Read The Tent: A Novella for Free Online

dry spell is over.”
    “Should we wait inside it?” Emma asks, training her flashlight beam at the side of the tent and bleaching out the interior amber glow. “I mean, you don’t think whoever owns it would mind, do you? Considering the circumstances? At least we’d be out of the rain.”
    For a moment, Mike doesn’t answer, because he doesn’t know what to say other than that he doesn’t think that’s a good idea at all. Considering all that’s gone wrong this night, the strange little tent is a godsend. And yet, for no reason he can express in words, the more he looks at it, the more he realizes that he would rather continue to brave the storm than crawl inside it. It’s a preposterous thing to feel, and he knows this, and yet the potency of his sudden, inexplicable aversion to the tent seems justification enough.
    You’re being ridiculous .
    This he knows, but still…
    “I’m not sure that’s the best idea,” he says.
    “For Heaven’s sake, why?”
    “I don’t know, just a feeling. We don’t know who owns it, or how they might react to finding us inside. Could be a hunter’s camp.”
    “So?”
    “The kind of hunter who might mistake us for scavengers and shoot before asking questions.”
    “Like it or not, we are scavengers now, Mike. And if there’s food in there, I don’t mind telling you, I’m going to help myself. Coffee, the same.”
    He has to admit the idea of sustenance sounds tempting. They haven’t eaten anything since stopping at a Wendy’s on their way to the hills. When was that? Five, six, hours ago? His mouth waters, his body prematurely warming to the thought of hot coffee gushing down his throat, melting the ice inside him and chasing away some of the dread.
    And ye t it is that same dread that holds him in place as he studies the yellow object with the odd branch-like trim. He notices it doesn’t move, seems resistant to the wind.
    Which is perhaps what a good, expensive, reliable tent does , Mike, not that you’d know anything about it . Yours was a discount item because you were more concerned with your bank balance than the safety of your family. It’s a tent , for God’s sake, nothing more, and all you’re doing now is all you’ve ever done: making dubious choices and stalling when affirmative action would yield a more sensible result , chides the voice of reason, a voice that might have made Mike’s life a whole lot better if he had acknowledged its counsel even once over the years. But instinct will not allow him to heed it now.
    “Let’s just wait a while, okay? Out here.”
    He knows she’s going to argue, and doesn’t blame her. The woods are getting to him. The cold and the rain and the hunger and the desperation have combined to make a scrambled mess of his brains. The enormity of what has happened to them, of what his misguided need to bond with his family has caused to happen is debilitating. The thought of waiting here while Cody wanders the woods alone and frightened is enough to make him want to tear his own heart out, but he doesn’t know what else to do. His wife, like his own inner voice, will argue that he’s circumventing wisdom, as always, making the situation more difficult than it already is. And she’ll be right, and he will have no comeback. Because the only thing he can think to say will only make him appear insane, and even more pathetic than his actions thus far have allowed: I’m afraid of it, Emma. The tent. I can’t explain why so please don’t ask me. It just feels wrong, feels like someone drew us here on purpose. One light in the whole damn woods, in a part of the woods nobody’s supposed to go, and it leads us here , to a tent with nobody in it. It just feels wrong .
    “Out here?” Emma says. “So we can get soaked all over agai n. What’s the matter with you?”
    To give him time to compose a reply good enough to placate her—assuming such an reply exists—he carefully makes his way to the nearest one of the small