the red string

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

It was stormy the night my friends and I lost our way and found it.

The dim light flickered in the shadows through the trees.

It looked like it would burn out any moment, but it remained lit, and guided us through the pouring rain.

But why?

Nobody was supposed to be there, not in the middle of nowhere, not in that place, the place I insisted we go to.

Two months earlier, I had learned about the cabin through some photographs me and my friend David found.

I felt pulled to that place for a reason I could not understand.

The photos were inside a box, in a sealed room in the back of the old library. The building was being restored and it lay abandoned.

There were five photos of the cabin, all tied together with a red string.

The place had an eerie beauty, and I have to admit I was obsessed.

I needed to go there.

Nothing could have prepared me for what happened after.

It was July of 2003 when we found the photos.

I convinced David to accompany me using my so-called photography career as an excuse to take a trip.

I was naive and impressionable and that place held something that I needed to discover. That, or my mind was playing some very strange tricks on me.

I dreamt about it every night for a week, and that was enough for me to decide that I had to go there.

In my dreams there was this sweet lady that kept looking at me. Staring. She wore her black hair long and always appeared in a red dress. She didn’t wear any shoes and as soon as she saw me, she would walk inside the front door, and that was it.

It was always the same dream.

The cabin had been there for more than two hundred years and was supposedly used by hunters as an occasional shelter over the years.

But for the last 50 years or so it had stayed unperturbed.

We started asking around if anyone knew how to get there and nobody seemed to know anything about it. Then one day, David noticed an old piece of masking tape with some blurred numbers attached to the back of one of the pictures.

It turned out that they were coordinates that showed a spot in the mountains, so we decided to head over there and found out that was the exact location of the cabin.

It was located deep in the forest in a dense spot surrounded by majestic oak trees, white pines and red maple, a desolate place in the forests of northern Georgia.

The autumn colors were shady and it gave the place a mysterious beauty.

Winter was starting and it was getting colder by the day. We prepared for the trip, packing a couple of four season tents, lamps, food and all the equipment to keep us warm at night so we could stay there for at least a week.

The cabin lay west of a little town of about 20 houses. It had a small gas station and a convenience store and nothing but cotton fields for 40 miles.

Heading to the edge of town, we followed an old road that ended in the wilderness. From there, we hiked for about nine miles until we arrived.

At first it was going to be just me and David.

But then his girlfriend Grace wanted to come too. Then

Susan wanted to join us, a friend of Grace’s who lived nearby and who had the most experience in camping, so we didn’t hesitate to let her join us.

I liked Susan a lot. She was gorgeous, and I was very shy, so this was an opportunity for me to approach her, to get to know her better.

The cabin was made of old maple with a front door on the left side that was sheltered by the roof and a porch.

It had two windows in the front and two more in the back, and a chimney made of rocks that stuck out as it was mostly covered by lichen.

We set our two tents in a clearing that was about twenty yards from it and of course went on an exploratory visit.

It was clearly abandoned.

Inside, we found some old stools and a table. A rocking chair. Some shelves with old jars and the fireplace, with some rotting wood and broken crates nearby.

All of it was covered in cobwebs and dirt and old leaves probably due to the sizeablebhole in the roof we hadn’t noticed from the outside.

Nothing seemed to be standing out and it was all so normal. I could not understand why this feeling kept nagging me that I needed to be there.

We were leaving when I saw something stuck on the floor.

I was the last one inside that place. I leaned down and saw a red string, just like the one around those pictures.

I pulled it and found a strange ring attached to it.

It was made out of silver and had the shape of a sun and a moon interlocking together.

I put the thing on almost as if I knew I had to and kept going.

We went back to the clearing and started unpacking.

We set up our campsite, taking advantage of the daylight, preparing our campfire and all that we needed.

There was a lake nearby so I headed out to take some shots of the magnificent view leaving David and the others to start a fire to cook some steaks and sausages for dinner.

That first night was quiet. After that long hike and a good meal we were all exhausted and went to bed before 11pm.

As I lay down to sleep I looked at the ring that I knew belonged to me for some reason.

That night my dream was different. The lady with the red dress was smiling at me, but then her sweet face started to change to something grotesque that gave me the chills.

Like she changed into a demon or some other evil.

I woke up sweating and scared but it was still early and I didn’t want to wake up the others so I just got some water and went back to sleep.

The very next day we planned a hike while it was daytime.

It was a beautiful day with a soft breeze, strange considering the time of year, but perfect for a hike.

The storm took us by surprise. It started around 2 in the afternoon.

It got darker by the minute and it was pouring so hard we lost direction and couldn’t find our way back to the campsite.

We kept walking and walking until it got very late and very dark.

We had a couple of flashlights, but with the rain and lightning it was impossible to see ahead clearly.

That’s when Susan saw the candle light coming from the cabin.

We headed there and peeked through one of the windows.

We couldn’t understand what was happening.

There was no one around for miles, but we were soaking wet and cold so we approached the door, knocking a few times

“Come in … come in” we heard as we entered the place.

We felt confused when we saw a man sitting on the rocking chair. He looked very familiar to me but I did not know who he was.

He was wearing a blue suit with a vest that looked out of fashion and very odd.

“I’m sorry to bother… we got lost and…”

“No problem, you are welcome here” said that strange man.

“We were here before and did not see anyone, we thought this place was empty “ I told him.

“My friend, I have been here since 1934”

We all looked at each other astonished and thought he was probably just senile and confused. Perhaps someone was playing some kind of a prank on us.

“So… when did you get here? If you don’t mind my asking” I said, trying not to laugh or be directly disrespectful.

“You did not hear me…”, he said calmly, opening a small, metal cigarette case and a golden lighter. He grabbed one and lit it.

“I … have been here since 1934”, he repeated. “See…. life gives you chances to do things right… And if you don’t, you get stuck, and lose everything “.

He flicked his cigarette. “You, for example”, he said looking at me “You arrived here thinking it would be a good idea…. But not everything is what it appears to be”.

We leaned closer to him and kept listening, still not quite understanding the situation.

The man continued.

“I was a medical student in the 30’s. Me and my 2 friends were attending North Georgia University.

We used to hang around these woods a lot.

One time, we heard a story about this fellow who died because he got into a fight with a drunk man. The guy beat him so hard he lost consciousness. They took him to the hospital but by the time they got there it was too late.

His remains were brought to the morgue at the same hospital where we were completing our studies.

He was known around these parts as a disturbed person, so everyone kind of expected him to end up like he did.

That night we visited the morgues, of course we were curious to see the body, so we snuck in and found him on a metal stretcher covered with a white blanket.

We uncovered him and noticed he was fully clothed, with a strange ring on the little finger of his right hand.

It seemed amusing for us at that time to take that ring and joke around with it.

We didn’t know who he was and careless as we were back then, we just left. “

At that moment I looked down to my hand. I knew it was the same ring.

How could that be real?

“What happened after that?” I asked, intrigued.

“After that everything went wrong. One of my friends that was there with me at the morgue, the one that had taken the ring, suddenly died some months later. Just choked to death on a chicken bone, in front of everyone.

At his wake, my other friend took the ring from his finger and put it on.

Two years went by with us not talking about it. Until one day he just jumped from a bridge to his death. I was there with him and could not understand why he did that - he was newly married like me and had two little ones on the way.

In the crowd that gathered after his funeral, I saw this woman. She came walking towards me holding something in her hand.

She had long black hair and a red dress, like a Gipsy.

She started speaking in a strange language and offered this string, this red string with the ring attached to it. I refused to take it. I was so scared, but she insisted.

It looked like it was part of her dress.

I walked away saying I was sorry and just kept going.

As I neared my car I turned back around and suddenly saw her sweet face transform into this distorted demonic figure that scared me even more so I kept going. I wanted to get out of there”.

I was terrified at that point. I wanted to ask him more and everyone else was just smiling and looking at each other in disbelief about all of it.

I hadn’t told anyone about the ring.

“What happened after that?”, asked Susan.

“After that I just drove home. At least I thought I did. But when I opened my front door I was here, in this cabin. I tried to leave but I just couldn’t.

The walls and the door kept moving away from me. I checked my pockets only to find that strange ring in my hand. Still attached to that red string and in that moment I knew. I was cursed. I have been here since 1934. But now I am leaving”.

He looked at me, then looked at my hand and smiled, walked towards the door and left.

Everyone started laughing and joking about the man’s story.

David got up and looked outside.

“Hey!… Where did you go? Come on, man, we’re just teasing!”.

But there was nobody there.

“Okay everybody, show’s over” said Grace. “I am starving… Let’s go back to the campsite and get some dinner and dry clothes - The rain has finally stopped.”

Everyone started leaving through the door, but when I tried to reach for the handle, I just couldn’t.

“David? David! “ I kept calling out to him but he acted like I was not even there.

“Can anyone hear me?” I screamed and screamed but nobody seemed to notice me at all.

Then they were all gone.

I was sitting alone in the rocking chair, trying to calm myself down, when the stange lady entered.

She walked towards me and started to speak in a strange language.

She grabbed my hand, trying to get to the ring.

I knew she wanted to take it and give it to someone else but I didn’t let her. I grabbed the string and pulled it around her neck pulling as hard as I could.

She let out a scream and after that disappeared right in front of me.

I still have that ring.

I don’t know if I stopped her from cursing someone else but I want to believe I did.

It’s July of 2022 now, I think, and I am still here trapped in this place.

No one else has visited since then and I hope nobody ever does.

THE END