Joel looked around again. He was alone in a small cabin that he had found the previous day. He had been hired to transport a rucksack out from the Boston quarantine zone to a group of bandits. He hadn't looked in the bag, he never did, it wasn't his business, but it had been heavy. He only knew his contact in Boston by reputation which had been a red flag to him, and on top of that the job hadn't paid very well. He had needed some convincing but the bottom line was that he and Tess needed everything they could get, so he had reluctantly taken the job.
He had set out alone and walked most of the day towards his meeting point before the group he was supposed to meet had surrounded him. He knew they had been following him for a couple of hours before they showed themselves, but he had acted like they'd surprised him. He had been doing this for too long to be fooled, but it was all part of the game. There had been a "discussion"; they had tried to go back on deal. One of them, a little ratty guy with a big mouth had ended up losing some teeth. The speed at which he had stuck had taken them by surprise, the missing teeth had persuaded them that they should have stuck to the original terms of the deal. They decided to give him his cash. He had expected trouble, had expected to be double crossed. Everyone wanted something for nothing, but he was also not stupid. He had left them as soon as he could and had taken a long, winding, cautious way back towards Boston in case they had decided to follow him and try again when they were more prepared.
As night fell he returned to the cabin he had found earlier to camp out during the darkness, and to wait until sunrise before returning to Boston. Tess would be probably be worried, but she knew the score, besides he had told her that he'd be back in a day or two. She'd be fine when he returned back.
The cabin had stone walls and the angled roof was made from wood. He had almost missed it the previous day when he had been traveling through a densely packed forest. At the time when he had first saw it he knew he wasn't being followed and he hadn't made contact with the group, so he had paused for a few minutes to mentally remember the area. In his experience he knew it always paid off to be prepared. Although the surrounding area was thick with trees and undergrowth, the cabin itself sat by itself in a clearing, whoever had built the cabin had also made an attempt to shape the immediate area. There were the remnants of a solitary path leading from the thick tree line towards the door, but nature had also reclaimed most of that years ago.
When he had returned hours later in the darkness it had seemed sturdy and relatively easy to defend should he need to. Or so he had thought.