The Cabin in the Woods

The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window.

It’s one sentence, shy of twenty words. It’s simple and unintrusive, as most stories tend to be when told for the first time. It is a hook, Traveler. It is the start of a warning you did not heed.

I don't have to look at you to know the effect the words have on you.

As you huddle on your log on the other side of my fire, I know your broken car and your phone, battery dead, are only the beginning of your troubles. I don't need to watch you, Traveler, to know you're afraid.

You're aware, in some deep part of you that you refuse to acknowledge, that this story will be different than the one that brought you here. Isn't that why you stare so intently into the blazing fire, your gaze arrested by the coals crackling away in the firepit? See how the crimson insides try to break through the shell of black? They're like small balls of hellfire attempting to crack through the logs being consumed by the flame.

The cabin, you see, is not one but many. Sometimes here, sometimes not. A relic of old days long forgotten, a whisper of invited tragedy.

The old, cast iron cauldron rests over the fire easily. The contents boil in a slow roll as you shift your weight around, the mug clutch in your hands doing little to hide the tremor in your hands or your white knuckles.

Stew warms the soul, I've found. I'm sure you'll like it, Traveler. Those who find themselves here often do. It's a small comfort you feel compelled to take in, some primitive, animalistic instinct that knows it is needed before the black comes rushing in.

It isn't the stew you want to know about, however. No, never the stew.

You want to talk about the cabin, about how what was a simple ghost story you had heard has become reality. I've seen the shadows making a home in your eyes, Traveler. You are not the first to have your mind slowly start to crack as you realize the Cabin is real, that it is an event taking place on the overlook above us. Don't think I haven't noticed how your gaze darts to the shadowed building. I see how you can't take your eyes off the flickering candlelight slowly appearing in the windows, your skin paling in the night.

The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years.

It was forgotten. Discarded. Cast away. It was, moreso, hated.

An unwanted watcher spat upon and cursed in equal measure.

The Cabin in the Woods. That is a traditional beginning to a horror story.

I’m sure you’ve heard them in all their variations. Little Hansel and Gretel unwittingly follow a line of breadcrumbs into the hands of a witch. A girl and her parents find what they thought to be an abandoned park is, in truth, a place inhabited by spirits. Then there's the decrepit old building where children are tormented by a demonic entity that appears once every ten years to feed off their misery.

Common stories we have all heard in some form or another.

Perhaps you had hunkered under a blanket at a friend’s house when you first heard the ghostly story of an abandoned cabin in some distant, remote location. Do you remember how it felt after hearing that story for the first time? Can you recall how hard your heart raced? Do you remember how, that one night, a part of you decided you would venture there?

What part of the story drew you in the most, Traveler? Was it the Mountain and the people who lived in terror in its shadow? Was it the Cabin itself, a place which rested in our world as much as outside of it? Maybe you were curious about how the Cabin was there one day and no one knew how?

There are dangers unknown. Curses unspoken. There is the Mountain, a ever-present force casting shadows upon those ensnared in its vast, endless reach. There is a promise to any come into its shadow, but only as long as the Law is obeyed.

Deep within the Mountain is the Cabin, surrounded by silent woods.

It is the Cabin that stands guard, empty for eternity and yet alive with the memory of fire. At night, when the villagers rested in their homes, their windows and doors guarded by thick bands of salt, they could look out and see it.

They could see the candles and their dark, unholy flames.

Perhaps, you, like me, are staring into the blazing campfire trying to ignore the encroaching darkness. You're fleeing from the past towards a place of darkness, don't you know? In your mindless escape, as you seek something to chase away the pain, you invite something far worse. And you know it.

The tension cutting through you is a telling sign, Traveler. If you knew that the moment you set upon your quest to come to this godforsaken mountain was the end, would you have come anyway? Would you have stayed home?

I don’t know where you came from, and, frankly, I don't care. You're here, your curious mind lulled forward by some external desire to take that path right behind me. To seize a dream. To break free from your chains.

You saw the light from the safety of your car, didn’t you? It appeared the moment you acknowledged you were lost in the dark on a winding road deep within this mountain. You saw the light and felt compelled to find it.

Those who see the Cabin in the Woods, they see the light as salvation.

They are drawn forth by a subtle whisper on the wind, a lure to draw forth the unassuming. Yet it is not salvation that is calling, not here. Not in this place where light does not tred. This place without faith.

Be wary, Traveler. Go forth, and that light will lead to damnation.

Sit by my fire, and let the heat of the flame wash over you. Bask in its light.

Sit, for but a moment, and I will tell you a tale. I will tell you what lies up that trail in the woods, of the Cabin you saw as you came driving down this old, forgotten country road. Stay for a while, I implore you. Sit, and listen.

Let me tell you of the Cabin in the Woods where only darkness resides.

.

.

.

Those who grew up in the shadow of the Mountain know there is one rule, only one, to be obeyed without question: Stay off the Mountain.

I see the look on your face, Traveler. The confusion. A need to know.

What could be so horrible about the Mountain that it is banned? What could have happened that would make us live in fear of it, to keep our heads down when its shadow falls upon us?

Tragedy, Traveler. Countless horrors.

Those who went past the dividing line often found that misfortune would fall upon them. Children that were, quite suddenly, gone as if they had never existed. Their rooms were always bare, stripped of any sign they had ever been there. A ghost was all that remained, a loss to be mourned.

But it wasn't always the children that were taken, no.

Fathers were dead in their yard as surely as mothers were stolen from their beds. Infants were still and unmoving at the first light of dawn, so much so that you could mistake them for dolls.

I lost my family to the Mountain, Traveler. Watched my sister walk out the backdoor of our home in a daze, her gaze set on the floating lights dancing through the waist-high grass that was behind our house. I can still hear my mother sobbing as she held me back, her arms wound so tight around my waist that I had bruises the next day.

My father went up the Mountain when dawn came. He never came back.

Three days later, the Church Elders found my mother encased in a dozen spheres of stone just beyond the dividing line. The stone barrier we were never to cross, a path beyond we were never to walk. It took her a week to die, and even longer for those who tried to help her.

What of the Cabin in the Woods? Where rests that place, abandoned and cursed? Where does one find it when a lone candle burns?

I told you, didn't I? That the Cabin is one and many? That it is in one place as surely as it can be found in another? Here, but not? It is hard to explain, only that I have stepped into it and found that the front door overlooks a graveyard as surely as it overlooks a lake. Yet you will not find the graves at the lake, nor the lake at the graves.

Two places, and many more.

I made my way there like you have made your way here, you see? Like you, I was drawn from the shadows of the Mountain into the Mountain itself. A whisper of a story from my childhood sank into my mind. A whisper I could not shake. My sister was up there, it told me. I only had to make my way up the Mountain, step through the doors of the Cabin, and I would find her.

You, Traveler, were drawn by the light of what could be a helping hand to guide you on your way. Perhaps it was started by childish delight at a horror story to scare children into their homes at night. Maybe it started as a desire to see if the Mountain and all upon it are truly cursed.

Somewhere along the line, you began to run. From the comforts of your life before this point. You fled, broken by the dissent your sudden obssession would bring. A breaking occurred, didn't it? Pain bloomed when no one saw what you saw, and it grew when they did not understand.

We were both pulled in by pain. By anger. By hate.

I came up the Mountain, traveled the paths, and I kept going until I found myself on the porch of a Cabin that had windows covered in dust. Cobwebs clung to the porch pillars, silken designs stretched thin between the posts.

The door would always be open, the chain of the lock swaying lightly in the wind. A gentle breeze tugs lightly at the ankles of trespassers, a silent nudge to take a step into the black nothingness beckoning from beyond. To step from the light into the darkness within.

An open invintation.

Deep within the woods on a Mountain is a Cabin. It is a cursed place, don't you see? It takes, and takes, and takes. Never does it give. Your cup is held in your lap, as unmoving and cold as you are.

The dividing line between my old village and the mountain's base is the last warning, Traveler. A dividing line that no longer exists, having fallen so long ago as the years bled together. I hadn't known the truth any more than you did when I set out. Did not have the slightest inkling of what waited for me even as I hiked through the unending darkness of the forest.

I found my sister, you see. Or what was left of her.

A twisted, darkened vision of the sweetest girl I had ever known. A gentle soul that saw so much light and life in the world was turned into the most profane bait, a trap set up to lure someone into that Cabin in the Woods.

I watch you go, Traveler. Your bag slung over your shoulder, your jaw a hard line as you step past me to begin your journey up the mountain. I don't have to watch to know you will be back. There is no other path set before you, no other ending.

I will remain here. I will wait.

When you return, when you see as I have seen, you will know.

There is a Cabin in the Woods, abandoned yet inhabited in equal measure. It rests within the blackened heart of a Mountain so feared that those who rest in its everlasting shadow are trapped between the divide of light and shadow.

Many who have lost their way find themselves drawn to the Mountain, to the darkness dancing between the trees. They are lured in deeper by the whispers of impossible things. Pulled forward until they find the Cabin that is not as it Seems.

Within is the abode of cursed things that latch onto the living. A quiet sickness, a festering, enacted when you hear the toll of a bell ring. A whisper in the ear, a murmur in the head.

Old stories tell of a curse, a warning, meant for those who step upon the Mountain. Seek not the Cabin nor the false promises it sings, for should you step within you are cursed to forever remain.