserve to die. “He could be anywhere.”

  “We’ll look till we find him,” Jake says gruffly.

  Except how long will that be? Jake at least has more than half a tank full of gas, but it won’t last forever. We can’t drive around all night looking. And it’s so dark, even with the beams of his headlights on the road. I can’t even…

  Wait…

  I see red.

  “Stop!” I shriek.

  The trunk skids to an eventual stop in the snow. Jake leans over the dashboard, squinting in the direction of my outstretched hand. At the flash of red in the snow, from the scarf I lent to Chase before he took off. There he is—Chase, crouched down against a tree, his face buried in his knees.

  “That’s him!” I yelp.

  Jake nods. “Stay here.”

  My fingers grip my knees as I sit in the warm comfort of the truck while Jake puts his hood on again and stumbles back out into the blizzard. His feet sink deep into the snow with each step, and it takes him more than twice as long as it should have to get to where Chase is huddled by the tree. Jake crouches down beside him and puts his hand on my boyfriend’s shoulder. I don’t know if Jake is trying to talk to him or what, but Chase doesn’t move.

  After about fifteen seconds of this, Jake simply picks hi
m up and carries him back to the car.

  I watch, open-mouthed. Chase isn’t obese or anything, but he isn’t light either. Jake must be incredibly strong. So much for expecting Chase to protect me from this guy.

  Jake rips open the back door of the truck and lays Chase into the back seat. Now that he’s in the car, I get a close look at my boyfriend, and he doesn’t look so great. He’s shaking violently and his skin is pale, almost waxy. His eyes are just barely open.

  “Chase?” I whisper.

  He mumbles something incoherent.

  “Hypothermia,” Jake says as he slides back into the driver’s seat. “We need to get him someplace warm.”

  Chase shudders and lets out a low groan.

  “We need to take him to a hospital,” I say.

  Jake shakes his head. “Nearest hospital is over ten miles away.”

  “So?”

  He gives me a sharp look. “We’d be lucky to make it to the main road in this truck.”

  “But…” My throat constricts painfully. “What if he dies?”

  “Listen to me.” Jake’s good eye makes contact with mine. “We try to take him to a hospital, we all die. My house is right down the road. We’ll warm him up there.”

  I want to argue with him more, but unlike Chase, I have a feeling Jake knows what he’s talking about. We’re going back to Jake’s house, whether I like it or not. We’re both at his mercy now.

  Chapter 5

  Jake’s house turns out to be a cabin, like the one where we were supposed to spend the weekend. Well, not just like the one where we were supposed to spend the weekend. I saw a photo of that cabin, and it was really nice—“picturesque” is the word I’d use. This cabin isn’t picturesque. It’s about as far from picturesque as you can get. “Run down” is the term I’d use to describe the scratched walls and splintered wood. It’s one story high and clearly very small, with a broken-down porch that looks like it’s about to collapse under the weight of the snow. The windows reveal nothing but darkness inside. If our intention coming out here were truly to “rough it,” this cabin would fit the bill.

  We make a halfhearted attempt to get Chase to stand up and walk into the cabin, but it’s a lost cause—he’s barely conscious. Finally, Jake lifts him up and carries him again. When I get inside the cabin, I’m horrified to discover it’s just as cold in here as it was in the Porsche. And so dark. Jake lays Chase down gently on a ragged sofa next to a dimly lit fireplace while I hug myself for warmth. I glance around and see only a few candles burning to keep the room lit.

  “Shit, the fire is dying,” Jake mutters. “I’ll get it going again.”

  “Where’s the light switch?” I ask.

  “There isn’t one.”

  “So how do you turn on the lights?”

  “I don’t. No electricity.”

  “You mean the storm knocked it out?”

  “No. I mean the house isn’t wired.”

  No electricity ever? But… I need electricity! I use it to power my phone and my television and my electric mixer.

  “But how…” I glance at Chase, who looks no better than he did in the car. “How are we supposed to get warm if there’s no electricity?”

  “Relax, Princess,” he says, and my toes curl at the words. “I’ll get the fire going again. Unless you want to do the honors?”

  I glance over at the smoldering logs. I have absolutely no idea how to get a fire going, unless it involves turning a dial on the oven. I know how to put out a fire though. You don’t get through culinary school without setting your fair share of fires.

  “That’s okay,” I say.

  He jerks his head toward a door at the edge of the room. “There are blankets in the closet. Grab a bunch of them and get him covered up.”

  I walk over to the closet while Jake takes off his ski mask. Underneath, his hair is long and wild, and he’s got a beard like Rumpelstiltskin. It looks like he hasn’t combed his hair or his beard in months—if ever. His eyepatch has gone askew, and I stare at him, trying to catch a glimpse of what’s under it. But he quickly adjusts it, and I look away before he catches me. Maybe I don’t want to know what’s under there.

  While Jake fiddles with the fire, I pull three thick woolen blankets from the closet. They’re not exactly Burberry throw blankets and I feel like they’d be extremely itchy, but beggars can’t be choosers. I bring them over to the couch, where Chase is still shivering violently. His lips look blue. I call his name and he doesn’t answer me.

  “Are you sure we shouldn’t get him to a hospital?” I say.

  Jake pokes at the fireplace with a metal stick and orange flames jump in the air. “I told you it’s not safe.”

  “He really doesn’t look good…” I touch his fingers, which are like ice cubes. “He might have frostbite.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “His fingers are freezing.”

  “He doesn’t have frostbite.”

  I frown, frustrated that he doesn’t seem to appreciate how sick Chase might be. “Well, how can you be so sure?”

  Jake pulls off his gloves one by one. I gasp as I get a look at his hands. It was impossible to tell with the gloves on, but now I can see he’s missing large chunks of his fingers. Both his pinky fingers are abbreviated—no sign of the left one and the right is just a nub. On his left hand, he’s also missing half of his third and fourth fingers, and his index finger looks shorter than it should be too although his thumb is intact.

  “I know about frostbite,” he says. “Okay?”

  I nod, only noticing after a second that my mouth is hanging open. It’s bad manners, but I can’t help myself. “Okay,” I mumble, averting my eyes.

  “If you’re worried, then make him some warm compresses with washcloths from the closet.” Jake puts his gloves back on. “I’ll go get your bags from the truck. His clothes are soaked, and we need to find him something that’s dry.”

  I obediently march back over to the closet and locate a couple of washcloths. They seem clean enough, at least. I’m still trying to wrap my head around the “no electricity” deal—how does he live like that? I go over to the sink in his tiny kitchen and am relieved that at least there’s running water. I was scared he was going to tell me I was going to have to go retrieve it from a well. Except when I stick my hand under the water, it’s so cold, I let out a screech and yank my hand away.

  Jake has dragged our luggage into the cabin and he’s got one of them open. He’s holding up a dress of mine—a cute black number from Emporio Armani that’s just the right amount of short and slinky. His mouth is hanging open.

  “You brought a cocktail dress, but not gloves?” he says.

  My cheeks grow warm. In retrospect, maybe that dress was a little… impractical. But it seems like around Chase, impromptu parties are always breaking out. So I figured I should come prepared. “What’s wrong with bringing a dress on a trip?”

  He glances up at me. “Things must be really different in the world you live in.”

  I glare at him. “You mean in the world of electricity?”

  He arches an eyebrow at me, and I feel a flash of guilt for snapping at him. The guy just risked his own life to save mine—I should be grateful just to be here. But on the other hand, I don’t appreciate how he’s rifling through my stuff. I’m a private person, and this makes me very uncomfortable.

  “Can you just… not go through my bags please?” I was going for “firm but polite,” but I have a feeling it came out sounding bitchy. I should be kissing this man’s feet for having saved us, but something about him is rubbing me the wrong way.

  He straightens up and drops my black dress. Even though he’s not as tall as I had initially thought, he towers over me—and I’m not short. His good eye stares down at me. He could probably crush me with one arm if he got the thought into his head. And considering how unkempt he is and that he’s been living here alone off the grid for God knows how long, I have no clue what he’s capable of. It’s like
being in a cabin with a wild animal.

  “I’m trying to find warm clothes for your boyfriend over there,” he says. “But all I see is fancy, useless crap.”

  So my clothes are crap? My Anne Fontaine blouse is crap? It probably costs more than everything in this cabin combined. I want to point that out, but instead, I take a deep breath and bite my tongue. He saved your life, Natalie. Don’t forget that.

  He looks down at the washcloth in my hand. “That’s not even wet.”

  “The water was cold.”

  “We don’t have hot water here.” He looks at me like I’m an idiot for even thinking we would. “You have to heat it up on the stove.”

  Wonderful.

  Jake yanks the washcloth out of my hands. “Let me do it. You find some clothes that aren’t a fucking cummerbund or silk shirt.”

  That is so unfair. Chase doesn’t have a cummerbund. He does have several silk shirts though.

  “Also,” Jake adds, “you need to find some dry clothes for yourself.” He gestures at my useless boots and shakes his head. “I’m betting your feet are soaked. Get out of those things and warm yourself up. ASAP.”

  He may have a point. My feet are completely numb, although I can still move my toes. It won’t do me any good to get frostbite myself.

  I dig out my pair of Manolo Blahnik Mariafina leopard-print mules with fur trim. I bought these a few weeks ago and was so excited about wearing them in the cabin, but they seem ridiculously out of place in this dilapidated shack. I sift through my luggage, doing my best to cover up my Agent Provocateur lingerie because I’m not excited for Jake to find that stuff if he looks through my bag again.

  I rifle through Chase’s luggage, and I have to say, he brought a lot of useless stuff. In his bag, I find a gigantic bag of toiletries that takes up a third of the luggage, containing moisturizers, three kinds of soap, shampoo, conditioner, and a bunch of other stuff I don’t have time to sort through. The clothing is all really weather-inappropriate. Why did he bring a Gucci silk vest? I know Chase believes a vest should always be worn with a suit, but why on a trip to a cabin? Also, why did he bring a suit in the first place?