The Abandoned Cabin

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

Earlier that evening, Brad and Gina had stood on the grassy hilltop meadow and peered down into the heavy woods in the forest below them. They had been hiking the national forest trail all day, and as the September evening grew late, they had stopped on the hill to pitch the tent and make a quick meal on the camp stove.

Gina first saw the cabin in the valley below when they were eating. “What is that old place down there,” she asked, pointing below?

“I heard about that rotted down place from some of my friends when we hiked this trail a couple of years back. It had been a farmhouse, made the old-fashioned way, like a cabin with big squared-up logs. They say the family lived out here for several generations until the early fifties. They didn’t have power, phones, or running water in the house. It was a farmer, his wife, and four daughters, from 12 years old down to a baby. They say the farmer went nuts one night and killed them all with an ax. When he realized what he had done, he went out into the barn and hanged himself.”

Gina strained her eyes, trying to make out more details of the house. It looked like it had wooden shingles, but many were missing, and there were several holes in the roof. She peered into the impenetrable darkness of the holes, but it gave her cold chills as a feeling of dread came over her. The trees and undergrowth had almost completely concealed the cabin. Only the upper part of one side of the structure could be seen from their vantage point. There was one window on that side of the house, just under the roof’s peak. She couldn’t tell if any old curtains still hung in there because the window was also impenetrably dark. She decided didn’t want to look at it anymore.

“If that was supposed to be a scary campfire story, you didn’t even build us a fire,” she said jokingly. “I may just get in the tent.”

“Alright, shorty, but it is a bit early to hit the hay,” he teased. He called her shorty sometimes, and though Gina was average height, he was tall, quite slender and lanky, with a mop of curly blonde uncontrollable hair on top of his head. She still liked it when he teased her. They had dated steadily since college, and she had not minded a moment of the last three years. He had urged her to come on a two-day hike with him. Though she was not that fond of hiking, she did want to spend time with him. He fancied himself as an athlete and outdoorsman, but was really more of a computer geek with athletic fantasies. She pulled her hair into a ponytail and headed toward the tent.

“That’s honestly what my friends told me about that place; only when we came through here a couple of years ago we did have a campfire. So maybe they made the whole thing up trying to weird me out,” he replied. “I thought about a fire, but I would have to carry wood up here, and there is always the danger of the fire getting out; it hasn’t rained in a bit.” Brad looked back at the house and decided he wanted to get into the tent as well.

Total darkness fell around 8:00 p.m., and it had been dark for at least a couple of hours before they left the tent for a final call of nature for the evening. The stars above them were breathtaking. Gina could not remember a time when she had seen more of them. The cool, crisp air and the clear sky with no artificial light for miles made for perfect stargazing. The only other light in the sky was the brilliant glow of the moon as it rose slightly above a far-off mountain top. The crickets and katydids combined into an orchestra of insect music.

Something caught Gina’s eye down below the hill and to the right. Everything was dark in the valley, except for what looked like a single candle flame burning in the solitary window they could see on the side of that old cabin. “You have got to be kidding me; someone’s lit a candle in the upstairs of that damned place. It would serve them right if they fell through the upstairs floor; it has to be rotten with all the holes in the roof,” exclaimed Gina.

Brad was always the logical one. “No, we are way far away from anyone’s house. There are no roads back in here. I don’t think it is hunting season yet, and if someone were on the trail near us, we would have seen them.” He paused for a minute and then came up with his conclusion. “I know what happened; someone, at some point, pulled a prank. They brought one of those solar LED candles that look like the real thing, and they somehow placed it up in the window, and the sun charges it during the day. So, at night it shines like that. It has probably been up there for months.”

“I guess that could be it,” said Gina as Brad’s explanation did make sense.

Brad was suddenly very sure of himself, “I know that’s it. Let’s walk down there a little closer. The moon is coming up to light the trail a bit, and we can see if I am right. I forgot to bring my flashlight, but this harvest moon is going to be bright.”

“No, that place is creepy, Brad; I really don’t think that is a good idea.”

“I just want a closer view; we won’t go in, I promise. Come on.”

He grasped her forearm and began to pull her in that direction. She resisted for a moment but finally decided to go along with him to satisfy his curiosity. She sensed he was still a little afraid, too scared to walk closer on his own, but he did want to make sure that it was just a dollar store candle and nothing supernatural. He said many times he didn’t believe in the hereafter or ghosts and there was a logical explanation for everything.

They made their way down the hill through the waist-high grass and weeds. The grass rapidly gave way to the forest as the ground became more level. Though it was darker there than on the hill, the September moon shone in patches on the ground, lighting their way enough to see. They could only slightly see the upstairs window through the heavy trees, as their viewing angle from the ground was more toward the front corner of the cabin, but the little sliver that they could see still had the orange-yellow glow of the candle.

The crickets blended in with the sound of frogs croaking, an owl called somewhere in the distance. Gina protested as the dread seemed to increase in her chest with each step she took, “I don’t want to go closer; I’m really getting scared.”

“Just a little further,” urged Brad as he gripped her arm tightly again and pulled her through the underbrush. They then stepped out into an area that was not a clearing but a place where the trees were so large that they blocked the undergrowth from growing. The area between them and the cabin contained several massive white oak trees with hanging moss draped from their limbs, and the moss swayed slowly in the slight breeze. The cabin was just ahead of them, it was a squarish-looking structure, and though the moon was shining on the ground in places, the cabin was not lit up by the moonlight. They were directly in front of it now and could not see the solitary window on the left side where the candle burned.

Gina smelled swampy, stagnant water. The moon lit up a section of a small pond in front of them. She looked at the pond for a moment; It is full of algae, frogs, snakes, and who knows what else, she thought to herself.

Brad pulled her to the right, “I see a path around; it looks like this was the old wagon road.” They could see a massive pile of twisted boards and timbers on the ground to their right as they walked around the pond. The old barn must have fallen in, he thought.

Gina could barely see it in the moonlight, but it did seem like an old overgrown road ran up to the cabin. When they were about thirty feet from the front of the structure, she stopped and refused to go forward another step. She could see the outline of windows and the front door. The cabin was shadowy black, but the windows and doors were even darker.

She had felt the dread steadily increase with every step closer to the house. That dread had turned into fear, and it took everything she had to hang on to her composure; she could feel that panic was almost ready to overtake her. She desperately wanted out of there. Then she thought briefly about their tent on top of the hill in the moonlight; she wanted to be zipped up in there and snuggled in her sleeping bag with Brad beside her. She did not want to be here.

Brad started to try to convince her to go further, but he could tell in the semi-darkness that she would not go any closer. “Okay, okay, we won’t go closer to the house, but let’s at least go around this side and see if I can tell what kind of candle that is.” They turned to the left and began walking parallel to the front of the house. They could see the little upstairs window as they made it past the corner of the house. They could also see the candle still burning. Gina couldn’t be sure even though they were closer now, but it looked like there was a real flame on a real candle that would occasionally move from one side to the other as the air moved inside the house.

As they stood below the window looking up, a skinny girl with straight blonde hair that appeared to be about seven or eight years old stepped up to the candle and, with pursed lips, gave one puff of breath, and the candle was extinguished. The room went dark.

“How the hell is a little girl up there?” yelled Brad.

They heard a noise behind them that made them both turn back toward the pond. In the semi-dark, they could see a figure of a man kneeling and sticking his bearded face into the water. He was wearing a checkered shirt and bibbed overalls. The man stood up and placed a wide-brimmed floppy hat back on his head.

Brad assumed that some people had decided to squat in the old cabin. He decided to be friendly but would let the people know they were camping on the hill and would leave them alone, “Ugh, m-mister, that water doesn’t smell too fresh. Are you sure you want to drink that?”

The man visibly stiffened, then turned slowly toward them. As he raised his head to look at them, they realized his eyes were glowing a sickly green color under the hat’s brim. He grinned, showing broken and missing teeth. He bent again and picked something up off the ground; the steel of an ax head glinted in the moonlight.

Gina screamed as the man started stiffly walking toward them. She and Brad both turned and ran as fast as they could; they quickly passed the side of the house and ran into the moonlit backyard. They tripped over a row of flat stones that had been half-buried, sticking straight up out of the ground. Both of them fell hard. As Gina tried to get up, she glanced back toward the house. There was a covered back porch; on it stood three young blonde-haired girls and a woman holding a baby. They were pale and softly glowing on the dimly lit porch. The girls were all barefoot and dressed in the simple light-colored dresses of a bygone age. They all had tremendously sad looks as if they were about to cry.

Movement caught Gina’s eye. The ax-wielding man passed the corner of the house. As he stepped into the moonlight, she realized his face was decayed, pieces of his face were missing, and around his neck was a noose and a bit of rope hanging in front like a necktie. She could see the forest through him in the moonlight; he was not a solid form. She tried to move but was so afraid her body was frozen in place; she thought at that moment that she was going to die. Gina then saw the little girl on the porch that blew out the candle a few moments before yelling with all her might, but no sound came out. Gina was no lip reader, but it was obvious what the girl was trying to scream. RUN!

That caused her to push herself up from the ground with a sudden burst of adrenaline. Brad grabbed her arm in a death grip, and they ran into the underbrush. Thorns and briars tore at them. Clothing ripped, and skin tore. Back behind them as they ran, they began to hear the roar of an angry man, though they could not tell what he was saying. The girls and the woman were screaming. They could hear crashing sounds as if tables and chairs were being tossed around in the cabin. Glass was breaking. One by one, the voices went silent as the man’s voice raged. The last female they heard was a young girl screaming, “Daddy, no!” Then silence.

Brad and Gina ran out of the trees and into the hilltop grass. They kept running and did not stop until they were on the trail again. They doubled over, gasping for air. Then they heard the long wail of a man’s voice in despair. He cried out again and again. The wail contained no words, but it felt heavy with agony and regret. They both knew that the man realized the full weight of what he had done. The sounds of the crickets and katydids returned; they had failed to notice that everything had been quiet once they started to get close to the cabin.

They debated walking back down the trail to get their tent and gear. Both Gina and Brad wanted to leave immediately. Brad said, “Let’s walk back and get our stuff so we can get out of here; we won’t even look down there at the place.”

“No, Brad. Who’s to say that thing won’t come up here after us. We need to keep moving. Screw the camping gear. If you want it, you walk back there yourself and get it, but I am not waiting on you.”

She had called his bluff, and he was not brave enough to return to the tent alone. It was at least a quarter-mile behind them, and they were not going to get any closer to that cabin than they had to. They walked through the night, stumbling in the moonlight, but as day broke, they made it to the end of the trail. There Gina’s car was waiting. Brad previously had her drive all the way around to drop it off, and then he picked her up and drove her back to the trailhead; it was a forty-five-mile round trip. She was just glad that her key fob was in her pocket and not back in that tent with her pack. They had left their phones in their cars, too, there was no signal on the trail, and they had agreed it would be good to detox from technology for a couple of days, so at least the phones were not left behind. It seemed like it was days before she could relax again, but at night the dreams of the mountain man with his ax chasing after her would come.

Brad and Gina talked it over dozens of times. He tried to explain that somehow, they were mistaken, or someone had played an elaborate trick on them. Gina knew that wasn’t the case. She finally went to the county library and researched old newspaper articles from the 1950s. She found the story she was looking for in September 1952. It was entitled, “Man Kills Entire Family; Hangs Self.” She skimmed the article and was shocked at what she discovered, but then she saw the paper had printed a picture of the family standing outside in front of the old cabin and her blood ran cold. She printed several copies quickly and then ran out of the building to see Brad.

When she made it to his apartment, she rushed in. He was on his sofa typing on a laptop. She tossed one of the copies to him, “read that crap!” He picked up the paper and began skimming over the article.

“This is what we saw, but I don’t understand how it could happen; it doesn’t make sense,” he said.

She then handed him the photo from the paper. His eyes grew wide in astonishment. “These are the exact same people.” They both could recognize the girls, their mother, and a tall man with a dark beard and a floppy hat; though they all looked happier in the photo.

“It must have been before the baby was born because the mother looks pregnant in the photo, and it says it was taken Easter of 1952,” observed Gina. “Then, in September, he goes mad and kills them all one evening. The article is pretty gruesome. It said they were supposed to come to town for a family reunion in early October, and they did not show up. Some of the relatives decided to check on them, so they rode all the way up to the cabin. They were met with a horrible stench. They found the man lying on his face in the dirt in the hallway of the barn. He had apparently hung himself with an old piece of rotten rope, and at some point, after his death, the rope gave way and left his body on the ground. His wife and girls were found hacked to death in the house. The article said almost every piece of furniture was turned over, and the girls were found in different parts of the house. It looked like he chased each one down.”

“That’s awful,” Brad said, shaking his head in sorrow.

Gina continued, “Get this, remember those standing rocks we tripped over in the backyard? Well, the article said that, after the sheriff had documented everything, they quickly dug holes in the backyard and buried all of them due to the state of the bodies. The mother and the girls on one side of the yard, and the father by himself on the other side. We tripped over the tombstones.”

They both felt a sense of overwhelming sadness, but there was an undercurrent of fear after what they had witnessed. “I don’t understand how we could have experienced this,” said Brad.

Gina replied, “What I wonder about the whole deal is what if that is their hell? What if they have to relive it over and over again? The kids have to relive that terror and pain. I don’t understand why, but it is sad to think about.”

“Maybe it’s just his hell. Maybe he has to go through this until he gets things sorted out, then maybe they can all move on,” said Brad.

“You sound like you believe in ghosts now,” she teased.

He nodded, “After what we went through, I do not doubt they are real; I am a believer.”