Cabin in the woods

"That cabin had been abandoned for years, but now there's a candle burnen in the window."

The four of us hunkered behind the fallen tree, looking through the binoculars in turns as we surveyed the cabin.

This had been a summer to remember for sure, and it would become a summer that none of us would forget.

Richie, James, Terry, and I had been friends since kindergarten, and we had spent every summer playing around the neighborhood and having fun. This summer, however, was special. We were eleven this year, or close enough to make no difference, and some of the restrictions had been taken off of us. We could ride our bikes a little farther, stay out a little closer to dark, and explore the woods around our house, as long as we went in a group.

The woods had long been a source of restricted adventure for us, but now we were free to explore them as we chose.

That first day of summer, we all met at my house with backpacks and camping gear so we could start exploring. Terry had paper and intended to make a map of the woods. Richie had brought some of his dad's tools so we could make some forts or little bases out in the woods. James had the nose of his air rifle poking up from his bag, and I had my wrist rocket hanging from the back of my shorts. We felt like explorers preparing to head out into unknown territory, and we just knew that this would be a summer to remember.

We began by exploring the places we knew in the woods, places our dads had taken us camping or our parents had let us go to on our own. Terry made a crude map for us to follow, and as the summer unfolded, the map got bigger and bigger.

Soon the small camp and the creek were joined by the berry bushes, the big rock, the snake sighting place (we had seen a big black snake there, but it had slithered away), and the Cabin.

The Cabin was the oddest thing we had found in the woods. It seemed to be abandoned, but it was so well maintained that it had to be owned by someone. The land was well kept as well. There was no trail for a car to get there. The trees would have made even a small car difficult to get in there, so we figured it was some forest dweller's summer cabin or something.

We had other things to occupy our time, though, and the cabin was soon forgotten about. We spent the first month of summer building forts and making a raft so we could sail down the creek. We thought that we might play pirates if we had a raft, and we started lashing some of the big logs together with some rope from my dad's shed. We made a sail from some old sheets. The raft was laughably small, only one of us could have fit comfortably on it at a time, but we still had fun imagining the four of us sailing up the creek to the small lake it led to.

On July first, the first weekend of high summer, we asked our parents if we could camp out in the woods for the weekend. We had all been in boy scouts for a few years, and we'd all gone camping before. We felt that we could properly survive in the woods with some food to cook and some shelter to keep the elements off. To our surprise, our parents agreed, on the grounds that we do not camp too far in the woods, and we marked on a map where we would be so they could find us.

"No more than a mile into the woods," my Dad had said, "And make sure you clean up after yourself so you don't attract anything you can't handle."

So we packed our knapsacks and prepared for a weekend in the great outdoors.

We hadn't realized how close we were to the cabin when we set up camp, but when Terry had come back with firewood and told us about the candle burning, we had discovered that we were only about twenty minutes from it. We had all been sent out on some errand, and Terry was the last one to return. I had been setting up the tents, Richie had made the journey to the creek for water, James had been digging the latrine we would use, and Terry had been getting firewood. It was getting on in the afternoon when he finally arrived, and the hot dogs in the cooler were calling our name.

He dropped the firewood and told us that we had to come see this.

And so here we were, watching the cabin for signs of life.

Other than the candle, however, there wasn't much to see. There was no vehicle in front of the cabin, no lights on in the house, and had it not been for the candle, it would have been just as cold and abandoned as always. As it grew darker and no lights came on inside either, we lost interest in the cabin and returned to our campsite.

It had been a momentary curiosity at best, but our stomachs were grumbling, and we were ready for dinner.

As the darkness settled around us, we had our wienies on sticks and roasting nicely over the fire. We had begun chatting about the adventures we would have this weekend, and the laughter around our fire was loud and merry. James had put some root beers in the cooler, and we were breaking out the jiffy pop as we prepared to tell ghost stories. Ghost stories were a huge part of any campout, and we meant to outdo each other with tales of terror that would rival anything we had ever read.

"I've got one," Terry said, letting his hotdog slowly turn into a charcoal lump, "I read it on Nosleep. This guy lives with his Grandpa, and he said his friend turned into a tree."

Terry laid out the story, building up as he told about kids exploring the woods and finding a special grove. We all listened, leaning in a little as he wove the tale. The story wasn't really scary as much as it was sad, but the atmosphere of the dark woods made it all seem pretty spooky nonetheless.

I was reaching to get a second hotdog, the first having been eaten in three bites when I thought I heard something out in the woods. It sounded big, bigger than us at least, and I took out the little flashlight I had and shone it into the forest. James looked up from spearing another hot dog, craning his neck to look out into the spot my flashlight was illuminating.

"Something out there?" he asked, craning his neck to get a look.

"No clue, but I thought I heard something out there."

All of them turned to look then, eyes peering into the murky darkness, but whatever it had been was either still or had moved on.

"I've got one," Richie said, "It's pretty scary, though. I hope you guys can handle it."

We all laughed, throwing a few marshmallows at him before he leaned in and started his story.

"There were four friends out on a camping trip. They were staying the night in the woods, just their sleeping bags and the fire to keep them safe against the elements. Well, they had felt all night like something was watching them, so they decided to set a watch that night to make sure that nothing snuck up on them. They would each keep watch while the others slept, each keeping watch for two hours, and as the others settled in, the first boy sat and watched the night."

The fire crackled as we listened, and I thought I heard the snap of a twig again. Was something out there? Was it stalking us? It sounded big, but I supposed it could just be a deer or a possum or something.

"This story isn't about him, though. This story isn't about the second boy either. This story is about the third boy, the boy who must watch through the depths of the night. The second boy had no sooner shaken him awake than he was curled in his sleeping bag and snoring happily. The third boy had slept for a few hours, but he was still tired. He didn't like staying up late, and he was used to being snug in his bed when the sun went down. As he sat by the fire, the warmth wafting into his face, he felt warm and comfy and began to drowse."

I heard a stick crack to my left, and cut my eyes in that direction.

"Just then, something stepped on a branch out in the woods, and the boy found his drowsiness melting away. What was that? Some sort of animal? A person? A monster coming to eat him? The boy sat up a little straighter, but he was so tired. He could barely keep his eyes open, and the fire felt so good."

I could see something from the corner of my eye, but I couldn't be sure what it was.

An animal?

A person?

A monster come to eat us up?

"He looked around, but he could see nothing. The small fire did little to light the forest around him, so he reached for more wood and began to build it up again. His hands shook with each piece of wood he grabbed, and the coals danced as he slid the fresh logs into the flames. He soon had the fire raging, a burning pyre that threatened to catch the lowest branches of the nearby trees on fire, but still, he could see only the vaguest outline of what stalked him."

Whatever it was looked big, like a bear but bigger. It had a towering presence that made it appear monstrous in the dancing light of our campfire. It appeared to be wearing clothes, but I couldn't be sure. Was that a dress? Maybe a robe? I couldn't be sure, but it was coming closer as we all sat raptly and listened to Richie's story.

"He watched the shape as it stalked closer, unable to tell what it might be. It was so big, it could be anything. A bear, a person, anything could be in these dark woods. He took one of the burning sticks from the fire and held it out before him like a torch, trying to ward off whatever this diabolical creature might be. It came on, heedless of the burning stick, and the boy began to scream as it stepped into the firelight, and he caught sight of his stalker."

This creature was not as bold.

It hung back slightly, not daring to get close enough to be seen.

"When they found the boys, all of them had been killed. Of the three that had been in the sleeping bags, nothing was ever found. Just a lot of blood soaking into the bag itself. Of the watcher, however, they found him still at his post."

He leaned in, the fire making his face look sinister.

"He was frozen in fear, his heart having stopped from terror."

I turned then, looking over Terry's shoulder and into the woods, but whatever it had been was gone.

"Wow," James said, putting a fresh marshmallow on to replace the one that had fallen into the fire as he sat listening, "that was a great story."

"Ya," I agreed, scouting around behind them for the shape.

"I bet I know who scared him so bad," James said, a little smile on his lips, "I bet it was Soap Sally."

A chill ran up my spine, "Don't even say her name out here!" I quavered, the others looking just as shocked.

Soap Sally was not something to be joked about in the woods at night. Soap Sally was a local legend, a washerwoman who had done her washing at the watering hole for as long as anyone could remember. She made her own soap, made candles too, and was said to be able to make spells and potions as well. When she was found to be making her soap out of the bones of runaway children, she was burned as a witch with only the briefest of trials. She was still used as a way to scare bad kids into doing what they were supposed to be doing, and there were still disappearances from time to time.

"I heard a rumor that those kids who went missing in the next town were taken by Soap Sally." James continued, clearly intending to milk this story for all it was worth.

"James," I started, but I tensed when I heard the stick snap too close to our campsite.

"I hear she found them out past curfew and just snatched them up. They ran, of course, but she got them, one by one, and took them back to her lair to make them into soap."

From behind James, a shape rose, a looming shadow that seemed to grow from the ground. I gasped, looking at Terry and Richie as it rose over six feet tall. Their mouths were hanging open, their eyes as big as dinner plates, and James clearly thought we were scared by his story.

"Then she hacked them up and boiled all the fat off them. She made them into soap, and when their parents found the soap the next day, they used it to wash their hands. They never knew they were washing themselves with the bodies of their dead kids, and somewhere that old crone laughed at them. As they mourned their loss, she laughed and laughed, stalking the night as she looked for more children to," but he had clearly noticed us as we crab-walked away from him, rolling his eyes and laughing, "Come on guys, it's just a story. Quit goofing and," but he gasped as the long black nails clenched his shoulders.

When the monstrous woman bent down, her mouth of sharp teeth grinning much too wide, he began to scream like a stuck hog. We all screamed then, running into the woods like bullets fired from a gun. James screamed behind us, begging us to help him, but we were only ten. What could we do against something like that? We all stayed together, and as we realized that my house was the closest, we all ran for it. The moon was high and bright, and if it hadn't been nearly full, we'd have likely never found our way. The woods we had so often played in seemed sinister, a children's fairytale forest, and we wanted to reach the safety of home before the witch could swoop down on us and gobble us up. Every limb that grabbed our shirt was a witch's claw, every hole that yawned to stop up with a hand coming out to catch us, and every sound was that horrid creature in hot pursuit.

When we broke the tree line and made it to the row of fences that marked our neighborhood, we all breathed a little easier.

My dad was having a beer on the back porch when we got there, and it seemed that Richie's Dad had decided to join him since they were both childless tonight. It was only about nine-thirty, and both of them looked up expectantly as we came running up.

"Boys get spooked by a deer already?" my dad joked, seeming to realize we were one short, "wheres James?"

I sobbed as I tried to catch my breath, and Dad must have caught enough to understand that someone had taken James. He got us all inside and called the police, Richie's Dad calling Jame's parents as he did. Before long, everyone's parents were there, and the men had begun searching the woods. Dad wanted to take us with him, but we all refused to go. We'd had a scare, and when the police arrived, the whole group took to the woods to find James.

They came back a few hours later to tell us that there had been no sign of him at our campsite.

"Is there anywhere that you can think of that he might be, boys? Maybe somewhere in the woods where this person might have taken him?"

He said person because they refused to believe any kind of Soap Sally talk.

They wanted this kept in the real world, and that meant that if a woman had taken a ten-year-old boy against his will, then they were likely close.

"The Cabin!" Richie almost hissed, looking at us for support, "Remember? We saw the candle burning there earlier. Maybe it's her cabin!"

We showed them on the map where the cabin was, and they told us to stay here as they all went to investigate.

They were gone about an hour when I heard the backdoor open, and the four dejected fathers of my group came shuffling in. They told the three of us to head off to bed so they could talk, but we hunkered at the top of the stairs and listened as they talked about what they'd seen. Jameses mother cried a lot, his father holding her tight. The police were still there, the sheriff had called in more deputies from a neighboring town, and they were searching the cabin from top to bottom.

They had found the door unlocked, and when they'd gone inside, they had found that the cabin wasn't just someone's summer home. There was blood, so much blood, and the police had found the remains of children in that place. Bones, clothes, skin, hair, and bowls of fat that had yet to be rendered into tallow. The kitchen had several items for making soap, and they said the stove was still hot when they arrived.

They found a shirt on top of the pile, and James's father had identified it as the one James had been wearing when he left home that afternoon.

They had started a search of the woods that lasted three days, but they never found James.

Not until he appeared on his parent's doorstep one morning.

I was eating dinner that night, still reeling from what I had been through in the woods, as mom talked about how wonderful it had been that the community had come together to support James's family.

"I went to take her a casserole this morning, and she was going through the gifts she'd been left by the town. There were casseroles, gift cards, grocery bags, and even a nice bag of soaps from someone."

My mouth went dry when I heard that, and I asked her what she meant.

"Well, someone had delivered a bag of soups to them this morning. They really looked great, handmade, and so smooth. She told me I could have some of it if I wanted. I left it in the upstairs bathroom for you guys to use."

We never went in those woods again, and I let that soap sit on the sink.

It's been years since that campout, but sometimes I still look at the woods from the back porch and swear I can see the specter of Soap Sally as she looms at the edge of the woods.

I graduate high school this year, and I think I might just get as far away from this town and my childhood as possible.

I can't imagine raising kids in a place where they could wind up as bricks of soap on your porch.