----Part 1----


It was 7:20 pm and the light was fading fast. Nolan Peck stood in the open doorway of the small cabin and brushed the snow from his thin jacket. It was only August and the unexpected snowfall had come on with a vengeance.
Nolan had been making his way back to Florida from a short business trip in Memphis when the storm hit. Within minutes, there was an almost total whiteout and he had quickly lost his way. He had spent 45 minutes trying to regain his bearings when he had suddenly lost control of his Grand Prix and slid into a small drainage ditch. He sat in disbelief at his luck for 15 minutes until he decided that he needed to find some real shelter. Remembering a small cabin he passed a few miles back, he tossed on his small hemp jacket and trudged into the blinding white veil. One hour and 2 feet later, Nolan stood knocking at the door of the small cabin.
“Hello!” Nolan called several times, “Is anyone home?” He felt blindly along the wall just inside the door and was relieved to feel a switch. He flipped it up and the small light overhead glared to life.
It only took a few short glances around the cabin’s lone room for Nolan to realize that no one had been here in months. Shutting the door behind him, he couldn’t help but think this was more a shed than a cabin. Were it not for the small kitchenette and a bare minimum of hand made furnishings, you would have never guessed someone might live here. “At least it’s warm in here.” Nolan said to himself as he took his jacket off and hung it on the small door hook.
Nolan knew, however, that the warmth would not last. Luckily, there was a small stack of wood already sitting beside the fireplace. Nolan tossed a couple of logs into the fireplace, along with a few small pieces of lighter, and got the fire started. With his small fire going, he started looking for a phone.
After 20 minutes, he was satisfied that there was no phone anywhere to be found. “I should have known not getting a cell would come back to bite me in the ass.” he said to himself with disgust. He had fought tooth and nail against getting a cell phone. No matter how much his family tried to talk him into one, he was adamantly against it. He always used the excuse that he wasn’t important enough for anyone to have access to him 24/7; In reality he didn’t want one because he couldn’t stand how pompous some people looked walking around with the damn things to their ears, constantly yapping to someone that obviously couldn’t wait long enough for them to get a gallon of milk.
Nolan stood by the cabin’s only window and gazed lazily into the whiteout. Being from Florida, he wasn’t accustomed to snow. Still, he had never heard of snow coming on so fast and piling up as rapidly as it was outside. Through what limited visibility he had, he could see the snow had already reached the base of the window, a good 4 feet. It had hardly been two hours since it started and it certainly didn’t look like it would be letting up anytime soon.
A sudden wave of panic engulfed Nolan. At the rate the snow was falling, the cabin could easily be covered on all sides within a couple more hours. It was obvious that no one had been here in quite some time and no one knew he was here. He couldn’t help but think of how quickly this situation could go from bad to worse. While there was enough wood for a couple of days, what would he do after that time? The cabin had no electrical heating system that he could see and even if it did, the power could easily go out in this weather. With no source of heat, he would be dead long before anyone found him.
“Get a hold of yourself!” said Nolan and he shuddered away from the window, “There is no reason to panic yet.” Nolan walked to the lone closet to the left of the front door. He opened it and was happy to see it full of winter clothing. “If push comes to shove, at least this stuff may buy me a bit more time.” he thought to himself. Also in the closet was a couple of flashlights, a months supply of McCormick vodka and a 12 gauge pump action shotgun.
He closed the closet door and went to the doorless bathroom. He had just started taking a piss when he heard the sound of something tapping on the front window. He zipped up and hurried to the window.
He looked out and could see nothing. At first, he thought he was just hearing things. However, the longer he stood staring into the blinding whiteness, the more certain he was that he had indeed heard something knocking on the window. But what could it have been? There were no limbs near the window and he was certain if it had been an animal or a person he would have been to the window in time to see them. But still, there he was, staring out and seeing nothing but snow.
“It’s just your mind messing with you, “ he said aloud, “there is nothing out there.” He walked over near the fireplace and sat in a crudely made rocking chair. The warmth from the fire enveloped him like a favorite blanket on a chilly night. Crude as it may be, the rocking chair was very comfortable and before long he slipped into a peaceful sleep.

A loud pop from the fire snatched Nolan violently from his slumber. He jumped so that he almost turned the chair over but he was able to catch his balance before any harm was done. He looked around, groggily alarmed for a few moments until he remembered where he was and how he had gotten there. Another loud pop from the fire brought him back around rather effectively.
He rubbed his eyes and yawned. He checked his watch and saw that it was 20 minutes after 11 pm. He had been asleep for a little under 3 hours, yet, felt surprisingly refreshed. He stretched and began to look around, glad to see that his fire was still going and the lights hadn’t yet left him.
It wasn’t until his stomach let out an unbelievably loud rumble that he remembered he hadn’t eaten all day. He stood from the chair and, after one last good stretch, walked over to check out the refrigerator. He opened the refrigerator door and was amazed to see that it was completely full. What amazed him even more was the fact that the refrigerator was full of, what appeared to be, very fresh meat. “That’s a good sign” he thought to himself, “At least I was wrong about no one being here in the last couple of months; Maybe I’m not as bad off as I thought I was.”
He grabbed a package of ham from the top shelf and opened it up. He took a whiff, just to be on the safe side, and was delighted that it smelled as if it had been put in the fridge only yesterday. Placing the ham on the small counter beside the miniature stove top, he opened the cabinets and found a loaf of bread. Opening it up, he was happy to find that it too was fresh. “Nice!” he said, “This might not turn out so bad after all.”
After voraciously devouring his meal and chasing it with a nice cold soda, he cleaned up and then plopped himself on the, also handmade, loveseat. He was pleased to find it just as comfortable as the rocking chair. There was remote control on the small end table to his left and he grabbed it and pushed the power button. The small television sprang to life and, Nolan was happy to see, apparently had a cable hook up.
He had been channel surfing for less than a minute when he heard what sounded like footsteps on the roof. He bolted upright and fumbled to turn the television off. For a moment, he heard nothing but the wind. He ran to the window and looked out. The snow had already risen another 2 feet and now covered half of the window. He strained to see into the darkness but could see nothing. He turned away from the window and listened. Still, there was no sound but the eerie howl of the wind.
“You must be losing your freaking mind.” he thought to himself. The thought barely had time to cross his mind before he heard it again, this time coming from directly above the kitchenette. He bolted over and yelled, “Hey! Is anyone out there?” Only the wind replied. He stood motionless and listened, intently. Nothing.
After a bit of self convincing, Nolan resigned the noises to figments of his imagination. “I’ve got to get a hold of myself” he said, “It’s bad enough being stuck here in this mess, no need to make it worse by letting my damn imagination get carried away on me.”
It was 2:30 am and Nolan couldn’t help but think about his wife. Jessica would certainly be wondering why she hadn’t heard from him. She was never one to be very self reliant. Nolan was all but convinced that she had married him because he was willing to make her decisions for her. It was almost as if she needed him to do her thinking, even though she was perfectly capable of thinking for herself. Though he was never able to meet her father (he had died the year before they met), he assumed he had instilled this trait in her from an early age. While, he loved her very much, her reliance on him had led to a certain lack of respect. This in turn led to many after work and out of town rendezvous with women who satisfied needs that Jessica was unable to satisfy. At the moment, however, he had a strong desire to hear his wife’s voice.



----End of Part 1----

Part 2 coming soon.

Hi there,

first of all, I enjoy your writing. It flows well, the ideas and possibilities are building nicely and the dialogue/thoughts work well. So, my comments are basically technical.

Paragraphing: your writing will be easier for your readers to follow if you space your paragraphs with an empty line between. This is the commonly-used standard and as it's easier on the eyes I'd recommend it for work of this kind.

Thoughts and speech: where you have a direct speech statement -- meaning it is placed within quotes because it is either a person (or thing) actually speaking or you are indicating a character's thought -- then be sure to maintain punctuational norms. This is especially so where we have some speech/thoughts in this kind of format:

"I don't know," he responded.

Notice that we should not use a full stop like this:

"I don't know." he responded.

There are places in your story where this needs to be tidied up.

Of course, where the quoted statement/thought ends with a question mark or exclamation mark then no comma follows it. For example:

"I don't know!" he shouted.

OR

"I don't know. Do you?" she gave back.

The above are the correct formats in such cases.

Aside from those points, I feel that there is very little you need to change.

Nice work! I'm looking forward to the coming chapters.

Mike

Edit to add: There are a few other minor points but I think they are details you will pick up during your own revision, so I won't bother you with them here. They mainly relate to comma usage where parentheses or hyphens would be better. Stuff like that.

[edit on 7-11-2007 by JustMike]

Originally posted by SimiusDei
Thanks very much for the input.

I tend to only do my writing when very tired so my punctuation kind of goes to crap hahahaha. You can see the same trend in my threads. It's very easy to distinguish when I'm wide awake or very tired.

I'll work on it in the future, though my grammar and punctuation are usually a great deal better when I am not exhausted.

Thanks again,
Jasn


Edit to add: HAHAHAHAHA I just realized that copying/pasting it here took out all the structure formatting. Everything was tabbed and appropriately spaced. Don't know why I missed that earlier.

[edit on 7-11-2007 by SimiusDei]

Yes, when I posted my own story a few days ago I also had to rewrite it to put in various codes so it would read as it does in (e.g.) MS Word. And yes, I know what you mean about writing when tired. Often that's when my best ideas seem to come out but I wind up with typos everywhere and have to go through later and fix them all.

Of the 163 threads you authored in 2007 (yes, I just counted them, purely out of curiosity), this is the best.

I like the cozy-alone-cabin-snow-idea with the possibility of danger looming in the air. This story could go anywhere and Im sure you havent made up your mind where you will take it yet.