The Cabin in the Woods

The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window. Erie as it was, its flicker in the blue-black darkness summoned the motion of the Sergeant’s swift movement. The full moon moving through the sway of trees, exposing the dark muck and dead leaves under his boots. Sarge was a battle-hardened man; fear had left his heart years ago and left tracks in his forehead; lines that moved with his furrow brows when he spoke. Many at camp referenced him as the man without a soul. You could hear an emptiness in the hollow of his voice, a tone that was void of remorse.

The blazing red eyes of the Skinwalker set off a horrid sound that could be heard for miles. The unbearable sound suffocated the air of the soldiers while a shadow body moved around the outside of the cabin. The suction of mud and crackling twigs and a dragging sound around the cabin was drowned out by gun fire. The trail in the marshes around back were from an upright being, it resembled a bare human footprint with extended toenails with deep claws penetrating the mud. A broken firearm along with a helmet alongside the drag marks lead to a solider slumped over against the roots of a weeping tree. His speech was gone although he had a heart rate that throbbed, you could feel it pumping in the crisp air. The oval red eyes of the Skinwalker appeared and disappeared in the shadows of the night.

Inside the cabin an elderly woman laid on the floor gasping for life with dilated pupils. Her face was hollow from a lack of nourishment; her shoulder bleeding from hitting the edge of the table. The Sergeant and his soldiers kneeled before the woman facing a full body mirror as she uttered,” the unborn I evoke in you, by the name recorded on my body with the blood of the dead.” The mirror showed the cabin window and the woman’s hand gesture of open fingers grasping to conjure a spell. Her thin fingertips caressed the red eyes of the Skinwalker as she muttered, “the unborn I evoke in you.” The wind outside howled as the pressure on the door rammed and shook the front of the cabin. A wave of light ascended the wall to the ceiling. The shadow anchored to the floor emulated up like a flame, mimicking the shadow of the men with loaded guns and pistols as if a portal had been open, while the red eyes of the Skinwalker gazed pass the window.

The intense rapture caused the woman to pass out for a few seconds as she witnessed herself crossing over. Now standing full body in front of the red eye Skinwalker she stared at the Sergeant with eyes like the assorted eerie porcelain dolls on the table. She began shaking and murmured conjuring chants. This caused an unusual mist to ooze from under the cabin door.

A screeching noise from the possessed woman caused racing footsteps across the ceiling of the cabin. The room was filled with echoes of women in agonizing labor. “The unborn I evoke in you”, the woman hollered. The wailing sound of a cat along with a guttural growl was heard over mud slush and moving leaves. After which there was a piercing silence maddening to the ears. In that quiet space, the splat of cat guts on the cabin window, broke through the silence. A gust of wind swung the door open and off its hinges.

Under the full moonlight a large shadow head and shoulders cast its rapid gun fire into the cabin. Sarge and his soldiers take cover as they fire out the cabin door. After letting off a few rounds, Sarge stands in the doorway to find that nobody is there, just footprints leading to the woods. The old woman falls to the floor in a prostrate position as she proclaims, “I evoke the unborn by the consecrated blood recorded on my body”. The Sergeant picks up the woman from the floor and carries her frail body across the threshold of the cabin as lightning strikes under a treacherous rain. The soldiers follow behind him as the oval red eyes of the Skinwalker pierces at them through the dark night.