Sandy went first, everyone begrudgingly saying they would give this a try. She knew the opening verses of The Illiad and The Odyssey by heart, something she said made her a natural to go first.
She sat cross legged on a pile of yoga mats she had unrolled onto the open floor of the tower office. "Please don't tell Meg I moved her mats without asking. I'll wipe them down and everything once we are done." Everyone knew what this meant. The gym teacher had an uncanny ability to know the inventory of every ball and roller scooter and jump rope in the school. Growing up she had worked at her parents video store in a small VT town and knew everyone's phone numbers by heart.
Sandy got some polite smiles and acknowledgements. John Johnson, on a brief break from keeping the boiler running, feigned zipping his lips and tossing the key.
Sandy looked at the group and the Yellow lights of the ceiling flickered against her glasses. "OK, so here is what I got...
I grew up in a town called Nelsonville, OH which was in between Logan and Athens, where Ohio University is. It's the part of the state where you are far away from any of the major cities and it's not defined by any river or lake or farm field but by hills. There is not much to do in Nelsonville from October to May. During the summer, it's great. Hocking Hills and hiking and outdoorsy stuff. There are rental cabins everywhere and even my parents dabbled in it until my younger brother was born and it was a lot to keep two households and two kids and full time jobs. My dad worked grounds at Hocking College and my mom worked at Peoples Community Credit union. Nothing high powered but it was a lot especially in high season.
These cabins are very popular on AirBNB and VRBO. All those vacation apps. So, it's easy to find them but you also can spot them since the cars change every couple of days. Some different car in the driveway every weekend. Things like that.
So, when we were bored in high school, which was often, we cruised the cabins and tried to see if we could sneak back to use their hot tubs. Not all of them had them but most did. They were usually well hidden from the road but you got the lay of the land pretty quick.
We would idle on the road and have someone sneak back. We would call sometimes and ask "Oh are you booked?" Or message on the apps using phony accounts. We did our due diligence to see if we were ok beacuse we did not want someone shooting us or anything like that.
Just the aching Nissan Sentra of my neighbor, Christy, and four of us jammed into it. We were all in swim suits and one guy, Jason, insisted on always being shirtless. We are driving down Sr691 to take a turn onto Blue Ash road or Opossum Hollow looking like it's Santa Monica. And it's March because it's spring break. My senior year.”
“When did you graduate high school again?” Alexis asked.
“2015. I did take a year between it and college to work for and save money to pay for tuition. Anyway, we find a place. The Arrowhead. It's this log cabin in all blonde wood and big floor to ceiling glass windows. It faces an actual triangle shaped and inside it has at least three mounted deer heads”
Sandy leaned forward clutching a bunched up hoodie in her hands and then sliding it through her fingers.
“The Arrowhead was the place to hot tub jump. It was off the main road down a dipping driveway that cuts through a mess of tangled trees. It's like driving into a mess of wires. We didn't even drive. We parked on the road and then ran down the driveway. If not we would be trapped.”
Zoey crossed her arms. The tower windows let all the cold in. They were single pane and striping long dry rotted away. She imagined Sandy freezing running down this driveway in beach get ups. whether it was the actual temp or something psychosomatic, she felt it at the center of her chest and creeping across her skin.
“This day, it's perfect. It's cold but not like today. No snow and plenty of sun. Arrowhead a dead give away. If it was Tuesday and there were no garbage cans on the main road then it was a good chance it was empty. Jason goes and check and he does this in just board shorts and sneakers. We wait in the car blasting heat and smoking cigarettes out the wide open windows. It feels like hours but we see his long arms wave us from bottom of the dip. The coast is clear." Sandy stops and flits her eyes almost as if she were digging for the memory.
Zoey still kept her arms against herself. Why was she so cold? "Wait, wouldn't the hot tub be freezing? Do people leave them running? My aunt had one growing up and it took forever to warm up."
"Oh, they were often. Some folks left the idling and that was nice. It was more about saying you did it. Again, we were very bored and cell service, still today, is awful in that part of Athens County. We just wanted to say we did it and maybe snap some pics to share. Like, we got into the Arrowhead!"
Zoey nodded and also brought her legs against herself.
"Ok, so to the good part! Jason did jack the hot tub up. This one was in economy mode." She looked at Zoey and smiled "Lucky us." She then threw her eyes to the whole group. "So we jumped in. I dropped my head under the water, on a dare since it was still lukewarm, and when I came up, I could see someone in the cabin."
Alexis interrupted "Oh please don't tell me they shot at you."
"Yeah, serpentine bob and weave, Sandy" Carlos said trying to get a laugh
"No. My entire body froze. Imagine dropping a log into a pond and how it bobs up and down until it just floats? That was me. Except this person was more a figure. All black except for this tan and brown floral dress. It, she, did not seem to have hair or eyes. It just stood there."
No one said anything, the silence suggesting to keep going
"I grab Christy and say 'Someone is in the house!' Everyone loses their mind panicking until there is no one in the plate glass window on the upper deck. Instead, the figure, the woman, is now maybe 10 feet away from us, behind the sliding glass doors to the deck. She bangs on the glass and everyone is locked onto her. At this distance we can see her face. Its ancient and injured and her lips curled back to reveal a mouth full of nothing but canine teeth. She rocks back and forth, palming the glass with increasing aggression. When she hits the glass, scabs of skin fall off her arms. She starts to gnash her teeth and her mouth is black framed by the gleaming teeth. That all seems unhurt and powerful on her, against the broken burnt skin of her body.
Sandy pauses again and drinks from a tumbler holding a mango hard seltzer. Before all this Carlos had come back from the bodega in a walk that took an hour to go a few blocks.
"We all pour over each other trying to get out of the tub. There is no decorum and consideration. We don't care about the cover. Don't care that we left towels there. It is just grab your phone and scream down the driveway. Like, I'm in a two piece and have one flip flop on. When we dive into Christy's car, I have mud all over my legs and gravel that flew up from the driveway and into my hair.
"Did she chase you?" John had been silent through all of this.
"No. Or, I didn't notice. Christy blasted down the road with the side doors still open and we never went back to the Arrowhead."
***Writer's Note: It likely does not seem like it, but, for this bit of fiction, I did sketch out a rough set of ideas. This last bit is where it ends. The combination of being forty, everyday responsibilities (the adulting as the kids say), and easy distractions of short form content and video games also work against me in trying to do anymore. In addition these are the "shitty first draft" versions of everything and ones written in isolation. Don't count it out, but likely will be much more infrequent and likely less serialized. ***
