Birthday Bash

The Travel Logs of Mandy Bowen

August 8th

5:30pm

We have finally arrived! The Dirty 30 birthday crew (including Me, Mikey, Maggie, Casey and Kaye) just pulled into the lake house we will be using this weekend to celebrate my birthday WOOT! This cabin is great, it’s a rustic two story that reminds me of Nana and Papas cabin back in Wisconsin, hand built with the surrounding trees (replanted of course, there’s plenty of nice shade for us and the birds and squirrels). There’s a high-powered telescope in the living room, perfect to watch the lunar eclipse with. The second story has floor to ceiling windows so you can go to sleep with the stars and wake up to the rising sun. There’s two bedrooms upstairs, of course I get one and the couple, Mikey and Maggie, get the other, and all the couches throughout the second-story foyer, living and family rooms can be utilized however between Casey and Kaye.

And of course, we have a wood stove and a four-burner propane gas grill outside on the deck upstairs that overlooks the neighboring lake. This weekend is gonna be lit.

8:30pm

Relaxing after having a delicious dish of ‘chilequenachos ‘a dish improvised by Mr. Juarez, Casey’s dad, that includes nachos, beans, soyrizo and eggs topped with a ton of shredded cheese, sour cream, and green onions. Dessert would’ve been s’mores, but Casey brought expired graham crackers and we don’t have pellets for the wood stove anyway. It was Mikeys bag of goodies from the local dispo, sour gummy worms, crispy marshmallow treats and chocolate chip cookies that we ended up munching out on, and now were vibing out to our favorite bad horror movies including one of my favorites Bagman, a classic about a serial killer whose victims don’t recycle (I’m keeping paper bag masks away from Casey). Currently we’re on Llamageddon, another fave of Kaye’s and mine.

Although at this particular moment she’s preoccupying herself staring at an admittedly cool looking moth on the wall, its wings with a cat eye pattern. She says it’s staring into her soul. I’m laughing and paranoid at the same time. I’m gonna go lock the doors, I don’t want any recycling killers or soul stealing moths coming in and killing our vibe.

August 9th

10am

Started the morning with a lovely wake and bake, out on the sunny patio, the variously colored birds flittering around and singing while we used the ‘pyramid head’ aka Mikeys awesome desktop vape.

Casey woke up in the couch, or at least that’s how I found her this morning, squished in between the pullout bed 😂. After we pulled her out and seshed, we made Mikey whip us up some huevos rancheros ‘cause we had the munchies and mimosas for the drinkies (so to speak). It was a great vibe.

Weird thing though, like I said I locked the door last night, right? It was cracked open this morning, just a smidge, but Ima cop it up to not shutting it all the way.

Anyway, we’re gonna go down by the lake and walk around before hitting up The Pub down on the main road to get some hard ciders.

August 10th

1am

So were on our way back from The Pub, we were walking, smoking and vibing and then this bat comes out of nowhere and like straight toward my face and I’m like “Nope!” I scream while I swear this bat is trying to eat my soul, its coming at me, flying around and Casey and Maggie are yelling “Mikey!” and he tries to karate chop it. Eventually that scary bat dips and we go in and take more birthday shots because I needed some after that experience.

As we’re setting up for our Squid Games honeycomb challenge (losers take a dealer’s shot), all the sudden we hear footsteps and crunching around the property.

“You hear something? I asked the crew.

“Yea…” and we all get up and go to the window by the front door to see this, big black like pony dog staring at us from the outside the window! This dog, he had this stare, more intense than Casey’s dog Chubbs when he wants you to give him cheese. It was a demon dog; I swear he was plotting an evil plan with those eyes and slobbering mouth.

“Ack!” We all screamed and then like that the dog seemed to vanish straight into the black night air.

“What the hell was that?” I said a little panicked.

“Like, that just happened right?” Casey looked around and at us, as creeped and confused as I was.

“Yea, I saw it. Probably just the neighbor’s dog on a stroll.” Mikey seemed chill enough but the rest of us just nodded along reluctantly ‘cause we wanted to recapture that vibe we had going with the game. And so, we continued playing the honeycomb challenge, forgetting about the pony dog for a minute. Then out of nowhere my phone meowed at me. It was a text that said, Happy Birthday!

So, I type back, Thank you…but who the hell is this?”

A moment later, another meow.

It’s Aaron, ur old co-worker, the ‘cute but creepy kid’ you fired about a month back, ringing any bells?

As I tried to ring those mental bells the lights suddenly went out. Then there was a guy in a hockey mask like Jason at the front door with the pony dog. We all screamed. The back door that apparently wasn’t locked swung shut and a shadow moved across the hallway to the kitchen before the lights came back on.

“What just happened?” I asked. We all looked around, realizing something was missing.

“Casey!” We cried out simultaneously.

“Omg like what do we do?” Maggie asked.

“Should we go find her?” Kaye suggested.

“Meh…I mean, she’ll come back, right? Maybe she went to go smoke outside?” Maggie pointed towards the door.

“You think she went outside right now in the pitch-dark creepy woods when a scary guy in a Jason mask just came through, creeping in on us?” Kaye wasn’t as convinced but Maggie could only shrug.

“We should probably at least try to go look for her…!” I decided we had to attempt something lest we be those bad friends from our horror movies.

“Yea I guess, yea…” Maggie eventually relented.

“So, yea we’re gonna go do that now…Mikey!” He snorted himself awake at my beckoning cause somehow, he was able to pass out through all that commotion. “We’re gonna go look for Casey! She like, disappeared!” I spit out frantically.

“Ok right, yea lets go then…”

We took flashlights and Mikey led us into the dark unknown to find our friend and the guy in the Jason mask. And boy did we find them.

Shortly after some seemingly aimless wandering we came across a clearing where low and behold, there was Casey tied pretty loosely actually to a tree.

“Yo! Guys! Like, ah, maybe help me outta here?!” She whispered frantically.

“The fuck is even happening with you right now woman?!” Mikey asked while he hurried to untie her.

“I dunno man! I’m gonna guess Mandys homeboy Jason wannabe kidnapped me to like, sacrifice me to the devil or something!”

“What?!” We shrieked in unison.

“Yea, I heard him mention something about making a sacrifice offering for the blood moon something-something dark side and then he and that big scary pony dog went over there to take a piss!” She shook off the remainder of her restraints when we heard branches crackling nearby.

“Shit!” Casey cursed as she was about to run back toward the house but then Jason was upon us again.

“Oh cool! Do we have an audience for my blood sacrifice?” A low, muffled voice said from the darkness.

“Who are you anyway? Is that you Aaron?” I asked with looming suspicion.

“Uh, no…” then his phone started ringing in his pocket which was a familiar jingle from a late 90s slasher I recognized.

“Aaron! I knew it! You dipstick! What’s this all about anyway? Why are you trying to sacrifice my friend, are you trying to get back at me or something?!”

“Uh, like no, ok? This offering is for the dark lord so that he may bestow me with gifts of fortune, you know like what you took away from me right before I was about to get the iChrome phone XLS 500! It’s got 4 lenses!”

“Fortune? You got paid minimum wage; we worked at a bakery! And you were stealing muffins! And money! From the cash register, on camera!” This admittedly was just too much for me right now…

“Can I hit him now?” Mikey raised his hand in question.

“Yes please!” Casey nodded hectically.

“Hey, ah, nah…!” but before he could finish Mikey karate chopped him in the throat. While he coughed and wheezed Kaye distracted the pony dog with some beef jerky’s and Maggie and I dragged Casey along back with us to the cabin.

“Not without my sacrifice!” He wheezed out, stumbling with a knife towards us like a frenzied zombie slasher.

“Why me anyway?!” Casey cried back out.

“Virgin!” He coughed out.

“The fuck? I am not a 30-year-old virgin thank you!”

“What? But really, the outfits though?” He pointed towards her loose fitted beige tone slacks and sweater she wore. Then he tripped over Mikeys outstretched leg and into Casey’s fist.

“Don’t hate on my low-key fashion choices yea?!” She kicked him and then Maggie and I took off his mask and low and behold it was Aaron.

“Wow, what a Shyamalan twist. Well, let’s tie him up for now, then head back and finish the night?” I suggested, gathering the rope he used for Casey.

“Sounds good to me.” Everyone seemed to agree.

“Let’s finish the weed and watch a bad horror movie!” Casey shouted out.

“Are you crazy?! You almost just got killed and you wanna watch a bad horror movie?!” I couldn’t believe this chick right now.

“I don’t know man, I knew that guy wasn’t gonna kill me, he was such a dweeb anyway, and that you guys would come and save me, right?”

“Yea totally…” Maggie nodded sheepishly.

“We still have some time to get back and check out the blood moon on the telescope.” Mikey reminded us.

“Right!”

“Yea!”

And so, with that we took our temporarily restrained prisoner back to homebase to let the cops deal with his crazy ass and all that good stuff, and do a little night skygazing before passing out right now because we check out bright and early at noon tomorrow!

Final Entry (For BNB Guest Book)

Well, what an adventure we had here!

To celebrate my 30th birthday, we came up for a weekend of fun enjoying homemade munchies, exploring the woods and stargazing while simultaneously encountering some eerier moments like bats flying at us and a mysterious black dog foreshadowing more sinister things to come, as they did when my old co-worker, disguised in a Jason mask, attempted a strange ritual with my friend Casey which failed due to the awesome friendship powers of my crew. This story has a happy ending for everyone though, as in spite of the common horror movie trope, no one died in the end, and to cap off the night we had birthday shots and cake to conclude our dirty 30 birthday bash of a weekend. In conclusion, we actually had a pretty vibe time and would love to stay at this establishment again in the near future!

<3 Mandy