Curse of the Lakeshore Cabin

"The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window. Rumor has it, it was home to a strange old man that generally kept to himself. Until one summer night, 90 years ago.

On July 13th, Johnny Krantz wreaked havoc on the small town of Lakeshore, torturing and killing 13 people. There's different versions of how the night ended. Some say he was never caught, while others say he ended the massacre by offing himself and his spirit continues to haunt the town. But his cabin remains abandoned.

There was speculation from the townspeople, offering Krantz's wicked childhood as the motivation for his murderous outrage. As a kid, Krantz witnessed his parents being stabbed to death by a masked villain, who then made eye contact with him before fleeing the scene. The man was never found. Krantz was shuffled in and out of the foster system until turning 18. After that, his whereabouts were unknown until he moved into the cabin alone. Other than the occasional shouting when tourist kids trashed his yard, no one had anything unusual to say about Krantz.

Since the brutal murders, there has been three more Lakeshore massacres, all exactly 30 years apart. The victims are always summer breakers -- people visiting the small town to indulge in the bloody history, and there's always 13 bodies found. Local police have never caught a suspect. And because the massacres happen so many years apart, people often assume it's all a hoax, a twisted story to keep tourists away. But who doesn't love a good story that creates another American ghost town?

It's said that no locals from the original bloodbath are still living, given it was 90 years ago; however, there has been one victim from each of the following three massacres that ended up in the psych ward, generally unharmed. The events they claimed happened were all similar yet foggy, as they couldn't recall many specifics. But there was one small detail that remained identical: the night of each massacre, these victims saw a candle flickering in the window of old man Krantz's cabin just hours before it began."

"Okay, wait." Tessa shifted her weight in the sand uncomfortably. "So you're telling me that you brought us to Lakeshore on the anniversary of this psychopath's curse?!"

I glanced around the fire at my four best friends. "I mean, it's not real. Right, Sadie?" Lexi said.

I rolled my eyes at both of them and continued. "Now, I'm not sure about the first two because they died in the loony bin. But the third woman is still alive. I've heard that she is sinister, locked in solitary, screaming obscenities and always trying to hurt herself. Before the last massacre in 1992, she was a healthy and mentally stable 16-year-old.

Seeing that flickering candle has tortured her soul for the last 30 years. No one knows why, because she hasn't spoken a word about what happened since the morning after the bloodbath. Officers at the time said her behavior was erratic and unsteady, as if she were trying to hide true details of the tragedy. They feared she was a danger to herself, and potentially others, after the traumatizing events that took place. So, like the others, she was committed and has become more and more unhinged, with no recovery in sight." I wiggled my fingers in Tessa's face with a deep chuckle and she smacked my hands away.

"I feel like this is too specific to be fake... It's creepy." Alice shuddered, wrapping her blanket tighter around her shoulders and leaning closer to our campfire.

"Oh, come on you guys." I looked around at them. "You know it's just a scary story, right? You can't have a good story without all the gory details."

"I mean, there's literally an abandoned cabin back there," Lexi stated, pointing towards the woods. "But yeah. There's no way we'd be allowed to vacation here if any of it was actually true," she giggled. "I'm sure that cabin just has plumbing issues or something." She shrugged her shoulders and threw a small stick into the fire.

"I'm still on the fence," Gracie said blandly, looking bored. "I get the appeal, but it almost feels too specific to be real. Maybe some crazy stuff really did go down, but over the years, people have taken the real story and added in their own twists and turns. You know, to spice things up."

"Yeah, maybe. I really don't think the whole thing is real," I said with a dry chuckle.

"Just get on with it, Sadie!" Lexi teased.

"Oh... well, that was it. I don't know anymore of the story." I stood up slowly, stretching my legs and pulling my flannel around my stomach. "I guess you'll just have to use your imaginations! Add in your own twists and turns." I winked at Gracie then turned and walked down to the lake in front of us, dipping my toes in the small ripples hitting the sandy shore. As I closed my eyes, I listened to the quiet noises of the wind and water, drifting away for a moment.

Two months ago, I decided to book this trip to Lakeshore for my friends and I. It seemed like the perfect getaway for our summer vacation before we all go to college in the fall. We grew up together, our families like one big blended clan. Gracie's dad would tell us scary stories as we sat around the campfire eating s'mores. Tessa's parents always had the best collection of horror movies, so we usually chose her house for sleepovers. And my parents were obsessed with ghost towns and the history behind them, so they helped me plan this trip and put the pieces of the Krantz story together.

I turned around and watched my friends giggle and shriek around the campfire. Tessa glanced up at me and gave me quick smile then threw a marshmallow at Alice. I chuckled, shifting my gaze to the abandoned cabin behind them, then to the other lakefront cabins surrounding us. All six of them were lit up inside, with some groups on the decks or having fires on the beach near us.

"Sadie!" I heard the girls shouting my name and I turned to head back to our fire. "We're going to head inside and watch a movie. It's getting chilly," Alice said shivering.

"Yeah, we were thinking we could watch a horror movie! Seems appropriate," Gracie said with a laugh. Alice groaned loudly in protest, but we knew she was always game for a good slasher.

We all threw handfuls of sand over the fire to put it out, gathered our blankets and snacks and headed toward our cabin and away from the abandoned one. Before slipping into the back door, I heard a twig snap in the direction of the Krantz cabin. I took one last glance, and there in the window, a candle glowed, just for a moment.

"No way," I gasped.