"Oh my God!" I yelled in anger as I shoved open the door to my Colorado vacation cabin. Beer cans went rattling over the hardwood floor that was stained with vomit. The place smelled like pee and the whole lodge was an upturned wreck. I already had my phone out and calling Max, my husband, to let him know I had arrived at the lodge. He was in Spain at the moment, so it was no surprise that he didn't answer.
I waited for his voicemail to beep before starting my message. "Hey, I'm at the lodge and the place is trashed just like the neighbor said. I'm looking at everything... doesn't look like they figured out about the recording studio. Call me back."
I hung up and breathed a sigh of relief. Everything upstairs could be replaced, but it had taken us years to acquire all the sound equipment Max had stored in the recording studio he'd had specially made when we built the vacation home. In the event of a break-in, we positioned a carpet over the floor entrance and a couch on top of that. The hoodlums probably couldn't have gotten in with all the key locks standing between them and opening it anyway.
I sighed, scanning the contacts in my phone for who might have the quickest solution to this problem as I walked across the front deck of the the lodge. Snow covered the front yard all the way down to the road. My hair was done up in a ponytail and I wore a pink sleeveless vest over my long-sleeved black sweater. I had spandex pants over thermal leggings, and my hiking boots on my feet.
I'd hoped to take a trip to the lodge in two weeks--before the Christmas madness could fully consume New York--and isolate myself to the warmth of the cabin while I got a solid run my latest novel. Glancing at the mess in the lodge, perhaps gaining a solid form of personal security was in order as well.
"Hey there!" I heard someone say. That's when I met Calvin Chandler for the first time. We had spoken over the phone once when he called to let me know that someone had broken in. Calvin was a tall twenty-three year old man with a full beard and mustache. He wore a flannel black and red checkered shirt with the sleeves rolled up over his long-sleeved white long-johns. When I saw him, he was carrying an axe on one shoulder, literally looking like a lumberjack with a beanie on his head and everything. He grinned as he approached the steps. "Calvin Chandler. You must be the infamous Cindy Johnson."
"No, just regular old Cindy." I blushed before reality came back. "I'd invite you in for some coffee, but I have a feeling that won't be easy."
"Yeah, they were in here for about two nights. I was in Denver to see my friend in Boulder, came back the second day and saw four trucks in the driveway. I was pretty sure they weren't yours or your husband's. Sheriff cleared them out but the damage was done. Good thing you weren't home."
"Yeah." I shivered at a few instances of what might have happened if I had been home, none of them appealing.
He glanced over his shoulder at the road beyond my front yard. "Let me get the wood inside and I'll help you clean up."
"No, you," I shook my head, "really don't have to. I'll take care of it."
"Na, wouldn't be right to make you clean all that trash out on your own." He called over his shoulder as he returned to the pine trees from whence he came where his house was nestled amidst the pines down the road.
I opened the trunk of my Audi and put on my purple rubber cleaning gloves. I unrolled about five trash bags and got to work. Twenty minutes later, Calvin knocked on the front door.
"Oh, seriously, I'm fine. I'll take care of it." I said as I walked to the front door.
"Two hands work faster than one." He said, looking at the wreck the guys had wrought throughout my vacation lodge. It was much worse than I had expected over the phone.
I wiped my face with my sleeve as strands of my black hair had come loose from my ponytail. "Sure, I guess." He stepped inside and grabbed a trash bag. "I'm shocked at how much beer they drank."
"I'm not. It sounded like they had people coming and going all night. They were running some pretty crazy stuff in here over the weekend."
"I haven't even looked in the bedroom yet." I heaved a frustrated sigh at the sight of the bedroom door that was closed because there was too much junk in the way to get to it. Most of it was trash the kids had brought with them, but here and there was my and Max's destroyed pictures and books mixed with their pizza cartons and beer bottles and cans. It was hard to believe this much destruction could be caused in two days, but they'd been on a mission apparently.
We cleaned up the coffee grounds and beer cans, and then took out all the rugs that had been stained with pee and vomit. I opened the windows to let the place air out and the smell started to become tolerable. Calvin peeked into the fridge and withdrew two tall Coors beers that were tethered by empty plastic rings. He peeled the beer rims from the rings and handed one to me before cracking his.
"Cheers." He said and tipped the beer from the side of his head.
I opened mine and took a sip. I'd never liked Coors, but who's going to complain about a free beer; maybe the only kind thing the guys who trashed the place could have done. I set it down and opened the door to the bedroom now that it was clear of debris. Other than changing the sheets, which I'd have done whether they'd vomited on them or not--which they did--the bedroom had been left alone for the most part. They'd stolen all our winter clothes, but we didn't keep much else in the vacation home.
"Think I got it from here." I said to Calvin, who had just finished sweeping up some broken glass from in the back corner of the kitchen.
