Unwanted Guests

Some people say that the evil lies in the soil, but others insist that it is the lake where the evil exists, or maybe the earth beneath the lake.

It was the winter of 2018, and Sara Parker was moving into a small cabin overlooking Lake Pitachi, a lake that some said was cold and unforgiving, and from the looks of the half-frozen water she could understand why, even though she was not superstitious, but that was about to change as were so many things in her life.

The water did look cold, but then it was almost January and why wouldn't it?

By the time she got done unpacking the 12' truck she had rented for her move from Chicago, she was exhausted and the sky was getting darker. It was time to call it a night and put things away inside the house. She pulled down on the big door but it was frozen open and she couldn't get it to budge. The neighbors upstairs had a shovel sitting on their porch, so maybe she could borrow that to hit the door with and break the layer of ice that was keeping it open. Her breath hung heavily in the air, and her fingers were almost frozen as she knocked several times on the door, but nobody appeared to be home. Certainly they wouldn't mind if she borrowed it for a few minutes, and if they came home sooner she would simply explain and smile, introducing herself as their new and not so handy neighbor. She smiled a little, and then grabbed the shovel and went downstairs. She climbed up on the back of the truck and banged the door several times before grabbing the rope and pulling down, nearly knocking herself off the back of the truck when she did. The shovel flew from her hand and hit a nearby pine tree, and then slid down the icy hill into another neighbor's yard. She checked herself out to make sure she wasn't hurt, and then slowly began edging her way down the back of the hill and into the neighbor's yard, using the branches of the surrounding pines to hold her steady so she wouldn't fall down the hill. By the time she reached the bottom, her hair was wet from snow falling off the boughs of the trees when she grabbed them, and her stomach was growling. She pulled herself back up the same way she went down, and by now the sky was even darker, with thunder in the distance.

She put the shovel back and then went inside her cabin, happy to finally be able to eat something warm and get the chill off her freezing feet and hands. The place was small, one bedroom, a tiny living room and a kitchen and bathroom attached to that. It didn't matter, she was tired of Chicago and this was going to be home, someplace where she would have no stress or worries, no noise and traffic to distract her from creating the art she loved so much. She had managed to win several contests that year with her art work and saved enough money to have some startup time to find new outlets for her drawings.

The place seemed so quiet, so isolated that she felt as if she was living in the old west, waiting for a cowboy to ride by on his horse and ask her if he could help her out. That was crazy, this was 2018 and there were no cowboys on horses waiting to help the Damsel in distress. Laughing, she began unpacking the box marked "kitchen," carefully placing the glass dishes one beside another—first plates, then small plates, then saucers both big and small. All the plates were arranged neatly on the first shelf, and the saucers were sitting next to them in the order of size. Sara reached up to grab a saucer that was in the wrong stack, and when she did the saucers all began to slide and fall out of the cupboard, hitting the counter and shattering glass everywhere. The first instinct she had was to close her eyes as tight as she could, but when she did, she felt a sharp slice to her wrist, and when she opened her eyes there was a small cut directly over the vein in her wrist, as though someone had tried to cut her wrist, making it look like she did it.

It's just a coincidence, she told herself, but in the back of her mind it bothered her. A few days later, she noticed small things missing around the house that would then pop up somewhere in plain sight later. She also noticed her plants were dying, but that could be because it was so shady inside and they didn't get much light.

The worst thing about it was suddenly her health began to suffer. Her minor heart and lung issues sprung into full blown medical issues, and most of her time was now spent either at the doctor's office or sleeping, but no drawings were being produced.

It was almost spring, and the snow was melting away while the birds sang happily in the morning, welcoming the day. Sara woke up around noon, her usual time these days, and against the wall in her tiny bedroom were five new drawings that she had no memory of doing. The art was beautiful, but her signature was not on it nor was any other signature. It was done by the ghost, it had to be. But why would he try to slice her wrist one day and draw the pictures she needed so badly to survive the next?

Sara had become so weak that she could barely get out of bed and get to the kitchen or bathroom. She was strong willed and determined to figure out what was happening in the cabin to make her so sick, and if there were maybe two ghosts or even more living around her. One of them liked to draw and was a heck of a good artist. She decided to think of him as Leonardo Divinci, or Leo for short. The nasty one that was trying to harm her was given a name too, and that name was nuisance. Sara didn't believe in heaven or hell, so an evil spirit trying to do her harm made no sense to her but maybe she should have done her homework

Sara was found face down in the snow still clutching the pictures she had found in her room. Her lips were blue, but she had a little smile on her face as though she was seeing someone she loved. Ice caked her hair and her feet and hands were almost totally frozen. It had been exactly two months since Sara moved in and discovered the meaning of the afterlife both good and bad. She was the second victim of the cabin in less than six months, but nobody in the tiny town ever spoke a word about it.