Settle Down

One

The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window. It had a chemically sweet scent and, like so many candles before it, had been lit for the sake of ambiance.

It had been two months since the cabin and its surrounding acreage had been purchased, and one week since the young, new owners had begun to move in. Looming towers of cardboard boxes still perforated the main room. The flame from beneath the window casted tall shadows beyond the stacks, they stretched up the yellow’d plaster walls.

After lighting the candle, Dee sat down on a sleekly designed (but cheaply made) lounge chair- the only fixed piece of furniture in the room. The place was old and their stuff was mismatched, but she hoped that the cabin was beginning to feel like a home. The idea of being a homemaker and a homeowner was daunting, and fertile soil for insecurities.

Curled up in the corner of the main room, amidst the flickering light, Dee put her headphones in and flipped through her smartphone, looking at interior design forums. But after a moment, one of the cardboard boxes shifted abruptly- Dee looked up, startled.

_____

After digging through the box, which had the word “tools” scrawled across its surface, Teo popped up from out of sight. “I found that thing I was looking for-” he pointed to an industrial-looking can opener in his other hand.

“Great,” Dee laughed, “I had totally forgotten you were still in here.”

Teo strode towards her, unconsciously puffing his chest as he looked about at their new home. Buying the cabin had been a huge step for the couple’s relationship. A bit of a fixer-upper, but Teo was ready to fix anything and everything. He stopped in front of his partner and leant in, aiming to kiss her on the forehead.

Dee’s brow dodged his lips and she deftly met them with her own, “It’s late, babe-” she said, “pour me a drink and come relax with me.”

“Soon baby girl- a few touch-ups on the paint and then I’ll be done. Whiskey?”

She nodded and blew him another kiss.

He smiled, turned on his heels, and went back across the room to the kitchen door.

Dee leaned back into her chair with a grin on her face, too. She reopened the pages on her phone and mindlessly flipped through images of “DIY Bookshelf” ideas. But she could not really focus. Whiskey. Picking up the bottle earlier that day, she remembered, had been such an odd experience.

_____

“I’m telling you, everyone in that place was super weird, they were all staring at me,” Teo pulled their car out of the hardware store parking lot, two gallons of fresh paint on the back seat.

“We’re still outsiders, babe, it’ll take a minute before we become bonafide locals.” Dee had responded as she looked out the passenger side window, her eyes surveyed their new town. It was old and cute, but there were more abandoned storefronts than she had expected. “Oh, there’s a liquor store. Pull in, I’ll grab us a bottle to celebrate our first week-”

_____

Inside the store, the clerk behind the counter had stared at Dee, sizing her up in a way that had instilled pure discomfort. But he spoke cordially:

“You don’t want that swill,” he had said it with a patronizing smile after Dee had placed a bottle on the counter. “I’ll grab the good stuff, special discount for newcomers.”

_____

As Dee sat in the main room of the cabin, the memory of the encounter was unshakable, but for no particular reason. The clerk had been nice enough. It was odd that he had referred to her as a “newcomer,” there was no way he could know that they had just moved in. But he probably just meant “new-to-the-store,” Dee thought. The discount on the whiskey had been generous, and he had even suggested a restaurant that delivered “the best damn pizza in town.” But it had all still felt odd. She pushed the thoughts to the back of her mind and continued scrolling through her phone.

Behind her, the candle continued twitching. And behind the candle, the bay window looked out across the couple’s new property.

_____

Nine acres of land had surrounded the view from the bay window, all shadowed by nightfall. There were two small, murky ponds, opaque with darke algae. Further out was a wide field of tall, brassy grass. And beyond the field was a semi-circle of thin foresting that provided privacy from neighboring properties.

But other shadows had begun to emerge from the tree line, too.

_____

Teo’s lips met Dee’s as she slid her face up to match his. As he walked back towards the kitchen, paint-can opener in his hands, he thought about something his father had always said: Do not live beyond your means.

Their seventh day at the cabin had been a productive one, and Teo was even more confident in their decision to move out of the city.

It had been a rough week without question, a lot of transitioning. But after the pandemic, and the skyrocketing prices of houses, Teo and Dee were not the only millennials who had made an urban-to-rural lifestyle change. It was cost effective survivalism for the burgeoning middle class.

_____

Back in the kitchen, Teo pushed his wireless headphones into his ears and double-tapped them with his ring finger. His playlist shot into his ears like pure dopamine. The can opener slid under the lip of the aluminum paint can and popped the lid with ease. Teo used a thin piece of scrap wood to mix the grey paint. He turned around and grabbed a cold slice of pizza off of the counter behind him. As he took a bite, Teo remembered the strange interaction with the delivery boy that had occurred earlier that evening.

_____

The front door of the cabin swung open and the pale young lad stood on the front steps holding the pizza box. His face was placid and he said nothing.

“Hey kid, how much do I owe you?” Teo tried to be pleasant, but the sickly look of the boy had made him noticeably uncomfortable.

“Boss said it’s on the house for new people in town.” The kid had said it flatly before thrusting the box out and away from his body, but still far enough that Teo had to take a step to reach it.

“Oh wow, are you sure?” Teo asked automatically, still off-put the peculiar youth. “Wait, how do you know we-” Before he could finish the question, the kid turned and ran straight down their driveway, no car or bicycle in sight. Just off and into the night. “Oh- do you at least want a tip?” Teo’s offer hung in the evening air as the boy disappeared down the road.

_____

Teo grimaced, remembering the experience as he spread the second coat of paint onto the kitchen wall. The music from his headphones had been more than loud enough to drown out the sounds of the rickety back door and creaky floorboards as shadowed figures spilled in behind him.

Two

Dee was still lost in the online maze of home design, but the images of antique milk crates and wood pallet bed frames had started to become blurred. Her eyes were getting tired as she squinted to read the subtitles. The dim candlelight was glaring her phone’s screen. Her headphones had also begun to act up. The music had sounded warbled, mixed with loud chattering.

The pitch of the songs rose incrementally in Dee’s ears- just enough to be annoying- just enough to barely notice it. But the undertones increased and unified rapidly, past the point of noticeable. The frequency had continued peaking at detrimental levels until finally the screeching of the speakers had deafened her.

Dee closed her eyes as the glow of the phone’s screen grew, encompassing the entire main room of the cabin. She could not hear or see anything.

_____

Panicked instincts had forced Dee to lay still after she had collapsed onto the floor. The shriek of the headphones still rang out in her ears. Like the resonance of metal against metal, she could not hear it so much as she could feel it.

Dee dug the wireless earbuds from the depths of her head and threw them across the room. A streak of silence provided a short reprieve, but had been quickly replaced by a heightened sense of fresh vibrations from the floorboards.​​ The sensation of a dozen footsteps creaking around her had immobilized Dee with fear.

_____

Like a wounded animal, rolled over on her back, Dee lashed out her hands, scratching in vain, trying to catch her nails into anything. There was nothing in the air to catch except humiliation. For a split second, Dee had felt ridiculous, imagining how she must have looked. But then the thud of something landed hard beside her. Dee’s fingers ran through its hair.

She still could not see, but her partner’s hair was unmistakable.

Feeling down the rest of Teo’s body had confirmed the dark resolution. The remaining bulk of his torn flesh was still: a diorama of wet, sticky mountains and steaming valleys.

In that moment, Dee had hated him for not responding to her cries, but hated herself even more.

As she cherished and mourned her partner, the dozen footsteps retreated in unison. The vibration of the front door closing had been a punctuation mark, ending the evening as abruptly, and seemingly without reason, as it had begun.

As she sobbed blindly over Teo’s body, Dee’s thoughts started to splinter in and out. So overwhelmed, she had not even felt the punctures in her own body.

_____

After a deep breath, Dee was back in the cheap lounge chair. She blinked and softened the focus of her eyes as the lights of the candle reflected against the phone’s screen, the glare had lessened.

After straightening her posture, Dee was feeling a second wind breezing over her.

Faintly outlined by the candlelight, Teo stood with transparency in the kitchen doorway. His eyes were blistered over and his clothes were shredded, showing deep, mangled scar tissue across his torso. New constellations erupted from his flesh as he flickered in and out. His corporeal intervals had matched the chaotic performance of the candle in the window, mimicking its speed as his form shuffled across the room towards Dee

_____

Nodding her head along to the music blaring from the headphones, Dee haphazardly stared at her phone. She had the worst attention span, rereading the same sentences over and over again. Nonetheless, she still enjoyed the ritual of it all, the mindlessness of it.

The headphones suddenly seemed uncomfortably loud, there was an undertone, and deja vu. And the resonance of metal against metal.

Dee dropped her phone, it fell deep into the cushions of her chair as she grasped her head, desperately trying to ease the vibration. She remembered, instantly reintegrating with the memories of Teo’s body, the hot feel of his gouges as she had laid beside his still body.

But just as suddenly, she, again, had allowed herself to forget the intrusive thought.

Three

The main room of the cabin had long-since been coated in a shade of grey from top to bottom. The paint was simultaneously fresh and stale, it had been applied months before anyone would step foot into the home.

Dee and Teo’s furniture was all still posed in the room, so much thought and care had been put into the natural flow of the space: the best possible layout, all things considered. But now, everything had felt shriveled beneath the dust and rustic feel of the walls. There were not enough coats of paint to cover the old imposition.

Something about the main room of the cabin had been self-defining. Stylistically, it only reflected itself. As unique as it was unsettling; as dark as it was musty. No amount of lamps or candles or high-sheen enamels could fix it.

The furniture, while still positioned, had all been covered by white sheets, ghostly outlines of their previous functions. Every thing had a patina that faded into every other thing.

Dee and Teo were also in the room.

The couple had patinated, too, into a general grey.

Fading into and out of each other, and all of the furniture, and the walls of the cabin itself. They were barely reintegrated. No amount of ideas or memories or pretending could fix them.

_____

Teo collapsed to the floor, his unconscious body was even less corporeal, fading in and out, dimmer each time. Like a flashlight with dying batteries. He flickered out, like the candle Dee had lit in the window, but the candle was long-since gone, too. Its absence simply added to the sense of disorientation.

Teo reappeared, bright and solid, Dee started towards him, but before she could cover half the distance between them, he winked out entirely. She was alone.

_____

Dee screamed, and grabbed one of the nearby white sheets, pulling with angst. The tall floor lamp beneath the sheet teetered to the ground and shattered. The clang of its metal base made her feel even worse. She could not hear anything else. And time felt funny.

She was not sure how long it had been, but realized that it was daytime and stopped screaming.

As discreetly as possible, Dee looked out the front window, above where the missing candle had been.

Four

A small group of figures had leaked out from behind the pines. They darted through the dry blades of grass and between the silty ponds. The tacky surface of the water had reflected the shadows of the figures as they passed. They were people

Although unruly, the group was organized enough to remain quiet as they swarmed en masse around the cabin and gathered outside of its back door. In the dim light of the kitchen window, their faces were recognizable. While still perfecting silence, the mob poured into the cabin like sand.

As the figures lined up along the edge of the kitchen, one of them turned to the countertop- it was covered in boxes and bubble wrap, a greasy pizza box, and an unopened bottle of fine whiskey, among other things.

The woman who had turned away reached for an unpacked knife block and plucked a long, serrated bread knife. She twisted back into line with the others. Together they watched on as Teo swayed back and forth, obliviously spreading a second coat of paint onto the kitchen wall.

_____

Dee opened the front door slowly. She saw him through the crack of the door and noticed that something about him had seemed missing. In a good way. He was not whole either, faded from certain angles.

“Hi- sorry, didn’t think anyone lived here anymore- the realtor sent me over for some of those repairs in the kitchen before the showing next week- is that- should I come back later or is now alright?”

Dee cracked the door wider, enough to make it obvious that he was welcome, but she immediately stepped back to a safe distance.

“Ok, perfect, thanks. Could you show me where the kitchen’s at? I’ll try to make it quick.”

She showed him to the kitchen.

_____

After placing a new candle in the window and lighting it, Dee sat back into her chair and found her phone wedged deep into the cushion. Holding the smartphone had given her a sense of permission to relax. She ran her thumb across its screen, but the device felt different. It seemed whole and cold, and she seemed sad.

Her missing parts were so painfully apparent.

_____

With his back still towards the group, the woman with the bread knife walked close to Teo

The first slash had been dragged across Teo’s face from behind, across his eyes. A flash of white had blinded his vision as he fell to the ground, yelling out in surprise and pain. His brain had felt like glass. He could only see the empty white, fracturing across everything.

The splintery old floorboards pressed hard against his back and shoulder, but Teo just imagined reaching out towards the main room of the cabin, towards Dee. But then his mind shattered.

As he laid on the kitchen floor, the group gathered around him. They were pillars of the local community, archetypes of townsfolk. Some of them were recognizable. The liquor store clerk, the pizza delivery kid. They all had knives now.

“We do not want you in our town,” after she had said it, the woman with the bread knife backed away. Her short, white hair bobbed side to side as she retreated.

The remainder of the group swarmed closer to Teo’s body, which became more bruised and bloodied from the gashes.

Five

The walls of the main room of the cabin had not aged well, left for so long, so untouched. The yellow, covered in grey, which had turned so vehemently back to an even darker yellow, was now more of a green.

But as Dee stood there looking at the walls, she could only see the same light yellow that she had always seen. Beside her, another woman stood, staring at the same walls.

“I’m not going to lie, this looks like mold,” the woman had stated it so self-assuredly, but Dee could not see it. But she could see the woman.

Dee felt as though she was looking at herself, from the past. She remembered visiting the cabin for the first time. She remembered feeling so self-assured about what she was looking at. She remembered fantasizing about what her life would look like between those walls. But this new woman was seeing something that Dee could not see.

_____

Dee’s head began to ache. She clenched her eyes and could remember more things that had never happened. No matter how hard she tried to stay present and think about real things, those violent thoughts intruded their way into her mind’s eye.

Seeing this new woman was like an out of body experience.

Dee kept swallowing and blinking as a form of meditation, pushing those thoughts to the back of her head with every breath.

_____

The new woman had begun walking towards the kitchen, Dee focused on her. She wanted her to see the walls that Teo had painted, it would give the new woman a much better idea of the possibilities of the old cabin. Dee followed closely behind, excited for the recognition of substance on the new woman’s face. It would be a validation that could make Dee feel whole again, if only for a moment.

_____

After stepping through the threshold into the kitchen, Dee found herself back in the main room again. It was disorienting, but even more surprising was that the room was cleaner than Dee had ever seen it.

The walls were not yellow or grey or green; they were white. It was so crisp and sterile and smelled like nothing. All of the furniture was gone, just empty and fresh.

Struggling to rationalize what had just happened and where the new woman had gone, Dee’s head began to hurt again. Her eyes flashed so bright that she had to close them. More intrusive thoughts, things that had never happened, things that could not have happened. Dee remembered more.

More vehicles that had pulled up into the cabin’s driveway. There had been so many of them, honking their horns and happily approaching the front door. Dee remembered being cautiously excited every time, more company, more friends to see her and Teo’s new home. But that had all been strangers, every time.

_____

“The most recent owners had bought the property from some big internet agency, but after the incident, my office was happy to take over. Keep it local, you understand. Where are you from, by the way?”

Dee heard the words and turned to see another woman, like the new woman, but different. She was also looking at the walls. The other woman who had spoke looked familiar, but older. She wore eclectic clothes and carried a tablet, clutched close to her chest. Her short white hair bobbed side to side as she spoke. She was smiling, despite the odd things that she was saying. Both Dee and the new woman looked skeptical.

_____

Out of the corner of her eye, Dee saw a little boy standing in the doorway to the kitchen. He had stopped dead in his tracks when their eyes met. He looked from Dee, to the new woman standing across the main room, back to Dee.

Excited to see him and have him see her, Dee waved her hand. She was also ignoring whatever nonsense the other woman was saying about her home. But the boy did not move. His mouth was smiling, but his eyes were straining to stay open, like a deer in headlights. Dee was too tired to be offended.

“Theo, please stay where I can see you. This isn’t our vacation house- yet,” the new woman had said it coyly before turning back to wink at the other woman.

_____

Dee had more headaches. It was all becoming too much to keep track of. She turned towards the corner of the main room, where her chair had once been, where her candle used to be. It was all empty now. She sat on the floor and leaned against the plastic white paint. She closed her eyes.

The weight of another body sat down close to her on the floor. At first, Dee assumed it was the little boy, feeling apologetic for being so quiet and rude. But then she realized the mass of it. The electricity of it. The smell of him.

Dee opened her eyes and turned to see Teo settling in beside her. He was still translucent, and he did not look happy. But he did not look sad either. He was just there.

Teo handed her a drink, whiskey on the rocks, and kept another for himself. Both of the glasses were so cold. Dee and Teo sipped as they shifted closer together, watching on as the little boy hurriedly opened the front door of the cabin and ran out. The two women were laughing emptily and exchanging paperwork back and forth.

The walls of the cabin slowly, imperceptibly, faded back to grey.