Anglerfish

The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window.

“Look,” said Suzie, pointing past the tree line. The trunks flew past as they rode, the headlamps on their bikes lit to show the way on the empty and long road. A faint light flickered in and out between them, easily missed if not for the deep dark of the moonless night.

Ella tilted her handlebars left and right in slow dips, making her bike ride in lazy loops along the width of the back road, the warm night air whistling in her ears and cooling the sweat on her hairline and at the small of her back. Summer had arrived like a swift punch, heavy and oppressive, so hot even the nights brought no reprieve. She and Suzie had sought shelter in the water, spending nearly every day of the school holidays hiding under the lake's surface, but even that was turning warm, only the depths remaining cold. They would challenge each other to dive down as far as they could and grab handfuls of cool mud to show proof they had made it.

That day, they had swum out further than they ever had before, near to the middle of the lake. Only Suzie had managed it, ascending from its deepness triumphant, a handful of mud and a coin clenched in her fist. Sometimes they would find treasures down at the bottom but this one had been Suzie’s favourite thus far; a plain round disc of rusted metal with what looked like the symbol of a snake eating its own tail engraved on the side.

“What’s that?”’ asked Ella, squinting at the treeline, the faint yellow coming and going from sight as they continued to ride, gravel crunching under their tyres. Her mother had consistently urged her to have her eyes checked, sure she needed glasses, but Ella couldn’t stand the thought of having to wear them, convinced she would look terrible. Suzie had said she would look cute, but Suzie was known to lie to make Ella feel better.

“It’s the cabin,” said Suzie, putting a foot to the ground and dragging it to slow her bike down. Her brakes had been broken all summer and the tread of her sandals were nearly worn away from the way she would stick her feet out to slow herself.

Ella continued for a few seconds before she realised that Suzie was no longer riding abreast and turned to look, seeing the headlight of her bike behind her. She turned her bike in a wide circle and made her way back, stopping next to Suzie, each facing different directions of the road. Suzie kept her eyes on the faint light in the trees.

“Suzie,” Ella, kicked her on the shin, sweat already beginning to break out on her skin without the breeze to cool her. The warm night air was like a blanket, covering them in velvety weight.

Suzie reached forward and turned off her bike's headlight.

“Suzie, come on,” Ella groaned, thirsty and hungry and hot, her mind on the casserole her mother had promised for dinner.

“Who do you think’s in there,” Suzie asked, climbing off her bike and resting it on its side. Her kickstand was broken too, and the metal of the bike was scratched and battered from constantly falling on the ground.

“Who cares,” sighed Ella, pushing off with a foot and riding her bike in circles around Suzie. “It’s probably some teenagers sneaking out to fuck. Let's go,”

“Who would choose that place to fuck? You’d get splinters in places the sun don’t shine,”

laughed Suzie, skittering across the road and standing in front of Ella’s path. She was going slow enough that she easily grabbed the handlebars, bringing Ella to an abrupt stop. She leaned eagerly over them, the headlight of Ella’s bike pressing to her abdomen and making the red of her swimsuit glow. “Let's check it out,”

“Suzie, no,” Groaned Ella but Suzie was already heading off into the trees, disappearing into the dark. “Suzie! I’ll leave you here!”

Suzie didn’t reply. Ella sighed and hopped off her bike, detaching her torch from the handlebars and running after her. She caught up quickly; Suzie was awkwardly clambering over sticks and weeds in the dark, arms held out in front of her.

“Maybe bring a light, dumbass,” Ella puffed and Suzie grinned at her.

“Yeah, that wasn’t my best idea,” they continued, the torch shone on the ground in front of them, the faint light in the distance growing closer with every step.

“Don’t you think it’s weird?” Suzie asked, holding Ella’s hand as she climbed over a fallen tree. Her hand was warm and sticky, clammy from the heat. Ella didn’t mind, holding it tightly to make sure Suzie didn’t fall. They were both breathing hard, more from the humidity than the walk. The night was full of the sound of cicadas, the entire forest alive with their humming, making the very air feel like it was vibrating. “Why would someone be out here? No one goes out here,”

“I don’t know. Drugs? Murder? Sex? A wild combination of all three?” Suzie laughed, dropping Ella’s hand. Their sweaty hands parted with a slick noise and they snorted at the sound.

“Maybe it’s the witch,” Suzie said, wiggling her fingers and digging them into Ella’s side.

“There isn’t a witch,” Ella rolled her eyes. “It’s an old logging cabin that’s falling apart. That’s just something they made up to stop kids coming out here and hurting themselves,”

“Well clearly it didn’t work,” Suzie said. “Because someone’s been there,”

Ella didn’t reply. She didn’t believe in witches or anything of the like, but she suddenly felt apprehensive, walking deeper into the embrace of the woods, the night so thick it almost felt like they were wading through water. She didn’t say anything; she had always been the crybaby, the wimp, the scaredy-cat. She was always behind Suzie, watching her back as she marched on ahead, bold and unafraid. She wanted to reach for her hand again, but then Suzie would know she was afraid.

Too soon, the light in the distance was no longer far away, but before them and the hard mass of the cabin was rising up before their path, sucking them in like a black hole.

She felt more than saw Suzie pause next to her.

“Turn off the light,” she whispered and Ella did as she said, flicking the switch on her torch. The darkness rushed in around them, embracing them with a swiftness that left Ella breathless.

“Look,” Suzie said and she didn’t need to say anything else. There was only one thing to see. In one of the broken and cracked windows of the cabin, a lone candle burned. The apprehension in Ella’s stomach heightened. She didn’t know why it frightened her, but it did, and she wanted nothing more than to turn and run back to her bike, not looking back.

‘Suzie,” she breathed. “Suzie, let’s go. We don’t know who’s in there. It could be -” she swallowed hard. She decided to stop pretending like it didn’t bother her and she grabbed Suzie’s hand, clutching tightly. “It could be drug dealers, or murderers or…I don’t know Suzie, but please let’s just go. Please, please, come on.”

Suzie didn’t look at her. Her eyes didn’t move from the candle in the window.

“Suzie,” Ella tried again and this time she felt Suzie turn. She could barely see her face, but she could feel the warm breath of her exhale across her jaw and neck.

“Go home then,” Suzie said and Ella blinked, tightening her grip on Suzie’s hand. “If you’re going to be such a fucking cry baby. Go home,” and then Suzie’s hand was gone from Ella’s and she watched, from the faint light of the candle as Suzie walked towards it, climbed up the front steps, opened the door and disappeared inside.

Ella couldn’t move. It was like the dark had become tangible, weighing her down, pressing her to the soft warm dirt of the forest. She realised she could no longer hear the cicadas, only her own harsh breathing in her ears.

“Suzie!” she shouted. Her voice trembled. Belatedly, she realised she was crying. “Suzie, come back!”

Suzie had never spoken to her like that before.

A sudden memory arose of last summer, on the day after Ella’s sixteenth birthday. They had been travelling back on the same road after another day at the lake, except the moon had been high in the sky, as full and heavy as a ripe fruit waiting to be plucked from the branch. They hadn’t bothered to turn on their headlights, trusting the moon to light their path.

It had been a mistake. Ella hadn’t seen the jagged rock sticking out from the gravel and had ridden straight into it, doing a full flip over the handlebars and landing awkwardly on her ankle. She remembered how she had cried, big, fat baby tears, feeling like a pitiful fool, her ankle throbbing painfully and the front tyre of her bike popped.

Suzie hadn’t been mean. Suzie was never mean. She had put Ella on the back of her bike and ridden them both all the way home, promising to come back for the other bike the next day. Ella could recall it so vividly, her arms tight around Suzie’s bony waist, face pressed to her shoulder blade, the dull ache in her ankle and on her shins where the skin had been scraped off. Suzie’s great gulping breaths as she battled against the weight of both of them while Ella had rooted desperately around in her backpack for her inhaler, worried that Suzie would have an asthma attack.

She had never felt safer than she had then, for those fifteen minutes on the back of Suzie’s bike in the moonlit night on some back road outside of town, just the two of them, flying through the air so fast it felt like they were going to take off and head straight into the big, bright moon.

They had made it home that night. Suzie had gotten them home.

Suzie didn’t have her inhaler. The cabin was dusty and dark and if Ella left now, Suzie could have an asthma attack and Ella wouldn't be there to put her on the back of her bike and carry her home.

In the window of the cabin, she saw a figure move and warp like water against the light of the candle.

She ran to the cabin, raced up the stairs and stepped through the door.

She didn’t know what she was expecting. Something from a horror movie, maybe, rusted meat hooks and surgical tools and an old operating table with restraints. It was just an old cabin. She was in a hallway with rotting and failing furniture, planks falling from the walls.

In the doorway to the left, a light glowed.

“Suzie!” she yelled, flicking on her torch and running to the door, wincing as the floorboards groaned and creaked beneath her sandalled feet.

Suzie wasn’t in there. The candle burned low on an old bookshelf, and in the broken shards of the window, it illuminated Ella’s reflection.

“Suzie,” she tried again, goosebumps breaking out of her skin. It was strangely cool inside the cabin. She felt exposed in only her bather’s and shorts, and she moved over to the candle, inspecting it. It was burned down at least halfway, wax dripping down onto the floorboards. A box of old matches sat next to it, slightly open. There was nothing else to indicate someone else had been there. When she shone her torch back towards the doorway, she could only see her own footprints in the dust.

The cold hand of fear gripped her again and she wiped furiously at the tears running over her face. She was sure she had seen Suzie in the window outside the cabin. But still, no matter how hard she looked, she could still only see her own footprints.

“Suzie!” she sobbed. “Suzie, this isn’t funny!”

The torchlight jumped from wall to wall as she sped back out to the hallway and blindly darted down it, pushing doors open wildly. It seemed impossibly long, stretching out ahead of her like a gaping maw. Suzie couldn’t have gotten far in the dark.

“Answer me, Suzie!”

Behind her, she heard the front door close.

“Suzie!” she sprinted back, shouldering open the door and tripping down the porch steps, just managed to catch herself before she fell to her knees. She breathed hard, squinting out into the trees. Somewhere in their depth, she saw a light.

Suzie’s bike headlamp.

Ella ran. Twigs and branches scraped and bit at her ankles and several times she nearly fell but she kept pushing, her fear urging her further, faster. She didn’t know how Suzie made it back to their bikes. She had no light, but she must have made it somehow. Ella felt something like relief as she ran, wanting more than anything to be back at the road and to see Suzie standing there, leaning against her bike.

But then she slowed. The light in the distance was clearer now. It was horribly familiar. And it wasn’t Suzie’s bike lamp.

“No,” she moaned, leaning her hands on her knees. “No,”

It was the cabin. The candle was lit, flickering in the window. Had she run in a circle, somehow?

She recalled something she had watched, some documentary she had seen about deep-sea creatures. There was a fish that lived down so far there was nothing but darkness, and they used light to lure in their prey. She couldn’t imagine living in the dark like that, no sun, no change, just the endless deep. It was the feeling she got, momentarily when she was diving down to the bottom of the lake to grab a handful of mud. For the briefest of moments, there was nothing but her and the abyss stretching out on all sides.

She understood how those fish might be lured in by the light.

In the window, she saw a figure move.

In the next heartbeat, she had raced up the porch and through the door, to the room with the candle.

“Suzie-” the room was empty. It was just the candle, burning on its lone perch. The dust on the floor was undisturbed. Not even Ella’s footprints marred it.

Behind her, she heard something like water hitting the wooden planks. She turned and saw Suzie standing in the hallway.

“Suzie,” Ella wept, pressing herself so tightly to Suzie that she felt like might pass through her. “Suzie, where were you?”

She pulled back and looked down at herself, feeling coolness bloom on her front. Her bathers and shorts were wet and when she shone her torch, Suzie glistened from head to toe. Her long hair was dripping water to the floor, her swimsuit sopping.

“Suzie, what-”

“Look,” Suzie said, grinning. She held out her hand; in her palm laid a handful of mud. Slightly sticking out, was the coin she had found earlier that day. “I made it to the bottom!”

Ella felt like she had been plunged down into the dark depths of the lake, cold rushing over her like liquid. Her hand that shone the torch shook; its light trembled and wobbled.

She squeezed her eyes shut against it, breath stuck solidly in her throat.

“I’m dreaming,” she whispered to herself. “I’m dreaming, this is a dream,”

She lifted the torch and smacked its end onto her head, grunting against the pain.

“Wake up,” she said and hit herself again. “Wake up, wake up, wake up,”

The last blow made her spin and when she opened her eyes, Suzie was gone. Water was pooled on the ground where she had stood, and Ella could see wet footprints receding down the hallway. Her torch shone down it but illuminated no end. Its black recesses swallowed the light like an open mouth.

“Suzie, wait for me,” she whispered and followed the footprints. The hallway seemed to go forever; Ella knew the cabin couldn’t be so big; that the further she went, the further she was going willingly into its trap. But she didn’t care. Suzie was down there.

When she turned, she could no longer see where she had come from, not even the light from the candle. Eventually, even the wet footprints dried and she was running alone, only endlessness before and behind her.

Until she was suddenly pulled up short, her torch catching a figure in the centre of the hallway.

Suzie was kneeling on the floor, facing away from her, back hunched.

“Suzie,” she said, slowly approaching. Suzie’s hair was longer, matted and tangled, her once vibrant red bathers dull and torn. Ella could see her spine and shoulder bones sticking out from her sallow and pale skin, emaciated and skeletal.

Suzie’s head twitched towards her voice; slowly she turned.

She looked dead. Her eyes stuck out from her gaunt face like glass marbles, skin receding and tight over prominent bones. Her mouth, jaw and neck were covered in slick blood.

“Ella,” she gurgled, teeth yellow. She recoiled from the light from the torch, shielding her face with her left hand. Her nails were long and jagged.

“God,” Ella said, feeling sick. She fell to the floor, knees jarring on the hard wood. “God, please, what happened, Suzie, what happened to you,”

“It’s been so long,” Suzie groaned. Her voice was horse and ragged. “I/ve been here so long, Ella. Why didn’t you come get me?”

“I’ve been looking,” sobbed Ella. “I’ve been trying to find you. I swear I didn’t leave you, it hasn’t been long, how…”

Suzie looked like she had been there for years.

“This hallway,” Suzie whispered. “It just keeps going. It never stops going. Please, I was so hungry…”

Something was in her lap. Too late, Ella saw the gaping darkness where Suzie’s right arm once had been.

“I was so hungry,” repeated Suzie, blood bubbling, as she raised her severed arm to her mouth and sunk her teeth in.

Ella screamed. She reared back onto her feet, horror pushing her like a wave and she fell backwards, expecting to fall onto the wooden floor behind her, but she kept falling, the air disappearing as water rushed in, sucking her down. When she opened her mouth it filled with liquid and she recognised the mineral, muddy taste of the lake.

Far above her, a body broke the surface of the water and moved down. Ella watched, lungs burning, as Suzie swam by, her hand stretched out before her. Metal glinted off the light of the torch down in the mud, and Suzie closed her hand around it before turning over and pushing off the ground with her feet, sending her shooting back up towards the surface.

Black spots danced in Ella’s eyes as she tried to follow, but the surface never came, and as she sucked in a great mouthful of water, she was suddenly flat on her back on the ground of the cabin, dry and gasping.

The coin. The coin.

To her right, a match lit.

She turned to see Suzie, the box in her hand as she leant over the candle in the window, holding the flame to the wick.

She looked normal again. Her arm was back on her shoulder and she was no longer skeletal, exactly as she had been before she had entered the cabin for the first time.

Ella scrambled, her knees scraping on the splintering and old wooden planks as she stood and went to Suzie, watching as the candle caught fire.

“I wanted to find out who had lit the candle,” Suzie said, blowing on the match to put it out. “Turns out it was me the whole time, Ella. I came here to find myself,”

“Suzie,” Ella said, patting her down with her hands. “Suzie, the coin. Where’s the coin?”

Suzie paused, then reached around to her back pocket. The coin shone in the candlelight, the snake eating its own tail seeming to move like it was alive.

“I’ve tried getting rid of it,” she said, laying it flat on her palm. “It always comes back,”

Ella placed her hand over Suzie’s, relishing in the warmth of her flesh. She turned their palms around, so that hers was on the bottom, and felt the coin fall into it. She took her hand away and tucked it into her bathers top.

“I’ll take it,” she said. “I’ll carry it for you, Suzie,”

“It’s starting again,” Suzie said, looking out the window. Ella followed her gaze; out in the woods, she could see a light approaching. It was her and Suzie, arriving that first time. “I can’t stop us,”

Ella leant forward and blew harshly, but the candle only flickered, the flame clinging to the wick. She tried again, then tried to place her fingers over the wick, but still, the fire burned. Suzie watched her, a pained expression on her face.

“I’ve tried. I’ve tried everything,” she said, leaning against the window, staring out. “Ella, we’re coming,”

“Not everything,” Ella said and grabbed the box of matches. The cabin was just dry and brittle wood. More than candles burned.

She took one out and struck it, holding it to a pile of dead leaves that had fallen in through the broken window. For a terrible second, nothing happened.

Then in a great rush, it lit up, crackling with brilliant heat and light.

Ella quickly grabbed a few handfuls of half-burned leaves by their stalks and held them under the dusty and old curtains, strange joy and satisfaction running through her as the fire climbed them, racing quickly up to the ceiling.

It spread faster than she had anticipated; in the new few seconds, the fire began to roar, devouring the dry old bones of the cabin.

“We’re here,” Suzie said and Ella grabbed her hand, pulling her away from the window. Through it, she briefly saw herself standing outside, eyes wide as the fire began to crackle and smoke.

“Not anymore,” Suzie held her hand back as they raced from the room, fire licking at their heels. Ella pushed Suzie through the door and outside, pausing on the threshold.

“Ella!” Suzie screamed.

Ella reached into her top and took out the coin. It burned her fingers, turning molten hot. The snake danced, its visible eye gold in the firelight. Ella threw it into the flames and turned away, sprinting down the steps and to Suzie.

She grabbed her hand and they ran.

Behind them, she could hear the inferno of the fire growing bigger, its great roar like that of a dragon. It lit up the night; turning the dark red and terrible, throwing dancing, writhing figures onto the trunks of trees, chasing them as they fled.

Ella held Suzie’s hand, dragging her through the trees, not stopping even when Suzie began to cough and lag, a heavy weight on her arm. It felt like a lifetime, the fire burning at her back before suddenly they crashed through the treeline and onto the road. Suzie collapsed beside her but Ella continued to her bike, pushing up the kickstand and jogging it over. She grabbed Suzie’s backpack and fished out her inhaler, pushing it into her hands, forcing her to use it.

“Get on my bike,” she said, wrapping her arms around Suzie and hauling her over, forcing her onto the seat as she made awful, wheezing noises in her ear. “I’m going to get us home,”

Ella jumped on and pushed off, pedalling harder than she ever had before. Suzie was a dead weight behind her, a hot and heavy line against her back, her chest jolting Ella with every pained breath. The fire had spread to the trees; Ella could feel its heat, vicious and brutal as it consumed all in its path.

“Hang on, Suzie,” Ella said, her voice snatched away by the speeding wind. Suzie seemed to hear somehow anyway; her hand moved from around Ella’s waist and clutched at her swimsuit, over her heart. Ella placed her own hand over it, and squeezed hard, trying to push her own life force through her flesh into Suzie’s. “Please, just hang on,”

They continued, a lone mass, flying into the black night, the endless before them and the ravenous, gaping mouth of hell behind.

Somewhere ahead, a light shone in the darkness.