Shadybrooke Landing

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. A road trip was meant to be fun. An adventure with great friends, delicious food, and marvelous sights. It wasn’t supposed to involve blood, guns, and a seedy hotel. We were supposed to laugh, not fight for our lives. It wasn’t supposed to come to this, me in the middle of the night with my knees soaking up blood on the pavement, tears flowing down my cheeks.

40 hours earlier.

We had been friends since we were thirteen. We had been the three new kids in seventh grade and had formed an instant bond which had lasted through our teenage years. That first year, they had called us the Sisters. We were unrelated, but the resemblance, we all had blond hair and blue eyes, and our affection for each other close enough to accept the false moniker. Now, nineteen, we had reunited for a summer road trip after our first year of University.  We had all gone on different paths, different schools, and this was the first time since last summer we were together again.

I crammed my bag into the back of Juliette’s Honda and turned to hug my mother goodbye.

“You’re leaving too soon,” my mom said, “I just got you back.”

I rolled my eyes, hoping my friends hadn’t heard her. “It’s for a week. I’ll be back before you even miss me.”

“Oh, I doubt that.”

“Mom.”

She sighed. “Just be careful, Quin? I know how college kids are when they’re on break and I don’t want to get a call you’re in a hospital somewhere.”

I heard a snort behind me.  

 “It’s like you don’t even know me. I don’t do that kind of stuff.”

Mom said nothing, just put a hand on my cheek, and then I was off, hoping into the back seat. We set off down the ordinary suburban neighborhood we had spent our teen years roaming, and off onto the highway, our destination upstate New York to Niagara Falls. We had talked about this trip when we were seniors in high school, and now we were finally going.

We had all changed, in our own ways. Quiet Juliette had become a socialite. Beautiful, popular, and a member of a sorority I couldn’t remember the name of. She wore only name brand clothing of the latest style. Even now, on a road-trip, her sandals had three-inch heels. Nicole had died her blonde hair black and favored the color in her clothing. She told us it wasn’t goth, it was punk. She wore expensive headphones around her neck and dark eye makeup. It was hard to believe she was the same star basketball player from high school. She quit basketball, after her scholarship fell through. And I was just boring Quin. I was on a half dozen school committees, an avid environmentalist, and played clarinet in the school’s pep band. I was not as talkative or outgoing as I was in our school years together.

We had all changed, but together, in that car, it was if we hadn’t. We talked and told stories like the way we used to. We played bad music from the early 2000’s, music we had once loved as thirteen-year-olds. Nicole had brought a bag of sugary snacks and we tore into those like ravenous kids. We may have been approaching adulthood, but we all shed a handful of years together in that car, those first ten hours.

We were camping that first night in a campground just off the highway, the air was warm and sticky. I could still hear the whirl of cars and eighteen-wheel trucks as we sat at the campfire I had built, the bright orange embers crackling and popping as they devoured pieces of wood we had bought at a roadside stand a couple miles back. We had camped often in our early years together, Juliette’s family owned a campground, and we fell into a familiar rhythm. I was controlling the fire, Juliette roasting marshmallows, Nicole pitching the tent. Our conversation continued, never dimming into awkward pauses. It was everything I wanted our reunion to be.

Our talks drifted into relationship territory as the evening wore on, each of our faces lit a dull orange from the fire. Juliette was single, although she had relationships with three different men at school, one of them a senior. Nicole had just started seeing someone. The relationship was tenuous, new, and she was afraid it would dissipate over the long summer apart. I had met no one, not even an attractive man to have a crush on. They laughed when I told them, saying, typical Quin. I laughed too, feeding off their positive energy, even though I didn’t not find it funny at all.

We crawled into the tent; our sleeping bags rolled out in the order they always had been back then. Me in the middle, Juliette on my left and Nicole on my right. I had missed them more than I thought. We set off early in the morning, breaking camp and continuing our adventure.

I suppose I shouldn’t have found it unexpected that something should go wrong. Everything had been perfect so far, and nothing stays perfect long. Juliette’s car conked out as we were passing through a small rural town. She could afford expensive shoes and handbags, but her car was over ten years old. She was the only one of us though who even owned a car.

Juliette steered the protesting car into the curb outside a general store. Swearing, she leapt from the car and lifted the hood. A puff of smoke wafted into the air.

“Should one of us call a parent for help?” Nicole asked. She twiddled with the headphones around her neck. She didn’t want it to be her, I knew. She didn’t get on well with her parents.

“No,” I said, too quickly. I wasn’t eager either to return home, not after we had only begun our trip. I didn’t want to part from my old friends yet.

“There has to be a garage in this town,” Juliette said, returning to where we stood outside the car. “I’ll go inside and ask.” She disappeared into the dimly lit general store.

Juliette returned five minutes later, a kid trailing her. He looked to be seventeen or so, with dark hair and the scraggly beginnings of a beard. “This is Jim,” Juliette said, “He said he’d look at the car. His dad’s the mechanic in town.”

“Maybe we should just take it to his dad’s,” I said, skeptical as Jim stuck his head in the hood. Jim had no tools; I didn’t see how he could be useful, and I wanted us on the road as soon as possible. We had a reservation at a hotel, one of the few we had splurged on.

“Let him look,” Juliette dismissed. “It will save us some money if he can fix it.”

I stood with Nicole, leaning against the car and Juliette joined Jim. Nicole had her phone out, idly flipping through social media. I glanced up and down the street. There were a few houses, a hardware store with peeling paint, a gas station with gaudy orange lights. The general store looked old, like something out of the nineteenth century.

When Juliette joined us almost an hour later, I wasn’t surprised Jim had accomplished nothing. “Jim said he’ll call a tow truck to take it to his dad’s. It’s just down one of these side streets, and he can give us a lift to this hotel. Shadybrooke Landing. It’s on the river apparently and is the only hotel in town.”

“Does it have a pool?” Nicole asked hopefully.

Juliette shook her head. “I asked, no pool. Jim said the locals are having a party by the river we could go to.”

I wanted to protest, say it was a terrible I idea. I didn’t get a good vibe from scrawny Jim, or the quiet town. Before I could speak though, Nicole opened her mouth.

“It will be better than sitting around doing nothing,” Nicole shrugged, pushing herself off the Honda.

It wouldn’t be nothing, I wanted to say. It would be us hanging out in a hotel room, being friends, but I was outnumbered. Both wanted to go to this party, so the three of us would go.

Shadybrooke landing was exactly the kind of place I dreaded it would be. Dark, musty, with only a handful of cars in the lot. It looked like it had been built thirty years ago and no renovations had been made since. Despite the shabby exterior and dismal lobby, the room appeared somewhat clean. The linens were fresh and the windows clear, although I didn’t care for the state of the rug or the harsh fluorescent lights making the bathroom look dingier than it was.

When it was time to go to the party, I didn’t protest. I didn’t want to sit in Shadybrooke landing any longer.

The party was out of hand the moment we got there. It felt like all the young people of the town were there, ranging from ages sixteen to thirty, and all had a red cup, or a glass bottle clutched in their hands. Jim was there. He put a hand on Juliette’s back and led us over to a table filled with beverages and snacks.

I stayed by Nicole as Juliette drifted off with Jim. Different people spoke to us, many of them with slurred voices. I tried to be polite, I tried to smile. I wanted to have a good time. Juliette may have gone off, but Nicole was still by my side. She kept glancing at her phone though, receiving messages from her boyfriend. The night stretched on, and I took delicate sips from my cup, feeling the liquid burn my throat on its way down.

When a man walked into the clearing by the river clutching Juliette’s head under his arms, her eyes frantic and large, glowing gold in the torchlight, I struggled not to pass out. The man held a gun and unleashed a shot into the air. Behind him, five others appeared, as burly and upset looking as him. I didn’t understand, what had happened.

“Run!” Someone yelled, and everyone darted away, me and Nicole included. I was afraid, and felt terrible for leaving Juliette, but there was no other option. If we didn’t run, we would be run over by the fleeing party goers. I heard shots go off behind me and didn’t look back. Nicole and I were separated in the fray, but I continued on, towards the lights of Shadybrooke Landing.

I ran, landing hard on my knees in the pavement of the parking lot, sobbing. My sobs turned into a scream as I realized the puddle my knees were in was blood. I didn’t want to look around, to find the source, to find the body. I didn’t know if Nicole or Juliette had made it. Everything was too wild in the fray. All I wanted to know was if they were ok, and I couldn’t bring myself to go back by the river to find out. I continued to cry, hands clutched from my face, willing the last few hours from my mind, but failing.

This road trip wasn’t supposed to be like this.