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Frozen in Place

Jake and Mandy, both cousins, share their personal tale of a creepy lakeside cabin encounter with family friends that has left them shaken still to this very day. A tale no one around the campfire can top.

By M.K. SholundPublished 2 years ago 10 min read
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"The Coleman Cabin"

“The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window,” I started re-counting the story of what happened to my cousin Jake and me to our neighbors. The neighbors are family friends to our family for generations who owned a cottage to the left of our cabin, on Cold Water Lake in Pennsylvania. It was common for them to come over after dinner as we all sat around the roaring campfire with a great view of the lake and shoot the breeze. The smell of charred apple wood and smoke had always been my favorite aroma.

“Jake and I never talked about this because our parents still don’t know about it, so if you don’t mind keeping this on the down low since they turned in early, that would be great. So anyway, I saw the light first that July evening. Jake here and I were catching lightning bugs I think. Or maybe playing flashlight tag while your parents and mine were at the fire pit.”

“I vaguely remember that night we were having a firefly catching contest, Mandy.” Recalled Jake.

“You’re probably right. Regardless, I jabbed Jake’s upper arm to get his attention and pointed towards the that old dilapidated log cabin on the peninsula. He saw it too - the light that is and we practically had to pick our mouths off the ground.”

“I am still amazed that rustic log cabin is still hanging on to this day.” Becky stated outloud, one of the neighbors around the campfire that evening who is a few years older than Jake and I who are now in our late twenties. “This is the same one that is set back a ways from the water, right? The spooky old Coleman Cabin? It’s usually hard to see shrouded by towering trees, overgrown evergreen shrubs, and weeds by the shore.”

“Yup, that one. So, we ended up following the path along the shoreline collecting lightning bugs and I saw light…”

“It was beyond eerie. I still get goose bumps thinking about it,” Shared Jake. “You know how people around here claim the place gives them the creeps, as if they were being watched yet no one is there. Well, it was like that light gave my goosebumps, goosebumps”.

Everyone around the fire laughed but once we settled down I continued on. “Uncle Robby’s account was my favorite story about that place. Jake and I were little when he told us about the time he went hunting one day and came upon the cabin tracking a deer that went through the property. Uncle Robby, you know, Jake’s dad, said the woods grew eerily quiet the moment he saw the cabin. It took him a while to muster enough courage to walk up to the front of it and then looked inside the window, dirty and covered in dust. He said he couldn’t see much, but the daylight revealed several dead birds and feathers on the floor near the window. Uncle Robby painted this crazy picture of how it looked like some birds tried to get out through the window but died due to the trauma. I thought it was bizarre that birds were able to get in, but guessed somehow they got in through the chimney and thought the only way out was via the main window. Regardless, Uncle Robby said he didn’t stick around. He ran away and never looked back. He swore he would never go back and made Jake and I promise to never go over there.”

“According to our grandparents, a young married couple by the name of Charlie and Rose Coleman bought the property and built the cabin from scratch using the lumber from the trees around here. One of the first cabins built on this lake,” shared Becky. “One winter there was a horrible blizzard and Charlie’s wife became sick with a fever so he left to get help and supplies from town. A light was left in the window to help him find his way back due to the snowstorm. Sadly, Charlie never made it back and was found dead frozen in place, huddled against a tree a few days later. Rose remarkably recovered from the fever, but when she learned of her husband’s death, she fell into a deep depression and one day just disappeared. Our grandparents believed she committed suicide and drowned in the lake, but no body was found. To this day no one knows what happened to her, but occasionally we do hear locals talk about seeing a light in a cabin window believing it is the ghost of the wife hoping her husband will come back home.”

“Sounds like the same exact story my parents and our grandparents told us!” I exclaimed then asked, “Did you; you know, ever go over there?”

“Once, but didn’t stick around long enough to experience anything. The moment I stepped onto that property I got the heebie jeebies and just left.” Becky revealed.

“Well, Jake and I had our minds set on going to check out the light and told our parents we were going to keep catching lightning bugs but will stay close to the shore so they could see us. For us, staying close to the water gave us the best view of the light, especially if it went out.”

“Mandy, do you think our parents saw the light that night too?” Jake asked as he thought back to that evening.

“I am pretty sure they were too busy carrying on with Becky’s folks, to even notice,” I surmised.

“That sounds about right,” acknowledged Becky as the rest of her family nodded, clinked bottles of beer, then laughed. “I never got the impression that our parents never worried about us here. Nothing ever happened except a drowning once before I was born.”

“So back to the story…. we continued catching lightning bugs until we got pretty close to the property. That was when things took a weird turn. Not only did I get the hebbie jeebies, as you put it Becky, but I got the freakiest chill. Now, in case I didn’t say this before and correct me if I am wrong Jake, it was a warm summer evening, but the moment we crossed onto the Coleman property I got chills. As in the temperature dropped at least twenty degrees.”

“I don’t know about twenty degrees but yes, it definitely was instantly colder. Goosebumps on goosebumps! It’s the only way I can describe it.”

This time Jakes statement didn’t get laughs, but instead looks of intrigue.

“The light,” continued Jake, “was still in the window and being closer to the cabin by that point it honestly looked like a lit candle stick mostly steady with some flickering.”

“Could’ve been teens playing or squatters,” said a low voice of doubt from Hank - a distant relative of the neighbors staying just for the weekend.

“I kinda thought that,” I acknowledged as I then looked at Hank, “but, ruled it out as the cabin appeared to be sealed shut. With the heat, no one - teens or squatters, would have been able to last minutes without having the windows open. Plus you’d hear something like talking or even animal noises if raccoons broke in. But all we heard were crickets and bullfrogs from the lake and an occasional loon call or hoot from an owl. That was until we started hearing whimpering.”

“It was quiet at first. Definitely a female, but couldn’t tell if it was a young or old. But it definitely came from the cabin. Then it grew louder and more blubbery. Weepy with sniffles. I can still hear it in my head.”

“I tell you it sounded like grief. It was then Jake and I thought ‘oh my God. It’s her. The wife. It’s the ghost!’ I even mouthed those words to Jake. So there we were, a few steps from the cabin, when I saw something white pass in front of the window moving left to right. I shit you not.”

“I saw it too,” Jake backed me up, “I wish I hadn’t. This form was all white, glowing, and definitely solid. My brain said run but my feet wouldn’t move. I was frozen in place, heart nearly pounding out of my chest.”

“Me too. I have never felt my heart race so fast. I even thought I am too young to have a heart attack and being young and naive, I was convinced that’s what was happening. And if that wasn’t the worst part, a full minute after we saw the white thing, we heard a female wail loudly and in the window the white figure appeared again, but this time I could see her face - a straight up skeleton face! Boney…”

“Yeah a freakin skull, only a few wisps of hair and it was like she was wearing a shroud or hood. I didn’t see anything else, because my legs and feet were working and I just ran.”

“Yes. A skull - all white and that scream came from that skull. All I could think of was ‘Run. Run now. Run fast’. We both took off like our lives depended on it and behind us we heard another wailing scream. Just as I heard that scream and, now a few yards away from the cabin but still on the property, I fell. Well, tripped as my foot was ensnared by roots from the overgrown trees on the property. I dropped the jar of lightning bugs in the process but at that point I didn’t care. I just scrambled to tug and expand the roots enough to free my sneakers, slightly twisting my ankle in the process. Once free, I pushed off from the ground to get back up and didn’t stop running until we got back to the cabin.”

“To this day, our parents swore we looked white as sheets as if we had seen a ghost. It took us a while to compose ourselves but we never told them we were over there. We couldn’t imagine the punishment if they knew the truth.”

“I recall saying something like ‘we came across a really big snake and it really scared us’. I don’t think they would have believed us if we told them what we really saw,” added Jake then mimicking his dad, “Ghost stories are just that, stories, they’re not real.”

“Jake and I killed the festivities around the fire pit that night. Your folks and our family all went inside. As I was taking my sneakers off I found this in my shoe…. I have held onto it this whole time.” I reached into my pocket I took out an object the size of a nickel. I passed it around the campfire. Each person had the chance to inspect it.

“”It’s a locket!” Becky exclaimed when it came around to her. She leaned over the campfire so the light could aid her in seeing the details. She then proceeded to describe what she was able to make out some of the details. “The two pictures inside are pretty faded. Bummer. It’s sweet though. Probably gold. Ooh! I think there’s letters on the back. It’s pretty scratched though. I can make out a C. I think the letters are RC. Yup, an R and a C. Wait! Like Rose Coleman?!”

“Maybe? I think it stands for Rose Coleman too.”

“So, hear me out. If a locket is meant to be worn around the neck, why would it be randomly on the ground?”

“I know where you might be going with that, Becky, but no. I am not going back. Haven’t been back. Whatever caused me to trip will have to remain a mystery. I just don’t want to know. It is better left buried.”

The locket finally made it back to me. The group sat in silence for a long time just watching the flames of the fire dance orange and yellow with a few pops and sparks. Then Jake broke the ice, “So, anyone else have a good ghost story to share?”

Horror
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About the Creator

M.K. Sholund

I love writing flash fiction and finished my first suspense novel, “Buried Secrets on Darbytown Road”. I am also presenter and president of the Carroll County Chapter Maryland Writers Assocation. Visit my website via www.mksholund.com!

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