Hunting Season

The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window. An actual candle. Ketch could tell because of the way it flickered and its faint, yellow-orange glow. Kerosene lamps didn’t flicker due to their thick wicks and hardly anyone carried them these days. Just the old-school family campers who liked to show off their woodsman skills to the grandkids. They stayed at the campgrounds and didn’t wander. The flashlights and camp lights favored by drunken, horny teenagers also didn’t flicker. They threw a white glow into the room. They were also often accompanied by horrendous music that scared the nocturnal wildlife away. No, this was a real honest-to-goodness candle. And that meant only one thing; hunting season.

No one knew who owned the property since it had lain empty for as long as the town had existed. Every now and then some historian showed up to do research on the property, or a government clerk trying to establish eminent domain. Nothing ever came of those efforts. Nothing except more ghost stories. The cabin had an appetite for strangers and it was obviously getting hungry. He thought about calling the Sheriff to warn him but Spanks didn’t like being woke up unless someone was dead or about to be dead. Ketch turned down the kerosene lamp on his desk, closed the curtains, and went to bed.

He woke just before the sun, hoping that he had imagined what he saw across the lake. He peered carefully through his bedroom curtains only to see the candle still burning through the fog on the water. He sighed and got dressed. After breakfast, he drove the Jeep into town and went to see the Sheriff. Spanks wasn’t hard to locate. He was up to his oversized gut in pancakes and black coffee at the only diner open this early. Ketch made his way to the counter and perched next to him.

“Morning Spanks,” Ketch said as he watched the Sheriff lick the butter and syrup from his face with what resembled a cow’s tongue. A coffee cup slid in front of him from down the counter.

“Well, well, if it isn’t Mr. Ketchup,” he replied. Ketch didn’t take the bait. His name was Henry Ketchum but folks had been calling him Ketchup since grade school. To this day, he didn’t own a shirt that didn’t have a faded, pink stain on the front. The nickname didn’t bother him. At least he wasn’t a fat guy with a badge named after a girdle.

“Things been quiet out on the lake this morning?” Ketch asked calmly.

“Pretty much,” Spanks told him. “Just the usual Friday night horseplay before school starts. Lots of whooping and hollering on the north shore but it quieted down by itself.”

Ketch didn’t like that last remark. The cabin was situated on the north shore surrounded by trees and miles from any neighbor off of every beaten path. You could only reach it by boat or by hacking through some pretty dense brush. Neither of which old Spanky was apt to do.

“Any strangers in town?” Ketch asked.

“Just a bunch of nitwits from up at the college. Probably the ones making all the noise last night,” the Sheriff responded. His voice was beginning to show the irritation he felt at having his meal interrupted and he belched loudly.

“Any of them missing?” Ketch asked after the echo died.

Spanks gave him a testy reply. “They’re all missing. High-tailed it up out of here around three this morning and went home hungover, I suspect.” He then turned to look at Ketch. “What the hell do you care about a bunch of drunken numb-nuts anyhow?”

Ketch stared into his untouched coffee cup. “Candle’s burning again,” he said quietly. It was all he had to say.

Spanks had been the Sheriff of Ridgewater through the past five hunting seasons. He knew all too well what that light meant. He felt his bowels clench and stomach acid rise threatening to expel his breakfast.

“Yea, well they could just as easily have run into a mountain lion. All God’s creations gotta eat,” he muttered sarcastically.

Apparently, that included abandoned cabins in the woods, Ketch thought to himself. Dismayed by Spank's lack of concern, he eased off the seat without touching his coffee.

Spanks watched him walk silently out of the diner. “Shit,” he muttered, farting lightly as he rolled his ample backside from the stool and paid his check. He squeezed himself into his cruiser and sighed. The world had moved on by about ten years since the last hunting season, but it had advanced exponentially. Disappearances were impossible to hide thanks to drones, the internet, and social media. In seasons past, it was simple to chalk up disappearances by saying they just passed through or blaming wildlife. People just took it for granted that such things happened. Those excuses would no longer fly. Investigators would descend on the town like flies on a dung heap and wouldn’t leave until they’d uncovered every dirty secret Ridgewater possessed. The past wouldn’t be able to stay hidden any longer.

Spanks caught up with Ketch just as the old man reached the corner. “Get in,” he snapped loudly and waited for Ketch to join him. They drove without speaking. Foggy Bottom Road circled the entire lake in a continuous loop. Various feeder streets joined it like the spokes on a wagon wheel, but Foggy Bottom was a perfect, continuous loop. Neither man said anything until they turned onto the loop and headed west.

“Is there any chance you can verify those kids made their way home?” Ketch asked trying to lose himself in the fiery turning of the leaves in the woods.

Spanks gritted his teeth. “That could have some serious consequences. If they are missing, and we start asking questions, it tells people that they disappeared here in town. It’d be like opening the floodgates.”

He was right of course. But Ketch couldn’t help but be repulsed by his callous disregard for the lives of those young people. “So, we sit here and act dumb?” he asked trying to keep the disgust out of his tone.

“It’s worked for us in the past,” Spanks told him. “But it may not be an option anymore. Hell, you can’t scratch your own balls these days without somebody taking a picture and posting it online.”

“So what do we do?” Ketch asked desperately.

Spanks didn’t hesitate. “We don’t have but two options. We either scrub this town of every trace of those kids and burn that cabin to the ground, or we launch a full investigation and risk bringing down the weight of the digital world on us. I don’t need to tell you what that would mean, do I?”

Ketch turned his attention back to the passing forest. He didn’t need Spanks to elaborate. Nor did he need to remind Spanks that people had been trying to destroy that cabin for over two centuries without success. Houses grew more spread out and the western face of the lake retreated as the cruiser banked northeast. It was breathtaking out here yet there was something sinister behind it, like a bouquet of exquisite yellow and orange roses, left rotting on a moldering grave.

It felt like an eternity before they arrived at the old broken pine that marked the game trail leading to the cabin. Some residents felt it should be chopped up and left to rot. Allow the forest to reclaim it so that no one could find the place ever again. Others felt it should be left as a warning to trespassers. Ketch knew that no matter which way the town council decided it would be meaningless. They’d tried everything from barbed wire and warning signs to armed guards to keep people out. The cabin, however, had a pull to it when it was hungry. Whatever slept beneath its roof didn’t care if its prey were local or from away. Food was food and armed guards were as satisfying as lost hunters and drunken teenagers.

They passed a beat-up Jeep SUV and parked in front of it. It had to belong to the missing partiers. They exited the cruiser and stood listening to the woods beyond. Along the opposite side of the road, they could hear the usual sounds of the woods. Cardinals and Orioles sang in the midday sun, while rabbits, owls, and foxes called to each other preparing dens for the approaching winter. In front of them, nothing. Animals all had the good sense to shun this side of the road. Ketch couldn’t help but stare into the dense brush. He had a chilling feeling of being watched by something malevolent and hungry. Something that also called to him like a lost child, pleading with him for help. The battle between fight and flight made him tremble and he felt his bladder weaken.

Spanks pulled a flashlight from his belt and began examining the game trail closely. A group of footprints grouped at the trailhead. A few beer cans and cigarette butts were carelessly tossed about a small, cold fire pit. He widened his circle, silently praying that the group had settled here just off the road for a little mushroom-fest and then packed up early in the morning. On his last circuit, he stepped on a discarded cell phone. The crack of the screen echoed like a gunshot in the primordial silence. He bent down and dug it up with his flashlight and noticed a trail of footprints leading down the game trail towards the cabin. Forcing himself forward but not wanting to get out of Ketch’s line of sight, he followed the tracks for about ten feet to the first bend. The tracks became chaotic at the curve and then smeared further on as if someone had been dragged across them. They had also taken on a decisively reddish hue. Spanks didn’t need to get closer to them to know they were filled with blood. The odor left a coppery taste in his mouth.

Ketch watched Spanks make his circuit and then squat down. he’d found something and walked slowly up the trailhead. Ketch was about to call out to him but the man turned and came striding back as if hell itself were on his heels. He didn’t need to know what the Sheriff had found. He could tell by the look on Spanks' face and the ominous way he’d trained his flashlight down the trailhead that his worst fears were confirmed.

“They were here,” Spanks told him as he approached. “Looks like they never left. Went down the trailhead instead.” He showed Ketch the broken cell phone as he stalked past on his way to the car. “I don’t know if this will tell us anything, but we need to make sure they didn’t tell anyone where they were.”

“I know someone who can help,” Ketch offered as he hurried after the Sheriff.

The Ridgewater Town Hall also served as home to a small library, historical society, and town newspaper. Currently, it had only two occupants; the Mayor and the Town Clerk. The Mayor was more or less a seasonal politician who at present was hibernating in the Florida Keys for the winter. The other occupant was the real engine that powered the town. Jacob Toomey, Town Clerk. He was the librarian, newspaper editor, and official shuffler of all permits, registrations, and legal documents of every kind. If something was happening in Ridgewater, you could bet that Toomey knew more about it than the local housewives. As the unofficial Town Historian, he knew all about the cabin on the lake, but he was also a born bureaucrat. He knew that if you wanted the town to survive, certain secrets had to be kept.

Ketch found Jacob beating his keyboard to death at the editor’s desk. His computer setup was the most complex and powerful computer in town, which was why nothing got past Jacob Toomey. The Echo was the local newspaper, although calling it that required more imagination than most folks possessed. It was peppered with bigfoot sightings, local legends, and UFO fly-bys in between the actual local events and festivals. The police blotter could always be found just behind the local store coupons and flyers. It amounted to a shopping list of drunk and disorderlies with their bail amounts listed in bright, bold type. Only two things were taboo for the local rag: the legend of the cabin, and the names of those who went missing when hunting season was done.

“Another bigfoot sighting out there, Ketch?” Toomey said lightly.

“Not this time,” he replied. “Some visitors went out to the north shore and went missing.”

Toomey stopped typing and looked up as Spanks came lumbering up the stairs. “Maybe they just haven’t shown up at their destination yet. Happens all the time,” Toomey offered optimistically.

“We found this on the trailhead at the broken pine,” Spanks said handing him the broken cell phone.

Toomey felt gooseflesh rise on his arms as he took the phone. The glass was shattered but the body was intact. He plugged the cell phone into the port bank on his computer.

“Technically you need a warrant for this,” he muttered as the screen sputtered and exploded in brightly colored lines before dying. The phone however still worked. He opened an app and started the upload of its media, call, and message history. “People wander around up there all the time, and nothing happens,” he offered.

“Yea but they generally don’t leave bloody footprints behind,” Spanks told him.

Toomey pulled his glasses off and stared at the two men.

“Candle’s burning,” Ketch said quietly. “Lit last night.”

Toomey silently scrolled through the few messages there were. They weren’t a particularly verbal group since nothing has been sent since their arrival in town. But there were more than enough pictures, some of them decidedly pornographic, of their hard-partying. There was also no doubt about where they’d been taken. The terrain was as tell-tale as a fingerprint. The most ominous file however was a video taken at midnight as the group began its ill-fated trek towards the cabin in the woods.

Toomey clicked on the video file and opened it.

Outside of the season, the cabin remained the same inside as it did outside. A building decaying so slowly that time itself seemed to have stopped. The small table and chairs remained set for dinner in front of the old wood stove. The adult bed still sat in one corner near the fireplace although one leg had broken off. The loft still contained the beds and abandoned toys of two small children, and everything was covered in centuries of dust and debris. A relic of interest only to the most intrepid historians. No one knew what actually happened when the cabin’s hunger wakened and it hunted its prey. No one had ever returned alive to tell the tale. The only clues could be found immediately after the candle burned down; sprays of blood covering the trees and brush, and smears of gore along the trail where the prey was dragged back and devoured. During the more ravenous seasons, the occasional limb had been uncovered. These were quickly relocated to a space across the road where the local predators could play their part in keeping the town’s secrets. The cabin itself would become an abattoir until it absorbed everything it had ingested and the beast slept once more.

Spanks had conducted three post-season excursions to the cabin in his lifetime, each more gruesome than the next. An avid hunter, he was used to seeing animals shredded by predators but nothing could have prepared him for what lay inside that rotting husk. His first time out, there had simply been blood smeared everywhere. In the two seasons since, he had witnessed strings of intestines flung over the chairs, and a severed head left sitting on a plate like a main dish. The last one had been nearly enough to make him quit the force and move to Florida. Three young men had made the bad decision to hole up in the cabin during a downpour on a hunting trip. When Spanks arrived with a search party, the cabin was awash in blood and only one was still alive. Watching what was left of that crying man being dragged into the fireplace and crushed into pulp still gave him nightmares. What he heard on that video scared him even more.

The three of them watched as four young men and two women sat sprawled on the fallen pine passing a joint between them and drinking heavily from a cooler. Their drug-induced chatter was nearly nonsensical until the woods around them started to move. No one spoke as they watched the group call out to the woods teasing whoever was hiding there to come out and join them. All three felt chills when a child’s crying voice drifted out over the brush asking for help. They clenched their hands tightly as the six strangers made their way through the brush in search of that voice. They could only mouth the words ‘no’, ‘don’t’, and ‘run’ as that voice morphed into the voice of a woman begging for someone to find them. They watched in horror as the group neared the cabin and the voice morphed from pleading to demanding.

“What was stolen must be repaid,” the voice gurgled. “Return the blood of origin to me.”

It was at this point the six campers realized their predicament, but it was far too late. By the time they scrambled back to the trailhead, the cabin sprung its trap. Vines snaked out along the ground dragging them each back into its hungry maw. The two women were snapped like twigs before being pulled through a window while the men were toyed with like fish on a hook; given a little line to run and then reeled back in. Toomey, Ketch, and Spanks could sense the malevolence of whatever force lived in that cabin through the monitor as if it had also reached out for them. When the last of the campers was pulled screaming into the door leaving a trail of blood, the voice repeated its demand.

“Return the blood of origin to me.”

Toomey closed the file as the video pulled away. Bait for the next individuals who dared.

“Return the blood of origin,” Spanks muttered. “What the bloody hell does that mean?”

“I think I know how to find out,” Toomey said pushing his way past them and heading downstairs towards the archives.

Ketch scurried after him into the basement with Spanks cursing and lumbering a couple of flights behind. “You’re not going to find anything in those archives, Jacob. People have tried for over a hundred years.”

“That’s because they were looking for the wrong thing,” Toomey said as he fumbled for the proper key. “All this time we’ve been trying to find out who built the cabin, who the original owners were.” He turned the heavy key in the lock and shoved the door. The records vault creaked open. Hurrying to the oldest section in the back, he began hunting for land grants.

“They’re on the middle shelf, two rows down,” Ketch told him. “I’ve been all over those land grants myself over the years. We never found anything until the town was settled proper in the mid-eighteen hundreds.”

“And the damned thing was half destroyed,” Spanks wheezed as he caught up with them. “The owner’s name was unrecognizable so the chain of ownership couldn’t be certified, and the tenants were only renters who abandoned the place after ten years.”

“Correct,” Toomey told them. “But I’m not looking for settlers, I’m looking for landowners.”

He turned on an old microfiche reader that was covered with dust and cleaned the lenses and glass plate. Leaving Spanks and Ketch sneezing in a dust cloud, he knelt down and dug through several boxes until he found a metal case containing several long strands of microfilm.

“You two remember that Land Management representative that was nosing around out here about ten years ago? Kept asking all those questions about the cabin?” he asked them.

“You mean the one who wore those glasses we found out by the cabin front door?” Spanks asked.

Toomey looked up at him and shivered. “Yes, that’s the one. He and I started a project to try and narrow down how that cabin came to be. He brought a bunch of microfilms of the original government maps of this area from the Smithsonian. They were created during the first white expeditions into this area.” He turned on the machine and fed the strips into it as it warmed. “Most of them are written in French since they predate the English arrival, they don’t really need any translation.”

“What the hell will they tell us?” Spanks asked wiping his nose. “There wasn’t anything up here but Indians back then. They traded with them all the time.”

“Right up until the English moved in,” Toomey answered breathlessly. “Until then, the only inhabitants were natives. It didn’t take long for the English to start wiping them out and stealing their land.”

Spanks didn’t know what Toomey was onto but Ketch saw it clear as day. A sinking feeling settled into his stomach as Toomey sped through the slides talking excitedly.

“A small clan of Shawnee occupied the land around this lake for well over five hundred years before white men found them. The French traded with them until the British took the area. The lake was too rich in game and timber to let it remain in the hands of savages, so they slaughtered the whole clan. The land has been cursed ever since.”

“What was stolen must be repaid,” Ketch said quietly.

“And how in the hell are we supposed to do that?” Spanks asked. “They’re all dead.”

“He’s right,” Toomey answered. “None of the tribe survived. I suppose we could track down the remaining clans and tribal members for help, but that would take decades to resolve.”

“Yeah, and in the meantime, that thing is going to keep eating whoever crosses its path,” Spanks said. “Not to mention the publicity it would bring if a bunch of Indians came up here and did some kind of rain dance to kill a curse on the white settlers who stole their land from them. This town would be crawling with news crews and the FBI investigating every ‘missing persons’ report that was ever filed within a hundred miles of Ridgewater. Everyone in town would become a suspect. We’d all be considered accessories.”

“There’s still the issue of the blood of origin to contend with,” Toomey said. “I have no idea what that is but it must have something to do with lifting the curse.”

Upstairs a phone started to ring. When it went unanswered, it rang again, and again, and again. Toomey made his way up to the news desk and took the call leaving Ketch and Spanks in the basement.

“I’m a lawman, Ketch,” Spanks told him. “I don’t know the first thing about Indian curses. But I do know what gasoline and a blowtorch will do to timber.”

“You know that won’t work,” Ketch told him. “It’s been tried before. You’ll just end up endangering more lives.”

“I have to do something,” he replied as he climbed the stairs. “I can’t just sit here while people keep dying. Not anymore.”

They caught up with Toomey as he hung up the phone. “That was the State Police. It appears that one of your victims happens to be the daughter of the Chief of Police. She’s only seventeen and an all-points bulletin was just issued for the arrest of her boyfriend for kidnapping.” Toomey pointed to one of the photos from the cell phone. A young man with long, black hair and an earring. The one clinging to the door of the cabin screaming in agony as his legs were ripped from his body.

Spanks stalked out of the building and walked to the gas station across the street. “You know the history,” Toomey told Ketch. “Whatever he’s planning, it’s only going to make things worse. There’s only one way to stop this.”

“I know,” Ketch told him. “And I’m probably the one who can.”

Toomey stared at Ketch in confusion. He’d known him since childhood and had never seen him so resigned and defeated. It frightened him. “That’s nonsense, Ketch. No one except the person who created this curse can reverse it.”

“I know, Jacob. I know,” Ketch told him. His eyes were filled with goodbyes but Toomey didn’t understand. Not yet.

Ketch met Spanks at the cruiser. He was loading gas canisters into the trunk next to the road flares.

“You coming along?” Spanks asked checking his weapon.

“Can’t let you do this alone,” he replied and slipped into the passenger seat.

By the time they reached the north shore, the sun was crawling into twilight. As they rounded the last curve heading north, Ketch spoke quietly.

“Did I ever tell you the story about how my family came to settle here?”

“I assume they did it the same way everyone else did. bought land from someone who bought land from someone and so on some years back,” Spanks answered. “No one really knows anymore.”

“I do,” Ketch replied. “ In fact, my family was one of the first to settle around this lake. It was just after the massacre. Militia had declared it cleared and we were the first to arrive.”

Spanks had an uneasy feeling but didn’t interrupt his friend.

“Back then the lake was twice this size. Had more fish in it than any ocean and the water was as sweet as southern tea. It was paradise. They set to building a cabin on the shore. Took them a bit but they managed it. Wasn’t until the first winter that they realized they weren’t alone.”

Spanks slowed the cruiser a bit as he listened. He didn’t realize his hands were trembling.

“There were survivors, you see. Natives that hid in the woods and escaped. The family of the chief and their medicine woman. They returned one night and tried to reclaim their land. They murdered my ancestor’s wife and daughter before his sons could kill them. The oldest son slit the medicine woman’s throat right on their doorstep while the chief watched. My ancestor took his daughter right in front of him. they made him watch until his cries were too much to bear and then shot him.”

The cruiser turned north and pulled up to where the Jeep still sat abandoned. Spanks sat in the cruiser waiting for Ketch to finish his tale.

“They used that poor girl all winter, and when she gave birth the following summer, they killed her right there in the cabin and left her body in the woods. She’d born twins and they grew up never knowing their mother or their people. The family thrived as the community grew. No one suspected the origins of the twins. My family already had a sprinkling of Italian ancestry to hide it. But the truth passed down among the men like a badge of courage.”

Sparks stared at Ketch for a time before speaking. “I’ve known you all your life and you never told me that story.”

“It’s not the kind of thing you kick around at poker parties. Especially not up here,” he said. “I found out about it a few years back. Went digging through the attic and found some of the original journals sealed up in the attic walls. After the first hunting seasons started, there was speculation about the Shawnee having cursed the town so my great, great, and so on grandfather set to writing it all down. I guess he felt confession was good for his soul. He died of Typhoid six months after that entry.”

Ketch got out of the cruiser leaving Spanks to sit there. He walked past the broken pine and headed up the trailhead. He made it to the first curve before Spanks realized what his friend was about to do.

“KETCH!” he cried out, but Ketch only turned to him with a resigned look.

“Return the blood of origin,” Ketch told him. “I have to close the circle.” And with that, Ketch took off sprinting down the trailhead.

Spanks jumped out of the cruiser forgetting all about the gas canisters and the flares. Ketch, however, was half his weight and in considerably better shape for a man his age. By the time he arrived at the cabin, he was too winded to speak. He could only watch as Ketch approached the cabin, pulled out a long, hunting knife, and slit his wrists. Spanks gasped in horror as the cabin seemed to come alive around them. It howled in triumph as Ketch’s veins emptied onto the ground. He screamed as vines snaked out from the cabin piercing Ketch and pulling him inside. Timbers began to snap as the cabin turned inward on itself crushing his friend inside. Spanks fell to the ground as the shaking grew stronger. He remained there until all was still and he cried until sunset.

On the south shore of Ridgewater Lake, an empty house sits abandoned. It looks out across the crystal waters towards a shore lined with sea oats and a grassy mound covered in Christmas fern. Atop this mound rests an old kerosene lamp with the letters H. K. scratched onto its base. Legends say that, when the fog rolls in on warm summer nights, it shines its light and calls to its brother in the now abandoned house across the water.