The Reaper in Red

The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window. Every year, on the night of August 7th, the lone tapered candle flickered in a wind that no one seemed to feel. You could make out the waving shadow on the opposite wall from the end of the lane, and those brave enough to venture closer said that if you waited long enough, and were lucky enough to avoid being seen, you might catch a glimpse of her.

“That dress of hers,” Mr. Golder at the corner store will tell passerby. “Blue, it is. So blue it’s almost black, like the sky after the sun goes down before the stars come out.”

“It’s white,” Miss Jenny at the Library disagrees. “It only looks dark like that because it’s stained with her blood from the night her husband murdered her. They say it was brutal, you know.”

Mrs. Wenby tells her book club that she snuck out one summer to follow her brother after his friends dared him to spend the night she appeared in the woods outside the cabin.

“The dress was green, I saw it myself in the corner of the candlelight.” She explains to her rapt audience, summer romance laying forgotten on the table. “But it’s not hers, you know. The blood. It belongs to her children. She killed them. Just went crazy one night and came at them both with the kitchen knife after her husband left her.” Mrs. Wenby shakes her head slowly with eyes alight as she tells the story.

The town never seemed to change, yet no one could seem to agree on what happened to the woman in the cabin. No one could even come together on who she was, let alone how she came to haunt it one night out of the year. Legend was enough to keep it empty through the summer, even when every campground and chalet nearby was packed to the brim with local campers.

Ryanne grew up hearing the legends, of course. You didn’t live in this town your entire life without hearing about the Woman in the Cabin. Going anywhere near her domain the night of August 7th was asking for trouble. They say some people who get close enough never make it back. Her neighbor Johnny says he knew someone that disappeared that way, though he can never remember if it was a cousin twice removed or an aunt by marriage. He says it’s because he was young when it happened, but Ryanne tended to think it was because he was full of shit.

She was the last of her friends to try spending the night in the woods, though none of them got closer than a hundred yards from the start of the gravel path that led to the door. She had planned it all out and was trying something she was sure no one had tried before.

A few hours before dusk Ryanne climbed a spindly tree close to the beginning of the lane. The trees never seemed to flower, although this one did have a few straggly leaves for her to jostle off the branches as she went up, and up. And up.

She settled in to wait. The branches crisscrossed all the way up the lane, barely overlapping in places, but it just might be enough for her to get up to the cabin. The woman didn’t come out until dark though, and Ryanne was afraid that if she was too close too soon something terrible might happen. Didn’t know what, and didn’t know why she would feel that way. Her gut simply told her so.

As she snacked on a granola bar, crumbly pieces falling to the ground down below, she heard the flap of wings in the darkening night. Arching her neck back, she saw two crows settling in on the branch ten feet above her. As she watched, another joined the same branch. And there was another, two branches above the others. They were utterly silent, not a shuffle of wings or a single caw denoting their presence after landing.

Ryanne waited, but they didn’t seem like they were a threat. It was weird, being watched by so many pairs of dark beady eyes, but she shrugged it off. She must just never have noticed the large crow population in the woods before now. It wasn’t like she had ever looked.

Too busy watching the birds, she hadn’t realized that sun had completely fallen below the horizon.

“Don’t you feather brains poop on me, ya hear?” She half called, half whispered. They didn’t deign to respond to her. She stuffed the wrapper in her pocket and leaned forward into a half crouch, eyes on the branch about a foot in front of her. Like all August the 7ths, this night was looking like it was going to be a dark one. Ryanne wouldn’t have much help from the stars to guide her way through the canopy. She jumped anyway.

Caught the branch with her right hand. Missed it entirely with the left. Hanging in the air, she rolled her eyes at herself as her heartbeat skyrocketed at the idea of falling to the gravel below. Using the trunk as a springboard, she hoisted herself up on to the thickest part of the branch. The moment she was settled she heard a great rush of wings and looked up once again. The crows were following her, relocating to the tree she was currently in. There had to be over fifteen of them now. One landed on her branch and cocked its head at her. She could only assume it was asking her if she was crazy to be flying through trees without wings.

Luckily, the next four trees went without a hitch. She picked the right branches, actually grabbed them, and none of them buckled or broke under her weight. About halfway up the walk now, she could see the candle flickering in the window up ahead. If she squinted she thought she could make out a dark figure pacing back and forth in and out of the aura of the flame. Couldn’t make out the shape of the person though, let alone what color dress she was wearing. She had to get closer.

Ryanne had thought that the trees would have enough branches to get her all the way to the porch without alerting the ghost to her presence, but it appeared that she was wrong. The trees ahead of her were skinny, bark half-peeled off and bending in a wind that she couldn’t feel. She was going to have to walk the rest of the way.

She shimmied down the tree trunk and the moment that her feet touched the loose gravel path she heard the wind. It whipped around her head with a low whine, flipping her hair into her face. It went on and on. Never seemed to cease. Was it really a whine, or was it more of a…scream? The high pitch seemed to settle in her brain, overlapping like different voices all experiencing the same pain. Clapping her hands over her ears she fell to her knees, the small rocks digging into her skin the same way her fingers dug into her skull. She had to get away, but her legs wouldn’t move. It was building inside her, wrapping around her insides. The screaming wind was going to shatter her from the inside, and there wasn’t anything she could do.

Except throw her head back, and add her voice to the ones possessing every fiber of her being. Ryanne screamed. She kept screaming, staring at the crows above her. They kept their silent vigil on the branches, must be fifty of them now, and she didn’t understand how they could remain so still when such turmoil was happening below them. When she was finally hoarse, nothing left to give, the wind whooshed around her one last time and the screams finally floated away. She wiped the tears from her cheeks and realized that there was dark blood under her nails.

Shuddering, she realized that she had been stuck there for some time. It had to be getting very late. Or very early, as it were. She was running out of time. Before she even consciously told her body to move, she was stumbling forward.

The flame in the window grew larger the closer she got to the wide porch. She’d thought it would be falling apart, moldy or rotten with age, but it was almost pristine. Wide steps invited her up to the porch. Even the railing was perfect, with a high gloss reflecting the fire. No one had told her that this was what she would see. Did anyone ever get this close before?

Breaking from her reverie, she saw a silhouette in the window. Staring, silent and unmoving like the crows now in every tree surrounding the cabin. Eyes wide and heart pounding, Ryanne fell back a step away from the porch. Everything in her pushed her to just turn and go. Leave the mystery woman backlit by the flickering flame. Don’t risk anything further. She’d already done the best she could. There was no reason to think if she got closer she’d see anything.

Run.

Wait. That wasn’t her voice. She shook her head hoping to clear it, and thought she saw the woman tilt her head in response. But she couldn’t be sure because the next moment, she was gone. No one had ever said anything about that to her either.

With a deep breath she placed the toe of her shoe onto the first step. Nothing happened. No swarm of crows, no screaming wind, no raining fire upon her. She took another step, both feet on the bottom stair now. Still, nothing. It was only three more steps to the top, but to her they felt like twenty. She took them in tiny pieces, inching forward, waiting for something terrible to happen.

Yet it didn’t. She made it to the door. It looked like sturdy oak, painted a pretty forest green, with a steel knocker in the middle and a handle that turned like it had been freshly oiled. It was just a one room cabin on the inside; it looked just like all the other cabins dotted throughout the forest and campgrounds. There was a wood stove in the corner, and a single bed pressed up against the opposite wall. Even the quilt looked like it could have come from town – it was a patchwork of colors that Mrs. Wenby and her knitting club often liked to use. With all that, no woman. The candle was there, seemingly smaller now that she was through the door. But not even a silhouette. Where could she possibly have gone? Ryanne refused to have come all this way for nothing – she had seen her! In the window not moments before!

There was a door on the back wall to the right that she knew would lead to a small bathroom. She must be hiding, and that’s why no one knows what she looks like. Get too close, and the ghost would flee.

On her way to the door, she passed a mirror with a thick golden frame. It was gaudy and out of place with the rest of the items in the cabin. She fingered the corner, where the golden filigree was just starting to peel. Catching sight of the blood under her nails, she thought to check the rest of her didn’t look as terrible as she felt.

Looking back at her was something out of her worst nightmares. It had to have once been a woman. Her hair was light, but darkened and stringy by grease, falling out in patches. The skin on her chin was peeling, flaking away so deep she the jawbone working as it clenched and released. Between a nose that was missing a chunk at the top and a deep red mark around her throat, she was grotesque and horrible.

Ryanne brought her hand to her mouth. The thing mirrored her, but the hand she brought to her broken mouth was almost completely skeletal. It looked like it should have clicked when it moved. She looked down, and her hand looked normal. She flexed her fingers, and felt the skin and tendons move with the motion.

When she looked back up the woman was beside her. Her dark hair looked perfect in the mirror, and she wasn’t even wearing a dress. It was a long cowl, the hood itself draping halfway down her back. She grinned in the mirror at Ryanne, and it was a mouthful of fangs. Every one of her teeth was pointed, clacking together as she cackled at the look on Ryanne’s macabre reflection.

“Welcome to the truth dearie,” the woman crowed. “You and everyone else in this cursed little corner of the world.”

Ryanne couldn’t think of anything to say. All she could do was stare at…herself. This version of herself that she refused to believe was real. This had to be another trick.

“It’s really too bad,” the woman said, clacking her teeth and flipping up her hood, “too bad that you found out too late. Sun’s rising dearie, better luck next time!” Ryanne turned and, sure enough, the sun was cresting over the hill closest to the cabin.

*****

Ryanne woke with a start; she didn’t remember how she made it home. Rolling out of bed, she grabbed whatever was closest for her to throw on. She had to go to the general store, the library, and would try to catch Mrs. Wenby at the craft store. They all absolutely had to know.

“Red,” she muttered to herself. “The dress was definitely red.”