The Catch

The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window. More than one night, if Bill Johnson was to be believed. Bill, the town mechanic and the self-appointed “watchdog of this town”, said on more than one occasion that he “seen a light comin’ out of the shack down by Presser’s Crossin’, not any flashlight neither. It was a flame, like a candle or a match or something!” Unfortunately for Bill, no one believed him since he made a habit of calling the local police department whenever a stray cat wandered by or his newspaper didn’t make it all the way to the front porch in the morning. His last report, delivered via a screaming and mostly incoherent call directly to the police chief, was about how a “hooligan up to no good” was trying to break into his house. After sending out a squad car, it was found to be the mailman trying to deliver a package.

The report of the candle, also through a direct call to the chief, was different though. Bill had announced, in no uncertain terms, that he was going to “get to the bottom of this candle in the cabin business” and barreled out of town in his rusty ‘82 Datsun 720. That was two weeks ago, and Bill hadn’t been seen since. Bill’s truck was found a few miles from the cabin at the end of the main road that led to Lake Presser’s east side, undisturbed and showing no signs of disaster or doom. Perfect, rusty old truck condition. Bill wasn’t around though, and other than a makeshift campsite pitched behind the bed of the truck, there were no signs of any person ever being there. Search parties went out day after day and came back with no results for their efforts. Today, the official search was called off, but the police chief thought it would be “a good idea” to look into the light at the cabin, if it existed. Officer James Ashton, known as Ash around the department, was the lucky officer given the job of staking out the cabin for a few nights to see if anyone showed up.

Ash sat poking a stick at the small campfire by his tent at the end of the weed-covered dirt road leading to Presser’s Crossing, creating crackles and pops that shattered the silence of the night. The cabin was about 200 yards or so away, tucked between one of Lake Presser’s many inlets, and a wall of dead trees and fallen timber from the surrounding forest. It was old, probably older than any other building in the county, Ash supposed, and leaned heavily towards the lake. Part of that end of the cabin was partially submerged, right up to where the door used to be. A lone window was visible, barely from this distance, but it was visible. Ash used a set of mini binoculars he got from the dollar store to peek over for a closer view from time to time, but no candlelight showed up. No light at all for that matter. Ash sighed and poked the fire again, sending more sparks cascading out along with another loud pop.

After a delicious dinner of a snack pack picked up along the way washed down by a pocket sized can of cola, Ash doused the fire and crawled into the tent. He lay there for a moment, then a thought popped into his mind and he sighed. He realized he forgot to check the cabin again, and fought with himself on getting up versus going to sleep. After a heated debate that might have won several political events in recent years, getting up won out. After all, he reasoned, that would be the fastest way to not be stuck in the woods for days on end. See the light, catch the kids, go home. As he thought, it was more likely that he’d see the light, find Bill had tied up some poor kids he deemed responsible, and Ash would spend the next two weeks filling out paperwork. He moaned and crawled out of the tent, fumbling for his mini binoculars in the dark. He pressed them up to his eyes and swung around to bring the cabin into view. A small orange and yellow flame danced in the window.

“Ahhh…what have we here?” Ash whispered to himself. The light flickered and sputtered in the distance, piercing the surrounding blackness of the cabin like a star at night. He pulled the binoculars away and squinted at the cabin. He couldn’t see the candlelight from here at all. Ash checked with the binoculars again. His eyes were met by a dark and empty window. After a moment, the light blinked back on. Had he blinked and missed the flash of a match or flick of a lighter? Either way, a small orange speck again fluttered and flittered in the window. He pulled the binoculars away from his eyes and frowned, knowing what came next. A two hundred yard trudge through the underbrush and forest and slimy bog water, across Presser’s Crossing, and near if not into the abandoned cabin.

Leaning against a tree, Ash wheezed and coughed. After a long, wet, and insect-riddled walk through the forest, he stood on the near side of Presser’s Crossing. A natural rock formation splitting one of the inlets, Presser’s Crossing used to be the hotspot in the area for tourists and locals alike. When the resorts opened on the far side of the lake, the crossing quickly fell out of favor, leading to the abandonment of many of the area’s businesses and cabins. Cabins just like the one Ash was looking at, roughly 50 feet away, with a small dancing fire in the lone window. On the trek across the forest, the light shone on and off, teasing Ash with hints of color in the inky blackness of night. Now the light flickered and bobbed brightly in the window, but strangely there was still no sign of the dancing shadows candles create. The color seemed off too, Ash noted. Instead of the steady orangish-yellow that a candle normally produces, the light would bend down into red and bounce up into blue. Ash supposed that could be the wind, but he didn’t feel any, at least on this side of the crossing. He was also pretty sure there was glass covering the window, which would definitely block most of the wind. Maybe it was one of those 4th of July sparklers that the kids liked, the ones that changed colors a lot before burning out. He raised the binoculars to his eyes again. The light was gone.

He glanced back at his camp. He could barely make out his tent and squad car at this distance through the brush and trees. Ash didn’t get nervous often when on the job, but as with everything today, he felt different. Isolated. The car was only a couple of football fields away, but also forever away. With the nooks and knobs of the forest, that distance felt like miles and literally was hours away. He pulled out his mobile, a crack of radio static sliced through the air as he depressed the send button.

“Dispatch, this is Ash...ahh...Officer Ashton, car 627, over.” Silence met his ears. “Repeat, dispatch this is Officer Ashton, car 627, come in please, over.” Nothing, save the random noises of the forest and the lapping of small waves on the nearby shore.

“Great, just great,” he muttered. He looked back at the house. The light swayed in the window, a sunset orange bleeding to yellow. He looked down and took a tentative step onto the large, flat boulder that started Presser’s Crossing, then glanced back up. The light was gone.

During the few minutes it took to travel across the rocky bridge, the window remained dark. Ash thought that whoever was in there must have heard his radio call and decided that it was time to leave. He stood now on the far side of Presser’s Crossing, just about 15 feet away from the cabin. It was in worse shape than he realized. The doorway was barely passable, with most of the entry submerged in sludgy, slimy lake water. There was a rough hole near the doorway from where wood rotted over the years, falling into the lake making a regatta of ships ready to sail off to sludgy lands. That hole was big enough to crawl into, but it would take some work. The window had glass, as he suspected, but looked dust covered and almost tinted black. He strained his eyes trying to see anything past the glass, but only darkness met his stare. He aimed his flashlight first at the window, then the hole that was acting as a makeshift door. Nothing showed in either, just empty space and cobwebs.

“Police, come on out!” he said with a voice barely above a whisper. “You don’t have any other options. Just come out and we’ll talk about it, about what you’re doing here.” More silence, more darkness. Ash shifted uncomfortably on his feet, which sloshed around in a small puddle he was standing near.

“If you don’t come out, I’ll have to come in there and get you. You don’t want that.” He paused, waiting for a repose. None came.

He continued, “If I come in there, you’re going to lockup for the night. You don’t wan…” The light was back, floating in the lower panes of the window. It was remarkably bright, cutting through the layers of grime and filth covering the outside glass. Ash saw a hint of room glare this time, but hardly enough to help. The light was more of a light orange this time, akin to the very tip of a flame on a candle. The flame danced up and down, with almost a swaying motion. Not candle-like at all, Ash thought. Artificial light, which meant someone was in there. Maybe a glow stick. The light blinked out again.

“Alright, enough of this,” he mumbled to himself. “Time to go in so I can go home.” He moved a few feet closer to the hole in the cabin, pulling his feet out of the muck and sludge with slurpy steps. He swung his flashlight towards the opening, keeping one eye on the window as he inched forward. The floor inside the cabin looked to be littered with various items; dead fish and bones were scattered around, along with a pair of worn tennis shoes, soles angled towards the opening. He pointed the flashlight down, and after a moment of eye adjustment, saw a bluish glow bathing the inside of the cabin. Ash swung his head to the window and caught the last embers of blue slowly fading away, like the old television tubes used to do when he was young. The blob of light disappeared fully a moment later leaving Ash standing in darkness, except for the bright circle of white light at his feet. He looked over to the opening, and after another moment of consideration, unholstered his weapon and held it tightly in his hand.

A few steps more and he was standing inches from the hole in the cabin. The inside was mostly undisturbed, although he could see some tracks in the dust leading to where the shoes lay. A puddle of slimy lake water flopped up on the left, where the lake met what was left of the cabin’s entry side. To the right, he could see the edge of a table, with the shoes he saw before now in clearer sight. The shoes were newer, almost bright white in the harsh glow of the flashlight, but with very worn soles. He blanched. The shoes were attached to legs, or what was left of legs. Two bloody stumps extended from the shoes, abruptly stopping where knees would normally be. The ends were gnarled and mangled, almost splintered, and dotted with bits of flesh and blood. He saw a bloodied set of car keys laying nearby, and had a fleeting thought that they probably belonged to a ‘82 Datsun. If the keys belonged to a Datsun, the remnants of legs must belong to Bill. Ash resisted the urge to vomit. He saw a glimmer of red light dart in and out of his peripheral vision, this time accompanied by a low, chattering sound like an old water heater starting up. He turned his lamp to the right. He ran, or tried to.

It had lived in these waters for hundreds of years, perhaps even thousands of years. It didn’t know, and it didn’t care. It did care, however, about the insatiable hunger that it was experiencing. This was a recent development for it. In years past, the catch was much simpler. Noisy and small furry things would wander into the waters. Larger and fatter furry things would die by the water and be devoured at its leisure. When pressed, the tiny slimy things of the water could be ingested. These things had stopped though. The furry things were gone, and the slimy water things were fewer. It took to the land now to find the catch.

It used this tree cave, and it was proving to be a boon to it. Normally, the pale hairless things used their tree caves making it impossible for it to get close enough to them. This cave had no pale things so it was safe here. A short time back, a pale thing saw its light, a dangling bulb hanging down from the top of its head by a thin, sinewy thread. The pale thing came back in the dark over and over to see its light, which changed from color to color as it willed it to. Eventually, the pale thing had come to the cave. The pale thing even walked right into the cave, where the catch was made quickly and a delicious feast ensued. A glorious, delicious feast of sweet pale thing flesh. A few darks later, hundreds of the pale things were back, making noises around the tree cave and wagging their pale thing parts, but none came into the cave. It didn’t use its light either, there were too many to be safe.

A second pale thing had come this dark, but the catch took much longer than it wanted. It was so hungry, so very hungry, but it waited. It teased with color after color, and the pale thing came closer. It teased again, the pale thing waited. Teased and waited, teased and waited. Finally, the pale thing put part of itself inside the cave. After one last flash of color and a rattle of delight, it dove for the pale thing. This one ran, but it was no match for it. The pale thing tried to escape, but it caught it. It delighted in the meal, proud of itself. Very proud.

Some time later and sated from the catch, it slid back into the waters, for the light was coming. It didn’t like the light. Just the dark. The dark let it use its own light to bring in the catch. As it sank deep into the lake, it decided that even though the tree cave in the woods had been abandoned for years, every night its light would burn in the window.