The Polaroid

The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window. A young girl sat in the corner of the 600-square foot room, hugging her knees tightly toward her on the worn sleeping bag, her favourite stuffed animal crushed between her thighs and her chest. A thick, layer of dust covered the wooden floors, disturbed only by the girl’s previous foot steps.

Every creak and gust of wind that shook the trees outside the window caused the girl to tense as her eyes darted between the endless cobwebs and insects that swarmed her, curious of the cabin's newest inhabitant. The girl simply flicked the pests away when they got too close.

She had bigger fish to fry.

It was a well-known fact around town that the cabin was haunted. In fact, it was deemed one of the top-five haunted places in North America, people boasted casually. School yards buzzed with talk of paranormal activity in hushed, excited voices. Adults who were into that sort of thing would flock from all over the world to experience it, though no one could ever stay in its walls longer than three hours. When the first death happened after that initial tragedy, the town, though visibly rattled, ultimately dismissed it as a coincidence. The second death on the property escalated their alarm, but it wasn’t until the third mysterious death that police declared entering the site forbidden. The official reason being that the structure was unstable and could collapse easily, though everyone knew the real reason.

As the girl made her way through the woods, she focused more on the uneven terrain, overgrown shrubbery and fallen branches than on the warning signs. She figured that if she was caught and arrested, the police would have to take pity on an eleven-year-old girl with a sleeping bag on her back and a teddy bear in her arms, especially one without so much as a detention or bad grade on her record. The balding sheriff with a beer belly and an overwhelming stench of mint who went fishing with her dad sometimes didn’t scare her.

But the cabin did.

Never had she snuck out of her idyllic home in her quiet and safe suburban neighbourhood. In fact, this was the first thing that she did that was even remotely disobedient. She wasn’t sure why she decided this moment would be her first, except that she had always felt a pull from the mysterious cabin in the overgrown wood. Maybe it was because the initial tragedy that took place there was on the exact night of her birth. Regardless, she firmly made up her mind to spend the night, alone, with not so much as a cell phone or flashlight. The candle and matches she found on the windowsill shortly after entering the cabin was a lucky coincidence, she decided definitively, and didn’t count against her.

The polaroid camera she received on her birthday hung clunkily around her neck, bouncing obnoxiously with her every step. After entering the cabin and laying out her makeshift bed for the night, the girl explored the deserted room, no bigger than her kitchen at home. The candle played with her shadow, causing it to grow and shrink with her every movement. The girl ignored her growing nerves, refusing to be frightened so soon in her challenge, and by her own shadow at that. Pulling the camera off from around her neck, she began to snap pictures of her surroundings, the click of the shutter and screech of the photo printing disturbed the thick silence around her.

“There,” she thought, “Proof for school on Monday.”

Careful not to ruin the dark squares, she lined up the pictures in front of her sleeping bag, checked gingerly for any lingering critters and laid down with her teddy to her chest. Staring up at the ceiling, the girl began to ponder what might have happened within these walls all those years ago. With so many variations and embellishments, it was difficult to know the truth. The core story, however, was that a young family lived and died in the cabin. There was a father, a mother, an eleven-year-old boy, and a newborn baby. Allegedly, the post-partum mother grew ill with a fever and died in her sleep shortly after returning from the hospital. Her husband, consumed with grief, murdered his children before joining his departed family. Some people believed that it was the young boy who, growing jealous of the new addition, killed them all. Others believed there was a witch who lived in the woods, angered by the wailing baby.

The girl turned on her side, her arm pillowing her head and reached for the nearly developed pictures. The pictures were dark, but she was otherwise pleased with them.

“But what if they don’t believe that she was there?” she thought.

Sitting up, she reached for the camera once more, turning it towards her and the cabin behind her. Posing, she formed her fingers into a peace sign, her right eye closed in a wink. The bright flash caused little spots to dance behind her eyes, disrupting her vision, so she laid back down and forced herself to sleep. Hours went by before the girl abruptly awoke from her slumber, as if her body subconsciously remembered where she was. The candle was burning dangerously low. She stood and blew out the flame, relieved by the bright glow of the moon streaming through the boarded window.

Her snooze seemed to have quelled her nerves a little and she was glad to realize that so far, the cabin wasn’t so bad. She could even picture it as the cozy home that it once was. Making her way back to her sleeping back, her eye caught on her latest picture. As if punched in the gut, she froze, willing her eyes to make sense of what she was seeing. Slowly, she crouched down to pick up the picture. A loud gasp escaped her as the photo dropped the foot back down with a soft scuff. Not daring to look around, she darted to her sleeping bag, zipping it up hastily, a sob choking her. Her eyelids squeezed shut as she tried to make sense of the dark, shadowy figure that appeared in the background of her photo. She wanted to run home to the safety of her parents and her bedroom. But then she remembered the taunts from the boys.

“Chicken!”

Slowly, she began to rationalize what she had seen. Maybe it was a smudge on the photo, or a camera glitch. Tentatively, she began to unzip her cocoon, the sound much too loud to her ears. With wide eyes, she peaked out into the dark room, specifically searching for a dark shadow in the corner. But she saw nothing. More confident now, she unzipped the rest of bag and sat up. Outside, an owl hooted in the distance and the wind danced in the trees, but other than that the cabin was silent.

Again, she reached for her camera and raising it to her right eye, aiming for the corner exclusively. The flash illuminated the cabin once more, revealing nothing out of the ordinary in the momentarily lit room. Sighing in relief, she settled in her seat, pulling her bear close while she waited.

Minutes ticked by before she braved a glance at the newly developed picture. To her dismay, the figure appeared again, slightly more defined than before and revealing the shape of a small person. Impulsively, the girl grabbed for the camera once more, taking one shot, then another and another. Breathing heavily, she waited, wanting to scream, wanting her mother, wanting to run home, but too uneasy to do any. Her eyes remained trained on the empty corner, only darting down to quickly decipher the progress of the photo.

To her horror, the figure returned in each new picture she had taken, seemingly getting closer with each reveal. Although still a blurred form, the last shot illuminated a smile where the figure’s face would be, a face now directly in front of her lens.

Fear gripped her hard.

“Leave me alone!” She cried, scooting back to the wall behind her.

The girl raised the camera once more, her eye catching on the white number on the back of her camera. She only had one picture left.

Just as the flash went off, the girl could see, as clear as if he were standing before her, a boy her age.

“Welcome home, Sister.”

***

Riley ran down the stairs the next morning, taking two at a time, cheerfully heading to the kitchen from some breakfast. With his favourite pajamas on, he was looking forward to his Saturday morning of playing Rocket League with his friends online. His mum only ever allowed video games on Saturdays, despite his pleading, and he was determined to make up for the lost time. He skidded to a stop when he was met with both his mom and his dad sitting at the kitchen table in deep discussion.

“What’s wrong?” he immediately asked. His parents were always at work on Saturdays, leaving him with his older brother who wouldn’t be awake for hours yet.

His mom looked up at him with swollen, red eyes.

“Ellie is missing,” she said, “Linda’s daughter.”

Of course, Riley knew who she was, having been in the same classes since kindergarten. His mom and Linda were on the parents’ council together and he even had to endure a forced playdate with her as their mums sat at their kitchen gossiping for hours. But he liked her enough, although he would never admit it.

Flashbacks of the last time he had seen her came to his mind. It was just yesterday afternoon on the way to the bus that they were all teasing her about the old, haunted cabin.

“I have to go to the bathroom,” Riley said abruptly and ran back up the stairs to his room, leaving his parents calling after him.

Closing the door, he began to pace. She had said that she was going to spend the night in the cabin, but of course no one believed her. Still, Riley began to worry. Should he tell his parents? Would that help Ellie’s parents find her? What if she really did go last night and got into a terrible accident or something? What if he got in trouble? What if he got his friends in trouble?

He plopped himself on his bed, his head landing on something small and flimsy on his pillow. He reached behind and sat up as his hand grasped a glossy, thick square.

It was a polaroid.

Riley turned it over without much thought, confused as to where it would come from. He didn’t even have a polaroid camera.

There, in the picture, was Ellie. And she was standing in a cabin.

The cabin.

Behind her stood a dark outline of a boy, no more than a few inches taller than her. His hand sat possessively on her shoulder. And on the photo, written and underlined in thick, red ink was one word...Chicken.