A few weeks ago the most terrifying experience of my life occurred. It honestly feels like a blur and I’ll try and recall as much detail as possible but I may have to update as other parts come back to me.
My girlfriend and I live in a mid-size city in Pennsylvania. Every few weeks (during the warm months at least) we like to plan a little getaway into the country to do outdoorsy stuff. Since we moved to this area a few years ago we’ve gotten very into skiing, rock climbing, hiking, camping and just sitting around a fire in nature. We’ve gotten very good at scouring the internet for obscure, rustic places to visit.
A few weeks ago we were itching to get out of town on a Wednesday. With only a few days coming up until the weekend, we knew our options might be limited due to the last-minute nature of our planning. Most of the Air bnbs we usually stay at were booked up. My girlfriend works in the city government and near her office is a set of community bulletin boards that people post upcoming events, things for sale etc. So that Thursday she comes home with a number to call for a cabin about an hour away that was for rent this weekend for a far more reasonable price than we usually pay.
We call the number, a middle-age sounding man named Peter answers and says we’re all set to stay the night out in the cabin the next day. We’re ecstatic at this time over our abilities to find cool little vacation spots.
Next day we both duck out of work a bit early and hit the road around 3 and get to the place a little after 4. Peter owns a very large property that’s about 25 acres of mostly forested land. When you pull up to it, his house is fairly close to the road and you park in his driveway. Peter came out to meet us. He’s older than I expected, a bit gruff looking but friendly. For a while we stand in the driveway and make small talk and he tells us about how he’s owned the property since the mid-1970s. The cabin is a ways back on a foot trail behind his house. Peter said his nearest neighbor is about two miles down the road so we shouldn’t be seeing or hearing anyone else while we’re out there but that bears and deer do wander in the woods so don’t be too shocked if we hear rustling in the night. My girlfriend and I have stayed in enough shacks/tents at this point to not be scared of nighttime noises.
So we’re just about ready to head off when the first sign of anything unusual hits us. Peter hands us a geiger counter– a little device that reads radioactivity levels. At first I don’t know what i’m looking at and think he’s just handing me an extra flashlight. I’ve only ever seen one of these things in movies. Peter explains that he built the cabin a few years after buying the land and for the first few years used it as a hunting cabin. He started renting out in the mid-80s and over the years has rented to literally hundreds of people, most of whom never report any problems and give only positive reviews.
But, apparently in the 80s, Peter at one point rented the place to a couple that was very paranoid about radiation poisoning because we’re not too far away from where the Three Mile Island incident occurred. Peter said the property was well outside the areas that were evacuated at the time but this couple who took a geiger counter everywhere claimed that they’d heard theirs going off in the night, but that it stopped by the time morning came. Peter said after that he’d bought his own geiger counter and started giving it to the people who rent the cabin just for theirs and his peace of mind. He said once in a while (not often, but every couple of years or so) some people would report the geiger counter making noise at night. For those who don’t know, when geiger counters detect radiation, they make this awful sort of clicking, buzzing sound that intensifies as the levels get higher.
So we’re a bit weirded out by this but if anything, we’re comforted by Peter’s honesty and so we just thank him and set off down the trail. It’s not a far walk and we arrive at the cabin about 20 minutes later. That might not sound like a great distance but it’s far enough that you’re surrounded on all sides but nothing but forest. The cabin is only one room, wooden and has a porch on the front with a swinging chair. Inside there’s just two double beds, a wood stove and some counters. There’s no running water or electricity so the outhouse is the only bathroom.
For the next few hours we have a great time. We have a little fire, cook a bit of food, tell campfire stories and then decide to get ready for bed around 9 p.m. when it’s getting really dark. My girlfriend and I are sharing one of the double beds and the geiger counter, which I had sort of forgotten about, is sitting against the wall that leads to the porch at the front of the cabin.
It was a very quiet night and other than the quiet sound of rustling leaves outside, you could hear a pin drop in that cabin. I’m never a great sleeper on these trips so I was sort of in and out of consciousness for quite a while, just listening to the leaves outside when suddenly I hear one of those horrible clicks that the machine makes. Instantly my eyes are wide open in the pitch black and my muscles are tense. For a moment, I think I might have imagined it since it was just a single click but then there’s another… and another… periodically getting louder and more frequent.
My girlfriend is a much better sleeper than I am so she hasn’t heard it at this point but by now the geiger counter has a consistent click going and I’m honestly terrified. I don’t want to cause us both to panic so I slowly nudge my girlfriend awake and the geiger counter is loud enough that she instantly asks what the noise is. The next thing I do is fumble around and look for my watch on the floor next to the bed. When I find it I see that it’s a little after 11. It’s pitch black and I can’t find the flashlight so I just get out of the bed and stumble in the direction of the geiger counter which is STILL getting louder. I’m down on all fours when my hands find it and I’m shaking a little as I pick it up, insistent that it’s broken or misreading the air somehow.
What I saw next quite nearly made me shit a brick. It was easier to see outside than in the cabin because of the moonlight shining through the leaves and I could get a glimpse of the area around the fire pit. As I stand up with the geiger counter, I look outside and see a woman standing there, facing the dying embers of our fire. Now I’m paralyzed with fear and confusion. I’m standing there holding this geiger counter that is now screaming constant noise and getting as good a look as I can at this woman standing out there. It’s a chilly night, in the 40s, and she looks to be wearing a dress that comes down to about her knees. Her hair is messy, curly but unkempt but I can’t make out much more. I can’t get a look at her face but it’s clear that she’s facing the fire pit, possibly looking down into it or just over it and off into the distance.
My girlfriend is still in bed sitting and hasn’t seen the woman yet. All of a sudden, my girlfriend asks “what’s going on?” at full volume. I panic, and wave my hands at her to keep the noise down, not wanting this stranger to hear that we’re in the cabin but it’s too dark for my girlfriend to see. Then I see the woman turn her head toward us. I start breathing heavily. I drop the geiger counter and run back toward the bed where I whisper loud enough for my girlfriend to hear “there’s someone outside.” She now understands the reason for my panic and tenses up in the bed. The next thing I do is go to the door, walking low to try and hide, and turn the lock on the doorknob, very quietly testing the knob to make sure it’s locked.
I’m almost too afraid to check but I peer just over the edge of the window in the door to see where the woman is and let out a little yelp when I see she’s still coming, but moving slowly. The fire pit is about 30 feet from the door and she’s about 15 feet away now. I go back to the bed and find my girlfriend through touch as it’s too dark for us to see each other but I want us to be out of bed and ready to make a run for it if we have to. The geiger counter, obviously, is still near the door and is on what must have been its max volume. We duck down in the corner, between the bed and the wall and wait silently.
I hear the woman’s footsteps as she comes up the steps to the cabin. I’m waiting for her to try the door and just praying that she goes away after. My eyes are locked on the window in the door but after I hear her walking on the steps, I don’t see her emerge. A few minutes pass, we’re still both on as high alert as we can be. For a minute I’m expecting to see her peering in one of the other windows and my eyes dart around, my ears are locked in trying to listen for footsteps but I can’t distinguish between potential steps and leaves in the wind.
Time stands still for a while. We’re still sitting in the corner in a state of near panic, the geiger counter still screaming. But then the geiger counter starts to break a bit, the clicking slows down. Slowly but surely, over the next couple minutes (or maybe hours, it’s hard to tell) the geiger counter stops and silence falls over the cabin again. Needless to say, we did not sleep the rest of the night. We huddled in the corner and waited for dawn to break. When it did we packed as quickly as possible and literally ran the trail back to Peter’s house. The whole time both of us were looking around constantly to see if any strange woman was coming at us.
When we got to Peter’s house, I set the geiger counter on the porch and did not wait to tell him about our night. We got in the car and drove off as fast as possible. We’ve both been seen by doctors since and had tests run and as far as we can tell, we’re not suffering from radiation symptoms. But we’re both very shaken up and every night, when it’s dark, I can’t help but think I can see the radioactive woman standing outside.