A Cabin of Friends

“The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window. Where it used to be orange, the candle now bled a bright crimson. The Camp Muddlebrooke Counselors were confused; one even got a little nervous but she kept it inside. The woman who had died in this house had been dead for over sixty years, long before any of them were ever born, and nobody dared step foot on this land. As the group of counselors stare into the red light in the window, some of their childhood fear comes back to them in whispers on the wind. The story follows a woman who made a mistake, and the single mistake cost her her life. She’d forgotten to blow out the candle, and by the time she returned with a child from the camp, her home was in flames. Camp Muddlebrooke burned her there shortly after, adults and childrens alike. They watched her die on the steps silently. She didn’t even scream.

“The story of The Scarred Woman echoed in all of their heads. She’d crawl amongst the trees, her bones popping in and out of place as she climbed and propelled closer and closer to the camp. Like air, the children later reported, she was there and then she wasn’t. The children, the little boys, she took never screamed, were never found, and never existed again once they heard her speak. She possessed otherworldly powers that seemed to hold no limit, and her existence itself was on the verge of a myth. It wasn’t until the night of the fire, when a camper saw the smoke and alerted others, they were even sure she was real. People would search the woods for hours, screaming at the tops of their lungs, the children’s names. Not a single child was found. The missing kids had been chalked off to those who wandered after dark.

“One counselor thought the candle must be a joke. Another thinks the candle may always be lit, they just aren’t around to see it. The newest member of the group rubbed her bare arm as the chilly summer wind picked up. It traveled across all of their goosed flesh, under the window, and through the candle until it was inside. It brushed over the old wooden chairs that stared aimlessly into a mixture of ash and charred flesh in the fireplace. The wind tumbled over the dusty lime green couch and onto the counter where she would butter them up and sew and glue. Behind the wind, however, in the deepest darkest pits the mind could imagine, the screams of the past came from beneath the floor. All it took was one touch, one word, and she had them. When you are touched by her fingers, you are never the same. You are never whole again, pieces of you will always be missing. The insects in the walls and the dirt beneath the house are left to suffer with them. Millipedes rolled and squirmed for the loss of innocence. The soil told them of it, made them feel it. It was a cabin of pain, and that pain runs all the way to the center of everything.

“The group of counselors wanted to find out what the cabin was all about, their curious minds had to see it. They had all grown up with the story, all but Hecta Willows, but now they were adults. They’d heard it every Summer around the campfire for years, it was right in front of them. Now they could do whatever they wanted. Now they could find it and live, because The Scarred Woman didn’t take adults. Or so they thought.

“Christopher Heats was the one to go first, I actually remember him growing up. He’d put jelly beans in his nose in the mess hall while we ate and then he’d launch them at a random victim. He always seemed to have jelly beans, no matter how many times the counselors turned up empty handed from searching his room for them. Christopher was the one to knock on the cabin’s door. The first one to touch the steps. His knock did not have any force to it; it was as patient as anybody would ask for, but then the world started to scream. All of the counselors covered their ears and fell to the ground in pain. When they got up, Christopher was gone. The others didn’t hear the door open, not a single window was broken, and the only thing left of Christopher was a red jellybean. It smelled of cinnamon.

“Everybody wanted to leave, but Katie Hannaghan was madly in love with Christopher Heats. She sobbed and told the group they’d have to kill her before she left the property, and that is when the door creaked open. Not a moment before, or a moment after. A promise of flesh had been made, and she was very hungry. Her Vision was very very hungry. The candle’s flame was higher now, bloody and menacing, and it bled for what was in their future. Near or far, it did not matter. The door was pushed from its hinges, the sound of splintering wood and tearing flesh mixing together in an ugly harmony. It landed at the bottom of the stairs.

“Chad Plumington reached for Cindy Dearest’s wrist, the counselor couple everybody was rooting for, they were both about to run when their bodies went slack and their eyes became a dead stare into the darkness of the cabin’s interior. The charred pieces of flesh at the bottom of the fire were mere memories of the cabin, because what leaked and slithered into itself on the walls, floors, the furniture, and counters was an unspeakable and paralyzing horror. Chad’s body felt as if it was breaking. Cindy felt hot liquid run down her leg. She could smell her urine. Sliced, cut, threaded together and given a permanent glaze, it was a cabin of skin and bones. Faces were caught in horrible final moments. Different colors and textures of skin were infused into its very being. Katie looked closer at the door that was now in pieces at her feet. She squinted her eyes, only to cry in horror at what she saw. Stitched black skin and black thread, faces stared at her under the light of the moon. She could see some teeth in the outlines of lips.

“The last camp counselor, Hecta Willows, stood the farthest away, but from the darkness she watched the shape emerge from the door frame and onto the porch. Hecta was the outcast of the group; she was the troubled teen who was forced to be a counselor as her community service. The court didn’t agree with her shoplifting, so they stuck her in the middle of nowhere. Hecta was one of the reasons all of them were there. Tonight was her first time hearing the story of The Scarred Woman. As the girl who wore dark makeup and silver chained necklaces that hung down past her sternum and often contained different pendants; as the girl whose clothes were black and mostly consisted of graphic tees, she was the counselor’s target. The cheap cloak lay bundled in a bag under the porch: along with plastic pitchforks, cans of hairspray, and lighters. The other counselors did not like her. Not one bit. Their goal was to scare her so bad, she disappeared for good. She hadn’t cracked a smile or even a smirk all summer let alone an expression of fear. If there were spiders or mice in the cabin, she would be the one to take them outside and return them to the wild. One of the camp bullies, Jeffy Bucks, dropped a cockroach in Suzie Green’s pigtails, and while the little girl was screaming her head off, Hecta scooped up the hissing creature and tossed it to the side. It scuttled away and Jeffy was put on Mess Hall duty. Again.

“While Jeffy Bucks was back at camp cleaning chili off the floor and walls, Hecta was watching evil be born, and when thick threads left the dark and wrapped themselves around Katie Hannaghan’s wrists so tight they popped off without a squirt of blood, her face changed for the first time from its slack monotone. Hecta’s lips peeled back as she bared her teeth in fear. Her mouth became a capital O, and she ran. The world became screams of the people she had been forced to tolerate for the past month, but she kept the trees in front of her. She didn’t want to look back. She didn’t want to die. Then the trees changed to the back view of the cabin. Had she gone in a circle without realizing it? She turned around and ran back, not wasting a second, suffering through the branches and the leaves for the third time tonight. She arrived back at the porch; back at the screams. Chad and Cindy appeared behind her. She hadn’t seen them when she was running through the forest herself. She didn’t hear Cindy crying like she was right now, and that kind of seclusion meant only one thing. They were trapped. And trapped meant dead.

“Katie was staring at her wrists now, in the same spot she had been a moment ago, but she wasn’t crying anymore. Her face looked pale and lifeless, and when Hecta was about to go to her, to comfort her in some way and pull her to the edge of the forest, the air seemed to unforgivingly change. It became harsh and putrid. Hecta covered her face with the sleeve of her shirt and began to gag. Through the door, they could see fat and wrinkly fingers reaching for them. Then wrists, forearms, shoulders, until she stood before them. The Scarred Woman. She stepped on the jellybean.

“They wanted to scratch their own eyes out, all four of them. She was scarred from head to toe, every inch. Only it wasn’t like the stories. They were told the tale of a woman who burned to death. She left a candle lit and it caught the drapes, the only thing that remained of her was ash while her home stood, moving slightly in the wind. It was as if it was mocking her. The only thing she had left, was still standing when she couldn’t. Cruel. But she wasn’t scarred from the fire. The story was a lie, and scarred isn’t the right word. Her skin was layered on top of itself by others. Hecta could see the stitches, the patchwork way she sewed on pieces of skin and left the wounds to heal with dried blood and scabs. From the woman’s fingertips to her shoulders, up to her head and down the length of her torso and legs, different shades of skin started and ended hundreds of times.

“‘They’re my friends’ the woman said. ‘All of them are my friends. I don’t like being lonely. He wanted to be my friend too. Do you?’ Her voice wasn’t tired, it wasn’t weak and broken or filled with the remnants of smoke from a fire. It sounded like exhausted feet on a fluffy rug. Perfect. Their minds calmed against their will, even when she pulled Christopher’s dripping head out of nowhere, none of them wanted to leave anymore.

“‘If you will be my friend, you will have everything you have ever wanted. You can picture it in your mind, yes, all of it.’

“And she was telling the truth, they could. Chad saw himself in the NFL, not a single loss under his belt. Cindy pictured herself in the White House. Katie wore her white coat in her mind, Dr. Hannaghan rang in her ears as she went into surgery. Hecta owned a bookstore out in a mountain town in Colorado. They all saw it being possible with her.

“‘Come, friends. Let me show you.’

“The counselors fell in line. They placed their hands at their sides and walked towards the stairs. A dying fire burned in their eyes. It licked their pupils and ate at their minds until nothing but ash was to remain. As they walked, she told them her story.

“‘You presumed me dead, this is why you came. You’ve heard their version of my story. Let me tell you the real one.’”

“No! She’s going to eat them! She’s going to!” Beverly Nickles cried on the other side of the flickering fire. “I’m scared!

“Shush, Beverly. Jonathan is talking.” Wilcox put his tiny finger to his mouth.

“Come over here Bev, I’ll protect you.” Jill patted the empty piece of log next to her and Beverly scrambled over the crowd without any hesitation. Jill shot Jonathan a smile and his pants twitched. “Continue, I think we’re all good now. Are we good, Bev?”

The child nodded hesitantly, still not entirely sure.

The children’s attention had not wavered. All around the fire, their eyes remained unblinking. Flecks of orange dance up on the wind, and in those flames was the fear they felt but would not show. They didn’t have to, because never had children been so focused before. Never had there been so much power in words.

It was a story to scare little kids into making sure they were tucked into bed, yes, but it was more than a camp legend. The woman’s name had been Judy Laschane, and she and her husband, Mr. Everett Laschane, lived in the little cabin in the middle of the woods. They would make calls to the grocery store in the nearest town and have their food delivered the same day every week. They would fund a few of the camp's fundraisers, even though they would never attend. A few people had reported Judy gardening during the seasons and how she would always smile their way. They were a peaceful and kind couple. To the world outside of those four walls, that is. Mr. Laschane had multiple affairs throughout the years, with women from town or the camp, even some men from the area, and when he was seen leaving town with a younger woman, it changed Judy. The woods would watch as she screamed to the stars. Her long nightgowns became dirty rags. After the screaming, she would sit on her porch for days on end, just staring down the path and into the woods. She had hoped he would return, and when months went by without a hint of him, something inside of her snapped like branches under a tire. The birds flew away when they heard it. Kids started going missing in the night soon after. Boys never turned up again. The rumor is she grew to hate men because of what her husband did to her, and so she stopped little boys from growing up to be just like him. Cops said they found each child in their own chair, emptied of humanity and stuffed like an animal from a store. The chairs had been labeled with each of their names. Carved into the wood and bloody, multiple investigators had to excuse themselves to throw up. It is said the room didn’t smell, however. There wasn’t anything left to rot because their skin had been caramelized. Preserved. Made immortal. They stared into each other’s glassy eyes for eternity. She didn’t have any friends, so she made her own in isolation. She wasn’t a witch, or some entity from another world. She was a deranged and heart-broken old woman who would sneak onto the camp ground after dark and lure kids to her cabin with the children's promises; food, games, toys, things like that. They all knew of her, she was their neighbor.

Her curtains were the first to go, covered in dust because she lost her motivation to get out of bed. She caught fire in her sleep, and her final screams traveled through the ground and into the world of the dead below. She suffered as her skin bubbled and fell away. Handprints made of mostly flesh could be traced from her bedroom and along the halls and out the front door. The camp watched her die on those steps, but they were not the ones who did it, and Judy Laschane was not silent. She screamed until the moment her very soul left her body.

The story traveled as stories do, from the head Chief of the Department, to the waitress he was screwing after hours in the back kitchen, to her mother, to her milkman, to the husbands of all and their employers. Each drop of lie fueled what was left of Judy’s rage. It was the pain at the center of all of it that seeped into those walls from her melting hands. After decades of campers and their versions of her life, one lie had been left to set the world asunder. It was the cherry on a pile of bones, and it traveled on the wind. Leaves tried to get in its way, and they burned. Animals hid in their homes because they could feel the universe brewing, and when it landed on the front steps of the worn down and creaky cabin, the world sank in on itself for just one breath, becoming a puddle of ashes. Bloody and screaming, she pulled herself up from her home, and the dead tried their hardest to stop her. Miles to the East, Jonathan continued his story.

“‘I was a good wife. I really was. I did everything he asked of me, even when I didn’t want to. Then he tried to leave me. So I killed him. As you can see,’ her head tilted to the patch of skin above the fireplace. When she moved, her face tightened and the rows of thread strained. She looked like dried out clay pressed over bones. Her husband’s skin had withered over the years, but the group could make out what was left of his features. Gray and patchy hair, emptied eye sockets, a full mouth of stitched in teeth. He’d never leave her.

“They’d made a mistake in coming here, the thought travels through all of them like a hive mind, but it was too late to do anything about it. She got them. She has them.

“‘I have a Vision for what I want my friends to look like. You are each placed meticulously and with purpose. I get so lonely. Now, down into the basement you go.’ They listened to her mindfully and did what they were told. As soon as the door shut, the spell was broken and they screamed. They screamed into the wood until their throats were raw and they couldn’t anymore.

“She dried them out first. She made them weak and allowed for one final gathering before she put them to her Vision. Katie was the first to go. Placed above the doorway, because her skin reminded The Scarred Woman of the golden hour. When the sun would hit just right. Then Cindy, Chad, then Hecta followed last. Before she closed her eyes, Hecta watched the woman glide down the steps full of glee. Hecta wanted to kill her. Hecta wanted to make her pay for the pain she had caused, but her tongue felt like a desert landscape and her body was holding up the world. She couldn’t lift a finger. So Hecta watched as The Scarred Woman made her way through her next batch of friends, and with the final pieces of her life thought about how the woman’s stitches made her a deadly sky. The Scarred Woman was a sky of constellations that held gruesome stories for the entire world to see.

“So they all DIE! That isn’t how you end a story to children!” Wilcox groaned and picked himself up from the ground and dusted himself off.

“That may be so. Maybe you should consider this a warning, Wilcox. If we catch you out of your cabin after curfew again, it may not be us who finds you.” Jonathan’s words made Wilcox’s eyes widen and a slight blush to creep onto his face. The fire crackled as Jonathan smirked. “Now, with that said, I think it’s time for all of you to head to bed.

There was a wave of groans and the smush of leaves and dirt as all of the campers who had decided to listen to the story, begrudgingly stretched and began their trek to the cabins. Some kids traveled in groups, holding hands and whispering about the tale and The Scarred Woman Little girls shrieked as boys scared them from behind with some pokes to the side. Some children chased each other all the way to bed, and by the time it was just Jonathan and Jill, all the front doors of the cabins were shut. The children were no longer their business, and the two of them were no longer theirs. At least until morning.

“That didn’t sound at all like the story I heard growing up, Johnny.” She put on a teasing smirk and dusted her ass for wood chips and dirt as she made her way over to his log. “Nice move with saying you knew Christopher Heats, though. Think that scared ‘em.”

“Yeah, I made a few adjustments. It was only to teach that little shit, Wilcox, a lesson though.” Jonathan poked at the fire with a stick. “He’s such a bully. He’s dumped food on more than 5 kids this week, and it’s only Wednesday! He’s a little shit. And, and,” Jonathan started to use gestures because of his nerves. She was getting closer. “The way he talks to people is just so rude, like during the story tonight.”

“Kids are monsters, yeah. I bet we were the same way back then.” She laughed, tilted her head back, and the sound hurt The Scarred Woman’s ears.

It was a monster’s laugh, a manipulator. The stitches that lined her body strained, pulled against years of decay and bugs. Bits of flesh tore off the tips of her fingers as she scrambled out of the world. Before her body remembered how to move, she was running towards the monster, towards her story. The lies fueled every layer of skin, ever dead muscle and nerve. It brought her back to life and she screamed a scream that was so high, it wasn’t this world that heard it. In worlds beyond the stars, her rage killed thousands. Now, her body did break with the movements that it made. She jumped from branches and tore across the ground like an animal bred for hunting. This is what the lies had made her; she wasn’t just thirsty, she was insatiable.

“Why do you think she really did it? It can’t be as simple as insanity.” Jill said suddenly.

“Why can’t it be?” Jonathan returned.

“Because life doesn’t coincidentally work that way.” Jill said to the sky.

“I know that. It wasn’t coincidental. He broke her heart, and some people simply can’t get over something like that. He cheated, and lied, and left her with nothing. A cabin in the middle of fucking nowhere was all she had been left with. I’d go crazy too. Especially if I didn’t have any money to go anywhere. Trapped with the same old walls, the same memories. Day after day, month after month. I think that’s enough to drive anybody crazy.”

She thought about his answer for a moment, and she began to feel sad for the camp famous Mrs. Laschane. She was the monster under these children’s beds, when she used to be a gardener. A wife. A pleasant smile in the hot sun. Then she was driven to murder. To torture. Is there a piece missing? A lie being told? It was possible, but it didn’t sound productive to think about it in the middle of the night, so she changed the conversation.

“You don’t have to be nervous, ya know? I’m more ready than you think I am.” She smirked and siddled a little closer.

It was a slaughter they never heard. The Scarred Woman teased the edge of camp before she went in. She could still hear that monster’s laugh. It crawled into her as she slithered through open windows and unlocked doors. It tore apart sewn pieces of skin as she cut and glued.

Jonathan and Jill pressed against each other by the fire, their bodies lit by flame and shadows. They didn’t notice when the fire turned red, when it began to bleed. The two of them kissed under the trees and made quiet promises to their bodies, unaware of bleeding fingers and a crazed smile lurking in the trees behind them. They would both be unaware of the police reports in the morning when all the little girls would wake up screaming. Their friends glued to the bottoms of top bunks, windows, walls, and ceilings.

Step after step, The Scarred Woman’s body cracked and broke into place. She raised her tightening arms and brought them down onto Jill’s shoulder. She pulled, and Jill began to fly. Her body crashed into a tree. There was more than one snap, and with speed nobody should possess, The Scarred Woman yanked Jonathan’s head up towards her and started to run. She ripped through the grass as Jonathan started to scream. He kept his hands on top of his head so his scalp wouldn’t come undone. Insects scurried away and begged for forgiveness, begged to be left alone. Jonathan’s wails rang in her ears as thank you. He needed her friendship too.

“I can replace my friend above my fireplace,” she cackled as she climbed trees and leapt from one to another.

He was a ragdoll by the time they reached her home, and it stood there, as it had for years. The candle burned in the window now, a bright orange. It was signaling her home, the candle was telling her that her friends missed her. Judy could not keep them waiting.