Souls For Satan

The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window. Had Doug and Lana lived in the area, they would have known this to be an odd occurrence, but they were merely passing through the woods on a hike. There was a campground not far away where the two of them were staying, and exploring the woods had seemed like an interesting way to spend their day. That is, until the clear blue sky had turned cloudy and dark in the blink of an eye. What had previously been a picturesque forest, now appeared as an uninviting and spooky collection of withering trees. With the weather rapidly deteriorating, and rain drops beginning to fall, the candle burning in the window of the cabin was a beacon of safety and shelter.

“There!” Doug pointed towards the cabin with the glowing candle. “Let’s go see if they’ll let us stay in their cabin until this storm passes.”

Lana frowned as she looked at the cabin. Even from this distance, it looked to be in terrible shape and very uninviting. “Doug, no. Let’s just head back to the campground. I’d rather take our chances in the tent than some stranger’s decrepit old cabin.”

“So would I, but I already told you I have no idea which way leads back to the campground.” Doug was already hurrying off in the direction of the cabin. He looked down at the compass in his hand, watching it spin like a helicopter blade. “I didn’t know a storm could even do this to a compass.”

The rain intensity began to steadily increase, and moments later a sudden flash of lightning illuminated the entire area. The ground shook from the deafening thunder that followed.

“Maybe we could at least go check it out,” suggested Lana. The creepy cabin didn’t seem like such a bad idea now.

Doug and Lana both pulled their jackets up like hoods to cover their heads as they started off towards the cabin. Their pace quickened with every step, until they found themselves running. The rain was cold, and it was beginning to soak through their clothes. The sooner they could get to shelter, the better. The two of them didn’t stop until they had reached the front door of the cabin, where the overhang of the roof gave them a respite from the rain.

“I am absolutely soaked,” said Lana as she grabbed a section of her shirt. She gave it a squeeze and watched the water fall to the ground near her feet.

“Yeah, me too,” agreed Doug. “Maybe they have a dryer inside that we could use.”

Lana looked at him in disbelief. “Was that a joke? You’re not serious, are you?”

“What?” asked Doug.

“A dryer? Really?” Lana raised her arms and gestured at the cabin, with its grey and rotted exterior. “Not only is there no dryer, but I guarantee you there’s no electricity.”

“Yeah, I guess you’re probably right. Why else would they be using candles for…” Doug trailed off as he looked around at the cabin windows, realizing there was no longer a candle or any other source of light. “Hey, what happened to the light?”

“Maybe they saw us coming and blew it out. They probably don’t want visitors,” said Lana.

Doug walked over to the nearest window and leaned in close, trying to see inside. “I can’t see a thing. Like, not even shadows. It’s completely black in there.”

“Doug! Get away from the window!” Lana scolded him. “They’re definitely not going to let us in if they see you trying to spy on them.”

“I don’t think there’s anyone in there anyway.” Doug turned to look at Lana. “Maybe we just imagined the light.”

“Both of us? I don’t think so.”

Doug turned again to resume looking through the window, but immediately let out a startled noise as he stumbled backwards away from the house.

“Doug, what happened?” asked a very concerned Lana.

“In the window! There— there was someone, or something, looking at me!” Doug seemed quite shaken. “I couldn’t really make out the details.”

Lana rushed over to the window, searching for anyone inside the cabin. She leaned in close, took a step back, then leaned in close again. “Doug… it was your reflection. I can see myself in the window.”

“What? No, that can’t be it.” Doug looked at her uncertainly. “No… I don’t think… I’m sure it wasn’t my reflection. Well… pretty sure. I don’t know.”

Lana laughed. “Scared of your own reflection, huh?”

“It’s not that funny,” said Doug, quite annoyed that he had scared himself.

“Yes, it is, Doug, but I’ll let it go for now.” Lana looked to the sky as another bright flash of lightning lit up the forest, and the thunder that followed shook the cabin. “Let’s just get inside.”

Doug walked up to the door and began pounding with his fist.

“Doug! What’s wrong with you?” Lana reached out and grabbed his arm to stop him from banging on the door again. “You think anyone’s going to let us in if it sounds like we’re trying to break the door down?”

“I want them to hear us over the storm,” Doug said defensively.

“I get that, but let’s try not to scare them.” Lana looked through the window again. “If there’s even anyone in there to scare.”

“Hey, look! It’s unlocked”

Lana looked over and found Doug already swinging the door open. “Doug!”

“What? Like you said, there’s probably no one in here anyway.” Doug walked through the doorway.

“Yeah, but— never mind.” Lana followed him into the cabin and shut the door behind them. As soon as the door closed, they found themselves standing in darkness.

“Maybe we should leave the door open a crack until we find some kind of light in here,” Doug suggested.

Lana was already attempting to open the door again before Doug had even begun to speak, but she was not having any success. “I’m trying, but it won’t open.”

“Let me try.” Doug fumbled in the dark, searching for the doorknob. When he finally found it, the knob wouldn’t move even the slightest bit. “What’s going on? We just used this, and it worked fine.”

“I know, Doug, but thanks for narrating,” said Lana. “Oh, and thanks for assuming I didn’t know how to use a doorknob. What did you think I meant when I said it wouldn’t open?”

“Calm down, I just wanted to double-check.”

Lana stared at Doug in the darkness. “I wish you could see the look I’m giving you right now.”

“You know what? I actually can see you a bit. Our eyes must be adjusting to the dark.”

“Yeah, I can see a little bit now too.” Lana looked around the room and found they were standing in a small entryway, with open doorways on either side of them. “This place looks pretty deserted. I don’t think anyone’s around.”

“Hello?” Doug called loudly. “Is anyone here?”

They waited in silence, listening for a response, or any other indication someone else might be in the cabin.

“Alright then, I guess we should start looking for a candle or something,” said Lana. “I’m really regretting the no cell phones on camping trips rule. I’d kill for a flashlight right now.”

“Yeah, me too. How about I go left, and you go right? It’ll be faster if we split up.”

“Doug…” Lana shook her head in disbelief. “What the hell’s wrong with you? You’ve seen as many scary movies as I have, and yet your first idea is to split up? No. We’re staying together.”

“Okay, well, first of all, if you want to use scary movies as a guide, then we should never have come in here to begin with. Second, this place isn’t that big, so it’s not like we’d be very far from each other.”

“Exactly. It’s not that big so splitting up really won’t save us any time,” Lana explained. “Although, that’s a fair point about not coming in here in the first place.”

“Alright, fine. Let’s both go right.”

Their vision was adjusted about as well as it could be in such a dark place, but it was still very hard to make out anything other than shadows. They slowly walked through the doorway on their right, touching the walls and holding onto each other so they wouldn’t get lost or run into anything.

“Oh my god, I just touched something sticky on the wall,” Doug said in disgust.

“Don’t worry, it’s probably just…” Lana thought hard but couldn’t imagine what would be sticky. “Um… actually I don’t know what it would be, but I’m sure it’s nothing.”

They carried on, heading towards the window they had been looking through when they were still outside.

“Doug, do you notice anything wrong with the window,” asked Lana.

“Yeah, there’s not a trace of light coming through.”

“Okay, I’m glad you’re seeing that too.”

Doug stopped when they reached the window. He looked through the glass, but it was almost as hard to see outside as it had been to see inside. He could hardly even make out the trees surrounding the cabin. As Doug pulled his face back from the window, he finally noticed a candle sitting on the windowsill.

“Uh… Lana…” Doug picked up the candle. “I found a candle.”

“Why do you sound so concerned? A candle is a good thing.”

“It was sitting on the windowsill.” Doug waited for Lana to catch on, but after waiting for a few seconds, he continued. “Lana, the candle in the window! The one we thought we saw from outside! We definitely did not imagine it, because now I’m holding it.”

“Oh my god,” Lana’s eyes widened as she realized what Doug was saying. “There has to be someone else here.”

“Or there was very recently. The candle might have been lit for a while and maybe the wind blew it out.”

“I don’t feel any drafts coming from that window,” Lana said nervously.

“I guess we just light the candle and look around. What else can we do? The door’s stuck, so we can’t leave.”

“Okay, fine. Light the candle.” Lana thought for a moment. “Wait, how do we light the candle?”

“Thankfully, someone’s prepared. There’s a whole box of matches right here where I found the candle.” Doug struck one of the matches and lit the candle, then carefully placed it back on the windowsill. He blew out the match and tossed it aside, not noticing the dozens of other used matches already lying on the floor.

“Doug…” Lana’s voice sounded frightened.

Doug turned around and found Lana staring at one of the walls. He looked over and saw what had scared her. The wall had a huge pentagram on it, and it seemed to be painted in blood. He glanced at his fingers and noticed the ones that had touched the sticky wall were now red. Doug lifted his fingers to his nose and sniffed cautiously, finding that they had the unmistakable scent of blood. “Oh my god, Lana! That’s what I touched earlier! It’s blood!”

“We need to get out of here, now!” Lana was starting to panic.

“The door’s stuck. How will we get out?”

“I don’t know, Doug!” Lana yelled. “We’ll break the window, or maybe there’s a back door!”

Doug paused to think. “You know that blood could be from anything. This is probably just some stupid kids playing around. I bet they got the blood from some raw meat or something.”

“Are you serious! We need to leave!”

The sound of rainfall grew noticeably louder, and Doug went over to look out the window. “The storm doesn’t seem to be going away. You really want to go back out there?”

“Yes!”

Doug was still looking out the window when there was a bright flash of lightning that lit up the whole forest, and that’s when he noticed two figures moving quickly towards the cabin. “Oh, no. Someone’s coming this way. Two people coming straight towards the cabin.”

“No, no, no!” Lana was becoming hysterical, and she jumped when she heard a loud crack of thunder. “What do we do?”

Doug grabbed her hand and pulled her down towards the floor as he ducked under the window. He quickly lifted his head and blew out the candle. “We’ll hide. We’ll stay right here and keep quiet.”

“Doug, they’ll find us!”

“They might just be other people looking for shelter from the rain. We don’t know.” Doug was trying to remain calm. “The front door is stuck though, so they can’t get in anyway.”

“What if they do, though?” asked Lana. “And what if they’re the people who painted that bloody sign on the wall?”

“I don’t know, Lana. I’m honestly too scared to think of a better plan right now. Hiding is about the best I’ve got at the moment.”

They sat in silence, waiting for the inevitable sound of knocking on the door, or even worse, the sound of the door opening. They waited and waited but heard nothing.

“They should have been here by now,” whispered Doug. “Maybe they just passed right by.”

“Without even trying the door?”

“Maybe.” Doug shrugged. “Or maybe I was imagining them in the first place. There was a bright flash of lightning, and maybe my mind was playing tricks on me. Could have been shadows, or trees, or… I don’t know… anything, I guess.”

“Doug, if you scared me this bad over some trees, I’m going to be mad. Look out the window and check.”

Doug quickly popped his head up above the windowsill so he could see outside, then dropped back down. “I can’t see outside. It’s too dark. All I can see is my reflection.”

“Fine, I’ll be the brave one.” Lana stood up and approached the window, trying to see through the unnaturally dark glass. She pressed her face close, and then pulled back, then moved in close again, but just like Doug, all she could see was her shadowy reflection. “I can’t see anything either.”

There was another blinding flash of lightning, and the cabin shook from the thunder that followed. Seconds later, a sudden pounding on the cabin door caused them both to jump.

“Oh my god, Doug!”

“Run,” said Doug as he stood and grabbed Lana’s hand.

“Run? We can hardly see!” Lana pointed out, as Doug dragged her along.

Doug and Lana hurried through a doorway leading towards the back of the cabin, moving as quickly as possible in the darkness. Not able to clearly see where they were going, they let out startled screams when they found there was no solid surface under their next step, and they both fell through a large hole in the cabin floor where someone had been digging. The hole was incredibly deep and by the time they hit the bottom, the impact was enough to break bones.

Lana landed on her side, and she could feel her arm snap, along with multiple ribs. Her head hit the ground, and she momentarily lost consciousness. Doug landed on his feet, causing both legs to shatter. He fell to the ground, passed out from the pain.

Within seconds of them landing, a group of hooded figures appeared from the shadows and picked up the bodies. Two of them placed Doug’s arms around their own shoulders to support him. Two others picked up Lana to do the same. They all followed another figure as he led them down a poorly dug tunnel.

Lana was drifting in and out of consciousness as all this was happening. She tried to ask what was going on, but all she could manage was a groan of pain. She could barely lift her head, but she could see Doug in front of her, being carried along, legs dragging through the dirt. She was able to make out more and more detail as they went deeper into the tunnel, as there seemed to be a light source ahead.

Lana could see the people carrying her and Doug were all wearing the same black robes, with deep, shadowy hoods to conceal their faces. It took a lot of effort to look around, but she could see the tunnel they were in seemed to be dug by hand, and it was packed and worn beneath their feet, clearly being used frequently. Finally, she noticed Doug’s legs. She could see bone protruding through his blood-soaked pants, and something looked very wrong about the angle his feet were at.

“Doug…” It was barely a whisper, but it was all she could get out.

They emerged from the tunnel into a well-lit, and surprisingly large cavern. As Lana looked around, she saw large fires burning everywhere, and lines of people wearing identical black robes. There must have been dozens of them, and they were all standing still, facing towards Lana and Doug as they were dragged through the cavern.

Lana was finding it harder and harder to stay awake but was fighting hard to do so. She wanted to know what was happening, but already knew she wouldn’t like the answer.

The robed people carried Lana and Doug to a lone figure standing separately from everyone else. He was still dressed in the same type of robe, but his was red. The people holding Lana and Doug stopped and positioned their injured captives on either side of the red-robed figure, facing towards him.

Lana watched as the figure turned its back to her, so it was now facing towards Doug. She wanted desperately to see what was happening, but the figure was blocking her view. She tried to look around again, and noticed they were standing quite close to the edge of what appeared to be some sort of cliff. Again, she tried to call out for Doug, but nothing more than a mumble left her lips.

“One more soul for Satan, from an endless supply. We will continue until he commands otherwise,” said the man in the red robe. He reached out and grabbed Doug’s hair in one of his hands, lifting the still unconscious head upright. Without hesitation, he revealed a small knife in his other hand which he used to cut Doug’s throat. The robed figures who had been supporting Doug, gave his body a push off the edge of the cliff.

When Lana saw Doug’s body fall, she let out the closest thing to a scream as she could manage. The man in the red robe now turned his attention towards her.

“One more soul for Satan, from an endless supply. We will continue until he commands otherwise,” the man said, before reaching out and cutting Lana’s throat just as he’d done to Doug.

The people holding Lana gave her a push and she tumbled off the edge of the cliff. The last thing Lana saw before everything went black, was the pile of bodies she was falling towards, each of them looking back at her with dead eyes and faces that were identical to her own.