Time to Say Goodbye

The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window. Amelia new what this meant. She’d been waiting for it a long time.

15 years prior, Amelia and her best friend Lynn visited this cabin often. Although in reality it was Lynn’s father’s humble fishing cabin, to both the girls it was an escape. A place where they could be free from the oppression of “fitting in” and “being cool.” In this cabin they weren’t limited by the clothes they wore or the friends they chose. In this cabin they could be anything they wanted to be while lost in their imaginations, inspired by the stories they treasured. The cabin was a safe haven. The cabin was peace. And then, one day, that all changed.

Every friendship is tested. That’s a universal truth. Amelia and Lynn’s friendship was tested by the new arrival of a boy named Todd. Both girls shared feelings for this boy. And it seemed, he was quite taken with the both of them. Lynn would pronounce her love for Todd every hour on the hour, but Amelia didn’t mind. Her friend was happy. So, she decided to hide her own feelings, and omit the fact that she and Todd had shared a kiss. Then there was the guilt.

Guilt’s a funny thing. It seems manageable at first. It seems like one day it’ll disappear like yesterday’s garbage. But as soon as it’s abated it comes back like a rat. It gnaws on the fingers. It gnaws on the bones. It gnaws its way inside until it’s finally worked its way to the heart. Soon, Amelia could no longer take the gnawing, the chewing in the dark, and she told Lynn everything, at their sacred cabin.

Their argument started quietly. A few short minutes of silence spiced by disbelief. Then the tears. Then the red-hot anger. Their argument was a living thing. A beast. It bashed around the confines of the cabin and finally escaped into the pouring evening rain, slashing, and thrashing about. Lynn screamed loudly and wandered aimlessly, bewildered by her friend’s treachery. That’s why she didn’t see the exposed root by the bank of the teeming river the cabin sat next to. Lynn’s foot struck the root. She toppled in. She struck her head on a boulder and was forever washed away.

Afterwards, Amelia was dumbstruck. Her mind was a tempest. She kept trying to make sense of how her best friend was here one moment and gone the next, like a phantom, whose screams still lingered in her ears. She spent most evenings in the cabin that week, quietly grieving the loss of her friend. She remained drunk on a cocktail of pity, self-loathing, and despair. And then the notion hit her, an idea so absurd to her logical brain that it just might work. She grabbed a candle from the closet and placed it on the window ledge nearest the riverbank. Then the words found her and took her. She prayed:

Please forgive my grievous slight

You’re sorely missed, this lonely night

But should you feel a wrong to right

Then signal me with candlelight

After that night she visited the cabin often, always looking for the flame. The cabin remained dark. Time took its toll, and she began to visit the cabin less and less. She graduated from high school, got a college degree, and moved on with her life. In a chance meeting she reconnected with Todd. They began dating, fell in love, and eventually married. The morning after their nuptials Amelia was struck with a powerful urge to visit the cabin. She hadn’t thought of that place in years, but she felt inexplicably drawn to it. So, in the late evening, she offered her husband a weak excuse and a goodbye kiss and traveled to the cabin in the woods.

She reached the cabin late at night. The woods were quiet and dry for a fall evening. Every leaf that cracked underfoot was like a gunshot. Amelia was all nerves. She hoped her compulsion to visit this place was just ancient, forgotten guilt, but when she saw the candle flickering in the window, she knew Lynn had come home.

The cabin itself had fallen into deep disrepair. After his daughter’s passing, Lynn’s single father departed town without a single look back, leaving the place to slowly rot and be reclaimed by the woods around it. Amelia knew she couldn’t wait outside all night, and even if she did, she felt that the presence in the cabin would wait as long as necessary. With a deep breath, and a small sigh, Amelia stepped inside.

The interior of the cabin was in shambles. It was barely recognizable as the place she and Lynn once shared. The ceiling was caved in at several spots. The old plaster walls were discolored and bulging. The place smelled damp, sweet, and sad. Amelia gathered her courage and called out “Lynn I’ve come.”, but there was no reply. Just silence. An old bookshelf caught Amelia’s eye. A flood of memories called out to her. Here, on this shelf, were a collection of Amelia and Lynn’s favorite stories. They were a little moldy and their spines were warped, but they were all accounted for. A few lay on the floor at Amelia’s feet. Here was Treasure Island. As Amelia flipped through the dusty pages her breath caught in her throat. In a maddened, jagged script the word “TRAITORS” was scrawled on several pages. And here was The Count of Monte Cristo. Again, the pages were adorned with the word “TRAITORS”. As Amelia stared in shocked silence a book fell open from the shelf beside her. Amelia’s body was electric, on the verge of a terrified sprint, and then she saw what this book was. It was Jack and the Beanstalk, a personal favorite of her and Lynn’s. What was written on the page chilled her blood. Here was a different handwritten passage, but its meaning was just as foreboding: “I smell the blood of a friend I loved.”

Amelia stood up straight, muscles tensed, breathing shallow. She looked at the candle on the window frame, but no one was nearby. Suddenly, she noticed her feet were wet and looked down. Thin rivulets of muddy, mucky, water were rising out of the cracks of the warped floorboards. Before she could even react to this new event, she smelled it. It was a combination of the ripe smell of spoiled meat and waterlogged decay. Its stench overwhelmed her, and she fought the urge to wretch. “What fresh hell is this?” her frightened mind wondered. Slowly, Amelia turned around, eyes squeezed shut against whatever horrors awaited her. When she could stand it no longer, she opened them.

Words are not enough to describe the bizarre mix of emotions that flooded Amelia upon staring face to face at her old friend. This was not the friend she used to know. Lynn’s head was bent at an odd angle. Her skin had taken on a grey-green cast. Her blonde hair, once radiant, was now matted and missing in places. The sky blue of her eyes had faded to milky white cataracts. What Amelia took first for a smile, was a death grimace. Lynn’s lips had pulled back revealing crooked, brown teeth in their wake. Amelia’s breath let loose a torrent of speech. “God I’m so sorry Lynn. I never meant to hurt you, Lynn. I was young and dumb. I’m so sorry Lynn. I’ve missed you. I tried to catch you, Lynn. To save you, but you were too far away. I swear Lynn. I swear.”

Lynn’s mouth opened, as if she were about to reply, but only muddy water bubbled out. Amelia began to sob. She was terrified and filled with grief as she stared at the dead girl’s face. At last, it seemed, Lynn did begin to smile. It was ghastly but subtle. Hardly more than a sneer. At this moment the old record player in the adjacent room came to life. An old, warped record began to slowly spin, and Fleetwood Mac bellowed a twisted, alien, version of a bittersweet song. Slowly, Lynn edged closer to Amelia with withered arms outstretched, as if she were initiating an embrace. Amelia stepped backwards. This strange dance continued until the record skipped. The lyrics “Now I say goodbye to you” repeated over and over again.

As Amelia watched in fascinated terror, Lynn began to decay in front of her eyes. Her alabaster eyes rolled back in their sockets. Her jaw dropped at an obscene angle, allowing more dark water to pour from her yawning mouth. Clumps of wet hair slid off her scalp. The scant amount of skin on her already desiccated body diminished even more, outlining every detail of a fractured skull. Her bony fingers reached out for Amelia’s tear-streaked face. Amelia jerked backed further and bumped into the window behind her. Lynn suddenly stopped, and Amelia swore she saw a single tear trickle down her cheekbone. And then all thought in Amelia’s head perished. The warmth she felt creeping up her back had now engulfed her. She wore a blanket of fire around her upper body, set forth by the candle in the window. She fled from the cabin into the night, screaming and flailing, her mind awash in pain. The fire was hungry. It licked at her face, her hands, her legs, trying to devour her whole. It was because of this that Amelia did not see how dangerously close she was getting to the edge of the riverbank. And then Amelia was falling. She hit her head on a boulder and was forever washed away.

There are some who say, that on certain nights, if you come by a cabin in the woods, you can see a candle burning in the window. If you do, it surely means Amelia owns the cabin now and is calling to you to take her place.