On October 3rd...

The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window. It’s unknown how long it burned, but it wasn't until that October 3rd evening in 1776 when Major Joseph Shipman crossed the cabin in the Appalachian Mountains seeking refuge, after he had separated from his troops. Riding up on the welcome homely light as the sun quickly sank behind the trees, Major Shipman breathed a sigh of relief, having resided himself to sleeping outside with his horse, for he didn’t think he could go on much longer. Surely there wasn’t a resident in these mountains who wouldn’t house a stranded soldier for the night.

Dismounting his horse, he tied the reigns to a railing on the front porch. The wood snapped in half. It was the first time Major Shipman realized how dilapidated this cabin was. He touched another rail, and it crumbled under his touch. Wondering how anyone could live in a place quite literally disintegrating around them, Major Shipman found a section of the railing that seemed to be withholding better and tied the reigns gently.

His boots sounded like thunder as they climbed the rickety front steps. Upon knocking on the door, he found it slightly ajar. He glanced around the front yard for any signs of life or movement—nothing, just the ever-darkening forest casting ghoulish shadows across the fallen branches and leaves. Major Shipman pushed the door open.

“Hello?” he called, “Pardon the intrusion; I am Major Joseph Shipman, and I am in need of shelter for the night.” He thought he heard a shuffling from the back room, but the cabin was growing as dark as the forest. The only light came from the single candle on a small wooden table under the window. There was no answer to his call, so Major Shipman stepped inside.

“Hello?” he tried again, “Is anybody home?”

Nothing. It was silent.

Major Shipman walked over to the candle sitting in the brass holder and picked it up. Using it to light the way, he walked further into the cabin looking for signs of life. The main room had a sizeable unlit fireplace with two wooden chairs sitting in front of it. Additional candles were seated upon the mantle, and Major Shipman lit them before heading into the next room. The kitchen had the basic iron wood-burning stove with a large pot. He spotted a few other standard items: bowl, spoons, knife, but it was essentially bare. Nothing in the cabin made it seem like someone was living there, except for the candle lit in the window.

Maybe it’s a hunter or a trapper who just hasn’t settled in yet, he thought, glancing into the completely bare sleeping quarters. A single spring bed with nothing on it. No trunk of clothes, no blankets. Major Shipman returned to the main room glowing with the soft candlelight above the mantle and looked around. The light outside was just about gone now. He debated his options. He could get back on his horse and hopefully find some cover somewhere in the woods to rest for the night or stay in the cabin. Indeed, if the owner returns, he would understand, but if it is a hunter or a trapper, there is a good chance he is burrowed down in the woods somewhere. He likely would be back by now if he were planning on coming back tonight.

Major Shipman headed into the front to collect fallen branches and kindling to get a fire going and warm himself up. He was thankful he still had some rations in his saddlebags on his horse that he could consume for supper and his coat would suffice as a blanket if he slept on the floor near the hearth. Thankful he wouldn’t be left outside in the damp autumn air, Major Shipman built himself a roaring fire and settled in for the night.

His eyes were getting heavy as they watched the orange flames dance and crackle in front of him. He closed them, feeling the exhaustion of the day take over. His body relaxed, and the fire’s warmth soothed his tired muscles. Sleep was near.

Then, the shuffling noise. The same noise he had heard when he walked into the cabin earlier that day.

His eyes snapped open, and he sat up, looking around the flickering room. What was that? Nothing. There was nothing there. There wasn’t any furniture besides the two chairs, nowhere for even a rat to hide. Major Shipman laid back down and let sleep take him.

The shuffling.

A breath.

Major Shipman was on his feet in a second… half a second.

“Who’s there?” he called into the darkness. The fire was embers now. The candles had melted into wax puddles on the mantle. He blinked a few times, trying to get his eyes to adjust to the darkness. He was delirious from exhaustion.

Nobody.

Not wanting to risk it, he walked back to the front where his horse had bedded down for the night and unbuckled his musket and ammo bag from his saddle. Heading back inside, he took a slow, careful look around the grounds. Nothing had seemed to disturb a single twig outside. The moon peeked its face through the thinning autumn foliage cascading silver threads across the forest floor. His horse was asleep. It was quiet, peaceful even. He closed the door behind him and built a fire back up. He loaded his musket and propped himself up on the wall next to the fire. It wouldn’t be the first time he had to sleep sitting up.

Everything was still, and sleep eventually overcame Major Shipman again.

Shuffling.

Breathing.

Shuffling.

The floorboard creaked next to Major Shipman.

****

Kitty adjusted her wool cloak around her head as the rain continued to fall through the kaleidoscopic canopy. Where did she make a wrong turn? Miss Eliza had told her that after she left the Elliots' cabin, she was to head in the direction of the rising sun until she came to the snake creek. She did that. Then she was to follow the snake creek until the large cliffsides formed to her right. Done. She was supposed to cross the creek and turn left at the mother tree and then right at the boulder that looked like a cross… or was it right at the mother tree and left at the cross boulder?

Stopping and looking up at the sky, Kitty realized the October daylight was quickly fading away. She was soaking wet. She was lost. As a colored teenage girl, she had never been off the plantation, and now she was trying to navigate through the Appalachian Mountains alone along some secret trail her momma told her was set up to help people like them. A way for enslaved people to get north and be free. She was the oldest child in the family, so she volunteered to go first after they had gotten word from Richard, a friend from the same plantation, that he made it safely. He followed Miss Eliza’s directions, and now it was her turn to do the same thing.

It was October 3rd, 1873, her 16th birthday. If she were home, her momma would be making her a special meal, and her papa would be gifting her a new skirt or perhaps a new pair of shoes, anything he could trade for amongst the other workers. The whole family would be sitting around the fire in their shack, telling stories, laughing, and smiling.

“What do I do, Momma?” Kitty asked the sky. A large bird flew across her view, stretching toward the setting sun. Being one to believe in signs, Kitty followed the bird's direction.

The cabin looked like it had been abandoned for years, but a candle was burning in the window. Was this it? The old trapper cabin she was supposed to find? Did she find it? Taking a deep breath, Kitty slowly approached the warm flame in the window. She could be risking her life if it wasn’t the right cabin. If white folks lived in this cabin, surely, they would call the officers on her. The front porch railing jutted out in snapped fragments in a few places, and the front steps groaned as she took slow, cautious steps up.

The front door was slightly ajar, and Kitty pushed it open, peering inside. She could make out a large fireplace with two wooden chairs in front of it, barely lit by the single candle in the window. Kitty took a single step over the threshold of the cabin.

“He…hello?” she meekly called, her heart pounding so loud she could hear it. There was no response. Kitty took another step inside. Maybe this was the cabin she was looking for, although Miss Eliza’s directions never said anything about a candle in the window. Perhaps that was something the person leaving started doing for the next one coming in. In the morning, she would replace the candle with one of the ones on the mantle.

Kitty quickly checked the rest of the cabin to ensure nobody else was there. It was empty. She was safe and had a dry place to sleep for the night. She had done it. According to her directions, she only had four more days and would be in Pennsylvania. She could find Richard. She could get word back to her parents. She would be free. She was tired and hungry, but it was worth it.

Heading back into the rain, Kitty gathered as much dry firewood as she could find, resting under the more giant trees and buried under piles of fallen leaves. She built a fire for herself, hung her cloak over the back of a chair to dry, and sat warming up in front of the fire. Kitty tried to envision her life as a freed woman. She could get a job where someone paid her to sew their clothes or clean their house. What would she do with that money? Could she send some back to her family?

There was a sound behind her. It sounded like bare feet shuffling across the wood floor—hard calloused feet, like her grandmamma’s feet. Kitty quickly looked behind her. The light of the fire threw her own shadow across the entire room, stretching her head up the wall. There was nothing there: just her own shadow and the dancing shadows of the fire. The soft crackles and pops were the only noise heard no matter how hard she strained to hear.

Kitty turned back to the fire, singing a soft song to herself her mother had taught her about having strength in the lord. They sang it often when they worked.

“I’m almost there, Momma. Imma gonna make it,” Kitty said into the fire when her song was done.

The feet shuffled behind her again… closer. There was a deep scratchy breath.

Kitty slowly turned her head.

Her eyes grew wide.

She wasn’t alone after all.

****

The mud was deep after the three days of incessant rain. Jedidiah Leavitt’s boots sank under each heavy step. He just needed to get this freshly made batch of moonshine back to his cabin. He couldn’t do much else today. The rain was slowing down his still operation these last few days. Luckily he had found the abandoned cabin about a month into his operation, making the whole process much easier on him. Many shiners had to camp out at their still sites or near them. The other option was trekking in and out if they lived close enough to an access point. Jedidiah had been camping some and trekking some, trying to find what was the best choice for his process. As business picked up, he found himself spending more and more nights under the stars. It was in late July when he came across the abandoned cabin.

There wasn’t a trace of any ownership or so much as a rat living inside the small wooden quarters, but it had what he needed: an iron stove to cook his meals, a single spring bed to sleep on, a fireplace for when it got cold at night. He didn’t need much. The best part was it was utterly remote. He could store moonshine crates without fear of a raid or a goon coming in to rob him of it. That didn’t stop him from sleeping with a shotgun beside his bed. In the end, though, he was comfortable in the cabin and had made it his home for about three months.

Ever since the calendar turned to October, the sky had opened up, and mother nature had rained her fury down on Jedidiah. It had been three days, and it didn’t look like it would stop anytime soon. Jedidiah turned onto the now trodden path toward his cabin, slipping and soaking wet. As the old ramshackle came into view, something stopped him.

There was a candle lit in the window.

This is exactly what he had always feared but never thought would happen. Someone found his cabin, found his stash. Jedidiah dropped the wooden crate he was carrying, sending a cascade of sludge up his trouser leg, and he took off running as fast as his 300-pound frame would allow over the slick mud. Reaching the front steps, he skipped the first and bounded onto the second, causing an ear-splitting crack as the wood gave way, and his foot fell through the wood to the untouched soil below.

“Mother fu..” he muttered, trying to wriggle his boot out of the sharp splintered wood. Upon successful extraction, he placed it more carefully on the next step and made his way to the front door. It was open just ajar. Jedidiah pushed the door open and quickly scanned his eyes around the front room for signs of anyone. There was nobody there. Empty. Still. Quiet.

He tiptoed as quietly as he could, never realizing just how loud each floorboard of his cabin was toward the bedroom. That was his goal. That was where his shotgun was. That was where he hid most of the liquor. The rest was hidden in the kitchen's unused cabinets, which he realized was the worst hiding place he could think of at this moment. Of course, they had found it. He quietly pushed open the bedroom door, holding his breath, and felt along the wall for the gun, his fingers meeting the cool metal exactly where it should be. He felt more confident now as he took a step inside and brought it up to his shoulder.

“Come out!” he hollered into the seemingly empty cabin. The walls, which provided little to no insulation, carried his voice straight through without reverberation.

Nothing.

He peered under the bed and then pushed it with a brain-numbing screeching sound of metal on wood toward the wall exposing his hiding place. He pulled up the loose floorboards. All the moonshine was still there. Who would come into his cabin and not steal the only thing there was to steal? Keeping the shotgun in position, he headed back through the main room and into the kitchen. It, too, was empty of people and had all of its liquor exactly where he had left it. Jedidiah lowered his shotgun.

“Don’t be lettin’ these woods get to you, Jed,” he said, rubbing a mud-stained hand across his unkempt face. Maybe he had left the candle burning this morning when he left. After all, candles and fire were the only light sources he typically used. He had a kerosene lamp, but he tried to preserve that as when he found the cabin, there seemed to be an abundance of old candles stashed in cupboards and drawers, but kerosene would need to be purchased in town whenever he ran out. He tried to make those visits stretch further and farther between, usually only when he had to make a delivery.

“Damn fool,” he muttered, sinking into a chair at the table he had constructed in the kitchen out of fallen lumber. He untied his muddy boots and tossed them across the room to sit by the iron stove. They would dry out when he cooked his supper.

There was a shuffling sound in the front room, like someone dragging a lame foot trying to get toward the front door.

Jedidiah rose, grabbed his shotgun, cocked it, and turned the corner to the main room, expecting to find the intruder. He swept the room back and forth through the line of sight of his shotgun. The room was completely bare—just the two wooden chairs in front of the fireplace and his woodpile. Holding the gun, he strode across the room with heavy steps to the front door, threw it open, and panned the front yard. Nothing. The only footsteps in the mud were his.

He stepped back inside and closed the door, ensuring it latched. He grabbed logs from his wood pile on the floor, built them up, and then set them ablaze. The blaze lighted the room with an orange glow, and Jedidiah went to the kitchen to boil some leftover jarred stew he had made from the cellar on the stove.

As Jedidiah warmed and his belly filled, he rationalized the events from earlier in the day. The candle was the one he used from that morning while getting up and ready to go out for the day. He must’ve set it down while grabbing the empty crate he often left by the front door. The sound had to have been a critter. A rat, possibly. It wasn’t a coon; he would’ve seen it, but it was more significant in size than a mouse. A rat seemed the most logical. There were knotholes a sizeable rat could squeeze itself through. Nobody had found him or his stash. He was just about ready to make the trek into town to get his horse and cart, load up, and make possible one of the largest sales of his career. He had been making a name for himself, and it was paying off.

Jedidiah grabbed a candle in one hand, leaving the fire to burn itself out, grabbed his gun in the other, and headed into his dark bedroom. His single spring bed had a modest quilt lying across it. It didn’t look like much, but it would keep him warm on the coldest of nights. He propped his gun on the wall in its usual spot and stripped down to his long johns before climbing into bed. It didn’t take much for sleep to start clouding his mind.

Shuffling.

Jedidiah grabbed a chewing tobacco can off the floor next to him and chucked it across the room, hoping the clatter would scare that damn rat away.

The shuffling came closer as if it was walking toward the bed behind him.

Jedidiah slowly turned over and came face to face with what was making the noise.

When he tried to scream, nothing came out, or everything came out. He felt it all sucked out of him with every breath it took.

****

“You’re so full of it,” Lylah Guzman said, leap frogging from one rock to another over the creek.

“No, I’m not. All these stories are true,” defended Colton Ryan.

“If that’s the case, then what happened to these bodies? Where is the body of Major Shipman or Kitty or Jeddidiah Leavitt or David…” Lylah began taking the final leap to the bank on the other side of the creek.

“David Spears was in the newspaper back in 2015, Lys. His body was discovered in the woods. The animals had gotten to him.” Colton followed the rock path catching up with Lylah on the other side.

“Exactly, he came out into the Applachaians as only crazy people do,” she elbowed him, “ and succumbed to the elements before becoming food for the bears.”

“All the bodies were found in or near the cabin. They were completely sucked dry of all bodily fluids, mummified almost.”

“So we have an invisible vampire on our hands now,” Lylah teased.

“Vampires only drink blood, not all bodily fluids.” Colton stopped for a moment and took a look at their surroundings. The autumn air was crisp against his face, and the occasional orange, yellow, or crimson leaf fluttered to the ground at his feet. He pointed to the left, and they continued walking.

“Here is what I don’t understand,” Lylah began again, “Either you don’t believe all this, and you’re just trying to scare me so I will cling onto you some abandoned cabin all night long, or you do believe in this, and therefore you are leading us to our death. It’s October 3rd. Whatever this supposedly is, it only happens on October 3rd. So which is it.”

Colton shrugged. Honestly, he had his thoughts and assumptions, but he needed proof. Sure it could just be a campfire story that his dad and brothers’ told him to keep him out of the woods and scare him as he was the family's baby, or it could be true, and there could be something… real. Even if it was true, he knew the stories. If you hear the shuffling noise, you get the hell out because whatever it is is coming for you. There was some apprehension there. However, who’s to say that is even the sound? None of these people made it out alive, so how did this story even come to fruition? Logically it didn’t make sense which is why he had such a hard time explaining it to anyone, but he trusted Lylah not to deem him mentally insane.

“It’s just a story,” Lylah concluded for him, answering the thoughts and questions in his head.

The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but on October 3, 2021, a candle burned in the window.

Colton and Lylah stopped dead in their tracks as the cabin, and the glow from the candle came into view. The cabin… shack really… sagged on its frame. The wood looked like it would crumble with the gentlest of breezes. Posts from the porch railing were missing, the second to bottom step was cracked in half, and gaps and holes in the walls from generations of squirrels and woodpeckers trying to find refuge or storage allowed the faintest glow of candlelight to seep through. It was real.

A rather painful thump in Colton’s upper right arm caused by a no holds bar punch from Lylah snapped him back into the current moment.

“You asshole!” she fumed before turning and heading back in the direction they came.

Colton quickly grabbed her arm before she got too far. “Lylah! Wait!”

“It’s one thing to tell me these stupid campfire stories, Colton Michael Ryan,” she spat, attempting to grow the six inches she needed to get right into his face, “but it is quite another to set up an elaborate purposeful scare with that damn candle in the window!” She shoved him with all her might making him stumble back a couple of steps.

“I didn’t set this up, Lylah, I swear! I’ve been with you. It took us two hours to hike back in here. When did I have time to come here, light a candle and get back to you?” Colton reasoned, regaining his footing and reaching for his girlfriend’s hand.

“You could’ve had one of your buddies come and do it, Colton,” she scolded, “I’m not that stupid.”

Colton gripped Lylah’s right hand with both of his tightly. “Lys, I swear to you I didn’t do this,” he glanced toward the cabin and the candle, then back at his scared but thoroughly pissed-off girlfriend, “The stories are true. It’s October 3rd, and whatever is in that cabin is… waiting….”

Lylah ripped her hand out of Colton’s grasp as true terror spread across her face. “Let’s go home,” she said calmly, taking her first steps backward toward safety.

Colton looked over at the cabin. He had spent his entire life hearing the stories of this place from his dad and big brothers. Every camping and hunting trip he ever went on, he listened to the stories of the cabin and what happened there on October 3rd. For the longest time, he did just think they were stories, but after the body showed up six years ago, he started secretly doing his own research - actual research, not campfire stories. He started digging through any and all public records he could get his hands on. The list extended further than those of the stories of Major Shipman, Kitty, and Jedidiah Leavitt, the ones with which he grew up. People who went into the woods in early October or late September were later found their bodies sucked completely dry of everything. The events didn’t happen at any regular interval, far enough apart, in fact, that it didn’t seem like local officials were making any connections. It was the Appalachian mountains, after all, it wasn’t uncommon for people to go missing and their bodies found months later. Every time a mummified body was found there was an explanation: animals, frozen to death; there was even a serial killer theory with one body. Nothing stuck. Colton was able to put all the pieces together, though. All the people would’ve been in the vicinity of the cabin on October 3rd. Now he was, and he wanted to say he was able to step inside that cabin, experience it, and get out alive. He had become deeply invested in the history of the cabin.

“Colt,” Lylah said softly, pleadingly as she watched him look longingly at the cabin. She didn’t know just how deep his fascination, or maybe obsession, truly went.

“I have to go inside,” he eventually said, “I have to.”

“No, you don’t. You’ve proven your stories. It’s October 3rd. There is the cabin and the candle. It’s real. Now let’s go.”

“I’m just going inside for a little bit. I just want to see what it’s like. I won’t stay,” Colton said, taking a few steps back toward the cabin.

“I swear to God, Colton, if you go to that cabin, I am leaving. I’m not playing with you. I’m not messing with whatever may be in there. I’m turning and walking away,” Lylah threatened, “and I can’t promise I will be here when you get back.”

“Lylah…”

“No, you’re being stupid. You’re being careless. It was one thing repeating those damn stories to me, but I’m not sitting around and letting you risk your life! I’m not going to do it. You have your proof. Now you are making a choice.”

There was a long pause. “I have to, Lylah, please understand.”

Shaking her head in disbelief, Lylah turned to take the trail back to the car before the stinging tears boiled over and slid down her cheeks. She paused only for a moment, about 50 feet up the path, to turn and look back. Colton stepped over the broken second step of the cabin and headed for the front door. “Please be safe,” she whispered to his back. Then she continued back on the two-hour trail alone.

Colton never made it out of the cabin.