The sound of tires on gravel echoed in the air as a lone, dented silver car drove down the dirt road. As it turned to enter an unpaved driveway, the rented trailer it was pulling barely avoided dipping into the ditch before righting itself.
As he felt the trailer jump back into place, the man driving the car cursed at the near accident. Unable to see how far it was, he spun the driving wheel to keep from going over. With the wheels spinning to stay grounded, he eventually managed to straighten out and stay on the path.
With the car now still, the man rolled his window down and looked at the ground. He glanced between the wheel and the edge. After some rapid glances, he let out a sigh, before finally leaning back in his seat. “Shit, that was too close,” he cursed to himself, and slumped in his seat in frustration. He took in deep breaths, and looked up the driveway. Seeing no more obstacles, he continued to drive up the dirt path undeterred.
The driveway flattened out as he pulled into the parking area, and he gently pulled into place next to a large, deep-blue pickup truck. As the engine died down, the man stepped out of the car and looked up at the place. With it being two stories tall, worn windowsills, and a faded blue coat of paint, it definitely could use a fresh look. However, despite the broken looks, it definitely held up strong out in the countryside. At least, from what he had heard…
“Hello the house! Is anyone still haunting the place?” he shouted, pitching his head back like a town messenger calling for all to hear.
The floorboards creaked inside the house, before a burly bearded bear of a man stepped through the doorway. “Troy, what the hell took you so long?!” the man exclaimed, stomping down the steps and up to the man before wrapping him up in a bear hug that nearly crushed him, “I thought I was gonna starve with how long I’ve been waiting for ya!”
The brown-haired man let out a wheeze as the air was squeezed out of his lungs, but hugged the man back with pinned arms. “Sorry about that, Carter. Unfortunately, work and traffic held me back longer than planned,” Troy said, slipping out of the crushing hug after several seconds before reaching back into the car.
Seeing Carter nearly groan at the sight of a paper bag that had grease soaking through the sack, he handed it to the eagerly salivating man before lugging his own bag off the passenger seat. “Anyways, I still have some things I need to haul in from my car. Think you can help me with that?” he asked, throwing some extra bags over his shoulders before dragging it towards the house.
“Sure thing, cuz. Lemme just gobble this down first,” Carter said, tearing a cheese-stuffed monster of a burger out of the bag. As the beefy man began wolfing down his heart attack on a bun, Troy trudged his way over to the door before shoving it open.
As Troy entered the cabin, his sight partially obscured by his load, he walked past the boxes covering the floor and counters before setting the boxes down next to the stove. Glancing around the corner into the living room, he winced at the sight of boxes piled haphazardly on the couch and all over the room, but lacking one vital item. “Hey, Carter, where did you put my wifi router?” he asked, twisting around to look at the ravenous man.
“I pu’ id by da kitc’en an’ basement ‘oor,” Carter shouted back, making Troy’s face squirm in disgust at the muffled words. However, as he walked back into the house, he carefully walked around the makeshift cardboard maze. The stacks of boxes didn’t even reach his waist, but the placement meant he had to stretch at times to keep from sending boxes flying everywhere.
After doing a rough limbo through the house, Troy finally found a few boxes next to the stovetop. It took several minutes for him to find the right box, but he gave a cry of triumph when he pulled the router out. With it held overhead, Troy walked over to the nearest table and soon plugged it into the wall.
Troy waited patiently for the internet to boot up, the router’s lights blinking an optical dance. As the last few buttons neared activation, he jolted in shock when his hamper full of folded clothes was dropped next to him.
“Gotta say, I’m surprised you managed to get this place so easily right out of college,” Carter commented as he moved stuff around.
Troy snickered at that and stood up on shaky feet before walking with Carter to the car. “What can I say? The stock market got easy to follow when the pandemic hit,” he responded, reaching past Carter to grab his cooking supplies, “Though remote classes meant I could spend more time tracking the market between classes.”
Carter chuckled at that and grabbed several boxes. “That sounds like something uncle Eric would’ve been behind,” he commented, hauling the load back inside. Troy paused at his comment as memories came flooding back and looked down at the ground. His face contorted in multiple emotions in less than ten seconds, jumping from amusement to nostalgia to sadness, before he silently took his selection in.
Between the two of them hauling everything in, it barely took a half-hour before the car was emptied. With a solid thud, Carter dropped the last few boxes down. “Well, I think that’s the last of it,” he commented through deep breaths, taking a few steps back to sit down on the indoor stairs.
As he looked around the room, the decorations being overwhelmingly made of cardboard, he gave Troy a sheepish grin. “I know that the place is rather barren, but we had to sell most of it to cover for the funeral and keep bills paid,” he told Troy, and glanced upstairs in concern. “I mean, the bed’s still here, along with the cooking and cleaning appliances. But you might have to go shopping for a new couch or chairs.”
Troy frowned at the comment but let out a sigh after several seconds of contemplation. “Well, I guess that’s better than nothing,” he commented, glancing up at the ceiling. After a few thoughts, he shrugged before he decided, “Well, I can at least make do for a few more days. Thank god for colleges promoting easy-cook meals in their own packages.”
Carter snorted at this, before he stood back up. “I suppose that’s one way to look at things,” he muttered as he dusted himself off, then commented, “Still, there’s bears and wolves that wander around here, so I left ya something in the pantry if any show up. You better lock your trash away just on the safe side, though.” After a few minutes, the last few boxes had been dragged in, and the car had been easily unpacked.
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
“Gotcha, I’ll keep that in mind,” Troy said, pulling his charger out of the last bag before glancing out the window to see the sun setting. “You need anything else tonight, man? Wanna stay the night?”
“Nah, man. I gotta get back to the house anyways. Mom will get pissed if I don’t come back with taco meat for dinner tonight,” Carter refuted, glancing to the south as if he could see the grocery store from here. As he looked back at Troy, a smirk grew on his face before holding out a hand. “However, after being here most of the day, I could use some extra cash for gas on the way home,” he suggested, a smirk growing when Carter gave him a deadpan stare.
“Really, man? After getting you lunch?” Troy asked, glaring up at the bearded man before the two began cackling at the idea. Pulling out his wallet, Troy pulled out a twenty before slapping Carter on the shoulder. “Be sure to drive safe, man,” he told him, before looking over at the pile of boxes as a thought struck him. “Wait, what box did you put my pans in?”
“Oh, they should be halfway up that pile over there,” Carter said, dismissively waving at the far wall as he shoved the cash in his pocket before turning around and heading out the door to the moving truck. “Have a good night, man. Be sure to give us a call if you need anything!”
Troy nodded, giving his cousin a wave as he pulled out. With the dull roar of an engine, Troy was soon the only one left, and looked around the living room. As he checked between a few stacks, he frowned when he found the cleaning chemicals had been set on top of his electronics.
Hissing in frustration, he immediately set the cleaning box down and began to organize them together properly. The cool afternoon breeze helped cut down the sweat as he moved things into set piles. The books all went by the window, while sheets and clothes were ready to go upstairs.
As he lifted up a box full of pots and pans, Troy froze when he saw the picture nearly crushed between the box and the book underneath. He carefully set the cookware down and picked up the portrait. Walking over to the window, Troy propped the copy of Dragonsong up on one corner before he set the picture on the other side. As he checked the frame over for any cracks, a small smile grew at the image of a young brown-haired boy in a water fight with a man twice his size.
Laughter rang around the forest as the kid ran between the trees, an oversized water gun held in both hands. He threw himself forward into a bush and knelt down for safety. For several seconds, he waited for his opponent to show up. However, as the seconds passed, he realized that the forest was quiet. Too quiet…
The hiss through the air was the only warning he got before jets of water hit him in the back. Sputtering, Troy pulled himself out of the bush to hear a low chuckle from behind him.
“I’ll give you props for hiding in the bush, but it doesn’t work when you’re wearing bright orange,” Eric said, his water gun resting on his leg. As he began to pump his water gun back up, the man grinned widely before he told his nephew, “I’ll give you three minutes this time, so you better run!” With a squeal, Troy grabbed his water gun and booked it towards the blue house for safety, the sound of laughter fading behind him.
Troy chuckled at the memory and went back to sorting his objects. As he finished up, all that was left was the cooking tools, the cleaning equipment, and what little food he hadn’t finished before graduation. With the sun still out, he picked the pots up and clumsily lugged them over to the kitchen. As he moved to pick up the cleaning goods though, he frowned at the question of where to put it. He couldn’t put it right with the food, if only to avoid accidental poisoning if something leaks. Maybe in the closet?
After looking around for where to set it down, Troy’s gaze eventually landed on the basement door. He hadn’t really checked down there yet, but there was sure to be a place down there he could set it down. With his arms full, he shambled over to the door and pushed the door open. As the door swung in, he leaned over, only to frown at the sight of a wooden table with several shelves sitting right across from the bottom step.
“I thought Carter said they ran out of tables,” Troy rhetorically mused, and tried to examine it. However, as he looked at it from the top of the steps, he realized it would be rather hard to bring it up, especially when the sides were wider than the stairway…
Letting out a sigh, Troy flicked the light on before slowly taking the first steps downwards. With the box of chemicals obscuring his vision, he failed to realize his steps gradually grew less coordinated the lower he went. It was only when his heel slipped past a step that he realized his misfortune. Troy cursed when his body launched down the steps, and stumbled forwards before falling right onto the table. A resounding crash echoed through the house as he landed. However, all Troy could recognize was the pain all over his back and shoulders, like wrapped in a blanket of deep bruises.
“Owwww…” he wheezed, his lungs empty from the impact. With his whole body aching, Troy was left lying in the debris for several minutes. But as the pain died down, he could at least tell there weren’t any broken bones. His body hurt like a bitch, but he didn’t have a broken rib, since there weren’t any pointy bits rattling inside him.
Once the damage faded to a point it wasn’t crippling, Troy gingerly sat up and pulled his body out of the wreckage. His hands came up and patted his head and neck up and down. When his head came back dry, he sighed in relief before he finally began to look around.
While the fall had scattered all the chemicals, the bottles hadn’t broken open. However, turning around revealed the table had broken under his weight landing on the center. There weren't any splinters sticking up, but it had practically split in the middle, where he had landed.
“Damn, what a waste of good wood,” Troy commented as he knelt down. He was hardly a master lumberjack, but the single-piece desk was several leagues above the press wood tables he had been surrounded with on the campus. As Troy tried to lift the left half up, a faint glimmer of gems caught his curiosity. He snaked his hand under the debris, and with some pawing around, he finally pulled out the oddity.
At first glance, it looked like a bracelet made of cast iron, barely bigger than his own wrist. As he lifted it up though, he let out a low whistle at the sight of blue-green stones set into the metal. Etched vines wove a pattern from one end to the other, holding the gemstones together. It hadn’t collected any rust, but it was something out of a craftsman show.
“I wonder when uncle Eric hid this down here,” Troy mused, examining the bracelet a little longer before he finally put it in his pocket. It was neat, but it wasn’t something to worry about. After some more shuffling around, he finally stood back up and winced at the pain scattered over his back. Even though he couldn’t see it from here, it would probably be best to double-check for any cuts in a mirror…
With a faint limp to his step, Troy hobbled his way up the stairs and immediately went to the west wall. He grabbed a box of bandages and shambled his way to the bathroom. His eyes closed as a bolt of pain hit his lower back, and without looking, he opened the bathroom door. The faint scent of saltwater filled the air as he breathed in, the sound of waves in the distance.
Troy’s eyes re-opened as he realized something was off and looked around. Rather than leading into the inside of the house, the door seemed to lead directly to a marshy, flat area that fit the East Coast better, rather than the dead center of North America. Even with his mind blurred with pain, he could make out a large forest that seemed to stretch for miles, and in the distance, a mountain seemed to slowly slope into a rounded tip.
“...What?” Troy flatly stated, his mind and body frozen up as he tried to process what was going on.