Baba's Cabin

The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window. No one had lit this particular candle, but it burned all the same. It was an ancient alarm clock of sorts, only seen in places of deep and powerful magic. The flame reached its many hungry tongues into the stale air, sizzling and burning through the many layers of cobwebs and vines that had invaded the little shelter like the burning of old paper. The cabin took a deep breath as it awakened, stretching and sighing. As he shook the last intruders that had congregated in the shelter of his nooks and crannies, the flames continued sparking and snapping like a live electrical wire, and the hearth burst to life with an odd groaning that soon became a great roaring yawn.

Beside the hearth, the cabin’s long-dead inhabitant stirred slightly, only a memory of herself yet still enough to give her all to her other half. Her best friend and protector, her one true companion in a life of gnawing hunger and unkempt rage.

There was one thing that the cabin and what was left of the woman could both agree upon, they were both famished. The need to ease the gnawing pangs of hunger took over everything…every dream and plan from the last many years. These thoughts, lost to the same needs that have plagued them for centuries. Apparently the elderly really do become simple creatures, eating and sleeping are their only accomplishments. She was even more aware of her hunger because of who and what she had been. For the most part, it was too late for her, but her sweet pet could still find peace in sustenance. Most of humanity would probably think of her as a legend, Baba Yaga of Slovakia, somehow misplaced in the states… no one would believe in her and her house here, not anymore.

The truth of the matter is that all the stories are true. Each creature of the nightmares, still roaming somewhere in the places hidden from the world’s busy eyes. As belief dwindled, the great gods of mythology nearly mummified upon their thrones, starved into submission without the lifeblood of their existence, belief and servitude, as their only sustenance. However, she was a bit less stringent on her preferred pallet. Like the Jinn, the Demons, and the evil Fae, all she needed was fear.

So, her home had become accustomed to the same delicacies, feeding on the purest of fears and the decay of their victims since his infancy. Like a dog who has only tasted the flesh of animals, the house had an appetite for only one thing. It had become their downfall in the end. That hunger, that wild animalistic hunt. Still, now was not the time to think about all she had sacrificed for that hunger, she would do it again for him. Her sweet pet and the love of her life was all that remained, her flesh and bones becoming one with the very walls and the now peeling wallpaper. How else was she supposed to keep him going?

The people in the forests of her homeland had turned to the renaissance of the western world and had lost all fear of her. They had burned her and her beloved home, taking their ashes as trophies…all that was left of Baba Yaga and her cursed hut. How silly they had been to bring the ashes to America so that they might tell their harrowing story and show the ashes as proof.

As the people of her mother country came to these shores, they found new fears and new nightmares, and soon the stories of Baba Yaga fell upon the virgin ears of a new generation. The fear of the witch and her hut nestled back into the nightmares of a new generation. From the back corners of their minds she had waited, and she and her precious home’s power had grown just enough for one to gather form in the waking world once more. She was nearly spent, but for her precious baby, she would stay the course.

It was time to get going. As she stretched her gnarled and aching bones, so too did the cabin. One rotting taloned limb stretched to its full height making a popping sound akin to breaking bones and tearing flesh. To a passerby, it would simply look like a tree and perhaps a children’s tree house high above. No one would know the great danger hiding there.

Their connection as much physical as it was spiritual, she urged him forward. It was no longer time to tuck away in the vastness of trees and sharp mountain peaks, there would be other places easier to tempt the unlucky passerby, possibly in places less perilous. The earth begins shaking as the cabin hops on its way, creatures of the ground, worms and centipedes, escaping the cabin's heavy steps, torn between the sweet taste of rotting earth and wood and the fear that they would be crushed by the house’s weight. Soon it would be time to settle in, to wait, and prey upon those who may wander past. If any part of their love story, their very existence was to continue, this plan had to work.

It was late in the day when Butch stumbled upon the cabin. Odd, since it was his job to keep an eye on these woods and keep them free of illegal structures, and yet in all his treks through these woods, he couldn’t recall this one. Maybe that wasn’t the most outlandish thing. Lately, he had forgotten more than he could remember knowing in the first place. It was a well-built cabin, big enough that it would be a group project to tear down. Dammit, he hated jobs like these. He had honestly been okay with walking into these woods and disappearing for good, but his sense of duty to his longtime career as a forest ranger and his love of the pure wilderness still ran deep. Butch turned back towards the trail that led to his old jalopy bronco and the ranger’s station. If he was going to leave a legacy, he wasn’t going to stop now. Even if he would soon forget, perhaps the generations that would come after would benefit.

As Butch ascended the small peak that came before the long walk down the mountain, his thoughts crowded in and he began to wade through the darker tunnels of his mind. He no longer remembered the faces of his daughter or his grandchildren, and there was more than one occasion where he had found himself snapping to a time right before he attacked someone out of fear and confusion. This was killing him slowly, drowning him in his own mind. Perhaps the cabin wasn’t that important, hell if he were to just turn around, he could set up camp there and wait for the end to come.

There was a good chance of a controlled burn in this area of the forest the next fire season, since there had been a bad beetle kill and it wasn’t going to be safe with so much dried, dead wood. This was the location for the next burn, at least if his memory served correctly. The cabin and he along with it could just burn to the damn ground and no one would be the wiser. It might be a death sentence for him, but at least it wouldn’t be for his little girl and his precious grandsons. God, his little girl, how could he leave and protect her at the same time? Would this glitch in his genetics take hold of her mind someday too? He could at least die here and she wouldn’t struggle through caring for him. She wouldn’t hurt for as long while we all waited for the end to the pain.

Butch may not normally be an emotional type of man, and to his way of thinking, his generation sure as hell didn’t blubber and cry; and yet the years began to swell behind his thick glasses. Soon they were cascading down his cheeks as he felt his fear and pain wash over him. He had walked another hundred yards or so from the cabin before he realized that the soaking torrent came from the sky rather than himself. The water came down in sheets, and an ominous bolt of lightning struck only feet away from him, causing a nearby tree to implode and send splinters in every direction. He could feel some of them puncturing the rough skin of his brow and the back of his hand where he had lifted it to shield himself.

The resounding boom made his eardrums burn. In fact, if he weren’t drenched, he thought he might be able to feel for blood from the damage. He had gone through that once, a long time ago when he had gone to Vietnam. He didn’t want to remember that part of his life, but there was one thing then that mattered more than his memories at that very moment, shelter from the storm.

A quick turn and another blast of lightning sent him tumbling back down the hill towards the little hut. His world upended and spun about as the mud below him squelched and the roots and branches whipped at his clothes and skin. He was grateful for just a moment when he felt the wall of the cabin stop his fall, at least until the pain cut in at least. He sat up and took stock, he needed stitches, and probably had at least cracked a few ribs. Damn, he was getting too old for this.

He stood up and reached for the door, but the handle wasn’t there. In fact, the entire door did not seem to be where it had been when he had left. Cabins don’t just get up and change direction on their own. How far off his bearings had he knocked himself? He could swear that the place had somehow turned in the opposite direction. ‘No, not possible,’ he mused, ‘I’m already aware that I’m losing my damn mind,’ he thought as the world shifted and faded to blackness.

It may have been moments; it may have been hours. All Butch knew was that he was awake, his whole body hurt like hell, and he may as well still have his eyes closed because he couldn’t see his hand in front of his face. The only respite to the blackness was the occasional bolt of lightning now distant in the sky. He slipped and slid through the slick mud, feeling along the wall with one hand while holding his injured side with the other. Soon he found the corner and then another, and finally the large latch on the front door. Through the sheets of rain, he thought he could see a light burning dimly through the dirty pane of glass, but that had to be impossible.

With one great shove, the house welcomed him in with a loud squeak and a flurry of wind pitched him into the doorway. Behind him, there was an odd click, like the locking of a heavy chest. ‘That must have been the wind that slammed the door behind me,’ he thought, ‘That must be it.’ Just as Butch righted himself and straightened to look at his surroundings, he froze in his tracks. He had indeed seen a light through the window. In fact, there were two. A single candle was alight on a table near the window and a dim glow could still be seen in the hearth from a recent fire. He surveyed the room closely, looking for anyone hiding in the many shadows. Although the place was odd and eerie, it became quickly apparent that he was the only inhabitant.

Perhaps the person who lived here was out. It was a long way to town for supplies after all. It was going to be awkward if the owner came home. After all, it was Butch’s job to tear down any structures or man-made shelters on national parkland. Now that he knew someone lived here, he knew that part of his job was informing the owner (even though there was no such thing as an owner on park land). He hoped he would get away and back to his truck before anyone returned, that way he could leave a notice on the door and be done with the possibility of any confrontation. It was becoming more and more evident that he was going to be stuck here for the night. Best get a fire going, get dry, and check his wounds before hypothermia or his medical condition got the best of him. No matter if a person is squatting on public land, they don’t need to return to find a random dead stranger frozen to death in their front room.

Luckily for Butch, there was firewood in an old woven basket near the hearth. He quickly stoked the fire to life and began to strip away his wet layers. He knew from one look at his arms and torso that he was going to need to at least clean the wounds that were bad enough to hinder his movements. As he worked slowly to undress, working the material gently from his aching skin, Butch noticed an aroma filling the room. It smelled like burnt flesh and rotting meat.

He knew that he smelled something fierce, but he also knew that he couldn’t possibly smell that bad, at least not while he was still kicking. It must be something in the hearth, some sort of mold or rot from the old wood. Maybe there was a dead bird that was stuck in the chimney. He had seen the poor things become stuck and die in chimneys before. Still, the smell of death was everywhere, cloying in his nose. How could anyone have had a fire going just a bit ago and have dealt with that smell?! Butch felt an odd and sickly feeling creep into his stomach.

Like a Venus fly trap, the cabin sat in wait. There was food in the trap, yes, but it was still not quite the time to eat it. Not until it was ready, not until the trap would work for certain. This man had already felt the eerie twinge of knowing when he was being watched, even if he didn’t realize it at that time. The house could smell the change in him, the seasoning of fear and discomfort beginning to take hold. If they pushed too hard, they would lose him and his mother would surely die. After all, she needed the fear and the pain of others to survive, for him it only sweetened the taste.

The cabin loved her, at least in the only way a thing of wood and stone and hate could love. A few dead bodies, even animals, would tide him over for another few decades or so. It was just that the poor souls tasted so sickly sweet when they were filled with fear. He may survive without it, but what of her?

What would he be without her? Stone and wood without a purpose, without a soul. She was his soul. For her, he would follow the same plan they had undertaken a hundred times or more. They would make the man comfortable for the night, ensuring he wouldn’t leave until dawn. While he slept, Baba could reach into the man’s mind and set the stage for the rest of their bounty. A feast would soon be upon them both.

The man had many tiny cuts and bits and pieces of a tree had splintered into his skin, there were deeper gouges in his leg and side where the fall had taken its pound of flesh, and the keen ears of the cabin could hear the old man’s ribs creak against each other where his walls had broken the man’s fall. If he had not turned to watch the storm roll in, the man would have tumbled right into the door. That wouldn’t have done them any good, he may not have needed the rest and shelter otherwise. The man could still leave if the dark feeling of foreboding crept further into his mind, the time was now if the house wanted to entice him further to stay.

Butch lumbered about the cabin in little more than his birthday suit as his clothes dried by the heat of the fire. He felt like an idiot and once again prayed that the cabin’s caretaker would not return. He needed something to clean the worst of his wounds and something to help him with the pain in his side, but the fall had snagged his pack somewhere along the way. As he searched, the old man mumbled to himself, no one was near enough to hear him after all and he was quite accustomed to talking to himself. ‘What better company?’ He had often thought.

His words did not go unheeded this time, and as he went on and on about the supplies he would need, the house listened. With another deep click like the sound the door had made when he had walked/fallen in, Butch knew that something nearby had stirred. A mouse probably, it had to be. And yet in the far corner a chest he had not given too much thought to previously stood ajar.

This was too easy; he could’ve sworn that everything had been locked tight upon the first inspection of his surroundings. Butch laughed bitterly to himself. How was he supposed to be certain of his surroundings? The doc said soon he wouldn’t even remember his name. He shrugged off the odd feeling of foreboding again and rifled through the treasures the chest held. An old, tattered blanket, a pot, and a few wash rags were quick and easy finds. Butch couldn’t believe how lucky he was. It was as if the house had been waiting to deliver exactly what he required.

Butch took a deep breath and opened the door of the cabin to a gale of wind and icy rain. He felt like a sissy dancing out into the rain with the pot to collect water, happy no one could see him. Outside, the feeling of watchful eyes might be lessened, but the cold wet rain drenching through his briefs was far worse than the gnawing feeling inside the cabin, and Butch ran back into its shelter. The pot sat on the hook of the hearth, urging the water to boil as Butch tore the rags into strips.

He hissed in many a pained breath while cleaning and bandaging his many bumps and cuts and cussed too many times at the pain of it all. He was exhausted and sleep was edging nearer, or at least unconsciousness was creeping up from the pain. Either way, Butch stoked the fire one last time and lay down wrapped in the blanket he found and stared into the flames. Tomorrow he would get the hell out of here, tomorrow was his only thought as he drifted off to sleep.

As he slept, Butch dreamed of many a crazy thing. He saw his life flash before his eyes, not the life he remembered, but the life that was hidden in the many hurts and disappointments in life. He could feel the anger of the war, a wave of anger he had not felt in a long time. All the peace of a long life with his wife and little girl, of being a grandfather, and spending his later years in the mountains he loved fell away. He was seething, violent thoughts of the most gruesome nature darting through his mind. He was bitterly aware of his failing mind and all the time that he had wasted in doctor’s offices and hospitals.

Before he knew it, his mind filled with dreams of bringing each idiot doctor he felt had failed him here to this tiny cabin. It was so far from the world, so removed from most people’s knowledge that no one would find him, no one would know. He would bring them here and slowly dismember them. A finger for every crap medication that hadn’t worked, an eye for the test results he was shown but didn’t know how to read, and so forth. Every pain and disappointment he had watched break him down and tear his daughter’s heart further, he would lay upon those who practiced medicine with no hope of fixing the problem.

Whether it was their fault or not, to him, they were the guilty ones. Here, they would rot. Here, he could let loose his anger, and then the flames of the coming fires would wash them all away. Yes, that’s what he would do. He would take out his vengeance on the world, he’d earned it. The notion never occurred to him that such thoughts had never entered his mind before, it all just felt right. Not even when it was his job to kill people, not when death was all around him had he hungered for the pain of others. These weren’t his thoughts, not his dreams, he wasn’t this person. Still, suddenly, he wanted to be.

Baba sang her song, quietly at first to not wake the man sleeping in front of her. Her words, slipping from the cracks in the foundation and the crevices between the logs, sounded much like the storm outside as wailed in through the cabin. From a whisper to a lulling roar, she continued her song. Daring the man’s darkest demons to the surface, her words coaxing his anger and sorrow to spring forth. Soon, he would awake and he would rage, she thought. Soon, he would bring more food for her precious home, more souls for her famished being. She may yet be able to make them both whole.

Before she knew it, her thoughts clouded her aging mind and she thought back to how they had gotten there. How the ashes had been spilled from their jars into the dust of a new land, and how the myths of the homeland had filled little ones with terror. A terror she drank in and grew strong from. From an old mining camp, its people long gone, she had spread her tired and aching form. She sat and thought now of the exhaustion and toil it had taken to bring her beloved home back. Someday, she thought, she would be able to build herself anew again. This man was only the beginning.

As if thinking of him had stirred him to wakefulness, Butch shifted his weight and opened his tired eyes. He could have sworn he saw a pair of eyes staring from the emptiness of a dark corner, could’ve sworn he heard another’s voice. And were those, were those fingers he had seen receding into the hearth? No, of course not. He knew he was losing his mind. The terrible thoughts he had been fraught with in his dreams still resounded in his head. ‘Kill, get even, show them pain!’ Jolting upright and away from the nightmarish eyes he was sure he had only dreamt of, Butch winced in pain.

That pain pissed him off, and he knew just what to do with it. As the sun crept through the cabin’s tiny window, Butch readied himself for what he must do. It would hurt, of course, the travel, and the hunting down of the right people, but the pain didn’t scare him, not when clouded by so much anger. He was feeding the flame within himself and mulling over the terrible atrocities he would dole out as he dressed in his clothes. They were filthy and ripped something terrible, but at least they were dry.

He set out on his journey back from whence he came with such a mission that he nearly ran up the mountain peak, only stopping when he came upon his discarded pack. Shaking what moisture he could from it, he began to swing the pack onto his shoulder. If it hadn’t been for the small slip of paper that fell from an open pocket, he would’ve continued running up the trail, seeking the victims he couldn’t help but fantasize about catching and slowly killing.

This slip of soaked paper caught the light just right, and Butch bent to pick it up. It was a photo of a beautiful woman and three cherub-like faces with golden hair, all smiles, and laughter; the photo was familiar to him. It was not the Alzheimer’s he was fighting now, but something deeper. The great weight of knowledge hit him all at once. These four people were his entire world, the reason he had awoken and kept traveling forward for so long even when he knew it was all for naught. It was their love and their hope that had sustained him. That was who he was, not this angry shadow of a man. Not a murderer or a sadistic psychopath.

This was not him. None of this had been thoughts of his own making. It must’ve been, had to have been something else. ‘What does it matter, you’re cursed to forget anyhow,’ something whispered. Butch turned slowly, leveling his eyes at the cabin behind him. He now somehow knew that he had not been alone last night, just as he was not alone now. As the little cabin seemed to stare back at him, he heard the voice once more. ‘Go, make them pay, we’ll be waiting.’

‘We’ll be waiting? I think the hell not,’ Butch snorted. He had heard stories of what lies in wait in the deep woods, had thought he had come close to a thing or two along the way too, but this cabin? It was the real deal. He had heard stories of mountain men finding shelter in a storm only to be found slaughtered by a comrade in the night. The screaming cries of the only survivor always echoed the same sentiment, “they had not done this! It was something else!” These men had not just killed those who scorned them, no, they had destroyed all those they had loved. Killed each soul they had held dear. Now Butch knew what that something else that had done the killing was.

‘Hell no,’ he thought. He would not lose to a little hovel in the woods. And yet, he knew it was too late for him. The need to follow the voice of vengeance in his head was a seed that was already taking root. The cabin had poisoned his mind, taking what was left that the Alzheimer’s hadn’t already stolen. With one last look at the photo in his hand, he rubbed his thumb lovingly over each face, willing his goodbyes to them across the great expanse between them. They would think he had forgotten his way and been lost to the woods. Their hearts would break, but they would heal. They would heal and he would not be the cause of any more pain.

Step by begrudging step, Butch returned to the cabin. He knew he couldn’t just leave. A deep knowledge settled within him, he was meant to bring more victims to this place. He was meant to feed whatever beast lived within its walls. He knew he could not do so. From his pack, Butch drew his sidearm, and in a desperate prayer for the safety of those he loved, he drew his eyes to the heavens and swallowed the percussive force of the bullet as he fired. He wasn’t a hero. A hero would have found another way, but Butch wasn’t a villain either. That was something he could never be, he had too much love in his life for that.

There, in the deep woods, the cabin reached for him. Hungry, achingly famished. Baba willed its walls to scuttle closer to the corpse lying before it. Yet no matter how hard she pushed and how great the cabin struggled, the man had died too far from their grasp. Her energy and the houses cried out in a desperate wail that filled the trees and chased the creatures from their dens. They had been defeated, their last reserves of power spent.

This was where they would all die, this man, the witch, and her home. As the forest fed upon the brains and entrails of the man, scattering his bones in all directions, so too did the cabin feed upon what was left of the witch until she was only a decaying spot in a rotting house. A cabin, falling into ruin, waiting to burn for the final time. Its own fears eating it alive as it sits and waits. Its fears a sickly-sweet taste that would not relieve the pangs of starvation soon enough. After all, everything must die…even Gods, even legends.