Old Cabin on Summerton Lane

"The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window."

Gabby was speaking to a small group of people sitting around the table at the paranormal meeting.

"That's what the stories said about the old cabin on Summerton Lane. The candle burned in the window on All Hallows Eve. They said the cabin was haunted by the ghost of someone who died there. So, me and my friends decided to go do a séance on Halloween night to communicate with the ghost and see why it haunted the cabin and hadn't crossed. Fifteen years later, the events of that night still haunt me."

Everyone watched their speaker intently as she began her tale of that long ago Halloween night.

****

Gabby sat by the campfire roasting a marshmallow.

“Penny for your thoughts?” Jay asked as he sat down beside her.

She sighed. “I’m just getting jittery. You know how I am when we do these paranormal investigations.”

“Well, it’s not JUST any old investigation. This one is on All Hallows Eve and we’re doing a séance,” Jay winked at her.

“That’s actually what’s got me so jittery. What if something goes wrong with the séance…” Gabby sipped her drink.

Jay cocked his head quizzically. “Gabby, you’re not chickening out on us, are you? I mean we’re all here because you wanted to do this. This was all your idea.”

“But what if we pull something through that we can’t control?” Gabby’s hand shook a bit.

“Like what? A demon or something?” Jay laughed.

“Actually, yeah. What if we do? You know what they say about Ouija boards….” Gabby averted her eyes.

“Gabriella Rucci! Descendant of Stregas from Sicily. Do you mean to tell me, you are honestly scared to do this?” Jay was truly surprised. He had always known Gabby to be fearless.

“This is different than cleansing houses of bad energies or banishing a minor spirt….” her voice trailed off.

“Look, we have salt to make a protective circle. We’ve all practiced our sigils. We’ve got our crystals. Gabby, it’s going to be fine. You’re going to do great.” Jay gave her a squeeze and felt the tension in her body. “Gabs, is there something you’re not telling me?”

She shivered. “I’ve been having this dream about the cabin. It sort of got under my skin.”

“What kind of dream?”

“It always starts out with me walking down the path in the dark through the woods. There’s a small light ahead. The darkness presses in on me. I have an urgency to go towards the light. I arrive at the cabin and there is a lit candle in the window. That’s what the light is. A candle sitting on a crescent that’s decorated with the phases of the moon. I reach to open the door, but just as my hand touches the doorknob, a rooster crows. Then the dream shatters and I wake up.”

Jay laughed. “That doesn’t sound all that scary, Gabs. I mean, it’s just a candle in the window. Right? Nothing else happens?”

Gabby shifted away from Jay. “It’s just that the cabin looks so formidable sitting there in the clearing encircled by the ring of ominous-looking trees in the dark. It just… I can’t explain it. It just felt…..evil. You, know?”

Roger and Kara came back from the car carrying blankets. Kara handed one to Gabby. “Here you go, Gabs. It’s starting to get pretty cool now that the sun went down.”

Plopping down next to Jay, Roger popped open a soda. “So, what time are we starting the séance?”

Ribbing Gabby, Jay poked the fire. “Well, if Gabs isn’t chickening out on us, we’re supposed to start around eleven-thirty.”

Kara dropped the blankets on the bench. “Wait, what? Gabs, scared? Are you kidding me? She has nerves of steel. No freaking way she would chicken out.” She turned to Gabs. “He’s kidding right? Yanking our chains? I mean we’ve planned this for weeks….”

“No worries. We’re doing it.” Gabby tried to sound braver than she felt.

“Tell them about the dream,” Jay prodded.

Gabby told Roger and Kara the details of the dream she had shared with Jay.

Kara, popped a marshmallow onto a stick and poked it in the fire. “Ok, so you just get a creepy feeling? You don’t see anything? But a rooster crows, and the dream shatters like glass and you wake up?”

“Yeah, that pretty much sums it up.” Gabby shrugged.

Roger leaned back in his chair. “Ok, so let’s interpret the dream. What is the symbolism that goes with crowing roosters?”

Popping the warm gooey marshmallow into her mouth, Kara tapped a query on her phone. “Ok, so Google says… several things actually, so, I guess you have options. One entry says it means it’s a warning. Another says it represents a bad, dominating man. Oh, and this one says, you shouldn’t hold back and say what you need to say. Oh my god, and this one says, you’re arrogant and cocky.” Kara laughed heartily.

Roger elbowed Gabby, “What? Gabby, arrogant?”

“Har, har. From the ominous feeling I had in my dream and because the rooster crowed just as I touched the doorknob, I’m thinking it’s a warning. That’s why I’m wondering if we should do this.”

“So, we just don’t go inside the cabin.” Jay offered with a shrug.

Kara swiped at a moth swarming her that was drawn by the campfire. “What? That’s stupid. The whole point of coming up here was to have a seance in the cabin to see if we could talk to the spirit that haunts it. I mean, what was the point of driving 150 miles to get here if we’re just going to roast marshmallows and call it off and go home?”

Roger stared into the dancing flames of the campfire. “Ok, let’s review the stories about the ghost and see what we know. It only appears on Halloween. If we don’t do it tonight, then we’d have to wait another year.”

“People report it gets really cold in the woods. Kind of like it is right now, actually…” Kara shivered and grabbed one of the blankets and wrapped it around herself.

Jay looked thoughtful. “Basically, it’s a typical spook light story. Kids come up here on Halloween and they see a light coming from inside the cabin.”

“It’s a candle,” Gabby corrected.

Jay countered. “In your dream, it’s a candle. But in all the stories they just say it’s a light shining in the window.” He walked to the ice chest to get another drink.

“Gabby’s probably right though.” Roger defended. “There’s no electricity up here so it would have to be a candle.”

“No it doesn’t. A ghost wouldn’t light a candle,” Kara interjected.

“A ghost can do any damn thing it likes,” Roger challenged.

“What if it is a man? Like that one entry said about the crowing rooster. A bad, dominating man. It could be a murderer that revisits the scene of his crime.” Kara’s eyes were wide, a sign she was spinning herself up.

Jay crept up behind Kara and stuck his unopened ice-cold drink to Kara’s neck and simultaneously poked her in the side. She let out a blood-curdling scream. “Damn it, Jay.”

“Good god, Kara. You probably scared the hell out of everyone within a ten-mile radius with those loud lungs of yours. Now there will be stories about the ghost being a banshee in the woods.” Roger chided.

“What does breaking glass mean? Or a candle? In a dream I mean. You know, going back to interpreting my dream.” Gabby thought for a moment running the dream back through her mind. “The vision shatters when the rooster crows. If the rooster is a warning, and then the vision explodes like glass .. to me that means forget about it. Like I'm being warned not to it because it's too dangerous.”

Roger put his hands on his hips. “Gabby, we’re doing it. With or without you, we’re doing it. We’ve planned this night for weeks. We traveled nearly two hours and we’ve been here since 2pm. Now it’s 10pm. So, we’re just an hour and half away from go time.” He looked around. “You’re with me aren’t you, Kara? Jay?”

Kara looked at Gabby. “Gabs, don’t get mad. But yeah, I’m in, Roger.”

“Me too.” Jay fist-bumped with Roger.

“Guys, I can’t. I just can’t. I’m really sorry. I am so full of dread right now. I can't explain it, but, honestly I think I need to sit this one out. I’ll just stay here by the fire. Here, take my recorder.” Gabby couldn’t quell the foreboding building inside of her.

Jay, Kara and Roger gathered the séance items and trekked off into the night towards the cabin. Gabby watched them go with mixed feelings of relief and guilt. She had no rational reason not to go with them. Just her nonsensical dream and her strong ill of ease.

She could hear her friends' voices chattering as they disappeared into the darkness with just the glow of their phones showing their progress as they made their way to the top of the hill. Once they were completely out of sight, Gabby's anxiety skyrocketed. She should have felt better staying behind in the comfort of the campfire's warm glow. Instead, she felt worse. The fire suddenly sputtered and died as a gust of wind swirled it to ashes. A permeating, bone-chilling cold came rolling in. Gabby felt the night pressing in on her. She jumped from her chair and scurried up the path in the dark.

Just like her dream, Gabby saw a small light ahead as she neared the top of the hill. The darkness pressed in on her giving her a sense of urgency to go towards the light. As she arrived at the cabin, a lit candle sat in the window on a crescent decorated with the phases of the moon. Gabby reached to open the door, but just as her hand touched the doorknob, a rooster crowed.

Gabby froze. The realization hit her. It wasn't a dream she'd had. It was a premonition.

"Kara! Roger! Jay!" Gabby called out to her friends. As she yanked the door open, a loud explosion knocked Gabby off her feet throwing her backward into a tree. Shards of glass from the cabin's front window hit her in the face and arms tearing flesh. Shrieks pierced the night like a thousand banshees. Gabby cowered as the cold numbed her fingers, toes, nose, and ears. Paralyzed with fear, Gabby shivered as the darkness pressed in on her and the cold slowed her heartbeat and breathing until she lost consciousness.

Gabby was awakened to daylight by a young officer. "Ma'am? Are you ok? What happened to you?"

"My friends. Where are my friends?" Gabby looked around. She was lying at the base of a tree where she had been flung the night before. Her arms were speckled with dried blood and feeling her face, she confirmed the cuts there as well. But there was no broken glass on the ground. And there was no cabin. "Where's the cabin?"

The officer helped Gabby rise to her feet. "Cabin?"

"The cabin that was there. The cabin of Summerton Lane." Gabby looked at the Officer.

Officer Erikson looked at the young woman. "Ma'am, this is Summerton Lane, but there hasn't been a cabin here since it burned down twenty years ago."

"But it was here. Last night. It exploded when I opened the door. Right after the rooster crowed when I touched the doorknob. Just like my dream. But it wasn't a dream, it was a premonition."

The Officer looked at Gabby quizzically. "The cabin did explode but not last night. That happened twenty years ago. I'm not sure what happened to you out here last night, but I think you're in shock. Let's get you to town, and get you some first aid."

"But we can't go. We have to find my friends. We can't just leave them." Gabby gripped the Officer's arm.

"Ok. Ok. Let's get you to my car and then I'll have a look around for your friends. If they're here, I'll find them."

*****

Gabby looked at the people sitting in the room. "But they never found my friends. My boyfriend Jay Arnold, his best friend Roger Kidwell, and my best friend Kara Neighbors have never been seen again since that night. The Officer told me no such people ever existed by those names. I went to each one of their homes and they didn't live there and I was told they never had. No one I talked to knew who they were. Everything about them was erased like they never existed. I firmly believe that old cabin was a portal and my friends went through it that night. At one stroke after midnight when the cock crowed it exploded and ceased to exist. I've been back every Halloween night since then but the cabin never reappears. My friends are forever gone. But I know that night was real and that everything I told you truly happened. Look at me." Gabby pointed to the scars on her face and arms. "These are the scars I got that night. This didn't happen to me from crashing through the brush in the dark like they would have me to believe. It's from the glass of the window when the cabin exploded. How do I know for sure my mind isn't playing tricks on me? Because I have this..."

Gabby reached in her pocket and set something on the table. A crescent decorated with phases of the moon holding a stub of a candle.