The rebirth of Solomon Grundy

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

No one really knew about that Cabin like I did, and not a single person wanted anything to do with it.. Until I got involved. To others, it became the town's own personal folktale, something akin to that Solomon Grundy rhyme I always heard as a kid.

"Solomon Grundy, 
Born on a Monday, 
Christened on Tuesday, 
Married on Wednesday, 
Took ill on Thursday, 
Grew worse on Friday, 
Died on Saturday, 
Buried on Sunday, 
That was the end, 
Of Solomon Grundy."

It’s strange how life goes full circle like that, in almost ALL aspects here.

I never really knew what that meant when I was younger, and truthfully I think it’s kind of insane to be reading this nursery rhyme to elementary kids.

Strangely enough, no one ever tells you about the part where Solomon Grundy might’ve been based on a real life man. After seeing what I’ve seen, that nursery rhyme made more sense than it ever did. Each and every year I think about it.

On that very day, I was attracted to that candle light. Never had I ever seen any signs of life nearby or inside this house. Even as a kid, I thought this place would be impossible to live in. Drawn to it like a moth to a shiny bug zapper lamp, fluttering towards their own demise willingly. Without hesitation.

I truly didn't know what to think of it, and I wasn't like all the other kids.. I wouldn't just run away. I was too blockheaded, brazen, brave, the whole package of stupid, really.

I walked past that house everyday after-school, on Ferverwood road. Normally the dirty old shack just looked rotten, riddled and laced with tendons and veins of black mold. The front yard, backyard, and the rooftops were speckled with colorful mushrooms, and luscious locks of overgrown moss. Each strand of moss was decorated with gnarled, twisted, and thorny weeds- the very same weeds that hung off the nearby trees.

It spilled over the shingles of that abominable cabin like sludge.. As if it were writhing.. Pulsating.. Breathing. It all seemed connected.

I once imagined the House would simply cave in on itself one day. Collapse under its own rot and awkward crooked structure. It barely even looked like a house by the time I was in middle school.

When I saw that candle, the house didn't look the same at all, as it did all these years. It almost looked reformed- renewed! Everything seemed much more polished, less overgrown.. Yet..

Still crooked as can be.

Now that I really look back on it, this house was even more disturbing in that.. Form… If I were to encounter this for the first time as an adult, I truly would have been horrified. The idea and concept and ominous tension of it all would’ve been far more palpable.

Of course, back then I wasn't too phased at all. The sense of enthrallment massively dwarfed any sense of fear in my heart. I slowly and carefully walked up the slanted vented stairs, the wood screamed and wobbled in agony from my sheer weight alone, even though I barely weighed more than a recliner chair soaking wet.

Completely unafraid, the grand mystical element enveloping this place was just so enticing!

It almost felt like I was possessed then and there. The house..

That candle..

It spoke to me, in whispers and foreign tongues I've never heard before. Was I losing my mind?

I asked my professors about parts of the story when I made it to the University, and most of em’ haven’t the slightest clue as to what I was talking about. One man said it sounded like something from a Dark Bible, or a Goetia..

For a while I thought it was all complete hogwash.

“You go NOWHERE when you die! Life has no meaning!”

That’s what I always thought, even during middle school. But after this whole ordeal, I think I started to rethink the whole concept of life a couple of times before I was even a full fledged adult.

The moment my fingers wrapped around that doorknob, all the nerves in my fingers and my body surged with a supernatural static shock of some kind! Instead of spazzing out or hurling backwards from the shock like a normal human, my hand only gripped the rusted door knob tighter and tighter.. It seemed the electricity was just forcing my hand to clench with all of its might. All the muscles in that hand were squeezing with everything they got, locking me right in place. I didn't get to have a single say in the matter!

I tugged away at the door with my entire body, and I poured all the strength, weight, and sheer momentum possible with each and every effort I made to peel my fingers off that door knob. It was an immediate fight or flight time, and I haven't even stepped through the bloody door! To no avail, the door wouldn’t even budge.. It actually seemed locked in place on the dimensional scale. Spatially locked.

For a whole minute of agonizing horror, I finally came to my senses and looked over to the right, to gaze into the very candle flame that hypnotized me in the first place.. Maybe I could find some respite or some hidden determination from that little candle flame..

In my adrenaline filled haze, I could’ve sworn I saw a gaunt looking man staring right back at me! It stared into my soul with an atrocious ear to ear grin which stretched across his wrinkled and cracked cheeks like malleable clay..

His eyes were sunken in, blackened with the silhouette casted by the candles ever dwindling ember. He seemed so old, so grotesque, it truly appeared as if his crusty, pale, and calloused gray skin was made of pure stone!

With a single step backward, the shrouded figure strides back into the umbral depths, forcing the candle to go out as well. By then, I had nearly ripped the doorknob from that rotten and soggy wooden frame, smashing the door open. The door wobbled on its own, remaining open even though it had ricocheted off the wall it was mounted on, also forcing a couple of the hinges to bust right off.. Thanks to the lack of a spring stopper. That level of power certainly didn’t come from me.

Now, normally in this type of situation, most people would've taken off running in the complete opposite direction. I honestly would've.. But then and there, I single-handedly saw the most impossible thing..

No man would, could, or SHOULD witness such a thing.

Looking into the open doorway, into the ever shifting shadows, I saw not a house, but a whole different world. I was seemingly gazing into limbo itself. Purgatory. Hell. A tesseract of non-euclidean design, an interior larger than the exterior of the cabin itself. Staircases were on the ceiling, some spiraled and collapsed into themselves, leading into other dimensions that seemed extremely far away, or hidden in a more microscopic, untouchable dimension. Just from glancing at these specific stairwells, I felt as if I could truly walk on those very steps and enter different realities never seen before..

Some rooms were sideways and on an elevated level where a window should be, hallways stretched under each room and twisted around for entry into another room in various shapes of all kinds. Describing the details in true depth would lean towards the edge of impossibility on its own.

The interior worked as one, each room and hallway acted as gears and cogs within the machine. Even the madness-inducing aesthetic complimented that cabins ever shifting, chaotic, and horrifically immaculate design.

Rooms upside down, slanted rooms dripping and oozing out of windows, paintings leading into rooms, rooms within rooms, dimensions within dimensions, shrinking rooms, growing rooms.. It was all so impossible to comprehend, nor should it ever be comprehended. Surely it was my mind playing tricks? They were just shadows! Illusions!

Yet..

The lack of light and color made it even more ominous.. This didn't seem like normal darkness. This Void was alive. A sentient amalgamation far exceeding perception or any concept of science.

Still just outside the cabin, I took a step back, attempting to walk down onto the staircase. But with that one pace back, the corridor leading into that living nightmare reached forward. The grove patterns in the wood, along all the blackened mold twisted and mixed together like a viscous liquid! The whole house seemed to reach out for me, like some grotesque, formless, gelatinous atrocity!

As an attempt to trick its design, I stepped forward. And with that single step forward, I was within the belly of the beast. My field of vision, and space itself seemed to warp around the entirety of my body with that single step..

I had been instantly submerged into the sea of pure madness. I whipped back around to make a run for the door out of sheer instinct.. But the door was a dozen meters away! It seemed like a light in the distance..

A tiny little ember from a candle.

Of course, it couldn’t end there. It was only getting started. A mere gateway to the true insanity that’s about to come. An appetizer.

How could I survive something straight out of a H.P Lovecraft novel?! Truthfully I don’t even know how my sanity remained intact. A full grown man would’ve had a mental breakdown if they stayed in that setting for just one minute.

If I went there now, with my current age and health issues, I’d would’ve died for a number of reasons. Thankfully, I was healthy enough, and naive enough to survive.. By the skin of my teeth.

I was starting to get hysterical. My heart was beating out of my ribcage, I could almost feel my clothes vibrate from my heat rate and excessive chattering and shaking. I could only comprehend the entire house being alive..

I definitely wasn’t religious before going in there, but at that very moment, I actually started to believe that Satan himself had trapped me in his home.

Sounds kind of corny, I know, but truthfully.. I started to comprehend the situation way better that way. Any sign of light was my salvation, and somehow I just knew if I stared into the shadows, my very soul could be torn from my chest along with my beating heart. Or.. Perhaps something even worse.

What could be worse than death? Eternal torture? Being stuck here as a ghost? Being eaten on a metaphysical level, permanently devoured into a stage of nothingness? Trying to understand it all was more than overwhelming, but either way, it serves as perfect inspiration for survival doesn’t it?

The building curiosity was just as potent. I almost had to look back as I ran towards my distant salvation.

Immediately behind me was a staircase and corridor materializing into existence. Somehow an entirely separate room with a staircase leading to some assumed attic bursted into existence..

I kept running, picking up speed.

My eyes could barely register the tendrils of shadows spilling forth from this room... The darkness constantly swirled together like liquid, flawlessly morphing and spiraling into a physical form. The more I looked, the more I realized how EVERYTHING in this Cabin had constantly been changing. There were no set destinations. Not even that “attic” was a truly viable option. It was all the same, and upstairs had to have been worse.

From that newly manifested stairwell, that same old man from before appeared again! I should have expected nothing else!

I saw his face materialize through the impossible shroud when I glanced back another time. My eyes snapshotted his face within that very brief moment. From one glance, my eyes and brain were permanently stained with his horrible face to this day..

His pale and crusty warty flesh cracked like concrete while his entire face morphed into a smile that truly wasn’t even human. I’d say he looked like a classic 13th century gargoyle- if it weren’t for his yellow, rotting, glowing teeth.

For each gum socket where one tooth should be, there was always two or three extra. If his teeth were any sharper, he’d basically have the mouth of a shark!

I would’ve just kept glancing back, but that was truly the final straw.. I stared forward, and took off with my maximum speed and effort! My speed seemed to stack two-fold, and the door that looked like a mile away had been approaching close and fast! Feelings of euphoria surged throughout my entire body, which only made my legs strain more, and in turn, made me move even faster. I’d say I was quicker than any of the kids in school, and some of them were track stars!

I practically kneed myself in the chest from how hard I was throwing myself forward. Each step I took was a massive stride, nearly a jump or a SKIP at this point. It’s crazy what the human body can do when it’s under enough stress.

I actually thought a pro athlete wouldn’t be able to catch me! My running style looked on par with Usain Bolt’s Olympic level technique- only because of how desperately I wanted to run out that door! With feelings of great triumph, I looked back at my would-be kidnapper one last time to see how far I’ve gotten. I actually almost thought I’d get away with taunting the old man from a distance as well..

But he was actually running after me the whole time!

When I finally glanced back, I didn’t even see a human anymore! Its head seemed disproportionately small compared to everything else on its body. The wretch used his overly stretched limbs and fingers like spider legs to navigate its ever shifting maze of a spiderweb. The limbs stretched across the majority of the cabin's almost boundless interior. With just a few effortless motions, in mere seconds, this thing plunged forth from its hiding spot and “climbed” across the terrain!

That “man” seemed like a city-block away, yet it had somehow warped perception and space itself just to reach me! It seemed.. Completely normal sized, up until it reaches its hands through the universe to try and pick me up like a little Lego figurine!

Imagine a first person perspective that grants the illusion of being normal sized like everyone else walking around the general setting. Now, imagine another man walking up to you in the distance, a man that seemed average sized as well.. It all seems perfectly fine, especially in a geometrical sense.. Up until he folds across the concept

of distance itself, reaching across several yards in one swoop to pick you up as if you were a little camera recording the whole experience!

It truly makes no sense, I know, but I’m actually saying this guy warped the fourth dimension itself. The way he moved around the cabin made it seem like he had no true shape or physiology. No proportions. The only shape he could maintain was a vague humanoid design, along with his iconic morphing grin and concrete skin complexion. He might’ve been more non-euclidean than the actual Cabin!

Looking back was possibly the biggest mistake I’ve made in my entire life. Gazing at his true form along with that malignant umbral aura had nearly been the final nail in the coffin for me. I teetered towards vomiting at the sight of all this spatial reality tomfoolery. His presence made this hellish interior even more incomprehensible.

Once your brain attempted to register him, it would be tricked into comprehending everything in the background, which in turn, made that abominations visage infinitely more impossible to receive.

This created a never ending loop that drew upon my very mind- or rather, my actual soul! And thank god I tripped through that open doorway in time! If it were any further, I might’ve collapsed on my own two feet anyways.

In the process of dry heaving, I staggered onto my knees with my head hanging low. I looked beneath myself and my legs, just to barely see a pale hand the size of a truck reach out at me!

I slammed the door shut with a kick, half expecting it to just explode from the sheer impact from Satan’s grasps. Instead, the whole house seemed to shake and tremble from the inevitable impact. Mild tremors even formed from the collision, and I even found it difficult to keep my balance for a few seconds..

Then and there, I thought I was really off scott free. Most horror stories would end here, but it wouldn’t be a true horror story if that happened now would it? The monster slammed the door again, only much lighter this time. The earth didn’t shake, but the whole door began to splinter and concave against that blow.. One more strike, and the creature would come barreling through at any moment!

I spin around on my heels, preparing to jump off the cabin's balcony and run off into Ferverwood, but upon spinning and jumping out of sheer instinct- I slammed into an unseen wall right behind me.

Like a clueless flush floundering aimlessly on dry land, I flopped around in a panic, and I quickly realized I was still in that accursed cabin! That wretched devil led me into a trap this whole time!

How could I possibly know or perceive it? The only thing I knew exactly was the mere fact that I had to escape.. And I had to journey across a labyrinthian maze to achieve it.

And that wasn’t the worst part.

After some eerie moments of silence, my senses finally returned, and I began running off into the darkened maze. I followed the brightest source of light I could. Over the sounds of my pattering feet, I heard the most guttural, deep, angriest, nastiest voice I’ve heard in my life.

It’s like his lungs were filled to the brim with hardened chunks of mucus and charcoal!

“Solomon Grundy, Born on a Monday, Reanimated yesterday, Christened on a Tuesday, Blooded on his birthday, Married on Wednesday, Murdered her the next day, Took ill on Thursday, Collect Children on weekdays, Grow worse on Friday, then stay alive all day!”

He was roaring the nursery rhyme I heard in Elementary school, but clearly, whoever and whatever this was took the liberty of changing it.. Or perhaps it was just history that changed it?

This was Solomun Grundy, in the “flesh.” I didn’t even really care where I was going at this point. I ran in and out of one corridor through another, another hallway after another, I did everything I could to keep an eye on that light while simultaneously listening for stomping feet in the distance.

He could hear me, and I could hear him. I think he actually started to shrink within the hallways. Grundy eventually chose speed instead of size, and he started catching up way too swiftly. Its painfully explosive, grotesque breathing resonated for miles on end within this endless maze. It only grew closer, and closer. I couldn’t even hear the sound of my own feet pattering against the tile anymore..

My ears couldn’t stop ringing. It felt like little ants and maggots were crawling within the depths of my brain the closer this guy got to me!

To make matters even worse, in this drunken haze of fear I could’ve sworn I recalled the labyrinth looking almost identical to the interior of my middle school, and even my future high school! It was like an odd, perfect mix of the two.. I saw things I shouldn’t have then. Somehow, I saw them again in the distant future. I wouldn’t be surprised if I had brain damage from all of this. My memories now could be affected by whatever happened then on that day.

Each room I entered and each door I opened led to another corridor or hallway.. I actually thought I lost him in the winding maze. Knocking a few bookcases down during the desperate chase, I eventually caused a chain reaction of events.. It must’ve distracted the beast, because I didn’t hear him at all for a sickening amount of time. Compared to all this high speed chasing, it felt like he was gone for ages.

Still following the light to freedom, I managed to swing around the corner, just to see a flickering light in the distance, in the canvas of sheer nothingness… At least from my perspective.

Who cares if it was a trap? I’d take everything I could get in this scenario. I wasn’t capable of the same speed I started with, my legs were already complete jelly after all the running. I honestly shouldn’t have been able to run.. But.. Something inside me just kept forcing me to give it my all.

And my all in the moment was a meager jog of a sprint - less than half the speed of an electric scooter. It wasn’t much, but it most certainly beat walking.

Solomon definitely heard me. His breathing didn’t even seem that loud anymore. That horrendous goliath came smashing through all the walls he could just so it could reach me! He grew larger than ever before, and now just his stomping feet and booming voice became enough to make the whole horizon weakly fold at his mercy. The whole cabin even appeared to ripple like water from all this ungodly might!

“Died on Saturday, Sacrificed today, Buried on Sunday, repeat everyday, That was the end, That was the cycle, of Solomon Grundy!!!”

A rather crude, paradoxical, and lackluster rhyme in its totality.. Perhaps it had meaning?

Nearing that light I’ve longed for, I noticed that it was the same exact candle next to that window.. The one I saw in the front yard! Grundy never blew it out in the first place, and somehow the incredibly weak source of illumination served as a waypoint in all of the discord.

I really didn’t care much for the window or my safety regarding it. Solomon was infinitely more threatening than death by glass. On top of that, I watched too many violent action movies for a middle schooler. I assumed jumping through glass would be an easy feat!

But, it was nothing like you’d see in the movies.

With all the speed I’ve gained, I managed to jump onto the table where the candle rested, and leaped right over it- nearly putting it out in the process. Instead of instantly breaking it with my hands, my head smashed into the window pane and bent my neck at an incredibly awkward angle. I thought my neck would break if the glass didn’t shatter!

That’s probably the third time I’ve nearly broken my neck, and in such stupid ways.

Thanks to my position, I came tumbling forward back first and onto the rotten, soggy elevated wooden porch. I nearly fell through the plank floors from the impact, and multiple shards of glass were sticking out from my flesh. Some shards were incredibly small, others had pierced through three inches of my flesh and stuck out by three inches on top of that. I was basically reduced to a porcupine with quills of glass.

I weakly stood up, and decided to hop over the side of the porch to risk falling down on the lawn, which of course, would cause greater damage to my body. But I also didn’t want to risk falling through the floor just to get impaled by splintered planks of wood. Potential blood loss or immediate impalement.. The choice was very clear.

With a graceful vault, I hopped right over the rickety banister guarding the elevated porch. Oddly enough, I landed with baffling levels of finesse.

I took this sudden moment of freedom to relax my eyes and absorb reality and sanity through my mind once again.

My adrenaline was still working in overdrive, and calming down seemed like an impossible task. I was shaking for what felt like an hour until I finally came back to my senses.. Realizing how exhausted I was, I actually managed to settle myself down a little. Hyperventilated gasps gradually turned into and relieved shuddered breaths.

Of course, it still wouldn’t be over just yet. Never celebrate too early folks.

I nearly spat up my own heart when I saw his face peak into the candle light just like he did last time! Solomon blew out the candle, and quickly swung open his front door with magical speed..

I already took off running when I saw his face. This time, I wouldn’t look back once. I’ve learned my lesson. It felt like the entirety of my flesh was crawling with bugs, pins and needles were stabbing into my nerves, blood dripped and drizzled down my body in tandem with the sweat in a steady stream. Gaping wounds speckled my body like freckles. It’s a miracle I didn’t even die from blood loss among all the other things.

It’s like I was destined to share this nightmare with the world.

When I was running towards Ferverwood town, someone must’ve seen me and called an ambulance. Once you got down the “main” street, the level of human population and urban buildings would become far less scarce.

I remember the ambulance truck speeding down the street behind me, and for some reason those sirens didn’t register as sirens.. They sounded like the guttural banshee wailing from Solomon, or worst of all, the ghost of his murdered wife.

I just kept running. I ran, ran, and ran, until the truck pulled up in front of me. A paramedic practically has to kidnap me to make sure I wouldn’t die.

Once they strapped me to the bed and hooked me up to the I.V, I just passed out.

Tasteless as it may’ve been, that crude poem had a grain of truth behind it. Clearly he was talking about a ritual, right? It’s what that thing said exactly, verbatim. I remember every last detail of that chant. I STILL have nightmares about it. I don’t exactly care about what the police say now.. Remember when I mentioned the Goetia? That “Goetia” connection my professor made seemed to make more sense every day I thought about it.

What if Solomon was just a male Witch? A Warlock? Hansel and Grettel was kind of a joke in comparison to this.. What kind of magic conjures up a living hellscape like that?

Funnily enough, I still believe it all.

The internet or the police might just cover it up to this day, saying the Cabin had black mold everywhere. “It could’ve caused a number of hallucinations, and more likely than anything else it would cause death.”

Once I started going to a University with hidden hopes of solving this on my own, I was only struck with more questions. Black mold can’t cause hallucinations like that. If it did, I would’ve died from the mold. Solomon wouldn’t even be able to live there. Like I said a number of times throughout the story.. I really should’ve died there. Grundy shouldn’t even be real..

When I got older and when I started to recover, my parents told me the “real” story.

The first police officers to show up there nearly died from just coughing their lungs out once they realized they were huffing black mold spores, and OTHER kinds of mold. An actual disaster control team with hazmat suits and dozens of different cleaning tools had to dispose of all the muck before they could destroy the house.

They said there was no man there. Just a recently lit candle, and an untraceable blood splatter sample. They said the forensics team tested it, and THEY said the blood was boiled beyond recognition.

That only raised more questions.

Somehow they have the ability to discredit my story, yet believe the “evidence” because the “professionals” were involved. That blood splatter was probably from his wife!

Nowadays.. I finally understood that no one knew the real story, and they never will find the true story. I couldn’t have lit the candle, and that boiled blood sample had to have been from him! Maybe he boiled his wife and used it for a ritual? I’ll never know for sure until I see Solomon again. He probably WAS just a real man, somehow immune to the mold. Somehow, I survived it all by just a hair. Maybe the different combinations of mold is what made me see all of that madness?

What if I actually saw hell? Purgatory, limbo, Sheol, Tartarus? Whatever you wanna call it?

It’s all pretty impossible to say. But I definitely learned a few things from that experience, more than I can count. Maybe that’s why I was destined to survive? To learn a lesson?

A lesson of life, about how it isn’t completely dull, crude, without purpose.. Even if there is or isn’t a religion to follow. Life is just a school, and we don’t expect to stay in it for long. So appreciate what you have, before it’s ripped away from your grasps forever. You’ll never actually know if there’s something on the other side or not, right? I still clearly can’t tell you if there is or isn’t an afterlife. But all these years following that event..

I’ve been more than afraid of it. The sheer potential of it all.. The concept of eternity..

You better hope whatever’s waiting on the other side isn’t the devil himself, or rather Solomon Grundy himself, prepared to teach you a lesson about all your wrong doings.

Maybe if you knew what you did, you wouldn’t end up in such a situation? Life isn’t like the fairytales.

Bravery just isn’t the way sometimes.