word: nubilous

 

nubilous

\ NOO-buh-luhs \  , adjective;

1. Cloudy or foggy.

2. Obscure or vague; indefinite.

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    The fog was thick, moving through the woods as if it was alive, eating the very ground it moved over.  It covered the cabin like water closing around a swimmer.  
    “You know guys, this is exactly how a horror movie would start.”  One of the cabins occupants said.   The other four groaned.  They had to put up with this kind of talk for the entirety of the two hour drive to the cabin.  By now, they could probably guess, word for word, what he was about to say.  “I mean really, look at us.”  He continued, paying no attention to the reactions of his friends.  “Five young people in a cabin in the woods, hours away from any civilization, completely cut off from the rest of the world.  All that’s left is for something to come in out of the fog and attack us when we least expect it.”  As he was talking, one of them, a tallish guy with dusty hair circled around his ranting friend.  Just as the little speech was being finished, he yelled and gave his paranoid friend a light shove.  He seemed to jump twice his normal height, and fell to the floor.  The sight drew raucous laughter from the rest of them.
    “Oh sure, you all laugh, but when it actually happens, we’ll see who’s laughing then.”
    “Geez Adam,”  said another of the occupants, a short girl with a heavily freckled face, “You watch way too many movies.”
    “Maybe, but all those movies will have prepared me better than any of you.  I mean really.  We’re even the ideal group for a horror movie.”  More groans and eye rolls all around.  Adam squinted at the rest and then continued.”
    “Sheila,”  He said, pointing to the other girl in the group.  She had a tangled mess of blonde hair, and wore glasses that seemed like should have been stylish, but fell just short of the mark, “Is the hot, ditzy blonde that inevitably dies first.”  Sheila clearly took offense to that comment, but was unable to find the chance to speak up about it.
    “Laura,”  Adam continued, pointing to the freckled girl, “Is slightly less hot but still attractive girl that will probably survive until the end, but only after doing some unspeakable action that will haunt her for the rest of her life.”  Laura seemed like she was deciding whether or not she had just been insulted as Adam moved on to the next person in the group.

“Leon,” He said pointing to a thin black guy with painstakingly even hair, “Is the bad-ass black guy that fights like mad and gets killed in a blaze of glory.”  Leon hung his head in his hands, not thinking any of that was a good thing.

“Joe,”  He said pointing to the one who had shoved him, “Is the leader-slash-jock who figures out how to get everyone out only after losing a few others.”  Joe looked both pleased and annoyed at the same time.

“And I,” he said, pointing to himself, “am the quiet person that knows what’s going on before everyone else does, but nobody listens too until after he dies.”  The others waited a few seconds to make sure he was finally done before anyone spoke.

    “Yeah, a few problems with that.”  Joe said, “Our ‘ditzy blonde’ is probably one of the smartest people in school--”
    “Thanks for calling me hot though.”  Sheila said, smiling now that the comment on her intelligence had been dealt with.
    “Leon’s an extreme pacifist who can’t even watch an action movie without getting uncomfortable.”
    “Isn’t saying extreme pacifist kinda contradictory?”  Leon said, holding his chin in his hands.  Nobody paid much attention though, knowing he would probably be thinking about it more than he should be.
    “I’m not much of a jock, considering I only play baseball once a week, if that and then only with a bunch of old people.  And you are definitely not quiet.”  
    “What about me?”  Laura asked, feeling a bit left out.  Joe looked at her a bit before answering
    “You’re not less attractive than Sheila is.”  She seemed satisfied with that answer.
    “Plus,”  Sheila stated, holding up her cell phone, “We’re not really cut off.  There’s really great cell service here.”  
    “Of course there is.”  Leon said, having been brought out of his own thoughts.  “There’s a cell tower twenty miles from here.  I don’t care how much wilderness there is around us, there’s going to be service.”  
    “Ok, but it’ll still take awhile for someone to get to us if something happens.  Especially with the fog.”  Adam said, knowing he would soon have to drop the subject if things went on like they had been.
    “He’s got a point with that one.”  Laura said.
    “Yeah, except that there’s a bunch of people who know where we are, plus the nearest town is only ten minutes away if you drive fast.”  Joe said.
    “Ten minutes is plenty of time for a knife wielding murderer to gut us all”  Adam exclaimed.  
    Suddenly, there was a rasp at the window.  Everyone got very quiet very fast when they heard it.  The sound happened again, and again.  
    “See, I told you.”  Adam said, more excited than scared.  “Now some kind of psycho is gonna murder us all.”  
    Leon rolled his eyes and moved to the window where the sound was coming from.  He probably didn’t even notice, but he was moving very slowly and cautiously, keeping himself lower to the floor than he intended.  He peeked out the window to see what was there.
    He smiled and opened the window, reached out and grabbed a branch that had been hitting the window in the evening wind.  Everyone except Adam seemed to relax a bit more than they let on when they say it.  
    “Well then Shaggy, when does the murdering happen?”  Joe said.  Adam’s eyes widened when he heard this.
    “Don’t you dare make fun of Scooby Doo.”  He said  “Scooby Doo is sacred!”  He went on, expounding on the antics of the animated talking dog.  The others paid even less attention to this rant than they had on his horror movie scenario.  They could at least rebuke that one.  There was no way to say anything to him about Scooby Doo.  He would be there long into the night if nothing happened.
    Fortunately, something did.  A loud knock at the door interrupted Adam’s rant.  This one was far too loud to be a branch.  It clearly had to be a person, or something very close to one.
    “So who’s going to answer it?” Asked Joe.  Everyone looked at Adam and smiled.  
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I love using ambiguous endings like this, have you noticed?   Just be glad I didn't use "I was a dark and stormy night".