I got this from someone who happened to be at the local watering hole while I was sipping wine (I only drink wine on occasion, but when I do venture I tend to meet interesting people there! It was already close to six pm and I was intent on heading home after meeting up with a former coworker so as to have a proper dinner. Unexpectedly, a woman and her husband came up to me and my friend after seeing my selection and discussed their love of French wines, pointing to the bottle that still happened to sit on the bar.
As we talked, I happened to mention that I write books and wrote my introduction or foreword last before it was published. I’m usually somewhere in Europe when I am ready to complete my novel or nonfiction work as I would turn it later into an opportunity to see some culture and arts. After writing the introduction, I celebrate the completion of a book with wine. The bottle I happened to have in my glass, a Chardonnay, was one I had tried before.
But this story is not about wine or what I do after I complete writing a book.
As one would guess, the conversation went on and finally led to this story from the woman. For the purposes of this narrative, I will name her Stella as she wished to stay anonymous. Stella apparently just returned from Kentucky and stayed at an Airbnb. While she was at the airbnb with two male friends and her husband, all friends from college, they went in search of wine and found something else. I will say no more.
Here is her story:
The four friends who lived most of their young lives in Brooklyn while attending university and currently in Philadelphia and suburbs, were very excited to embark on five straight days at the fringes of a remote national park where they rented the Airbnb. The small house with wood siding was conveniently located near the entrance to Daniel Boone National Forest. Since they were not beer or hard liquor drinkers, needing to stay relatively sober for the early morning hike they had planned the next day, they decided on wine. Although they were avid fitness enthusiasts who hike outside the city, they rarely camp and do wilderness jaunts, so this was new to the group.
Stella remarked in retrospect that being outdoors in Kentucky had given her an appreciation of the vastness of a natural habitat where there was no one for miles. It came with an unexpected twist in the form of not having internet or access to a cell tower. They were introduced to a new form of communication which was effective enough, but brought with it some setbacks.
Unfamiliar with the state and even more unfamiliar with national parks in the area, the four hikers chose to drive to a small town nearby and locate a liquor store. They couldn’t find any as the gps fluctuated and became disappointed as the evening wore on. They found themselves at a grocery store of sorts. Thus they elected to restock what they needed for the week as the airbnb rental had a sizable kitchen and a huge deck where they could cook and dine after a day of hiking and exploration.
Mick, Stella’s husband, who was driving the large truck they had arrived in stayed in the vehicle listening to Bob Dylan. Stella went in, scoped out the aisles and found some staples and proceeded with her friends to the freezer to get some streaks and ribs. Done, she went out with the two friends, Josh and John (All changed for privacy) and found Mick had fallen asleep while waiting with the radio on and engine idling. The three loaded the groceries into the truck and awakened Mick, only to find they needed gas after the long drive from Philadelphia. They notice a red jeep with one older woman watching them intently.
The next stop took them to a gas station where they filled up. While she waited, an older woman in her sixties approaches the truck, saw the groceries and spoke with Stella. She was the same woman, Stella notes, who was watching them from her jeep while at the grocery store parking lot. The woman who introduced herself as Millie, a local, had a dilemma. Millie tells Stella that she needed a favor as her neighbor who lived on the mountainside could not be roused. Thus, she was concerned for the woman’s safety. Like Millie, the woman was also in her sixties, but in poor health. Millie went on to tell Stella she could not get into the house after finally walking several miles to get to her friend’s doorstep on the side of the mountain to deliver her groceries. The woman, a recluse, usually drove down to Millie’s house towards the bottom of the mountain to get the groceries Millie would purchase for her.
“When you say ‘rouse’, did you mean you called her and no one answered the phone.”
“No, dear. No phone. I called to her.”
“How? How did you call to her?”
“I yelled up to her.”
“Maybe she didn’t hear you.”
“Nope. No, honey. She’s just in the next holler.”
“Oh. Holler?”
“Yes. I yelled up to her.”
“Is that what you mean? You yelled from your house?”
“Yes, I went outside and hollered up to Sheila. That’s er name.”
“So you finally went up the mountain to her house.”
“Yes.”
“… and she didn’t answer the door when you knocked.” Finished Mick.
“Yeah. You got it. She’s there. Above me.”
Millie pointed upwards past the gas station at the mountain ahead. Stella looked up at the daunting forest which covered the side of the mountain. The edge of the mountain seemed to be just a few miles ahead. The road from the gas station led directly there, it seemed. Stella turned to her two friends who appeared curious and offered to give Millie a lift and take her groceries to the recluse. Mick scratched his head and the other two nodded.
Millie points out the scenery from the back of the truck as it bounces up the hill and towards the side roads winding its way up the mountain. Next to her were four bags of groceries, mostly frozen goods, as the reclusive woman had an extensive vegetable garden, according to her. As they gain altitude, Stella’s ears click with the change in pressure like she was on an ascending plane. Mick’s music began to encounter static, the reception beginning to falter with the mountain’s ominous side shielding them from any cell network. Then, the music simply stopped and silence plummeted inside the truck.
Josh hit the button to roll down the window in the back and Mick turned to the rearview mirror to check on Millie who rode in the back of the truck, holding her groceries. She seemed a tough woman who weathered the bumpy ride. Trees began to shroud two sides of the truck as Millie pointed to a road that took them deeper into the forest.
The house, a clapboard affair in need of a paint job, appeared old and weathered with the roof shingles off in places. Stella wonders how the old woman managed on her own as she eyed row upon row of vegetables adjacent to the house on a field. Pieces of old rusted equipment lay nearby and a row of old tires appear to be some type of decoration.
As Millie stepped down from the truck, the men grabbed her groceries and eyed the area. Only the wind greeted them, stronger up there than below, the birds silent and the field which stretches past the garden ended in an impenetrable gloom of a deep forest. As the group walked behind Millie, Mick eyes the treeline from several yards beyond and wondered what housed its depths. He was soon to find out.
Millie knocks. Their collective pause was met with silence.
Millie knocks again, yelling her friend’s name.
“If you’re in there, I got your food. It will rot out here, so let me in.”
Silence.
“Sheila?”
Josh tries the doorknob and pushes it.
The doorknob had turned. It was open, but something was blocking his way.
“Sheila? My name is Josh. “We’re here to help you. Millie brought us along to get you some help.”
Mick comes to the door and shoves. The door gives in an inch and they attempt to peer in.
“What is that?”
The scent of paper. John peers as Stella follows, attempting to peek through the door. He turns to Millie. “Does your friend usually bar the door with newspapers?”
TUNE IN FOR THE NEXT BLOG ENTRY for the concluding story of THE HOARDER in the HOLLER.
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