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Three weren’t suitable because people were staying in them, evidenced by the cars and Jeeps parked outside.
Of the other three, one looked uninhabited – but there were a couple more cabins down the road that were inhabited. I didn’t care for nosy neighbors stopping by, so that one was out.
There was another that could have been a good fit, but it was even smaller than my place. I did not relish the idea of spending another night in the same bed as Lucia, so I ruled that one out.
The final option was huge – at least twice as big as my cabin, which probably meant at least two bedrooms. No car, no neighbors, plus the windows were dirty and covered with cobwebs, meaning no one had been there for a while.
There was a small barn out back that was big enough to house a couple of horses, though it looked like it had been empty for years.
One other factor in my decision: the sun had already slipped behind the mountains. It would be another hour before it finally set, but the light was fading fast, and the temperature was falling even more rapidly. I could tell it would be a cold one, even colder than last night.
Which meant we really couldn’t gamble on walking another mile or two.
So it was either this place or the tiny cabin we’d passed half an hour before.
I decided on this one.
“Are you serious?!” Lucia asked disdainfully.
“It’s big enough that there should be a separate bedroom for you,” I said.
“What good is that if we’re staying in a shithole?”
“You want to walk back to that smaller cabin we passed half an hour ago, be my guest.”
“It was just a smaller shithole,” she muttered, but she followed me over to the back door.
I tried the handle. Locked.
I searched for a key in the immediate area but turned up nothing.
The door had a window with four panes, so I took out my Glock and used the butt of the gun to smash the glass closest to the lock. I raked out all the tiny jagged pieces sticking up from the wooden frame, then carefully stuck my hand through and unlatched the lock.
We walked in to find a far more rustic cabin than mine, with none of the upgrades I’d spent tens of thousands of dollars on. All the walls looked rough-hewn, and the furniture had a fine layer of dust over everything.
“Jesus,” Lucia muttered as I set down my backpack, rifle, and the canisters of water. “I didn’t know when I called it a ‘shithole’ that I was being generous.”
I flicked a light switch –
And nothing happened.
“This gets better all the time,” she groaned.
“Hold on,” I said.
I searched in the nearest pantry – which was completely devoid of food – and found the fuse box. But there was a problem.
“Looks like mice might have chewed through the electrical lines,” I said.
“Mice?!” Lucia yelled.
“What, you think a place out in the woods isn’t going to have mice?”
“Yours didn’t!”
“Mine was built up off the ground, and I made sure every nook and cranny was sealed off. This place is different.”
“Yeah, it’s different, all right,” she muttered.
