LET ME IN

"The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window."

The cursor blinked. Taunting me. Write what you know they said. And, right now, that was working about as well for me as online dating apps work for finding true love.

Yes, I was sitting in a cabin, at my desk, with a candle burning in the window. It had once been abandoned, but, no more. The cabin was now a Superhost lure for the dark tourist.

The listing had read.

THE HIDEAWAY

Nestled deep at the foot of the mountains, near pleasant streams, nature trails, hunting grounds and surrounded by a rich vibrant history. The Hideaway is a beautiful place for the whole family to explore. Trust us, you and your kids will love our three bed, two baths, piece of heaven.

But it was just a useful lie, unless blood baths were your thing. It should have read.

CANNIBAL COTTAGE

Once upon a time there was a local mad woman, a former midwife, who imprisoned couples, forced them to breed and would then rear the offspring as a kind of wagyu man-beef.

The kind of high-value over-hyped product chefs love and needy people with money love even more.

At least, that’s what the local police force and FBI had surmised when they found the cabin hung with the corpses of missing couples. Killed after the mothers had given birth. It had acted as a kill house and cold store. The FBI profiler assumed that the missing kids had either been sold into slavery, or eaten, as there had been a range of different sized hooks hanging from the exposed rafters. Forensics showed the smaller ones had traces of blood on them, but nothing else remained.

The mothers had all reached term at least once.

One of these smaller hooks was now dangling above me. The owners were nothing if not pragmatic. They’d hung an old wagon wheel from the hook, added some Edison light bulbs and made a central feature of it.

I reached for the bottle of brandy and a glass and headed outside to the deck. Night-time resisted, that dusk blue-grey sky reaching between the spindly trees outside the cabin as if trying to cling on to the crumbling cliff-edge of day.

With no one around to lecture me I broke out a pack of smokes and gave it some thought. Blowing occasional smoke rings into the cooling night.

Write what you know they always said. Those so-called writing experts. If Bram Stoker had thought that way we wouldn’t have the vampire obsessed world we live in now, would we? So why wouldn’t that work for me? Why couldn’t I just make things up, fantasize, like a normal person? About shoes, cars, success, or some other cliched schtick?

The first of my two books had been best-sellers, and I don’t mean in some random back-shelf category on Amazon; or for ten minutes in the quiet months of the year after the traditional frenzied holiday buying periods. I mean, year-long, never left the charts, optioned for movies with A-listers best sellers. Big bucks baby.

But those books were based in the real world. Nobody believed me when I told them the horrifying shapeshifters that stalked Manhattan in my stories had been real; or that controllers from another dimension weren’t just the fantasy my mind had made up. But the precursor to some insane situations where I lost people. Where I lost everyone.

I mean if you want proof, I can show you the door. They way in. They’ll always let you in. But most people don’t find a way out again, if you know what I mean.

And I’d had to find a way to make money, so I just wrote down what I knew. That had actually worked for me. But now the TV deals and specials were drying up. The third book, the one I’d made up, I mean total fiction, not one ounce of truthiness anywhere, that really bombed. Seemed I was better at reportage.

There hadn’t been a book tour in a couple of years and the royalties, well, what had once been a raging torrent was a trickle now. And being hypervigilant, for them, you know, the others – cost money, time, and opportunity. A psychologist might tell me I was a socially avoidant person, but they didn’t know what I know. Hadn’t seen what I’d seen.

I downed my glass, poured another, and lit a new smoke off the old one. Saw off those first cigarette head-spins by overwhelming them.

Anyway, that’s what brought me here. Desperately looking for another real-life trauma to endure so that I could turn it into some cold hard cash. And truth is, I was bored. A comfortable life didn’t suit me. The aches, the pains of mortality and the mundane predictability of “real” life—

A wolf howled in the night. I stilled. And then the other wolves joined in. Listening to that magnificence, my heart beat faster, a flush of fear, excitement, they’re the same if you know how to look at it.

I laughed a little, thrilled, and thought about the midwife. She must have heard the same howls. The FBI and sheriff’s office scoured the country for 50 miles out from the cabin and found nothing of note.

The missing parents had clearly been kept alive somewhere, the children taken away, or kept somewhere. And the dirt road up to the cabin was barely used. They suspected the midwife, Aylis Merriweather, had a base somewhere, but never found it.

I pulled out my transcripts of the original police investigation, after they’d found the remains of the first missing couple but before they had a clue about the scale of it.

“I live wild in the woods and mountains,” she’d said, soft-spoken in the police report. That was the first time she’d been brought in for questioning. “I like to live off the land. Be mobile and on foot. Makes me feel alive, whole, and connected. Y’know?”

Apparently, she’d been a midwife for a few years. Glowing reports from the families she supported. Then worked a few years as ad-hoc staff at a forest school for young kids. And had enough money not to need to work. But only modestly, not like a trust fund kiddie.

According to the investigating officer she’d looked him in the eye the whole interview. Hadn’t looked away. Not once. He’d been keen to point that out. In his eyes that made her an upstanding citizen who was clearly telling the truth.

Didn’t these police schmucks know that “Look ‘em in the eye,” is the cultural belief liars use to deceive people who think one easy tell proves deceit? The science was clear on this, eye direction while talking does not mean a god-damned thing. The first time you try looking someone in the eye while telling an absolute whopper is the time you’ll start laughing at the clingy and frankly pathetic nature of human thought and how easy we are to bamboozle.

When the FBI were finally brought in there was no definitive location for a hideaway, and therefore no chance of search warrants – the FBI cleverly set up a bunch of infra-red traps on public land near several suspect remote properties and just got very, very, lucky. Sometimes that’s all you need.

The infra-red trap they’d set in the trees outside Cannibal Cottage triggered. Within minutes the silent drones were right above, and they saw Aylis, carrying the bodies in from the woods. They were all over it. 22 bodies were found hung from the rafters and no indication of where they’d been brought in from.

Were there more? The arresting officer thought Aylis was only halfway through the job.

It looked for all the world as if she’d just started walking in from about 20 yards into the darkness. There were no tracks after that. No footprints, no tire marks.

However, after days of questioning, Aylis still hadn’t said a thing. She just smiled calmly the whole time as if she didn’t care. Refused a lawyer. Then on the seventh day she just disappeared from her cell. No sign of break out or struggle, so the suspicion was it was an inside job. Possibly by someone with real power in her cannibal-cuisine cooking club. Although they never found evidence of this club and the investigation was ongoing, and let’s be straight, going nowhere.

The howling stopped suddenly. In fact, everything stopped suddenly. The normal sound of creatures in the woods was absolutely, deathly, silent.

There’d been a curious note in the coroner’s report that had always caught my eye.

The trees moved and creaked as I flattened the pages. The silence around me was, if not deafening, alarming. The hairs on my arms and neck began to stand up.

The coroner’s report said:

How were the Merriweather victims slaughtered? Nearly always after being held in comfortable captivity (location unknown), for many months or years, and with regular massages and fed beer – what a life! According to the literature this improves marbling quality in livestock and creates higher proportions of healthy fats.

When they were ready to be slaughtered, the victim was given a special treat and killed in a manner that meant they were braindead before the muscles even had time to tense up. They were moved quickly to the cabin (the kill box equivalent of a traditional slaughterhouse) and exsanguinated.

So, here I am.

In cannibal country, staying in the slaughterhouse and sitting on the porch making myself look comfortably pre-marbled. A tasty nibble for someone.

Bait in other words.

I watched the woods for a short while, hoping for some action. A hook to wriggle on. After all, silence in the woods usually means a predator is on the prowl and every animal and bug has simply frozen like a musical statue, hoping someone else is on the menu. Or it could just be a corporate monocrop forest where nothing can live. Either way, that signals danger, and this is no monocrop woodland, this is primeval.

The trees creaked a while longer. Doing their best impression of scary up-lit trees in an 80s horror movie.

I waited and listened. I forgot about the cigarette between my fingers. When it burned into my flesh, I gave a yell and flicked it away. Gave the indifferent forest the middle finger, gathered my things to take back inside.

I wasn’t in a rush, I was here for a week, maybe more. There was, currently, nothing to go back to the city for. The drive had been way too long, time to get to bed and dream about bolt guns, brain death and slaughterhouses.

The sudden deep howl made me drop my things. From over there, a short way into the darkness. Then I heard a long-drawn-out whimper, like a dog in pain.

Then there was growling from the forest, not just in one direction, but from everywhere.

•

The guest stood on the wooden platform in front of the cabin looking directly into the darkness, clearly scared. The signs in humans were always so obvious.

Would it run?

Would it continue to freeze?

The creature looked down to the whining wolf between its claws – useful tools for this occasion. It lifted the middle talon and for a moment stroked the furred jaw of the wolf, the largest in the pack, the leader, and listened to it whimper.

It was a shame these hairy animal avatars weren’t more flavorsome. Understandably attracted to smells created by the work. It tickled the animal on its throat and then pushed the claw effortlessly through the animal’s vocal cord.

The angry growling from the trees started up again. Threats. Threats they would never act upon, the creature knew. There was only one leader of the pack in this forest, and it wasn’t any of these mutts.

The human had frozen, how predictable. Let’s see what happens if . . .

The creature held the wolf up, it’s body hanging, soundlessly, as it tried to escape, legs running to nowhere in the air.

With its other claws the creature ripped the wolf in half and flung its body in two different directions towards the rest of the pathetic pack.

It watched the human as the windmilling body parts broke through the trees, smashed branches and landed with two distinct thuds. Divide and conquer. There was a brief pause as the rest of the pack calculated their options and then they fed and fought vigorously on the remains of their fallen leader.

The snarling heaving woods finally created a reaction in the human.

It dropped everything and ran.

Not far, it slammed the door behind it.

Well really, it didn’t have a choice, did it? Blind terror might have made it run into the woods or to its car. Still had a semblance of brain power it would appear.

The creature stood up and approached the cabin.

The snarling in the woods quieted for a moment and then they resumed their feeding frenzy.

The creature climbed the steps, the weight of its body bowing the wood beneath its feet. It sniffed at the dropped possessions, the usual human smells. Generally, it was a relaxed and well-fed human. The benefits of modern mainly domesticated humans were that half the fattening and relaxing work had already been done. But there was something else. An old-fashioned smell, something non-human.

The creature couldn’t place it.

It stalked over to the candle-lit window and caught sight of the human through the glass. When it saw what was watching him the look of horror on its face was delightful. Hopefully it wouldn’t soil itself, it was so much easier to clean the animal when it kept it all inside.

The human closed the scrawny curtains. As if that was going to protect it. If the creature owned the right muscles, it would have laughed.

Oh well, this was going to be easier than it thought. It paced over to door at the front of the cabin, it sniffed at the bottom of the door and then realized it was drooling. All it needed to do was smash the door in and dinner was served.

But then it remembered the quota. This wasn’t a personal late-night foray to the 7-11, this was the work. And the human was agitated. You could smell it.

Oh dear, that just wouldn’t do, would it?

It let out a frustrated howl of its own and kicked the floor. What would calm the human down this time? Remove all those fear hormones from its system? Keep the meat tender?

Must hit the quota.

Oh yes.

•

From outside the hut, I could hear a gnawing-grunting-grinding noise. The whole building shifted suddenly as if a great weight had been placed on the end of a seesaw.

I ran to the table where I’d left my bag.

It was at that moment I saw the thing outside. All shining teeth and burning eyes in the darkness outside the window. One of them? It didn’t look the same.

Instinctively I pulled the curtains shut.

Wait a minute. I’m not trying on outfits at JC Penny’s, what the hell am I doing?

I grabbed my bag, pulled out the necessaries and ran for the door.

I paused for a moment, composed myself.

The creature was now just outside the door, drooling noisily onto the floor. Then the quality of the sound transformed. There was an accompanying change in the light quality too. I shook off the tension, ready for what was about to come. I raised my weapon, flicked off the safety and changed the settings.

Quantum interference wouldn’t be enough, magic was too flaky and unpredictable, human this definitely wasn’t. The kill-everything setting was the only option; but less reloads.

Oh, well. The thing in my hand had been a little gift from the other place. One of my most treasured possessions. Think wand meets laser meets ballistic sledgehammer and you get the idea, but it was on the fritz and as reliable as a pre-worn prophylactic.

There was no noise outside the door anymore. I hesitated. Ah the hell with it. I flung the door back and made to destroy the creature’s head, but then, I saw the smile on the little girl’s face and aimed away. My shot hit the top of a tree and the whole thing exploded.

“Well,” I said, and re-aimed at its head. “That wasn’t very environmentally friendly of me, was it?”

The girl was grinning at me. She must have been nine years old, ten at a guess. And elfin. Extremely elfin. Pointy ears, long white hair, puffy eyes, longer upper lip, prominent lower lip, small chin. The whole deal. Apart from the shimmering blue skin. It was a dead giveaway that I wasn’t looking at a real girl.

“Hi,” I said, aiming my weapon at her head. “Eaten any parents lately?”

Then she spoke and I knew I was in trouble. Her mouth gave the impression of moving, but it wasn’t. Not really. The words scored straight into the front of my mind. Overtaking every other sense.

“Come with me,” she said. “You are safe, you will not be harmed.”

She held out her hand and smiled. For a moment I resisted her persuasive line of treacle-bull.

“Come,” she said. Her eyes appeared to grow and pulse.

I tried to resist; I really did. But it’s like that moment when you’ve been given a drug, or when you’re trying to fight sleep, and you try to stay in control, and then, everything feels just too good, just too easy, you have no choice but to let go.

And go with her I did.

I dropped my weapon and held out my hand.

Boy, was I ever out of practice for this line of work.

She took my hand and led me down the steps.

“Where are we going?” I said.

“Don’t worry, you’ll see. With each step you take just imagine you are feeling lighter and lighter. Happier and happier. Without a care in the world.”

And she was right. With each step I felt tension lift and melt away. All my cares about daily life began to ease. I knew that my worries about money, and missing friends, and publishing deals, and the others, were just that, worries. Thoughts. No more real than the hallucination I was beginning to experience now.

The nearby trees vibrated with a color so deep and intense I just wanted to wrap it around me and fall asleep in its comforting embrace. The dark of the night sky lightened and for the first time I could see the moon and the stars as just way-stations on the journey to somewhere else. I was suddenly standing on the surface of planet hurtling through space looking at the stars. I could really see it for the first time. No more looking up at the sky through our human delusion.

I knew where I was.

I looked around me and everything was connected. I felt an incredible sense of oneness, at peace, unified, whole.

The wolves joined us now as we moved through the trees. Their tales sparkled with light as they ran alongside us, yapping joyfully, playing like the multi-hued light-driven puppies they really were.

Pretty soon, I couldn’t tell how time was flowing anymore. But it didn’t matter. In a moment or an eternity, we reached a clearing that was filled with glimmering petals and the trees with light of different shades flowing through their trunks.

It was a truly magical glen.

“Place your foot in the golden circle,” she said.

I looked down and saw the circle. Like a sigil. An ouroboros. As soon as I placed my foot inside, I felt a pinch on my ankle and the world changed. Her face was upside down and I couldn’t take my eyes from hers, and that smile. It touched me to my core, every missing emotion from my childhood was there inside me, my loved ones there with me, everything finally satisfied. Finally resolved. I wanted for nothing in this upside-down world.

You really don’t have to fight the dying of the light.

It never dies.

There really is no fear here.

Behind the girl, I could see the wolves gather around. They began to change patterns, one moment wolves, the next young children. The missing?

“My apprentices,” she said in answer. “We really do want you to be at peace and to be truly happy. It’s better for everyone. And more beautiful for you.”

She nodded and a glowing illustration appeared in midair. A human body. Each section labelled, but not in a way you normally see. More like the cuts on a butcher’s chart.

“Oh!” I said out loud. “I get it now.”

She stroked my cheek, another calming measure.

“Gather around children. You can see the specimen is wonderfully content and fully at ease. We will now commence our lesson. When we have a 100% fullblood, there is magic in every cut. You won’t want to miss this. Today I will show you how we do not waste one part of the body . . .”

I laughed suddenly. Her stroking was tickling me.

“. . . Or even the soul.” A hand went up from a dark-haired girl. “Yes, you. Question?”

“But doesn’t the animal feel pain? Aren’t we being exceptionally cruel?”

“Good question,” the teacher-girl said. “One that’s easier to answer with a demonstration.”

Her long index finger turned magically into a knife-claw with embossed beautifully patterned edges. It looked like a lost language inscribed on the side of an ancient knife.

She inserted it into the side of my neck, and I felt something warm, comforting and beautiful trickle down onto my face. It began to spray in multicolored arcs above my head. It felt like that first virgin night of love, unexpected and delightful. I began to smile.

The dark-haired girl moved in close next to her teacher. Another upside down and beautiful face.

“Does it hurt?” she said directly to me.

“It feels wonderful,” I said, “but thank you for asking.”

I smiled at her and could see she looked a little confused.

“Do you want us to stop?” she said in a gentle reassuring way.

“Oh?” For a moment I felt scared. “Please, no, don’t stop. I’ve never felt so, so perfect.”

Again, she gave me a curious look.

“I want to see what happens next,” I said.

There was a thrilling hesitant beat.

“Ok, children,” the teacher-creature-child with the big eyes clapped her hands together, “Let us begin . . .”

And I knew this was going to be the most magical night of my life. If only the world knew what life could really be like.

Personally, if they give me a choice, I’ve always enjoyed a good filet. Maybe I should ask now, before it’s too late.