The Cottage

Excerpt from The Stranger’s Journal; Entry January 12th, 2003, pg 2:

The further down the forest path I got, the heavier the rifle felt. Even with the cold basically numbing my arms, the strap digging into my collarbone, getting past all three layers I had on, and chaffed along the whole way. Nothing about the rifle looked as heavy as it seemed. If somebody had it hanging on their wall, the first impression from someone would be how it seemed like a small gun, and it was. When picking it out, my three requirements were: cheap ammo, could pack a punch if needed, and made fifty pounds shave down to ten. It was a model .45 Carbine Repeater, with a wood grain stock and iron barrel spanning almost three feet. The first impression from me was on just how easy I could use it, so I payed my money and set off only a few days later, with a backpack, my music, and the rifle.

As time went on, the rifle seemed to get heavier though. I didn’t notice much about that until I passed through what was left of Winona, Minnesota, and stopped in a halfway house for the night. In the shower, I felt a sore spread across the broadness of my shoulder and found it swollen. My mind went just to the fact that I had been walking miles, of course it was going to be swollen.

So I left that subject.

While the moon dropped for the fifth time on my little trek through the dead trees and anticlimactic snowstorms that decided to show their face at the reunions every so often, I felt it more. And while I had dropped my thoughts about the bullcrap I had jammed into the back of my head, it drifted back, with specks of better arguments sprinkled atop it’s surface, overlaying the fact that it didn’t make sense. I felt it worse, and it had only been about a mile into the trek, defying the reasons of just time.

Time acted as a vehicle for my fear on the journey I set out on, and as I began to see everything with a more heavy heart, it locked the doors to keep me safe. Instead of understanding that the path was fighting back, my head kept the truth packed away, so that I would keep going. The rifle had gained an extra twenty pounds, one for every mile, while I set off for The Cottage. It was known the path would always react with anyone that walked along it, doing everything in it’s limited power to keep people away. It did for the most part, and did it so well that it’s existence just became a bedtime story to people living in the remaining cities throughout the country.

While I was one of them that heard it, I could never really get it out of my head. Something about it was drawing me towards it. While I got older, the invisible connection was stronger, and the day you died, it was all I had left.

We lived under the interstate connecting two towns, the names were something I never got, but I believe they were Victory and Bookhaven. Both of them were huge cities, stationing about 50,000 each, and letting off enough steam to both help us confirm what they were apart of. You didn’t enjoy the lifestyle in the town, and neither did anyone else that was living alongside us under the roads. All the people that slept next to buckets of fire, and with pistols on their side every night. It was my home, and I knew it wasn’t the best home. Most of the other kids were in the same boat as me, sleeping in rags while watching the stars all day long. It didn’t make me feel terrible, but the urge for more was the best thing I could go after. And those stories of The Cottage, that’s what made me happy. It gave me dreams of something more. But once you died, it all washed back under the bridge, and I went for those dreams.

I grabbed the rifle and set off, leaving that past behind.

That damn rifle.

I continued down the path despite the recoil pushing me, twisting my organs and almost killing me. While I knew that it wasn’t that severe, I could feel it messing with me. My mind fell loose, and everything seemed like a dream. An endless dream, that kept you staring and watching, not listening. My visuals, where trees. Trees and snow. Every step of the path, I stared past the horizon to see more of them, until the moon hit, and a building would come into view, lit up by neon road signs and the sounds of crickets.

From all the stories, that just seemed normal.

Every story I was told, connected to the aspects of the adventure I was on, and while the idea that I was going slightly crazy did surface a few times, it wasn’t true, because other people knew this stuff. Other people knew how the path ate you from the inside out, and only left you alone once you crossed the gate into The Cottage.

And that brings me to right now, on the seventh day down the path. It has grown stronger by the minute, and I believe it has officially marked me as an enemy. My rifle isn’t a little wooden stocked shell holder, but something that has hurt me more than it should be able to hurt another soul. Nothing has made me use it, but deep down, I yearn to fire a shell off into the dead stumps and crowing ravens that fly by with the sight of them being absent. Just to hear the echo, or even a snap of wood and the crackle of a fire started by the sparks. Even if I could see another living entity, it would give me closure that the journey isn’t an endless road of screw ups and hellish inscapes that just want me to fail and turn back. To turn back, and return the rifle.

Hearing the wind feels like a nightmare after awhile. I listen to music along the whole way, but it can stay static when I’m not in the right mindset to listen to it. It’s like The Cottage knows everything about me, digging deep into my skull and plucking out every aspect that it likes and thinks that’ll go well in a little crazy dish.

The days winding on and on, feeling like years, clearing all the little details told throughout each story, and creating a completely new narrative. It wasn’t supposed to be exactly the same, even I was smart enough to know that, but when my feet hit the first portion of the trail, I at least expected to recognize something. I expected to see a tree with my name scrawled on it in scratched bark, but they were all just stone giants, only standing tall to take up space, and block the view. The view could’ve been nice, but I would never be able to know without being burnt. All of it, just seemed like a lie. The warning of beasts crossing the trail, all holding blades in tongue, and yearning for the taste of fresh blood, came to nothing. Not a single ounce of life could be seen, only barely heard. My rifle was useless upon the path, waiting for some action, but only having the pleasure of witnessing the invisible birds fly overhead, taunting my actions against the world.

Sometimes, if I think of going back, my mind seems to want it much more than I do. In all reality, The Cottage is just protecting it’s young. All those that made it down the path, hand in fist, and pushed through the trials and tribulations, they have the audacity to add power to the overpowering gateway to keep others like them out.

So, I’m going to keep walking, and hope to god, that The Cottage lets me.

And maybe, just maybe, there’ll be somebody walking with me.

Good night Mom, sleep well.

The Stranger stood still as the hut came into view over the mounds of snow and branches. They smiled, shuffling the gun strap and feeling the bruises spread along their shoulders.

The Stranger kept their head high, and had a slight smile crossing their face.

It was day thirty-four on the trail, and hope was dwindling by a string. It was something they never thought about anymore, and seeing just that roof made it better. Most of the time, they had seen a roof when the sun was about to set, and the path decided that those making progress needed some sleep. The Stranger watched the sky only just before, to watch the nonexistent birds fly overhead and through the clouds, crowing loudly and making the wind only white noise in the grand scheme of things. And while that was a dead giveaway of the location, it was one more thing. The lack of neon.

Every ‘hotel’ was labeled with a large neon sign above it saying: REST AND SUPPLY HOUSE. The roof was rustic looking, with a pyramid archway taking most of the space on the front side, a flat wooden looking exterior, while the other two sides were covered in long windows. Up close, there was nothing beyond them. It held the feeling of a damp and unrelenting environment, and something else. An entity filled the space of it’s background, but there was still nothing. It stationed itself as a location to purely take up space, and make the environment more pretty than it was.

The Stranger always took note of it, and immediately recognized the differences, specifically, the lack of neon and the open windows. They had opened pains, with the curtains inside being blown back violently by the wind.

They breathed out, fog showing it’s face, and smiled.

And the smell of smoke came next.

It wasn’t pungent, but it lingered in the cold air, making the Stranger just think about the source. Smoke wasn’t uncommon for them, but you had to know the source, or the smell wasn’t familiar, it was a warning. The smell was as thick as the breath fanning out into the barren and dead air. It stuck, acting reminiscent of the days under the interstate, in the ‘Concrete Halfway House’, when the nights would be cut short by a rampant fire that decided to be more than a source of heat. They never got bad, but it taught them to just stay alert.

The Stranger felt their pace pick up towards the sky tearing roof, waiting to either just find their location, or at least the source of the smell. Those were probably the same, and they made sure to mark that down. Noise finally became a friend to join in on the journey, acting with all others, to end it easily and peacefully.

Up beyond the path, the smoke rose like fog, drifting off and making a cloud to consume the rest of the empty sky. It stayed thick and milky, as grey as rotted steel and with the look of upcoming terrors painted on it’s face. The Stranger watched as it grew, rising up from the direction of the roof of the hut, and their nose shifted in the new stink that filled their environment. The path had been full of pine and fresh snow, the smell stayed stagnant, and the quick change was a shock.

The snow on the ground began to be pushed in faster, and to melt, as The Stranger began to run. The gun jiggled quickly and continued to push back.

“. . . Can you tell me again mom?”

The traffic overhead kept the child’s voice quiet, but their mother understood in great detail what they were saying. The concrete walls behind him made it echo, along with the child’s smile, but it still felt empty to have a pure blank canvas leaned up against the imagination of their head while they drifted off. An underbelly of roaches and barrels full of kerosene fires and mashed cigarettes, wasn’t what she, or any of the other parents living there, wanted. The area was small, and only beds took up the space that they were given, a curtain was blocking the other rooms, with a game room on the one side, and the living area right next to it.

“I told you sweetie, it’s time for bed.” The mother responded.

The child whined lightly and asked again, “Please mommy?”

Fire crackled behind her, slowly floating from the top of a rusty barrel up against the concrete wall cutting them off from seeing Main Street, and going back to a grey blob that left them tongueless and limbless. Keeping them numb and useless to the rest of the world. Nothing hung from it, but a single drawing of a house done by one of the other kids.

“Alright, alright, but after this, you have to go to sleep. Can’t have you tired for tomorrow.” The mother responded, instantly sending the child deeper into the sheets with nothing but their fingers and head poking out against the baseboard.

In her lap, a thick book was resting, it’s leather having more impressions than the cracked rock to her left. A few pictures from the child were taped against it, one of a small house surrounded by trees.

Clearing her throat, the mother repeated, “The Cottage is unlike many other places in our world, as it’s built from our imagination and dreams of the future. It isn’t just some house you would find in a land far far away, but a house that’s built for you directly. The chimney lies red, if that is what you please. The shutters are a dark blue, if that is what your heart desires. And inside, the rest of your dreams sit atop a table, full of sweets and soft quilts. Birds chirp in the pure pillow clouds up above in the sky, with the bright green pine trees lining your path. But, as it was intended, this may not be your path. When The Cottage was first discovered, it was given first as a gift to the man Atrax Dover, for no reason whatsoever. It was just a normal day, when the path was opened to him, appearing in his inscape as a way of escaping. Soon, the paths spread, and opened to those who truly felt touched by the path itself.” She turned the bound book to the child, making their heart race with giddiness with the pictures of the world sending more thoughts of the future through their head. A painting of them walking along their own road, a cobblestone road leading into a wooden city, built on endurance and happiness.

“For Dover, his path was that of a dirt road path, under a grove of oak trees, while the cicadas crying and the moisture filling up the air and making him have to take sips every few feet. It was his home, so he walked it. For others, it was a path along a spring meadow, with a single tree guiding them along the way, for rest, and for comfort that hope still lied on the very end. The Cottage was soon seen, by those effected, as an entity of it’s own, only showing for those worthy, and painful, to those sinful and hating in the world.

A painting of them walking along their own road, a cobblestone road leading into a wooden city, built on endurance and happiness, shot to the front of the child’s eyes.

“Did you ever see your path mommy?” The child asked.

She sighed, going blank against the words on the torn eggshell pages. Her most gentle face came up and she said, “Yes sweetpea, a long long time ago. Before the concrete.”

“Why didn’t you stay there?” They asked.

“Well honey, I couldn’t, because I had to take care of your grandma before she got too sick, and the path closed before I could finish it.” The child frowned, and untucked his sheets, gluing his eyes to the coffee stained sheets over his clothes. “I’m sorry mommy.”

A raspy laugh came out. “Don’t worry, you can walk it for me one day honey.” A crisp smile formed, and she gave him a kiss, closing the book in her lap on the bookmarked page.

“Now, time for bed sweetie.”

A thick grey paste was painting the sky above the old roof, and The Stranger could smell it’s soon to be solid taste as the rifle got heavier in that short distance towards the end of their journey. The trees began to have a stronger odor, almost like it was defending it’s competitor, and whatever was starting it.

The Stranger’s feet were galloping by the time the path started to become more rocky, unlike anything they had felt along the way. It had only been soft melting ice, and the occasional dirt patch to throw of the feeling of smooth sailing, and remind them about how this was going to be. It wasn’t some easy walk in a meadow, despite what Dover, or any of the other people that spanned through the whole passage, said. The ice pushed their ankles up into their calves, making each step feel like snapping a bone, and make sure that the person involved wasn’t having a peaceful time. The rifle was enough to ingrain that into their head. A drill with the word ‘carbine repeater’ was stuck in The Stranger’s head, spinning slowly, waiting for the day it could reach the edge of the frontal lobe.

They started running at a full sprint.

Up ahead, the mound of snow and branches had started to end. That vision of the past month had started to end, with a memory of concrete walls and barrels of fire starting to begin. A tear fell, and the running continued, their heart beating faster and faster, feeling heavier and heavier.

The Stranger stopped, right as the cobblestone began to smooth out completely. No more scattered rocks, they were buried into the mud and snow, taking shape. More words flying from that old tattered book, hitting each and every mark to make sure they were going to be effected in one way or another by the location beyond the trees. But the smell came back, making them cringe and feel more pain in their lungs with each and every breath. It wasn’t sweet, but it was salty, a feeling of unknowing clouding everything they were told, combined with what could be seen.

There was fire, that was confirmed.

This path was the only one he had heard of that was littered with snow.

And, overall, the recoil had been worse than anything mentioned by mother.

When she went over the details, it sounded like it was along the pathway of just loneliness and self-examination. A way to discover yourself and all the flaws that come along that journey that most dumbasses call life, and the reward is The Cottage, once the end came. There was no fire whatsoever. No mention of a dancing orange hue among the trees, as a guide towards redemption.

The Stranger hit the edge of the tree line, and stopped, panting. There was no more green to block their mind, and the pain almost seemed to stop. Fog blew out, taking the spotlight for the moment. Everything was pushing back, and the rifle was a block of iron, tied to their shoulder with a poorly made rope that still had the capacity to stay together. A huge purple and yellow bruise was covering the entirety of their shoulder, making a new Jackson Pollock painting. And still, the pain felt numbed. Looking straight for days made their eyesight hard to adjust when looking off somewhere else, into a place that had colors other than white and green.

A tall house took the place of the long line where trees usually would be. And by god, this house was towering. When put up with the sky scraping pines, this tip of the tiled roof ended right after that. It wasn’t just a place for rest and restocking the path-walker’s mind and soul with bread and water, it was a home. For a moment, when The Stranger could only notice the idea of the house, they forgot the rifle. They forgot the heavy oak taking on the weight of an entire tree, and found focus all pointed towards the shack that had been the only reason that they weren’t at the bottom of the freeway still. The reason that there were no more cockroaches crawling into bed, or barrels of tobacco smoke

The Stranger cringed again from the foul air, and their gaze finally found the source. The Cottage wasn’t just a house, it was a barrel. A barrel with a dancing orange hue hovering atop it, and spreading like a virus.

Breathing stopped, and there was nothing anymore but that book, and it’s ash covered pages hanging open in the cold air, crumpling up like a burning match.

Like a burning Cottage.

“Damn.”

“Mom.”

It was a quiet night. The freeway had been closed off for construction, keeping the skies clear of loose litter and sound. The teenager was the only occupant of the makeshift hospital, taking station right underneath the far right of their campgrounds. It was the only room without concrete walls, only views of trash and the city. The beds all sat parallel to each other, right against the wooden wall that led to the playroom for most of the kids. The teenager looked off, taking their eyes of the empty shell of a mother that once was, and started imagining the room from the other side. And then they thought of The Cottage, and all the stories surrounding it, all the stories told by the women in that bed. She was tucked under the sheet, her head as pale as the sheets themselves, blending like paint.

The teenager looked back at her, tears washing away all the color from their face. She was staring at them, with a big smile, the tubes wrapping around her nose made it all seem so distant.

“Sweetie, look at me.” She asked. Her voice had become raspy and almost as faint as an old joke over the past few months, when the sickness started getting worse.

“Are you in pain ma? I uh, I got them to give some more morphine, but I uh—”

“It’s okay sweetie. I’m fine, there’s no pain.” She replied. A few coughs followed, opening the teen’s eyes, but she fell back down after it stopped. “Do you need water?”

“No honey, I just am feeling a bit under the weather is all.”

The teen laughed, sniffling after, and trying everything to just imagine the woman in front of them, as the same one that had been spry and as energetic as any of the other little rascals in the camp. Tears were flowing faster than the teenager could realize, a waterfall of the past trying to wash all the unevenness away.

“The doctor says—”

She put her hand on the teenager’s knee. “The doctor says what a doctor says, and what he says, is that you are in perfect health.” Her smile was stiff, and the night felt colder from then on out.

The rifle slid from The Stranger’s shoulder.

They felt a blister scourge in pain, making blood spray against their jacket. There was no feeling with it. Up in front, the fire was roaring, burning everything in sight to a crisp. It was truly a sight to behold, it was the end of the pathway for a lost traveler, and the wholeness of it was engulfed in fireball, with no remnants of the end being in view. Every dream was starting to shatter. Windows spanning the front wall were all starting to blow out slowly, waiting for the fire to spread towards them and completely overrun the complex. The Stranger could feel the trigger on their finger, and began closing the distance between the two.

The Cottage had never been described in as much detail as they were able to understand. When on the journey, it was known that it looked different to most, following the same rules as the pathway. No one could describe it, because there was no words to verbalize it. It was a dream, just like everyone said. They saw the book, going back to when they would imagine what their own Cottage would look like. The main one The Stranger imagined, was a large skyscraper, cutting the clouds in half and trying their damn hardest to find the top of it in the sky.

The rifle sat comfortably in their hands, and more came into view over the snow.

The front ‘yard’ of The Cottage took up most of the view, just as the cobblestone path ended. There were no snow hills or mud, but just concrete covering the ground like a lengthy parking lot. It sat empty, with the occasional rough patch cracking and shifting around from the wind. Another image of what The Stranger thought their Cottage would look like showed up, and the view just shoved it away. It was another thing that was nothing close to the dream described by their mother. It almost started getting tiring, just another disappointment after another. Mother lying on her back, coughing up flem and blood, still spitting on that knowledge that it was the end all to be all, and it wasn’t.

Something was wrong.

The scent of smoke grew like a Hydra’s head, taking the place of what could be a joyous occasion. It was more consuming than the fire eating through the wallpaper, and had a presence that didn’t seem spontaneous. It roared a piercing noise, the clouds parting to let way for the entity. No more snow was falling around it, the sky was a plain of death. But they knew that smell. It was real. The countless nights sleeping under concrete and torn rags made it more personal, and nostalgic almost.

It smelled like home.

Home was a wretched place, and no smells associated with it were safe. It was a place of the bottom tier of people, only there because time and society had given up on them. No perfumes, no cleanliness. There was just trash and oil.

The Stranger cocked the bolt, and breathed in slow, taking note of the surroundings right before moving further. Something was up, and there had to have been a reason I brought the rifle.

It wasn’t something they were told, not by a long shot.

The thought only showed up once the border of Minnesota, or what was left of it, came into view, and a spark went off saying that protection seemed necessary. No, not that it was necessary, it was required. In The Stranger’s entire life, a gun had never touched their hands, it was a foreign object of war and hell, only made to cause misery.

The tick in the back of their head still showed up though.

It ticked, it ticked for awhile, until it got too loud, and the pawn shop along the interstate gained another customer. The shells rattled in the box when they got slid across the counter, and that sent a shiver down their back, and for good reason. Guns had been that symbol of terror for their entire life, being the object that struck down their father right in the street, and dozens more at the camp while the cupboards in the kitchen were filled with kids. Sweat raced down to the linoleum floor, but the tick kept on, and the tick was never wrong.

Plus, what harm could it do?

The land was labeled with a sticky note saying, ‘your suffering ends here’ so the rifle wouldn’t be used. It was a precaution, the tick made that clear. It made everything clear, with it’s throbbing presence in the world that already seemed like hell reigning over everything that was once green and factorized. It’s real intent was only there, once the pathway appeared. It fizzled into existence, appearing just as fast as mother’s life had ended, with the same reputation following it.

The fire was getting worse, and The Stranger heard a sound.

A twig snapping, from weight, not the hungry monster in front of them. The weight in the forest shifted, turning everything inside out. The bullet was more ready than The Stranger, as they scanned every which way. The forest was surrounding them, with only the large path into the white nothingness continuing down one side, and fire consuming another.

And out of the woods, there was a woman.

She was tall, standing stiff and secluded to her person. The sky was shining off of her glossy face, and the blond hair draped down her giant parka, and backpack right under it. It was a sickly green, looking ragged to hell, with everything else looking perfect, even her hair, with fly-aways not even seeming to exist in her world.

The Stranger dropped to the snow, their hands digging into the dirt and feeling the pain wash all the way through their arms. Her head was the only thing in view, while she made her way closer. Emotion was blank from her, with the fire seeming just like an inconvenience in her way, not something monumental like it was for them. Her boots clinked along the entire way, and her hair began to frizz slightly from the floating ash falling to the surface. It stayed brighter than her pale cheeks.

“. . .next. . .incenerate.”

She stayed quiet, and there was no one to talk to at all. But, as far as they could tell, she could’ve had another man waiting on the other side of the orange curtain, throwing information detrimental to explaining what was currently happening. The Stranger kept the rifle up, acting like a soldier in The Old War, ready for anything to peek above the ruins of what was once great. More fog echoed The Stranger’s anxiety out into the air. They had forgotten completely what month it was. It was all days, just drifting off slowly.

The sun was going to be up for a long time.

Excerpt from The Stranger’s Journal; Entry Date Unknown, pg 46:

She knows I’m here, waiting like a hawk, whether it’s her eyes or hunch, my presence is just as known as that fire.

It’s been burning for seven hours now, and she is sitting there just like me, watching it try to crumble, but staying still. You were wrong about this place, and I don’t know how you could have been so delirious in what this place was. As soon as the fourth hour hit, I began to think about everything you’ve said, and it all stuck like fly-paper. You were never wrong. Every single word uttered from you, was true, but only in the regards of one sentence.

It’s your own personal pathway.

That realization has made me want to just fire off the gun, and watch the woman disappear through the smoke and fog, coexisting under the blanket of heat. All of her words were true, but only for her. It got me thinking, just what made her pathway her own? What made the meadow so pure and glossy, and the birds so chirpy and self aware of her perfect wonderland? This snow wasn’t any of that, and the crows could only caw when I made sure to remind them.

The woman, from what I can tell, has been the culprit of these reminders. It has been too long since I’ve seen flesh and blood greeting me, ignoring the occasional dream of me waiting for a boat to come and take me away from this place.

My hands are freezing, frostbite is almost stopping me from writing this stupid thing, and it’ll without a doubt be shorter than my normal entries, but it helps make things more clear. I could care less if this is read, I need it for this crap. To defog them of that thick layer covering it all. The rifle has stopped weighing me down, and now feels just as light as the coins I used to buy it, meaning that something is different. Maybe it’s some sort of placebo effect on me after seeing The Cottage, and noticing just how much it smells when being burned to a crisp, despite a lack of damage done to it.

I’m standing my guard here tonight, hopefully I can leave and go back soon, to get a different path towards my ‘righteousness through experience’. That woman is all that’s keeping me here. I have begun thinking she is just part of this place, and not an intruder. An intruder on my head space, making sure I don’t make it to my end destination. Maybe it’s time to use the rifle after all? But who cares, that doesn’t matter anymore.

Goodnight Mom, sleep well.