The Cabin II

It´s been nine months now, since I woke up in the hospital bed after the hikers had found me out in the woods, unconscious and covered in scratches and bruises.

For the first couple of months, I was a nervous wreck. I couldn´t sleep, I kept seeing her face in front of me every time I closed my eyes. I kept feeling that nasty, cold, wet hair of hers against my face, the sense and smell of death and utter horror that surrounded her. The feeling of her yellow fingernails slowly digging themselves into my arm, leaving me with the still visible scars on my arm, identical to the cover of the book I found. The crescent moon and the eye.

Of course, these were not things I would say out loud, I almost didn´t believe them myself, and as time went on, they seemed more and more impossible, like a distant nightmare I once had. I was sent to the hospital shrink when I was well enough to get out of bed, but I kept my mouth shut about what had happened and stood firm that I didn´t remember anything. They sent me home with a prescription for sleeping pills and an assurance that all this would ware of in time.

Time went on, and eventually they were right. After about three months of not being able to sleep at all, I finally started to be able to once again drift of and get some well needed rest. Unfortunately, it wouldn´t last very long. You see the upside with not being able to sleep, is that if you don’t sleep, you can´t have any nightmares either.

It didn´t take long for them to start, and at first, they weren’t that bad. I often couldn´t even remember them when I woke up in a cold sweat and with a racing heart. But there was no going back to sleep again once they´ve jerked me up, panting and sweating. Many nights were spent like this, falling asleep only to be awoken after a couple of hours, then spending the remainders of the night either trying to fall back to sleep again or anxiously walking around my apartment, with a heavy feeling of dread, and for some reason, nervously peeking out the window down the street every now and again, as if I was expecting to see someone down there.

This was my routine now, and like with everything else, you get used to behaving in a certain way if you do it long enough, and eventually, it didn’t even seem odd to me anymore. But then the nightmares started developing, or maybe it was just that I started to remember them more clearly when they woke me up. I didn´t dream about her specifically… But I dreamt of the woods.

There were no doubt it was the same woods as before. I couldn´t see the cabin, but somehow, I knew, it felt the same.

The dreams would often start with a flash of light, then me, running in a panic through the bushes and branches, they air was filled with the smell of burning flesh, screams were echoing amongst the trees, a thick heavy mist lay over the lake to my right. It was pitch-black outside, in the dead of night, and something was after me. I didn´t know who or what, but I could feel it closing in.

Another white flash and the crackling sound of static in my head, I had fell over and was laying on the ground. I must have hit my head on something. I could feel the blood form a warm sticky pool beneath me, and as I slowly lost consciousness an image of the crescent moon and the eye formed before my eyes, or in my mind’s eye maybe. Just as I was about to pass out, I would feel an unimaginable pain in my gut, like I was stabbed with a knife made of ice, and that is when I would wake up in a cold sweat.

I had started to hit the bottle pretty hard since I got back home. It was the only thing that would help me relax. Unfortunately, the combination of my newfound mental state and love for the booze had cost me my job. They didn’t really feel like having a bum drunk on the payroll who didn’t bother to show up at work, and the few times I did go, I would just sit there, staring out of the window paying no attention to the things going on around me, or my work for that matter. I couldn’t blame them; I wouldn’t want me there either if I were in their position.

I was living of my savings, the little I had left of the inheritance and what I had managed so save up myself back when I was a functioning part of society. But I was going through that money at an alarming rate and had to try to sober up and get my act together.

But there wasn’t a day that I didn’t think about the cabin. It felt like I had left something unfinished there. I wouldn’t be able to heal or go on with my life until I could put that whole ordeal behind be completely. The only thing was, I didn’t know what I was supposed to finish, or where.

Time went on, and I had started to research the small town close to the cabin a bit more online.

There wasn’t much information about it. A small settlement that seemed to have popped up out of nowhere one day. There were no historical papers about the founding of the town, no local newspaper to be found, not online anyway. Granted, this could very well be because how small the community was.

I bet there are many small towns out there that no one really knows how they first came to be, they’re just, there. I had begun the thought many times before but put a stop to it before I would finish, that maybe the only way to get some information, and eventually get to the bottom of the whole thing would be to go back there. Maybe they have more information about the surrounding areas, the woods, and the cabin itself in some dusty old file cabinet in some town hall cellar or something.

I couldn’t let it go. I couldn’t continue like this. I would run out of money, soon. Lose my apartment and drink myself to death on some curb out there on the streets. I had no choice but to try to really do a thorough investigation. I would have to do it by myself, I had no one else to turn to. No one would believe me if I told them, especially with the way I looked, smelled, and carried myself these days. That made me wonder, how many of the “crazy” drunks we avoid everyday on the streets have had something really significant happen to them, without anyone to share it with. What if their usual mumblings are worth a listen.

After many nights of not being able to dig up much information, I sat in my old worn-down recliner, looking out the window at the night sky above the city. Dark clouds moving swiftly above the dark tall buildings reaching far above the rain drenched streets below. A few lights here and there in windows scattered across the office buildings. My focus slowly switching from the scenery outside to the vast amount of heavy raindrops racing down my window. I needed to go, I had to go back, there was no other way.

Another sleepless night went by as I packed a back of essentials and patiently waited for the light of day to come, even if it didn’t illuminate much once morning slowly did arrive, as the clouds grew even thicker and darker as the hours passed. I took a last look around my once neat and clean apartment, now more closely resembling an absolute dump with empty bottles and cigarette packages scattered across the floor, dirty clothes in the corners and a distinctive smell of not having been cleaned in some time. “I have to get my life back on track”, I thought as I turned and walked out the door, closing and locking it behind me.

The hallway was dimly lit with old blinking lightbulbs casting shadows on the yellow-tinted walls going down towards the elevator, it seemed to not only be my apartment that needed some attention. For a split-second walking down the hallway I got a shill running down my spine as if a sixth sense warning me about something. I stopped and looked around, I listened, nothing. Or was there something? In the distance it sounded like very faint heavy breathing, coming from somewhere in the shadows cast by the flickering lights. I braced myself and moved along, fast, determined. I couldn’t let my mind trick me or freak me out now, I needed this, there was nothing else to it.

With my eyes fixated on the elevator I hurried down the hallway until I reached the elevator. I walked in and pressed the button for the garage, and just as the doors were sliding to a close, I swear I could see the figure of a person standing in the middle of the hallway, way down there, only visible the few times the lightbulbs lit up. I closed my eyes until I heard the doors shut and the motor starting to wind up and I felt the elevator descending. It was all in my head, I told myself. Get yourself together!

Once the doors opened up, letting the gasoline-filled air fill the elevator with it’s sharp smell I hurried out and went straight for my car that was parked just a little way down the garage. I threw my bag in the back and got in the driver’s seat and shut the door after me. I felt safe again, and I turned the ignition. This was it, I was on my way, and I wouldn’t let any mind ghosts or scares spook me. I had no choice. I put my foot to the gas and got going.