The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window.
My family moved out in the middle of nowhere as rent prices were too high to stay in town. We ended up in the middle of the woods in Redding California. The suburban my mother drove pulled into a parsonage on the edge of town, kicking dirt from the road as it came. An old church sat in the same driveway and beside the street there was nothing but gravel, trees, and the I-5 freeway. My brother and I piled out of the cab, stretching our legs in the driveway. The youngest of us, fussed in a car seat from the long drive. My Mother pulled the baby out and held him to calm him down. His name was Todd but every one called him bear on account of the teddy he never went without.
We all stood outside of the dingy, yellow painted house. Its wood was rickety and the shingles on the roof had began to curl yet none of us seemed to mind. A bad marriage and a worse divorce had my mom call in a favor with a friend of hers out of town. Next thing we knew we piled into Redding California being told. “Don t worry, you’ll see your dad in a month or two when we got it all worked out.” Chris and I, being 11 and 14 didn’t have much to say. We just looked at the rickety shack and hoped there was a place to plug in our games.
“Julian. You and Chris get the stuff in the house while I feed the bear. Then I’ll get us some burgers from the shop up the road, sound good?”
I nodded and Chris helped with only a little complaining. Truth be told we both were tired from the drive and were having none of it. The last fight we got into had our mom wind up in an emotional breakdown and neither of us wanted to see that again. So we did as were told and started falling in.
The inside had the basics. A dusty carpet, working plugs. Water that tasted like it came from a hose. Apparently the preacher who lived in here before us was involved in some kind of scandal. We didn’t know much but My moms friend was a member of the church and they needed someone to keep an eye on the place. We needed a place to stay so it was a match made in heaven. I remember the place smelled of moth balls and the faintest scent of a dog now long gone. I was allergic as The smell made mz eyes itch, but I always wanted one so I never said a word about it. The Living room was sectioned off with a wall. The back half held a fireplace with an extra bathroom by the glass back door. That’s where Chris and I would stay. Mom would have the room in the back with the toddler In a crib.
Weeks went on as we unpacked. My parent had a job doing online counseling and tutored on the side in her room. Id babysit the bear while she worked and wed go to church on Sundays at least out of obligation. The people who ran it were in their ‘‘Golden‘‘ years. They made the occasional snide comment about my mother being unmarried. Most of it went right over our heads however and my mom grinned and bore it stoically. After all it was this or back to Boise.
It was the beginning of June so school wasn’t an issue. We spent our days watching TV and swinging acorns at each other from tubes of PVC. Everything was fine, until I saw Chris looking out the window after sundown. He’d sit in his bed, propped against the window and stare into the night. Time went on but the habit stayed. One day I finally put down the lingerie catalog I stole from the mall and asked him what he was doing.
“We’re the only ones out here right? Chris asked not so much as looking in my direction.
“Except for the Cars on the road , yeah.” I wondered what it was he was getting at until he pointed outside .
“You see that?” He asked me as I peered over his shoulder and sure enough I did. Way out in the woods behind out house there was the tiniest flicker of light. It was out in the hills where to our knowledge it was nothing but trees and Shasta Lake on the other side.
“It doesn’t happen every day.” Chris explained scooting over to give me room to see. “At least once a week the light comes on and all the birds in the woods go quiet.”
“They do not.” This wasn’t the first time he tried to scare me with nonsense but the look on his face told me he was nothing but serious. No giggle, no poorly hidden smirk. Only the look of curiosity, and a little fear. After replying in disbelief I peered into the darkness and tried to look again. The light flashed with a Rhythmic pattern. It would go on, and off again, over and over. It was the strangest thing ever. Something told me there was more to it than that yet I was more concerned with what Chris told me a second ago. I went to the kitchen, bagged one of our bins of trash and headed outside to the dumpster. Tossing it in with a clang I listened and sure enough he was right. The woods were always alive with the howl of coyotes, chirp of birds. It even had the occasional screech of an opossum. Our mother warned us about it as on the road here from Idaho but there it was. Not a sound save the drone of vehicles bounding down the freeway, nothing else but silence in between.
I came inside and told Chris not to worry about it. He went back to his video game and I to my ill gotten gains but the women in lace weren’t as fun to stare at. Something bugged me about the flicker. Three flickers, three long strips of black and three again . Over and over in their pattern. I tried to keep it out of my mind but the feeling of something wrong stayed with me even as I went to sleep.
The next morning I tried not to think about it. My mom went on feeding baby carrots to the baby who was now very proud of himself for being able to hold one. Chris was trying to set up the TV to watch Saturday morning cartoons and I was putting the dishes in the wash to soak. I was going to join him but I never knew a thing when it came to electronics. I reached in the boxes In my room and grabbed an old Louisville slugger I got from my dad. A few baseballs followed and I was off to go outside and practice my swing. If I got lucky and practiced, I heard I could join the JV team when school started. The backyard was short for being in the wilderness as the woods behind it were drowned in poison oak. The only other option was to go in the front yard and try not to hit the church. Facing the mountains I got into my rhythm. I tossed the ball in the air with a swing of my bat and heard the crack as it sailed across the sky. It was poetry in motion as something about the process just put my brain at ease. Staring into the woods as that itch grew in the back of my mind.
“Crack!” Another ball whistled through the air. I wondered why it bothered me so much, staring into the distance.
“Crack!” This one leered left field and I thought it was because the pattern seemed so unnatural.
“Crack” I overcompensated and it headed right. I reached in the box to grab another. It was almost as If the flickers were trying to tell me something.
It was trying to tell me something.
A wave of pins and needles ran through me as I came to the realization. I ran into my room so fast I banged into the glass door. Rubbing my nose and swearing to myself, I pulled it open with a heavy creak and tore into my remaining boxes.
My mother yelled across the house bouncing bear to keep him calm. “You alright?”
“I’m okay!” I didn’t even look up from my boxes. Old Robot toys and Little league trophies flew across the room as Chris walked in looking at me like I was nuts. It was then I found it. A JROTC Manual a church camp gave me when I was young. This was just post 9/11 at the time and the army was more pushy when it came to marketing to kids. I flipped through the survival tips and call signs till I got what I was looking for. A chart explaining Morse code showed every letter in a series of dots and dashes. Sure enough I was right. Three dots , Three Lines, Three Dots…SOS.
I showed it to Chris and he turned pale. He adjusted the glasses too big for his head, reading it over and over trying to prove me wrong. Try as he might there was no getting around it. That flicker was a call for help. Mom would never take us but we never wanted her to be in danger either. We didn’t think to call the cops and as a couple of stupid kids thought we were going to save the day. Ill never forgive myself for what happened next.
Nightfall came and the flicker made its call. The two of us came with our flannel shirts and tools in hand. I brought my baseball bat and Chris had his flashlight. Standing in the treeline I pulled out my compass and checked our direction. The light was due east so as long as we followed suit, heading west when it was over we’d make it back okay. I explained this to Chris who nodded with a smirk. “As long as we don’t end up Coyote food.” we giggled at his joke and off we went, eager for adventure.
I remember the trees were different in the night sky. They weren’t the white Aspen trees we were used to seeing in the cold but the twisted red of manzanita. Gnarled branches of reaching oak hung above and I couldn’t help but feel like the woods were closing their hands around us. Chris was brave beyond his years and he marched forward with a grim determination. Truth be told I was more scared than he was yet that signal was a call for help, and we had to go and save them.
We hiked along those trees for what felt like an hour. Chris shone his light at my compass and working together we stayed in the right direction. Roots from the trees made us stumble yet no one really got hurt then except a few scrapes and a bruise along my shin. We stopped to marvel at the lack of animal life and how loud the sound of our trek had been. Every crushed leaf and branch echoed in those woods as we climbed ever higher up the hills.
When our legs tired and bodies sore we saw it in the distance. The flicker and shine of a light. I grabbed Chris and made him cut the flashlight and we crept low towards the source. The woods had made a clearing and at the center on a small ridge was an old shack. I learned later it was an outpost for the surveyors who long since found a better place to work. The panels and boards that made the thing were splintered. It Rotted even to the point of crumbling to powder at the ends. I most remember it smelled of urine and a biting coppery scent as we drew near. Looking closer at it we found what we came for. A candle lantern glowed in a filthy window and a lone hand waved between them.
Fear gripped us both yet we swallowed It down and pressed on. The iron door handle glimmered like ink in the moonlight. Chris stood behind me while I held the door with my free hand gripping the bat. Swallowing hard, I turned the handle and rammed my shoulder in.
The lantern glowed in the darkened hovel and in its corner there was a girl. She couldn’t have been much older than us at the time. Her scared in the dark with shoulder length hair so blonde it was almost white, and freckles on a face in terror. She hid in the corner with her arms shielding her face as a pathetic cry escaped her. Her bare legs curled as she cowered In the corner wearing a one piece bathing suit with a chain around her neck. The irons were bolted to the wall in a set up that looked new compared to the rest of the place. The hand protecting her wore a band from a water park and her face wore a mix of bruises and fear.
“Please… don’t hurt me anymore.” She sobbed as we stood in the doorway. Our silhouette making us look like monsters. Her plea for mercy snapped us out of our shock and we immediately came to help. Chris removed his Flannel while I looked around the house for a key.
“Hey, we saw your signal. Its okay, were here to help.” Chris consoled her while I checked around the table and chair for a key. The place had all the signs of a regular stay. Beer bottles, canned chicken and jerky. A mattress lay in the corner and a handful of small glass pipes and empty baggies. A bucket and a bag of dog food were left by the girl, a clear sign of her conditions.
“Ask her where the key is.” I whispered low across the room looking around the counters left by the original owners. She pointed to the top of a tool closet used as a coat rack. Sure enough as I reached my hand above I felt the cold metal keys in my grasp.
I hopped down and we set her free. The rash and cuts around her neck must have burned but she choked a sigh of relief. She shivered in the cold, rubbing the wounds where the choke chain had been.
“How’d you get the lantern tied up like this?” I asked her as she got her bearings.
“He said if I was quiet I could have the light.” her chest heaved with the panic attack brewing at the thought of her captor as she started to cry. “He hurt me.” She sobbed holding Chris’ shirt as a gift of decency to her chest, warding off the memories and trauma.
The sight made us want to cry as well but we held it together and got her to her feet. As we stood up we heard a rumbling from an old engine. Headlights shone across the night. A car door slammed and a man came running from a pick up truck that looked as ancient and beat up as the house. He stood in the door way cornering the three of us. A towering figure, obese with a second chin wriggling as he spoke. He wore a grease stained wife beater that stunk with malt liquor and filth. The stains off colored pooled around his neck and pits. A pair of jeans covered in food with a large belt buckle that peeked beneath the weight of his hanging stomach. His arms were yoked and the hair that crawled from the sides of his balding head to his mustache was a slick oily black. His breath was hot and stunk as he swore at us demanding. “Where do you think your going with that.” His disgusting hand pointing a round, fat finger at the girl.
I couldn’t say a word. I did the one thing that the synapse in my mind allowed and I threw my baseball bat as hard as I could. It spun through the room and hit his skull with a crack. He stumbled back enraged as I grabbed a lone chair in room, smashing it against the window. Chris and I grabbed the girl, tossing her through the hole. She landed in the broken glass and dirt with a thud yet adrenaline had kept her going. I hopped over next with Chris behind me. I was going to turn and catch him to help him land. The fall down ridge was a ten foot drop. His hands gripped the windowsill and as I looked up his head and chest were free. His eyes went wide and I heard him scream as he disappeared, pulled back into the darkness. I heard the man roaring over him as the crack of my baseball bat cut my brothers screams short.
Again…
And again…
And again… Until a sound like a watermelon popped with a final swing.”
I screamed. I screamed until my throat tore and tears ran down my eyes. It was that girl who pulled me to my feet and we ran. Coward that I am we ran, leaving my poor brother far behind.
The moon did little to light our way but we tore through bush and tree alike. The man chased after us enraged, still holding the bat wet with my brothers blood. Branches cut through our shirts. Blood trickled down the scrapes from our limbs as that girl and I retreated. Winding trails were no longer a question. The only way for us was down. Down and away from that monster who smelled of cheap booze. His voice roaring over two terrified children in the dark.
I pulled the girl up as she fell and she did the same for me. Our tiny bodies saving us from much of the climbing around the thicket our pursuer had to deal with to follow. Its the only reason I’m still alive. On and on we went until finally we made it through. My knees hit the dirt road with girl right behind me. I didn’t know what would happen next but the faintest voice in the back of my mind said
“Go home. Go Home.”
So I did. I grabbed The girl by my brothers shirt, pulling at her to follow. We ran on the rocks that cut our feet but we didn’t care. What we’d do to when we got home I’ve no idea but we would make it there.
It was then we saw police cars. The Red and blue beacons of safety as we collapsed in my yard and cried. My mother ran out to us calling out for Chris. Where is my brother she asked. And all I could do is sob, telling her I let him die.
The girls name was Allison. She went into a bathroom at a water park in Redding where the monster waited with a rag full chloroform. It was a light day for the park so the minutes it took for her to suffocate were free of prizing eyes for him to work. Nobody raised an eye when an assumed father carried a sleeping girl to his truck outside. She was meant to be sold from that place and never seen again, the fifth missing girl in a month. The police went on the lookout. They found my brothers body which had a closed casket burial, paid for by the church. We moved out from there a week later as I couldn’t sleep anymore and when I did I woke up screaming. After a few months living in a friends’ living room it was close to a happy ending. Allison grew up and left for Oregon and unfortunately I’m still here, working at a gas station night shift. Now and again ill come to smoke at my brothers grave. I tell him how I’m sorry it wasn’t me who died instead. Bear grew up and joined track and field and a baseball was never seen in my house again. I got a job out here and life moved on but sometimes I look out my window knowing they never found him. Even worse I’ll peer into the dark of the mountain woods and I swear ill see that candle, flickering in the dark.