The Witching Hour

The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window. The candle had been lit by a young girl named Susie Connor along with her friends. Each of them, Susie, Sarah, Jo, and Melanie had turned 13 that summer and had just got ahold of something called a Ouija board. This board, they were told, could communicate with the dead and they couldn’t wait to try it. As each had become a teenager, they found themselves wanting to participate in more grown-up type activities rather than just playing with dolls and this seemed like the perfect thing to start with. Sarah’s older sister Celine had got the Ouija board for her 15th birthday and while it seemed like she and her friends had had their fun with it, at 17 now they were much too wrapped up in the world of dating to care about playing with it anymore. Sarah knew her sister would never miss it as she dug it out from underneath a pile of clothes at the back of the closet. She grinned from ear to ear as she plucked it out, knowing that she would have the perfect thing to bring to their annual summer slumber party. Since the girls all have birthdays in the summer, they always do one extra special slumber party towards the end of the summer as a way to celebrate them all. This year, they wanted it to be the best one yet, one that they would remember for many years to come.

The only problem was that they weren’t sure if their slumber party was going to happen after all. This summer two kids had gone missing, they had last been seen playing near the woods at the end of the cul-de-sac in the neighborhood the girls lived in. They were a brother and sister duo, Megan and James Thompson who had gone missing about one month earlier and despite the best search efforts of the townspeople, no one has seen them since. James had been a grade above and Megan a grade below the girls, so they definitely knew them but didn’t always run in the same group of friends. While the girls were saddened and a bit frightened as a result of the disappearance, they really didn’t want it to cause them to miss out on their special end of summer sleepover, after all, they could really use each other right now. After much begging, the girls persuaded their parents to still let them have their slumber party, chalking up the missing kids to being runaways, there always did seem to be something odd going on at the Thompson house. No one wanting to acknowledge the other missing kids, one or two disappearing every few years as far back as anyone living could remember, they had all probably been runaways too, joining the circus as it passed through neighboring towns.

With the slumber party back on, the girls continued planning. This year, it was to be held at Susie’s house and each girl was going to bring something really fun with them. Jo arrived first and had an R rated movie that she snuck from her parents’ collection. It was a horror movie and while Susie was definitely ready for a spooky night, the only VCR they had at her house was in the family room which her parents were currently occupying; the girls would have to try to sneak watch it after they went to sleep. Melanie showed up with some magazines from her older sister, mostly they had articles about fashion and celebrities, but they also had tips about talking to boys and Susie was very eager to gain insight on that topic. Lastly, Sarah showed up with the Ouija board, all the girls were excited as none had ever played before and knew that this could lead to a spooky good time. While they were all excited to play, Sarah assured them that the experience would be better later in the night, “let’s wait until it gets really dark and the moon comes up,” she said, “that will set the scene for a scarier experience!”. The other girls agreed and spent the next few hours scarfing down pizza, candy, and soda while looking through magazines and laughing as they reminisced about the fun times they had this summer.

Finally, Sarah determined that the time had come, the moon was full and high in the sky, providing the perfect backdrop for them to play with the Ouija board. They briefly glanced at the instructions and then got started; each girl placing 2 fingers lightly on the piece called the planchette which should move around the board landing on letters that would spell out answers to any question they asked. Along with the alphabet were also the numbers 1-9 and 0 and the words yes, no, and goodbye. Each girl planned to take a turn asking a question and then would continue taking turns until they were ready to stop playing. Since Sarah brought the game, the others said she should go first but Sarah insisted that Susie go first. Susie’s first question was asking if this upcoming school year would be the best one yet and despite the groans from the other girls who weren’t ready to think about returning to school, the planchette moved to the word yes. Susie beamed and exclaimed how excited she was to hear it. Another groan and then Melanie took her turn asking if there would be any new boys at school this year, this seemed to intrigue the others more than Susie’s question and again the planchette moved to yes. Melanie oohed over this and then followed up by asking what the new boy’s name would be. But before the piece could start to move, Sarah ripped her hands away and exclaimed that they were supposed to be trying to talk to ghosts not asking about school or boys. The others nodded in agreement and decided to change course, although Susie was a bit apprehensive about talking to ghosts in her house. Jo tried to ease her mind by assuring her that there probably weren’t any malicious ghosts in the house, maybe just Susie’s grandfather who had passed away there a couple of years ago when her parents were acting as his caretakers. Susie was placated by that idea but still felt a little weird summoning her grandfather. Then Melanie chimed in with an idea, maybe they could try to channel communication to a particular ghost, perhaps the Thompson siblings.

“That’s a great idea!” replied Sarah while a simultaneous gasp of shock could be heard from Jo and Susie.

“But we don’t even know if they’re dead, like, isn’t everyone saying that they probably ran away?” stammered Jo.

“Well this could help us find out for sure, we could help solve the mystery of what really happened to them,” stated Melanie.

“I agree, and I know exactly where we should go to do it,” answered Sarah as she pointed her finger out the window.

The other girls followed the direction of her point, landing their eyes on the woods at the end of the cul-de-sac.

“No way!” yelled Susie and Jo together, the two more rational members of the group.

“Besides, my parents would be furious if we left the house this late at night and you know all of your parents would be mad too,” added Susie.

“Come on,” said Sarah, “live a little why don’t you? Plus, your parents are fast asleep, we’ve been hearing your dad saw logs for the past hour or so and as long as they don’t find out how can they get mad at us? It’s just down the street, we’ll be back long before morning.”.

After a little more peer pressure, all girls were on board as long as they all promised that no matter what they wouldn’t split up. Then they grabbed the Ouija board, a couple of flashlights, and a few snacks just in case before oh so quietly sneaking down the stairs and out of the house. Once outside, the girls ran down the street towards the patch of woods crouching under the closest line of trees, panting and hoping that no grown ups who would rat them out had seen their escape act. When they had caught their breaths, they set up the board and started to play again. This time asking first if they could talk to Megan and James Thompson and after that was confirmed, asking if that meant the siblings were dead. When the planchette landed on Yes the group let out a whimper and Susie started demanding answers on if any of the other girls were pushing the piece. Each girl insisted that she hadn’t been the one to push it to its location and let out a little tear for their lost schoolmates. After a moment of no one speaking, Sarah broke the silence. “Ok,” she started, “we need to figure this out, let’s ask them what happened.”.

“I don’t know,” Susie replied, “maybe we should just go home and let the police figure this out.”

“The police?! They gave up on Megan and James weeks ago!” exclaimed Sarah, “we need to get real answers that we can bring to them so that they’ll believe us.”

Susie wasn’t convinced but was determined to stick to her promise of staying together so she conceded, and they continued to ask the board questions. When asked how they died the board spelled out D-O-N-'-T K-N-O-W and when asked where they died the board spelled out W-O-O-D-S. This is what did Susie in, she was ready to get as far away from this area as possible now. But Sarah had other plans, instead of running FROM potential danger, she wanted to run TO it! She suggested they go in deeper, even trying to find the abandoned cabin that they had heard resided amongst the trees.

“Nope, no way, not a chance in H-E-double hockey sticks am I going in there!” yelled Susie.

“Susie, get a grip!” barked Sarah, “this is important, we need to investigate this further.”.

“Uh, I’m with Susie,” Jo agreed, “I’m not going traipsing through these woods at night looking for some witch’s cabin.”

“Oh my gosh Jo!” laughed Melanie, “Please tell me you do not believe that dumb story.”.

“It’s not dumb, it’s true!” spat Jo, “And I’ve had enough of this game for the night!”.

“Jo, it’s just a rumor,” chided Melanie who was trying to convince Jo that she didn’t believe for a second that there was truth in the rumor they had heard about. Like the game of telephone, stories that are passed on from person to person by word of mouth often tended to morph and change becoming barely recognizable to the original version. They had heard a version of this rumor from Timmy Lock during one of their frequent visits to the town pool that summer.

Timmy had informed them that during the search for Megan and James, some of the people helping had come across the abandoned cabin that had always been rumored was out there and was haunted. This group thought they should check inside and best-case scenario the kids would be hiding in there, worst case scenario…well they didn’t want to think about that. After they broke in and allowed their eyes to adjust and the dust to settle the beheld the sight in front of them. Timmy reported that he heard there were unspeakable horrors in there, that it appeared to be the sight of Satanic practices. The group of adults quickly searched the small premises shouting for the children but ultimately fleeing after a couple minutes of no results, wanting to get as far away from the structure as possible. Some people say that a group of fathers returned to the cabin with plans to burn it down, but the fire wouldn’t catch; they begrudgingly left it there after multiple attempts at destruction but returned with warnings to everyone to stay far away from it. Timmy who had been quietly retelling the girls what he heard, lowered his voice to almost a whisper and added something that his grandmother had said when she heard the story. “The witch lives on!” she had gasped. When Timmy had asked what she meant by that she was only able to tell him a partial story that she had heard as a girl when she was growing up in the same neighborhood before Timmy’s parents scolded his grandmother for trying to scare him with made up tales. What she managed to relay to him was that the same cabin had been around when she was a girl, abandoned then too, and rumor at that time was that a long time ago a woman had lived there. A woman the townspeople did not trust, she was odd they said, and then the children started disappearing. The people of the town became angry and directed their emotion to this lone woman who they believed was responsible for the loss of their children. The woman insisted she had nothing to do with it and perhaps the blame belonged to one of the traveling salesmen that had come through town that summer. But it was too late, they already had their sights set on her and it didn’t help that she was also known to create her own tinctures. They pegged her as a witch and killed her as penance for the lives of their children. The story continues to say that with her last breath she addressed the townspeople, telling them that they would regret their actions that day. Ever since her death the area has experienced the loss of children every few years or so, sometimes one or two, once it was half a dozen, and the older generations blame her for the cause. Timmy’s grandma said that it is her was of enacting revenge and she believes that each child is a descendant of one of the people who lived here at the time of the witch’s slaying.

“Snap out of it!” exclaimed Melanie, literally snapping in Susie’s face who had a far away look as she was recalling that scene with Timmy at the pool.

“Ok, that story is just ridiculous,” continued Melanie, “first of all there’s no such thing as witches. Second of all we all know Timmy Lock’s grandma isn’t all there, remember when she yelled at him for not feeding her dog…the one that had died 3 years earlier?! And the time she made him bring a tin of cookies to school to share with everyone, but it ended up being full of buttons?! Yikes. And third of all, I don’t even think Megan and James’s parents were originally from this town so that blows her theory right out of the water!”.

“Yea, Melanie’s right,” stated Sarah, “well about most of it, I’m not convinced that witches don’t exist”.

“To each their own,” answered Melanie, “the point is that not an ounce of that story is true and I’m with Sarah, let’s go explore!”.

Susie looked up at the sky which had started to cloud over, she worried that soon the moon would be covered leaving them in pitch blackness. She really did not want to go into these woods and she knew Jo agreed, the two of them could go home and Sarah and Melanie could go on their nocturnal adventure. But she felt guilty at the thought of breaking the group up and figured if there really was something dangerous out there, they’d probably have a better fighting chance as a group of 4 rather than 2. She let out a sigh, hung her head and muttered a concession of her agreement to join in the search party. Jo looked at her with a mix of shock and betrayal but eventually gave in too and soon the party was charging ahead into the unknown.

Only a few feet in, their world seemed to darken dramatically and Susie found she was grateful they had the flashlights with them, although they didn’t seem to help all that much. Along with the lowered sight came a heightened awareness of just how much noise there was going on around them. Mosquitoes buzzed around their ears, an owl hooted overhead, and Jo stopped suddenly when she swore she heard a twig snap nearby. Sarah said it was probably just a deer and kept moving, forcing the others to run to catch back up to her. They formed a giant moving huddle as they continued on for what seemed like hours but was probably just mere minutes. When Susie felt the string of a spider’s web cross her face she screamed from surprise and disgust and tried to run from it but had her eyes closed so she ended up running into the back of Jo, taking them both to the ground. Sarah yelled at them to quit acting like babies and to get up already. They complied and after brushing themselves off looked up to find the thing that Susie had been dreading most, the abandoned cabin in the woods. She gulped and swayed a little, her fear manifesting throughout her body, threatening to empty her stomach of all the pizza and other contents it held.

“Yes! There it is!” exclaimed Sarah and she high-fived Melanie who also didn’t seem to be feeling symptoms of fright. Jo, on the other hand, stood still with her eyes wide and mouth agape, her heart beating so loud it was audible to the others. Susie was glad she wasn’t the only one terrified, she could not understand how Melanie and especially Sarah seemed to be unfazed by the fact that they were standing just feet away from a cabin that either housed the ghost of a witch or was the meeting place of a satanic cult, either was very very bad in her book.

Sarah went to move forward towards the cabin but was stopped by Susie grabbing her arm and angrily questioning the other girl’s sanity. Sarah pushed her off and continued toward what Susie worried could be the death of them. As she climbed the broken set of stairs leading to the front entrance, Sarah had to put in some effort to get the door to open. Susie silently and Jo not so silently prayed that it wouldn’t open, but alas a loud creak was heard as the rusted hinges moved. Right away Sarah entered with Melanie following closely after. Melanie called to Jo and Susie to watch their steps as she was swallowed by darkness. The two girls that were left outside the cabin seemed to telepathically communicate that they would both wait outside not minding to miss out on what the other two were up to. But then a scream erupted from inside the cabin and when no one ran out but another scream started up, Jo and Susie swallowed their fears and ran towards their friends who were in danger. They leapt up the barely-kept-together staircase and flew inside. As soon as they crossed the threshold the door slammed behind them followed by hyena-like laughter. Susie startled so badly from the bang that she wasn’t sure her pants were still dry and when she turned towards the laughter she grew red from anger. It was Sarah who was laughing. “I knew I could get you too in here!” she proclaimed. Melanie noticed Jo balling her hands into fists and grabbed the girl’s hand before her swing made contact with Sarah’s face. There was so much anger and tension a brawl would have broken out if the flashlights hadn’t suddenly gone out, all at once. Susie screamed and ran towards the door but it wouldn’t budge, she was near a full blown panic attack. Luckily, Melanie found a large candle and Jo just happened to have her older brother’s lighter with her, she liked to steal it as an attempt to keep him from smoking. The candle was covered in what seemed like decades upon decades worth of dust making it unclear if it would even light, but Jo handed the lighter to Melanie to try. Melanie, finally feeling scared, couldn’t stop her hands from shaking enough to make contact with the wick. Frustrated and growing bolder, Susie grabbed the lighter from Melanie and set the flame to the wick, she did not want to be in darkness any longer than she had to. Miraculously, after a few seconds, the wick took to the flame and the candle was lit. It was so large it gave off a glow almost big enough to light the whole space around them, much better than what the flashlights were offering before they gave out entirely. Unfortunately, they now wish they hadn’t seen what occupied the room. Susie noticed first and her body jerked so hard in reaction she chucked the lighter to the floor, luckily it wasn’t a match or the whole hut would’ve caught fire in a matter of seconds. The other girls let out a scream and they all clung together crying as they took in the faces that stared back.

There must have been a hundred or more grotesque faces, contorted as if in fear, attached to twisted bodies lining shelf upon shelf across the walls of the cabin. If Susie was unsure earlier about the state of her pants, she knew now, her bladder was empty and her wet pants clung to her legs. Then she heard it, again, the sound of laughter that she knew belonged to Sarah. She turned to glare at the girl through the tears running down her face.

“This really isn’t funny Sarah, what is wrong with you?!” Susie shrieked.

“Geez Susie calm down,” Sarah retorted, “they’re just dolls!”.

“Just dolls?!?!” The other three girls yelled in unison.

“Sarah, this must have been the Satanic stuff those parents were talking about, these might be voodoo dolls or something! This is not good!” pleaded Susie.

“Ugh, whatever,” replied Sarah, “these are probably just left here from whoever abandoned the cabin like forever ago. They’re probably just something they made for fun since they didn’t have TV and all that. You saw how much dust there is in this place, no one has lived here in a long time.”

“Who the heck would keep making these horrible things? Why not switch hobbies when all you create is monsters?!” countered Susie.

“Gee I don’t know,” started Sarah, but she was cut off by a terrified gasp from Melanie who had crept a little closer to the shelves.

“Y-you g-guys!” Melanie stuttered, “I-is it j-just me or d-d-do those two l-look like?”

“Megan and James!” Jo finished. “Oh no no no, those are dolls of Megan and James!”

“What?! Let me see!” said Susie as she squeezed between the two girls. As she did so she gasped and slapped her hand over her mouth, her lips pressed against her fingers in a silent scream.

“We need to get out of here we need to get out now!!” screamed Jo.

Melanie was now sobbing but stopped abruptly when something even more horrible spooked her into silence. She lifted a finger, all the hairs on her arm could be seen standing at attention by the glow of the candlelight, as she whispered, “look.”.

Susie’s and Jo’s heads swiveled towards the spot on the shelf where Melanie pointed, what they saw they couldn’t believe. It was Sarah in the form of one of those grotesque dolls, she even had on a shirt that matched Sarah’s favorite shirt, the one she had been wearing earlier that week.

“S-s-sarah?” stammered Susie.

Sarah had not come up to the shelf and was still behind them, the other girls slowly turned to face their friend but instead of the 13 year old girl they knew so well there stood a woman. A woman with long dark hair that curled around her shoulders and fell to the floor, her face was almost as grotesque as that of the dolls but worse as it was also clearly filled with anger. And as she reached a hand up her fingers were bony and long like that of a corpse. Then her face contorted into the most evil smile and her lips parted revealing a voice as screechy as nails on a chalkboard as she stated, “I’m not Sarah”, then laughed as her eyes glowed with malice. With this the girls stunned silence turned into a scream and tried to make a run for the door. The woman continued her maniacal laugh as the touched her fingers together and with a snap, the candle blew out.