The Getaway: Part I

'The Cabin' ~ engraving by Francis Scott King, after William Hamilton Gibson ca. 1880-1910

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We stop for breakfast before hitting the road and I want to cry as soon as we walk into the cafe.

For no particular reason, other than he's still dead.

We find an empty table and order some food. I mope off to get a drink from what the waitress refers to as The Tea Station. As I resentfully pour hot water into a partially stained mug, a motorbike goes past the window outside and I jump, spilling my dishwater tea all over the table.

I start crying again.

Returning to the table, where Samantha and Jessica are chatting about the curent state of the education system, I stare vacantly out of the window, silent tears running down my face. Every car that goes past makes me feel angry and resentful that the world and everything in it is still turning.

Everyone is still carrying on.

Our food arives and I make a joke about the size of Samantha's sausage. We all laugh. Then I am instantly wracked with guilt. The tears start falling down my face like a waterfall as I desperately try and maintain my composure whilst begrudingly shoving half a hash brown in my mouth, as if that will stop the flood.

I think that if I just stare at the table hard enough and focus on anything but him...anything but him...anything...but...him...then it will be okay.

Him.

Him.

Him.

Praying I wont die of a broken heart right there on the spot, face planting into my fried egg during my spiritual check-out.

It doesn't work and I keep wiping my tears away furiously, as if they have betrayed me, whilst keeping my head as close to my plate as possible. Samantha thankfully gets up to settle the bill and I walk back to the car alone.

We drive in silence.

As we get closer to our destination, we stumble across an old pub and decide to stop and waste time before check-in. Inside the beams hung low and the smell of times gone by lingered in the air. The others retreat for a pit-stop and I'm left in charge of ordering drinks.

"Yes love?" the lady manning the bar, who is talking to an old man wearing a flat cap and leathered hands, turns to me.

"Two pints of gold please."

She nods, reaching for a glass out of a steaming dishwasher.

"...and a double Glenfiddich with one cube of ice please, thanks."

As I'm waiting I look up and see that the oversized clock on the wall says 12.02pm and I wonder if this is a good idea. I've barely drunk for over a year. Alcohol, as I discovered, is not my friend. Especially not now. But I just need to have a drink. For him. To him. I need to do something.

I pay and take the drinks to a table by the window, staring out at the small stream that is running on the other side of the road. Samantha returns alone and sits down in the cushioned seat next to me. She looks at my whiskey, looks away, before looking back again.

"Are you sure that's a good idea? I mean, if you want to that's fine, but just checking if you're...you know...sure?"

I look at her without expression and then back out at the offensive sunshine. I turn my back on the window in disgust, swirling the whiskey around in the glass, the melting ice cube gently clinking against the tumbler.

"I guess we're about to find out." I hold up the glass and tip it to the lit candle glowing on the table in front of me, nodding my head respectfully. "To you, my darling," I say and, as I fight back the tears, I down it in one before squeezing my eyes together as if I just swallowed a wasp.

"One more for the road?" I ask.

Samantha looks at me in a way that she hasn't before.

And I don't fucking blame her.

After our unplanned boozey stop-off, we arrive at our destination, a house nestled in the woods, down one winding lane after another, eventually leading through a large wooden gate onto a private track. I turn down the drum & bass that is booming out of the open car windows and Samantha pulls into a space next to the side of the house, which looks both dilipidated and perfectly preserved in time.

"Well, we better make sure we shut that gate at the end of the drive at night time," she says whilst getting out and looking at the long private drive like it's offended her.

"No, the dog won't run off, " I say, heaving the food shopping out of the boot.

"I meant in case someone tries to break in." She looks at me as if I am missing some brain cells.

"Oh god! Don't say that! I'm already wetter than a packet of baby wipes that's been flushed down the loo!" says Jessica.

We all laugh.

"Anyway," I say, "burglars don't tend to break into an occupied house in the middle of nowhere, especially when it looks like a candle making museum."

"Yeh, but if we leave the gate open it makes it easier for them to get in." Samantha closes the boot. "And I wasn't just thinking about burglars. What about serial killers?"

I laugh before realising she's serious.

"If someone wants to break in to kill us, climbing over a wooden gate is not going to make any difference. If they're determined to get in, they're getting in."

Trust me, I should know.

(I don't say that.)

"Oh my God! Why would you say that?!" Jessica looks at me horrified before skulking off towards the front door laden with bags like a pack mule.

I turn back to Samantha who still seems to be waiting for reassurance that we won't all be dead by morning. "Babe. Listen to me. No one is going to break in. We're in the middle of nowhere, we're driving Jackson's truck, all the lights in the house will be on, and the doors will be locked because of Jessica's aforementioned wet-wipe sensibility. And we have a dog who barks at the slightest sound."

She digests my supposition and appears to rule in my favour, giving a little accepting nod of the head and strenous suck on her vape.

"Anyway," I continue, "if a serial killer does break in, and tries to hurt either of you, I'll gut him like a fucking fish until the cunt bleeds out on the floor in front of me."

She looks at me and laughs, thinking that I'm joking.

As we carry our bags across the grass, we find Jessica stood at the door, engaged with her phone like a Mensa test, muttering something about keys. I passively stand there waiting and stare up at the front of the redbrick building. The date '1965' was carved into stone above the threshold. There is an uncomfortable stillness in the air all around us.

I look further down towards the woods and see an old wooden cabin that looks like it could be the next movie set for The Hills Have Eyes.

"Is that separate accomodation?" I ask, unable to take my eyes off the darkened windows of the cabin.

They both turn to follow my gaze. "Oh, I don't know. I don't think so" says Jessica, closing the keysafe and turning the key in the latch before disappearing inside.

We follow behind her, and I call the dog, who's currently weeing on some dead daffodils. I take one last look back over my shoulder and could swear that I saw someone standing at the window of the cabin, hidden by the shadows, watching.

It feels both cosy and inviting inside, yet there is something slightly uneasy about it, just like outside. The feeling that we weren't alone. I've always been able to sense the energy of places and people since I was a child.

It's both a blessing and a curse.

I automatically put the kettle on before heading upstairs, poking my nose in the bedrooms. The first one has a Dickensian four-poster bed and matching wardrobe, dominating the room. It felt as if everything good that had ever lived within those four walls had been sucked out.

I leave quickly and make a mental note not to mention it to Jessica.

I walk into the second bedroom along the narrow corridor, which looks much less foreboding, with a lowered double bed that had been squeezed into the small space overlooking the paddock outside.  I look around at the built-in wooden cupboards and open one up, thinking about that scene in that film where the kid sees dead people.

No one inside.

I was half hoping he might be in there.

Placing my bags down on the colourful bedspread, I go to find Samantha, who is in the bedroom at the end of the corridor, clearly a conversion with it's small ensuite and PVC windows. Samantha, being true to character, is unpacking all of her things and putting them away neatly in various drawers.

"What is this place, anyway?" I ask.

"I think it was an old train station," she says as she opens the partially drawn curtain. "See..." She points to the front of the house where we have just come from.

Only now can I see the shape and form of a railway track below, that is overgrown and hidden beneath the wilderness, leading to the cabin at the bottom of the woods.

"Great, " I say. "Just great."

Having decided that the main bathroom isn't up to my standards (possibly more that I just felt entitled to make use of Samantha's ensuite) I grab my washbag from my bedroom and, not bothering to shut the bathroom door, strip down and turn on the water, waiting impatiently as steam begins to rise in the cold air.

I step inside and and close my eyes as the water soothingly cascades down my skin, and instantly burst into silent crying. Too sad to make a sound. I lather shower gel all over me, from a half empty bottle sitting on the rack, as if my life depended on a stranger's leftovers.

As if I can wash the despair away.

I stand there for a few moments forcibly rinsing the white foam off and suddenly feel my heart implode with unbearable loss. I desperately gasp for air, my hands holding me up either side of the shower door, as my head collapses and shoulders convulse.

I eventually calm down and step out of the shower, grabbing the towel that I threw onto the radiator, and notice that Samantha must have shut the bathroom door. I dry myself off and stare out the window into the field outside. There are almost a dozen horses there - eating, playing, or simply staring mindlessly into space.

Just like me.

As I'm watching them I notice a horse in the corner of the field, obscured slightly from view. Motionless. Staring straight at me. He's a beautiful chesnut colour with a strikingly strawberry blonde mane and there is a large messy tuft of hair that looks even more sunkissed, contrasting with the deep colour of his skin, protruding from between his ears and over his eyes. So much so that I'm surprised he can see a damn thing.

And I suddenly burst out into uncontrollable laughter because he looks exactly like him.

With his short back and sides that he was never happy with. The long fringe that would grow and he would attempt to messily sidesweep but could never get quite right. "Babe??" I would hear him whine from the bathroom. "Can you sort my fucking bowl out?" That's what he called it. His bowl. No matter what product he used, by the end of the day, it never stayed in place.

"Stop looking at my bowl!" he would say self-consciously.

"I'm not!" I would always reply, but the smile that would form in the corner of my mouth always gave me away.

"Stop it!!!" he'd beg.

But I couldn't help it.

Or maybe I could.

As I stood there in the bathroom laughing, my skin prickled with the cold, the horse just kept staring at me and I wondered if I was losing my mind and begin to cry in a heap on the floor.

As I stand to pull the blind down on the darkening day, I look for the horse once more but can no longer see him. I start to wonder if I'd imagined him, hoping I could convince myself my dead boyfriend had come back as a horse with dodgy hair.

I draw three X's in the condensation on the glass and watch as the water runs down the darkening pane of glass. I love you, I say silently over and over in my mind, as if he can hear me.

"If you're here baby, leave me a kiss. Please. Just one kiss. Please." I beg, staring at the dripping kisses, as if sheer will alone could magically make one more appear before my very eyes.

Eventually, I scold myself, pulling the blind cord vigorously, no longer able to look at the three lonely kisses and their absent companion's unwillingness to comfort me.

"You're losing your fucking mind," I say to myself and walk out of the room, turning out the light and slamming the door in disgust.