Just In Time

The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window. “That can’t be safe,” Jack thought. Since he’d recently received his eagle scout fire safety badge, he figured he should investigate. Jack wondered over to the old, worn-down cabin. The rails shook, and the stairs creaked beneath the weight of his favorite all-terrain boots as he made his way to the front door. The wood was rotting from years of neglect and the moss growing on the roof in patches reminded Jack of the lily pads he and father used to see on the pond they fished at, when life was good, before the incident. 

“Hello”, Jack shouted, his voice still cracking as he just hit that awkward stage for young boys, not quite the sound of a man but not the same pitch as your little sister anymore. He tapped on the door and tried to shout a little louder, but to no avail. “Darn puberty,” he thought to himself. “I’ll just go in, blow out the candle, right back out and they will be none the wiser”. Jack hurried into the cabin, went over to the window, and blew out the candle. Satisfied with himself, he turned to leave, but he froze in his tracks at what he saw. The inside of the cabin looked nothing like Jack assumed, while the outside of the shack was old and decrepit, the inside looked like a place Jack knew intimately, a place he loved and had a lot of fond memories but also a place of darkness where unspeakable terrors took place. Jack had to wipe his eyes once, twice and then a third as he looked on the ground and saw his favorite baseball glove, the one signed by Joe Johnson, his stash of comics, his skateboard and more of his favorite things all around.

 “How could this be? What is going on” he said to himself. Then he smelled it, a smell he could never forget, a smell father also loved because he said it reminded him of a perfume mother used to wear when they first met, the smell of her blueberry waffles floating in from a kitchen that should not be there. His first instinct was to run out that door faster than Joe Johnson rounding first base, but he couldn’t. One of his favorite things was when he would get up before the other children on a Saturday morning and helped mother with those delicious circles of delight, but that was before, before the incident. So even though he knew he was probably losing his mind or hallucinating from those suspect berries he ate in the woods earlier, he had to look. 

Nervously, he walked into the kitchen behind something that looked like and sounded like his mother humming a tune he could never quite remember the name of. But when it turned its head and whispered, “Just in time,” Jack’s vocal cords must have matured right at that second because he screamed loud enough to wake the dead. It had a face so pale and devoid of blood it was almost translucent. Mothers’ iridescent baby blues were replaced by crimson red, veiny bulbs that looked as if they would burst out of the socket any second. Blood burst from the slash in its neck onto the ground with the power of a firehose, making jack slip and fall as he turns to run to escape this madness. With “mother” slowly slithering closer to him shrieking, “My baby, my baby!” He tries to get up and regain his balance only to fall again and again, his legs failing him, as they often did as they did during the incident. Using all the strength he can muster, Jack finally pulls himself up by the handle on the kitchen door. 

Drenched in blood like a slaughtered pig, he runs towards what he hopes is freedom from this living nightmare, but again he froze, frozen by a voice coming from his far left even more terrifying than the shrills of that beast pretending to be mother. The muffled, gargling screams of brother, the screams Jack heard once before and never wanted to hear again. “Help me Jack, Brother please save me!” Jack trembled as he heard his little brother’s cries for help. “Why is this happening?” Jack wailed. “This can’t be real!” sobbing uncontrollably, snot pouring down his face, mixing with the tears streaming out of eyes that were almost as red and bulging as the monsters’ from the kitchen.

He was so terrified every hair on his body stood at attention and he had goosebumps the size of raspberries, but he had to turn and look. What if he could do something this time? The brave eagle scout turned his head ever so slowly to his left and the scene was more frightening than he imagined. There was brother suspended in midair, his head being dunked repeatedly by the demonic version of mother, in what seemed like an ocean of water somehow in the middle of this house of horrors. “My baby, my baby!” it screamed repeatedly and even louder than before. Each time making Jack’s ears pulse with pain as if a hundred fingernails were scratching across a chalkboard. “I’m coming brother!” Jack tried to run to his brother, but the floor of the cabin felt like quicksand under his trusted boots. Slowly, step by step, in what seemed like hours, he finally reached them. 

But now, instead of screaming, crying, and the hideous sound of the monster’s voice, there was a deafening silence. He looked over Mother’s shoulder and could see his brother floating there. So peaceful, so still, he reminded Jack of that creepy Punctuality Paul doll his grandmother gave to mother right before the incident. Just as Jack snapped back and got his wits about him, the monster reached out and grabbed him and whispered, “Just in time.” 

“How’s he doing today?” the orderly asked Mr. Martin. “Same as before,” he replied. “I thought if I brought some of his things up here, it might jar something in him, but all he does is stare at that portrait of that cabin on the wall.” The orderly looked at the comics and baseball gear strewn all over the room, bemoaning to himself, “I guess I’ll be the one cleaning this up later.” “Anyway, can you wheel Jack out to the front?” Mr. Martin asked,” we’re taking a trip today.” Twenty minutes later, Jack and his father were traveling down the road. This was the first time he had taken jack out of the hospital since they admitted him last month after the incident. That tragic incident.

 The look of absolute terror on Jack’s face will always be etched into his memory, when he came into the house and saw him shuddering in the corner, bloody knife in his hand, bloodier mother sprawled on the floor in front of him. His brother was screaming for him to help, Jack explained to him, but ever since he had gotten Multiple Sclerosis, he could barely move quicker than a snail’s pace on some days. When he got to the bathroom, it was to late to save his brother,and his mom reached out to finish him next. So he dug his thumbs as deep as he could into her eyes until she screamed a terrifying sound. He slid down the stair railing and crawled into the kitchen, he could hear her coming, screaming, “My baby, my baby!” The kitchen door flung open, she rushed in and that’s all he said he could remember. “Those are the last words I’ve heard my son say.” Mr. Martin thought.

He blamed himself for all this. The doctor told him the postpartum psychosis after his wife gave birth to and subsequently lost their daughter could be bad, but he didn’t listen. Her mother thinks some evil spirit possessed her. Mr. Martin laughed at the thought. His mother-in-law has always been a strange bird. His wife told him she used to do all kinds of strange rituals when she was growing up. “Evil spirits,” he scoffed to himself.

A horn blast from behind snapped Mr. Martin out of his trance. “How long has this light been green?” he pondered. “We’re almost there Jack. I figured since you’ve been staring at that cabin portrait at the hospital, you want to go to a real one.” As they arrived at their destination and Mr. Martin helped his son out of the car, Jack got an uneasy feeling as they creaked up the steps. This cabin looked eerily familiar to him. “Huh, you smell that?” His dad asked, “It smells just like your mother's old perfume.” Jack now petrified as he looked over to the window with eyes as big as saucers where their host was lightning a candle. Mr. Martin walked over to him and said, “I hope we’re not late. The traffic was hectic.” The host looked back as he gave a sinister grin and shut the door. He whispered, “You're just in time.”