Dean's Tale

Dean's Tale

(A Fireside Story)

Haley (2005)

The cabin in the woods had been abandoned or years, but one night, a candle burned in the window. Haley sat staring at it, lost in the past. Her two daughters, twins, were sitting across the fire from her. Jane, and Jen, had been born almost thirteen years earlier, but had never met their father, Dean. He died a tragic death when she had just discovered her pregnancy, before she knew about the split egg. Before she knew she was a land owner. Before she had finally learned the ugly truth about what really happened to her only true love.

Heart attack, or boating accident, depending on who she asked in town. She had learned a lot in these last few years, and what she uncovered was never to be shared with anyone that wasn't her own blood. According to the woman, seer actually, who died violently shortly after sharing a wild tale about Haley's late husband, and what had happened in this cabin.

Now, sitting there, on her third beer of the evening, feeling “giggle loose”, as Jen had started calling it when she was only five years old, she felt a shiver run through her spine. There were only three inches let of the candle in the window. Just enough time to share with her daughters what had come to pass in this place. There was a sense of urgency inside, that if she didn't pass this on to her children before their thirteenth birthdays, on this night, before the candle burned out, her chance would be lost.

The official story she had shared with Jane and Jen, when they were seven, was that he died of a freak heart attack while out on the lake next to the cabin. A kind of half truth mixed with a big fish tale. They had accepted it without many questions, and had mourned their own loss for far less time than she had. She had been so struck by the loss, that she had feared losing her pregnancy. Now she was simply trying to decide where to start.

Dean (1992)

“Did I really just buy the cabin, the land, and the lake for that big of a discount?” Dean asked the real estate agent he'd been working with, behind Haley's back. This was going to be their summer cabin, on a lake! Not just theirs, he was putting it in her trust, should anything ever happen to him.

“The cabin, three acres of land, but not the lake, my friend.” The agent said, slapping Dean on the shoulder, and laughing. “This property has been abandoned for as long as anyone in this town can remember. The original owner never married, or had kids. So it belongs to the state, technically, but it isn't suitable land for them. Hence the $80,000 reduction in asking price.”

Dean couldn't believe his luck. He had been in the house flipping game or a few years now, and had finally made some real money. All he wanted to do was secure this place for good, then fly back to New York to pick up Haley, and surprise her with it. It was all he had wanted, and then some. At the end of a quiet street, Tea Leaf Lane, where the nearest neighbor was nearly a mile up the road. The lake was too shallow for motorized boating, but it was stocked with some fish. He thought he had even seen a canoe laying just behind the shed, when he had been shown the property three days earlier.

After signing the deeds for the land and the cabin, he took his savings and went out to get a burger at a nearby tavern. On the way back to the cabin, he stopped at a gas-and-go to fill up his rental, and grab a six pack to take with. His flight back wasn't until the next afternoon, and he planned on enjoying a few just staring over the lake when the sun was to set that night.

When he turned back onto the driveway, he parked and simply stared at his new property or a small spell. He took the valise of the bench seat, and slipped out the deeds. Very carefully, with yet sober hands, he added his wife's name to both, stamping the new names with a notary stamp he kept in his valise at all times. Satisfied with how they looked now, he put them away, and got out of his rental, grabbing the six pack from the backseat.

Inside the cabin, he found the keys to the cabin, and presumably the lock on the shed doors. The power had been turned on the day before, and the water came from an underground well. He made a mental to note to buy one of those new water filter jugs the next time he went into town. He walked over to the kitchen corner, and put the six pack, minus one, into the ancient looking fridge/ice box just off of the sink. He had just opened the beer, dropping the cap on the counter, making another note to pick up a garbage bin in the morning. Staring out the window, still unable to fully process the act that he was standing in their new place, he heard the floor boards start to creak behind him. Never being one that feared the things that go bump in the night, not even when he was a child, he ignored it. When he took his first sip though, he felt a heavy breathe on the back of his neck, just before a chilly hand gripped him by the throat, crushing his trachea with the first squeeze from the unseen hand. This caused what he hadn't swallowed yet to come shooting out of his nose and mouth, mixed with blood, which sprayed over the sink and window. Then he was on the floor, trying to maintain consciousness, but barely holding on. When the pressure finally released from his neck, he tried to call out Haley's name, but all he could do was choke out nonsense. Then the unseen had struck him again, this time in the chest. It felt like icicles were breaking through his ribs, and suddenly he was launched through the air, and came down cracking his head on the ice box. His vision went black, and his breathing was labored and forced. Then came a disembodied voice.

“You dareth drink ale in my house, you damnable Yankee? Away from your wife, and daughters you will die!”

Daughters? Dean asked himself. I don't have any...was the last thing he thought, as the icicles dug back into his chest, gripping his heart in debilitating cold heat. His heart stopped outright at 7:43 P.M..

Haley (2005)

“Wait, I thought dad died in a boating accident?” Jane asked.

“Yeah, what about the boat, Mom?” Jen queried.

“Shush, the both of you. Do you want to hear this or not?” Haley said, wondering why the spirit that killed Dean over one sip of beer in the cabin, but didn't seem to care that she was imbibing on the lawn.

“How do you know all this?”

“Why are you telling us this?”

Haley didn't answer right away, as she spotted a small boat out on the lake, seemingly getting closer to the cabin. Odd, she thought, there doesn't seem to be anyone on it. Shoving that thought out of her mind, she looked back at the children. “Remember a few years ago, when I took you guys to stay with my sister for a week?”

“Yeah” in duplicate.

“I came down here to try to get some answers. I got them, well most of it I think. Anyway, one of you add a some wood to the fire. Let me get this all out before the candle, I mean sun, goes out, down.”

“I'll do it.” said Jen.

“Mom, is it okay if I go inside and get some water?” Jane asked.

“Sure, honey. Not that big of a log, Jen.”

“Is there any more of the story?” Jane asked when she got back to the fire.

“There was someone I saw, yes.”

Haley (2002)

Haley's first stop when she got to town was the police station. Without explaining why she was there, she managed to get the coroners office address from a secretary smoking outside the precinct. “What d'ya want that fer”, the secretary asked. “You look a touch young to be settin' somethin' up?”

“Mind your own business.” Haley snapped back, forgetting for a moment that she wasn't in her native New York territory. “Sorry, just upset about my aunt is all.”, she lied, getting a sympathetic look.

When she got to the coroner, she discovered it mostly vacant. Being so fresh in the post 9/11 world in New York, she thought all morgues would be backlogged.

“Oh, yeah. I remember this one.” the coroner said, locating the file in the back room of the morgue, in the last filing cabinet along the wall. “It was the damnedest thing, what with him being so young, and all. Hmm, I remember writing it was cardiac arrest that killed him. I know that's what the cops told you. That one was an odd one, and I didn't put all of it in the report. But his heart had serious burns around it, almost looked like a hand print. Not normal burns either, it was almost like dangerous frostbite, tinged with black.”

“How could that happen?”

“Beats me, lady. I think I know who you should talk to though. I don't think the townies, nor the cops want to drag this one back up, if you know what I mean.”

When Haley arrived at the new address she had obtained, she sat in her car, frowning at the sign in the window. Tarot reading, palm reading, and whatever third eye sessions were. She had learned from her mother that anyone who sold this trickery was a fraud. Her mother had been an Evangelic Believer, like her mother before her. 'Idle hands are the Devils play things' was a favorite saying when Haley was growing up.

With a deep sigh, she got out of the car. As she put her hand on the psychic's door handle, she felt eyes boring into the back of her neck. She swung her head around, but didn't see anybody in the street. She noticed there was no customary bell when she opened the door, entering a small greeting room. “I have been expecting you for some time, Haley.”, came a woman's voice from around a corner.

“How do you know my name?”, Haley demanded.

“It rang like a bell the night your husband was murdered, child.” the psychic replied.

“Who are you, and how did you know my husband?”, Haley urged.

“Not your husband, child, but the man who killed him was my great great great grandfather, Damian Demanske.”

Haley felt as if she'd been slapped. Taking a step back, she said, “Your who killed Dean? What are you talking about?”

The psychic ignored that, and started to relay the events at the cabin in unbelievable clarity. As though she had borne witness. When she finished, she became startled by something. “He's here now! Run, child! Be gone at once!” Haley turned and took three steps to the door, before she heard the unmistakable sound of a neck breaking violently.

Haley (2005)

“Ew, gross mom!”, Jane said, scrunching up her face.

“Yeah, why did you have to tell us that part?”, asked Jen.

“What, your both okay hearing what happened to your father, but not the psychic?”, Haley asked them.

“Why did you tell us any of this? Like, what? You thought we would feel better, or something?” Jane said.

“Yeah, why?”, parroted Jen.

“Well, my children, I think you always deserve the truth.”, Haley said, with a slight smile. Feeling better about unburdening herself, she glanced at the candle in the window. It was getting very low by then. “I think I will excuse myself for a bathroom break.” Getting up with some hip pain, she walked over to the cabin, turned back to her children, and said, “Don't forget , girls, one day this will be yours.” Opening the cabin door, and stepping in, she felt a coldness spread over her stomach. She turned to speak to her kids again, when her intestines were ripped out of her, splattering down on the door frame. Both Jen and Jane screamed in terror, as their mother fell to the floor dying.

They bolted away from the fire, fleeing to the nearby woods. Nobody knows what happened to them, as neither was seen or heard from for thirteen years.

Lewstowne Gazette (2018)

Breaking News! Old Demanske Cabin has new ghosts!