Ominous Intentions

The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window. I saw it first as my friend Cathy and I approached. Neither of us believed it even existed. The 'devil's cabin' was an urban legend in our neck of the woods many sought, but very few if any, found.

My friend and I had explored numerous scary places and nothing was out of our realm, up to no good, people said. The more frightening and mysterious, the better. I have very strong intuition and, going to my new friend's house for the first time, I couldn't even enter. Incredibly bad things had happened there. I could feel the evil from the street where my grandmother dropped me off.

Cathy answered the door and I stood aside, wary and yes, extremely afraid. I told her weird, scary things happened in her home and she was shocked. I couldn't possibly know this. No way, but I DID!

I told her I needed to walk around and she let me. I went upstairs and the smell of death overwhelmed me. I told her two young girls were killed in this room. One hid, looking all around me, HERE in these cabinets.

I began to SEE that night as if it were happening right in front of me. I told my friend a madman had butchered these young girls and placed their body parts in plastic bags in the back of his truck. He was never caught.

Cathy laughed uneasily, surely thinking I was absolutely mad, but maybe not. She explained that very strange things happened in the house and especially in that room. Once, when she was a little kid, she said she was sure she saw a skeleton through a crack in the floorboards when she and her siblings were playing 'Hide and Seek'. She never told anyone about it. Many nights we'd hear someone crying upstairs and loud, crashing noises, but no one was ever there.

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Admittedly, we were always up to no good. Tonight, however, we were just being teenaged kids and heading to the store for late-night snacks. The streets between her house and the store were very well lit. There was NO mistaking what we saw.

On the street right next to us was something wet, red and LOTS of it. Dang near the entire block was covered in it. Me, being the braver one, went in for a closer examination.........'Blood and guts' I screamed. We both cut out running faster than cattle being hit by the latest and greatest prod. We didn't stop running until we got to the store.

When we were sure we were safe, Cathy grabbed my arm and said: 'We can't go back the way we came'. Like, no DUH, honey! Not a chance in HELL that's going to happen. Instead, we took the next street over and made a bee-line for her house where her older sister was waiting up for us.

Cathy was freaking out, stumbling over her words, telling her sister, who happened to be studying to be a nurse, all about this graphic scene in the street. Victory just laughed, grabbed a jar, a flashlight and proceeded out the front door. Both of us were vehemently begging her not to, to no avail.

Some time later she came back in with what looked like a 'piece of a gut' in her jar. She said stuff like that was ALL over the place and left again to go back for more samples. Cathy called the cops. We all watched them comb over the street and search between all the houses. Clearly they knew something wasn't right, but they couldn't find any kind of body to explain the massive red splattering and chunks littering the street.

The next day, the three of us proceeded to investigate the scene, but it was gone, no trace at all, like it never even happened. My theory? It was the same night, years later, that maniac murdered those two girls. Their entrails fell out of his truck on the street that night as he made his macabre and rushed getaway. Perhaps Cathy really HAD seen a skeleton under those floorboards so many years ago.

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The night was cold, dark and cloudy and the trees hid any light the moon may have provided. We trekked for what seemed like miles on our latest quest to find the proverbial 'devil's cabin', IF it existed, that is. We were prepared to find out.

'My feet hurt, I need to rest for a minute.' Cathy said. I agreed with her. My feet hurt too. Here we were 30 years later and here SHE was, my best friend, Cathy, still accompanying me on my crazy ventures.

'We're almost there' I promised her. Truthfully, I didn't think we were anywhere close, but from my peripheral vision, I saw a flicker of light. I quickly turned. A flashlight? Not possible. Hunters never went out this far and certainly not at this hour of the night. I held my right arm in front of my friend and raised my left index finger to my mouth indicating for her to be quiet.

What WAS it? It was gone now, but I know I saw it. Panning my flashlight in every direction, I deemed us safe and proceeded forward. Another 300 feet, give or take, and I could make out the cabin I'd heard so much about. The very reason we were here. It DID exist! I felt immediately uneasy and lowered my flashlight so it was barely illuminating what lay before us.

The light I saw couldn't have come from here. This old place hadn't been inhabited in many moons. Yet, I couldn't shake the queasy, nauseating feeling rising in the pit of my stomach. I felt certain someone else was here........watching us with ill intent.

The sky began to birth pellets of cold, wet rain, just enough to wake my beleaguered brain up again. Even though I'm certain only mere minutes had passed, I grabbed Cathy's arm and ushered her, with a sense of urgency, to the cabin. Once inside, a torrential downpour ensued.

Our only shelter proved to be anything BUT our sanctuary. Rainwater seeped in everywhere from the long rotted joists and shingles. We found a small section of roofing still intact and huddled together there for what seemed like an eternity.

'I have to pee' Cathy said. 'Really bad'.

'Just pee already' I told her.

'I can't just pee in my pants'. You better believe you can, I'm thinking, but instead I said 'So, what's your plan?'

'I'll go right outside the front door and I'll be right back'. I nodded and handed her the flashlight, the only one we thought we would need. Stupid? Indeed, but hindsight is always 20/20.

I waited and waited, but Cathy did not return. I felt like a horrible friend for not going to door and screaming out her name. I dared not, for if I did, I was certain it would be my turn next.

I stood there in that front window, looking out into the damp darkness willing myself to not even breathe, yet I still saw the condensation of my weak breath on the window. I felt him behind me long before I heard his footfalls.

His hands reached around my throat with such force I was brought to my knees. I remember looking at the window and seeing the condensation as I breathed out and seeing it dissipate as I breathed in. Condensation, dissipation, condensation, dissipation, condensation.........