The Cabin in the Woods

The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window. Justin was the first to notice the dull, yellow flicker that created a bokeh effect on the cabin’s cold misty glass panes. Reflexively, he raised his right arm and pointed, directing Ana’s attention to what he had just seen. Ana froze. “But…but Wade said no one else lived out here,” she stammered. Justin could already feel the tingly feeling running down his spine. It was fear, but not just that. It was something more. It was a rush of excitement; of daring. He knew what he was going to do, and he also knew the rest of the group was going to be against it. There were six of them out here; all twenty-somethings. Dominic and Jojo were seniors at the college across town. But they were also dating, having met in math class two years prior when they were sophomores. Justin had been accepted by an ivy-league college out of town, but had decided against taking up the offer in favor of a fledging music career. He was also attracted to Ana; a sweet, shy and wide-eyed girl who he had met at the town’s music festival earlier in the year. He had convinced her to come on this trip with him and his friends. He had promised to “show her a good time.”

Justin had also hoped to gain enough inspiration for a music album he planned to complete recording by the end of the year. He had announced to his small following on social media to expect “a dark, raw, masterpiece of rock and roll.” He wasn’t going to renege on his promise. He had gone to great pains to convince Wade to sign up for this short spring getaway. He remembered Wade harping on about this great, Victorian era mansion out in the woods which he had keys to. According to Wade, and older friend had acquired it at a steal in an auction five years ago, but after investing a lot of money in its renovation, had immediately left the country for a job opportunity of a lifetime. In his haste, he handed Wade the keys to the property. He had never managed to spend a night in it, but had convinced Wade that the small log cabin a stone throw away—the only construction within a hundred miles of the mansion—had been uninhabited for decades. Wade had convinced everyone that they would not run into anyone else during their week-long stay out here. So Justin was enthusiastic about who, or what he would discover behind those wooden doors.

“Let’s go check it out,” Justin blurted out, never shifting his gaze from his target. But Ana was already waddling towards the mansion across the wet, muddy forest floor. “We should stay away Jay,” she called. “Besides, we should go tell the others.” Stealing one last glance at the rack, Justin stumbled after her.

“That can’t be right,” Cindy muttered; her brows furrowed with interest and concern, eyes darting around the room looking for answers. “Are you sure?” Wade inquired, shifting to get a view of Ana from behind Cindy, who was sitting in his laps. Wade and Cindy were freshly engaged. A pharmacy major, Cindy held a part-time job at the county’s largest pharmacy store while Wade was a full-time graduate student. They had just moved in together in a studio apartment just outside their college, and had only invested in this trip after Justin had promised to foot half the costs himself. All Ozark natives; Wade, Justin and Dom had been pals since high school. Wade was the older and more level-headed of the three, and right now he was worried. He had been friends with Justin long enough to know that nothing would keep him from exploring this new discovery. But he was going to try anyway. “Let’s go say hi,” Dom quipped from behind Wade, arm-in-arm with a nodding Jojo. “We’ve been here six days now, and we’ve seen nothing,” added Jojo, “we might as well have been asleep.” Justin’s cheeks spontaneously creased. He originally thought he was facing an uphill battle convincing the others to explore the cabin, but here was all the support he needed. The defeatist look he saw on Wade’s face sealed it for him. “Grab the flashlight Dom,” he called, already heading out the door in a near canter.

The heavy, dark-brown door of the cabin creaked open under the slightest effort. No sooner was it ajar than a cold, humid breeze rushed out almost on cue, chilling every member of the expedition to the bone. Justin had spent the past five minutes knocking on the door and receiving no answer. The cabin felt as silent as it had looked since they’d been there. In fact, the candlelight Justin and Ana saw earlier had simply vanished by the time they reemerged from the mansion. It was almost dark now, and they needed to return to the mansion in time to get ready for the trip out in the morning. Pushing the door open ever so slowly, Justin and his friends saw themselves staring into a pitch-black narrow hallway. “We shouldn’t be here,” Cindy found herself whispering. But Justin had illuminated the way with the torchlight he grabbed from Dom a second earlier, and had already taken a couple of steps into the cabin. The group basically tiptoed across the hallway in a single file until they came to the end, which righted into a wide space that appeared to be a living room. A set of torn, brown cushions straddled three of the four walls of the room, facing an antiquated fireplace built into the fourth wall. Other than a dusty, framed monochromatic photo of a man in what appeared to be a twentieth century science coats and underwater goggles hanging above the fireplace and a wooden table under the only window in sight, the space was eerily empty.

“There’s no one here,” said Cindy; her voice a note or two above a whisper now. The wooden floorboards were soaking wet and creaked under every step. They bore no other sign of recent movement. “Incorrect,” Justin replied, moving towards the dusty table. He reached out and picked up a tiny object. Pinching it between the thumb and index finger of his right hand, he held it up for everyone to see; illuminated by the torch in his left hand. “Wax, candle wax,” he affirmed. Ana gasped. “Is it…?” Justin and Wade were already nodding in approval. Unless there was an animal that could light a candle somewhere in the woods, they were currently standing in an inhabited cabin. A loud thud made them jump. Pulling out a spare but faulty torch from his baggy shorts, Dom, together with Ana rushed to the direction of the sound; the door they had just come through. It was shut and locked. Ana immediately flopped to her knees. It was all she could do to keep from screaming. “Did you see that?” they heard Justin call from the living room. Rushing back in, they found him pointing to the window. He had seen the shadow of a person breeze past the outside of the cabin.

Backing into the center of the room where Wade, Cindy, and Jojo stood, Justin felt the sole of his left foot brush against something cold and hard protruding out of the floor. Startled, he jerked his foot back, but a split-second too late. He had activated a mechanical lever that controlled a trapdoor set in the floor of the space. In an instant the four friends disappeared down into the large dark space created by the now open trapdoor. The door which, just a second ago, completely supported their weight. In shock, Ana fainted, her head striking the edge of the fireplace on her way to the floor. As if on cue, Dom’s flashlight blinked before going out one final time; returning the entire cabin room to total darkness. Unbeknownst to him, they were trapped inside the residence of fugitive Nazi scientist Ralph Dolphus, convicted in the Alternate Nuremberg Trials of running an unethical human re-animation experimentation program under the Third Reich. Unbeknownst to them all, they were set up perfectly to be used as guinea pigs in Dolphus’ continued experiment. Six missing persons alerts would go up in the county sheriff office three weeks later, but no tangible leads would materialize. After all, the six friends had told no one else of their short vacation or where they were headed.