The Blackest Night

TW: Talks of Abortion, Sexual Assault, and Murder

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The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window. Amelia parked her car just behind a row of trees that lined the perimeter of the cabin. She turned off her engine and stared at the lonely cabin from the driver’s seat. She sat in the hand-me-down car her grandmother gave her a few weeks ago on the day she passed her driving test just listening to the world around her: the rustle of the auburn leaves shaking in the howling wind, the rhythm of the rain as it splashed on the ground. With hands still gripping the steering wheel, Amelia pulled herself forward and turned her gaze upwards as she looked out of her windshield. She searched the black, expansive sky, looking for the moon. Finally, she found it, full and round, peeking out from behind heavy clouds.

Her phone’s alarm rang, pulling her focus away from the beauty of the darkest night she’d ever seen. It was 11pm. It was time.

She had memorized the instructions the doctor had texted to her the night before. She was to go into the cabin, shower, and change into a hospital gown that he would provide. Then the procedure would begin. She repeated the steps a few times before finally forcing herself out of the safety of her car. Even though she parked relatively close to the unfamiliar cabin, the walk to its front door felt excruciatingly long. Halfway there, Amelia stopped dead in her tracks. She thought about turning around, going home, and forgetting about this night. Then she thought about what that decision would mean, about the life she would have if she didn’t walk into that cabin. But before she could make a choice on whether to run or stay, the cabin door swung open.

Through the sheets of rain and darkness of the stormy night sky, Amelia couldn’t make out more than the shape of the person standing on the front porch. All she knew about the man she was coming to see was to refer to him as the doctor. She had not imagined that this man would be this tall or this large. Amelia placed her trembling hands on her stomach, trying to ground herself and calm her pounding heart and racing mind. The doctor disappeared into the cabin then reemerged with a blanket in his hand. He ran from the rickety porch to Amelia with the patchwork quilt in hand. Amelia tried to take a step towards the doctor, who was dressed in a tattered shirt and worn pair of jeans, but her knees buckled. The doctor caught her in his arms before she fell to the ground. Noticing how weak her frail body was, he decided to wrap her in the quilt and carry her into the cabin. Amelia couldn't help but notice how muscular his scarred arms were.

Neither of them said a word as the doctor carried Amelia into the cabin, down the hall, and into the bathroom. He sat Amelia on the edge of the bathtub, then exited the room, shutting the door behind him. Amelia jumped up and quickly locked the door. She looked around the bathroom and saw a hospital gown laid across the countertop, next to an unopened bar of soap. The bathroom was fairly empty and its walls were sparsely decorated. Only a few framed stock photos hung on the pale pink walls. Though it wasn’t much to look at, Amelia was grateful that this small space felt somewhat warm.

Amelia walked over to the shower, turned the knob, and waited for the water to warm. She stripped out of her drenched clothes, and piled them in the corner. Amelia, standing naked in the middle of the bathroom, stared at herself in the mirror. She couldn’t ignore her natural hair that was poking out from underneath her braids or the deep, dark circles framing her bloodshot hazel eyes. She looked down at her exposed belly. Where she once saw smooth, flat, coffee colored skin, she now saw a small, but undeniable baby bump. This was a pregnancy she could no longer ignore or hide. She didn’t look at her body with amazement or appreciation for the life it was creating, she looked at it with only disgust and hatred. Staring down at her stomach, she was constantly reminded of the worst night of her life, of a night where her voice was silenced in a devastating and forceful way.

She didn’t have much of a say in what happened to her body from that night on.

Amelia wiped the tears from her eyes and got into the shower. Once clean and warm, she shut off the water, dried herself with the towel that was hanging from the shower handle, wrapped herself in the pale green hospital gown, then exited the bathroom. She followed the glow of the candle down the dim hallway and stopped in the doorway at the end of the hallway. She saw the doctor sitting in a chair next to the side of the bed, where he signaled for Amelia to lay. She squeezed between him and the nightstand where the doctor had arranged his surgical supplies on a metal tray. Amelia laid down on the bed and watched as the doctor cleaned his instruments with what she assumed was a sterilization spray.

The doctor tapped her knees, indicating for her to put her knees up and prop her legs open so that he could begin the procedure. Amelia turned to face the window on the fair side of the room and watched as a spark of lightning brightened the dark, night sky. She held her breath, syncing her exhales with the roaring thunder. She felt something cold press against her inner thigh. Then she felt a sudden pain run up her leg. Then again. And again. Her leg was stinging. She reached her hand down to try to locate where the pain was originating from and when she pulled her hand back she saw her hand was covered in blood. Amelia sat up in the bed and forced her legs together, and that’s when she saw that the doctor wasn’t holding a syringe or surgical tool. He was gripping a kitchen knife in his large hand. This knife was covered in Amelia’s blood.

Before Amelia could wrap her head around what was happening, the doctor was out of his chair and lurching towards her belly.

Amelia quickly slid off of the bed, trying to ignore the stinging pain radiating from her inner thigh, and took off running towards the front of the cabin. That’s when she saw that the door had been chained and locked from the inside. She froze in the middle of the hallway, looked to her right, and hurried through the open door. She slammed the door shut and locked it behind her. It didn’t take long for the doctor to figure out where Amelia was hiding. He was standing in the hallway, shouting and pounding on the locked door.

Amelia tripped over something as she was backing away from the door and fell back-first onto the cold, hardwood floor. She turned her head, to see what it was, and came face-to-face with a corpse dressed in scrubs, a surgical cap, and gloves. It only took her a split second to realize that the dead man lying just inches from her was in fact the doctor she had come here to see. The man she thought to be the doctor was someone else entirely. The pieces of this puzzle she was living in quickly fell into place.

The man standing in the hallway wasn’t here to help Amelia.

He was here to kill her.

Fuck.

The stranger impersonating the doctor became more and more impatient. His attempts to break into the room Amelia was hiding in became more urgent and aggressive. Amelia had to do something, and fast. She looked around the room, not seeing anything she could use as a weapon, but she noticed a small window up near where the wall of the cabin and the roof meet. Relying on the adrenaline raging throughout her body, Amelia used all of her strength to drag the wooden nightstand from the side of the bed to underneath the window and climb up. She tried to open the window, but the lock wouldn’t budge. She paused for a second, then pulled the drawer out of the nightstand. She knew if she smashed the window with it, that the man trying to murder her would hear the glass break and beat her outside of the cabin. She had to be smarter than him. So she waited until she saw the brilliant flash of lightning stretch across the sky. She steadied her shaking hands, held her breath, then chucked the drawer through the window, shattering the glass, as the thunder roared.

Amelia pulled herself through the window, cutting her arms and stomach on the small glass shards. She fell into the bushes lining the side of the cabin with a heavy thud. When she tried to get to her feet, she felt an agonizing pain radiate from her ankle. She collapsed back into the mud unable to stand. There was no way she could walk, let alone run. Amelia felt the spark of hope within her begin to dwindle.

The crash of the bedroom door coming from inside of the cabin forced Amelia out of the hole of despair that was trying to swallow her. She immediately leapt into action and began crawling, as fast as she could, towards the front porch. Once there she squeezed her bloody body into the small gap between the worn porch and the mud and found safety under the front porch’s floorboards.

The cabin door swung open, slamming into the cabin’s wall, with a force that startled Amelia. She swallowed her gasp and held her breath, straining to hear his steps through the driving rain. The wooden planks creaked under his heavy steps. Amelia, peering through the cracks and gaps in the wood, watched as the man paced back and forth, walking from one edge of the porch to the other.

Amelia could see the glint of the moonlight reflected in the butcher knife the man was weidling. Laying here, in the wet Earth, Amelia could see the sharpness of the long, slender blade. Then, she caught a glimpse of something much more sinister. She could see the brilliant white of the imposter's teeth.

He was smiling from ear to ear. This was nothing more than a game to him.

Amelia shuddered and covered her mouth with a muddy hand, trying to stifle the sobs she couldn’t force down.

The man began down the front steps and stood firmly on the gravel just in front of the cabin. Peering through the sheets of heavy rain, he scanned the treeline, looking for a sign of where Amelia could be hiding. He turned the corner and started swinging the knife at the bushes in the hope that if he didn’t catch her flesh, he’d at least scare her out of hiding. When Amelia couldn’t hear the swish of the knife slicing through the thin branches, she crawled out from under the porch, forced herself to her feet and took off into the cabin toward the bathroom, dragging her injured ankle behind her. The only hope Amelia had of making it out of this night alive was if she could grab her keys and make it to her car before the man made it back to the front of the cabin.

In one swift movement, she grabbed her phone and keys out from under the heap of damp clothes and ran back towards the cabin’s open front door.

She was almost safe.

Just as she was about to reach the front porch, she collided forcefully into the man who was trying to kill her. Amelia fell back onto the floor. The man closed and locked the door behind him. He smiled at the girl trembling in front of him on the hardwood floor. She had always appeared small to him, but looking at her now, she seemed not just small, but fragile. Seeing her like this, shrinking right in front of her, flooded his body with a feeling of power that was all consuming and completely intoxicating.

He started towards her. Pausing after each step. Amelia, still on the floor, squirmed backwards. This was his favorite part of the night. The chase was fun, but the moment just before he catches his prey gave him a sort of rush that nothing else in this life could compare to.

He saw the fear in her eyes and watched as the tears swelled and flooded her face. He smiled. His mouth was wide. But when Amelia looked into his eyes, she saw nothing in them. They were lifeless. Completely empty. Dead. Amelia didn’t want this image, this man, to be the last thing she saw before she died.

She scrambled backwards until she ran out of floor. She backed herself into a dead end, hitting a literal wall. She held her belly and stared up at the man, watching in defeat as the monster continued towards her.

“I know you are scared and that’s okay. This will all be over soon.”

“Why? Why me?”

“Why you?”

He paused for a moment, almost like the answer to this question was something he needed to ponder. He responded with a laugh almost like that of a clown putting on a show at a child’s birthday party. The lightness in the tone surrounding the heavy words coming out of his mouth was enough to make Amelia’s skin crawl.

“This is what you wanted. You came here looking for someone to kill that innocent child right there,” he said shaking the knife towards her stomach, “you came here to murder that baby. Your baby. And I, I just don’t think that’s okay. You can’t just get away with something like that. No, no, no. So, here I am, to make sure that the price for that child’s life is paid.”

“The price?”

He squatted down, his nose grazing Amelia’s. He leaned in and pressed his lips to her ear.

“It's simple, darling. The price is you.”

He laughed as if someone had just told him the funniest joke he had ever heard. Then plunged the sharp blade of the kitchen knife into Amelia’s stomach.