the cabin[s]

Campfire tales

The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window. That was what I said as part of a scary story I told my friend Andrew. We were out camping in, I think, February. It was just us two and a whole lot of refrigerated chicken. Well, we also had other food and water, of course, but mostly chicken. We also had a fire, of course, and some tents, but that was really it.

Andrew started to share an anecdote. Something about a cactus farm in Sweden? Well, no matter, we started to share more and more stories, and eventually I started this one. First, of course, I put some more fuel on the fire, as it was getting a little low.

"Have you ever heard of the Grand Father Paradox?"

Andrew responded promptly. "You go back in time to kill your grandfather, but since he died before he met your grandmother, one of your parents was never born." Therefore, you were never born and couldn't go back in time to kill your grandfather." Andrew responded.

"Good", I said. "It doesn't have anything to do with this."

Andrew's face grew slightly annoyed. "So why did you ask me that?"

I thought for a couple of moments before saying, "Um, you'll find out later." Andrew was still annoyed but didn't say anything. I carried on, "There was a man named Arthur Claydon. He was out on a hike one day in the middle of spring. He was on a mountain much like this one. Because Arthur was a bit of an idiot, he went out too late and, as such, needed shelter for the night."

Andrew was clearly contemplating if he needed to get more comfortable but still said, "And he found a cabin in the woods yadda, yadda, yadda, very spooky."

I got slightly annoyed but continued none the less, "He was used to this path and, as such, knew that there was a ranger outpost relatively nearby." Given its proximity, it didn't take long to get there. When he did, it didn't look like it normally did. Usually it was fairly well maintained, but there was clearly faded paint and a door handle that didn't turn right. However, here it was pristine. The door handle worked perfectly, and the paint still seemed slightly wet. At first, Arthur might have thought that it was just renovated. He was wrong, however."

I took a brief drink of water, both to hydrate and because I needed to think of what to say. I didn't think of anything, but I still said, "Once he had entered, he looked up." He saw only darkness. "

Andrew signalled with his hand to make me stop talking. He said, "You know what would be scarier than nothing?" I didn't answer since it was a rhetorical question, and after three seconds, he said, "anything!"

to this I said "oh no he saw nothing but there was certainly something." After he leaned back slightly, I continued, "Arthur found a chair, he sat down upon which it instantly broke." He was, of course, annoyed, but was too tired to actually care or be angry. When he fell, he, of course, looked up and noticed a spider on the ceiling." Andrew gave an expression that was as though he was looking at his non-existent watch. Never the less, I continued, "Arthur, while not very arachnophobic, didn't really want to sleep with a spider. He knew that there was a light in here that ran off some batteries and also some very old solar panels. Arthur flipped a switch and suddenly he was god because he let there be light. Normally it was just a dim light, but it was ridiculously bright here. "

Andrew cut in, "because all things are scarier when they are fully visible."

Andrew was clearly bored, so I sped up my story: "The spider, while not particularly big, was certainly noticeable." He took a piece of wood that was lying around and whacked it. The spider fell to the floor when its legs retracted like normal. But then something started to flow out of it. At first it looked like a fluid but in reality it was hundreds of eggs that hatched within seconds. These spiders started to move quickly towards Arthur, almost like targeted missiles. They were growing extremely fast, and many were fully grown within half a minute. But none of them seemed to belong to the same species of spider. There were wolf spiders, bird-eating tarantulas, and black widows. Not to mention all the other spiders that I don't know the names of. Because of accelerated growth, many of the large ones had to shed exoskeletons and regrow them within a few seconds. Arthur was covered in spiders, and he kept trying to shake them off, but of course failed. They kept biting him again and again and again, over and over. Despite this, the feeling of their thousands of legs crawling all over him was making him seem less like a person and more like a wall of moving flesh and hair." Andrew was clearly unnerved, but I continued, "Arthur kept attacking the spiders by stepping on them, bashing them with wood, and generally just waving his hands around as much as possible." Every spider he killed just repeated what the first spider did. killing thousands of spiders with every spider that was killed. This caused Arthur to "run and run and run and run."

Andrew leaned in slightly and asked "then?"

After a pause, I said, "Well that's it... we don't know where he went. He was never seen again."

Andrew leaned back and lost all emotions to say "well it was kinda generic but at least the spiders was slightly spooky... wait wasn't there a dude called Arthur that went missing a couple years ago?" I told him that I don't know, but he pulled out his phone and scrolled for a while after googling something. He handed me his phone, which had a photo of a missing poster from two thousand and sixteen. It was for someone named "Arthur Clark." He went missing when he went camping in the same area we were.

Given that I was the murderer and I was just changing a few details to make some scary story, this caused me to be a bit nervous. This caused me to say, "I might have heard of the name and story and just forgotten it but drew on it for the story without realising." Andrew seemed to accept that but was clearly still suspicious. I didn't particularly want to kill Andrew; he is my friend, after all, so I decided to try and distract him with a new story. So I said, "Hey, how about another story?"

Andrew nodded, so I said, "There is a... dude, named... uh, let's go with James." He is a candle maker. Also, it's the twelfth century. Did they have candles then?"

Andrew replied, "I don't know. Do you want me to check? "

I just said, "was a rhetorical question, it doesn't matter." So James experimented with candles. As in any experimentation there were mostly failures. However, some were successful. These included long life candles; they could last for days instead of hours despite having the same amount of wax. James started to grow old. But he decided that he didn't want to die, and he started to experiment on other people to try and extend their lives so that he could try to become immortal. He covered people in his long life wax, which turned them into living statues of a sort, although not for long given they couldn't eat or drink or really do anything. But eventually he got the formula right. First, he made immortal candles that would never burn out. Then adapted it for humans. He was able to make wax people that could live for hundreds of years, including himself. They could eat and drink and breath and normal human stuff. They formed an immortal community at the top of a mountain, but over time, there was only one building remaining. Nature started to spread and grow, covering the mountain in forests. One night, a tourist was wandering around the mountain. The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window. No one tended the candle. But yet it burned, and when the tourist started to sit by the candle to wait for the person who lit it to come back... he was still there, although he is no longer waiting, he was just there. "

Andrew was clearly disappointed. but seemed to have forgotten about the earlier story, so mission accomplished. We carried on talking for some time, but then decided to sleep. That's the end of this story, but I suspect that Andrew didn't entirely believe my bluff. I suspect if he follows the evidence well, I suspect I wont have any other choice.

[the end]