Hot Springs Horror #NaNoWriMo2020

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Somehow, the vehicle from ancient times managed to carry us onward to our destination. Granted, since we took the long route to begin with, we'd already delayed ourselves by at least an hour. The ice in the cooler was melting, and our drinks were getting warm, and I was thirsty; not for water, but for something to dull my senses and erase the weirdness of that trucker and his... warnings.

But with the tiny replacement tire in place, Millie and I had doomed ourselves to additional time inside the non air-conditioned car, stuck staring at the dry desert scenery that surrounded us. Luckily, we had plenty to chat about. Exes, escapades—oh, you know the ones I'm referring to—and errors of the past, we told it all.

After nearly missing our turn onto the never-ending dirt road that led to the first spring, we rolled up to a relaxed and possibly already halfway drunk Jenny. In her cozy sandals and frayed shorts and colored tank top, she looked straight out of the seventies. With her enormous sunglasses, her super relaxed demeanor, her poofy dark hair, and glazed dark eyes, she appeared ready to attend some hippie music festival.

She'd sent up her tent, and was lounging on a chair with her fancy vanilla cream ale that she'd been dying for us to try. A bag of jalapeno chips in one hand, she stood to greet us. "Finally!" She trudged up to my door, smelling of suntan lotion and pot.

Of course she'd been smoking. What else was one to do in the desert? Drink, toke, and unwind. I didn't partake in the pot-smoking, but I certainly didn't mind it.

"For real," I said, squeezing out of the car and removing my hat to fan myself. I always loved the clothes Jenny wore; she didn't care about who commented, who noticed, and wore whatever the heck she wanted. And it suited her. Though she had similar sorts of panic attacks over nothing like I did, she was so... zen. "What a freaking adventure!" I peeled up the bottoms of my leggings and stretched.

There was absolutely nothing in the area. Surrounded in the distance by mountains and vast fields of sand and desert shrubs, we were isolated in the middle of nowhere. Usually, such remote locations made me anxious; but I'd been through so much stress and chaos lately, I didn't care. I accepted the seclusion.

"And we haven't even started drinking yet!" Millie scurried up beside me, charged with energy and excitement at our mini-vacation. "Speaking of which, I'm getting the cooler out."

Jenny laughed, and fetched my tent from her trunk—with my order getting lost, who knew where, I was so grateful she'd offered to buy me supplies while she ran errands.

Together, we set it up, laughing at my horrible attempt—I'd never put up my own camping site, and it showed.

Millie got out the cooler, as she'd claimed, but then disappeared—but we weren't worried. She was a wanderer, and would return once she was done exploring the area.

Once finished setting up my sleeping arrangements, we paused in front of Millie's mess of tarp and fabric and bent poles. "Was this broken last time you came here?"

Jenny snorted. "I can't remember. I was on something then, and I plan to be again later." She winked, but then her usually cheery expression faded. "I... had a feeling something would happen on this trip."

We slid the assembled poles into the specific loops. "Really? Funny, Millie said that too, on the way here. And the trucker... he made some kind of ominous comments, too."

"Did he..." Jenny snuck closer, as if someone would overhear us—but there was no one around, not even Millie. "Did he warn you? Like, tell you to be on your guard?"

I gulped. "How did you know?" I patrolled around the half-made tent and realized we might have put the top piece on inside-out.

"I stopped at a rest-stop on the way up," Jenny scrunched her nose, "and there was... weird stuff written on the walls. In... red ink, it looked like." Before I could ask her what the words were, she huddled near me. "Don't go to the springs, you won't come back, or some shit. I should have snapped a picture, but I was too spooked, so I left."