Uncanny

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

We had walked past the little place with the overgrown lawn and the empty, staring windows dozens of times before. We never saw anyone. No car in the drive, no flickering from a television, nothing. Never saw a single sign of life until that one small yellow flame.

I’m not sure I even registered seeing it. I was distracted by my friends, excited for the rest of the night, but it stuck just enough that I mentioned it between our showing of The Babadook and The Thing. Once I brought it up we couldn’t stop thinking about it.

I had never imagined going inside the place. It wasn't boarded up or falling in, but it just didn't look like a place anyone should go. It looked forgotten.

I was happy to let it be forgotten. Which is why it was so surprising when we all agreed to go inside.

"Lights don't work," Sammi said gesturing at the batch of switches by the door.

"Not a problem," Robin said, tossing her duffel onto the yellowed floor. "Flashlights and a couple lanterns in the bag. Let's set em up, living room is base camp."

Gabe rolled his eyes and snorted. "You are loving this way too much."

Robin put her hands up, guilty as charged. "I mean, if she's making us, we might as well enjoy it."

Sammi giggled and handed me some matches, nodding towards some unlit candles on the other side of the room. "I just thought it would be fun," She said.

I had thought we were already having fun. A scary movie night just like we used to.

"At least it's an excuse to finally bust these puppies out," Paul said, pulling the lenses of his "tactical night-time goggles" down. "Aaand these do nothing. Fucking craigslist."

I had to laugh. I was grateful to have something to laugh about amid the dancing shadows of the place. "Tactical night-time goggles dude? Sounds like a bad translation of a sentence that doesn't actually mean anything in the first place."

Paul shrugged. "I guess I shouldn't have expected to see in the dark for twenty bucks and a sixer."

Gabe was digging around in the duffle when he saw me lighting more candles. "Are you totally committed to making this as scary as possible?"

Gabe was the scaredy cat of the bunch, which meant he was the best person to have along for anything spooky. Exactly the right friend for a roller coaster, or a scary movie, or a haunted house. He jumped and squirmed and whined so wonderfully. Gabe hated to be scared, got scared easily, but always showed up for scary movie night. On time. With snacks.

He was the kind of guy who made fun things even more fun. I always wondered if he knew what he was doing, suffering for our enjoyment.

I held one of the candles up under my chin. "Come on, Gabe, commit to the bit." The warmth from the candle seeped into my chin in a steady crescendo. I knew it would hurt soon, but I had the strangest notion to just hold it there and let it scald my skin. I wanted to burn myself.

Sammi gently pulled on the candle holder, moving it away from my face, smiling softly at me. I smiled back and the feeling went away.

Robin had just set up a big LED camping lantern on the kitchen counter which was in the same big space as the living room. She was taking a good look around, but seemed disappointed. "The candles are honestly a great touch, we need something spooky in here because is it just me or does this place just look like a house?"

"What were you expecting," Gabe asked. "Bloody handprints up the wall?"

"All of those are in the basement," Sammi stated with deadpan seriousness.

"Or in the attic. I bet there's some freaky shit in the attic," I added. Sammi nodded in agreement.

Robin was right though, all those years wondering what was in this forgotten little house, I hadn't imagined it would be like this. The linoleum was yellowing, the furniture was old, there was some mold in the corners of the ceiling, but we had imagined much worse.

"Yeah, this is only half a degree more rundown than my uncle's house," Gabe whined. "I was hoping for something scarier."

"Sure you were," I teased.

Robin's mouth twisted in a little frown. She had been stage managing at the high school in the sort of full throttle way only an ambitious young woman could. She liked to put things in their place. Well, not things really, her room was like an avalanche prone section of the dump, but people. Not in a bad way. She liked to orchestrate events for maximum fun. She always wanted everything to be an event and to be awesome all the time for everyone.

Paul started going through the cupboards in the kitchen. "You want something scary? Tell them what you told me before they got to your house Robin. That shit was chilling."

I logged away that Paul had been over at Robin's early, before the rest of us were supposed to show up. My suspicions about the two of them deepened. I could see it even if it was a little kissing your cousin-ish.

"Oh hell yes, this is so freaky," Robin said with near maniacal glee.

"I'm not listening to this again," Paul said. "I'm going to take a leak." He went back out the front and disappeared into the shadows of the overgrown lawn.

“Psh, don’t mind him,” Sammi said.

Robin and I had already talked about this, which meant we were reciting this just for Gabe and Sammi. I knew exactly what she was going to say and chills were already running down my spine at the thought.

"So you know how everyone is at least a little afraid of the dark? Or jumps when something slithers past them in the water?" she said.

"Evolutionary fear," I said. I wasn't above trying to sound smart even if I already knew the answer.

Robin shot a finger gun at me. "Bingo. It's in the programming. Enough of our ancestors got hunted by tigers in the dark, or got bit by a water snake that now it's coded into us to be afraid of certain things."

Gabe had sort of frozen in the middle of the room. "Yeah, makes sense."

"Well, if that's true, what else might be true because of generational fears?" Robin said, slowing down the cadence of her speech, laying it on thick.

"Maybe there was a murderous tribe that painted up their faces white, with big red smiles," I said.

"Fear of clowns," Robin finished.

Sammi considered this. "That's interesting, Fear of clowns never made much sense to me."

Robin smiled, moving onto the part she knew would really freak Gabe out, "The one that really creeped me out is when the article..."

"Ahem," I interrupted, "Reddit post."

"Sorry," she conceded, "The very well written and researched reddit post, talked about the uncanny valley."

Gabe's brow furrowed. "Like in animation?"

"Yeah, especially early CG animation where they thought they could make things photo realistic and it just made everything look... freaky?" I said.

"Animated Tom Hanks," Robin said with a shudder.

"Right," Gabe agreed, "Animated Tom Hanks from the train movie is mankind's greatest abomination."

"I like Tom Hanks," Sammi said, clearly not following or not interested in the conversation.

"So," Robin said, savoring, "Think about what from our evolutionary history might be to blame for that? What if, in our history, there was something that almost looked like a person, but wasn't quite? Something that humans had over time learned that we had to fear. So now when we see something that looks like it's pretending to be a person, we get that kick of panic. The cold chill. Every culture has them. Vampires, skin-walkers, things that pretend to be people to get close to us. What if there is something like that? Something that over time killed enough of us, just like bears in the dark caves, so many that it got into our bones to be scared of something that's trying to look human but isn't?"

I could see the hair on the back of Gabe's neck standing up. He stood still for a long time before he finally said, "Fuuuuck you."

We all burst out laughing as the tension discharged into the dark house with a rush of relief.

Robin pulled open another cupboard, this time exposing plastic dishes, paper plates and mismatched solo cups. She opened a drawer and I heard hard plastic clattering around. "Look at all the picnic shit," she said, holding up a clear plastic spork. "Did this used to be a park building or something?"

Gabe hefted his backpack and went into the kitchen after her. "Awesome, I brought snacks but not plates and stuff. We can have a picnic."

"Great, I'm still hungry," Sammi said.

"Me too," I agreed. As I realized how hungry I was, it dawned on me. "Oh shit, you guys. We ordered a pizza."

"For here?" Sammi asked, shocked.

"No, before we left," I said, starting to crack up. "We fought over toppings for twenty minutes, finally agreed..."

"Black olives are manifestations of Satan's will," Gabe interrupted.

Robin sneered. "People who don't like olives are doomed to celibate, meaningless lives."

"No, no we are not doing that again," I insisted.

"I don't really like pizza," Sammi said to herself.

"Sammi I don't have time to explain to you how weird and wrong that is," I said through my laughter. I couldn't believe it. Such a weird thing to do. I went for my phone. I had to call and apologize.

Sammi saw me fumbling for my phone and shook her head. "No service."

"Shit, we seriously ordered a pizza, got into some tizzy about a candle in the window of the ‘watching house’ and just wandered off? Is that really what happened?" I asked, still laughing, but a little exasperated at the thought of the poor delivery person, or of my mom getting jarred out of bed by the doorbell.

I heard the refrigerator open and the fans whir to life.

"Oh nice," Gabe said, "the refrigerator works, we can keep the drinks cold."

I saw Robin's eyes start to go wide. "Gabe. If the fridge works that means there's electricity."

Gabe took something out of the fridge. A glass jar full of a briny liquid. Pale yellow-green with things floating in it.

“Just pickles,” Sammi said, almost sounding disappointed.

Gabe shook the jar at Robin. "Jeez, you're a genius. Fridges do run on electricity."

He didn’t seem to catch the implications. "Gabe, she means that if there's electricity, someone is living here,” I tried to explain.

"Someone is paying for the electricity," Robin said.

"Or they forgot to turn it off," Sammi offered.

"The three of us have come swimming here since we were little and we've never seen anyone go in or out of this house," Gabe said. "And the lights don't work, and the yard is insanely overgrown and we've been in here talking at full volume for like, a while. No one lives here."

I could see Gabe was being defensive. Robin often tried to freak him out so he was quick to suspect a prank. "Gabe, no jokes. We’re not screwing with you. It's just weird."

“Definitely weird,” Sammi said, chewing something. She didn’t eat one of those mysterious pickles did she?

The lantern was only on half power so I reached for it. I needed light. Needed to get a better look. The feeling of trespass was screaming in me, making my stomach hurt.

“Don’t turn up the light,” Sammi said, insistent.

My fingers were already on the dial, but my arm hurt. There was suddenly a deep ache. Tendons and cartilage were burning. I’d hyperextended once after a fall and this was worse.

"I want to go," I said. My voice was shaking, like I was straining. It sounded so odd.

Robin and Gabe were staring at me so strangely. There was something in their faces I couldn't place. Their jaws hung a little loose. Their eyes were dilated even as I slowly, painstakingly, click by click, turned the lantern light up.

"Stop," I almost yelled it, but I didn’t know why. I didn’t know who I was yelling at.

"I don't..." Robin started and trailed off.

"Sammi." Gabe said.

They looked like they were trying really hard to see something. Like their eyes and their minds were fighting.

"What?" Sammi asked. She sounded a little nervous.

"There's something there," Robin said and pointed. Her short auburn hair seemed almost raised, like a scared animal. Every word was a struggle.

As the brighter light fell on her, Sammi’s hands went up to her face and she turned around. As she did she let go of my arm. I fell to my knees from the pain. A huge distorted bruise already forming in the shape of long fingers deep within the flesh of my arm. It welled up purple with spots of bright red from where blood vessels had burst.

My phone fell out of my hoodie pocket and clattered to the floor.

The screen swarmed with notifications. Dozens of missed calls and texts. From dominos. From Mom. One from Paul. Now that I saw them, I could hear the buzzing and dinging of notifications from Robin and Gabe's phones.

No service. Sammi had said.

The most recent message was Pauls. It was short.

WE DON’T KNOW SAMMI.

I pushed myself to my feet and slapped at the batch of switches on the wall. The room lit up pale yellow.

Lights don't work. Sammi had said.

Sammi covered her eyes from the light. "That’s that," she said.

Now in full light it was obvious. I'll never know how we didn't see it.

The four of us had been swimming in front of her house for years. We'd probably seen her a lot of times, in the window, or peering from a doorway, but it was easy to forget. Hard to remember.

It’s easy not to see things you don’t want to see.

"Why did we come here?" Robin managed to choke out. "Why did you make us come here?"

Sammi looked sad. "I really did think it would be fun. You always seemed so happy when I watched you. I wanted to be happy too."

I think we all tried to run at the same time.

"No," Sammi said.

All my muscles pulled into knots. Gabe lurched to a stop and vomited down his chest. Robin jerked forward and fell. She caught her temple on the kitchen counter.

No one tells you how far blood shoots when you are opened up really quickly. Some of Robin hit the wall next to me.

I've had sleep paralysis a few times. Now I'm pretty sure its one of them coming to look at you. To check you over like Sammi looked us over. Her long fingers trailing and prodding. Inspecting us like fresh fruit.

Sammi had long dark hair, but it was so glossy it looked like a wig. Sammi’s eyes were just a little too far apart. Her mouth never actually closed. The skin on her neck looked like it didn't fit. Nothing was quite where it should be.

Nothing had actually changed about her, but in the light I could finally see. In the light it was too hard to fill in the gaps. I still didn’t want to see, but now I couldn’t stop looking.

Sammi ran one of her sharp fingers over the gash in Robins head leaving a red smear across her forehead . "That will scar, but you'll learn to appreciate it. Otherwise it would have been you."

Sammi flicked one of her tongues along the side of my chin and down to where I had tried to burn myself. "Almost got loose right away. Would have spoiled the little fun we did get to have," it said. It stayed close. The thing’s not-a-face hovering right in front of mine.

Sometimes when I close my eyes I can see it there. The worst part, worse than the plastic, loose skin and broken teeth, is how its lies have stuck. Even now, even after seeing it more closely and all that happened, when I picture it, I still think Sammi. I can’t quite shake the lie of a friend I had once named Sammi.

"I'm lonely," it said. Then after what felt like another forever it said, "But I'm still hungry."

It sounded so sad.

When it started to eat Gabe, whatever hold it had on us let loose. I didn't look, I just scrambled across the floor to Robin. Everything was burning and screaming inside me.

“Don’t look,” I heard myself choking.

She looked. She’s never been the same.

Gabe pleaded and kicked and cried. Then he was quiet.

I caught a reflection in the front windows of the house, saw just a glimpse of my friend disappearing in big ragged chunks.

He looked like a crescent moon.

I dragged Robin out of the house, into the darkness of the overgrown front yard, past what was left of Paul.

Don’t mind him. Sammi had said.

I can’t imagine what he thought as he died and we ignored him.

It's easy to forget. Too easy to forget and too easy to lie. Too easy. So easy to believe.

You lie to yourself all the time. They are only a little better at it than you are.

So just forget.