We were all feeling kind of sad and nostalgic for our youth this past summer. To be fair, I’ve actually enjoyed being in my thirties more than my twenties. I appreciate everything more. Food tastes better, travel and new experiences feel more intense and meaningful, even relationships are handled better, and when they don’t work out it feels more like a lesson learned rather than an emotional gambit. Eric, Dan, Emily, Chris and I rented a cabin in the Pennsylvania Pocono mountains for a weekend. I mean Emily booked it and planned the whole thing, including dinners and all that, but that’s just her way. The rest of us just showed up and did what we were told.
The point is, we hadn’t taken a trip all together in years. Everyone was busy getting married and working on their careers and such, and the spontaneity that had once thrived in our friend group dwindled to carefully planned happy hours born and debated about in group chats months in advance. Needless to say, we were all grateful to actually get out of the city and see each other for more than a few hours. I felt especially happy to smell all those nature smells and see the greenery. I had grown sick of the city grind and dreamed about moving to a small rural town. Anyway, it was a really fun trip at first. Lots of laughs, good food, beers and nature hikes. It also felt like our bond had grown stronger. We kind of felt like kids again.
On the last day, we hiked to a small waterfall that was way farther than expected and most of us were pretty out of shape. If we didn’t know it before, that hike showed us the truth. All of us except for Emily were huffing and puffing by the time we got to the tiny trickling waterfall. Two small children were giggling and pointing at us from behind the safety of their parents’ legs as we sat sprawled on the ground trying to catch our breath. I made a growling face and they screeched and grabbed their parents’ legs tighter.
On the way back, Eric found a smaller path that he said would get us home quicker. It wasn’t much of a path, and I got a little freaked out walking through vines and bushes. I have intense arachnophobia which seems contradictory to my love of nature, but it is what it is. I gritted my teeth and kept going, eyes on the back of Chris’s jacket.
“Holy shit,” Eric said.
“What is that?” said Emily.
I was in the back of the line and couldn’t see anything but felt nervous just by the tone of their voices.
“It’s a pit,” Chris said, moving aside so I could see.
Off to the right side of the little dirt path was a hole. The word “pit” had implied that there was some kind of visible bottom. This was no pit. It was a hole in the ground about the size of a small car.
We inched closer, changing our neat line to a semi-circle. In unison, we all lifted off of our heels and strained our necks to peer in.
“Noooo-no. Don’t like that at all,” Emily said, backing up immediately. We were all still about five feet from the edge of it, but she moved back a few more feet.
I looked up and scanned the rest of the scene, taking in the buttery sunlight dappling the leaves surrounding us. Birds were chirping. I took it all in as if assuring myself that nothing sinister was happening. I felt a little better, but then my eyes were pulled back like magnets to the black chasm before us and I felt chilled. And I remember that chill lingering, all through the rest of the trip. I can still feel it. I’m not trying to be dramatic. I cannot get warm. It could be some kind of sickness, but honest to God I can’t get warm.
I think we would have stood there forever if it hadn’t been for Emily pulling us away. She had to physically pull us back to where she was and when I looked up at her she was crying.
“What’s wrong?” I said. “What’s happened?”
“Can we just go home, PLEASE,” she sobbed.
“Yeah, yeah, sure,” I said, and I remember my voice sounded really far away.
We looked around and there was the cabin. It was right there. We could see the roof through the trees. It was probably about a hundred feet away. We started walking towards it, no path needed, just shambling through the brush faster and faster until we were all running.
When we got back to the house, Emily started making dinner. We all sat on the musty burgundy couches in the living room in silence.
Finally, Dan spoke. “So, that’s really…dangerous. Like that it’s right near the house. We should tell the owner. I mean what if we were walking out there at night and didn’t see it?
We all nodded solemnly. I don’t know if I’m the only one who felt this, but I couldn’t clear my vision. I felt like I was partially still in a dream. I kept imagining the leaves, golden and swaying slightly in the breeze, and then the cool darkness of the hole, right at the edge of my peripheral.
A clattering of pots and pans rang out in the kitchen. Emily marched the two feet from the kitchen to the living room with a pan in one hand, the other on her hip. “That’s enough!” she shouted. We all snapped our heads towards her. “We are not talking about that shit.”
“Why not?” I said. She looked at me with nuclear level fire power behind her eyes. We had never really been close for some reason. Some kind of rivalry about being the only girls in the group had bred between us and never left.
“We’re leaving tomorrow and it’s not our business and I don’t want to talk about it or hear about it or think about it, ok?” she spat.
“Ok, ok,” I said. She stomped away. The guys and I looked at each other, wide-eyed, but said nothing.
“Who wants a drink?” Chris said congenially.
“Sure, yeah,” we all mumbled, and the night went on in partial normality.
That night I had bad dreams. I won’t bore you with some murky explanation of what they seemed like to me, because no one enjoys those stories and because I can’t really remember, but I will tell you that that there was a sense of fear and sadness that I had never experienced before. And it was very dark, and I kept trying to turn on a light, but couldn’t find one. I also somehow knew that all my family and friends were dead.
I woke up to puffy, tear-stained eyes and squinted against the strong sunlight as I gently wiped the drying tears away. I put one arm down on the ground to push myself up and my hand slid on rough stone and dirt. I felt it slide off into nothingness and I jolted up and rolled to the side. I looked down into blackness. I was outside, lying beside the hole. I screamed and scrambled away from the lip of it.
I looked around, clutching my own shoulders and whimpering. There was no one else around. I could see the roof of the cabin through the trees. I ran towards it and didn’t stop until I crashed through the back door.
“Chris!” Movement upstairs. “Chris!” I bellowed again.
He came running down the steps in his boxers. “What? What!” he shouted back.
I ran over to him and let him wrap me up in his arms. “What’s wrong?” He said stroking my hair. “You’re shaking.”
“I was outside. I-I think I was s-sleeping walking. I was outside b-b..” my teeth had started chattering uncontrollably.
“Calm down, it’s ok,” he said pulling me over to the couch and pulling a blanket around my shoulders.
“I was out there b-by the pit. That hole!” I screamed. The others started coming down too, pulling on sweatshirts and rubbing their sleepy eyes.
“Are you serious?” Chris said. “Holy shit.”
“What happened?” Emily said, but her eyes looked dead and were communicating that she really didn’t want to know.
“Nothing, let’s just go,” I said, wrenching myself off the couch and walking towards the stairs.
“Emma..” Chris tried.
“Let’s fucking go,” I said, and marched up the stairs.
We packed up and left. Emily said she would be leaving a bad review and drove off. Chris and I drove together and we didn’t talk during the whole three-hour ride home.
I’m telling you all of this because I need help. My friends don’t want to talk about it. Chris doesn’t want to talk about it. It’s been almost a year. Everyone is avoiding me. I think that something came home with me from that place. Something crawled up from the hole and is still with me. When I sleep, I don’t dream, but I wake up shaking and terrified and there’s always an indent in the bed next to me, like something has been lying there with me. I feel sick. I can’t eat. My mom says I look awful; pale and dehydrated. I’ve been calling out of work more and more. Has anyone ever experienced this before? I want to go back. I booked the cabin for next weekend but I’m afraid to go alone. If anyone is reading this, please send me a message. I don’t want to go alone. Please. If anyone has any idea what this might be please contact me.