I Read A Lot

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

I grew up near the Pine Barrens of Southern New Jersey. It is a vast wasteland of forest that remained untouched by early European settlers due to the inability to grow crops in the sandy soil. A person can get lost there. I'm fairly confident many people have. I even heard, among the legends of the Leed's family curse and the Jersey Devil, that the New York mafia used the Pine Barrens as a dumping ground for bodies they didn't want found. Despite being taught to fear the Pine Barrens as kids, we camped in the thick of it with Girl Scouts. Even as a 10 year old scout, I was a skeptic and didn't believe those stupid old stories anyway.

That way of thinking all changed drastically when I became a young adult...

It was late on a Saturday afternoon. My friends and I were bored out of our minds. We were on summer break from school. None of us had full time jobs. Money was an issue so we needed to think of something to do of little or no cost. We were throwing around ideas of where to go or what to do when I proposed we take a ride to the Pleasant Mills church and cemetery near Batsto Village, right in the middle of the Pine Barrens. We had been there many times before, but during the day. It was a nice place to hike. There was a creek with a small, sandy beach where you could picnic and swim, hidden down a small path off of the main hiking trail. It was called, affectionately, by the locals, "Bare Ass Beach." Because of the area's secluded location, it was rumored that people would go there to sunbathe and swim naked.

On one of our day trips to "Bare Ass Beach", we got a bit lost and took the wrong path. Apparently we went a little too far into the woods. The path seemed like it was closing in on us and became more narrow with overgrown brush. It was almost as if the forest closed it up like that on purpose. In the short distance, beyond the narrowing path, we saw an old, dilapidated cabin. It was mostly moss covered and the small porch sagged in the middle. It was apparent that no one could possibly be living there. My 2 best friends and I, the friends who always join me for crazy adventures, fought through the brush to explore this cabin.

The door was slightly ajar. We decided to go in, but only after much debate about structural stability, wild animals, feral humans, and inbred "Pineys". It was dark, dusty, and definitely abandoned. Very little light shone through the cracked and dirty windows. It smelled of earth, mold, and wet leaves. Moth eaten, rotted curtains still hung around the windows, faded with time. Remnants of charred wood and ash were mounded in the fireplace. An antique wooden table stood in the middle of the one room structure with an old, dusty, leather bound book sitting perfectly in the center. The dust was so thick that we couldn't even see the title of the book. The place seemed to remain untouched for quite some time so we agreed not to disturb anything. Since there wasn't really much else to see, we left the cabin and found our way back to the beach where we spent the day swimming and chatting like 3 young women usually do. We never really thought about that cabin again, until that boring Saturday afternoon turned into a terrifying Saturday night.

We decided it would be more fun if we waited until dusk to drive to the church and cemetery. The road to our destination was winding and mostly desolate, with a house here and there sitting back off of the road, just beyond the trees. We saw the wooden fence and gravel driveway to the church on the left. We pulled in and parked. There were no other people around that we could see. One small light burned over the church door. We had explored the cemetery many times before, combing through the unkempt graves that dated as far back as the 1700's. We made up elaborate, glamorous stories about the lives of the deceased. We exited the car. The night grew darker. Filled with wild abandon, we decided to forego the cemetery this trip and venture into the woods toward "Bare Ass Beach" to see if anyone was back there hanging out. We were young, adventurous, fearless, and we thought, invincible.

Flashlights in hand, we crossed the old wooden bridge leading to the hiking trail toward the beach. Since we weren't truly scared, we walked along chattering about nothing important. We had been back there many times and THOUGHT we knew our way, even in the dark. We could hear the sounds of our own footsteps shuffling through the pine needles, the hooting of an owl off in the distance, frogs croaking, and insects chirping. It wasn't long before we realized we wandered further into the woods, past the path to the beach, once again. The path we were taking became cluttered with overgrown brush instead of opening to a clearing at the beach.

That's when I remembered the old, abandoned cabin. I reminded my friends that this was the path to the cabin and that we were on the wrong path again. Being the curious idiots that we were, we decided, with little trepidation, to push forward just to see if the cabin was still standing. We really weren't scared. Just curious. We had been there before and there was nothing to fear.

As we moved carefully through the brush laden path, we realized all of the forest noises ceased. No sound at all. Silence. It was then that we noticed a candle burning in the window of the old cabin.

I whispered to my friends, "Someone's there."

We immediately extinguished our flashlights, almost simultaneously. I thought, "how could that be possible? The place was virtually uninhabitable and falling apart the last time we were here."

Suddenly, through the still, silent darkness, we began to hear eerie, unintelligible, rhythmic chanting emanating from within the cabin. We saw two shadows moving in the candlelight. One was of a woman, and the other, well, it didn't appear to be human. Not completely anyway. We froze just beyond the trees and watched. The chanting became louder. I could see the woman with her hands raised in the air toward this abnormally tall, half man, half goat or ram creature, seeming to be performing some kind of ritual. The thing loomed over her as she held up the old leather bound book I was sure we saw on the table the last time we were there. Maybe it was a spell book or a Satanic Bible. I wasn't sure. I could make out SOME words from the incantation, "eternal", "immortality", and "Tituba". As the ritual seemed to come to an end, the woman peered through the dirty window and I swear, she looked me dead in the eyes! Then we heard a deafening howl erupt from that thing that was hovering over the woman. The candle went out. We were plunged into total darkness and we ran. Ran like we never ran before. We found our way back to the main hiking trail, ran over the wooden bridge, and jumped into the safety of our car. After fumbling to get the keys into the ignition, my friend started the car and peeled out of the church's driveway, kicking up stones and dust. We sped along the paved, winding road in silence. Shaken to the core. No one spoke until we reached the safety of the highway and civilization. It would be another 30 minute drive until we reached home.

My friend asked with a shaky voice, "What in the hell did we just witness back there?"

Since I was a nerdy history buff, I recognized the word "Tituba" from the ritual.

"I...I...think...uh...we just witnessed a deal with the Devil for immortality." I stammered.

"No possible way." my friend retorted.

"I distinctly heard the name "Tituba". Tituba was a servant from the West Indies who basically started the entire Salem Witch Trials. I KNOW I heard her name during that ritual or whatever it was. She was the only one of the accused witches to actually confess to witchcraft and the signing of the "Devil's Book". Maybe that's her cabin." I replied. I couldn't believe the insane words coming out of my mouth.

My other friend interjected, "It was probably just some weirdos playing around."

"I don't know. No one ever knew what happened to Tituba after the trials. She wasn't executed. She was jailed and then released when everything turned out to be nothing more than hysteria, politics, and greed. There is no further historical record or death date for her after that. Who knows. She could've escaped to the Pine Barrens." I said.

"No way! If that was her, she would be over 300 years old! How exactly do you know all of this useless information anyway?" my friend asked.

"I read a lot." I replied, staring off into the distance.

We drove on into the night. Shaken. Confused. Terrified. We vowed never to go back there again. The incident at the old cabin haunted my dreams for awhile. Did I truly believe it was a 300 year old witch name Tituba and the Devil? Or just some kids experimenting with Paganism? You can never tell in the Pine Barrens.

Well, that was 30 years ago. I haven't thought about my youthful adventures into the Pine Barrens for years. I barely remember stumbling onto that old cabin. I'm a nurse now. I work the night shift in a nursing home. My supervisor told me to expect a new employee tonight for orientation. I patiently waited for her arrival. Eager to show her the ropes. As she walked toward the nurse's station, I stood to introduce myself. She put out her hand to shake mine. Her hand was ice cold. She looked me dead in the eyes. I began shaking violently and felt the color drain from my face. It was her. The woman from the cabin. Tituba.