The Trap

The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window. Except, it wasn’t a candle we saw that night.

I hung out in front of the cabin all the time since it was right by my house. I had two friends I hung out with too. They lived on the same street with me, and we liked to explore and play games together. We always played in front of it, but never got too close. My mom said it wasn’t safe to go in, it's too old. But that was okay with me, my best friend Ryan, and my best friend Colt. We just liked to stay outside and explore the woods. Now that it was summer break, we liked to spend time outside as much as possible.

This summer was different. Now we are old enough to stay outside longer, and we even got permission to tent outside. We are camping in front of my house, which was between Colt's and Ryan's house. Ryan was bringing the tent, Colt was bringing the sleeping bags, and I was bringing the snacks. Well, my mom was bringing the snacks. But the time was about seven ‘o’clock, and my friends were due to come by at any moment. We had already spent the day exploring a new path in the woods. Colt and Ryan went home to eat dinner with their families afterwards, and then come back here.

“Jake, your friends are back,” I heard my mom call from our kitchen. I skipped down the stairs and outside, where Ryan and Colt were crossing the lawns to meet in my house.

“Got the stuff for tonight?” I ask them, excited. This would be the first time that any of our parents would let us stay up as long as we wanted.

“Yeah we do. I borrowed that tent my dad used to go hiking with his buddies. He says it's big enough to fit six people!” Ryan explained, showing us a zipped bag on his shoulder.

“Awesome. Do you know how to set it up?” Colt asked, taking his own bag off of his shoulder.

“Sure, how hard can it be? Just got to get the right poles straight.”

“Then let's get it set up, we got all the games to play. Wait, do either of you have something we can use for light?” I ask, already helping Ryan open the tent bag.

“Uh, yeah. Again, my dad goes camping with his buddies. Like, a lot. I have the tent, dividers for the tent to make rooms, clip-in lanterns, and these cot things to help make sleeping bags feel like bed. We are set!” Ryan said, now unrolling the tent itself.

“I also brought sleeping bags, pillows and a few games for us to play. Not as impressive, but it helps to make tonight awesome,” Colt added, dropping his bags to the grass.

“And we have food and snacks for days, which is one of the most important things,” I added. We got to work setting up the tent, though it wasn’t easy. At first we couldn’t get it to stand up, and at one point it looked so crooked. But eventually my dad wandered outside as the sun began to get low, and he was able to fix it right up, making fun of us the whole time he did. We made it into the tent and set up dividers to make rooms, with Ryan's tent room being the biggest because the tent was his. We set up our beds early, kicked off our shoes outside, and got right to our games, which involved cards and various board games. My mom dropped by after it got dark and provided a huge plate of sandwiches, chip stuff, different cookies and also a whole case of sodas. We were in heaven. But we quickly tired out way faster than I expected. We tried to drink more and change up the games to stay awake, but it was getting so hard. The sound of crickets outside was at first annoying. Now they sounded so nice, it was something I could fall asleep to.

“Let's call it guys, I'm beat,” Colt said, yawning as he rubbed his eyes.

“Yeah.... I know we wanted to stay up until the sun came up, but I don’t want to see that happen anymore,” I added.

“I agree. I'm gonna be right back, just gonna water your mom's bush,” Ryan said, unzipping the tent door. Both Colt and I grunted after him and started crawling towards our sleeping bags. I never wanted to sleep so bad before. Colt turned off the main lantern in the tent and was about to shut off the smaller one by the door when Ryan peeked his head in.

“Uh, guys? Did we get a new neighbor or something?” He asked. Colt and I blinked at him, not understanding what he meant.

“What are you talking about?” I asked.

“You know that abandoned cabin right across the street? Yeah, there is light in there.

“There isn’t any light, Ryan, let’s go to bed,” Colt grumbled. He got irritated if he was too tired for too long.

“No, really come look,” Ryan urged, motioning towards the abandoned cabin.

“We all know you like to play jokes. I don’t want to see, I just want to sleep,” Colt complained, flopping into his cot with his sleeping bag, “We hang out around that cabin all the time, no one has been there.”

“I'm not joking about this,” Ryan snapped, remaining at the tent door. I rolled my eyes and stood. I figured I would look to make Ryan happy and then we could all go to bed.

“Fine, show me this light you see. Maybe it's a reflection or something,” I said. I poked my head outside of the tent and peered at the cabin across the street. I blinked a few times, wondering what I was looking at. There was indeed light coming from the cabin. It looked like a candle in the window, with little orange light flickering behind the glass. Actually it almost looked like there were multiple candles flickering away in the cabin.

“See? So did someone move in?” Ryan asked. I shook my head. I haven't seen anyone there. And I figured mom would have told me if we had a new neighbor. She loved meeting new people.

“I don’t think so. Colt, come out here, Ryan isn’t messing with us,” I called into the tent. Colt blearily made his way to the entrance.

“So? There's a light in the cabin,” he said wearily.

“Yeah... but what's giving off that light when it’s abandoned?” Ryan asked.

“I don’t know. Maybe cultists? Some weird Satan worshiping group?” Colt responded.

“Out here? Come on dude, that doesn’t make any sense,” I replied. We were in the countryside, not too close to the city or the suburbs.

“Okay... so what do you want to do about it?” Colt asked, looking between the two of us. Ryan and I shared a look.

“Let's go check it out,” Ryan said.

“Seriously?” Colt questioned, narrowing his eyes at us.

“Yeah! Night exploration! Let's go!” I exclaimed, now fully awake again.

“Ugh, I don’t know guys. It's like, pitch black out there,” Colt said, peering out towards the cabin.

“Exactly. We haven't explored anything at night before. Besides, we will just see what that light is and come back here. Then you can sleep as much as you want,” Ryan prodded, now grabbing the smaller lantern by the tent entrance.

“Fine. I'm only doing it so that you guys don’t whine about me not coming with you though. I'm not going to enjoy a moment of this,” Colt warned, dragging himself out of the tent. Ryan held the lantern high in front of him and immediately went towards the cabin. I followed briskly behind, while Colt moseyed his way after us. It didn’t take us long to reach the cabin, and by the time we got close, Ryan started to turn off the lantern.

“What are you doing that for?” I whispered, not liking the darkness around us.

“If there is someone in there, I don’t want them to see the light,” Ryan murmured back, the dark lantern now by his side.

“Maybe it’s other kids, like us,” Colt hissed, now joining me at my side.

“Doubt it. There aren't any other kids that live for miles around us. Your cult theory would be more likely,” I shot back, keeping my voice low. We crept up to the window of the cabin, crouching to stay out of view of the glass. Ryan pressed himself up against the side of the rough cabin, and he peered his face around the windowsill, moving very slowly as he did. He stared inside for a moment, and his expression seemed puzzled.

“What do you see?” I asked. I was crouched right underneath the window, not daring to look.

“I don’t really know. It’s not people though,” Ryan answered.

“What do you mean it's not people? What else could be giving off that light?” Colt muttered. He was right next to me, and now he popped his head up to look into the window too.

“Huh,” I heard him grunt.

“What?” I asked, creeping my head up to his level. When I could see into the cabin, I wasn’t sure what I was looking at either. Inside the cabin were two light posts. But… that’s not what they were. They were tall rods coming from the floorboards of the cabin, and they looked covered in fuzz. Like moss maybe? But they were about my height, and at the ends of each one was a flickering bulb. It was a warm orange glow that came from the bulbs, and they flickered like candles, but glowed brighter than any candles would. Two smaller rods also came out of the floor, and those rods were crooked almost like canes. They came to about my waist. We have been by this cabin many times, and we have once or twice looked into the cabin. It was completely bare, and only made up of two rooms from what we could tell. There was a tiled area that looked like it was for a kitchen/dining room. There was a standing sink in there at the very least. Then the other room, which was bigger, had wooden floors and looked like it could be used for a bedroom or a sitting room or something. The boards though looked different, like they were lifting up around where these new rods were, which had never been in this room before. Where did they come from? Have they been here before? We have never seen the cabin at night before until now.

“What are those?” Ryan asked, not taking his eyes off of the lights in the room.

“I have no idea. Someone must have put them there,” Colt replied. He also did not look away. I didn’t want to look away either. The lights just looked so inviting.

“I have a crazy idea,” I said, tearing myself away from the window.

“What are you doing?” Colt said as I tiptoed by him.

“I’m going in to take a better look,” I answered, coming to the front door.

“Are you crazy? Why would we go in? Clearly, someone has been here. And probably recently too, since these lights were not here when the sun was up today. We would have noticed,” Ryan said now glancing my way.

“Well let’s check. It looks pretty gross in there other than those lights. Maybe we can find some footprints? Besides, no one is in there now,” I retorted, now opening the front door. The door opened easily with a whine, letting me into the tiled part of the cabin. I looked briefly around. I wasn’t kidding that it looked gross in the cabin. There were gray cobwebs covering the corners of the walls and hanging from the ceiling. Dust seemed to fill the very air, and there was a hole in the wall that I did not see from the window we were looking into. The hole led right to the outside, and it was big enough to let a medium sized dog in. Other than the sink on the opposite wall, there was no furniture or decorations to speak of. It was just an empty abandoned cabin. Why would someone bring lights here?

I turned and saw that both Ryan and Colt had followed me into the cabin. Both looked around briefly, and turned their attention back to the lights that glowed in the wooden floorboard area. Now that we were inside, it looked like there was a line in the floorboards, where the whole floor seemed to have been lifted up by an inch or two, creating a very dark gap. The rods looked jammed underneath this gap, and that tension was what held the lights up. The room where the lights were was filled with even more cobwebs and dust, so much so that the windows in the back of the room were almost black with built up grime.

“We are inside now, but I still don’t really know what I am looking at,” Colt whispered, staring up at the pretty orange lights. I stared with him, in awe at their glow. The pulsing of the lights almost made the two bulbs seem alive.

“I have no clue. They’re the weirdest looking things I have seen before. And did you notice the floor? It’s never been pulled up like that before,” Ryan mentioned.

“I know. Also, I didn’t notice any footprints in here, but the floor seems cleaner by the lights,” Colt added. I glanced down, and saw that he was right. The tiles where we were stepping were dusty to the point where our shoes were turning gray, but the wooden floor seems cleaner, like it had been wiped down.

“So… if there are no footprints, how did the lights get here?” I asked. I had been dazzled by the lights, but now I was beginning to feel uneasy.

“I first want to figure out what they are. I’m gonna go touch one,” Colt said.

“I wouldn’t” Ryan warned, looking uneasily between me and Colt.

“I will though. What’s the worst that can happen?” Colt scoffed, now striding up to the lights. He walked faster than I would have expected, probably to show that he wasn’t afraid. He stopped about a foot away from the lights, and began to reach out his hand to one of the poles. Ryan and I watched carefully, and then I caught movement right by Colt’s shoulder. One of the smaller crooked rods between the lights seemed to flinch, and curl closer to my friend.

“Colt, get away,” I hissed at him, my heart leaping to my throat at the sudden movement.

“What the heck is wrong,” Colt asked, sounding annoyed.

“The thing by you–” I started to say. But I didn’t get the chance to finish my sentence. At that moment, we heard a loud clicking, a sort of thunking noise underneath the floorboards. Colt flinched at the noise and started to back away. Before any of us could react, the floor seemed to burst open. I watched with widened eyes as everything seemed to go into slow motion. The floor didn’t burst apart. It flung open, like a hatch door. Underneath was a huge, hulking figure that struck forward, aiming right for Colt. When it made impact, I realized what it was.

It was a spider, but a massive one, one the size of a bus. As it moved, I saw that the lights we saw were actually attached to it, like feelers on its face. It had large bulbous eyes the size of basketballs, all eight of them reflecting the light of its feelers on their wet surfaces. Four huge legs darted out to lift the dark brown spider up, and huge thick fangs the size of tree trunks reached out. They snatched around Colt’s chest, and once contact was made, the spider retreated. It moved so fast, Colt seemed to snap in half from the force. It wasn’t until the monstrous spider had swiftly moved its way back under the floorboards that the screaming began.

I couldn’t tell my scream apart from Ryan’s, but I know Colt was louder, screaming so hard that his voice cracked from the high pitch. Colt’s scream cut out very quickly. Ryan and I started screaming louder, too afraid to stay in the cabin. I felt wetness on my face, stinging my eyes as I scrambled out of the cabin. I burst out first into the cold cool night air, and felt so woozy when I made it a few feet away from the cabin. Ryan hurtled past me, filling the air with his petrified yells. I stumbled to my knees behind him, the piercing cold of fear was making me feel so faint. I turned my head towards the old cabin again, wiping my eyes to see better. The lights from that thing were back in the cabin, back to flickering pleasantly away. No one would ever suspect just looking at that light, that it would be anything other than a sweet candle glowing in the window.