Maps
#2 of The Getaway (Thriller)
Maps
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Here's another chapter for you, continuing the tale of these two - do tell me what you think! I am ever so curious to know your speculation and your ideas : )
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"Ken?"
He was sitting by the window, staring out onto the lake, when I approached him.
"Hmmmyes?" he mumbled.
"Where are you father's old maps?" I asked as I stepped close to him.
"What?"
"The maps," I said, "when we came here, some time after that, we looked at the maps, and your father had one of the lake area."
Ken scratched his arm, and appeared thoughtful.
"Uh...not on the bookshelf?" he asked.
"I already looked," I replied, "It's what I thought at first."
"Hmmm...how about...well, I think dad had some papers..."
"Well you put the maps somewhere, I remember that much."
"It was five months ago..." he shook his head, "how am I supposed to remember something like that?"
"I really need those maps, Ken," I replied.
"What is it?" he asked, not sounding very interested.
"I want to see what houses are nearby," I said.
Ken's ears flicked up now.
"What are you thinking?" he asked. "Are we going somewhere?"
"Maybe," I replied.
Now even his tail joined into the fray.
"Where are we going?" he hopped down from the window sill and onto the floor, onto bare paws, no matter how much I told him to wear socks. "Are we going soon?"
"I don't know," I said, "I just need to see the maps first."
Ken was all energy, then. In a moment he was bouncing around the cabin, the cluttered living room, through the bookshelves, into the kitchen, then into the bedrooms. I let him do it, considering that it was rare enough to see him like this, and also so that I would not make even further a mess of things. I could clean things up afterwards once he'd lose interest, or simply stop, or maybe even do what he was supposed to do.
"...I think I found it!" he yelped.
I padded out into the bedroom, which was chilly and hadn't been used since we lost electricity and the electric heater would no longer keep in warm. The bed was an empty frame, since we'd taken the big mattress out to living room for our bed, along with much of the bedclothes. The room smelled of empty, and quite damp, because it was not really heated anymore since we moved into the living room that we could still keep comfortable with the fire.
Ken was standing by the dresser, with the top drawer open, and clutching some papers.
"Here!" he declared in the dimly lit room. "I think this is it. He keeps all the papers here, and other stuff, too, it's quite the mess here..."
"Let's go and check it out," I said.
We went back to the living room and sat down, the curtains drawn, so that sunlight still cast itself onto the table. It was not bright, just the grey kind of light one could expect at this time. There'd be perhaps another hour or so before darkness would fall.
I went through the papers slowly while Ken walked around, tail swiping the air excitedly.
"So what are you looking for?" he asked me after a minute or so, impatiently.
"A map," I said, "the one I saw before."
I leafed through what looked like old yellowed deeds for the house and the land, and moved on. There was a folded piece of paper that seemed promising, and sparked a memory. It probably was it.
"Ah, here we are..."
I spread the paper carefully onto the table. It was an official-looking thing, with stamps and all. It showed the lake and the various levels of depth on it, which was certainly useful information when it came to fishing, but it was not what I was looking for now.
Ken's paws appeared on my shoulder and he breathed noisily as he leaned over me.
"What is it?"
"Here's the lake," I tapped it out, "Lake Marcus..."
"Where's us?" Ken asked.
"Here," I tapped a small black rectangle on the northern shore of the lake, "that's the house."
"And that's the road..." he pointed it haphazardly, "but it's all snowed shut, isn't it? No snowplows going at this time."
I didn't want to tell him that there hadn't been a single snowplow in the entire winter, but that was too obvious for us to even discuss it now. It'd just upset him.
"We wouldn't be taking the road," I said, "we have to walk, anyway, because we don't have skis."
"Walk where?"
"I'm trying to figure that out," I rumbled while studying the map and its many markings.
"The map doesn't show the town," Ken mused.
"No, the town is further away, this just shows the lake area," I said.
"But there's not much here," he said, "dad always kept telling me, nobody else for miles. There's that old abandoned farm up the road from here which we pass when coming here, but besides that, there's not really much else."
"What about these?" I pointed out further rectangles on the map, on the western bank of the lake, beyond the bend.
"Hmmm...what's the name..." Ken mused.
"You know the place?"
"This old fox guy called Wilcox has a cabin there, yeah," he said, "and a couple of boats. You'd see them pretty often on the lake. Likes to fish."
"Do you know him?"
"Dad does," he replied after a pause, "I've seen him a few times on the fishing shop, too."
"What kind of a cabin is it?" I asked.
"Uh...I never was there but I've seen it from a boat...uh...a small wooden thing?" he said. "Don't know if he has electricity or anything there, it looked pretty old-fashioned, not like this place."
"How much would he stay there?"
"How am I supposed to know?" Ken huffed. "I remember seeing him on the lake pretty often when we were here when I was a kid. He'd drive on a small motor to this part, too."
I slowly drew the distance between our house and the cabin on the other side of the lake, with my fingers.
"Would that be...what...a mile, two miles?"
"I suppose."
"It'd be quite the walk," I said," a lot of snow on the lake."
"You want to go to Wilcox's place?" Ken breathed into my ear.
I looked up to him and nodded, simply.
"But why?" Ken asked me with a frown. "He's not there. We would've seen smoke, wouldn't we, if he was heating the cabin."
"That's what I'm counting on," I said, "we can't go anywhere with other furs there. But if that's an empty cabin, there might be supplies there."
"Supplies?" Ken's ears jerked back and forth. "You're giving a strange vibe there."
He laughed nervously, but I wasn't in the mood for laughing.
"You know that we're running out of everything," I told him as bluntly as I knew how to, "there's hardly any food left, and we're low on soap and - "
"And toothpaste and pad cream," Ken filled in, "and chocolate...I haven't had any chocolate since forever."
"We're out of chocolate, too," I said. "I know."
"So what are you planning?"
"I want to go there and see if there's useful stuff there," I replied.
"You want to steal old Wilcox's stuff?" Ken sounded incredulous.
"If there's food and useful things sitting in a cabin two miles from here and nobody is using it, I'm going to take it for us," I told him sternly.
"What about Wilcox?"
"Well he's not going to use it, is he, if he's not there?"
"But it's still stealing."
I shook my head.
"If you insist, we'll leave a note there saying we borrowed the stuff, and promise to pay for it?"
"So you want me to come too?"
"Didn't I say that from the beginning?" I replied. "Two furs can carry more stuff than just one. And it'll be safer that way, too."
"Safer?" he frowned. "You don't think it'd be dangerous, somehow?"
"Anything can happen out there," I growled, "I'd rather not go alone."
"So how are we even going to do it?"
"I told you, we'll walk," I said, "across the lake, and back. It'll take a few hours, I think."
"So when would we go?"
"Maybe tomorrow, if the weather is good. But we'll have to see in the morning. We'd have to leave as soon as the sun rises, so that we'll be back before it gets dark. I don't want to get stuck out there in the dark. It's too dangerous."
"So you really think something bad could happen?"
"I already told you," I sighed, "it's too dangerous, because of the weather, the snow, and everything. Who knows who moves there. Or what."
"We haven't seen anyone here the whole time!" Ken yelped. "And nobody else since the last time in town. Don't you think we'd seen someone, if someone really was here, besides us?"
"We can't know for sure," I said, looking at him carefully, "just because we haven't seen anyone doesn't mean someone could be there."
"Someone dangerous..." Ken left the words hanging in the air.
"That's why we can't afford to second guess, or take risks."
"I don't know..."
I knew I had to resort to other kind of strategies here.
"There might be shampoo," I said.
His eyes seemed to light up.
"You think?" he asked, sounding excited, good and honest.
"I'm pretty sure," I lied. I'd settle for a small pump bottle of paw soap, if it came to that when rummaging through poor Wilcox's fishing hut.
"So can we really go tomorrow?" he asked.
"If the weather is good, and nothing crops up," I said.
"I can't believe we're really going out," he said.
"It's about time we did," I said as I folded the map carefully and put it aside. "I feel like hot water now. I think I'll put some on."
"Oh, yes!" he was smiling, too.
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Thank you for reading!