Peroxide (Peterick)

can't these nubs just leave me alone

In the shelter of Gerard's van, the temperature was pleasant, donning a cozy status of seventy-two degrees Fahrenheit with the accessory of our body heat, but that's stolen away immediately after we step outside the car.

The area could've easily been mistaken for the North Pole, and I'm actually astounded that there aren't any elves trooping through the dense piles of snow, but elves of another form, beings floating along the winter breeze, bite at our cheeks on their way down the mountain, ushering the tint of blood to the surface of our skin to view its performance.

The weather website wasn't kidding when it deemed Caribou one of the coldest places in America.

Trees promenade across the jagged terrain of the bluff, wind flooding through the needles as if a flute and chiming a natural melody of the high elevation, an indigenous tune that sails through the birds' feathers with the tranquility of a breath and deposits cheer below their wings.

The old man of a house looming above us whirls a shadow against the flurries below it, demanding that the flakes' brothers detach themselves from its wooden structure, that they are not its insulation.

I stifle the eagerness to laugh.

Only the clicking of the trunk being slammed down distracts me from the frozen sights, Gerard suddenly tossing my duffel bag into my protected hands as his car keys jingle within his fingers, coated in the black fabric of his skeleton gloves.

I never really understood why Gerard bought those, but he's always been fascinated with death and all things Halloween, so I suppose this is just a component of his obsession.

In my delay, Pete has passed me and is carefully tiptoeing up the steps, shabby from the moisture of the snow. "Are you coming?" he laughs, departing his watch of Gerard twisting the key into the knob to gaze upon my shivering figure.

The words spur my legs into action, trudging confidently through the ground pommeled by snow since the beginning of the season. Delight whisks in my stomach, increasing when the door is pushed open by Gerard as I ascend the stairs.

My friends scoot aside to make way for my excitement, smirking to themselves at the accomplishment of animating me so fully and observing as my eyes twirl around the grand foyer like in a movie.

The property is entirely wooden, typical of the mountain lodges high up in the clouds, a lifeless fireplace directly across the entrance, just pining for a flame to dance inside its brick walls. A loft hovers over the sitting area, apertures to other rooms sculpted into its base next to a winding staircase lowering into the pavilion. Windows illuminate the space with periodic beams of sunlight intruding through the snow, and plush chairs are littered around the area for small talk. Tucked away below the loft are more rooms, portals as maple-stained as the rest of the home, otherwise plenty of space for many activities.

My focus is on the house, while Gerard's is on my amazement of it, as it should be — this is Gerard's building, so he's seen it before, but Pete hasn't, yet he's staring at me like I'm a diamond set against the sand.

"Isn't it beautiful?" I marvel, cheekbones priming in a broad smile.

Gerard provides Pete with a one-sided look — secret, sarcastic, and amused by our tacit connection — but Pete has no idea what his new friend just did.

"Absolutely."

Gerard's hazel irises flip back and forth between Pete and me, sharing the moment with us. "So this is all nice and lovely, but you need to pick your rooms, or else you'll have to sleep outside."

No one here fancies being buried under an avalanche that will surely thunder down the mountain in some strange superstition of Murphy's law, so in our hysteria, we bump into practically everything in our path as we dash towards the hallway.