The bed springs emitted a little groan of dismay as Eli sat. He took the opportunity to stretch his muscles, which felt oddly exhausted after a day spent crammed into the driver’s seat of his Camry. Nothing in this room looked the least bit like the promising description from the website, and he was starting to suspect, eyeing a spider side-eyeing him from the ceiling corner, that there was a very good reason the owner hadn’t included any photos in the listing. The price had been enticing, but having driven a hundred or so miles out and wandered through a slew of Northern Michigan backroads, he now realized why. The only chair, for one thing, had clearly suffered a near-amputation at some point. The damaged leg gave it an off-kilter, backward tilt. The so called desk next to it was dusty, provisional, and not really a desk at all, but a plywood table with a smoother board glued on top. This was the work station from which he was meant to launch his writing career.

The rest of the cabin appeared about as rustically charming as a serial killer’s den. An assortment of half-rusted, cobwebbed gardening tools hung from hooks on the wall behind a wood burning stove. Given the overgrown state of the plant-life surrounding the two room cabin, it was safe to assume that these implements hadn’t been used in several years. Evidence of water damage radiated in a sizable stain on the chipped linoleum. A stale smell permeated everything. And yet, the key had been in the box, just where she’d said it would be. Eli took out his phone, relieved to see the single bar of service. He redialed the woman’s number and leaned down to glance under the twin bed on which he sat, grateful there weren’t any animals larger than the spider underneath.

The phone rang until her voicemail finally picked up. Calling earlier for directions had yielded the same result. His text messages had likewise gone unanswered. This time he took the automated prompt.

“This is Eli Shepard. Call me back as soon as you get this. This place, I’m wondering if I found the right spot.”

He hung up quickly. Despite a rising tide of frustration, he kept his voice light, not wanting to make the situation worse. The nearest gas station was at least thirty minutes out. If he could recoup some or all of the money (he’d already paid for the next six months in full), then making the long drive back wouldn’t be such a big deal. 

But back to where, exactly? To do what?

The idea that Leo would let him stroll back into the office was laughable. When he quit his job answering phones for Voxspire Solutions, he’d left it without giving notice, as much to burn the bridge as to hand his former boss a comeuppance for nearly three years of passive aggressive “motivation.” Leo was the nitpicking CEO of what amounted to an email service, who believed, rightly or wrongly, that Eli should be eternally grateful for the secretarial position offered to him at only twenty-one years old, a survival job after dropping out of college. For nearly three years, he’d tolerated a lot to barely pay bills and to scrape together a modicum of savings. Margret had always told him he kept things bottled up too much. She was right about that.

He got up and pointlessly flipped on the light switch for the bathroom. Like the dead outlets and lights of the main room, the bare lightbulb overhead pointed to an untapped source of electricity, probably from a generator out back. There was no mirror. The wallpaper plastered over the wood in here was in the process of rejecting the wall completely. The toilet had no plumbing, just a pit with a wood shell, though there was a serviceable sink with a hand pump. The bucket must be for “flushing.” He tested both, dumping water on a smooth cement trough below, and returned to the main room. He checked his phone again. Almost seven o’clock. Even if he left now, he wouldn’t make the Mackinaw Bridge before nine. Getting himself turned around on these dirt roads out here, especially in the dark, was another potential snag. He turned toward the largest of only two windows. His Camry, aged, but functional, looked like a foreign object parked out there in the ruts of the grassy path. If not for an unreadable metal sign hinting at a turnoff from the road, he would have never found the cabin at all. He stifled his yawn. The bed, of all things, didn’t seem so bad.

He ventured out again. The sky was tinged red and the woods drenched in deepening shadow. The lot was clear of trees for fifty feet around the cabin, though not of thigh-high weeds and wild grass. The porch spanned the width of the building and felt solid under his feet. Next to him, removed from its frame and leaned against the front wall, was a screen door.

“Guess I’m staying, then” he sighed. Just one night. One. A cold breeze seemed to shift the light for a moment. He shivered. Late May, but this was furthest north he’d ever been. Something in the quiet, the refrain of this place, or maybe just his weariness after the long drive, gave him a sense of unease. He’d arrived, but nothing about this place was welcoming.

The last gas station, as it turned out, had been a useful stop. He went to the backseat and pulled out a mostly cooled six-pack of Michelob, a canvas backpack, and a large black trash bag filled with blankets. Most of what he’d need for the night. He still had a few snacks leftover from the trip, and tomorrow, there’d be plenty of time for him to find breakfast on the road. 

The bed was the only comfortable spot in the cabin. He made a nest of blankets before twisting the cap off the first beer. No return calls from the landlord. The only texts were from work. A few of the other employees asking about his health, and a less than friendly message from Leo, of course, as if he could fire him for quitting. Nothing from Margret. No surprise there. His phone had enough signal for video and he spent two hours or so watching mindless content. The seed of a novel remained untouched on the laptop in his bag.

As he drank the second beer, an orchestra of insects struck up its alien symphony, a sound he wasn’t used to hearing from city apartments or any house or home from his childhood. But the city he’d left behind was now hundreds of miles away. The plunging dark in the cabin quickly became absolute. As far he could tell, peering out of the windows on trips to bathroom, his phone was the only light source for miles.