The Cabin

THE CABIN

The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window. It could be seen from a few hundred yards away despite the torrential downpour of rain; Pete had been able to see it for several minutes now as he exited into the clearing from the dense forest, his hand rested on the dark trunk of a tree as he tried to get a clear line of sight on it. He was familiar with the area, but he’d always thought no one lived out this far anymore. His sopping dark hair sagged in his eyes as he brushed it clear; this rain was relentless, and it had just sprung up seemingly out of nowhere to drench him and his brother out of their camping tents. A flash flood literally caused a mudslide that sent him out of his sleep and into the dark, drenching night.

“Joe? Joe! Where are you?” He asked, suddenly realizing his brother was no longer next to him.

He turned around to see the scrawny figure of his brother coming into view, water was drooling out of his poncho, his coke bottle glasses soaked and fogged over with his body heat. “Would it kill you to wait for me?” He asked aloud, jumping at the loud crack of thunder and the lightning illuminating his bright yellow raincoat against the otherwise dark night. “I got stuck in this huge hole of mud out there, I fell over. I've been screaming your name and now you think to look around?”

“You’re lucky I can hear a thing over this storm! Look, the old ten-acre cabin has a light on!”

“I didn’t think anyone lived out here.” Joe replied futilely attempting to wipe his glasses on his drenched shirt under his poncho. “There are no power lines or water wells for miles.”

“It looks like a candle in the window. Come on, we gotta get out of this storm.”

“Wait, wait. Pete, just a second!” Pete turned to Joe’s worried expression. “Exactly what do you think you’re doing? We can’t go there.”

Pete cocked his head and dropped his arms in frustration. “What?!” He exclaimed. “We’re going to drown out here, man. That’s the only shelter around for miles and this storm is just getting worse. We have to go there!”

“We don’t know anything about this place, what if the people who live there are like...psycho killers or something?”

“Compare that to the odds of us drowning in a flash flood or getting struck by lightning, Joe. I am going to that house.”

Pete turned on his heel and began to stomp loudly off in the direction of the flickering glow in the distance, ignoring his brother’s continued arguing. After a moment, Joe threw his arms up in surrender, slapping them down at his sides before storming after Pete. The pair made their way across the clearing toward the cabin.

As the cabin grew closer, Joe could see the light in the window start to dim. As he staggered through the grass, his foot caught on what felt like a root and he stumbled forward, fully planting his face into the ground. His glasses rolled off into the darkness as he recovered. “Pete? Pete! Where are you?” Joe pushed himself back up onto his hands and knees and began to feel around in the grass for his glasses. He eventually found them and put them on, only to discover the lenses were caked in mud, forcing him to clean them by wiping his fingers over them to wash them off with the rain. When he could see again, he looked around but saw no sign of the cabin they had set out towards. No light, nothing. As the lightning flashed and illuminated the field, he noticed that Pete too was missing. “Pete! Pete!” He cried out, but his words didn’t even seem to travel. He felt like he was in a small, tight room instead of out in an open field. But the rain sure felt real enough for him.

Joe turned around, scanning the horizon as he grew more and more nervous at his surroundings. It was then another feeling crept up on him; he felt like he was being watched, a sense of dread washed over and he couldn’t breathe. As he finished his scan, he could see something out of the corner of his eye; something moving, something watching him. A pale, twisted face. Immediately, his head snapped to his right to see, and nothing was there but the dark and empty field.

Suddenly, a hand slammed down on his left shoulder; and Joe screamed, turning towards it and...it was Pete standing there with a confused look on his face. “Joe! What the hell?”

Everything was just as it should have been; Joe found himself standing at the doorstep of the old cabin, under a built-in awning over the cabin’s door. It was a porch, that somehow Joe managed to follow his brother to, but he couldn’t recall actually getting there. Only the field he was lost in just moments before. “S-sorry.” Joe stammered.

“Are you okay? You were kind of freaking out for a minute there.”

“I’m... I’m fine.” He said, slowly shaking off his nerves. “Anybody home?”

Pete chuckled nervously. “I haven’t knocked yet.” He replied before slowly raising his hand and reaching toward the door. He knocked on the door three times, but there was no answer. “Hello?” He asked aloud, knocking again. “Is anybody there?”

“Please help us, we’re lost and drenched.” Joe chimed in, knocking on the door once more.

There was a click, and slowly the cabin door opened; giving a shrill squeak as it did so and revealing the soft glow of light from within. There was a soft scratch of vinyl and the sound of a record playing that only made the pair more nervous. Pete slowly pushed the door inward and peeked past the corner. “Hello?” The pair stepped inside and out of the rain as Joe closed the door behind them.

The cabin was quaint, as they were standing in the front room it was easy to see the stairs that led around from the adjoining hallway up to the loft above the center room, it was warm and it was inviting with a brilliant fire in the fireplace at the back of the room. The pair began to remove their raincoats, and Pete laughed at their fortune.

“Now this is what I’m talking about!” He said excitedly as he hopped over the back of the fireplace-facing couch and landed on its soft cushions to immediately begin warming himself, while Joe hung his coat on one of the convenient hooks by the door. “We went from the worst luck to the best luck in nothing flat, eh, bro?”

“Yeah.” Joe answered, observing a wall mirror by the hooks. “Thrilling.”

Joe looked himself over, aside from his hiking boots being covered in a thick mud, his green flannel shirt and his dark trousers looked like they were completely intact. He adjusted his glasses and flicked back his short hair before looking at his brother’s reflection; Pete had a very different style to him. Despite having a poncho on, he still wore his thin leather jacket under it and a black shirt under that, a pair of blue jeans and tan brown boots on his feet. Pete’s hair was long; stretching down past his shoulders, he was the “bad boy” of the family and he knew it. Unlike awkward Joe, he was popular with jocks and girls swooned all over him. He’d just graduated high school the year before, leaving Joe still a Junior with another two years to go before college. It was good to see him when he came to visit though, despite their differences the two brothers still seemed to get along. As Joe stared at Pete’s reflection though, something seemed a little off with the top of his brother’s head. It looked... like his hair was white.

“What are you doing over there?” Pete asked, turning to face Joe. In his reflection, Pete appeared gaunt, skeletal and hauntingly dead.

Joe screamed again and fell backwards, tripping over the couch and tumbling across it only for his brother to catch him. “Jeeze! What? What?!”

“You! I--I saw... the mirror!”

Pete turned and looked at the mirror. “What? I’m not that hideous am I?”

Joe sat up and looked, but realized that the mirror was now showing everything else like normal. Pete’s face no longer looked skeletal, his hair back to its normal dark color and his clothes in one piece again. “I...” He paused. “I think I’m losing my mind or something.”

“I’ll save you some time, you’ve been losing your mind ever since you were six.” Pete joked.

Joe sighed dismissively. “Honestly, you experiment stabbing a hole in a waterbed to see the trajectory of the water based on pressure and you’re branded crazy for the rest of your life.”

Pete was about doubled over in laughter. “Mom had such a conniption fit about it. I never laughed so hard in my life.”

“Yeah...well...” Joe felt his cheeks burning. The sound of thunder outside reminded him suddenly about their situation. “Wait, is anybody here? I doubt they went out into this mess and left their home open.”

Pete’s expression turned to concern. He too had forgotten no one actually invited them in. “I don’t--” There was a loud thump from another room that caught his attention. He looked that way. “What was that?”

“What was what?”

Pete smiled lightly. “Nothing. Look, I’m going to see if I can find anybody. I thought I heard something from that way, I’m guessing it’s the kitchen. Plus I’m starving, I’ll see if I can raid the pantry while I’m in there.”

“You can’t just...”

“I’ll pay these guys back for anything we take, what kinda guy do you think I am?” Joe sighed and fell back into the seat. “Stay here, I’ll be right back.” He said, giving his brother a comforting pat on top of the head. Pulling a flashlight from his bag, he lit it and started making his way into the dark back rooms.

Pete made his way from the living area into the adjoining hallway, it was then he could pick up the smell; it smelled like something was cooking, pasta? He could swear the smell was spaghetti, his favorite meal. His stomach growled in spite of himself as he made his way into the kitchen. Something smelled good, it was even better in the kitchen because it smelled like garlic bread was baking in the oven.

“Hello? Hello! Anybody in here? I wanted to thank whoever helped us out of that storm.” He looked around, the kitchen looked pretty rustic, a rounded white refrigerator, an old gas oven and cabinets that, as he looked into them, were filled to the brim with stylish white dishes. Candles lining the area helped to provide more illumination, but most of it came from the warm glow in the stove. “Hello?” He asked again, but again heard nothing back. He looked at the large cylindrical pot on top of the stove, the water inside was obviously boiling. He didn’t know why, but as he approached the stove, a strange sensation of terror came over Pete, and he suddenly wasn’t sure he wanted to lift the lid of that pot. He took a mitten hanging from the stove’s front handle and put it on. Lifting the lid, the room filled with the steam coming off of it, causing him to wave it away as he looked into the broth, seeing the milky white color inside, he peered closely, smelling the spaghetti cooking in it. Reaching for a ladle, he began to stir it into the pot to see the noodles swirling about inside and then something else popped up out of the water; it looked like an eyeball, and it completely caught Pete off guard. “AHHHH!” He screamed aloud as he took a step back, not seeing a puddle of water on the floor, he felt his boot slip on top of it and he flew back onto the floor with a grunt. He wasn’t sure if it was the shake of his impact, or if the oven did it on its own, but the front suddenly fell open, exposing what was cooking inside; an accumulation of hands and arms with a pair of skulls as the centerpiece. “No!” He cried out as he staggered and stumbled, trying to stand up as smoke and fire billowed out of the oven, heating his skin as he held his hand up over his face. It was already burning, he could feel his skin peeling away, and just as he could feel his nerves on fire, a hand grabbed his.

“Pete! What’s wrong, are you okay?” Joe asked.

Everything was quiet all of a sudden, Pete was sitting on the black and white tiled kitchen floor only a few feet from the stove, which looked like it was off and closed up. It was as if the opening had never happened and he stared warily up at the pot still sitting on top. It was no longer steaming, in fact it looked like the pot was again completely covered over. He cleared his throat to preserve his dignity and stood up. “I’m fine. I’m fine.” He repeated to his brother.

Joe stared at him. “You were screaming your head off just a few seconds ago, I could hear you all the way from the front room.” He looked at the pot. “It doesn’t smell like anything’s cooking in here though.” He went to reach for the pot lid.

“N-no, wait!”

Joe lifted the lid and looked inside before turning to Pete. “It’s empty.” He said. “And I was hungry too.”

Pete’s lips curled into a forced smile. “Well, I’m officially freaked out. Maybe we should wait for the owners outside?”

“You were the one who wanted to come in here in the first place.” Joe argued as the pair made their way back to the front room. “I mean, I hate to say I told you so, but...” The pair passed by a wall mirror heading down the hall, and Joe stopped. “Wait... did you see that?”

Pete groaned in dread. “See what?”

The pair looked at their reflections and Joe waved his arm. “Look...” A half a second behind Joe, his reflection waved his arm back. “Wh-what is...”

Pete did similar, giving himself a thumb’s up, only to be greeted half a second later with his reflection imitating it. “What’s doing that?” He asked.

“Why ask me?” Joe asked.

Pete shrugged. “I don’t know, you’re the science whiz. Maybe you can explain it.”

“This isn’t science.” Joe said. “It’s... something else.”

Pete stepped toward his reflection, watching himself step one half second behind him until he placed his hand on the mirror glass, his reflection did the same thing, smiling in turn as Pete was amused by this. Joe stepped up to the glass and did the same thing. “Whatever it is... it’s kind of cool, actually.” Pete said. He then noticed that his reflection did not mouth the same words he’d said to the other Joe, in fact the stare his dark eyes were giving back to him only sent a chill down his spine.

Suddenly, his reflection slammed his hand into the mirror, causing the glass to shake and making both of them pull their hands away in terror. “Oh man! N-not cool! Not cool!” Pete shrieked in fear as the brothers backed up against the wall behind them as both of their reflections began to pound violently on the glass. The pair’s flashlights began to flicker and dim, leaving only the glow from the living room flames a source of consistent light and the pair ran toward it. Just as they reached the end of the hallway though, another door blew open, spilling out a pair of horrifying and rigid skeletons for the brothers to trip over. They fell into the living room tangled up in the skeletons and struggling to pull them off of themselves as both kicked the bones to the corner.

“What the heck is that? WHAT IS IT?!” Pete’s screams reached an all-time higher pitch as the pair collected themselves and got up.

“I don’t know, I don’t know!” Joe said, almost matching Pete’s tone of terror as they looked at the skeletons. One had a familiar flannel shirt and what looked like shattered frames over its eyes and the other had a tattered leather jacket and a head of torn and tattered hair. “A-Are... Are those... us?”

Pete took a few moments to gather his thoughts before he responded, not taking his eyes off the skeletons. “You know what? I think I’d rather tackle that storm than stay here a minute longer.”

“Agreed!” Joe announced as the pair ran to the door.

It took a moment of struggling before Pete finally managed to wrench the door open and the two ran through, only to find themselves running back into the cabin. They came to a sudden halt and looked back to see the very same room they’d entered standing on the other side of the door before the door slammed shut on them. Pete grabbed at the door again and pulled at it, only this time, it was locked. He yanked harder to try and pull it open, but it felt like there was some force on the other side pulling back the other way.

“Pete! Hurry!”

“I’m trying!” Pete shouted. “I can’t get it open!”

Another sound could be heard from the hallway, this time from the stairs barely visible just past the entrance to the hall. The sound of something clicking, then moaning as a white glow slowly descended the steps. The boys redoubled their efforts, trying desperately to rip the door open by any means they could. Joe looked at the window and could see their reflections pulling at the door, still motioning about half a second behind them. “We-we can’t get out this way, look! We’re struggling on the other side to get out.”

“What?”

“Don’t you get it? Our reflections are pulling at the door on the other side so neither of us are getting through!”

As they looked back to the hallway, they could see something emerge from the stairs; emitting a white glow, it was the apparition of a woman with long, tangled locks and a gaunt, skeletal face looking at them. Her mouth hanging open, a twisted look of horror etched upon her expressions. Reaching toward them, her long, foot-long nails looked like claws stretching toward them and as she passed along the ground, they could see the wood under her feet beginning to rot away, the walls weathering into nothing. Soon, her form expanded to encompass the back half of the room, her ghostly presence rotting everything it touched as it moved closer and closer to the brothers.

From the corner of Joe’s eye, he spotted the mirror by the hooks. Only, it wasn’t showing a reflection of the inside of the house, it was showing the porch outside; and the two of them standing on it, staring at them. Thinking fast, Joe grabbed the rack of hooks and with a violent, desperate tug; he tore it from the wall, and swinging it like a baseball bat, he slammed it into the mirror, causing it to explode into a million pieces. In response, the ghostly figure let out a scream; this one of pain as she threw her hands up over her face and she recoiled. Her body seemed to wither and rot before their eyes. With an ear-shattering pop, she suddenly exploded into glass like the mirror. The force of the blast threw Joe and Pete into the spot where the mirror had been moments before and they found themselves free falling down through the darkness until they landed hard on the front porch in the front of the cabin.

The rain was slowly subsiding by the time they woke up again; dawn had barely made its way onto the horizon as it pushed the darkness and the rain clouds away. Pete and Joe were lying in various states on the ground; Joe lying on the steps and Pete lying out on the muddy ground. Both of them were still in their raincoats as if they had never entered the cabin in the first place. As they sat up, Pete and Joe looked at the cabin, which again looked like it had long since been abandoned. The wood all grayed and weathered, all the polish having long since worn away by the forces of nature. The door was half-torn off its hinges and the inside was all but pitch black and smelled of rot.

“The story goes that a woman named Rose Hargrove once lived there with her husband; but she was very vain, she was always obsessed with her beauty and was always quite fond of mirrors. Her husband was a family man who wanted children of his own, but Rose always refused. Afraid that having children would ruin her looks, eventually this drove her husband to leave her alone in that cabin, where she spent her days in seclusion. Only basking in her isolation as her beauty faded and eventually, she died alone. Stories say that she still lurks in that cabin, luring young people inside in order to steal their youth so that she can be young and beautiful again. But that day, Pete and Joe managed to escape with their lives.”

“And now, the story ends with an important lesson. Don’t enter strange houses in the middle of the woods. You never know what could be lurking there.”

The campfire’s glow shone on the group of young campers as the counselor finished his story, he pushed his glasses up to see one of the campers with her arm in the air. She blushed as he pointed to her. “Uhm...shouldn’t the lesson be that there are more important things than beauty?”

The counselor smiled. “Well, how about the lesson can be whatever you learned from the story, how about that?”

“It was a boring story.” One of the bigger boys interrupted, crossing his arms in frustration. “No deaths, no mutilations. Haven’t you ever seen a horror movie?”

“Well. Sometimes things can be scarier when they’re left to the imagination, right?”

“Pfff...” The boy pouted in surrender.

“Alright guys, I think it’s late enough. It’s time for everyone to go to bed.” There was a collective groaning at the counselor’s suggestion as it was a Saturday night, and not even midnight at that. “Come on, come on. You guys know the lights-out rule. Let’s go.”

The children all got up and filed into the cabin they had been sitting outside of, the campfire doused by another counselor who produced a bucket and began to pour water over it. A white cloud filled the area as everything went dark. As the children; still mostly dressed in their pajamas all piled into their bunks, the counselor made sure they were all tucked in. As he reached the last bed with the bigger boy, he tucked him in and patted his head. “You should behave yourself, you know? Don’t try to be a smart alec.”

“I know.” The boy replied. “It’s just so embarrassing to have your dad tell a weird story like that one.”

The counselor chuckled. “Tell you what? The next story is yours, okay?” He leaned in and gave his son a kiss on the side of his head.

“Daaaaad.” He complained.

“Sweet dreams.” The counselor said as he got up and headed toward the door as he stepped out of the room, he turned off the lights, then paused and turned to look back.

“Hey, Joe! Are you finished in there?” One of the other counselors called after him.

The counselor smiled and vanished past the frame of the door, rejoining his coworkers to start cleaning up for the night.

As the boy lay in his bed, facing the window that looked out over the hillside, he opened his eyes to a peculiar sight: Just outside; past the edge of the camp, maybe half a mile into the darkness, he could see a light flickering. A candle illuminating the darkness.

THE END