Nagorath

“The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window,” My uncle spoke in his theatric voice. Attempting to appear scary with a flashlight held under his face.

The clock struck midnight, and I jerked forward, waking from my sleep on the couch.

“I had the craziest nightmare,” I said, rubbing my eyes, trying to wake. I still felt anxious about my dream, but I couldn’t remember why.

Another year, another vacation with the family someplace none of us really want to go. Every year we stay at a rental just outside of something fun. This year’s selection is a cabin in the New England woods of Tibbetts Hill. Often my creepy uncle and his wife would volunteer to accompany these trips they weren’t invited to. This year was no exception.

“Why do uncles have to always have the weirdest stories?” My sister asked, already annoyed with the lack of cell phone signal and hearing our annoying uncle. “I mean, how would anyone even know that one night a candle was burning if it was abandoned?”

She was bored, and with no phone signal in a four-person cabin sleeping six, she was in a very sour mood. She slung her legs over the armrest of the old chair she sat in and stared out the front door windows at the wind and rain we’d had all week.

“Are you kidding? Your uncle always tells the best scary stories; besides, scary stories don’t always have to make sense. They’re fun because they are spooky,” defended our aunt as she snuggled up with her husband on the loveseat across from the couch. She smiled as she lit a few candles in the middle of the coffee table, which I assumed was to set the mood for the late-night story.

“We’ve already heard this one. It was the ghost of the mother of the girl who got lost in the woods or something. Very sad, very scary,” my sister dismissed, hardly paying attention to my aunt and uncle. Still staring out the windows at the lightning striking in the distance.

Dad sat down on the couch beside me while disagreeing with my sister, “No, that one takes place in a haunted house, not a cabin. The cabin one is where the writer goes mad.”

My uncle appeared irritated but distracted by a tree striking against the cabin from the increasing winds.

“Well, I haven’t heard it,” my mom said with anticipation, joining my dad and me on the couch. She was always the one to see the best in an uncomfortable situation. “I’m usually not into scary stories, but I think it could be fun tonight with the rain and cozy blankets. Your uncle always scared me so much growing up.”

My dad just rolled his eyes at my mom’s excitement, making the rest of us laugh. Our laughter being just louder than the growing thunder that I think most of us were trying to ignore.

“Thank you, but this story is one you haven’t heard before. It takes place in these very woods. This is about the demon of Tibbetts Hill, the Nagorath,” My uncle turned off several lamps to cast more shadows upon his face. My sister and I giggled, mostly out of nervousness. “The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window. The townspeople nearby became scared. See, the cabin wasn’t a normal cabin. No, it was built to warn the town to put out their lights. The Nagorath was looking to feed. A candle in the cabin’s window meant the creature roamed the woods.”

We seemed frozen in time. Only the thunder within the whistling storm wind could be heard, and only the clock on the wall dared move as we listened intently to my uncle speak. “They say the Nagorath was a demon without form and of horrible power, and in these woods, late at night, it will look for light to feed….”

“OooOOOooo,” my dad said, mimicking a ghost. It broke up the moment’s tension, and we all joked along before letting my uncle continue. Just as he was about to speak again when the fuse box burst, giving everyone a jump. The power blinked off immediately after.

“I’m sure it was just a fuse,” my dad reassured with a chuckle in the dark. The rest of us groaned in disappointment.

“Great… now I can’t even charge my useless phone,” my sister complained.

Only my mom and dad got up from the couch to find and handed out flashlights. My aunt walked around and lit a few more candles on the coffee table and windowsills to give the room a dim glow from their flames.

Everyone drew close to the center of the cabin. The wind’s howling grew outside, and what was once the sound of rain became a torrent of water. After a long, deep rumble of thunder, my uncle tried to reset himself, “Maybe I should start at the top? The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years….”

My aunt encouragingly grabbed her husband’s arm, “How many more times will we need to start the story over before we get on with it.”

My uncle scoffed at his wife and brought his torch to distort his face in the dark. His voice became more focused and deliberate toward my sister and me, “The Nagorath brought nightmares to anyone with light in the darkness. The townsfolk stayed in the dark when the sun went down. Decades passed without incident, and eventually, the cabin became abandoned. Soon the stories turned to tall tales, and the cabin turned to rot.”

My dad feigned a loud snore with his eyes closed that made the rest of us giggle, but our laughter was quickly replaced by another loud clap of thunder that made us all jump. My uncle smiled and continued, “But one night, the candle was lit again in the derelict lodge. The townspeople who remembered the old tales tried to prepare, but it wasn’t enough. People hid in cellars, closets, and churches, but it didn’t matter. The Nagorath came anyway.”

“But who tried to warn them?” My mom asked. I could see her hold my dad much tighter than earlier.

“No one knows,” my uncle quickly replied with an uncharacteristic face of confusion.

My sister moved her legs off the chair’s armrest and sat up facing my uncle, “So what did the Nagorath do to the town?”

Loose tree branches flew through the forest, battering the cabin’s outer walls and clawing at its windows. The storm’s violent winds produced a sound of desperate moaning within the cacophony of the screaming gale.

My uncle leaned in and spoke even slower, “This demon feeds on the fear in a victim’s soul bound in a moment in time, looped in endless succession to sadistically relive its attack over and over and over. Each time slicing a little bit deeper until it grows tired of your infinite pain and consumes you.”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” my sister said with her face scrunched in confusion.

“Wait, what? I don’t get it,” said my mom, who nudged my dad. “Do you get it?”

“Guys, it’s really not that hard--,” I began to explain.

The front door flew off the hinges as a creature burst into the cabin. Wooden shrapnel peppered my parents as they dove away from the debris. I screamed as the door landed, pinning me down. Where the creature stood blocked my view of my aunt and uncle.

It was a form beyond any adequate description I could give.

It had teeth where eyes should be and eyes where there should be fur. A bear-like hydra of tentacles and legs too numerous to count thrashed about. Making its way to the center of the cabin, its fleshy exterior dissolved and reformed, oscillating its very shape.

Everyone dropped their flashlights, and all but a single candle blew out instantly, making what I barely saw even more difficult to believe. Mom cowered on the floor before the kaleidoscopic terror, shuddering soundlessly with terror as the creature lurched closer. The monstrosity unhinged a jaw of a thousand teeth and swallowed her whole. Her muffled screaming only lasted a moment within the god-forsaken creature.

A long tentacle caught and dangled my dad in the air before dropping him into a gaping jaw that formed on the creature’s back. My sister broke for the backdoor. Small mouths on tube-like necks from its side latched onto her and quickly ate her up, one mouthful at a time.

Once finished, the demon slowly moved toward where I lay still pinned onto the couch. Pelleted by the storm and terrorized by the being beyond.

Looking away, I tried to focus on the last remaining lit candle on the windowsill instead of the horror looming near. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t move. I sniffled as tears ran down my cheek, silently anticipating whatever terrible fate this creature had prepared for me.

The abomination slowly moved near my face, and long needles birthed from its ungodly form. I lay paralyzed as it quickly etched in shapes and peeled them away from my flesh which was greedily savored with its many tongues.

In my pain, all I could whimper was a small disintegrating prayer, “Oh my god.”

Lips then split from a pustulous eye and uttered, “Even the gods have lost count of your horrors and have long since not cared. The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window.”

The clock struck midnight, and I jerked forward, waking from my sleep on the couch.

“I had the craziest nightmare,” I said, rubbing my eyes, trying to wake. I still felt anxious about my dream, but I couldn’t remember why.