Melody

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

It was an insignificant, unsightly cabin; listing haphazardly to the left with rotted frames and a moss-smothered rooftop, it hunched in the tenebrous overgrowth, silent and stoic. Draped in long tendrils of curling ivy, its moldering face stared out into a cluttered forest, waiting for an unfortunate hiker to stare back.

Few rarely did; none of the Sterling Forest State Park trails lead past the cabin, and to stumble upon it meant hiking through densely tangled (and often prickly) foliage that was likely to hide long stretches of mucky swampland or copperhead snakes. Even the most accomplished of hikers would find themselves pausing against a tall oak to contemplate heading back in the direction they’d come, toward less daunting terrain. Only those who had heard the cabin’s call- a siren’s whisper that drifted along on a passing breeze- could endure the treacherous journey in its entirety, seeking the source of the mesmeric melody.

And there, deep in the shadows of the vast forest, the cabin waited for them.

***

Oliver Denton was not an accomplished hiker. Sure, he was outdoorsy, and he enjoyed the occasional rock climb, but hiking the entire Appalachian Trail had never been on his To-Do list. Nevertheless, the idea had wormed its way into his brain two Februarys ago. There it had taken up residence until Oliver had planned for, trained for, and made the adventure a reality this past March.

Mira hadn’t said a word when he first mentioned the idea; she just nodded her head stiffly, her hooded amber-brown eyes searching his face knowingly. After six years of dating, she must’ve understood that Oliver was a doer, and nothing would change his mind when he decided to do something. For him, this wasn’t just a fickle pipedream, it was a plan.

He hadn’t been surprised when she chose not to accompany him; truthfully, he’d been counting on it. He knew how intuitive Mira was and figured she sensed his desire to be alone. Knowing his girlfriend, she wouldn’t have pressed him even if she had wanted to go.

When they’d finally had the “serious talk”- the one where Mira asked whether Oliver was ending things with her- he’d empathetically given her the truth. I love you so much, he’d said, but I don’t know if I’m ready for the next steps. I need a solo adventure where I can have the space and the scenery to get my head right. I need some time to find myself.

For a few years, he had been feeling like a backseat driver in his own life- everything was whizzing by, but he wasn't the one flicking the turn signal. At the age of thirty-two, he was getting the typical questions at every social event he attended: Are you ever going to propose? and Don’t you want kids?

His answers were always the same: I’m working on it and Sure, I do.

But deep down, Oliver dwelled on the fact that he’d never put much thought into where he would end up in life. His job as a freelance web designer allowed him to live comfortably and securely, but the majority of his time was spent behind a computer screen with no real enjoyment of the world around him. His days all felt the same, bleeding into each other. He was bored. After being on autopilot for so long, he’d ended up without a clue of what he wanted, or even who he was.

Now, after nearly five months on the Trail and just over two more to go, he was finally beginning to gain a sense of control. The journey had tested him both physically and mentally, but it had also taught him a lot about himself. There had been snowy nights huddled in a shelter with five other strangers and sunny days with jaw-dropping views of the sprawling mountaintops. There were moments of misery and times of tranquility, and throughout it all he’d overcome fears and conquered doubts. He was in the driver’s seat again, and the Trail had shown him which direction he wanted to take going forward.

As he crested the summit of a rocky ridge, his greasy blonde hair lifting in the breeze, Oliver inhaled the vegetal aroma of fern and leaf litter. He’d grown accustomed to the natural perfume of the wilderness, and he let it fill his nostrils as he caught his breath. New York was proving to be an enjoyable state, albeit humid. The terrain was rugged and much more of a climb than some of the other states he’d passed through, but he was enjoying the scenic views and mild weather.

The sun would be setting in a few short hours, and Oliver knew he should make camp. He veered away from the Trail in search of a nice clearing where he could set his tent. He’d just found the perfect spot about half a mile away when he heard a faint noise in the distance.

At first, he thought it was his mind playing tricks on him, because he was listening to something that seemed impossible- was impossible. But sure enough, as he cupped his ear and quieted his own heartbeat, Oliver could hear a strange tune echoing through the trees. Airy and slow, it was a duet of soprano and alto unlike anything he’d ever heard before, both haunted and enchanting.

Dazed, he followed the melody further into the forest, and further away from the Trail.

***

The sun was finishing its slow descent into dusk and still he felt compelled to keep walking. Oliver vaguely wondered if he would die before he ever reached his destination. The melody had gotten louder, closer- but still there was no sign of its singer.

Since the Appalachian Trail only crossed into Sterling Forest for a brief stint, it was easy to forget how huge the State Park actually was, stretching on and on for miles. The thick canopy of trees above him separated only periodically to reveal a sliver of moonlight that, combined with his flashlight, barely broke through the permeating darkness. With the forest looming ahead and with no end in sight, Oliver pondered his ability to find his way back to the Trail. Even if he were to camp for the night and wait until morning, he still wasn’t sure the daylight would be enough to get him there.

For some reason the thought made him giggle like a child.

He felt like he was in a dream; everything around him was surreal and distorted. Long fronds reached for each other like yearning lovers as they brushed against his pantlegs, and the rhythmic crunch of his footfalls was muffled but exaggerated. The dry snap of twigs breaking under his feet reverberated into the forest and then returned, as if the soundwaves were being stretched out and pulled back to their origin. Even if he wanted to stop walking, Oliver didn’t think his legs would allow it.

Just as he was beginning to surmise that perhaps the singing was all in his head, the foliage thinned enough to make out a softly flickering light in the distance. Taken aback, Oliver’s stride faltered, and his foot caught on a clump of bramble clustered beneath him. Still in a befuddled stupor, he lost his balance and wobbled comically before steadying himself with a hand against the rough, scaly bark of a white pine.

He didn’t consider the improbability of someone else having hiked this deep into the forest- the thought didn’t even register. Instead Oliver crept forward curiously, pointing his flashlight in the direction of the quivering glow. A few more steps and he could make out the small, dancing light of a candle flame, whose glare was reflected through what appeared to be a cabin window. How strange, he thought. A cabin all the way out in the middle of nowhere.

About the height of a one-story cottage, it sat misshapen and eerily silhouetted beneath the twining vegetation that enveloped it. Oliver was distantly aware of the melody still wafting through the air, its notes off-tune but somehow still beautiful. Now he could tell that it was undeniably emanating from the cabin, growing louder by the minute. With every clumsy step he took, the volume amplified a notch, until it was a deafening, vibrating hum that muted his senses and left his neck tingling.

Oliver paused immediately in front of the cabin’s rotting door and peered in the direction of the window with the candle. He knew he was going to enter the cabin, but for a fleeting moment, something nagged at the back of his brain to run, run away now!

He shrugged his broad shoulders, shaking the thought off. When he grasped the rusted doorknob and stepped inside, the melody came to an abrupt halt, leaving a gut-tightening silence in its wake.

Dark, dingy, and reeking of mildew, the cabin groaned beneath his weight as Oliver cleared the doorframe. Coming into a small, one-room area, the first thing he noticed was the multitude of wrinkled, pustulating toadstools growing everywhere- growing up from beneath the floorboards, oozing from the planked walls, even climbing the ceiling in rows of bulbous red caps. They spurted yellow-green clouds of spores that writhed in the air around him like swarms of livid insects, pervading his nose and sticking to the back of his throat.

The second thing Oliver noticed was that the place felt wrong, as if the energy in the room had been tainted by something disturbingly unnatural. The very fabric of the place felt stitched together by something wholly out of this world; something sinister and hungry.

He whipped around, intent on getting the heck out of dodge, only to flail wildly as he found his feet riveted in place.

Behind him from within the gloom, the cabin door slammed shut.

***

The man’s pain tasted good, but his fear was delectable.

For the first few hours, the cabin fed from his body as the excruciating transformation overtook it. The process was brutal, sending shockwaves of agony that felt like molten metal coursing through the man’s nerves. The cabin knew what the man was feeling- it could taste it.

Ever so slowly, the man’s skin lifted and inflated into the round, leathery bulb of a vulva that stretched over the whole of his new, growing form. Inside this pulsating mass, bones puddled into sprouts of mycelium as flesh shrank and mutated into the meaty body of a toadstool.

The pain that the man felt throughout the ordeal was but an appetizer for the cabin- the morphing of its victims was tiring work. Having waited so long for a meal, it devoured this before probing into what remained of the man’s consciousness, ravenous for more. There the fear gushed like a broken faucet, and the cabin greedily slurped.

From the fragmented snippets of thought it could gleam from the man, the cabin felt the man’s regret over deciding to leave home, heard him cursing himself for being so stupid. He blamed himself for following the melody, as if he’d had any choice in the matter of being here, among the cabin’s prized collection.

Now the man was wishing for the people he cared most about. There was a lover, her pixie-like face swimming into view within his mind’s eye- a fond memory. If not for the man’s current predicament, there would have been a reunion with this woman, and a conversation of what was to come next for them. He considered himself free of the unsurities that had been holding him back in his previous life, blissfully unaware that he never would have been free, that his very species bred unsurety.

The man had thought himself ready to move forward… but was now realizing despondently that there would never be a forward- at least in the sense he’d been hoping for.

As the cabin fed, the thin wisps of the man’s sanity drained. His human soul withered, died, and was reborn into something less complicated, less conflicted. His last desperate thought before joining the hive-mind was, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, what’s-happening-oh-God-what-have I-.

And as the sun rose for a new day, the cabin silently snuffed its candle flame, already dreaming of its next meal.