The sound fills the room, causing Scottie to stand upright in her matching pink pajama set. “Did you hear that?” She walks up to me and shows her arm. “Look, goose bumps. Someone is in here.” She hurries over to the dresser, picks up the longest dildo from the minibar, and wields it like a sword before walking up behind me and gripping my shirt, using me as a human shield.

And then, in the creepiest voice I think I’ve ever heard, a voice that will haunt me in my dreams until the day I die, she says, “Come out, come out wherever you are. We’re ready to play with you.”

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” I shout and then shake her off me. “Jesus Christ, Scottie, it’s probably just a smoke detector needing a new battery.”

She lets that process for a second and then stands taller. “Huh, you know, I never thought about that.”

“No, instead, you go right to trying to beat someone with a ten-pound dildo.”

She crosses her arms at her chest and juts her hip out. “You know, must be nice walking around as a man, not a worry or care that something bad is going to happen to you.” She jostles the dildo at me as she speaks. “We women have to be on guard at all times, so excuse me for covering all bases.”

“You’re not covering bases. You’re going straight to insanity.”

Ding.

She stiffens and then crouches around me again, holding out the dildo. Whispering in her lower register, she says, “That is not a smoke detector. That is an electronic device. I can sense it.”

“Yeah, and I can sense that you’re losing it.”

“Can we please just look around?”

“Fine,” I say, exasperated. Then together, we walk the perimeter of the cabin, her hiding behind me, holding the dildo out. What is she going to do? Penetrate someone to death with that thing?

We check under the bed, inside the closet, in the bathroom even though we already both took showers. She sneers at the flesh poker, and then we arrive back at the bed just as another ding goes off. This time, I hear it come from her nightstand.

“I think it’s in your nightstand,” I say.

“Really?” she asks, clawing at my shirt. “Well, go…go look.”

I’m about to reach for the handle to pull it open, but she stops me.

“Wait, use this,” she says, holding the dildo out to me.

“No.”

“I’m serious,” she says, stopping me from opening the drawer. “You might need to bludgeon something to death, whatever it is.”

“I’m not going to bludgeon whatever is inside. Jesus.”

I lean forward, grip the drawer pull, and feel her tense behind me as her free hand claws at my shirt. When I pull the drawer open, whatever is inside dings one more time.