The Last Night in Cabin 12

Rain fell in sheets against the windows of Cabin 12 as the wind howled like an injured animal. Alex dropped his bags near the door, soaked, irritated, and exhausted. The cabin had been his uncle’s—remote, quiet, and cheap to use whenever he needed time away from the city. But he had forgotten just how isolated it really was.

He flicked the lights on. They buzzed weakly before filling the room with a sickly yellow glow.

“Great,” he muttered. “Feels haunted already.”

He tried to laugh at himself, but the storm outside swallowed the sound.

The cabin smelled old. Damp wood, cold stone, and something metallic lingering in the air like dried blood. The fireplace was stacked with logs. Alex lit them, shivering as the flames slowly breathed life into the room.

He was halfway through making tea when he heard it.

A knock.

Not on the door.

From the bedroom.

Alex froze. Rain hammered the roof. Wind whistled through the cracks. But beneath it all… another knock.

Slow. Deliberate.

Knock.

Knock.

Knock.

He told himself it was the storm playing tricks, but his body knew better. His skin prickled. His instincts screamed.

Still, he forced himself down the hallway.

The bedroom was dark. The doorknob was cold when he grabbed it. Too cold.

He turned it and pushed.

The room was empty except for a single wooden wardrobe shoved into the far corner. The knock came again.

From inside it.

Alex stepped back. “Nope. Absolutely not.”

He turned to leave, but the wardrobe door creaked open by itself—just an inch. Enough to see darkness inside. Thick darkness. A darkness that looked like it had depth, like it could swallow him.

He slammed the bedroom door shut and locked it.

The knocking stopped.

Hours later, the storm worsened. The power flickered. The shadows in the room stretched longer than the flickering flames should’ve allowed.

Alex sat near the fireplace with a blanket wrapped around him. He tried watching something on his phone, but the signal was dead.

He checked the time: 11:47 p.m.

Thunder boomed, shaking the cabin.

Then another sound slithered through the walls.

A voice.

A whisper.

“Alex…”

He dropped the phone. “No. No, no…”

It came again, louder. Closer.

“Alex… let me out…”

He backed toward the front door, fumbling with the locks. The lights died. The fire sputtered.

The whisper was right behind him now.

“You locked me in.”

He spun around.

No one was there.

But the bedroom door was open. Wide open. He had locked it; he remembered locking it. Yet now it gaped like a mouth waiting to swallow him whole.

A draft blew through the cabin—icy cold, smelling of wet earth and decay. The fire died completely.

Alex grabbed his phone and used the flashlight. The beam trembled in his hand.

Something moved in the bedroom’s darkness.

A shape.

Tall. Wrong. Its joints bent too sharply, like its bones were put together by someone who had never seen a human before.

It stepped out slowly, its feet making no sound on the creaking floorboards.

Alex whispered, “Stay back…”

The thing tilted its head, curious. Its voice scraped the walls.

“You trapped me. Now I want to be you.”

Alex ran.

He didn’t think—just sprinted into the storm. Rain blinded him, mud slipping under his feet as he crashed through bushes and branches. Behind him, something crawled out of the cabin, limbs cracking as they twisted to fit through the doorway.

He reached the truck. His hands shook so violently he fumbled the keys. The creature emerged from the treeline—moving on all fours now, its limbs too long, its head hanging loosely to one side like a marionette.

Alex got the door open and threw himself inside. He jammed the key into the ignition.

The truck didn’t start.

“Come on—COME ON!”

The creature pressed its face against the driver’s window. Its skin was stretched thin, almost transparent. Its eyes were black pits. No… not pits. Holes. As if there were nothing behind them.

It whispered through the glass.

“You can’t leave.”

Alex slammed the lock and kicked the gas again. The engine roared to life. The creature’s smile split open unnaturally wide just as he stomped on the accelerator.

The truck shot forward. The thing rolled off into the mud, limbs bending backward as it hit the ground.

He drove until the cabin disappeared behind the trees, until the storm thinned, until he could breathe again.

He didn’t stop until he reached a gas station miles away.

An officer arrived and searched the cabin at dawn. There were no footprints except Alex’s. No signs of forced entry. The wardrobe in the bedroom was empty.

But there was one thing the officer noticed.

Inside the wardrobe, scratched deep into the wood, were four words:

LET ME OUT AGAIN

The officer returned to his vehicle, disturbed. He radioed his report in, then glanced at the passenger seat.

Alex sat there, trembling, wrapped in a blanket.

But something about him seemed wrong.

His head tilted slightly, at an angle no human neck should allow.

And he smiled.