The Nissan hummed and shuddered down the dirt roads. Nadine hadn’t said a word yet, and Eli had only managed to keep his silence due to his preoccupation with how strange the whole thing was. This ended as they finally reached the first paved road.

“Can you believe that nutcase? If the police don’t search his property for my car, I swear.”

Nadine worried her lips, still apparently lost in her own thoughts. 

“Do you mind if I charge my phone here.” he asked, holding up a cord leading to her console. She nodded absently.

A few minutes passed in silence down this road before she finally spoke up.

“I have to ask. You didn’t feel anything, I don’t know, anything unusual at the cabin last night, did you?”

“Don’t tell me you believe that stuff? This guy’s obviously cracked.”

She didn’t answer right away, keeping her eyes forward. She looked worried, but lovely, foregrounded against a blur of green leaves, pine, and a line of electrical poles vying with nature and the cloud-littered sky. He was starting to wonder if everyone north of the Mackinac Bridge had lost their minds, or if it was only him. She seemed like a perfectly reasonable person. But if she thought for a second that there was anything to Sullivan’s insane theories, he wouldn’t know what to say to her. Better to say nothing, probably. Why risk offending her? He still needed his refund, after all. He looked out of his own window, trying not to dwell on it.

“It’s not that I believe him,” she broke in. “But my father, he started sounding scared before his death. His phone calls were becoming bizarre. He kept going on and on about things from his past, things that never happened. At least, I think they didn’t happen,” she muttered. “And about something, I don’t know, a creature he would see sometimes. Something horrible.” 

Eli kept his eyes fixed on the scenery without really seeing anything. For some reason, the topic was aggravating him. None of it made any sense.

“Apart from this Sullivan guy claiming to have burned down a cabin that’s still there, let’s say there was some kind of a creature. So what does it do? It kills his wife, somehow, years and years ago, waits a long time, then randomly, it kills your father? That’s not even a pattern. It’s just this guy creating a narrative, and it’s messed up because he’s trying pull you into it, along with me. It could be he pulled your dad into it, or more likely he just took the things your dad was saying and built his own version. He admitted he talked to your dad a few months ago, right? You really don’t have to give it any more thought than that. It’s not that deep. This guy is bonafide delusional.” Saying all this aloud felt good. Vindicating. Comforting, at some level, considering how deeply unsettled he’d felt that morning, waiting for her at the cabin and hallucinating a cold touch.

She bit one side of her lower lip, a habit he now recognized. He couldn’t narrow the tick down to a single cause, but he suspected she was purposefully withholding her true thoughts on the matter, for now at least. She pulled into the same gas station where he’d bought beer last night, a wide dirt lot surrounding a chipping cement platform and its four pump stations. The building itself was old, but clearly as much a stop for truckers as for locals. A lone semi pulled out from under the fuel canopy as she pulled in. Opening his door introduced the warming air of noon and the pungent aroma of gasoline. 

He decided to revisit the bathroom while she refilled her tank. Seeing the exact layout and lit coolers from yesterday only reminded him of his missing car and the tantalizing memory of having it in his possession. A surge of resentment towards Sullivan washed over him. The guy probably had it sitting there in that pole barn of his, or tucked away in the garage. By the time Eli was back in the passenger seat and cracking open a cold bottle of iced tea, he was seething.

“I bet anything he has it. If I could just get the police to search his property.” He rebooted his phone.

“It’s possible,” she conceded, turning on the radio and flipping through stations. He found it reassuring to hear she was still grounded in reality. 

“He’d probably flip his lid if I actually stayed,” he said, trying to gauge her reaction to the idea. Had she let the neighbor change her mind about letting him? He knew that keeping a rental car out there while he didn’t have a paying job was impractical, but he still wanted to tease out some kind of an opinion from her. His comment seemed to catch her off-guard. She answered him slowly, after a consideration.

“If you feel safe and comfortable doing it, like I said, you’re more than welcome to keep the lease. I don’t want you to think I’m, I’m not crazy or anything. Actually, it’s only been the last couple of days where I found some really strange things at my dad’s house. I don’t know how much of it is credible, obviously. I mean, I have every reason to think he was just losing his mind. But even so, you should take a look at what he left there, before you actually decide. A full refund is always on the table for you. I have to say though, hearing all that stuff from Sullivan today, I wasn’t expecting it. It was, off-putting.”

Eli could hardly contain his curiosity, despite himself.

“What kinds of things?”

“Documents. Letters, news articles. His journal, mainly. It would be difficult to explain it all. I haven’t gotten through most of it myself. It might be easier, I think, if we stopped by his house. You can have a look and decide for yourself. If you’re alright with going?”

“Sure, ok. Why not.”