Loose journal pages found in a small cabin somewhere in northern Colorado. There were no signs of their author, beyond a small dried stain on the final page, a stain which may or not be blood. Curiously, the floors and walls—really the entire interior—of the cabin were blackly marked and warped, as if having withstood a small fire. Investigators have no leads so far, but have not discounted the pages as works of fiction. But certain other things, namely disturbances in the soil around the house, lend a somewhat startling degree of veracity to the events detailed in the pages. And local reports of strange sightings correspond loosely to certain unexplainable phenomena in the morbid narrative.
The narrative, unedited:
It’s still out there, somewhere beyond the cabin. Skulking about the area, lurking amidst the deepening darkness as if camouflaged by the shadows – or born of them. The sun is setting, has almost set; and I know once that happens, things’ll get worse—it will get stronger, bolder. Occasionally, there’s a sound of twigs breaking, or bones. I remember seeing a few small animals on the property earlier in the night, before….
I have two matches left, and the candle is almost done; the wick curled, nearly burnt out. It’s almost as cold within as it is without, but that’s not what I’m worried about. I can tolerate the chill, am thankfully dressed for it. Once the matches go, or the wick becomes too short, I’ll have no light – and the light is the only thing keeping that thing out. I think it hates the light, despises it as though the very concept is some kind of existential affront to its being. When the light goes, I’ll have nothing to stop it from getting in. Even now, as the sun’s light steadily diminishes, I can sense it preparing, armoring itself in layers of darkness.
I’m inside a decidedly old cabin, writing by the light of the little wax candle I found beneath the sink; the only functionally salvageable object I could find in the dust-strewn cabinet. The rest of the place is similarly barren, having long ago been stripped of its contents and furniture. There aren’t any signs of the owner, no evidence that anyone had ever actually lived in the place; only a vague, seemingly source-less rankness in the air—as if something dead had passed through, and left some residue or clinging emission in its wake.
I’ve been here for nearly two hours, and still haven’t gotten used to that rancid smell. It’s somehow subtle yet profound—not immediately noticeable, but a phantom stench; always in the back of your mind, keeping you on edge….
I’m lying on my belly on the wooden floor, wrapped in my coat, with a stack of old, partially yellowed papers from a collapsed desk’s drawer. Luckily, I’d brought my sharpie with me, otherwise I wouldn’t have had anything with which to write this all out, and my story would’ve gone untold. It still might, considering the circumstances…
There’s no power, not even a generator, but the candle’s sole wick provides me enough heat—in conjunction with my coat—for me to not freeze to death. I guess the human body can get pretty efficient at siphoning warmth from any source when it needs to.
I’m actually kind of glad I don’t have a bigger fire (the fireplace is completely devoid of wood) because, with how tired I am, I’m sure I’d fall asleep if provided with enough comforting warmth. And to sleep would surely mean death, given how closely I can feel that thing watching me, waiting for me to drop my guard.
I know, I’m rambling, avoiding talking about the thing outside, and how I’ve come to be trapped in this derelict cabin, bent by exhaustion and nerve-beaten by terror.
Well, it’s not a long story, but it is a bizarre one; as warped and terrifying as any campfire tale. Only it’s actually real – and, sadly, it’s not over yet.
Earlier today, while riding through a path I’d taken a dozen times before, I saw a bear—or what had looked like a bear—stand upon its hindlegs, dig its claw-tips into both of its eyes, and rip its own skull in half.
I’m not sure what the purpose of that self-mutilation was, I never got the chance to find out; because before it could do anything else to itself, the front tire of my bike hit a leaf-covered rock and I was abruptly catapulted forward. I landed hard, clumsily, spared from scraping my face along the rock-strewn path by my arms instinctually shooting forward to cushion my fall. Had I been knocked out, I’m sure I would’ve been mauled only moments later.
The bear, having seen me, quickly dropped to its forelegs—the halves of its head falling away from one another like a blossoming flower—and started toward me.
I think what got me to my feet—leaving my wrecked bike behind—was the fact that the bear-thing was coming at me silently. There was no guttural roar, not even a bloody gurgle as would be appropriate, given its condition. It came quietly, but purposefully—and that scared the shit out of me.
I ran, head titled forward and legs pumping like pistons, and yet I heard the thing gaining on me. I sensed its presence in a way I still can’t quiet describe, as if it threw off an aura or emanation greater than its physical self. A forward-flung shadow of malignant intent. It was a horrible, baleful feeling, and fear of its reach kept me going even when my legs threatened to give out under me as I reached a sudden acclivity in the terrain.
It was midday, and I knew that there wouldn’t be anyone else on the trail; that I’d probably be caught and ripped apart, or worse, and what remained of my corpse wouldn’t be found for days—if not longer. The idea of my friends and family growing worried and distraught over my prolonged absence gave me a little wind beneath my wings, and I somehow managed to quicken my pace and summit the small hill I’d been running on.
At the top, the ground leveled out, the spaces between the trees widening. Through the break in nature I saw the old, wood-built cabin—this very one—and without thinking, without turning back toward the silently hounding bear, I fled toward that drably colored building.
I had just managed to close and bolt the door behind me when the bear came barreling against it, splintering the frame and even shaking the building itself. Still, it made no noise, merely slammed its hulking form again and again against the door like an unmanned battering ram.
Finally, after the seventh or eighth assault, it backed off, and I tentatively inched toward the front window.
Peering through the thin white curtains barely shading the bug-splattered glass, I saw the bear sit on its butt in the front lawn, and lay its paws in its lap—as if entering into some kind of meditative state. The halves of its sundered head still sagged apart, the jagged-edged skull and steaming brain matter eerily visible within. From my perspective the left eye was visible, and it ceaselessly circled in the socket, as if the bear were in some kind of trance. It was a horrific sight, and the sheer unreality of it nearly sent my heart into palpitations.
The rise and fall of its massive chest quickly settled, and this state of intentional placidity only served to further terrify me, as it seemed to indicate that the bear possessed some form of heightened animal intelligence, if not human-level sapience. Its relaxed posture—despite the grisly cephalic trauma—was so bizarre, so unsettlingly anthropomorphic.
Had that been the end of it, I think I might’ve been able to retain some degree of sanity, some sense that the world was still, in the broad scheme of things, a sane and ordered place. But what followed that monkish posture broke me, caused me to abandon all notions that there was a certain standard of “rightness” about the world and its machinations.
After a few moments in this quiet, meditative phase, the bear’s body suddenly burst into flames, filling the air with a black, fulsome smoke and the noxious stench of burnt fur and flesh. The sight was darkly breathtaking, both for its suddenness and its morbidity. The bear, despite being ablaze, remained seated in a state of perfect tranquility, as if unaware that it was being consumed by flames.
After a few seconds of intense immolating, the bear-thing’s coat of flames sputtered out and died, seemingly of their own volition; leaving a blackened figure that vaguely resembled the form of the animal it had once been.
The hide, or whatever the burnt beast’s outer-layer now consisted of, was left black and oily, like the skin of some primordial reptile; and while the flesh had melted away, the two halves of the split skull remained, draping over the shoulders like dead leafage. Smoke filtered out of the exposed neck hole, rising and commingling with the black-pitched haze above. The foul emission quickly filled the air, entering even into the insulated cabin. My eyes watered from the burnt uncleanness of it, and the bitter taste of charred meat developed in my mouth.
And, against all the laws of nature, against sense and reason and sanity, the bear’s chest still rose and fell in a steady, perfect rhythm. The eye, a black and sightless orb, still rolled in its socket, throwing small motes of ash every which way.
The bear—impossibly—was still alive….
Darkness is finally here, and the thing that had been a bear has risen to its feet, again assuming that unnervingly human stance. It’s charred, oil-streaked hide is glistening in the light of the newly risen moon, and the shadows are gathering and swelling around it, as if feeding its umbral power. It’s not a bear, anymore. Not that it every really was, of course. But the form it’s now taken, the entity it has become…. It’s something human words are unfit to describe. Its mere existence is an eldritch phenomenon, a thing that should not be.
It’s time, now. I can feel its horrible intent, its supernatural hatred. It wants to kill me, simply for having seen its monstrous state. I don’t know what it would’ve done, had it been able to finish its self-mutilation; I don’t know what it would’ve turned into. But I think, maybe, it’s better that I stopped it—better that it wasn’t given the chance to morph into some other disguise, assume some other, more personable state. People know to avoid a bear—but who’d suspect a random person to be some inhuman monstrosity?
Despite the moon being almost immediately above the cabin, the night is growing darker, the darkness deepening disturbingly. I’m down to my last match, and the candle’s wick is a blackened stump, barely an inch high. The air stinks, reeks of unchecked, unending decay. I’m tired—physically—and drowsy, as if I haven’t slept in days.
My sense of perception is all wrong, as if I’m drunk—but I haven’t had a drop in nearly two years; and this feeling, this warping of my spatial awareness is unlike anything I’ve ever experienced before. The walls seem to tower above me, the ceiling far-flung and unreachable; the floor an endlessly stretching and undulant expanse whereon I’ve somehow managed to anchor myself. It’s all so perplexing, so nerve-wracking. And the darkness continues press in, encroaching upon the diminishing perimeter of light…
There’s a weight to the darkness, I can feel it pressing upon my mind, stifling my thoughts. I think I can even hear the cabin groaning under the weight of the dark burden, the walls and boards creaking and splintering. These are the only sounds I hear, because that thing—that horror—is still quiet. I don’t think it’s learned how to speak, yet. Maybe that’s a good thing.
I can’t write anymore, I’m done. My hands are stiff, my eyes hurt. The air—it’s almost irrespirable. Don’t come to this cabin—leave the wildlife around here alone. I love you mom, dad. I’m sor
A small, darkly crimson stain punctuates this portion of the narrative.