Whorl

, The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window. If asked, the three people who felt drawn to trespass on private property toward the flickering light could not have succinctly defined what drew them down the wooded lane and into the house's midst. Of course, in the end, no human bodies were left to ask, and the house resumed its dark emptiness with the secrets swallowed into the floorboards like an untended wine stain.

Barry was the first to arrive. It was long past dark. His wife would later report that he had worked late at the office. His mistress would tell a different story if asked, though she would not be questioned, all traces of her freshly scrubbed from his phone as was his routine before returning home.

Amity followed on foot. She was fighting with her mother again, this time over the appropriateness of her cover band fronting, on-and-off-again lover attending her sister's wedding. Amity felt his presence would preserve some semblance of the pact she had made in her mind, that he would come around to boyfriend material if given a chance to perform more significant "significant other" roles. Her mother could see the inevitable heartache for what it was and insisted she uninvite the fuck boy, her words, or find herself similarly ostracized from the festivities. Amity was walking with the sole intent of putting distance between herself and her mother's shrew words, a length of mere blocks, though the factual distance traveled between her home and the house was miles.

Daryl had gone to bed early, proper sleep evading him, replaced by alcohol-induced nightmares. When he woke hours later, standing barefoot in the woods watching the house's lone candle flicker, his only conscious thought was to wonder how he had ended up inside a television commercial he had seen midafternoon for a beer whose promise was that one sip would light the way.

The door opened when the three strangers stood together on the front stoop. The house gave a great yawn, pandiculating itself. The interior staircase met them abruptly, climbing up three floors of what had been a two-story home moments ago. The house was barren, void of ornamentation save the flesh-toned wallpaper that spiraled in great whorls. A smell stinking of rot wafted down the stairs. It mixed with the perfumed air on the night breeze.

A hollow welcome reverberated. The rasping noise set each person's feet in motion, one slowly in front of the other. Amity trailed her fingertips along with the wallpaper, her nails catching on the upturned spirals and breaking off slowly as the wallpaper turned caustic and began its slow boil, dissolving her fingerprints into the pattern. She felt every stab of pain, her insides screaming in abject terror. Her legs moved her forward; the house kept her beaming.

Barry was filled with delight when he reached the second floor. There was nothing but a chair sitting center in the hallway. It was weathered and slightly crooked, yet still sturdy enough to withhold the weight of one person at a time. Barry was always going first, the first at work to land deals in the three-figures, the first on his softball team to hit home runs every time he was at-bat, and the first of the three to step on the chair. He had never felt so alive.

A mounting roar echoed above as an attic door materialized. It burst open, and a hungry, searching tongue lolled out. With a snake's boneless grace, the tongue encircled Barry, wrapping itself around his full length and squeezing so that Barry's eyes first burst from their sockets, followed by the oozing release of his bodily fluids mixing with crushed bone. With molten saliva, the tongue reduced Barry to nothing more than acid and disappeared entirely back through the attic door.

Amity observed this with a cool nonchalance. When the chair reappeared, she took one quick step onto its seat and stood motionless, holding her hands out, feeding the floorboards with the blood that dripped greedily from her fingertips. In a rush, a dust cloud of hands appeared to whip up and around the chair. First, her hair was ripped from her skull, followed by her clothing shredded to pieces, until finally, her flesh began to be devoured by long, rotten fingernails in sinister strokes.

Daryl had the wear with-all to scream. The alcohol in his system immunized him from the house's sway in brief bursts. For terrifying seconds he could comprehend death, completely unable to change his fate or force his mind and body toward a different path. When the chair became vacant, he was briefly aware that he wanted desperately to run. He sat.

The house began to shrink. It compacted upon itself, crushing every inch of Daryl into minuscule particles. The candle's light went out, and it, too, disappeared into nothingness. For moments, the woods stood empty, full. Then, out of the trees, the house reformed, identical to the last version. A candle appeared in the window. It was not lit. It was not hungry.