The Cabin on Devil's Lake

I stare out at the familiar grey water as our car moves along the dirt road. Every summer as a kid my family and I would drive up to stay at our cabin by Devil's Lake. It was always so pretty in the summer. But now, with November looming, it looked ugly. The leaves on the trees were gone, leaving nothing but pointy branches.

My husband, Justin, continues to drive along the path as we make our way to my old summer home. I had sworn to myself that I would never return, but the nightmares were getting worse. My therapist recommended I come back. "Going back will help you," he said, "to realize that there's nothing to be scared of."

"You okay, Em?" Justin says, breaking me out of my daze.

"I'm fine," I say, "Just...a lot of memories."

He nods and I go back to staring out the window. There's a sick feeling in my stomach and I desperately want us to leave. To return to our safe apartment with our adorable pets and our warm bed. But it's too late. We come to the end of the winding road and the cabin is suddenly towering over us.

"Woah," Justin awes, "This place is huge." He looks up at the once elegant log cabin and I can tell he's eager to see what it's like on the inside.

He parks and we get out. The cool October air feels nice at first, but I soon find myself rolling down my sleeves.

"See? This place isn't so bad, huh Em?" Justin says, trying to hold back his excitement.

I want to tell him how sick just looking at the building makes me, but I don't. I just shrug.

"I mean, look at this view." Justin goes over to the dock to look out at the lake. I follow sheepishly behind him. The wooden dock creaks with each step we take and the thought of it breaking off into the water and carrying us out into the middle of the lake creeps into my mind.

But I keep moving forward and the dock doesn't break. We reach the end of it just as the breeze starts to pick up. As I stare at the lake, time seems to stop, and suddenly...

I'm a little girl again. It's summer. The smell of my father, bless his heart, trying to grill burgers fills my nostrils. My sister, Ally, rushes past me, laughing. She dives into the lake and I find myself doing the same. I want to make myself stop but I can't. I plunge into the cool water and come up smiling.

"I bet I can beat you to shore!" Ally shouts as she begins swimming.

"You got a head start! That's not fair." I say, trying to catch up. But it's pointless. Ally beats me with ease. She gets to shore and looks back at me, a wide grin across her face. I stop where I'm at and try to catch my breath. I idle in the water a moment and that's when it happens.

Something grazes my leg. I try to play it off like it was seaweed but it happens again. I can feel a hand grab hold of my leg. Terrified, I try to pull away but the grip gets tighter and it yanks me down. I thrash around and try to get a look at whoever, or whatever, is attacking me. Even through the dark water, I can see him plain as day. It's a tall, lanky man with hair down to his shoulders. There's a scar across his left eye and he isn't wearing any clothes. He looks at me with rotting black teeth and smiles...

I kick away and come back up to the surface. I scream as loud as I can for my mother, who rushes out and pulls me out of the water.

"What is it, Sweetie? What's wrong?" She asks, holding me tightly.

"There's a man in the water." I cry, thinking how any second now he'll come up and start chasing after us.

"There's nobody out there, Emily." My mother says, "Look."

I turn back to the water to see nothing. No ripples. No bubbles. No signs that anybody could be under there at all. And as I look at the water...

I'm pulled out of the memory and I find myself back with Justin. It doesn't seem like any time has passed at all.

"I can only imagine how this place looks in the summer." he says, looking at me with his calm green eyes.

"Can we go inside now?" I ask. The sky is starting to get dark and not far off I can hear thunder rolling in.

We get our luggage from the car and head inside. The door creaks open and I'm hit with a wave of memories and the smell of old wood. The cabin is exactly how I remember it, apart from a couple of new paintings. There's a spiral staircase that leads to several bedrooms upstairs along with a balcony overlooking the lake. On the ground floor are a small kitchen, a bathroom, and a cozy living area with one of those little square TVs.

After my mom sold the place it was bought by an elderly couple who now rent it out to people for the weekend. When I told the couple who I was and why I wanted to come back they said I could stay the night for free. I think that's the main reason I agreed to go. Being here again would be bad enough, let alone having to pay for it too.

"Home sweet home." I mutter. We set the bags down and turn the lights on.

Justin goes to the kitchen and makes sure the stove works. He turns to me and with a smile says, "Well, what do you want for dinner?"

THREE HOURS LATER.

It's 10 pm and we're settling down for bed. Outside, rain pours down and thunder growls. I'm not sure how much sleep I'll be able to get tonight. Justin sits down and cuddles next to me, which makes me feel better about all of this. When I first told him about what happened and how I was getting increasingly terrible nightmares, I remember he hugged me and told me he'd never let anything like that happen to me again. It made me feel safe and now, as he lays by my side, I feel good enough to drift off into sleep...

I wake to find my sister, Ally, sleeping next to me. In the other room, I can hear my parents shut off their TV and get ready for bed. I feel my legs push off the bed and I'm suddenly walking downstairs. I try to stop myself because I know what's going to happen, but it doesn't work. I go to the fridge and pour myself a glass of milk. That's when I feel it. I look down to find my foot in a puddle of water. I hear a low cackle come from behind me...my heart drops as I turn to see the man from earlier. The man in the water. He's dripping wet and his hair is covering most of his face.

"Hello, pretty..." he growls, inching closer to me. For a second, I don't move. I'm completely frozen. Seeing the knife in his hand breaks me out of my daze. I scream from the tops of my lungs and...

I jerk awake. I look around and see I'm back with Justin, who's still sleeping next to me. My heart is racing and it takes a minute for me to calm down. I don't remember much about what happened after I screamed. All I know is thirty minutes later I was surrounded by policemen and my father was dead. Outside the storm is still going strong and the wind blowing sounds like somebody screaming.

I get out of bed and begin to head down for some water, but stop at the top of the stairs. The nightmare I just had, still fresh in my mind, gives me pause. I take a deep breath...I know if I want the nightmares to stop I have to keep going.

I go down the rest of the stairs and get to the fridge. This time, there's no puddle. No man behind me with a knife. I let out a sigh of relief. I can see my breath escape from my mouth and I realize just how cold it is. I turn to see the front door is wide open. It's just the storm, Emily, I think to myself. The wind is blowing pretty hard, so it's not entirely unbelievable. From the corner of the room, I hear some shuffling. Then, a cackle.

"Hello, pretty..." says a voice from the shadows. My heart sinks as I see the man from my nightmares creep out of the shadows. He doesn't seem to have aged a day. The only difference now is he's covered in blood, head to toe, all over his naked body. I back into the kitchen cabinets, hardly able to believe what I'm seeing.

"You better believe it." The man says, reading my mind. "This blood isn't all mine, y'know? No...some of it belongs to your father."

As he says it, it's like my memory is unlocked and it all comes back to me. I remember how my father rushed down the stairs after I screamed and tackled the man. I remember how they rolled around on the ground, fighting for control of the knife. My mom screaming in the back, calling the police. My sister crying to the man, shouting at him to not hurt our daddy. But most of all, I remember how I stood there and did nothing. I saw the man stab my father in the stomach just before my mom could stab him with a knife from the kitchen. The man rushed out of the cabin and when police found him fifteen minutes later, they said he was trying to get back into the lake. They shot him twice when he charged them and he died. It was all over the news. And that's why I had never wanted to come back. But here I was, and standing in front of me was that man.

"You're not real. You can't be." I say. "I saw the news. You're dead."

"Oh, I'm real. I've been living with you ever since that fateful night. You were never able to forgive yourself. That's what keeps me alive, Em. That's why I'm still here."

He moves closer. With each step more blood drips off of his body and onto the floor. Drip. Drip. Drip. Once again I find myself frozen. Mouth open in horror at the monster who's haunted me for years.

"What are you gonna do, Em?" he says, "Feeling a little stiff? Not the welcome I was expecting. I guess I'll just have to go see Justin." He grins when he says it and he turns his attention towards the spiral staircase.

I know I can't just stand here and let something terrible happen. Not this time. Not Justin. It's time to put an end to this. I grab a knife from the kitchen, just as my mother did all those years ago, and I charge. I jump onto him and we both go crashing to the ground. I scramble for the knife and quickly pick it up. The man begins to laugh, a sickening shriek that fills the cabin. I pin the man to the ground and his laugh becomes louder. I plunge the knife into his heart and close my eyes. The shrieking is silenced almost instantly. A moment passes and all I hear is the light pitter-patter of raindrops as the storm comes to an end. I finally open my eyes to see the man is gone. No signs of blood anywhere. It's just me and a knife that I've put into the floorboard.

Then, I hear the footsteps. I spin around to find Justin coming down the stairs, rubbing his eyes.

"Em? What are you doing down here? Are you okay?" he says, rushing to my side. He sees the knife and gives me a worried look. "What happened?"

"It's okay," I try to explain, "It's...a long story. But it's okay."

I wrap my arms around him and we stay there for a long moment. The sun begins to rise and peeks through the cabin window. We pack our things and get in our car. As Justin drives, I stare out at the familiar grey water and the cabin by Devil's Lake. There's a warm, almost happy feeling in my stomach when I think of how we're going back to our apartment, our pets, and our cozy bed. I look at Justin and smile, knowing I'll never have those horrible nightmares again.