Sweet Dreams

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

The boy woke up with a shudder, sweaty and scared. For the last few months, at least once a week, he had been having the exact same dream: a cabin; a light; no one else around. Why was this happening to him again?

He turned on a small lamp beside his bed.

“Mom!”

He shouted at the open door and waited. She was a patient woman and knew that something like this was bound to repeat itself. She woke up from her light sleep, put on her slippers and trudged down the hallway. Her perfume entered the room before she seemed to float inside.

“Another one?”

The boy, with some shame in his voice, admitted that it was. “It’s the same thing. I see a cabin like the one from before. And there is a light in one of the windows, and that’s…all. Sorry.”

“No, no, kid. You are having a bad nightmare and that’s all right.”

His mother sat on the bed and he snuggled closer to you.

“Do you remember the story I told you about nightmares? About your cabin?”

“Yeah…” He nodded, letting his tears seep into her robe. “I remember. But could you say it again?”

She smiled as she looked down at her son. The moonlight was dim, but she could see how beautiful her stare was as she prepared to share the story he knew all so well.

“Okay, so, remember our last vacation?”

“A long, long time ago…”

“Right. A very long time ago. We all went out on a very long vacation.”

“Camping.”

“Yes.” She put her legs up on the bed, hugging him and becoming wistful. “We were all going to go out into the woods to spend two weeks in the woods.”

“In daddy’s cabin.”

The boy was now shivering. She held him close and looked down at him.

“Yeah. But you know that part, right? We had the cabin all to ourselves out in the middle of nowhere.”

“Just like here.”

“Very much so. But that was a special trip. Your father wanted us all to get out of the city and enjoy ‘Mother Nature’s Gifts,’ as he said. He could not be stopped. Never wanted to take it too slow.”

Was she crying? He looked up at his mother.

“I’m sorry…”

“No, let’s finish up the story. We went out into the woods in our car, all the food and gear was taken out. You helped me in the kitchen as I put things in shelves and let you check the stove and fridge. All the power was on and nothing seemed out of place. And it was such a beautiful day.”

“No mosquitoes.”

She laughed out loud at that memory. “You always hated them. Always.”

“They were going to drain my legs if I let them.”

“Is that why you did not want to go out to the lake right away?”

His mother remembered everything. Maybe he wanted to forget some parts more than others.

“It was just… Dad wanted to go out there right away. He said that we were ‘losing light’, whatever that meant. He really did not check out anything in the cabin except to see that his keys worked. It was like he could not wait.”

She did not interrupt her son as he told this part.

“You remembered everything. You are the one who should be telling the story.”

“Not this next part.”

“That’s right.” She took a deep breath and began to tell him the part that he did not like.

“Okay, so I stayed inside and you and your dad went down to the lake.”

“We took a boat.” He wiped his face.

“You took a boat.”

“We were out on the lake. Heard a loon cry from somewhere, but no sound. No mosquitoes…”

“No noises.”

“And we caught a bass. Dad said it was ‘spotted’. I did not ask him what that meant. Wish I had. Guess it means the way it looked.”

“I saw it.”

And this is where the boy was always confused. This part of the story did not make any sense to him.

“How did you know? We were walking up to the house, the cabin… I mean, it was late now, dark. You left a light on in the window, but I was so tired and dad let me carry the fish until everything went so black that I could not…”

She passed a hand over his head, kissing him on top of his thick hair and smiling.

“And that is what you always remember. Nothing else?”

He always felt frustrated at this part.

“No, I don’t. I don’t even know where dad went. The police said that he must have just disappeared, but the car was there and he left his wallet, his keys… Everything was…”

And he broke down again. It was always at the same moment.

He felt so tired.

“I think that you should get some sleep…”

“Yeah, right.” The boy felt as if his head was sinking right to the floor. “Maybe the mosquitoes are draining me now.”

“Ha, ha… Now, get some sleep.” She got up and looked down at the boy.

“Right, right. Night.”

She paused for a moment at the door to see if he really was asleep. It was when she heard his breathing and saw him flop onto his stomach that she knew he was out. The lamp had gone out by itself.

Out for the night.

This made her happy; so, so happy.

Her face cracked in the dim hallway, spilling the liquid and gore that she kept concealed from the world under the caked makeup and skin that had aged so badly. A long swallowing sound came out through her throat and she smiled as she walked slowly to her room. The stink of her body was easy to cover with the heavy robe soaked in perfumes she made. And the cabin was perfect for them.

No, not this one. There was a reason why they ended up in her woods. They were the only ones there and she had them…

He is not going to leave, not like so many others who found a way to leave and abandon her, just like her first husband; just like the boy that she lost…

Too painful to think about.

“Right, right…”

She adjusted the teeth, tongue and jaw that were sliding out of place. It was a good thing that she put that mirror in the hallway, right next to the boy’s room.

But there was one final thought she had to share before leaving him.

The gurgling in her bile-filled throat allowed one last thing to escape into the darkness.

“Sweet dreams, my child…”

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