text: [Themes: modern, thriller]
  
  You shake your head at her. "This is nuts. You're nuts." Brushing past her, you step back toward the door. But before reentering the Bear's Den you regard her one last time: the water pouring off the roof of the stoop behind her, some of it dribbling down her back; a distinct expression of disappointment in her eyes.
  
  "The outhouse is right over there. Here, take the flashlight."
  
  Charlei's eyes move away from yours only long enough to catch the little battery-powered light. By the time she has a firm grasp on it, you are opening the door to your camp.
  
  It is a relief to be back in the dry interior of the Bear's Den, but the damage is already done: water has seeped through both slippers, and your left elbow is soaked. All you really want right now is that beer you left on the table — and to be left in peace beside the woodstove, just as you had planned when you decided against making the drive back to Rochester.
  
  There is a slight problem, though: Gordy is now leaning against the table, almost in the same way you had been a few minutes ago. Your beer bottle is just behind him; his own is still sitting on the floor beside the wood chair.
  
  "Did Charlei find the outhouse all right?" he asks, his gaze fixed on you. A killer? Of your patience, maybe. Of your faith in other people, quite likely. You feel an intense dislike for him, his wife included, and you regret ever opening that door to let them in. But fear? That was the last thing on your mind — up until the moment Charlei planted the idea there.
  
  "She'll manage," you say.
  
  "You don't like us, do you, Al?"
  
  You weigh your response carefully; maybe you are unable to see how he could be a physical threat, but nevertheless his social skills are beyond "odd." His words, as well as hers, point to a hidden agenda that you haven't even begun to guess.
  
  "You go out of your way not to be liked," you say.
  
  Gordy shakes his head. "Don't take it personally. There's been some trouble between us. In fact, I'm surprised you even came back; I thought for sure she'd tell you something awful about me."
  
  Indeed she did, you think. You look at him anew: a put-upon husband besieged by a flighty wife, perhaps?
  
  "Come, let's have a seat," he says, pushing your beer to the edge of the table, as if making it easier for you to reach. "At least we'll have a couple minutes of quiet before she returns."
  
  You watch as he strolls back to the side of the woodstove, this time taking the folding chair where you had been sitting. He grabs his beer from the floor, then gestures for you to sit in the wooden chair, as if he has suddenly evolved into a normal, considerate human being. And all it took was Charlei's departure.
  
  Admittedly, this is an interesting development. You grab your beer from the tabletop and take your place in front of the woodstove. As you watch, Gordy takes another long swig of the bottle in his hand.
  
  "I take it you're not a fan of Magic Hat?" you say.
  
  "What?"
  
  "The beer. You said a few minutes ago there was something you like better."
  
  Gordy shrugs, like the topic is no longer that important to him. "I don't know. I mean, it's Magic Hat; they got bought out, and it's not even a microbrew anymore."
  
  "The beer still tastes the same to me."
  
  "Does it? That's interesting because I haven't even seen you take a drink since you came back in." Gordy looks down at the bottle in your hand, then back up to you. "So what were you two doing out there in the rain, anyway?"
  
  His stare has suddenly become more intense, as if he is no longer able to conceal the jealousy after having watched you go outside alone with Charlei a few minutes ago. Now you can say that perhaps you are beginning to fear him. You watch him carefully, cautious not to do anything that might betray your current thought process. His body is mostly still, with a casual lean into the back of the chair, legs extended forward. Only his thumb strokes the brown bottle in his hand, leaving a streaky back-and-forth track in the condensation.
  
  I haven't even seen you take a drink since you came back in, he just said. His shadow in the kitchen curtains not even a minute after you stepped out the door; standing at the same table where you had left your beer, then sliding it over to you. As if to make sure you took it.
  
  You had better respond to his question. "She just wanted me to show her where the privy is."
  
  "Why? Is it hidden? Wasn't the flashlight working?"
  
  Clearly, you haven't assuaged his suspicions, and indeed you gave him a pitiful explanation. But the truth—
  
  This isn't a line of questioning you could ever hope to satisfy, so you decide not to even try. You sigh and shrug your shoulders, a pantomime that you hope tells him you're as befuddled by the events of the evening as anyone. It seems to work, because his thumb relaxes as he adjusts his position in the chair and returns his gaze to the woodstove.
  
  Except that you catch him watching you from the corner of his eye, like he is waiting for you to take a sip from the beer bottle in your hands. That's what this is all about, isn't it? Poisoning you here inside your own cabin, then picking the truck keys from your pocket and running off with the Ford? Either you are in a deadly situation here, or you have a wild imagination.
  
  > This is ridiculous. Take a drink and show you're not intimidated.
  These two twits are messing with your mind — what Charlei said out back, what Gordy is doing now. "Goodcheer Fellows," your foot. They are more like a pair of harpies blown in with the storm, sent here by some bored god to torment you for an hour's amusement, or as punishment for some trivial sin.
  
  Therefore it is an act of defiance when you lift the bottle up to your lips and take a long drink of the contents, watching Gordy the entire time. The beer tastes like beer, hoppy and citrusy, with no aftertaste of antifreeze or whatever. Your vision doesn't blur, and no burning pain arises from your stomach.
  
  "You chugged that down pretty fast, Al," Gordy says. He's trying to appear neutral and uninterested, but clearly you had his attention.
  
  "I guess I still like Magic Hat, even if they did get bought up by Genesee." There is not much left inside the bottle, so after taking a breath you finish it off in one prolonged gulp. A bubble of gas forces itself up in the other direction, rising through your esophagus, and when it reaches your throat you make no attempt to throttle the belch it produces. "Man, that was good!" you add for effect.
  
  Gordy looks at you for a moment as if trying to understand you. "Charlei's been gone too long. Excuse me. I need to go find her."
  
  "She's in the privy. Do you really think she needs your help?"
  
  "Hmm," is all he says. He stands up, walks into the kitchen half of the room, sets his unfinished beer on the table where yours had been, and then steps out the back door. The door isn't pulled all the way closed behind him, though, and it quickly swings back open in the wind. Twigs full of leaves blow through the air in the darkness beyond, hinting at Bob's growing turbulence. Gordy is still on the stoop, talking to someone just to the right of the door, out of sight. You understand now: Charlei has been waiting outside all this time. Was she smoking a cigarette... or waiting for something to happen?
  
  When she steps back inside the cabin, with Gordy standing idly to the side of the stoop, probably peeing in the rain, you see no sign of a cigarette in her hand. She looks at you, brow furrowed in an expression of puzzlement. "You should have listened to me," she says, no longer whispering, unconcerned whether her husband can overhear her little conspiracies. "I can't help you anymore."
  
  "Help me do what?" you say, standing up from the chair to confront her. At that moment Gordy steps casually back into the room, zipping up his fly, a fresh coat of rain droplets on his glasses.
  
  "She was trying to give you a sporting chance," he says.
  
  He doesn't elaborate, like he is hoping you'll ask the obvious question — a sporting chance for what? Once more you assess each of your two "guests," who at first had seemed like underprepared travelers in a wild storm, but who are now starting to behave like the storm's human manifestations. Neither spouse seems like an imminent threat, at least not physically, but nevertheless there is something feline in the way Gordy in particular is looking at you — and in this metaphor, that would make you the mouse.
  
  "Now be straight with me," you say, hoping to steer the conversation a bit more than you've been able to do so far. "Who the hell are you guys, and what do you want from me?"
  
  "Good questions, Al," Gordy says, finally closing the door behind him. "Direct and to the point."
  
  "Well?"
  
  "Well, what? Do you need to see our driver's licenses or something?"
  
  "I hope you don't need my birth certificate," Charlei adds. "I don't have one."
  
  "Games!" you say, frustrated with their evasion. "You two do nothing but play games!"
  
  "You're catching on, Al," Gordy says.
  
  "Both of you, you're just children! Spoiled children running—"
  
  "Hey, now," Charlei cuts you off. "I ain't no child! I just turned twenty-five last month."
  
  "Then act like it! Help yourselves for a change! Show some respect when someone helps you!"
  
  "Can you believe this, Charlei? It hasn't even been an hour, and Al here thinks he's got us all figured out."
  
  "It's disgusting," she agrees. "He demands respect as he stands there berating us."
  
  "You know, Al, people like you have no idea how good you've got it. Charlei and I could never have what you have."
  
  "What, are you jealous about my truck?"
  
  "That, this, everything," he says, gesturing to the walls and ceilings around him. "We wanted to settle down, make a life for ourselves, but everything comes with a price tag in this world. There are people who can afford happiness, and there are those who live on their scraps."
  
  "Who the hell do you think I am?" you say. "I work for a living like everybody else. I'm no Bill Gates."
  
  "You know we tried to buy a house last year?" Charlei says, once again taking a step closer to you. "The real estate agent wouldn't even show us any properties, said she couldn't find anything in our 'price range,' whatever she meant by that."
  
  "Yeah, and now good luck trying to find her." Gordy chuckles as he says it, and Charlei can't resist cracking a smile too.
  
  "And here we find you, Al, with not one home but two," she continues. "At least I assume you don't live in this shitty place with no electricity or indoor plumbing."
  
  You don't respond. Really, this whole episode has come about because someone wouldn't sell them a house? This story has to be among the most absurd things they've said so far. Nevertheless, that bit about no longer being able to find the real estate agent is troubling...
  
  > Next page.
  "Sorry if my camp offends you," you say. "But as I recall, no one ever asked you to come."
  
  "It's not your little cabin here that offends," Gordy says. "It's you."
  
  He's standing there, just a foot or so behind his wife, staring at you with a hatred you can't fathom. Seriously, besides the egregious, unforgivable offenses of owning a Ford F150 and a camp in the Adirondacks, what have you done to deserve any of this? Have you met these two people in some previous encounter? Impossible — they don't look even vaguely familiar. But if you've never met before, then how is it possible you've earned their wrath?
  
  "Me? What about me?" you say, stepping back toward your chair.
  
  "You, Al. The very you-ness of you. Everything about you makes me want to gag." He is beginning to spit as he speaks, his rage nearing the boiling point, making him nonsensical.
  
  Charlei is still standing slightly ahead of him, as if she is your only remaining buffer against her husband's growing insanity. "Now, Gordy, he's not all that bad. Al does make me laugh from time to time — don't you, Al?"
  
  Then again, maybe she's just as unhinged as he is.
  
  While you still can't figure out what physical threat these two people represent, their undisguised menace now has you on edge — so much so that your legs are trembling in a way they never have before. Even if you can't understand how Gordy and Charlei might inflict harm, they've made their intent plain to see.
  
  "If I bother you guys that much, then what is preventing you from leaving?" Even to you, the bravado in your voice is forced.
  
  "Have you seen that weather out there?" Charlei says. "It's been getting worse. While I was waiting out there, I could hear trees falling out in the woods. So I'm not going anywhere, not without shelter."
  
  Strange, the storm has been a secondary concern for you tonight, what with these two distractions to deal with. Except for that one brief interlude out on the back stoop, the Bear's Den has been adequately shielding you from its ravages. But at the mention of Bob, you realize that the lower half of your body isn't trembling out of fear: the wind outside is gusting, rattling the entire cabin and everything in it.
  
  But if only Bob was your biggest concern tonight. If only you had been left alone, contemplating the storm's wildness with a beer in one hand and the sports page from that Albany newspaper in the other.
  
  "So, Al, as you may have guessed, we need your keys." Gordy is standing with his hand outstretched.
  
  "Good luck with that," you say, maintaining the false bravado.
  
  "I insist."
  
  "They're mine!"
  
  "Yes, but it just so happens we need them more than you."
  
  His gaze is steady, his rage temporarily — but only just barely — suppressed. Clearly he intends to do more than just ask for your truck keys, and a growing hunch is telling you that the outcome for Al Flansburgh is likely to be the same whether you hand over the keys or not. You need to figure out a way to go on the offensive before Gordy does. But how? Whack him over the head with your grandfather's chair?
  
  "And why do you think that?" you say, hoping to buy moments of precious time while waiting for inspiration to strike.
  
  Gordy frowns. "Al, you just told us to get out of here. And Charlei explained we aren't going out in the storm without something to keep us protected from the rain. Ergo, lend me your keys." He thrusts his hand a few inches closer, waiting expectantly.
  
  "It's a win-win," he adds, as if trying to make a convincing argument before resorting to other means. "You find your peace here, we go away."
  
  Quite likely, he has no idea just how absurd he really is. You can feel the keys against your thigh, safely stowed in your pocket, originally put there only because of the bottle opener attached to the ring. Never could you have suspected how important they would become. Taking another slow step backward, away from Gordy's hand, you bump into the wooden chair.
  
  Charlei is about to speak up when she is cut off by a horrific rumbling sound above you. All three of you reflexively look up, as if you were about to be threatened by some airborne creature trapped inside the room with you. The sound is loud, violent, but also metallic: the sheet metal on the roof, beginning to get ripped apart by the storm. The entire camp shudders, and Gordy's old beer bottle on the table shakes like a wobbly bowling pin grazed by a passing ball.
  
  "What the fuck is that?" Charlei says, stepping back toward her husband.
  
  "I don't know — sounds like this rat hole is falling apart!"
  
  It's almost like Bob and the Bear's Den are coming to your rescue, creating a distraction right at a critical moment. This is your moment to act! But how? Two options come to mind: smash that chair over Gordy's head and end this for good, or simply take these much-coveted truck keys of yours and get out of here yourself.
  
  > take your keys and go.
  When your best options are literally either fight or flight, like a wildebeest in a PBS special, you decide your ability to save yourself will be the more effective of the two, probably, compared to the likelihood of you inflicting harm on someone else, even if that someone is Gordy. So in the split-second of decision time, when the Goodcheer-Fellows are more concerned by the commotion caused by the storm, you dash for the door.
  
  It no longer matters that you're not wearing a jacket; the slippers you've been wearing are already wet, so you have nothing more to lose there, either. Of all the factors that might lead to your untimely death tonight, these two are really quite low on the list.
  
  Charlei and Gordy seem genuinely concerned that this ancient camp of yours is about to collapse on top of them — so much so that they don't notice you stepping toward the same door they first passed through a short time ago. And when it bursts open the moment you turn the handle, the tropical wind filling the camp like a rampaging flood of water, it only seems to add to their momentary state of paralysis.
  
  The bigger problem is that the wind is working against you. It takes your breath away, almost depressurizing your lungs; its physical force is as good as a wall, resisting your efforts just to cross the threshold.
  
  But you have a healthy dose of self-preservation working in your favor, and your leg muscles adjust to this new environment quickly. You jump down the three concrete steps into the two-inch-deep water pooling on the ground, your slippers soaking it up like a pair of sponges. The door flaps open behind you.
  
  It is a wild gale you have thrust yourself into, though, several degrees beyond what it was even a few minutes ago when Charlei was delivering her warning on the back stoop. The wind is literally roaring, as if Niagara Falls stood somewhere above you in the darkness. Trees normally stand vertically, of course, but the shadows you see now are being pushed over at impossibly low angles. If this keeps up, the forest will be flattened — and if you don't get out of here now, you might get flattened with it.
  
  It is enough to give you pause; maybe flight wasn't your best option after all. A large branch has already fallen across the bed of the F150, which is waiting for you right where you left it hours ago, just a few yards from the remains of that dead balsam fir tree your felled this afternoon. Turns out, perhaps, that dead ol' thing — your excuse for coming all the way out here in the first place — may have been the least of your worries today.
  
  Will the truck even start, or has too much rain gotten under the hood? Will the wiper blades be able to clear away the whitish-green leaves that are plastered across the windshield? And if everything does work, will there even be anywhere to go? If the road to town hasn't washed out already, then it may be covered by a forest-full of fallen trees.
  
  Not only is the wind fighting you, but so too is all of the woodsy detritus it has picked up and made airborne: twigs, sticks, leaves, even what feel like knots of stringy lichen. You are getting pelted as if on the losing side of an unfair game of dodge ball. Each step forward is a victory, but it also comes with a cost, as well as the realization that you may have chosen hastily.
  
  The driver's side door of the pickup is facing away from the camp, in the shadows. As you slog through the pooling water you stumble over a fallen branch in your way. Your center of gravity now pitched too far forward, you lurch toward a mass of branches that apparently stand in your way, the branches scraping at your wrists and the wet leaves clinging to your skin. Groping in the darkness, you quickly figure out that the better portion of a yellow birch tree has already come down and fallen against the side of the truck. It's not just a matter of going around it, either: reaching through the broken limbs, you can feel the door handle buried in the mass. Just to get inside the F150's crew cab, you'd have to clear away the tree. It's a project that would probably take an hour under ideal conditions.
  
  The patch of light that has been illuminating even this small corner of the storm goes abruptly dim. Turning, you see that Charlei and Gordy have together managed to close the same door you left open. Apparently they've changed their mind about wanting to leave: after watching you struggle just to advance twenty or thirty feet, your house guests have figured out staying inside is the better choice.
  
  Crap. If you can't get inside the driver's side door, then your only other option is to circle around and try the passenger side. But the wind! Above you it sounds as if someone has opened the spigots to Niagara Falls, as if a 747 were about to crash into the Bear's Den. The trees snap as their tops break off, or as their roots release their final hold on the ground. In a fatal spasm the forest of maple, beech, hemlock, birch, and spruce falls to the ground, as if humbled by the breath of God — uncountable tons of living wood brought to its doom by a storm born days ago off the coast of Africa, crushing everything it falls upon.
  
  And among the carnage is one Al Flansburgh, whose body is found days later in front of the crushed remains of a red Ford pickup, pinned down by the trunk of an old poplar tree. The Hamilton County coroner determines the blow to Mr. Flansburgh's head had been so swift that he likely never knew what hit him.