Only the Wicked Slumber Here

The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window. If there was a driveway leading through the trees to rundown shelter, even autumn couldn’t disparage the overgrowth swallowing the land in sharp, sturdy branches and decades of leaves. It’s said every now and again a vagrant would squat for a night, with the towns surrounding the lakes and rivers known for rogue campers and hitchhikers, but the local law stopped cleaning up after the place in the late eighties. If last known sightings were between mile markers twenty-three and twenty-four on the scenic highway 49, they didn’t bother following up. The residents spread throughout the Uwharries had no less than an acre distance from the property and were the few people in the forest area worried about double-checking their door locks and armories at night. Knocking on the door and sprinting for your life had become a high schooler’s obnoxious source of bragging rights; however, since Bass mouth Jack’s vanishing after peeking through the cracked door, it had been six years since teens have gone the distance. When the distorted high-pitched snarls frightened a motorist stopping for a piss under the stars, he noticed the candle eight days later, flickering yet unphased. It was the only thing in the report ever known by the authorities about that abandoned vehicle.

Something sparked wholesome to Al, Jaun, Sofia, driving stiff for their sixth hour into their express tour through North Carolina. Tour may be an optimistic summation for the trio staying ahead of those who would accuse them of a B&E gone terribly wrong. Still, along the scenic route 49, they could bed down anywhere the sun don’t shine without recording credit card numbers. Maybe for one more night or so if that cabin is empty, and they knew their sleeping bags didn’t have bed bugs. Al figured their lack of funds should’ve been more than enough evidence of a frame-up of his two close friends. They took a break in a lakeside Mom & Pop joint far outside the deputy’s jurisdiction. It was a little truck stop between two open-air diesel pumps with the fumes adding a wild hair to the late diner on the three business main st. well beyond the radar, with a 24-hour breakfast menu.

Upon the bubbly waitress’ exhausting tip-earing strategy, Sofia asked about a place to camp quietly amongst the stars. They were deep in the Uwharries, where hiking trails could provide every level of camping experience with enchanting views, according to the free brochure. When Jaun politely asked of any place off the national park’s map, alluding to a peculiar flame in a peculiar set of trees, her service faulty to unsavory. Suddenly, she scanned the booths for noisy ears before leaning in close, “I’d suggest you keep moving on or check out the Badin Inn two and a half miles south of here. They take cash if that’s a concern.”

Sofia spoke plainly as she paid the check, “You sure someone lives there? Couldn’t think of a lovelier place not far from the road. We just need to decompress.”

Judy began to scan the room, but the cook’s bell alerted the four of them of his hardened stare. Her demeanor sank to a pale wide eyed ice block human shape, but it was the pause in utensils against porcelain and indecipherable chatter setting off Al’s misophonia that aided his concern. “I’m gonna get your to-go boxes. It was really nice meeting you all.”

Her power walk put her behind the counter facing the kitchen faster than either of them thought the limping AARP member could scurry, prompting Al to ask, “you think it’s a race thing?” Sofia felt out of sorts hearing the, but Jaun wasn’t phased.

“Normally, I might give it a thought, but that sort of vibe wafts with the air behind us when we enter,” he added. “We should keep moving.”

Judy laid down the clear recyclable containers, wishing them a wondrous journey despite the warm jittery glee that faded her rosy cheeks to a ghostly pale. Walking to the 95 Chrysler minivan, Sofia could hear the door lock under her concerning smile. Sofia protested going any father, furthering the suspicion she has hiding more than a sore ass and general traveler’s fatigue. As Jaun began to warm to the idea, Al’s vote was subjugated by Sofia paying for his meal, leaving them flying down midway between mile markers 23 and 24, finding it was exactly half a mile on the dial. Several yards away, they found the opening to an unofficial local sweet spot on the river for the fishermen up for the walk. Lining up with the cabin seemed easy enough except for trekking through with nothing to focus on the lone candle, even if it seemed independent of the building holding it. Stepping over branches and leaves, thickening around them under the high moonlight turning the slightest buzz into a freaky creature attacking the ears for the cleverest through their swipe defenses with the candle almost appearing in every direction. Wham! It was like they had been writhing in bushes three feet in front of the porch. They wished they had just gotten stuck on bald tires.

Al peaked through the window finding beige yellow and lima-bean green carpet under mid-century modernist furniture neatly arranged with the candle sitting in and key party fish bowl. What little he could see of the dining room, the table matched the decorum cherried with a Sputnik chandelier with a bit of sway from an unfelt origin. As he focused on the family portrait above the mantle, feeling a strong resemblance to a memory he couldn’t quite place, knocks on the glass from the inside startled his other hand empty. Sofia opened the door as soon as she stepped onto the porch; shaking the dust from the furniture, she moved for a spot on the floor. “I gather the light went out when she popped the cork on the vintage time capsule,” Al said jokingly, playing away from the disappearing light without smoke.

“Don’t get we’re, and the fire isn’t even started.” Jaun laughed, waving Al in.

“Hey, you ever seen a fire light itself?”

“I’m still trying to get Sofia to admit she swiped the candle when I wasn’t looking.

“Wasn’t there when I entered. It must have been a reflective illusion,” Sofia said.

Slumber soon on the living room floor next to an active fireplace doing more for lighting the place than providing heat. Jaun’s insistence on keeping a few windows cracked may have been wise in case of smoke inhalation but rattled Al’s sleep jumpy with a plethora of wildlife providing an ambiance of wilderness scratching at the door far too eagerly. Amid crickets competing with wolves, the creak from the kitchen brought Al cautiously to his feet. His friends were motionless, but old houses settled into their foundation; who’s to say a few vermin didn’t have a section of the crawlspace they retire in during the night. That didn’t stop his neck from popping, examining each corner intensely. A branch clapped against the glass in the other room, approximately in the kitchen if the shadow peaking in the dining room; at least he had a heading, he thought. By the time Al vanished under the decorated lintel, Sofia’s nightmare woke her to dust from the ceiling, landing on an empty sleeping bag. “Jaun, Jaun, did you see where Al went?”

“Probably taking a piss,” he said, turning over to face the fire.

“Then what’s up there?” she asked. Armed with her phone, she searched the bathroom, proceeding to two bedrooms, shocked to see blankets on made beds untouched despite holding the stains of mildew under a moist ceiling barely hanging on from a rough winter. One of a little girl, given the Bratz-themed comforter not matching the era of some basketball teams like the Clevland Stags and Baltimore Bullets from the boys. More dust caressed her nose from above, leading her light up to the attic door and the tattered string to pull it down. With no sign of Al, curiosity won over and the prospects of a nick knack to treasure all ways. On her hands and knees, she kept her head from the support beams, pricking her finger on an exposed nail on her way to a box of photos. She found a box of family trinkets, bottomed up by a photo album with ‘The Philips’ House Memories embroidered on the all-white cover.

Several pages in the ages growing in a unit of lives lived happily from infants to high school, in quaint leaps and bounds. And in a page, it seemed to start over with a new generation just as happy, on the property unrecognizable today, these timeless pages before the family renewed. “Hang on,” she whispered impulsively, “they couldn’t all be related to the white folk before, nor these unless they suddenly became Hindu,” she said. Flipping back in forth for some missing page giving their name or the years they contributed to the cabin’s legacy, she couldn’t all have been named Philips. According to the computer in pictures on the third to the last page, their laptop was purchasable without needing a knock-off version for cheap. “What that can’t be the date—and where have I seen those curtains before. *Slam!

Jaun was frazzled awake to Sofia’s cries. “This isn’t funny; open the god damn door. Al, Jaun?” while recovering her phone, another exposed nail cut her arm in a place she wouldn’t have reached blindly for if a nail that big sat in her line of sight fifteen seconds ago. That only paled in comparison to how prone to splinters she became crawling in the direction she thought was her freedom. She didn’t spin or travel in more than one direction, but what side of the house was she even on anymore? “Where’s the door? I can’t find the door!” her pounding increased with every opportunity she had to check for the best place echo loudly, and after four hits in the same spot, she screamed from the nail she slammed her palm on.

“Where did you go, Sofia?”

“Please drop the ladder.”

“What ladder?!” he yelled. Except his sound couldn’t have radiated from the outside.

“It was in the hallway near the closet.” Her voice quivered, trying to get a steady position to pull the nail out, feeling further in further limited with nails too prevalent to keep track of in the cell screen’s limited light.

“Where?! I don’t even see a place for a bulb.” Now he was in the kitchen? “Hold—hold, I’m a break it. he could have been clambering around the kitchen for hours when he settled on a solid body Stratocaster six string, swinging it like an inverted rockstar until he got a crack, jamming the base until it broke through the plank. “Stay sti—” he began to yell before picking up the flashlight, shining it on a sight he couldn’t understand. The ceiling looks like the floor based on the way she craned her neck and life him wondering if the nails she’s screaming about are what holding her up there. The light flickers, and after the customary two taps and it appears that the attic must have spun off like a tumble dryer for—

“Help, please—it’s changing,” she uttered on the floor where the back of the guitar had burst through.

A picture fell through the opening he clawed at where her body had been slung like a chew toy. The rumbling of clambering for bare ground turned to battery. When her face dropped from an impossible height onto the floor covered in nails, the floor buckled with splattering blood through the gaps. Backing from the opening, the polaroid slathered in blood took his footing and fell through the open hatch leading to a cellar whose only light strangely came from the pilot light under the water heater.

Meanwhile, Al woke up outside at the roots of a thick tree. He landed in front of the dining room window but couldn’t remember the massive running start he took to make it that far. How would far into the brush perplexed him too much for concern as he fought through the path he figured his body would have cleared as he returned to the window. Not believing the missing sleeping bags and gear in front of a now roaring fire barely contained in the stonewall fireplace. The front door wasn’t as susceptible to shoulder slams before. “Is this a different door?” Admittedly, he noticed the water sloshing before Jaun’s yells for help, but reaching the “Guy’s?” he called out, checking the oddly sturdier structure with fewer breaches than it seemed before. Creaks filled the air during his two laps around the house, looking for the water gushing source or explaining the steam coming from the basement, hoping his friends weren’t connected to either of them.

Water spilled from under a shutter on lap three, hot to the touch pouring with steam. He kicked off the holds to the metal shutter revealing a high-pitched scream suddenly muffled by the boiling water filling the basement to the tip. Fumbling with a phone so out of service it was relegated to a calculating flashlight, he shined it on Jaun, banging on the window as his skin continued to redden, peeling from blisters form before Al. Kicking cracked it but sprinting to shovel buried in leaves with a broken handle. He shined the light on a bloated searing image of Jaun drowning. Pocketing the phone, he bashed the glass the best he could, shattering it as Jaun’s tongue bubbled when he couldn’t keep his mouth shut any longer. The shatter freed him and the water to Burn Al’s toes through his tennis shoes as he leaped to hang onto a branch while the ankle-high wave boiled the vegetation. He dropped down to help pick Jaun up, shaking with a polaroid clenched in his index finger and thumb. His eyeballs were mushy ovals behind blistered eyelids but struggled to release the polaroid.

“I’m sor—sorry. We shouldn’t ha—we shou—”

“Hold on.”

The photo from Al’s birthday month of Al’s best friend Zalo, a rare occasion given his aversion to the practice, hating all acts of photography. His suicide was one of the main reasons he was taking this trip. Taking the picture from his fingertips, he instantly felt the water flow past his knees back towards the window, regaining the heat it lost in the chilled dark night. As it picked up the pace, the pull Jaun ripped him out of Al’s arms as his gargled cries worsened from Al removing skin from his arms to keep him from sinking back Hoovering through the window. The gallons took Jaun from his grasp violently. The suction wanted its water and steam back and wouldn’t stop until every last drop was returned. Al grabbed the branch, holding on as his feet dangled in the air, giving his shoes in sacrifice for his life.

The next morning, two fishermen jolted Al awake on their way to the river, having gathered their early warms, knocking on the glass. He was sprawled in the backseat, and once they saw his eyes, they greeted him with a nod and kept walking, trying to beat the sun to their fishing spot. Realizing there were no companions to speak of, he did what he could to ignore the proof on his hands and clothes as he climbed to the front seat. Looking for his keys, he came across the picture sitting in the passenger seat and gave it a once-over. On the back, he saw Zalo’s handwriting; judging by the date’s day, it was the last thing he ever wrote.

“Bro, I’ve been missing a while,

Can’t wait to catch up next Friday. Stay out of trouble until then.

See ya soon, Zalo