We planned a simple
loop hike on a beautiful spring day. But it wasn’t long before the snow
started. None of us had prepared for winter weather, dressed only in hoodies
and hiking boots, but we didn’t want to turn back. This was an adventure after
all! By the time we summited, the snow was ankle-deep, falling so fast that our
foot tracks had already been buried.
We ate lunch and
began our descent. There was a cute snowball fight in the forest, everyone
laughing, ignoring the bitter cold seeping into our boots. We were most of the
way back to my car when I dug my frozen fingertips into my pocket. My empty pocket.
Strange. Had my pocket been empty before? Panic gripped me. Wasn’t that where
my car keys had been? Why the hell would I put them in my hoodie pocket and not
my backpack?
“Um, guys,” I
muttered, “do any of you have the keys?”
I knew full well no
one else had my car keys. But denial is a powerful thing, however fleeting.
There was a scrambled
search through everyone’s pockets and backpacks, but the reality was grim and
inescapable: my car keys were gone. I had lost them.
Our situation was
dire. I could’ve dropped the keys anywhere along our hike. We were already
almost back to the car, we’d eaten our food, finished our water, and were
frozen through to the bone. It was still snowing hard. This was beginning to
feel like the setup to a horror story, one where the doomed travellers froze to
death on the mountaintop.
We retraced our
already snow-covered steps. My husband heroically volunteered to race back to
the summit while the rest of us combed through the forest where we’d had our
snowball fight. Then we did something remarkably stupid. We split up. With so
much snow, I managed to wander off trail and when I turned around, I couldn’t
see my friends. I couldn’t even hear them. There was nothing but pine trees for
miles. I called out and heard nothing in reply. I couldn’t feel my toes. And
now, the sun had begun to set.
Yep! This was how
people died.
Luckily, I found my
friends again and when my husband returned empty-handed, we agreed that
searching for the keys was a fool’s errand. We returned to the car, now buried
in snow. Darkness crept in, bringing with it a new, numbing cold. We were going
to freeze to death if we didn’t find shelter. We began trying to bust the car
window so at least we could sleep in there for the night.
That’s when one of my
friends said words straight from the slasher movie script, “Hey, I think I see
a cabin over there.”
Across the snowy
road, barely visible, was a house. The only house around for miles. Luckily,
when we knocked, a kind (very strange) old lady answered. She let us wait in
her garage and phone a friend to come rescue us.
“You’re very lucky,”
she said in a raspy voice coated by years of cigarette smoke, “so many mountain
lions up here, and you wouldn’t even hear ‘em comin’.”
My friends and I got
lucky. But, if that house hadn’t been there with a kind woman to answer, who
knows how it could’ve played differently. If say, the elements had bested us,
or a creepy man had let us in. If our friendship hadn’t been solid, and festering
resentments surfaced...These were the musings that first birthed Backstabbers.
A novel where three best friends lost in the wilderness (and a serial killer’s
old hunting grounds) need help and come upon an isolated cabin, where an
all-too-eager man answers the door.
This trip on the
mountain was just one of many personal nightmares that made it into my book.
Traveling for the best part of ten years, I collected quite a few. After all,
when you’re traveling, you open yourself up to incredible new experiences and
the chance to rise to challenges, to surprise yourself by what you’re capable
of. But being outside of your element does more than just broaden your
horizons, it leaves you vulnerable, too, and utterly exposed. The stakes are
higher so far from home, away from your safety net, and this is where our true
characters are often uncovered. Because conflict doesn’t just build character,
it reveals it, too.
That’s what my main
character, Jade, learns the hard way.
Out there in the
wilderness, you discover who you (and your friends) truly are.
Never turn your back on a friend. Jade, Stef and Zoe are hiking Washington's Bones Hollow Trail, braving cougars, snakes and the storms that roll in without warning. The friends' paranoia isn't helped by listening to a true crime podcast about the serial killer whose hunting ground they're hiking through. Then when Stef twists her ankle - badly - there's no one to hear them scream for help. The only sign of life for miles is a cabin that looks straight out of a horror movie, with an owner who's a little too eager to invite them in. The friends must soon find a way to survive as things spiral out of control. After all, who can you trust when your back's against the wall? But unfortunately for them, the only thing more twisted than this nightmare is their friendship...
You
can find Eliza Jabore on Instagram @ elizajabore_theauthor and on X
@KupcakeProse
