The Scariest Story of All

Chapter One — Five Friends, One Cabin

On the first anniversary of the day the Great Shift turned them into women, five best friends rented a cabin in the woods.

Samantha had found it online: a cosy timber lodge with a log fire, a deep bathtub and a covered veranda overlooking a lake. The photographs showed folded blankets, inviting armchairs, and a woman holding a steaming mug as she gazed thoughtfully at the trees.

"That," Samantha had announced in their group chat, "is going to be us."

"Which bit?" Rachel had replied. "The peaceful expression or the suspiciously clean kitchen?"

They booked it that evening.

By Friday afternoon, the cabin held five overnight bags, seven bottles of champagne, an unreasonable amount of chocolate,e and enough skincare products to open a small chemist's.

They had agreed the weekend would be devoted to relaxing, pampering themselves, and enjoying one another's company, away from boyfriends, husbands, and the people they loved.

Nobody was to spend the entire time talking about their partner.

That rule lasted eleven minutes.

"David packed these for me," Lucy said, lifting a pair of fluffy socks from her bag. "He said the floors might be cold."

Rachel looked up from unpacking the champagne.

"Disgusting."

"Absolutely revolting," Emma agreed.

Kate examined the socks.

"Has he got a brother?"

Samantha handed out glasses.

"To a weekend away from the people we love."

"And their washing," Rachel added.

Five glasses clinked.

Chapter Two — Learning to Be Us

A year earlier, none of them could have imagined this holiday.

Back then, they were five men who had known one another so long that nobody could quite remember when the friendship became permanent.

Their evenings involved pub quizzes, takeaway curries, and arguments over football teams none of them managed.

Their group chat had mostly contained bad jokes and photographs of terrible parking.

Then the Great Shift happened.

No one had warned them, and no one had offered a useful explanation. One moment, they were going about an ordinary day. The next, they looked through unfamiliar eyes, heard unfamiliar voices, and stared down at bodies that belonged to women they had never met.

For several hours, nobody knew where anybody was.

Samantha still remembered the relief of hearing Rachel answer the telephone.

"Is that you?"

"I think so."

"You sound different."

"So do you."

There had been a frightened silence.

Then Rachel had asked, "Are we still doing the quiz on Thursday?"

Samantha had laughed and cried at the same time.

They hadn't gone to the quiz.

Instead, they gathered at Lucy's house, brought whatever clothes they could find, sat together until the early hours, and tried to understand what had happened.

Their group chat changed after that.

Has anybody managed to contact their work?

Please tell me someone understands bra sizes.

I've got an interview tomorrow. Can one of you come shopping with me?

At first, jokes had been the easiest way to ask for help.

Eventually, they learned to ask without them.

Difficult conversations and relationships had ended. Some people insisted nothing had changed, then became uncomfortable whenever any of them tried to explain how much had.

Some days, leaving the house alone took courage.

But the five of them kept showing up for one another.

Emma had accompanied Kate to her first appointment at a new workplace. Lucy spent an entire Saturday helping Samantha sort through clothes, patiently putting back anything Samantha chose simply to be less noticeable.

Rachel once drove forty miles because Emma sent a message saying, "I'm fine," and Rachel knew perfectly well she wasn't.

Gradually, their lives grew around what had happened.

New jobs, new relationships, and unexpected pleasures. Some mornings, the mirror no longer startled them. There were photographs they liked enough to keep.

By the time Samantha suggested the cabin, they had all said yes before she finished explaining.

Chapter Three — Bubbles, Blankets and Bad Jokes

Their first evening began with face masks.

It was supposed to be soothing.

Unfortunately, Rachel had bought a bright green one that made her look like an annoyed garden ornament.

Emma took one look and nearly spilt her drink.

"What?"

"Nothing."

"Then why are you laughing?"

Samantha held up her phone.

"Absolutely not," Rachel warned.

The photograph was taken anyway.

Meanwhile, Kate studied the instructions on a packet of under-eye patches.

"Leave on for fifteen minutes," she read. "For a refreshed, youthful appearance."

"Put me down for forty-five," said Rachel.

Lucy emerged from the kitchen carrying a bowl of crisps.

"Mind your nails."

"I used to rebuild engines," Rachel said, struggling to open a second packet.

"And now you're being defeated by cheese and onion," Emma replied.

Lucy fetched the scissors.

Later, wrapped in blankets on the veranda, they watched the last light fade over the lake.

For a while, nobody said much.

Samantha sat with her glass warming between her palms and listened to the others breathing, the distant call of a bird, the soft lap of water against the shore.

She had worried about organising the weekend. Worried that calling it an anniversary might make it feel like something they were obliged to celebrate.

But Kate had slipped her hand into hers when they arrived.

"I needed this," she had said.

Now, looking along the row of blankets and fluffy socks, Samantha thought perhaps they all had.

Saturday passed without anybody doing anything especially useful.

They took a walk advertised as gentle, but it turned out to include a hill Rachel considered a personal insult.

They bought pastries from a village bakery and ate them beside the lake.

Emma read twelve pages of a novel before falling asleep with it resting on her chest.

Kate spent half an hour in the bathtub, then emerged looking so peaceful that everyone immediately wanted a turn.

Lucy checked her phone and found a photograph from David.

He was assembling the shoe rack they had bought three weeks earlier.

"How's he getting on?" Samantha asked.

Lucy enlarged the picture.

"He appears to have built a ladder."

By evening, rain was tapping against the windows and a fire crackled in the hearth.

They cooked dinner together, which involved plenty of advice, several unnecessary taste tests, and one brief disagreement about how much garlic was too much.

"There is no such quantity," Rachel said.

Afterwards, they put away the dishes, opened another bottle of champagne and changed into their pyjamas.

Emma wore blue satin.

Lucy wore little yellow ducks.

Rachel wore an enormous T-shirt bearing the words DO NOT ASK ME UNTIL COFFEE.

Kate had brought an elegant matching set, then borrowed Samantha's cardigan because elegance offered very little insulation.

Samantha looked around the room, smiled to herself and switched off the lamps.

"Oh, no," Rachel said.

Samantha held up a torch.

"Oh, yes."

Chapter Four — The Scariest Story of All

They pushed the coffee table aside and settled in a circle on the rug.

"Ghost stories," Samantha announced.

Lucy glanced towards the dark windows.

"Here?"

"No, Lucy. We're driving somewhere more isolated."

"I'm only saying the atmosphere's already doing quite a lot."

The rules were simple. Whoever held the torch had to tell a frightening story, then pass it on.

Kate went first.

She held the light beneath her chin and began a tale about a woman who heard footsteps upstairs even though she lived alone.

"Did she ring the police?" Lucy asked.

"No."

"Why not?"

"Because I've only just started."

Lucy apologised and pulled a blanket over her knees.

Emma's story was about a haunted wedding dress found in an Attic. She told it so well that Kate quietly shifted away from the dark hallway.

Rachel's involved a motorway service station where every exit brought the driver back to the same café.

"That happened to me outside Birmingham," Samantha said.

"Then you know the fear."

Lucy surprised them all with a story about a little girl who kept waving at somebody standing behind her mother.

By the time she finished, nobody wanted to look over her shoulder.

The fire settled with a sharp crack.

Emma jumped.

Rachel reached for the chocolates without taking her eyes off the hallway.

Then Lucy passed the torch to Samantha.

Samantha waited until everyone had settled.

She lifted the light beneath her chin.

"I have a story," she whispered, "more terrifying than anything you've heard tonight."

Rachel hugged a cushion.

"Does it involve checking our bank accounts after paying for this place?"

Samantha ignored her.

"It began on a night exactly like this. Five friends. A lonely cabin. Rain beating against the windows."

A branch scraped across the roof.

Kate looked up.

"Oh, that was well timed," Emma murmured.

"The friends had survived the Great Shift. They had rebuilt their lives. Found love. Found happiness."

Samantha slowly moved the torch from one face to the next.

"They thought they were safe."

Lucy pulled her blanket higher.

"But at midnight, a strange light appeared between the trees."

Outside, wind stirred the branches.

"Their glasses trembled. The floor shook. And through the darkness came a terrible voice."

Samantha paused.

Then, in a flat, official tone, she said:

"There has been an administrative error."

Rachel burst out laughing.

"Oh, I knew paperwork would get us eventually."

"The Great Shift," Samantha continued, "was coming back."

A chorus of delighted protests filled the room.

"No!"

"You wouldn't!"

"It swept through the cabin," Samantha said. "Through their fluffy socks. Through their carefully moisturised skin."

Emma pressed a hand to her chest.

"Not the expensive moisturiser."

"And when the light faded…"

Samantha leaned forward.

"They were all men again."

The shrieks were loud enough to drown out the rain.

Kate grabbed her arm.

"Absolutely not! I've only just found a bra that fits!"

"My wedding's in June!" Emma protested. "Do you know how much the alterations have cost?"

Rachel raised one cautious hand.

"Would I get my old knees back?"

Samantha nodded gravely.

"Both of them."

Rachel screamed into the cushion.

They dissolved into laughter. Lucy folded over her duck-covered knees, and Emma had to put her glass down before she spilt it.

Samantha waited for a little quiet.

"The next morning, they staggered into the bathroom and opened the cabinet."

Kate shook her head.

"Don't."

"All their lovely products were gone."

"No."

"Replaced by a single bottle."

Rachel slowly lowered the cushion.

Samantha's voice dropped to a dreadful whisper.

"Three. In. One."

Emma collapsed against Lucy.

"For hair, body and washing the car!" Rachel cried.

Kate fell sideways onto the rug, laughing helplessly.

For a minute, Samantha couldn't have continued even if she had wanted to.

Then Lucy, still smiling, rubbed a finger along the edge of her blanket.

"But I'm happy now," she said.

She spoke softly, almost to herself.

The laughter faded.

Chapter Five — A Life Worth Keeping

Samantha lowered the torch.

Lucy glanced up.

"Sorry. I didn't mean to spoil it."

"You haven't," Samantha said.

"It's only…" Lucy looked towards her phone on the kitchen counter. "David's at home making a terrible mess of the hallway, and tomorrow I'll go back and pretend I can see what he was trying to do. We'll have dinner. He'll fall asleep halfway through something he insisted we watch."

Her smile returned, shorter this time.

"I want that. I wouldn't want to lose it."

Emma reached for her hand.

"You're allowed to want to keep your life."

"I know."

"And your husband's terrible furniture," Rachel added gently.

Lucy laughed.

"Especially that."

Kate sat up and pulled Samantha's cardigan around herself.

"I wouldn't want to go back either."

Nobody looked surprised.

"I don't Love every minute," she continued. "But I like my life. I like who I've become."

Samantha set the torch on the rug, its beam falling harmlessly across the ceiling.

For weeks after the Shift, she had kept waiting to wake up.

Even after that stopped, she had hesitated to make plans too far ahead. Buying a winter coat had once felt like an enormous admission.

Now she had booked a Holiday with four women she loved and spent the afternoon wondering whether they might do it again next year.

She looked around the circle.

"So do I."

Rachel picked at a loose thread on her cushion.

"I kept my old clothes in boxes for months."

"The ones by your wardrobe?" Emma asked.

Rachel nodded.

"I thought getting rid of them would mean something I wasn't ready to admit."

"What happened to them?" Samantha asked.

"Charity shop."

"All of them?"

"One shirt stayed."

"The blue one?"

"Dad bought it for me."

Samantha reached across and squeezed her hand.

Rachel looked down at their joined hands, then smiled.

"Still a terrible shirt."

"You loved that shirt."

"I had terrible taste."

A small, affectionate ripple of laughter followed.

Emma tucked her feet beneath her.

"I thought you'd all drift away," she admitted.

Kate turned towards her.

"When?"

"Afterwards. When everything changed. I kept thinking we'd stop having things in common, or somebody would make a new life and there wouldn't be room for the rest of us."

"Why didn't you tell us?" Samantha asked.

Emma shrugged, looking embarrassed.

"Everybody else seemed to be coping."

Four faces turned towards her.

Rachel pointed at herself.

"I rang you crying from a department-store changing room."

"You said the zip was stuck."

"It was. But there were layers."

Emma laughed and wiped beneath one eye.

Lucy squeezed her hand.

"You could have told us."

"I know that now."

Kate shifted closer until their shoulders touched.

"For future reference, if I ever seem to have everything under control, ask a second question."

"Same," Samantha said.

Rachel raised her glass.

"I'll save you the trouble. I haven't."

They moved together without quite deciding to, abandoning the circle for an awkward huddle of satin, cotton, blankets and fluffy socks.

Somebody's elbow pressed into Samantha's ribs.

Lucy's hair caught on Emma's bracelet.

Kate began laughing because her foot had gone numb.

It was not an elegant embrace.

Samantha loved it.

After a moment, Rachel spoke against her shoulder.

"For the record, if it happened again, I'd still want this weekend."

Samantha held her a little tighter.

"So would I."

"Same friends?" Emma asked.

"Same friends," Lucy said.

Kate lifted her head.

"Same pyjamas. These cost twenty-eight pounds."

Chapter Six — One Year Later. Still Us.

A heavy thump sounded outside.

All five froze.

Another thump followed.

Then something scraped slowly along the cabin wall.

Lucy's hand tightened around Emma's.

"Please tell me that's a branch."

The scraping stopped.

A dark shape passed across the bottom of the curtains.

Rachel whispered something entirely unsuitable for their tender moment.

Kate grabbed a cushion.

Emma picked up the champagne bottle.

Samantha stared at her.

"What are you doing?"

"I don't know. I've never had to deal with this before."

Another rustle came from outside, followed by a sharp clatter.

They all jumped.

Samantha retrieved the torch.

"Stay here."

Nobody stayed there.

The other four followed so closely that she could barely walk.

They approached the window in a shuffling knot, with Kate still holding her cushion and Emma gripping the champagne by its neck.

Samantha took a breath and pulled back the curtain.

Five faces crowded towards the glass.

Beneath the porch light stood a badger.

It had dragged their rubbish bag across the decking and was attempting to make off with a crisp packet.

For several seconds, the women stared.

The badger stared back.

Then it picked up its prize and waddled into the rain.

Rachel let out a long breath.

"Well. He's having a lovely weekend."

Emma set the bottle down.

"He can have it."

Kate lowered her cushion.

"I could have taken him."

"Of course you could," Lucy said. "You had soft furnishings."

Samantha began laughing.

She tried to stop, failed and leaned against the window frame. That set Emma off, then Kate, and soon they were all laughing again, weak with relief and the ridiculous sight they must have made.

"I'm glad," Rachel managed, "that in a crisis we all remained so calm."

Lucy looked at the champagne bottle.

"You nearly defended us with the good one."

"I couldn't find the prosecco," Emma said.

They switched the lamps back on.

They put the torch on the mantelpiece, where everyone could see it, and officially declared the ghost stories finished.

Lucy put the kettle on.

Kate found the last pastry.

Rachel checked that the veranda door was locked, then returned to announce that the perimeter was secure against all known crisp thieves.

They settled on the sofa beneath two blankets.

Emma leaned against Kate. Lucy tucked her cold feet under Rachel's leg and ignored the protest. Samantha sat at the end with a mug of tea, watching firelight move across the faces she knew so well.

The weekend had not turned out exactly as she had imagined.

There had been less serene gazing over the lake and considerably more discussion of bra fittings. Someone had spilt a face mask on a cushion. The rubbish needed collecting from the decking in the morning.

But Emma had said something she had been carrying for a year.

Lucy had admitted how much she wanted the life waiting at home.

Rachel sat with one arm around Samantha, absentmindedly rubbing her shoulder, as she had on that first frightened night at Lucy's house.

Samantha put down her mug.

"We should do this again."

"Next year?" Kate asked.

"Next year."

"Somewhere without a hill," Rachel said.

"Somewhere with a bigger bath," Emma added.

Lucy looked around at them.

"This place would do."

They all considered it.

Outside, rain glistened on the windows. Inside, the fire was warm, the kettle still hot, and none of them had anywhere else to be.

"Yes," Samantha said. "It would."

Before bed, they took a photograph.

It required three attempts.

In the first, Rachel was talking.

In the second, Lucy had her eyes shut.

In the third, the timer caught them laughing because Kate had tried to squeeze onto the sofa and nearly sat in Emma's tea.

That was the one they kept.

Five friends in their pyjamas, pressed together beneath a blanket, with untidy hair and happy faces.

As Samantha picked up her phone to send it to their old group chat, David's message arrived.

The shoe rack had collapsed.

Lucy studied the photograph he had attached and sighed affectionately.

Then she typed:

Leave it, darling. I'll help tomorrow. Love you.

She put her phone aside and rested her head on Rachel's shoulder.

Samantha looked at their photograph once more.

Then she sent it, with a caption beneath.

One year later. Still us. 💕