“Don’t worry.” He squeezed my hand. “I’ve got you.”

I didn’t tell him that I wasn’t afraid of the cabin. That I was grappling with an unexpected rush of emotion and I wasn’t prepared to deal with it. I just smiled and nodded, keeping the rest of it locked up tight inside me.

He slowly led me toward the cabin and I let the atmosphere sink in. The towering trees, the mist, the eerie silence. It made my heart beat harder and a tingle of fear crawl up my spine.

But I actually liked the feeling.

The cabin’s wood was gray and weathered with gaps between the boards. The covered porch sagged on one side and the stairs looked like they might break if you stepped on them.

“Go ahead.” He dropped my hand and gestured toward the cabin. “Check it out.”

“By myself?”

“I’ll be right behind you.”

I glanced at him, suddenly worried there might be someone waiting to jump out and scare me.

“This isn’t a prank,” he said, as if he could read my mind. “It’s more like… visual inspiration.”

“Okay.”

With a deep breath, I walked up the porch steps. They creaked beneath my feet. The porch itself seemed to let out a low groan as soon as my weight settled on the old boards. But it held.

I glanced to the side and gasped. A mannequin dressed in an old t-shirt and jeans was sprawled out on the porch, as if he’d fallen there, dead. A long knife stuck out from his chest and something red—it looked a lot like ketchup—was splattered around the wound.

“Maybe your main character is first on the scene and discovers something like that,” Gavin said.

I gazed at the fake murder scene. A stabbing victim would be an interesting twist.

She walks up the creaky steps, her weapon drawn. Heart beating fast, the adrenaline flowing through her veins a familiar companion. The interior is dark, apparently abandoned, but her instincts flare to life. She steps onto the porch and catches the metallic scent of blood in the air. Pointing her weapon to her right, she finds the body, the murder weapon still protruding from his chest.

This was giving me ideas already.

“Is there more inside?” I asked.

His mouth turned up in a smile. “Oh yeah.”

I pushed the door open and crept in. Tingles raced down my back, but there was something exhilarating about it—about walking straight into fear. I knew it was because this was safe—none of it was real—but it was a heady sensation nonetheless.

Light streamed in through a dingy window and the cracks between the boards, illuminating floating particles of dust. Gavin hadn’t been kidding. There was more inside. A lot more.

A sheet of plastic stretched across a section of floor, splattered with fake blood, and a severed arm sat in the middle of it. An ax was stuck in the floorboards nearby. In another corner, a skeletal arm poked out of an old dusty chest. Rusty tools hung from the rafters and a rickety table and chairs were covered with fake spiderwebs. At least, I hoped they were fake.

He’d marked off the shape of a body using tape on the floor and a toy handgun—I could tell it was plastic—lay nearby, like the perpetrator had dropped it there and ran.

Other items in the cabin were more gothic or Halloween-ish. The old mantle had large candle holders and a black raven sat on a shelf.

I crouched next to the tape lines, my vision going hazy. I could see my protagonist doing a slow sweep of the area, investigating every detail. Looking for things that might have been missed. Trying to get inside the killer’s head.

Like pieces of a puzzle, the ending to my book clicked into place. I knew what needed to happen.

I got up and whipped around, running right into Gavin. “Oops.”

He grabbed my arms to steady me. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, fine.” Maybe I should have stepped back—put a little space between us—but I didn’t particularly want to. “Sorry, I didn’t realize you were there.”

“Just checking to see what you think.”

“This is…” I trailed off, having a hard time finding the words. “It’s one of the most amazing things anyone has ever done for me.”

He smiled, puckering his adorable dimples. “Yeah? I’m glad you like it. Did you get any ideas?”

“Absolutely. You were right, visual inspiration really helped.”

“Awes—” Something clinked outside, like the sound of a metal can toppling over, and he broke off before finishing the word. “Did you hear that?”

“Yeah.”

We both paused, standing still in the ensuing quiet.

“Hello?” he called, his eyes darting around.

I held my breath, but nothing happened. Was this part of the setup?

“Maybe we should check outside.”

I nodded and grabbed his hand. We crept out the half-open door, and the hinges creaked. The sound made the back of my neck tingle and I scrunched my shoulders. He led me past the stabbing victim and down the porch stairs, taking slow, cautious steps.

My heart beat faster and the fun and excitement of the murder cabin started to melt into actual fear.

“You know I don’t write horror novels, right?” I whispered as we walked around the side of the building. “I don’t need jump scare inspiration.”

“I know. I didn’t put anything back here.”

That wasn’t reassuring.

There was a small clearing behind the cabin, the ground strewn with pine needles and twigs. A few pieces of graying wood suggested there had once been a stack of firewood back here, and a couple of rusty old tools peeked out from the debris littered ground.

“Are there bears out here?” I whispered.

“Yeah.”

My eyes widened. “Did you just say yes, there are bears?”

“Shh.” He put a finger to his lips and peered into the trees. “I don’t think it’s a bear.”

“Then what—”

Something crashed, I gasped, and Gavin dragged me to the ground. He threw himself on top of me, like he was shielding me from… whatever was out there.

For a second, I squeezed my eyes shut, afraid to even look. Was there a real murderer out here? Had that ax inside been left by the cabin’s terrifying occupant who was now going to chop us into bits for trespassing?

“What the fuck,” he muttered, but he sounded baffled, not afraid.

Of course, this was Gavin. Would a big hulking ax murderer be enough to scare him?

I peeked my eyes open. I was on my back with Gavin braced on top of me, and I slowly turned my head to see what he was looking at.

A rusty tin can with little gray feet scampered across the ground.

“What is that?” I asked.

“I think it’s a squirrel stuck in a can.”

I felt bad for the little guy, but I couldn’t help but laugh. “Oh my god. I thought we were about to be murdered.”

He smiled. “I did too for a second there.”

“Did something actually scare you?”

“It startled me. Even I can be startled by a weird noise when I’m in a murder cabin.”

The squirrel ran around the clearing in a disoriented frenzy.

“Should we try to help it?” I asked.

Before he could answer, a man jumped out from behind a tree. I screamed, and Gavin rolled off me, getting to his feet to stand between me and whoever it was.