Peace

The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window. I had caught sight of it entirely by accident, glancing over from my front porch and spying it through the sighing boughs of hardwood trees stripped thin by winter’s first cold breaths. I’d dropped the bag into the trash can with a loud clatter of empty beer bottles then stared through the darkening forest. But the little light had vanished before I could be sure I hadn’t imagined it.

Now I stare at the cabin through the steamy window over my kitchen sink. Water so hot it’s nearly boiling turns my hands beet red as I scrub my dinner dishes clean and stack them neatly on the counter. There’s no light tonight, only the foggy darkness of the forest. Just the way I like it. I moved out here to be alone; my nearest neighbor is Darcy, just under a mile away. I should give her a call, see if they sold the cabin.

Cell service is spotty here. I head out onto my front porch to get the best reception and haul out my ancient iPhone to pull up Darcy’s home phone number. She’s an older lady but she’ll still be awake, watching her shows and haranguing her sister, Melinda. They’re a fine pair. They remind me of myself and my own sister. I shake my head hard as though I could dislodge the thought and press my finger over Darcy’s name on the screen.

The phone rings against my ear. A little frown creases my forehead; Darcy usually answers on the second ring, her pack-a-day smoker’s voice creaking through the line like nails on a chalkboard. Maybe they headed into town to visit Melinda’s grandkids. There’s a storm on the way and the sisters usually get out of dodge before the rain hits but they always let me know before they leave. They know how I worry.

The line clicks over into Darcy’s voicemail. “Hey, Dar, it’s Ripley,” I tell the machine. “You know that cabin about a quarter mile from my place? I saw a candle in the window over there last night and I’m wondering if they sold it. Not really looking forward to neighbors but it’ll be nice for the family to have it off their hands, after everything they’ve been through. Call me back when you get the chance.”

I slide the phone back into my pocket. Night is settling in and the last few rays from the dying sun cut long shadows out of the trees. Even after almost a year here, it still creeps me out a little. I’m not a fan of the dark. Never have been. But I stay out on the porch for a little longer, squinting through the trees back to that little cabin. There’s nothing, no movement, no light, and I turn back inside with a sigh.

A family had lived there once. Wife, husband, their two children. About a year before I had moved in, the wife had suddenly up and left her husband in the middle of the night. Melinda had whispered about domestic violence but Darcy had insisted there was something else going on. Ghosts, Darcy said, lurking in the trees and visiting them at night. They had put the fear of God into the wife and she’d cut loose with both her kids.

I don’t put much stock in the supernatural. Whole bunch of hocus pocus and parlor tricks from charlatans preying on the naïve. But whatever the case, the husband had been found dead in the cabin a week after his wife had left. Apparently his body had been found utterly drained of everything; blood, marrow, even his spinal fluid. According to Darcy, who’d watched the proceedings from her back yard, he’d been little more than a mummy when they’d carried him from the cabin on a stretcher.

Nasty way to go. No one had ever figured out exactly how he’d died. As far as I know, the wife had never returned to the cabin, though a cleaning service had come out to spruce it up before she put it on the market. I’d even thought about buying it. It was in great shape and she'd put such a low price on it that it had been very tempting. But the thought of living in that house had put the shivers in my spine so I’d bought this one, a little pricier but without the outline of a dead man in the crawlspace.

I sweep through my house one last time. Doors are locked, knives are stashed in their hiding spots, my handguns are secured in their holsters in each room of the house. None of these weapons had done my sister much good, though. All my effort, my neurotic need to prepare her for the worse hadn’t been a lick of use when it came down to it. Guns can’t stop fire, after all, and an older sister is useless when she’s in Iraq chasing after her glory days.

I make my way up my creaking staircase. The full length mirror in the corner of my room reveals a few extra pounds, a bit of softness around my belly. Powerlifting is a heady addiction and it caught me years ago. I’m built like a brick wall now, every inch of my five foot, one inch frame packed with muscle. I can deadlift four hundred and five pounds but I’ll never fit into a size four pair of jeans again. Though maybe it’s time to pull out the old treadmill again.

I exchange my loose sweater and leggings for a pair of sweats and a tank top. Even if I never leave the house, I still force myself to put on real people clothes every day. I don't work; the money I have stashed away in my account should last me for the next twenty years, well into my fifties if I’m careful. That's not an exciting prospect. Peace is something I haven’t found in a long time, not even in sleep, not even when I drown myself in booze and pills.

Another sleeping pill sort of night. I wash down one of my Ambiens with a swig of the whiskey I keep next to my bed in true alcoholic fashion. It’s been years since I’d had more than the occasional beer or mixed drink at dinner but lately I’ve been opening the bottle more often. What’s the harm? Who’s going to care if I drink myself to death? Sleep comes abruptly, as it always does, dropping me into the realm of nightmares.

***

Something rips me out of a restless sleep. I’d been dreaming of fire and I can still almost feel the heat of the flames against my skin. Screams echo in my ears; her screams, shrill and pained against the roaring fire. I hadn’t been there to hear her cries for help. If only I’d been there, to pull her from the flames or die alongside her, something, anything other than this endless, empty life.

There are tears on my cheeks. I wipe them away as I sit up to glance around my darkened room. What woke me? There’s nothing, no movement, no sense of another presence in the room. I don’t like being awake at night. It’s too dark, too terrifyingly filled with the unknown. That’s what the booze is for and I slip out of bed to reach for the bottle when I hear it.

It's subtle. So soft I could almost pass it off as the constant tinnitus ringing in my ears. A creak from above me, light and quiet but definitely a footstep. I don’t have an attic, only shingles laid over the bare bones of my rafters. Someone is out there, creeping along my roof, though I can’t imagine why. There’s no way in from out there.

My hand shoots down to the holster at my bedside. The 9mm Beretta feels at home in my hands, a reassuring weight against my palms. I slip a pair of range headphones over my ears. Shooting a gun with no ear protection is terrible, no matter what the movies want a person to believe. It hurts and it’s distracting in a way that can be fatal in the wrong situations. I stuff my bare feet into my old Danner combat boots before grabbing a flashlight and heading for the stairs.

Silence blankets the entire house. Only the soft sigh of the central air competes with my tinnitus and I step carefully down the stairs, brandishing my gun. My first home invasion. The fear is distant, held at bay by layers of adrenaline and hyper focus. It’ll hit later, I know, with the shakes and the teary eyed laughter.

I make my way through the dark living room. Every piece of furniture is a person lurking in the shadows and my heartbeat is too fast in my tight chest. It takes several long minutes but I at last confirm that no one is here. Maybe they’re waiting outside. Too bad for them; I’m not going to hunt them down, chase them through the forest. They can come in here if they want to kill me so bad.

Footsteps on the roof. Louder now, like someone is running over the shingles. Terror prickles its way over my skin and I press myself against the wall beside the large window at the front of the living room. The footsteps abruptly end, only to be followed by a soft thump right outside. I peek through the edge of the curtains and catch sight of someone racing toward the tree line. Just a brief glimpse but I’m certain I saw them.

I try to track them through the trees. They’ve vanished into the darkness, either waiting outside for me to come out or thinking of a new way to come in. They’re in for a long wait if they’re expecting me to chase them down. I’m dug in here; this is my turf, my home. Before I pull my head back through the curtains, I catch sight of a flickering light. A candle through the trees, guttering the cabin’s window.

It vanishes as quickly as it came. That one meager light seems so chilling in all this darkness. Who’s lighting it and why? Squatters, kids playing a prank? I go to both my doors, checking the locks, then circle around the house tugging on the windows. Everything is secure and I go back up to my room. The bottle eyes me from my dresser but I ignore its call. This is no time to get drunk and so I plop down on my reading chair. If they come back, I’ll be ready.

***

Morning birds singing in the trees pulls me out of a blessedly dreamless sleep. A groan escapes me as I pull my head up from where my neck has collapsed against the headrest. Not the best way to sleep for someone prone to sore joints and slipped discs. The Beretta is still in my lap, my right hand wrapped loosely around the grip. I sit up, feeling the ache of the awkward night in my joints.

The house is silent. Sunlight peeks in around the edges of my heavy curtains and I peek out to see fog seeping along the forest floor. Storm clouds cover the sun, heavy and gray with the promise of rain. I pull my phone out and grimace. Still no calls from Darcy. I don’t like that I haven’t heard from her. She’s eighty-two years old, spry for her age, but anything could have happened. I should have called her days ago but I’d dipped into another depressive episode that had lasted four days.

The Beretta stays at my side as I go through my morning routine. Coffee and a few new pages on my book, though I can’t really focus. Frustration with one simple scene sends me away from my computer and into the gym for a heavy leg day. Two hundred and seventy-five pounds on my back pushes my worries out of my head. I stagger out on shaky legs two hours later and head for the shower, stripping off my yoga pants and tank top as I go.

No loose comfy clothes today, not with the creepiness of last night. I dress in my contracting clothes: cargo pants and a flannel that strains over my broad shoulders. A hip holster and my Danner boots complete the look and I head back downstairs for lunch, my first meal of the day. Constant deployments have destroyed my stomach and I don’t have much of an appetite anymore. I can’t even find peace in food.

It only takes a minute to make the same thing I make every day. A burrito, stuffed with chicken, veggies, rice and beans. A little dull but comforting in its familiarity and I settle in with a sigh just as the sound hits the edge of my perception. More creaking, this time from directly above me. Someone’s in my bedroom.

I draw the pistol from its spot just above my right hip and then pull the range headphones into place. The footsteps sound like they’re pacing, moving back and forth over my head. I grit my teeth and head for the stairs, letting my pistol lead my eyes. Frustrated anger beats heavy in my heart; how did they get in? Everything is sealed tight.

There’s a person beside my bed. They’re standing with their back to me, calmly side stepping in place. Almost like they’re making the floor creak on purpose. How long have they been here? My skin crawls; I just showered not ten feet from where they’re standing. I burst into the room, my finger slipping into the trigger well, and they fall still.

“Who the hell are you?” I growl.

They turn to look at me over their shoulder. I catch a glimpse of black eyes, yellow teeth bared in a smile. “Run,” they hiss at me.

I rock back on my heels. “Are you kidding me? How did you get in here?”

They’re turned around and charging toward me before I can blink. My finger tightens on the trigger, the gun bucks in my hand. Shock suffuses their features; it’s almost like they hadn’t expected me to shoot, like they had really thought I would turn tail and run. The round punches through their chest and carries them over backwards, sends them spilling onto the bedroom floor at the foot of my bed.

They’re gone. Vanished before my very eyes. I search the entire bedroom, the closet, under the bed, even my dresser drawers. They were here. I know it. I saw them, heard the thump of their body hitting the ground. But there’s nothing to show that they had ever existed. Only the casing of my bullet on the ground is proof that I had even fired my gun.

I pull my phone out to dial the police before thinking better of it. What would I tell them? That I’d shot what seems to have been a ghost? One look at my record, the deployments, the combat time, the recent family losses, and they’ll ship me away to the loony bin. No, this is something better kept to myself. At least there’s no mess to clean up.

I pace around my house for another hour. There are no more incursions, no more strange visitors. I keep thinking back to the person in my bedroom and I’m certain now that he had looked familiar. He looked exactly like a friend I’d had in the Army but that’s impossible. He had killed himself five years ago, faced down the wrong end of a shotgun and lost.

Guilt tightens my belly at the memory. He’d reached out to me a week before the suicide but I’d been too wrapped up in my own problems to answer. Maybe I could have saved him, maybe not. I’ll never know now. I shake off an upsetting thought; I won’t entertain the idea of ghosties and ghouls crawling through the walls to torment me.

The anxiety fades to a more manageable level over time. I’m starting to feel a little light headed so I finally return to my lunch just to keep myself going. My headphones squeeze my ears and the Beretta rests on the kitchen island, inches from my hand as I devour my burrito. My phone sits beside the gun; still no calls, though it wouldn’t have mattered. With the storm brewing overhead, I’d have to go out onto the porch to get any service and that isn’t happening any time soon.

Another footstep sends my heart crashing into my belly mid bite. It’s closer this time and I look up to see a woman standing on my stairs. She stares at me through the veil of her long blonde hair, her eyes glittering in my living room light. I grab the Beretta and aim it at her, put the front sight post on her chest.

“Who are you supposed to be?” I ask with a bravado I don’t quite feel.

Her head snaps up and I feel my sanity fray a little around the edges. Another Army friend from my first time in Iraq. A firefight, the crunch of a round burrowing through her thigh, her shrill scream of pain. No amount of first aid could have saved her, though God knows I’d tried, but she had died in my arms. Now she’s here, standing on my stairs and glaring at me as though I’m the one who put that round through her femoral artery.

“Run,” she rasps out. “Run.”

I clench my teeth and slip my forefinger into the trigger well. “This is my house. I’m not leaving.”

She rushes me. So damned fast, just like the man upstairs, crossing the living room in the blink of an eye. I pull the trigger as she draws close and the round punches through the left side of her chest. Wide, shocked eyes stare at me as she collapses to ground. I peek over the kitchen island and this time I’m not as surprised to find her gone. I set the Beretta down with one shaking hand and dump the last few bites of my burrito into the trash can.

Sleep eludes me. I won’t take the Ambien, not now, not when I’m under constant assault. Nighttime finds me locked in my room, listening to the sound of footsteps on my rooftop and echoing up through the vents from my kitchen. There are at least four of them out there. Whose face would they wear if they came in here? The list of my dead stretches back over fifteen years of war and its aftermath. Suicide and drugs have taken just as many of my friends as bombs and bullets.

There are only a few left. I abandoned them when she died, pulled away abruptly and exiled myself here. The messages had slowly tapered off over the past few months until my phone stopped ringing. I have no family left. My mother’s side was from Baltimore and they were hard people who lived hard lives. They burned out fast to heart attacks, strokes, and gun violence. My mom’s heart had failed her, too, shortly after my sister’s funeral.

A thin voice pulls me out of my self-pity. Someone screaming in the distance, screaming my name. Horror prickles its way over my skin as I recognize the voice: Darcy. What could bring a eighty-two year old woman out into the woods on the cusp of a storm? I stand up and peek out the window. There, she’s right there, running in a dazed line through the trees like a rabbit fleeing from a pack of dogs.

There’s no time to think. I won’t abandon another friend to the dark and the cold. The door rattles against the wall as I barrel out toward the stairs. Another woman stands there and I lower my shoulder, slam into her and knock her off her feet. I leap over her body, my boots thudding on the floor as I careen through the living room. A man steps out of the closet, his arms outstretched, and I sweep him aside like a linebacker.

I hit the front door running. Darcy is still screaming, still crying out for help. She’s dressed only in her threadbare, pink robe, running for all she’s worth in her house slippers. Lightning cracks the sky and rain sluices down over me, soaking me to the bone. I squint through the sheets of rain and at last pick Darcy out of the darkness. She’s stumbling away from me, staggering toward the cabin. A candle burns in the window and my stomach tightens.

Nothing to be done now. I’ve left my bunker, gone sprinting out into the open. My only option is to keep moving and I slosh through the fresh mud toward Darcy’s retreating back. She’s not moving fast but it’s hard to catch up with her; my boots, worn thin by years of use, keep slipping in the mud. A rock rolls over beneath my left foot and I fall, barely stop myself from falling on my face.

They’re behind me. Five of them, pacing me, stalking me through the forest. I get the strangest sense that they’re herding me somewhere and my bones ache as I pick myself up. The cabin seems larger now, looming over me. What was once a candle could now be a bonfire for how bright it is and it lights up the forest for at least a mile. There are more people standing amongst the trees, dozens of them, picked out of the darkness by the dancing firelight.

“Darcy!” I shout as the old woman grasps the cabin’s door handle. “Darcy, wait!”

She hauls herself inside. I let out a bitter curse as I slog my way there and pound up the slippery stairs. An infinite darkness beckons me through the doorway that yawns open like a maw. I force myself into the darkness, squinting through it to catch a glimpse of Darcy’s pink robe. The floor feels slippery beneath my boots and it tilts, sending me spiraling out into an inky nothingness.

I slam down onto a floor that’s cold as ice. Something slithers through the darkness with a dry sound like a snake’s scales sliding over the ground. I draw my pistol, aim it out into the murkiness. My hands are shaking and I take a deep breath to settle my jangling nerves. The sound stops and my tinnitus takes over, tricking my ears with little whispers of sound. I try to stand and slam my head into something solid, forcing me into an awkward crouch.

Something brushes over my leg. I pull away and bring the pistol to bear. There’s not even the slightest fragment of light to use to get my bearings. It’s so dark I have to touch my eyes to make sure they’re open; I could have been struck blind for all I know. Adrenaline and anger pound through the terror and my breaths come too fast, too shallow. I was never a patient woman and it seems I can lose patience with ghosties and ghouls even when I’m shaking in my boots.

“What are you waiting for?” I shout. The darkness swallows my words whole, muffles them into nothingness. “Just kill me and get it over with!”

There’s a whisper of sound, a throaty gurgle. “It did not have to be like this.” A voice so low it’s almost a hiss, darting at me from the shadows. “All you had to do was run.”

“Run here. Yeah, I get it, you were luring me in. Where are Darcy and her sister?”

A candle flares to life. The suddenness of it makes me flinch back and blink my watering eyes. It takes a moment for me to focus, to turn into the light, and even longer for me to make sense of what I’m looking at. A jumbled mass of puzzle pieces my mind struggles to put together; a face stretched into a terrified rictus, skin drawn down taut over the bone. The impression of something massive in the shadows, something sinuous and slick.

It's Darcy and Melinda. Both in varying stages of health. Melinda looks pale but unharmed while Darcy seems to have withered. Her skin is thin and papery, her face creased with new lines of wrinkles. There’s something attached to the back of her neck, something with too many teeth and a long tube. I can’t see the rest for the shadows but I get the disturbing sensation that there’s something feeding on them back there.

The rest of the room looks normal enough. I’d been here before on the tour, or I’d at least glanced down the stairs. It’s the crawl space beneath the cabin that holds a propane tank, water heater, and lengths of plumbing. They had found the husband’s body down here. It looks like I’ve solved the case of his strange mummification, though it’s of little comfort, since it seems like I’ll soon be joining him.

Something brushes past me. I turn with it, follow the sound of its passage with the pistol. I realize too late that it’s a feint; there’s something behind me, its shadow dancing in the candlelight. A sharp needle punches through the back of my neck and it’s a struggle to keep my grip on the pistol as the thing slides into my spine.

Reality twists and fractures around me. I’m in my house, my home, with my sister. We’re playing video games together, laughing as we limp our way through a particularly difficult boss battle. I’m relaxed and happy in a way I haven’t been since she died.

“It’s not real,” I tell myself through clenched teeth.

Another vision superimposes itself on my mind’s eye and I’m in Iraq. There’s a niggling concern in the back of my head and I head to the travel office, finagle a flight home from a beleaguered Army officer. I’ll be home in two days, home before the fire, home in time to save her before the flames take her away.

It's a struggle to pull myself out of the vision. I could stay here, enjoy the lie, save my sister’s life and change the path of my own. But it’s not real. I have a chance, a real chance to put this thing down. The next person it catches could be as innocent as my sister, as pure and good as my mother. What right do I have to fritter away the last few days of my life in blissful ignorance? This could be my one last opportunity to even the scales.

I’ve been selfish enough. There’s a tearing sensation as I rip myself away from Iraq, pull my consciousness back down into my own mind. Pain rolls in waves up and down my body and I wonder how much time has passed. My skin is already wrinkled and loose around my brittle bones. In the light from the candle that never seems to burn low, Darcy and Melinda are little more than skeletons wrapped in grey, parchment paper skin.

I’m already dead. I’ve been dead since the fire, I’ve just been too stubborn and stupid to fall down into my grave. A hard life facing down armed enemies, running toward the sound of gunfire and explosions. This is nothing compared to that. Just one little move, one last pull of the trigger. I’ve held onto the pistol even this degenerated state and I grip it just a bit tighter.

“I can give you what you want.” Rolling echoes from the shadows, a sibilant voice too low to have come from a human throat. “Stop fighting me.”

“I want peace,” I tell it in a voice gone raspy from disuse and dehydration.

It’s a monumental task to raise the pistol. My body doesn’t want to cooperate but I manage to put the front sight post on the propane tank. They had filled it up, the real estate agent had said, made it ready for winter. It’s dangerously close to the candle; all I need to do is hit it a few times, puncture the metal, brace myself for the flames.

The pistol feels like it weighs twenty pounds. I pull the trigger and it barks in my hand. Behind me, the creature lets out an enraged scream as the first round penetrates the tank but I don’t stop. I pull the trigger over and over again, even as the recoil shatters the frail bones of my wrist. There’s a hissing sound and it takes a second to realize it’s coming from the tank. The candle flame blooms into a glorious orange flower that spreads its petals wide through the crawlspace.

Flames reach out to caress my face. I don’t fight it; I let myself be baptized in the cleansing fire. My wasted body doesn’t seem to have much sensation and the pain is a distant thing. The creature thrashes in the grip of the flames and I’m thrown loose of its sharp appendage, thrust deeper into the fire. The tank pops with a peal of thunder that shakes the cabin apart, sends it scattering across the forest floor in pieces of flaming wreckage.

I have one last second to spot the creature before the fire takes my eyes. It’s burning, as am I, its bulk trapped in the maelstrom of the explosion. I can hear my sister through the roar of the flames, hear her joyful voice calling me over the sound of burning wood. Peace washes over me, relief from my heartache and guilt at long last. It's over. I can finally go home.