Shared Cabin Rentals and Bobcat Mating Calls
Shared Cabin Rentals and Bobcat Mating Calls
The surprising discoveries you make when vacationing with other couples.
The remote cabin in the woods had one bathroom located just off the living room, with a minuscule standing shower that could fit two squirrels and a baby badger, no more. It was clean but spare, decorated in a forest’s worth of pine wood. Balanced precariously on the pedestal sink was a bar of artisanal soap lightly furred with dust, and a hand towel reading “Life’s Better in the Woods.”
Normally the one bathroom would not be an issue, except that the couple we were sharing the cabin with, Randy and Charla, decided to rush into it together as soon as we arrived, giggling about whether they could both fit under one shower head. And since the cabin was completely uninsulated, we could hear every moan and slap coming from that 25-square-foot makeshift bordello.
Listen, I like a good romance novel as much as the next reader. But I really don’t want to be living in someone else’s romance novel. Yet, this is the risk you take when vacationing with another couple, especially if you choose to share tight lodgings.
In theory, it sounds like a good idea to vacation with a couple. It is a good idea sometimes. You get to spend time with your friends, save money, and make lifelong memories. What’s not to like? But you definitely can’t go into the experience with your eyes closed (as my husband and I did when Randy ran out of the bathroom holding a washcloth-sized towel over his bits). You must vet the other couple with the precision of a Pentagon official. Does their noise tolerance level match yours? Do they enjoy wandering around in the nude? Will they help with the clean-up or at least not hinder you by making out right in front of the dishwasher like a Midwestern Kourtney and Travis?
Randy and Charla had two decades on Dan and me, but they had the handsy, mischievous enthusiasm of teenagers sweating hormones out of their toenails. They’d entered that flushed phase of their relationship where they’d decided to be exclusive, but everything was still new enough to warrant a lot of fanfare. Honestly, I love that phase, and I love seeing my friends so giddy with love-lust. But our cabin was really small. Too small for pheromones and comfort.
“Are they done showering yet?” I muttered to Dan. “I really have to pee.”
He gestured expansively at the woods outside. “Take your pick of a tree.”
We tried to escape to the hot tub, but it was broken, letting out forlorn burps where there should have been a cyclone of scalding bliss. We’d forgotten to bring books. There was no cable television and our phones had but a flickering bar of service. The mosquitoes had begun to descend. Looking out past the porch of the cabin, I realized how very far away from civilization we were in the Appalachian foothills. I shivered.
“Did you know there are ghosts in these woods?” Dan asked, looking out into the black night, absent even of a moon for light.
I looked at him severely. “You are making this up.”
Then he proceeded to tell me the lore of the land he’d lured me to (“It’ll be fun! We’ll take nature hikes! Build a bonfire at night!”). Somewhere close to us, there was a humongous beech tree carved with the words “This is the road to hell.” Satanic cults had made the nearby caves their meeting grounds. It’s said that one could still find evidence of burned-down black candles and blood-scrawled messages. There are reports of campers who can hear the cries of a young boy who’d fallen to his death from a cliff.
The most terrifying tale Dan offered up was one of Richard Rowe, an 18th-century trapper who’d wandered the overhangs with his hound and a rifle. He’d accidentally shot himself and was discovered much later at the mouth of a cave now called Old Man’s Cave. Visitors report seeing Old Man Rowe and his dog haunting the woods surrounding. Some claim to hear the faraway howl of Rowe’s hound in the middle of the night, plaintively searching for his ghostly master.
“But, I mean, it’s just a legend,” Dan said. “Nothing to worry about.”
I just stared at him, then turned on my heel and went back to our now steamed-up cabin living room.
Later, freshly showered, with our bladders duly relieved, the four of us ate pasta and played card games into the night. Over bars of fancy dark chocolate, we chattered about our upcoming plans for the summer and laughed so hard our bellies began to ache. There was no talk of ghosts, no talk of the shower shenanigans. Just a normal evening between friends. We waved goodnight and went to our respective rooms, snuggling into the scratchy sheets.
It was a perfect night, the kind we imagined when we decided to vacation together.
And then came the scream.
At 2 a.m., I heard a combination of sounds so terrifying that I jolted upright from our narrow twin bed. First, there was a high, drawn-out scream. Not the yelp of a kid having a good time, or even the ordinary cry of someone who’d accidentally come across a raccoon nest in their nightstand. It was a murderous howl.
Then, right after the scream, there was a series of thumping footsteps right outside our window, the sound of someone running fast and frantically. A person in pursuit.
It all happened so fast that I wondered if it was a dream. But then I saw my husband fumbling for his shoes.
“Did you hear that?” I whispered.
He nodded grimly. “Get away from the windows, please.”
“It’s Old Man Rowe!” I yelled, pressing my nose to the glass panes.
He ignored me and went to the main area of the cabin, where Randy and Charla were already standing in their pajamas, equally wide-eyed and rumpled.
The scream rang again, slightly farther away this time, but no less panicked.
What happened next is a perfect encapsulation of our four personalities, each reacting in a way most intuitive to us. Randy, in true alpha style, ran outside without another word, following the noise with nothing but his flannel joggers and his bare hands. My husband, the cautious planner, began locking all the windows and looking for weapons, muttering about strategies for fending off intruders. (We had nothing more than a grill spatula and some old Friends DVDs.) I—the unhinged and self-interested one—shouted “Murder!” once, unhelpfully, then padded to the bathroom to pee. I figured I was better in a crisis if my basic needs were met.
While washing my hands—because hygiene must be observed in all circumstances—I scowled at the hand towel reading “Life’s Better in the Woods!” False fucking advertising.
When I came out, Charla hauled me to the couch, where she said plaintively, “I need a hug.” I put my arm around her, and her hands wrapped one of mine in an iron grip. I briefly speculated on whether I should tell her about Old Man Rowe, then decided against it, patting her gently on the head as if she were a kitten in need of reassurance. Despite my normally undemonstrative nature, I was comforted by her warmth. I was also paralyzed by my own indecision. We were sitting ducks—well, except for Randy tearing through the woods, like a streaker during Woodstock.
Should we run? We had nowhere to go and it was pitch dark. We couldn’t even call anyone, because cell service was so spotty. Should we get in the car and drive around? Seems like the makings of a horror movie. The definition of “fuck around and find out.”
Outside, there was no more screaming, only velvety silence broken up by the occasional hoot of a barred owl. Randy stomped back into the cabin with the vigorous air of one who’d just placed in a 5K. He shrugged as he examined his scratched-up ankles. My husband was still wielding the grill spatula.
“I think it was an animal,” Randy said. “I saw tracks. Not the human kind.”
“What if it was a ghost?” I demanded. “Or a ghost hound?”
“Well, even if it were, we can’t really do anything about that,” my husband said rationally.
After some conversation, our foursome decided that the scream likely didn’t come from a person in need. There was no sign of distress. The sounds had stopped. Randy, our outdoorsy expert, assured us that there were tons of animals making noises in the woods at night. Just a normal part of living so close to nature, city slickers. (He did not say that last part, but it was implied.)
Sheepishly, we looked at each other and laughed. Sometimes, there’s nothing more terrifying than your imagination.
Before going to our separate rooms, Charla asked if we should all sleep together that night, cramming into one bedroom. Safety in numbers. (I said no, rationalizing that if I get axed to death, I might as well be in a comfortable sprawl when it happens, not pressed up against my friends like sardines in a tin.) We went back to bed and slept fitfully through the night, though there were no more mysterious sounds to keep us up.
In the morning when we woke, the day was sunny. We made breakfast, then hiked to Old Man’s Cave, through a deep gorge lined with sandstone. It was impressive and extremely unhaunted. As I touched the walls of the cave, I thought of all the people who’ve lived and died in these hills. Their everyday lives brushing against the magnificent beauty and terror of the natural world.
Days later, after the four of us returned to our cushy lives in the city, we researched the middle-of-night screaming. We came to the conclusion that it was a bobcat mating call, a caterwauling so close and passionate that it mimicked a woman’s horrified scream. The male bobcat cries are intended to beckon to female bobcats, who would in turn respond with their own howls of desire. The thumping outside our window was likely a larger bobcat in hot pursuit of his mate.
Romance in the woods is not, evidently, restricted to humans in tiny standing showers.
I first felt relieved at this discovery, then unnerved. Bobcats aren’t huge, but it was probably a good idea that none of us encountered one in heat—especially not barefoot Randy who would have likely tried to wrestle it to the ground. In the end, it was a light scare, and one that made for a good story. Over the years, we often turned to one another and asked, “Remember the bobcat?” Or simply exclaimed, “Murder!” without context. It was our insider joke, a near-miss that really wasn’t so threatening after all.
Even though I’m not in touch with Randy and Charla anymore, I can’t help but think of that trip with great affection, especially the feeling of holding Charla in my arms, knowing that the only comfort we really get in this life is the kind we offer to one another.
That said, I have not rented a cabin since. Ghost hounds and bobcat screams are no joke.
Recent Notables
Reading
Books:
My Killer Vacation by Tessa Bailey: a spicy romcom with just a dash of crime mystery.
All This Could Be Different by Sarah Thankam Mathews: a riveting story about a friend group coming of age during an American recession.
All That’s Left Unsaid by Tracey Lien: a reporter returns to her Vietnamese Australian hometown after her brother’s brutal murder to attempt to mine answers from the tight-lipped community. Gripping and very moving.
The Girl Who Drank the Moon by Kelly Barnhill: a charming YA/MG fantasy about a baby left in the woods—and the witch who saves her.
Articles and Poetry:
“The Unbearable Envy of the Published Author” (New York Times): all too relatable.
“The Prairie Wife” (New Yorker fiction): feeding my ongoing fascination with influencers-before-they-were-influencers stories.
“Meetings Are Miserable” (Atlantic): a pithy read on one of the banes of corporate culture.
“Poem of Beginnings” by Ruth Awad: “I am sick of towing my body around, showing it the strange world like a newborn. All this wonder and nowhere to rest.”
Loving
My Peacock subscription, for getting me to the gym regularly. Reality TV alone can make a treadmill jog feel like a good time for me.
Making photo calendars for personalized holiday gifts.
EasyReader Chrome extension for making my online reading a little less distracting.
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So atmospheric today!! So enjoyed it