The Red Cabin on the Hilltop

The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window. It was the only light in the black starless night as Cara inched closer to it in her 20 year old Yaris.

She used to frequent the dilapidated old cabin quite a bit as she was very close with the old owner; a slight old man named Sloan whom she’d keep company in exchange for money, food, or whatever he could offer her. Some of her memories with Sloan were shameful, so the cabin had faded into the recesses of her memory for many years, no different than the dead trees that surrounded it.

Despite the dissonance it created within her, she always thought of it as a safe space, a place she could rely on. The little flame was beckoning her inside once again. The flashing glow was like a new heart beat, a small bit of hope after becoming homeless.

It was a particularly cold October in rural southern New York and Cara was running out of money for gas so that she could keep the heat on while she slept curled up in the back seat. She hoped to find supplies that she could use within the cabin. Perhaps the bed was still there. The walls weren’t particularly insulated even when Sloan, the old accountant used to live there. But she was pretty sure he had a fireplace. She could use the place to get herself through the inevitable winter.

The cabin was up at the top of a mile long dirt hill, filled with potholes. Surely no one would put their car through that obstacle course. She could be nice and isolated there. If the old cabin hadn’t been her unofficial place of business, she never would have known it existed.

She pulled her car right up to the front door and stepped out on to the naked ground using the light from her cell phone to find the doorknob. Sloan never locked it when he lived there. But he didn't live there anymore. No one had lived there for many years. Her best guess as to why a candle was lit was that it was still burning from some high school kids coming up to the remote hilltop to party.

Her mind wandered back to her own high school years, her redheaded boyfriend picking her up in his mom’s mini van filled with cases of cheap beer, in search of a construction site with half finished homes to party in. There wasn’t much to do in the little town and the same thick chaotic energy seemed to infect every new generation.

The cabin still had its original red paint, though it was peeling more than she last remembered. She recalled every chip and crack as she used to stare at it as a grounding technique as 70 year old Sloan would kiss her neck and hand her a 50 dollar bill under the broke down awning at the doorway.

In a world where he wasn’t long in the tooth, as he’d say, he was convinced they’d be together for real. Cara wanted no part of the romance, but she did love the consistent figure Sloan had been in her life. She was grateful for his help that enabled her to provide basic necessities for her little family that included herself and her boyfriend.

Cara shook her curly frizzy brown hair and gave the door another little push. After a brief sticky hesitation, it flung right open. To her right, there was a little room with a big piece of plywood covering the floor, and to her left, was a cramped old kitchen that hadn’t been remodeled since the 1950s.

She noticed an awful stench and was surprised to see rotting old chicken carcasses strewn all over the kitchen, and one smack in the center of the table in front of the little kitchen window. She used to cook the food Sloan bought for her and serve it on the little green folding table. She wanted to call out his name because in some strange way, she could still feel his presence.

She continued on through the cabin and saw the big bay window overlooking the mountain covered in trees. She was reminded of better days; sitting outside on the picnic table with Sloan sharing a joint and wearing matching kimonos at his insistence. There was an old teal couch with a big dusty globe right in front of the bay window. And along the far wall was a stone fireplace surrounded by shelves with all his books, still in tact; The Human Condition, Tennessee Williams poetry, The Way of Qi Gong. They covered nearly every inch of wall space. The books were the physical manifestation of all of the things in Sloan's brain. So in a way, he was still in the house.

Past the bookshelves, there was a little old bedroom with a metal frame bed and an old yellow stained ironing board that was used as a shelf for clothing. That was where Alana, the runaway who became his caretaker, used to stay. Alana was sort of his girlfriend too. Sloan never wanted to admit he paid desperate women for companionship and physical contact, so he used to pretend he loved the women with all his heart. And perhaps he did. Sometimes they loved him too.

Suddenly Cara felt an old familiar chill down her spine, a twinge of envy that was ever-present when interacting with Alana. She’d met her a decade prior and the first thing out of her mouth was how Sloan was going to give her the cabin one day.

“Ha!” Cara said to herself, “I guess that didn’t happen…” The thick dust and the moldy air violated her lungs as she opened her mouth. She avoided opening the door to Alana’s room to be spared the flood of any more memories of their rivalry.

The smell of sewage was strong as she walked past the closed bedroom and small bathroom that contained the large beige footed tub. She quickly floated up the narrow winding staircase up to the little loft where she had seen the candle burning from outside in the front yard. That was Sloan’s room. That was where she had spent the majority of her time at the cabin. As she was trying to use her phone for more light, an email notification popped up on the screen. From Sloan.

Standing at the top of the narrow staircase at the entrance of his loft bedroom, illuminated in oranges and yellows by the small candle, Cara could see his bed which filled the majority of the room. It was still made with two flattened pillows, no headboard. It looked completely undisturbed. There was a tube tv with rabbit ears in the corner and the litter box his beloved cat used to use with some fresh poop.

Swelling with curiosity, she clicked on the email notification from Sloan. It read:

Cara,

My darling. Thank you for not abandoning me. I forgive you for what happened and for how things ended. Though, I have but one question I hope you can finally answer. I’ve been burning a candle burning for you.

Yours,

Sloan

Heavy hearted, the hair on her arms standing straight up, there was no way Sloan was still alive. Years ago, he had told her he could barely walk a few feet without getting winded. He had acquired some strange disease where his jaw was necrotic, literally disintegrating underneath his skin and he knew one day, it would completely shatter while trying to eat. And that would be it for him.

His words replayed in her head verbatim, “I’m as weak as Rusty when he was a kitten.” Sloan would never ask Cara to come over as he never wanted her to see him sick. Old was one thing, but sick was too shameful. Dying, he’d always said, was emasculating.

A crescendoed meow coming from the far side of the bed snapped her out of her dissociation. A chill rushed from the top of her head all the way down to her ankles where she felt something rub against her. Her mind wanted to escape but her body wouldn’t let her.

“I’m having a panic attack. That’s all this is,” Cara reassured herself. The email from Sloan must have been old. It must have been a fluke. She couldn’t recall all of the content of his past emails anyway as she was always drunk when she knew Sloan. She tried to ground herself by staring at the flame on the windowsill.

Using only the strength in her upper body as her feet still felt as if they were cemented to the ground, she lobbed herself backward onto the bed. In the dim lighting, she could make out the water stained ceiling. She traced the spots with her eyes as she tried to catch her breath before looking for the crying animal.

The meowing became more urgent so Cara slowly rolled herself onto her side. Peering over the side of the bed, she could see the glow of the candle dancing off of a tuft of red hair wedged beside the bed.

"Rusty," she cried. To Cara’s dismay, she saw the cat’s glowing almond eyes sitting across the room next to the old tv.

The orange hair was still on the floor next to her. Just as soon as she reached down to touch it, she recoiled, realizing it was no animal. It was the hair on a human skull sticking out from under the bed. The body, she assumed, was right below her.

Between the adrenaline and the blankness of her mind, the only thought that would break through it all was the voice telling her to jump out of the window in the loft. She envisioned herself kicking her feet through the glass and just running into the darkness and the trees away from the cabin.

The phone lit up with a bright green text message from Sloan;

Why did you allow it, Cara?

“Why did I allow what,” she stammered in the darkness. She could feel Sloan’s body in the bedroom with her. She could sense him since she’d entered the loft. Cara grabbed the sides of her head as the entire room began to spin. She could feel her awareness oscillating between her pounding heart, the red haired skull, and all of the shadows that lived in between the flickering of the candle.

She began to shudder as something started kissing her neck and rubbing her body. The feeling became more intense and she began to feel Sloan breathing on her. Bursts of adrenaline shot through her veins and she sprung off the bed, stepping on and nearly tripping on the red haired skull as she made her way down the creaky staircase. She skipped nearly every stair except for the last two when suddenly the door burst open in the downstairs bedroom.

“Cara,” yelled the familiar voice.

“Adam?!” She responded to the voice that was undeniably her boyfriend with the red hair.

Shaking, she crept into the bedroom, following the sound of his voice, where she saw Alana slumped over in a metal chair next to a metal bed frame. Her black bobbed haircut covering her face, Rusty the cat on her lap gnawing on what was left of her.

Adam’s restless soul looked down on her from the ceiling above. The air in the room felt like a magnet pulling her in as he peered down at her. His aura, greens, reds, and black. She was hit with a flood of memories regarding Adam’s death years earlier, why he had died. She never thought she would be this scared to see him again.

“Why did you do it, Cara,” he screeched. “If you didn’t do it, I never would have done it!”

Terrified of this demonic version of Adam, she raced to the door but it was sealed shut. She fumbled with her cell phone to try and call for help but couldn’t get any reception. The only thing coming through were green text messages from Sloan.

Her eyes wide, limbs stiff, she began to walk back up the tiny staircase and into the loft bedroom. Her teeth were audibly chattering as she began to realize something beyond her own willpower had control over her.

"Face the truth. Look under the bed, Cara." Adam's soul was swirling around the ceiling of the loft.

Unable to disobey him, she knelt down beside the bed and peered underneath where she was shocked to see a skull with a necrotic jaw attached to a sinewy old corpse and next to it was Adam’s skeleton still wearing his green bomber jacket and black pants.

Everything in the room started to become different shades of gray. And though she could still feel it vibrating on her skin, the sound of Adam's voice became muffled and far away. As she started to fade, she grabbed an old marble chess set that had been strewn on the floor, threw it at the window and jumped through the hole as she slid down the awning and on to the ground.

The blood was pulsing in her ringing ears as she started to race down the hidden drive in her Yaris, catching air on the potholes, the candle somehow still burning in the broken window behind her.

The next thing she felt was a sharp pain in her arm and white light pouring over her. It was so bright her brain could hardly process it. Two nurses surrounded her. Cara inhaled deeply and realized she was alive.

The nurses tried speaking in hushed voices, but she could make out every word, “I think we need to up her dose as she was hallucinating more than usual this time."

The shorthaired nurse turned to Cara, "We'll see you back in exactly one month for your next injection. Try not to be late next time. You were in pretty rough shape when you got here."

"Okay, one month. Promise I won't be late next time," Cara responded politely.

The shorthaired nurse turned back to the other nurse, a tall Irish woman. She continued her observations about Cara, "But yeah. She hasn’t been dealt the best hand… Her diagnoses are tough.”

The Irish woman shook her head, her face a display of pity.

Cara could physically feel that the medicine had replaced all the adrenaline in her veins as she walked out the glass hospital door and back into her car. She was a little less shaky, a little less scared, a little more flat, but deemed functional again.

Once again, she was faced with the predicament of needing a place to live as the Fall to Winter cusp in New York was chilling. The hospital could medicate her, but they couldn’t house her nor did she ever tell any of the nurses she was homeless.

Society scoffed at her, believing she was somehow responsible for her own fate in a world that was just. The disappointed, disapproving looks she'd get while in town looking unkempt or when caught sleeping in her car were too much for her to handle, and the old hilltop cabin crossed her mind again. Her car jerked and shook as she mowed through every pothole as she made her way back up to her secret sanctuary.

As she pulled her key out of the ignition, Cara felt a wave of guilt and sadness come over her. It rested heavy inside of her chest, curling up in the space between her heart and ribs.

She knew how much Adam hated her going to Sloan's and he told her what he'd do if she didn't stop. She thought for sure Adam would come to his senses and understand that she had never stopped loving him just because the old man borrowed her body sometimes. She was doing it for them, for their survival. So they could eat and have a better life.

Now, they could all coexist on the hilltop. No more double life. After Cara dragged Alana’s body from the metal chair back on to her bed and closed the door, she went back up into the loft. Adam’s body to the left of her and Sloan’s to the right, she fit like a puzzle between the two men. She blew out the candle in the windowsill and kissed Adam’s red hair and told them both she loved them.

“Tomorrow,” she promised before drifting off, “I’ll make another chicken for us.”