The Cabin on Dagger Lake

Ella slowed down on the heavily rutted dirt road to check her GPS. Well, it was more like she nearly came to a stop because the road was so bumpy and twisty. The blue arrow on the screen sat in a field of white. The only other thing the GPS showed was Dagger Lake off to the right. She was so far out of civilization that the device couldn’t even find a road. That was great for privacy, not so much for finding her way to her home for the next few months, or at least until she finished her next book.

Ella Parrish had rocketed to fame after her supernatural romance series had started to get noticed. Some good marketing on the part of her publisher had increased her visibility. It had gotten to the point that she couldn’t even concentrate on the next installment in the series. Constant book signings, public appearances and interviews left little time for writing. Her phone rang off the hook, and some overzealous fans had found out where she lived. They had taken to dressing like characters from her books and laid in wait to ask for autographs and offer up some unasked for plot twists. She was going to have to make sure she didn’t use anything close to what they suggested, or she might end up getting sued for not crediting them on her work. It shouldn’t be too much of an issue. Most of their ideas were so bizarre they were beyond anything her mind would think up.

She had decided it was time to get away on a working vacation. A shack on a tropical island was her first choice, but then she had found the listing for the lakeside cabin a few hundred miles from her home. The pictures reminded her of the summer home her grandparents had owned when she was growing up. That woodland cabin had been where she had first dreamed up her main characters long before everyone and their uncles were writing about supernatural beings on the regular. The cottage was a fraction of the price of the island shanty. She had snatched it up. Now she just needed to find it. Finally, she saw a faded road sign at a nearly hidden crossroad. She could barely make out the road name she wanted. At the end of the lane she found the quaint little cabin. The lake sat a hundred yards beyond it. Ella loved the way it looked.

She parked in front of the screened-in porch and stretched as she got out of the car. She breathed in the fresh scent of pine trees and air devoid of the exhaust fumes that she had become so used to she barely noticed them anymore. Ella smiled and started to unpack the trunk. It could work. Finally, she could relax there and get some writing done. Who knows, maybe she’d buy the place to have somewhere to go to when she needed to get away in the future. The town had seemed nice when she stopped to buy groceries on the way to the cabin. There wasn’t a lot there, but it would meet her simple needs.

The inside of the cabin was a little dirtier than she expected. The realtor must not have sent anyone to clean before her arrival. She spied a broom in the kitchen and found a duster under the sink. Ella put away her groceries then proceeded to do a quick cleaning. She was a bit perplexed by the footprints in the hallway. It looked like a child had run barefoot through the layer of dust and dirt collected there. Maybe some kid from a neighboring cabin had gotten in at some point. Hopefully, they had just been on a weekend getaway. She had nothing against children in general, but she needed to get her writing done. She was running out of time and didn’t want to deal with kids who felt they could wander in whenever they wanted. She shook her head and swept the footprints away.

Later she sat on the porch drinking a glass of iced tea and looking out over the picturesque lake as the sun was setting. Ella was tired from the drive, so she decided to make an early night of it and start writing in the morning. She was happy to see there was outlet on the porch so she could sit out there to write while the weather was still warm enough. There was electricity at the cabin but no television or internet. There was really no cell service to speak of, which made her a little nervous. She wouldn’t be able to call anyone in the event of an emergency. She would have to remember to take her computer with her to forward her chapters to her editor when she took trips into town.

The mattress in the master bedroom was a little lumpy. She might have to order one of those memory foam mattresses that came rolled in a box. There was no sense in being uncomfortable or waking up sore when she was supposed to be relaxing. She drifted off to sleep only to be awakened by the sounds of feet running through the hall. There were plenty of sounds she expected to hear out in the middle of nowhere, owls, bears, other nocturnal animals. The pounding of footsteps was not one of them. Ella dismissed it as a figment of her imagination stemming from the strange footprints she had found earlier. Later she bolted upright in the bed, a blood-curdling scream echoing in her head. She must have had a nightmare.

The next day she wasn’t as rested as she had hoped she would be. Clutching a cup of coffee, she sat down in the living room to write. Soon she was sunk deep into a world of vampires, werewolves and witches pursuing impossible but highly active love lives. She shivered as she felt fingertips lightly touching her throat, followed by what felt like someone breathing down the back of her neck. Her heart began to pound as the feather-light fingers moved to wrap around her throat and proceed to squeeze. What was happening? Ella pushed back from the desk and quickly went outside. When she stopped shaking, she decided to walk around the lake to clear her head. It had to have been her over active imagination. There was no other explanation for it. When eventually returned to the cabin everything seemed calm.

That night as she lay in bed, again, she heard the footsteps in the hall. They seemed to travel from the living room to the guest room. Over and over again. The night sounds outside were periodically drowned out by the screams coming from her room. Ella was still awake, so she was pretty sure they weren’t coming from her. In addition, she could hear something breathing heavily in the corner. She eventually drifted off to a fitful sleep to be awoken late in the morning by the loud cawing of a crow outside her window.

She showered in lukewarm water, making a mental note to contact the landlord about the water heater. It didn’t work as well as she liked. It wasn’t so bad in the summer, and it was supposed to be better for her skin, but she did enjoy her nearly scalding hot showers. Besides, she didn’t want to be there in the winter with no hot water. The lack of sleep must be playing with her mind. Either that or there was rust in the pipes. The water turned a vivid shade of red, looking far too much like blood raining down and pooling at her feet in the tub. She felt less than clean after her shower.

As Ella sat on the porch and stared at her computer, she realized no amount of coffee was going to let her make sense of what she had just written. She had to cut several paragraphs and start over. The pleasant warmth of the summer day wrapped around her like a blanket. Ella fell into a deep and dreamless sleep. She woke up with a crick in her neck but otherwise rested. However, her midday nap meant fewer words added to her book.

A few more sleepless nights followed by naps on the porch led Ella to decide she needed to return to civilization and go into town. She needed some groceries anyway. The drive into town didn’t take as long as her trip to the cabin had. Ella knew the roads better. She placed a few necessary calls, including one to her doctor, who sent a prescription to the local pharmacy for sleeping pills. He believed the stress of her sudden fame was causing hallucinations. Her editor was understanding about the lack of chapters sent, although she did remind her about her deadline. She went grocery shopping while she waited for the pharmacist to fill her prescription.

When she returned to the cabin, Ella found it to be a complete mess. If the doors and windows hadn’t been closed when she left, she would have chalked it up to raccoons. Most of the destruction seemed to be in the kitchen. A bag of flour had been ripped open and thrown all over the floor. Someone had knocked things off the counter. Jars of kitchen staples lay broken, spewing shards of glass and their now useless contents into the floury mess. A glance in the living room revealed a lamp knocked over. A pile of papers relating to her writing which had been on the desk, lay strewn about the room. Ella picked up the pages and piled them back onto the desk. She righted the lamp then returned to the kitchen to begin the massive job of cleaning up.

By the time everything was clean, she was exhausted. Ella stopped in her tracks when she reached the hallway. Floury footprints were going from the living room doorway to the guest room. It struck her as odd how the prints managed to get there. If someone had walked in the flour in the kitchen, there should have been tracks in the living room. Her skin crawled when she stepped into the bathroom to clean herself up. The words ‘they’re all dead’ scrawled across the mirror in toothpaste nearly gave her a heart attack. She almost turned and ran from the house but convinced herself that there had to be some kids from one of the other cabins nearby pranking her. Kids with a nasty streak and entirely too much time on their hands. Little hooligans.

That night she had a strange reaction to her sleeping pills. She must have just been overly tired. As she drifted off to sleep, a sensation like her body was being gently pulled apart overcame her. It was as if her soul lifted up and out, leaving her body to lay heavily on the bed. Suddenly she was on the porch looking at the door. Screams were coming from inside. Ella wanted to run, but something propelled her forward. She was aware that her body was still lying in bed, but she couldn’t move it to wake herself from the dream. The door opened, and she made her way inside. A man lay prone in a pool of blood on the floor near the hallway, stabbed several times. She stepped over the body. There were bloody footprints in the hall. Small footprints. As if a child had stepped in the man’s blood, then ran to the guest room. She followed the footsteps steps to the end of the hallway, where the door opened of its own accord.

There was a bunk bed in the room, which was odd. Ella could have sworn there had been a double bed when she poked her head in there when she first moved in. Two little boys huddled together by the open window. They were staring vacantly towards the door, terror frozen on their faces. Blood was spattered all over the room. They had met the same fate as the man in the living room. Against her will, Ella kept moving, this time following the screams coming from her bedroom. She couldn't help but feel as if she wanted to curl up in a ball and cry. The horrified shrieking stopped abruptly. The door swung open, and she saw a man with a bloodthirsty lust in his eyes repeatedly thrusting a large hunting knife into the woman lying on the bed, her clothes had been ripped from her body. The killer looked directly at Ella and smiled. “You are mine.” he said before staggering towards her.

Ella shot upright with a scream, chest heaving as she tried to catch her breath. She was still in her bed. A quick check of the cabin confirmed that it had just been a nightmare. There were no bodies and no blood in sight. She resolved that she might just have to make an appointment with her psychiatrist. The next few nights followed the same cycle. If she took the pills, then she found herself pulled into the same hyper realistic nightmare where that homicidal maniac kept making advances towards her. Every time he indicated she would be his next victim, or at the very least he had some hold over her. If she didn’t take the pills she suffered restless nights full of footsteps and screams. Either way she was utterly exhausted to the point of not being able to think straight.

Another trip into town confirmed what she was beginning to suspect. A family of four had been brutally murdered in the cabin back in the fifties. No wonder the rent was so cheap. Who wanted to rent quaint but haunted little cottage by the lake? She should have opted for the island. She didn’t think she was going to be coming to an understanding with these ghosts so she could get some work done. Ella certainly hadn’t felt comfortable trying to work in the living room since someone had tried to choke her. For all that she wrote about the supernatural, she didn’t even believe in ghosts. At least it wasn’t a mental breakdown. Since it was apparent she wouldn't get any writing done staying in that house, Ella decided she would leave in the morning. She didn’t care if she had to pay a few months more of rent to break the lease. She had the money for it. The harried author would drive just far enough away to feel safe then stay in a hotel to get some actual sleep before going the rest of the way home. She was far too tired to make that drive otherwise.

That night the drug-induced dream was different. When she walked into the bedroom she saw that she was the one holding the knife. It was strange watching herself murdering the terrified mother knowing that she’d killed the father and those poor little boys. They had been so close to escaping through that window. Ella could hear the crazy knife-wielding intruder laughing in delight in the corner of her bedroom.

Ella woke up and got out of bed, meaning to go to the kitchen to get a drink. Instead, she found herself walking out the door. The night was still warm and humid. Tendrils of fog kissed her skin as it oozed through the trees, obscuring her view as she walked. Twigs broke under her steps, and small rocks poked painfully into her bare feet as she made her way to the lake. Cool water lapped at her toes as she stepped into the dark depths. Her nightgown plastered itself to legs before loosening and billowing up around her as she walked farther into the lake. Soon it was above her head. Her body floated upwards when she could no longer keep her feet on the muddy lake bottom. It was calm and quiet there. She became startled and ended up swallowing water as hands grabbed roughly at her. She fought the arms that wrapped around her waist, pulling her to the surface. Ella blinked in confusion, coughing up lake water as she found herself in a fishing boat. The fisherman was looking at her in concern.

“You’re lucky I always fish for striped bass at night.” he said. “What are you doing in the lake?”

Ella shook her head. She couldn’t find the words to respond. She could barely even remember who she was. The fisherman brought her to the dock by his cabin and loaded her into his truck. Soon he was pounding on the local doctor’s door. Ella seemed no worse for wear after nearly drowning. A couple of officers from the sheriff’s department showed up at the doctor’s request. Luckily one of them recognized her from her book covers since she still hadn’t found her voice. The medic arranged transport to the closest hospital. Ella spent several days there before her psychiatrist came to collect her.

Months went by, and her book still wasn’t written. Ella was back in the city but as a guest of the psych ward at her local hospital. She spent her days shuffling about in a robe and slippers or rocking endlessly in a chair. There were weekly appointments with the doctors. She remained silent as the psychiatrist asked her questions, the mental break having rendered her mute. She smiled to herself as she fingered the knife hidden under her robe, stolen from the kitchen when no one was looking. They really should have known better. It was their fault, after all. They really should have kept the kitchen locked. What a pretty knife; it was long and oh so sharp. The beautiful blade would do the job well. The shrink, looking down, scribbling words in her notebook, didn’t notice the sinister look on her face. Ella was indeed his, and he had so many plans for her.