The Last of the Winstons

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

This wouldn’t have been troubling, except for the fact that Jacob was the last of the Winston family. The sixty-three acres of land his family owned in southern New Hampshire had sat empty–except for him, the manor house he grew up in, and the abandoned cabin in the woods–for the last six years since his Pa passed away. He should be well and truly alone on the property.

That’s odd, Jacob thought to himself as he walked through the grand living room, pausing when a very faint glow caught his attention out of his periphery. As he approached the window, he lost sight of the light in his reflection staring back. He took a few steps backward, tugged the chain on the single lamp lighting the room, and walked slowly back to the window as he was blanketed in darkness.

“There,” he whispered to himself as he cupped his hands around his eyes and pressed his face up to the glass, his breath fogging it slightly. Far in the distance, through the woods that circled the manor house, Jacob confirmed the light was a candle flickering in the window of the abandoned cabin at the edge of the Winston property. The manor groaned around him in protest to the wind outside, and he stepped back from the window, thinking.

Jacob knew little about the cabin, other than the minimal details his family had given him over the years. He knew it was built for his oldest brother, whom he couldn’t remember. Ma and Pa told him that Henry was always sick, so they built a cabin for him on the property where he could heal in private without getting the rest of the children sick. His family never talked much about Henry, especially after he died. Jacob was only three at the time. His second oldest brother and his older sister used to tell him stories about how the cabin was haunted by Henry’s ghost, and then Jacob would lie awake at night, terrifying visions flashing through his head of a dead brother he never knew.

When Jacob was finally old enough to ask his parents if the cabin was really haunted by Henry’s ghost, his Ma turned white as a sheet and his Pa warned him, in a voice laced with steel and the promise of punishment if he brought it up again, that Jacob was never to visit the cabin alone, and he was never to ask about Henry again. Later that night, he asked his sister what she remembered about Henry, and she told him she wasn’t sure he even ever existed.

Scared enough by his siblings’ morbid tales and the warning his Pa had given him, Jacob never did venture out to the cabin. As the years went by, he forgot Henry ever existed in the first place (if he had existed, like his sister wondered), and as the land began to reclaim the cabin, there wasn’t a point to visit it anyway.

Dragged out of his reverie by a cold chill that ran down his back, Jacob pushed the thoughts of the cabin and Henry out of his mind.

“Probably just some of the locals playin’ a prank.” Jacob scratched at the back of his neck as he walked into the kitchen and grabbed his shotgun off the wall where it was mounted above the backdoor. He tugged on his boots, grabbed a jacket off the hook to protect him from the early winter chill, and lumbered out the door. He didn’t bother locking it behind him, since he was alone here, and had been for six years.

As he trudged through the backyard and into the icy woods, Jacob knew only two things: he was the last of the Winstons, and there should not be a candle burning in that window.

✣

A frozen twig snapped underfoot as Jacob waded deeper into the brush, and he jerked so violently that he almost dropped his gun.

“Pull yourself together, Jacob.”

The wind whipped past him, sudden and loud. As it quieted back to a more gentle gale, he could have sworn he heard a young boy’s voice whispering his name, “Jaaaaacob.” He made a circle, the butt of the gun propped against his shoulder, aiming at nothing.

“I’m armed!” Jacob shouted into the nothingness, wielding his gun aimlessly.

The wind banked to nothing. Jacob held his breath for one beat, then two, gun still held aloft. The only thing he could hear was the clamor of his heartbeat. Then, from his left, something came crashing through the woods in his direction. Jacob hesitated only a second before he took off, running for his life from whatever unknown beast chased him. Could it be a bear? Had they gone into hibernation yet? Jacob panicked as icy patches and loose roots threatened to take him down every few steps. The monster behind him was gaining, and he couldn’t afford to fall now. The strap of his gun caught on a low-hanging branch, and it was lost to him, a casualty of this winter-wood chase.

He hadn’t planned on running in any particular direction when the creature started chasing him, but as the candle began burning brighter, he realized he was running–or being herded—right for the cabin.

As he got within fifteen feet of the cabin, he tripped over some rocks and sprawled face-first into what used to pass as the cabin’s front lawn. He sprang back up, whipping around to confront whatever had been chasing him, only to find the woods once again quiet, no sound of his pursuer, as if he had imagined the whole thing. He looked down at the ground, investigating what had tripped him. He knelt in confusion and ran his hand over the rough rocks, which appeared to be arranged in a perfect circle around the cabin. A protection circle–to keep others out…or, to keep something in.

“What the hell?”

“Jaaaaacob,” came the whisper of a boy’s voice on the wind again.

Jacob made a one-eighty, coming face-to-face with the dilapidated cabin. Cautiously, he took a few steps toward the candle burning in the window. The wind once again vanished, until the only sound he could hear was his heartbeat, and the sound of wood creaking in a steady rhythm that got louder as he approached the window.

He steeled himself, and cupped his hand to the glass to peer into the dimly lit main room of the cabin. His breath caught, as he viewed a handsomely dressed wooden doll rocking slowly back and forth in a decayed rocking chair. As he looked into its glassy eyes, the rocking abruptly stopped.

“Henry?” Jacob breathed, disbelief coloring his tone.

He blinked, and the doll was right in front of him, face-to-face, nothing but the brittle pane of glass separating them.

Jacob jerked back, preparing to run, but a large object struck him from behind, and he knew no more.

✣

The last thing Jacob saw through fluttering eyelids as he was dragged into the cabin by the mysterious force that had chased him through the woods, was Henry’s stiff head cocking slowly to one side, studying him as he lost consciousness for good.