The driveway was about a hundred meters long and ended at a massive house. It was clear that no one had lived there for quite some time. In front of the house, in what could be considered its front lawn, copses of weeds also broke up the cement of the driveway. The house had a front porch that extended across the entire width and was covered in dirt and leaves. The porch even had one of those swinging benches, but one side had broken off and was lying on the ground. Even though the house was a brown paneled wood with green trim for blending into the area, it was clearly covered in dirt. The thick grime was especially visible on the windows. However, all the windows seemed to be intact, at least in the front.

“As long as there aren’t any giant creatures on the inside, this place looks perfect,” I said, half-jokingly. Melody frowned at my comment about giant creatures, and my heart dropped to the pit of my stomach. “Will we find any giant creatures?” I asked her.

“I don’t know what’s in there,” she replied. “But, I think that we should probably scout around the outside of the house and peer in all the windows first. I’m not going in there without checking.”

“Well, what kind of giant creatures could we find in there?” I asked.

She looked at me for a moment, her eyes glazed over as she recalled some distant memory. “Do you really want to know?” She asked.

I didn’t really want to, but I didn’t want to find out later, so I nodded my head for her to tell me.

She let out a breath. “Spiders,” she expelled.

“On second thought, I don’t think I like this place,” I said.

---

Thank God, there were no giant spiders; I would’ve had to kill it with fire and burn the entire house down. I’m not scared of spiders, but I usually leave them alone. But, those spiders are tiny ones that hang out in dark corners and eat bugs. Who knows that giant spiders eat? I would have assumed a giant spider would eat a squirrel, but after seeing a squirrel, I just don’t know anymore.

We meticulously searched the perimeter of the property, and once we found that it was clear, we moved closer and searched the outside of the house. We peeked into every window, wiping the years of grime away and looking for any type of giant creature that might want to kill us. We couldn’t see up into the second-floor window, and it also seemed like there was some type of attic, but the first floor looked clear, so that was a start.

We decided to go into the house through the back door. There were more windows in the back, so we could see where more things were. I checked the back door to see if it was locked before using my power, it was, but it only took me a moment to unlock it.

The door creaked loudly as it slowly opened. It didn’t want to move since the hinges were rusty with years of disuse. It was so loud, I decided to wait at the entrance and see if anything was rustled up by the noise. While waiting, I peered around to get a better look as sunlight flooded in. The back door opened up into a large kitchen and dining area that was covered in a thick layer of dust. Cobwebs filled nearly every corner. But, as they were struck by a light wind streaming through the open door, they were torn to shreds. From where I was standing in the doorway, I could see a couple of areas. The dining room table was still present and covered with a transparent tarp. Apparently, the owners were planning on coming back and didn’t want to deal with the dust.

The rest of the house was similar to the dining room, dust covered just about every surface, cobwebs hung in the corners, and most of the large furniture was covered with tarps. We looked around for signs of an attic entrance, and after a couple of minutes, I found it. It was one of those built into the ceiling, and a cord is used to pull it down. Unfortunately, it didn’t have a cord, so we decided to leave it alone. None of us wanted to go up there anyway.

The house smelled like dust and mildew, and there were some interesting, to say the least, growths in the bathroom. After we were done clearing all the rooms, we opened the windows to let it air out. After that, we took off all the tarps. When we brought everyone back, we wanted to have places to sit and plan.

Clearing and cleaning the house took us a few hours. By the time we were done, the shadows were growing long on the ground. We were happy with the house and talked about ways to defend it while we cleared it.

We headed back to town afterward, this time following the road instead of cross-country. I wanted to see the path up to it and know how long it was since we had to move everyone out of the hotel and back to the house. It would be a lot better for everyone to travel on the road than going through the woods at night. I was worried that there might be some type of giant owl that could swoop down and snatch us up. I brought this concern up to Melody.

“No, most of the birds didn’t gain that much size, so they wouldn’t try to snatch us,” she said, but she did, however, look down at her brother. “Also, I’ve never heard of a giant owl, just sonic ones.”

I rubbed the bridge of my nose. “We’re going to have a sit down when all this is over, and you are going to have to tell us all the weird creatures you know about.”

“Why do you think they didn’t tell you anything about this?” She asked.

“I think they told some of us in the camp, but not the majority of us. Definitely not us.” I gestured to myself, John, and Randy, to imply all the Carpenters. “I know they did it to control us, but I’m not really sure why they decided to keep this type of information from us.”

We all lapsed into silence as we continued to walk back. I really couldn’t understand what the cadre’s reasoning was by withholding this information. As I thought about it, it made more sense to tell us, then we might feel the need to be more reliant on them. I knew I would have been a lot more apprehensive about escaping if I knew there were giant squirrels, sonic owls, and shiver-inducing chipmunks running around. I wondered if they trying to protect us, but that made this whole mess that much more confusing.

We rounded a final bend in the road as the sun shone the last light of the day over the mountains. The mountainside was blanketed in darkness as the red glow of the sun shined behind it. The red horizon faded into purple as it reached the sky, and the moon’s crescent glow illuminated the heavens with a star accompaniment. As we approached the hotel from the opposite direction we had left, I could see a lone figure standing a little ways off, looking at the rise of the hill.

Sarah waited diligently for us to return, and I wondered if she had been there the whole time worrying. It seemed like something she would do. I signaled to the others to be quiet and slowly walked behind her. She didn’t seem to notice as I got as close to her as I could.

“What are you looking at?” I asked loudly.

She jumped, screamed, and spun around all at once. “What the hell, Aidren?” She yelled, looking furious. We all laughed at her reaction. “It’s not funny,” she said and stormed off into the hotel.

I turned to the others with a smirk and then followed her inside, contrary to what Sarah said, it was funny, but we had work to do.

When we stepped into the hotel, everyone was in the lobby and ready to go. It didn’t take us too long to get everyone moved over to the cabin, and this was really a testament to Sarah’s leadership.