The front door opens with a loud groan.
“I passed by the bar on the way over,” Giselle says from the door. “Carl and his buddies are in there. You ready to head out now?”
Ron closes the laptop and puts it on the table. “Sure. Let’s go.”
Giselle goes down the stairs, carrying a flashlight in her hand. Ron jogs down to catch up to her.
“Best if we walk,” Giselle says. “It’s not far anyway.”
The sky is a dark shade of reddish-orange as the sun sets.
Ron walks next to Giselle. “How does Carl get his motorcycle there anyway? I didn’t see a path or anything.”
“There’s a path to it but it basically goes around the town in the forest. It takes much longer to get there if you go that way. You probably didn’t see the path that goes to the cabin because it was dark.”
They go between the two houses and head up the diagonal road and then through the forest in silence.
Giselle walks quickly with a bored look on her face like she’s just doing this for Ron’s sake, to prove it’s nothing. Ron isn’t quite sure why Giselle would do this for her, someone she just met a couple days ago who made her hike through the forest for hours yesterday with nothing to show for it. Regardless, Ron is kind of glad Giselle is with her. She likes having a partner in crime.
They reach the clearing where the cabin is. Giselle tries the front door but it’s locked.
Ron taps her on the shoulder and points to the window. It’s wide open.
“Maybe you can fit in there,” Ron whispers, “and unlock the door from the inside for me. I don’t think I can fit.”
Giselle looks Ron up and down, as if noticing for the first time how big Ron is, and then nods. She wiggles through the window and after a moment, the door swings open.
Ron goes in and closes the door behind her. As soon as she does, a gross smell closes in around her, like cologne trying to cover up bad body odor.
Giselle puts her finger under her nose and breathes through her mouth. She must be smelling it too.
There’s a rectangular trap door flush with the floor next to the window Giselle crawled through. Ron unlatches it and heaves it open and then secures it to a hook on the wall so the door stays up. Shoddily built wooden steps lead down into darkness.
Giselle turns on the flashlight and shines it down. The staircase seems to be facing a wall because nothing else is visible from the top.
Giselle and Ron exchange nods. Ron goes down first with Giselle behind her holding the flashlight up over Ron’s shoulder.
They reach the bottom. There’s a bit of light coming in from the half-buried window, but not much because of the setting sun. Giselle shines the light all around. Instead of the staircase facing a wall, like Ron thought, it’s actually facing a floor to ceiling shelf. The mattress is still on the floor, and the man’s body is on it underneath the sheet.
Ron heads to it but Giselle grabs Ron’s shoulder. Ron turns back.
“What if that’s just one of his friends sleeping there?” Giselle whispers. “If we wake him up and he sees us, how will we explain ourselves?”
“I won’t wake him up,” Ron whispers back. “I’ll just pull down the sheet a bit so we can see who it is.”
Giselle sighs and lets go of Ron’s shoulder. She shines the light on the man, but stays by the stairwell.
Ron walks around the mattress across from Giselle so she doesn’t block the light. She passes the table with the laptop on it. The laptop is closed, but the thick cord is still connected to it and goes under the sheet. Ron kneels down where it looks like the man’s head is.
She holds the end of the sheet and pulls it over the man’s head, letting it drape across his neck. She stares at the man, brows furrowed.
Giselle walks forward and leans over him. “Carl?”
She says it loudly, not a shout but not a whisper either.
Ron’s heart races, expecting the man to wake up but he doesn’t stir. The man looks exactly like Carl except he has a thick stubble instead of being clean-shaven. A metal band fastened around his head holds his dirty blond hair down, the roots slick with oil. The thick cord connected to the laptop is attached to the side of the metal band.
“There’s no way this is Carl,” Giselle whispers shrilly. “I saw him in the bar like fifteen minutes ago.”
Ron stands up and goes to the laptop. She opens it.
The man who looks like Carl is on the screen standing in a bedroom with walls covered in posters of dinosaurs. He’s hovering over a light blond white boy sitting on his bed with hands over his ears and eyes closed, shaking. The man looks like he’s shouting something.
There’s a pair of headphones in front of the laptop. Ron puts them on.
“Help me!” the man shouts at the boy. “Please help me!”
The boy turns to him suddenly, moving his hands from his ears. “Shut up! Go away!”
“Help me!”
“Leave me alone!”
The boy raises a hand, palm outstretched, and the man goes flying through the wall. The screen goes black.
The man—the real one in front of Ron—groans.
Ron takes off the headphones and kneels by the man again. She grabs his shoulders and shakes him wildly.
“Ron, what the hell are you doing?” Giselle shouts. She’s been standing over the man, just watching him in disbelief this whole time.
Ron continues to shake him.
The man’s eyes open, a wild look in them. Ron lets him go.
“Who are you?” the man says, panicked eyes looking everywhere. “Get me out of here!” He sits up, the short cord attached to the metal band pulled taut.
“Who are you?” Giselle says.
“I’m Noah.” He coughs. “My brother is crazy! You gotta get me out of
