Once again I have come across a bizarre cabin debacle. For those of you who have read my posts before, my girlfriend and I are very into finding rustic and/or remote cabins to rent to get out of the mid-size city we live in on weekends.
This past weekend we made quite a venture: all the way out to a small town in the White Mountains of New Hampshire where a relative of mine has a very large home. She was out of town for a week and, with our cabin obsession in mind, asked us if we’d like to make the trek to the mountains and watch the house while she’s gone. We readily accepted and started packing almost immediately.
After a long drive through snow-capped mountains we arrived. When I say this is a small town I mean there’s literally only about 200 people in the town. There’s one general store, one gas station and no police force in the town. The house is on a dirt road that leads into the mountains and it has a hiking trail that leads into miles of intricate trails at the end. The houses are quite far apart on this street and each lot is at least a few acres of land. Needless to say, it’s quiet most of the time in the house.
The building itself is so large it’s almost cavernous. This is aided by the fact that much of the ground floor is one high-ceiling room with a balcony that looks over it from the second floor. There’s also a small third floor and a partially-finished basement. It’s mostly wood paneling everywhere and pictures of the nearby mountains or family members on various skiing trips adorning the walls.
My girlfriend and I were in heaven in this place. We loved it as soon as we arrived. It was an excellent place to stay. The owner let us know that in this town, everyone leaves their doors unlocked as there’s hardly been any break-ins in memory. Most people in the town know each other and most of the time when she goes out of town, a neighbor or friend will just let themselves in to do the housekeeping.
My aunt took off and left us alone there with her dog, a skinny, older poodle-water dog mix who was very sweet named Genry. By then it was around six or so. We went to the one bar in town and had a small-town meal that couldn’t be beat, went to bed and didn’t get up until the next morning. Bright and early, with the sun, so we could watch the sun come up over the still snow-capped mountains. We slept through the night without incident on the first night…
But when we got up, I noticed some little oddities. Keep in mind this is our first night ever in this house so we don’t know the ins and outs of this proverbial palace but I couldn’t help but notice a couple things that were seemingly strange. For one, the refrigerator had a large supply of local goat cheese in it when we’d arrived. That morning, about half of it was gone, taken straight out of the foil it was wrapped in. I hadn’t touched it and my girlfriend is a vegan but I figured it was possible that it had been like that when we got here and I had forgotten.
Even stranger though, the front door, which consists of a wooden door and a screen door behind it, was just ajar. This I was positive I had checked before going to bed because it had practically been in the 30s in the night. The front part of the house was quite cold as a result of the door being open so I closed it. I figured it was possible I hadn’t closed it hard enough or something and slid open.
During the day we went into the trails at the end of the road and explored with the dog. The network of trails back there was actually so intricate that we got lost for about an hour. It was around midday and we started to encourage Genry to lead us since he’d been on the trails so many times and might know the way. To do this we kind of hyped him up until he was really worked up, the way you do to get dogs excited, and then both yelled “go!” and let him run off so we could follow. For an old dog, Genry could run a surprisingly long way but not that quickly so we were able to keep up.
It turned out Genry was leading us somewhere but not directly to the house. He led us down a couple trails and made a series of turns that I couldn’t keep track of but we were so lost at that point that we might as well have just made turns at random. Eventually the trail started to narrow and I could see a building up ahead. Genry began to slow down and then, oddly, stopped in the middle of the trail and sat down. I stopped as well, not wanting to wander onto someone’s property, and knelt down to grab Genry’s collar. He was acting strangely. He was staring straight forward, as if concentrating on something. The trees around us here were younger pines, thick enough that I couldn’t get a good idea of this building up ahead, but that I could sort of make out its outline. It looked to be small, maybe a one-floor cabin. But Genry clearly sensed something was in this pine brush with us. I was confused, thinking it odd that the dog had led us here only to stop dead and sit silently.
Then I followed Genry’s eyes to where he was looking in the pines and saw a figure moving slowly. I realized just then, over the sound of the wind rustling through the trees, that I could hear soft footsteps moving adjacent to us. Now my eyes followed this figure as well as it treaded lightly over the soft ground. It appeared to cross the trail that was around a bend in front of us and keep moving through the trees, until it stopped, just a silhouette, between us and this cabin. It looked like it could be roughly the size of a person, but it was hard to tell. At that moment, I figured it was a bad look if we had come face to face with the owner of the parcel and just sat there staring so I let out a friendly “hello.” But I got no response. The figure just stood in silence.
“Sorry for wandering onto your land,” I continued. “We’re a bit lost and our dog ran down here.”
Still no answer. The figure was so still I thought it might have left. Or I imagined it, just an apparition. Either way I had a bad feeling. I stood up, hunched over to keep a hand on Genry’s collar, and led him back the other way. It turns out Genry had gotten us quite close and we only had to make one more turn to find our way back to our house.
The rest of that day went without incident. We made food, had a fire and sang our campfire songs, had another mountain dinner that couldn’t be beat and went to bed. This time I made very sure that the door was closed and actually did lock it to make sure it stayed shut. This was more out of concern that the house would be cold in the morning than anything else. At this point I wasn’t worried about anything, but I was still a little unnerved from the encounter on the trails earlier today. My relative had never mentioned any strange people living in cabins nearby in the woods. From what I had heard, everyone in town was very friendly and personable. It wasn’t like these small-town folk to not answer when someone wanders onto their land.
That night, strange things started to happen. We went to bed early, around 9 p.m. It’s very quiet at night in that house. The only sounds are generally the wind and sometimes an animal walking outside.
Around midnight, we were woken up abruptly to a loud beeping sound coming from the basement. As you can imagine we were both freaked out by it. It was too loud to ignore so we both got up and turned lights on as we ventured down into the basement. It’s an oddly designed house in that there’s no lightswitch at the top of the basement stairs and you have to wander down part way in complete darkness before you hit the switch at the bottom of the staircase to turn the basement lights on.
My girlfriend and I both ventured down, holding hands and I could tell we were both a little freaked out. We turned the lights on and our fears were momentarily quelled as we realized the beeping was coming from the water heater. I messed around with some buttons on the machine until I hit one that finally got it to stop the loud beeping when suddenly, a new noise entered my awareness.
On the ground floor, directly above us, I could hear footsteps. I immediately froze and whirled around to look at my girlfriend. She did the same and we both instinctively held a finger up to our lips signaling to stay quiet. I didn’t move or even take a breath. The steps were at a pace that seemed calm, not rushed or nervous but were distinctly two-legged. What I couldn’t figure out was why Genry was so quiet. He was the type of dog that freaked out barking whenever someone came in the door or even just if there was a groundhog in the yard. If anyone had maliciously entered the house Genry would probably be losing his mind.
Yet it was totally quiet. The steps began in the living room and were moving in the direction of being over us. Every so often I could hear them stop for a moment… then start… stop… and start. I could see up the steps to the living room and at one point, as the steps paused, saw the lights turn off in the living room. My heart almost stopped as I realized whoever this was, they were stopping to turn off all the lights we had turned on on our way down here. My next thought was they would surely come downstairs to turn the light off down here before getting to whatever they were going to do. My head snapped toward my girlfriend, she appeared to have the same idea.
As quietly as we could, we moved toward the back of the basement, out of view of the stairs, and waited. The steps continued to move toward the bedroom that we were staying in on the ground floor, pausing here and there ostensibly to turn off the lights. I worried for Genry, and for us. As the steps reached where our bedroom would be, they stopped again. I listened intently, waiting for them to start again, but was shocked to hear they never did. It was like whoever was up there had just slipped out a window or teleported.
After waiting a while, we emerged and very quietly moved back upstairs, terrified to look around every corner. Inexplicably we couldn’t find anything strange. We turned the lights on again and checked every entrance. There wasn’t a window open, a door cracked. The front door was still locked, even. Genry was sound asleep and gave me a look as if to ask what all the fuss was about. I looked all over the bedroom we were in to see if there was a way out of the house from there but couldn’t find one. I felt like a crazy person as I even looked for a trap door in the closet. The window was closed and locked.
We barely slept that night but felt much better in the morning. We decided not to call the police, figuring if someone had gotten in the house Genry would have barked and there would have been evidence of it. We couldn’t explain what happened but we had both been shaken up by the incident in the woods and decided to just try and move on.
The day went on and we did our typical mountain life things. We chopped wood, cooked and made a fire. Checked out the local bar again and then came home as night fell. I think we both felt a little on edge as we settled down to go to bed and understandably so. I decided to move Genry’s dog bed into our room for the night. For some reason it was comforting.
Night fell and all was silent again. I’m a notorious insomniac whereas my girlfriend could sleep through a nuclear bomb test. I lied awake, waiting for something to happen, sure that it would. The hours passed. Midnight passed. 1 a.m. 2 a.m. Still nothing. I slept intermittently and lightly.
Then around 3 a.m., up starts the water heater again. My girlfriend wakes up as well and puts a pillow over her head. I also want to ignore it, hoping it will just shut off itself. It goes on for a few minutes, not showing any signs of stopping. I give in and get up, going to find the button that turned it off last time. I emerge from our room into a hallway that leads to a den and then to the living room. Then as I get to the top of the stairs, the beeping stops. I pause, partly glad that I don’t have to go down in the basement and partly trying to hear anything strange. It’s silent. I hear nothing. The machine fixed itself.
I shrug and turn the lights off as I head back to the room and slept great for the rest of the night.
The next morning everything seemed normal, until I went to take a shower. The shower would not get hot even after running it for ten minutes. That damn water heater again. I head downstairs into the basement. It’s dimly lit but has small windows that allow enough light that you don’t need the electric lights during the day. As I come up to the machine, I’m livid. I notice it’s completely turned off and think “great, now we’re not gonna have hot water the rest of the week.” Then I notice the wires sticking out of the back and move around it. I’m shocked. Someone, or something, had ripped the wires that power the heater straight out of it, leaving loose wire hanging from the back. I dropped the cords and ran back upstairs, terrified someone might still be down there with me. My girlfriend asks what’s wrong.
“Someone broke the water heater.”
We decide to call the cops and not even bother going back down. In a town this small, it’s just the state cops who respond to any issues but they take a long time to get there. We wait about 20 minutes before one cop pulls into the driveway and we explain the whole situation with the footsteps and the broken water heater. He takes a look at it and decides we have rats.
“Rats!??” my girlfriend and I both responded in unison.
I’ve had rats before and know the telltale signs. Yet I had not seen any of the droppings or heard the rustling noises in the walls since we’d been in this house. The cop said he couldn’t explain the footsteps we’d heard but if we hadn’t found any signs of forced entry, there wasn’t much he could do. He said to call again if anything else happened and left.
My girlfriend and I were both very worried now. I tried calling my relative who owns the house but she was on a trip overseas and I repeatedly got her voicemail. I was frightened to go to sleep that night but didn’t want to just up and leave the house without her knowing. We tried our best to have a fun, normal day but we were both so on edge. Our minds both instinctively looked for things to be scared of. At one point, I swear someone was shining something out of the woods about a hundred yards off. There was a glinting, like someone reflecting the bright sunlight at me to get my attention. I wrote it off as my imagination, yet it seemed so real.
My girlfriend was also paranoid. At one point she claimed she’d seen someone in the shed outside. We both went out to check it out and couldn’t find anyone.
That night, we were both terrified. I felt like I could cry as the sun went down but we agreed to stick it out for one more night. Once more we were in bed and I laid awake waiting for the inevitable sounds. I doubted it would be the water heater this time but I expected something. My girlfriend, amazingly, stayed awake for a long time as well, but eventually somehow fell asleep.
Unbelievably, that night went by without incident. A few times I thought I heard footsteps outside the window and got up to peer out, but couldn’t see anyone. On one occasion I scared away a deer that was nibbling on the leaves of the trees outside and chuckled at myself.
We felt much better the following day and for a while, it seemed like our issues might have been resolved. We did our usual thing, walking the dog and hiking near a local river. Nighttime came and, although I was a little nervous, I figured I could get some sleep tonight.
Dusk fell and we laid in the bed again. My girlfriend fell asleep without issue as did Genry. I laid awake until about midnight but drifted off. The next thing I remember is a strange dream where I was sitting at the dining room table of our house in Pennsylvania and someone was knocking at the door. In the dream, I kept trying to get up and answer it, but the door was so heavy I couldn’t open it. Then I snapped into focus, acutely awake at once and realized that the knocking in my dream was footsteps coming from the second floor. Loud footsteps, like someone moving just under running speed. I was paralyzed with fear. But I moved my hand over to shake my girlfriend awake. I was amazed and relieved she didn’t scream as the footsteps could be heard coming down the stairs on the far side of the house. They were loud and fast. Too fast for me to consider what to do. They moved across the large living room, getting louder and louder. Genry finally woke up and started barking. My girlfriend and I both cowered in fear in the bed, unable to move. The footsteps reached our door and then stopped suddenly. For a moment it was quiet, and I reached over to the bedside table, looking for anything to use as a weapon but found only the digital clock. Whoever was here knew we were in this room.
I waited. But nothing came. Minutes passed and still nothing. I wanted to believe the imposter had left, decided we were uninteresting and just disappeared like it had a few nights ago. But I had to know. I got up, there wasn’t a single sound in that room, as Genry had stopped barking but stood looking at the door in anticipation. I moved closer, and put a hand on a knob. As it turned it let out a noisy creek that made me cringe internally. Suddenly I flung open the door. No one was there. I poked a head out, the clock cocked back ready to bludgeon anyone who showed themselves. I slowly exhaled and turned around. Only to scream and jump when I saw the bedroom window.
In it was a dark figure. A shadowy head peering in that darted down as soon as I yelled. My girlfriend, seeing it too, began to scream as well. We both ran out of the room, Genry in tow. We rushed to the front door on the far side of the house without bothering with shoes or clothes and ran for the car. Once inside I triple checked my door was locked. I frantically started the car and backed out of the driveway. My head turned looking out the back, I heard my girlfriend, riding shotgun, let out a shaky “look!”
I stopped the car and turned my head forward. There, on the wrap-around porch, someone was standing. We couldn’t tell who in the darkness but it was what appeared to be a person. We stared for a moment, horrified before it started to walk down the steps. I gasped as I watched the figure now break into an all-out sprint toward the car. My girlfriend screamed, snapping me out of the trance I was in and I floored the car in reverse. Once on the road I threw the car in gear and drove away as quickly as possible, checking in my rear view mirror but seeing nothing. We drove for a long time, to the next sizable town and checked into the first hotel that allowed dogs.
The next day we went back and just did a driveby of the house. It looked to be in order but I wouldn’t dare go inside or even get out of the car. We’ve been staying at the hotel for a few days now and haven’t had any problems but we’ve been too scared to go hiking or do anything in town. I’ve been trying to get in touch with the owner to let her know. I desperately want to leave this town now but I don’t want to take Genry without my relative’s knowledge. That’s where I’m at for now.