The Bodies

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

Ian had come back. After all these years, he’d come back for the bodies.

When he saw on the news that local authorities were relaunching their search party efforts in the woods – these woods – he’d had no choice. He’d had to come back to move the bodies, before they were found.

A lone candle flickered in the window of the abandoned cabin, emitting a meagre orange glow. It was barely enough to see by, but he hadn’t wanted to risk drawing attention to himself with a flashlight.

He braced the shovel against the front of the cabin with a soft clank, wiping a bead of sweat from his brow. He hadn’t started digging yet, but the air beneath the trees was stifling, making the collar of his shirt cling uncomfortably to his neck.

The candle guttered as he turned, surveying the dirt at his feet beneath its weak illumination. He was fairly sure the bodies were here, somewhere. Right outside the cabin, buried beneath the dry soil, where he’d left them to rot in the shadows. Abandoned and forgotten.

Testing the soil with the edge of his boot, Ian froze as something scurried past in the darkness to his left, footsteps crunching against the leaves. He turned, heart in his throat, expecting someone to be there. Someone who had come to arrest him, or turn him in. But the forest was silent, empty. Must have been an animal, scrambling through the underbrush.

He breathed heavily, returning to the task at hand. The sooner he got this done, the sooner he could cast the whole thing from his mind.

Pulling on a pair of thick black gloves, he wiped a strand of sweat-drenched hair out of his face, and reached for the shovel.

The dirt was mossy and hard, not damp like before, when he had first buried them here. He met resistance every time he dug the shovel into the earth, feeling the strain spread from his wrists up to his biceps. He wiped a hand over his forehead, slicking his hair back from his face. This was going to be a lot harder than he’d anticipated.

He dug for what felt like hours. Callouses had begun to form on his hands beneath the gloves, and his lungs were burning in the humid air. He stood, stretching out the cricks in his back, staring down at the hollow trench he’d dug. He should have hit a body by now. He must have been at least 4-feet deep into the earth, but there was nothing. Not even the glint of bone. Had he been mistaken? Was this not where he had buried them?

He stabbed the shovel into the ground and leaned against it, catching his breath. A shadow moved in his periphery, and he looked up, his gaze coming to rest on the window, in which the lone candle stood, the flame eating into the sallow-coloured wax.

For a second, there was someone standing behind him, their reflection distorted in the dirt-smeared window. But he would recognise that face anywhere. Julie. The blonde one, the fighter. She loomed in the darkness behind him, the sliver of a smile appearing on her pale lips before she disappeared completely.

Ian twisted round, scanning the shadows fervently, but there was nobody there. Just the tall, crooked outline of the forest and a sliver of moonlight dappling through the canopy.

Get yourself together. There’s nothing there.

Julie was dead. She would have been rotten to the bone by now, no longer the beautiful blonde he’d snatched off the side of the road.

With the wind whispering at his back, Ian found himself taken back to that night. The night he’d first glimpsed Julie, stranded on the side of the road, and knew she was the one. At the time, he’d been enraged, coming back from a day of hell at work, still reeling from the day before, when his wife had dropped that she wanted a divorce, and a letter had come in the mail to warn them they were getting audited. It was like everything had decided to come crashing down on him at once… and then he’d seen her. In the glare of his headlights, her ash-blonde hair drifting through the wind. She’d been trying to fix a spare tire onto her car, her expression morphed into one of frustration. The perfect scenario for him to swoop in with his practised charm and offer a hand.

He'd pulled over and killed the engine, cutting the headlights so that only the red glow of her hazard lights pooled around them.

“Let me help you with that,” he’d said, his voice unassuming, his smile disarming. She’d fallen right into his trap, handing him the tire iron with a look of intense relief. He’d kept up the act a little longer, long enough to fix the tire and soak up her grateful smile. Just as she’d been about to thank him, he’d raised the tire iron and driven it into the side of her head with a sickening crunch.

After dragging her body into the trunk of his car and disposing of all her ID, he’d driven off towards the cabin in the woods; the one that had stood among the trees, abandoning and crumbling, for years. Somewhere nobody would find her. Just like the other two that were already six-feet beneath the soil. His little secrets.

Something rustled through the darkness behind him, snapping Ian back out of the memory. Footsteps crunched through the underbrush, and he almost thought he hear the soft whisper of a breath, but when he turned, there was nothing there. Just the wide, aching maw of darkness, and the trees that stretched up into the night like brush strokes on an unfinished painting.

He needed to get back to digging, before dawn broke and unearthed his secrets to the world.

Dislodging the shovel from the earth, he began to dig with a renewed vigor, the pile of dirt and rotten vegetation growing at his side. They had to be close. It wasn’t like they’d already been moved; nobody knew they were out here but him.

The trench grew deeper at his feet, but there was still no sign of the bodies buried here. Should he try somewhere else? He’d already wasted half the night to no avail.

As he was considering his options, the air around him shifted, and the sweat immediately cooled on his brow as a chill touched his skin.

He swallowed thickly, a feeling of dread suddenly lodging in his stomach.

“Murderer.”

Ian froze, his eyes going wide. A voice, like leaves rustling in the breeze, a guttural hiss.

He turned, wielding the shovel like a weapon. “Who’s there?” He called to the swelling darkness, his eyes chasing shadows through the trees. “Is someone there?”

A figure darted on his right, a glimpse of pale skin, ashy blonde hair, disappearing through the trees.

“Is someone there?” He said again, his voice catching in his throat.

A soft hiss of breath fell against his cheek, and he cried out, waving the shovel wildly. The candle guttered before blowing out completely, stranding him in pitch darkness.

“Murderer,” the voice hissed again, right beside his ear, warm breath touching his skin.

“No!” He cried, swinging round, his eyes wide with frenzy and fear.

Standing in front of him were three women. His three little secrets. Soil clung to their skin, their hair matted with moss and bracken. The two older victims were already decaying, their skin grey and crumbling, jagged lines tearing through them like porcelain.

Something small and pink wiggled out of Julie’s mouth when she smiled, falling into the dirt at his feet.

Ian shuddered visibly, a sickening horror spreading through him. Their eyes were sunken and hollow, locking him with an accusatory stare.

“You did this to us. You killed us.” Their voices whipped around him, scratchy and hoarse.

“No, no, no.” He stumbled back, the shovel slipping from his fingers with a dull thunk.

An icy sense of dread clenched his heart, and pain blossomed through his chest. He stumbled, his foot almost sliding into the trench he’d dug while looking for them. But they’d been here the whole time, waiting for him to return.

He opened his mouth to scream, but he only managed to choke out a breathless gasp, spreading his hands across his chest as his heart thumped erratically against his ribs. Waves of pain radiated down his arms and legs, like fire in his veins.

This is it, he thought as he sank down to his knees, the dirt catching him in a harsh embrace. This is how I die. All alone out here in the darkness. Left to rot in the shadows. Abandoned and forgotten.

The three women moved towards him, their feet dragging limply across the soil, their movements clumsy and disjointed. Their bones creaked like old wood, snapping back together after spending so long trapped beneath the ground.

Julie reached a hand towards him, the skin on her arm peeling, exposing the white glint of bone beneath. Her lips stretched into an impossibly wide smile, tearing at the edges of her mouth, and Ian knew she was enjoying this. She was enjoying watching him suffer, like he had enjoyed burying her beneath the cold, dark earth.

Each breath was becoming harder to draw in, like oil in his lungs. Darkness crept into the edges of his vision, shadows swirling around him like something alive, something hungry, waiting to feast.

He wanted to scream, to cry out, to beg for his life. But instead he moaned pitifully, clawing at his chest as his heart threatening to burst between his ribs.

“This is what you deserve,” the women whispered as they hovered over him, spectators to his demise.

He let out one last choking sob before the darkness claimed him completely. His body fell slack, and his head struck the ground, his eyes turning glassy as death settled over him like a veil.

BREAKING NEWS

Today in Kings Country, a gruesome discovery was made during the search for missing motorist, Julie Denning. Her body, among others, were found in a partially-dug trench outside an abandoned cabin, in the forest where the search party was dispatched early this morning. Next to the remains, the body of a man was found, whom coroners have ruled to have died of natural causes. Authorities believe the man, as yet unnamed, is connected to the disappearance and murder of at least three women in the last five years. Recovery efforts have begun to exhume the remains of the bodies in the trench, and authorities have cordoned off the entire corner of the forest while a search is underway for anymore potential victims.

Along with this discovery, authorities have determined that the unnamed male found at the scene was the one to have dug the trench, in a possible attempt to move the bodies after details of the renewed search effort for Miss Denning were released on a local broadcast.

While authorities are still trying to get a handle on the situation, there is suspicion that the DNA results will provide concrete evidence that the man is linked to the death of all three women. We hope that this news will bring peace and closure to the family of the victims, now that the truth has come to light.