To Dispel the Unknown

The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window. Leaves crawled through the wind like roaches beneath the rotten dark, and curtains of moonlight descended through the trees. Through the bushes the wind sang: “Daah… Ahd… Heeeeeeeee…” The candle’s light waivered.

We are drawn to the light because we believe it will dispel our darkness. We fear what lingers unknown, out of our sight. And yet, in the light is when we are most vulnerable. In the light, we feel safe, as if nothing can happen to us. But that wasn’t true for Nathan Gray, and I’m sure it isn’t true for you either.

Picture an ordinary man; any will do, after all, Nathan Gray was a normal human just like you and me. By day, he worked as an office manager on the 52nd floor of Yaryx Industries; by night, he thirsted for adventure. He consumed far too many horror stories, exposed himself to far too many gory movies. Perhaps unlike you and me, he loved the taste of salted dried apricots, and he frequented the gym. On weekends, he hiked a popular trail a mile from his one-bedroom apartment; he often took detours from the marked path, to satiate his thirst for adventure. It’s along these excursions that he felt the most peaceful, listening to the birdsong as it trailed through the forest.

Winter, it was, and warmer than usual; today’s walk felt like an afternoon stroll in a dying summer’s breeze. But winter brings with it a night that rushes up to steal away the day’s light. Nathan Gray, caught up in the mild day, forgot this. Ghostly moonlight descended through the trees, lighting his way. It cast odd shadows, and the forest looked different than when he entered. A familiar sight ahead greeted him: an old cabin, shaped like an “L” with a single small room on the second story. Under the weight of decades of pine needles, the roof drooped, the deck rotted. The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but this night, a candle burned in the window.

Nathan Gray stared curiously at it. From behind the wind pressured him forward; it sang a ghostly wail through the bushes, whispered in his ear: “Daah… Ahd… Heeeeeeeee…”

Who would leave an open flame in the middle of a forest, within the walls of a wooden cabin?

The candle’s light waivered as he approached. He tried the door, but it was locked.

Should he break the window? It’s dangerous to leave a candle aflame in the woods.

Crunch.

Nathan turned. He looked left, then right. The curtains of moonlight shimmered like ripples on a lake, leaves crept through the wind, and shadows danced just out of sight.

“Hello?” He called.

Ba-dum… Ba-dum… Ba-dum… Are those footsteps?

Crunch….

Crunch.

There’s some animal out there.

Not knowing what lurks out of his sight, Nathan Gray tried the door a second time. Clouds covered the moon as he tugged, tugged, and tugged. The once glimmering moonlight that cascaded through the forest vanished, and in its wake was nothing but darkness.

Grrraaaaa-

He turned around, looking behind him.

-AAAAACKOOOOM!

Electricity raced across his spine, his back. Pressure forced him to the forest ground.

Crunch. Ba-dum… Ba-dum… Ba-dum…

Something heavy rested against Nathan’s back. He tried to rise but failed to get his arms beneath him. His breathing was fast, a rabbit awaiting the hunter’s claws; the old wooden door had fallen from its hinges and held him momentarily captive.

CRACK!

Wait… was that nearby? Farther away? Nathan pushed against the door and pulled himself free. A moan rose from the cabin before him. Every hair on Nathan’s body stood up; louder and louder the noise grew. In the direction of the cabin, a large dark shape rushed toward him. He barely had time to move…

Before the rotten doorframe crashed down on top of the door.

What’s that? Behind him? Heavy footsteps pound into the soil, a bear maybe?

There was no space in Nathan’s mind to analyze. He pushed his way into the rotten cabin. A large, dark outline sits just inside the door. What is it? Nathan reached out and pat his hand on it.

Smooth. Scaly. Cold. Damp.

He yanked his hand back in fright.

Skrrr-CRASH! Something has fallen from the shape in front of him. Behind comes an awful crunch as twigs snap. The entrance to the cabin stood wide open, a gaping maw leading to the creature outside.

Daad… heeee… Sang the wind outside.

No, not the wind, a voice… it was a voice!

Nathan looked down. A lamp lay shattered on the rotten wooden floor. Not scales, what he felt was dust. In front of him, it must be a piece of furniture.

Badum! Badum! Badum! Something out of his line of sight ran toward him, he’s sure of it this time!

Nathan grabbed the side of the furniture; it felt wet and slimy. Beneath his hand something moved. He ignored it and pulled, hard.

SkkkkkKKKKKKK! It slid across the moss-covered floorboards loudly. With a final shove, he blocked the cabin’s entrance. Nathan backed toward the lit candle and waited for his eyes to adjust.

An old dusty desk sat against the open doorway; slugs marched up the side. Three rooms lay within the cabin: the narrow entrance opened after a few feet to a larger living space with a rotten couch, moth-eaten drapes hung tattered over the windows, afar the back wall there was a fireplace covered in moss, and something that may have once been a rug was sprawled in the middle. There was a staircase missing most of its steps along the wall with the nestled candle, and to the right, between the staircase and the firepit, there lay a door. It led to the bottom of the “L” shape in the cabin. On the opposite side, there was a door rotten off its hinges that led to a filthy kitchen, it lay behind the wall of the entryway.

Near this rotten door, there was a light switch. A shake of his head, a few steps, and Nathan stood before it. He tried the switch.

Light flooded the abandoned cabin. Nathan blinked away his surprise. Who still paid the electricity bill here? How is it the lights work even though the rest of the cabin rotted away?

And as he turned back to the living room, a new thought came to him: had there been any visible lights in the cabin aside from the old lamp?

He took in the cabin as it sprawled before him. Everything was clean and perfect. The walls no longer rotted; the floor no longer caved. The moth-eaten drapes were colorful and hung romantically around the windows, a couch once marred now lay cheerfully on an ornate rug. Nathan looked to the entryway.

That rotten door had been replaced; the desk moved back against the wall. The only thing that remained unchanged was the candle, still flickering in the window.

How’s this possible?

He tilted his head side to side and stepped around the space.

Wait… what’s this? One by one, the hairs on the back of Nathan’s neck rose up like blades of grass. This feeling…

It’s the feeling of being watched.

He span fast on his heels, he searched out every window. All he saw was the reflection of the cabin’s interior, flashing with the warm light from within. Eyes as slits, he squinted, trying to make out any discernable shapes.

He saw nothing but the reflections from inside.

His heart pounded ferociously within his chest like a tiger in a tiny cage. A thick swallow worked down his throat as he walked to the nearest window. Nathan cupped his hands to better see through the pristine glass. It was hard to see, something pale took up a majority of the window. An open hole, a triangular point in the middle…

And two eyes.

A face. Nathan Gray stared at a face just outside the window.

BANG! Nathan stumbled back in shock as the person outside pounded on the window.

Bang! Bang! Bang! The other windows rattled. Nathan looked at each trembling window in terror. He ran to the door and pulled hard.

It was locked; he tugged, tugged and tugged, but the door didn’t budge.

And then, the screams started. All of them, screamed, a shrill cry that rose on every side of Nathan Gray. His chest was tight, his throat swollen; he’d never felt more terrified in his life.

CRASH!

It came from the kitchen. One of them had broken the window.

Nathan ran to the stairs.

Crrrck! The window right beside the bottom of the stairs cracked inward, a hand grabbed Nathan’s arm.

Ice crawled up his veins; their hand, it froze him to his bones with just a touch. Nathan pounded his other hand against the intruder’s grip, but they only tightened their hold. He pushed hard on the veins just below their wrist, forcing them to loosen their grip just enough to yank his hand free.

They snatched aggressively at him, but Nathan Gray fled up the stairs, to the sheer darkness of the single small room on the second story.

What’s it like friend, sitting completely alone in the darkness? For poor Nathan Gray, it felt like being underwater in a jet-black ocean waiting to drown.

Please… he begged. Don’t find me.

Ba-dum… Ba-dum… creeeeaaaak… Ba-dum…

Footsteps, coming up the stairs. Nathan raised his head, staring intently at the stairwell from the corner he hid in; some faint shapes greeted his eyes around the room. A baby crib, a changing table, some gentle toys, he crouched next to a wooden toybox.

Something caught his attention, by the second story windows.

Pale. Fuzzy. Three holes, two above and one below.

In the windows of the second story are more faces, their eyes missing from their sockets, their faces caving inward.

No… please… Nathan whined.

Ba-dum… Ba-dum… Ba-dum…

How many steps were on that staircase? How close do they draw now?

The faces in the second story window wailed; they shift side to side like ghosts. Nathan stared at them, heart pounding, breath quickened.

Ba-dum… Ba-dum… Ba-dum… creeeeeeaaaaak.

On the landing, they’re on the landing now!

Creak… creak… oooooooowwooooo… The hollow faces outside cooed; their claws gripped at the windows.

Into the room the man walked, tall and gaunt like a starved animal. He looked to the right, then to the left…

And his gaze settled on Nathan Gray.

That’s when Nathan remembered the watch on his arm, a fitness tracker. It gave off a faint light; in the darkness, a faint light is all one needed to see.

Creak. The man stepped in Nathan’s direction. Ooooowwoooooo… the ghastly faces cried. Skkkkkkk! Their claws scratched the glass windows.

“N… No…” Nathan moaned. He pressed his back against the wall.

Breath ten.

Ba-dum… A ghostly woman appeared at the top of the steps, followed shortly by another man.

Breath nine.

Nathan leapt over the toybox and tried to run past the gaunt creatures on the stairs. They snatched his arms.

Breath eight. Breath seven.

He kicked and shouted as their grip froze him. The man wrapped his hands around Nathan’s neck, the woman moved her hands to Nathan’s face.

“No!” Nathan rasped through the restricting hand around his neck.

Breath six.

The woman’s gnarled fingers pressed into Nathan’s eyes; the man in the room walked closer.

Nathan can’t breathe. He pulled at the fingers around his neck as pain shot through his skull, his eyes. He loosened the man’s grip just enough to catch his breath.

Breath five, breath four.

“AAAAUGH!” He wasted those few breaths as the woman’s fingers entered his eyes. A bite comes against his arm, sharp teeth gnashed within his flesh.

Breath three.

She popped Nathan’s eyes from his head, and he saw no more.

Breath two.

The hand tightened sharply around his neck. Breath one.

His last breath, his final moments.

They feasted on his flesh, pulling and tearing at his innards. Nathan Gray, unable to breathe, was still alive for this. In the flickering light of the candle it happened, from the supposed safety of the lights below. The only witness to the horrible crime was young teenage runaway Kaydee, who’d seen the light from the cabin three miles away and mistook it for the nearby town. Kaydee, whose curiosity got the best of her, and wandered within the cabin, who turned the light on first that night. She’d witnessed the odd transformation of the cabin, but she was too afraid to approach the windows when the hairs rose on her neck. Kindred Kaydee, who raced up the stairs and hid within the closet, unable to free herself from this pocket dimension.

Until Nathan Gray entered the fray.

Kaydee, only thirteen, watched in horror as Nathan’s body was torn apart, listened as he screamed. Kaydee, who is much like you and me…

A human.

It started subtly, with a cold air overtaking the cabin. A dampness returned to the wood, one drop at a time. It brought with it moss that grew from between the cabin’s old boards, and then came a sound:

Grrrrraaaaaaaaaaahhhh…

Kaydee shuddered in terror, she put her hands over her ears.

Craaaaaaaaaaaa…

Why did it sound so close? Had they found her? It sounded like it came…

From beneath her feet.

Kaydee looked down in terror, and then… her body became weightless. Lightning raced through her veins. What’s happening? Did they find her? Is this where she dies?

She realized a second before her body crashed into the boards of the first story, that she was falling. Her head slammed against the old rotten couch, her legs fallen through the rotten wood below. A cascade of rot, moss and rusted nails came down on her like an acid rain. Every inch of her hurt; the cabin was dark save for the candle in the window.

I must leave… She thought. Dazed and confused, she crawled to the window where the flame still burned. With a shaking hand, Kaydee pushed the candle to the mossy ground and extinguished it. Beneath the desk she crawled, and over the fallen door. The night was nearly gone. She wandered through the forest, the wind whispered in her ear: daah… dheeeeee… Leaves crept across her body, sticks pulled at her bare ankles.

Voices. Gruff voices, somewhere ahead.

She hid in the darkness and covered her ears. Lights flashed in the distance; dogs barked. Hands snatched her, and she screamed.

“Found her, we found her!” Someone announced.

Kaydee opened her eyes to bright lights flashing in her face. “T… Turn off your light! They can see it, they can see it for miles! Through windows, through trees! They see, they know!”

“What’s she talking about?”

“She’s just scared.”

“Turn off your light!” Kaydee begged.

“Have you contacted her parents?”

“Please! They’ll find us!”

And on the wind came a familiar call: “Daddy…”

“They’re here! Turn off your light!” Kaydee screamed.

“Hey, calm down it’s just the wind.”

“They tore him apart, they found him because of his light!”

Now she had their full attention.

“Who?”

“The man in the cabin… they tore him apart, they ate him!”

“Where? Can you show us?”

Kaydee pointed the way she came; to her shock, a flame flickered in that direction, a light in the darkness.

The cabin in the woods was abandoned, but this night, a candle continued to burn in its window.

“Take her home, we’ll take a look.”

Wrapped in a blanket, the officer picked her up.

“Don’t turn the lights on!” Kaydee screamed. “Don’t turn them on! They’ll see you! They’ll know!”

The officers head to the cabin heedless of her words. We are drawn to the light because we believe it will dispel the unknown. We fear what we cannot see, and believe that if we have our sight, we can best prepare ourselves for danger. And yet, it’s in the light when we are most easily seen by others. In the light, those who choose to hide in darkness can see us clearly.

I think it would be best to turn the lights off now. After all, they can see you even if you can’t see them.