Clara's Cabin

The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window. This was really odd considering there was no candle ever there before; burning or not. This place had been empty as long as I had known these woods existed. Did my eyes deceive me? The candlelight had drawn me in and before I knew it, I found myself tiptoeing across the front porch. I had to get a peek inside!

Slowly, I crept up to the window, but the candle burned so bright there was no way I could possibly see inside. Next thing I knew, my hand was turning the doorknob little by little. I couldn’t wrap my brain around why I was doing it either. This wasn’t in my nature. I am quite aware that curiosity had killed the cat, so why couldn’t I get past this need to see what is going on inside this cabin?! It was as if a force beyond my control was sucking me in, but that’s crazy, right?

The dead silence as I inched one foot through the door made me sick to my stomach. The energy inside was something I had never experienced before. No matter how much I wanted to turn around and run for my life, I just couldn’t. As I strolled across the living room, a colorful beam of light illuminated through the cracks of the kitchen door. These lights had an uncanny hold over my body; way more than my mind. Something inside me just couldn’t break away.

As I approached the kitchen, I started to hear an old song start to play. Then the voices. Laughter even broke through. This couldn’t be really happening, I thought to myself. I cracked open the door and was completely flabbergasted. It looked like what seemed to be a scene from the 1920s. This kitchen somehow wasn’t a kitchen, but a room with a stage and people partying all around. Now, I’ve been to this cabin with friends a lot. There was always a kitchen here, but not today.

“Hello?”, I said aloud, secretly hoping that this is the moment I would wake up and realize none of this is actually happening. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case. There I was standing in the middle of something straight out of the movies. Nobody acknowledged my greeting. I slid into a corner booth hoping to sit back and take everything in. Maybe that would give me some clue as to what is actually going on here.

I’m not sure if this cabin is a time portal of some sort at this point. Whatever this is, I’m here now and I’m not quite sure how to get back. I guess I better ask someone here what exactly this place is. Looking around the room, the friendliest, most sincere face belonged to the pianist. He was busy playing and singing amazing tunes for the audience. The music was beautiful. His voice was almost mesmerizing, but, hopefully, he will take a small break soon and I will make an attempt for some answers.

Once someone took notice of me, people from all around the room would stare at me sitting in the booth. They would walk by whispering and giggling. It made sense considering I was wearing a bikini top with jean shorts and only a Pink Floyd t-shirt with the sleeves cut off of it. I could put money that these people had no idea what a Pink Floyd t-shirt even is. They probably thought that I was some sort of alien or something. I could only imagine what they thought of my tattoos, but I was only supposed to be walking back to the campsite with some more sticks for our fire. Never in a million years would I ever imagine that this would be the outcome of my walk.

After about fifteen minutes of waiting, the pianist announced he was going to be taking a short break and thanked everyone for their patience before heading straight to the bar. This was it. This was my chance to speak with him. I almost sprinted towards the bar and just as I was about three feet away, the strap of my flip flop snapped off. That, naturally, sent me crashing down into table seven causing a humongous scene and everyone in the room to turn and stare at me. If they didn’t see me in the booth, they sure did see me now!

As I was trying to get myself up out of the pile of spilled cocktails and appetizers, I heard a man yell something. Thinking that I had misheard what he said, I turned to ask a woman standing there with the sheer look of shock, confusion, and what I can describe as no other than absolute fear across her face if she knew what he said. Before I could get a single word out, I felt two hands grab the back of my arms and lift me out of the sticky mess, but they didn’t put me back down on my own two feet. They were two men dressed in all black suits with dark glasses. I thought they were security guards of some sort, but still tried to fight my way free, of course.

All I can remember is a cloth and a strong, sweet smelling odor. Next thing I know, I am tied to a wooden desk chair. I was trying not to show anyone in the room how panicked I was inside. I have no idea what I got myself into, but I want to leave this demented “cabin” and go back to my Fourth of July Weekend Family camping trip. At this point, I’m thinking this is all a nightmare and I was already back at my campsite asleep in front of the fire. That is the only logical answer for all of this; except I can’t seem to wake myself up.

I tried to quietly free my hands from the arms of the chair, but that’s exactly what made the men stop arguing about me and notice I was awake now. They approached me quickly, but only one started to question who or what I was and all sorts of other questions. The other man had a twinge of fear in his eyes. I stared directly into them trying to break him and get him to somehow see I am harmless and let me go. That would be hard considering the guy who’s been yapping away this whole time seems to have all these crazy theories about me solidified into his head.

I was half listening while trying to intimidate the weaker of the two, but I heard some really crazy theories coming from this guy and none of them made an inkling of sense to me at all. First, he kept calling me Clara and I’ve never met anyone named Clara a day in my life. Then he kept implying that my “crazy get-up” must have been for tonight’s show and I can’t just go changing things in the show without telling anyone. As he was rambling on, I turned towards the mirror and saw the face of a teenage girl, no more than maybe nineteen. This unfamiliar face was wearing my clothes too. My tattoos were no longer visible on my skin. I could see them as I looked down at my body, though. I was starting to really get scared.

Just then, the weaker of the two men burst out into tears! He was sobbing things like, “Why did you have to do all of this?!”, and, “You could have come to us before you went to these extremes. You already had the part, dollface.”. I was completely befuddled as to what any of these things mean or why this man is so upset with whoever this Clara lady seems to be. Whatever she did, it did not seem good and they thought I was her! “You know EXACTLY what you did, Clara!”, the man screamed in utter disarray as he pulled open the closet door and a woman’s body fell to the floor with a loud thump.

I let out a wail like never before when the woman rolled over to reveal a shiny, silver object protruding from her chest. Inscribed into the metal were a few words, but I could only see, “Too My Deares…” from the angle I was sitting at; still tied to the chair. They think I did this to this woman. They think I am this Clara lady and, somehow, I have her face! I needed to break free and get as far away from this place as possible.

At that moment, I broke into a hysterical fit of laughter. The two men looked astonished as they tilted their heads, clearly thinking that I had gone completely mad. To my amazement, the man who was the original tough guy, the questioner, untied my hands and went to pick me up from the chair. That was the biggest mistake of his life! Instantaneously and with every fiber of strength within my body, I kicked the man dead center of his groin area followed by an uppercut and me grabbing his gun as it fell to the floor.

I shot the other man in the foot and darted towards the door, barefoot, as fast as humanly possible. I made sure to keep my gun drawn the whole time, sweeping the room and making my way to the exit. As I warped through whatever crazy kind of portal this is, I was back in the dusty, old cabin. I looked down at my hand and the gun was gone. It was merely a curved stick. It was really dark in the cabin too. The candle that had originally drawn me in was gone and the only light I saw was daylight shining through the curtains. Apparently, I was stuck in a murderer’s body in some alternate universe all night.

It was time to get out of the cabin before anything else could happen. As I ran through the door and back out into the woods, I saw my friend, Annette, from a distance. Somehow, I made it back to camp; back to my world. “Where were you all night, Kate?”, she said with a smirk. This girl was always thinking I’m up to something she doesn’t know about. I told her I fell asleep on the swing on the front porch of the old cabin in the distance when I stopped to rest. That’s when she said the most shocking thing I had ever heard in my life:

She turned, appearing almost pale, and said, “The haunted cabin?! Don’t you know about that place? It was some sort of speakeasy back in the day where a famous showgirl went crazy trying to make it as the only big name around and started killing off her competition. She completely lost her mind. When she was caught, she went crazy trying to say she wasn’t really her and that she was possessed. The ghost supposedly took over her identity. They didn’t believe her, so they killed her; right then and there. Except, it was indeed her who killed the other performers. Now, every year on the anniversary of her death, she lores campers in by a single candlelight. They take on Clara’s identity in the eyes of all of the unearthly souls attending that night. An identity that ultimately ends their lives. No one ever gets to leave once they are pulled in.”.

To this day, I was the only camper to ever make it out alive when I had my encounter with Miss. Clara and that otherworldly cabin back in 2003. I have no idea what was so different about me that protected me that night, but whatever it was, I am grateful. I haven’t told my story to anyone. Now that my family is camping in these woods again, I needed to make it known that this is where the missing camper’s that vanish yearly more than likely ended up.

The haunted cabin is the one about twenty-five, maybe thirty, feet straight down that path behind me. There is never anything displayed in the windows, especially not a candle; let alone a burning one. So remember, if you ever see a light coming from that direction, do not look directly towards it or it will suck you in. Once it does, you may never be seen again.