The Bus Stop and The Cabin

The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window. The strangest thing was that no one could see it. No one but me.

The candle burned from dusk until dawn, as far as I could tell.

Every morning and night I would sit at the bus stop across the street from its overgrown driveway and deep in the woods, I could make out the flicker, just barely cutting through the fog that always seemed to hang in the air.

I asked some of my fellow commuters on more than one occasion and nobody seemed to pay it any mind. They usually would not even answer me, digging their faces deeper into whatever diversion they found.

Every day and night, I sat at the bus stop and watched the light wink at me.

The only reason I knew it was a candle is my own curiosity.

After waiting for the bus for a painful amount of time and boredom taking over, I gathered my courage and foolishness and walked down the driveway to discover the truth.

The path down was way creepier than it needed to be. I underestimated the fog and the trees blocking what little light would filter through. Every step was met with the crunch of leaves and a strange echo.

Yeah, I was spooked. I am not too proud to say that the closer I got, the more my own body seemed to fight me. I was both drawn to and repelled by the cabin. Something in my mind wanted me to go closer and everything in my being told me not to.

I stopped at one point to ask myself for the hundredth time what I was doing and felt a puff of air on the back of my neck. Fighting for composure, I rushed back to the safety of the bus stop. I tried hard not to run, even though I could feel the hairs on the back of my neck stand up and for a second, I thought I heard someone crying.

I, not so gracefully, threw myself into an empty space on the bench and tried to control my breathing, hoping no one would think I was some kind of crazy person. No one acknowledged me, beyond the guy next to me giving me the side eye and turning slightly away.

The next night, I saw it again, twinkling out to tease me. I asked the girl next to me on the bench what she thought it was, but she only shrugged herself deeper into the oversized hoodie and brought her phone closer to her face.

It went on for several days. Me watching the light dance, and no one else seeing it. I began to get frustrated. How could no one else see it? It was plain as day.

I gathered my courage and went to look again. My feet dragging and my body resisting. My mind wanted to know but apparently my instincts did not.

As I got closer, my heart began to pound in my ears. The noises in the woods grew louder. My footsteps echoed. Soon, my chest began to hurt and my breath came in bursts.

“I should not be doing this,” I thought to myself as I got closer to the cabin. “I should just turn around and get on the bus.”

Still my curiosity was stronger than my good sense and soon I was at the door of the cabin.

As I reached up to knock, my whole body went cold and a whimper escaped my lips. I did not want to do this. The door swung open at my knock and what I saw broke everything inside me.

The person on the floor was not moving! That’s my bracelet on their wrist! That’s my sweater! Bones!

My mind imploded with images of crossing the street at the bus stop. The sound of brakes squealing. Pain. Phone gone. No one on the road. Crawling to the only building in sight. Lighting the candle so that people could see that someone was there. It was so cold. So cold.

As my brain shattered, I screamed out as all faded to black.

***

“The place is haunted,” the kid sitting on the bench whispered to his friend. “My brother told me that someone died in there and if you come out here at night late enough, you can hear their ghost scream.”

“Yeah right,” the boy scoffed back at him. “There is no such things as ghosts.”

As their conversation dissolved into bickering, I phased them out, looking at the old cabin in the woods.

Of course there is not such things as ghosts. But if the cabin had been abandoned for years, why was there a candle burning in the window? And why did no one else seem to see it?