Let's Make a Story: Cabin in the Woods - Chapter 2

Alright, @blacklux, you asked for a chapter, and I'm always honored to write one. Let's continue where your story left off:

“It is only ten miles out of town,” Josh said very mildly, trying to avoid another confrontation. He took a deep breath, drawing in the smell of summer rain on pine trees. The front door wouldn’t open, which only worsened Laura’s opinion of the place. He had told her that the wood was swollen from all the rain, but he wasn’t feeling optimistic about the whole thing either as he walked around back. That was, until he saw the view.

He hadn’t been to the cabin since he was a boy, and all those years had faded his memory. A small deck was set at the edge of a steep drop-off dotted with jagged rocks, down to the swift running river. The smell of rain, the look of green leaves everywhere, the rush of the river—it was exhilarating. It made him brush aside all their recent financial troubles. Nothing could have been more humbling than to ask his father to let them move into the abandoned cabin that hung over the family like a dark, immovable shadow. It couldn’t be sold, because everyone in town knew the story. But even that didn’t bother him so much at that moment.

“Ten miles to what town? A post office and a dollar store does not count as a town!” The atmosphere hadn’t calmed Laura any, in fact she hadn’t even noticed the picturesque ravine behind her. She leaned trustingly on the old wooden railing at the edge of the deck, like she was leaning against the railing on a cruise ship—that certainly was what she was used to. In an instant, before any warning could be made, the wood gave way. The board snapped free of its constraints on one side, just as Josh jerked forward to grasp her shirt. Laura’s fake fingernails did not inhibit her death-grip on the broken board that still hung attached to one half-rotted post.

“Christ! What were you thinking? You couldn’t survive that fall!” The words came out of Josh’s mouth swiftly as he still saw the terror in her eyes—in that instant she did not have the upper hand. “Everyone would think that I pushed you, just like…” He stopped himself, realizing he’d made a big mistake. Her eyes narrowed, her lips pursed, her eyebrows knitted themselves as close together as possible.

“So this is about you?” She snarled.

Josh stared at her a second and blinked, feeling almost a little guilty, but mostly relieved. How she could have missed that open-ended statement revealed how self-absorbed she was, but that wasn’t something he had time to reflect on.

“I’m sorry,” he said, mildly again. He turned the lock in the back door as Laura dusted herself off. He gave the door one good shove, and the smell of a musty attic pervaded everything. Laura made a dramatic show of coughing in disgust, then picked up her Chihuahua and gingerly stepped over the threshold.

“You cannot deny that this place is disgusting now!” She said after running into a cobweb, screaming, and dropping the dog.

“Look at this furniture,” Josh was only partially hearing her, focusing in on the silver lining. He ran his hands across the ridged edge of the kitchen table. “It is all wood, and solid.” She was going to say something degrading, but got distracted by the dog barking in the adjoining room.

“See, even Bella hates this place,” she said as she entered the bedroom. The light was dim in the room from mostly rotted curtains. Laura touched them, but they disintegrated in her hands, letting in a flood of light. The light revealed a dresser with an old-fashioned fabric stretched across it. Laying on it were lots of little jars that were discolored by very old liquids semi-evaporated. Amid the jars was a group of rocks, placed in a circle neatly, as though it hadn’t been decades since they had been touched. The layer of dust on them proved otherwise. She could vaguely see something beneath that dust, and when she rubbed a layer of it off she found some unfamiliar symbols painted on them.

“Don’t touch that,” Josh said from the doorway, startling her. His voice was firm again—unlike him.

“Why? This shithole is ours now, right? And everything that is in it?”

“This was my grandmother’s room. She was strange. Let’s just leave it alone, alright?” Josh tried being placating—that usually worked better with her. “We can just close this room off. We don’t need it. There are two other bedrooms. And we are only here for six months, remember?”

“What are you so scared of? The fact that you’ve already told me we have to seal our trash to keep the bears out is way scarier than these trinkets. Hey—your grandma left her old jewelry. Maybe she’s got something decent in here.” Laura began rummaging through an old jewelry box.

“This feels like desecration,” Josh said.

“She didn’t have good taste,” Laura snorted as she held up various necklaces made of string. “I might as well wear one, and get into character.”

“Don’t put that on,” Josh mumbled, uselessly, as she pushed the string over her head and a heavy metal charm slipped down between her breasts.

- End of Chapter 2 -

As per rules, I now nominate @riverflows to carry on with chapter 3. Here are the rules, for those of us that like to follow them (or intentionally break them):

Its simple, I will post a pic and start a story. Then I will tag a person to continue the story. After that person writes a new chapter it will nominate another person to continue the story. It will continue like that until we reach 10 chapters.
The nominated person have 7 days to come up with a new chapter for the story, if the nominated person don't write a new chapter then I will nominate another person. All the posts related to the story must have the hashtag #makeastory and tag me on them.
Also you have to add a pic or drawing related to your chapter of the story, if you don't have any you can use the one provided here. Once the ninth person writes the ninth chapter it have to nominate me to write the last chapter. In other words, I will write the first and the last chapter of the story.
The writers can do whatever they want with their part of the story. Whatever their imagination desires, there's no right or wrong in this story. The minimum word count its 100 words. The title must always say: "Let's Make A Story: Cabin In The Woods" and the number of the chapter ej: Let's Make A Story: Cabin In The Woods - Chapter 1. You can name the chapter if you want. And most important: HAVE FUN WHILE CREATING THE STORY!