A few hours ago, I found a journal. And what was in that journal has made my stomach churn and revealed to me something I didn’t know about the past of my town.
I’m an amateur photographer, and I come from a small town in New Hampshire. I was working on a collage about my town’s oldest buildings. Especially the abandoned ones. And the perfect place to start with was a small cabin just outside my town. No one knew who it once belonged to, as it had been built before the town was founded (In 1874). It is generally assumed to have been constructed around the late 1850s-early 1860s.
There has never been any attempts so far to renovate the cabin, or tear it down. All through the years its just been left to sit all by itself out in the woods, slowly letting nature reclaim it. Its not really talked about much in town, well there is the odd ghost story here and there.
Earlier this morning, I went to the cabin to take some pictures for my collage. It was a nice morning in late-spring, the sun was searing away in the sky and the clouds were sparse and thin. A perfect day to go about my work. The cabin was a half-hour drive outside of town. When I arrived I parked just on the side of the road and stepped off into the woods. The cabin was fairly close to the road, and pretty easy to find as it sat in a clearing atop a small hill.
It was small and compact, typical of the time period. One story tall, and composed of planks made from either cedar or pine. Two windows, long broken, on the front and wooden door smeared with moss and lichen. A cobblestone chimney loomed on the side, no longer vomiting out thick black plumes of smoke like it once did.
I stepped up to the door, opened it a couple inches and then peered inside. I was now staring at what was once the living room. Only now bare, save for a rotting wooden table and a single, rickety chair in front of the cold fireplace that hadn’t felt the touch of fire for a century or so.
I stepped into the living room and shut the door. The aroma of dust and staleness and earth, slowly slithered up my nostrils. I kind of liked it. It smelt so old and natural. There was a door on the left wall, I approached and opened it. Two rotting bed frames sat within.
I took a couple pictures of the bedroom, and then I went back into the living room and took some pictures of the table and the chair, and couple of the chimney from different angles. Then I went outside and took some photos of the front of the cabin. And then I went around the back and, much to my surprise, found the door to a cellar.
The handle had long rotted off, so I opened it fully and found myself staring down some stone steps, and pure darkness sat at the end of the final step. I reached into my jacket and pulled out my flashlight and turned it on and then descended the steps. Once I reached the final step, I washed the basement in silver light.
The walls were made of stone, and so was the floor. Littered with grime and dirt and small bones of mice and other miniature animals. The only denizen of the place was a half decayed barrel. I quickly got an idea to move the barrel into the centre of the basement to make the photograph a bit more… cinematic.
I grabbed the barrel and moved it away from the wall, but as soon as I did, a loose brick fell onto the floor. And a small book slid halfway out of the hole. My eyes widened, and then my heart began to race. I carefully took hold of the book and slowly removed it from the hole. I wiped away all the dust, and found that a name had been carved into the leather. This name was “Henry R. Schwess”.
I gasped. This had to be the guy who owned this cabin, and this was more than likely his journal. I was ecstatic, I’d finally cracked the mystery of this cabin. I decided to postpone my collage project for now, and focus on the journal. I left the basement and then walked back to my car.
Once inside my car, I opened up the journal. The paper had held up pretty good to the test of time, with only some yellowing and dark splotches to display its age. The writing was pretty clear and not too difficult to read. I eagerly began to skim the lines, desperate to know of what this man had written.
September 22nd, 1862
To whomever has stumbled upon this little book, my name is Henry R. Schwess. This cabin belonged to my friend, Renard Holse. He built it about four weeks ago, because this area of the valley is plentiful with game and he wanted to stake a claim on it before anyone else did. He hasn’t told anyone but me and Earl about this cabin. Not even his wife knows about it.
Me, personally? I didn’t the like feel of this place. There was just something… queer about it. Like the trees watch you, or shadows move between the bushes out the corner of your eye. Now that’s to be expected if there’s Natives roaming about. But as far as I can tell, there ain’t no natives here. Tribes like the Abenakians and Penacooks migrated to Vermont and Canada a long time ago. The ones that stayed mostly live like us and follow our ways.
But, turns out they weren’t the only ones living here. I’ll get to them shortly.
Renard invited me to come along with him and his cousin, Earl for a weekend hunting expedition. I didn’t like Earl and as I said before, the place gave me the willies, but, well, Renard was my best friend, and you have to be loyal to your friends, that’s just the way it is. Earl was also a complete prick to Renard and Renard just never tried to stand up to him, so I thought it’d be best if I went along just to keep Earl in his place.
Renard had also been stressing over his brother being in the war, so maybe coming out here could help us all unwind a little bit and escape from all this shit going on. Earl wanted to enlist, but he was rejected because he was so far below able-bodied as humanly possible.
I highly doubt he even cared about the war effort. He just wanted to enlist so he could have something to brag about. To make himself feel superior. That’s what drove him the most, I think. Just always saw everyone else as below him.
Renard and I scraped together enough money to get substitutes. Yeah, I know its frowned upon. But, well, we had families and we just, well, couldn’t really bare the thought of having to look into their eyes when our own eyes had seen hell up close and personal.
We set off on horseback to the cabin on Friday and got settled in. Earl was being his typical obnoxious, loud-mouthed, impious self, but he was the kind of man who talked big but didn’t have the will to back it up. I got him to shut up pretty quickly. We spent Friday getting everything set up, unloading our gear and cleaning the cabin up for our stay. After that was done, we sat around the fire and ate some of our rations, but I think some of my jerky was tainted, because my stomach ended up feeling like it had simmering coals inside of it and my head felt like it’d been kicked by a big fucking horse.
I went outside and just fucking unloaded everything onto the cold hard ground. Then I went back inside, and Earl was giving me this vile smirk. The big fucker had tampered with my rations. I’d’a fucking kicked his teeth out, but I was just too unsteady, so I just went to bed and planned on getting him back in the morning.
I woke up around dawn, but I still didn’t feel right. I could hear Renard and Earl getting ready to go out hunting, and Earl was yapping on about some girl he’d supposedly bedded a few days ago. A story that I highly doubted, because no women, no matter how fucking low her standards were, would be able to tolerate some sloppy, greasy-skinned, splinter-toothed man-hog like him on top of them.
My head started to wobble then and I blanket of darkness fell across my vision and I felt the pillow push up against my skull. Hours later, I was awoken by the door slamming open and Earl’s hissing voice. He sounded mad and panicky. I glanced out the window, and saw the sun just about ready to fall beneath the horizon.
Earl was ranting about something, but I was still disoriented, so I couldn’t really make all of it out. However, the once sentence that I did manage to hear, loud and clear, was Earl telling Renard not to tell me something.
So those are the first four pages done. The writing in the last five was rougher, and looser.
Spurred by the commotion, I pushed myself out of bed and left the bedroom. Renard was sitting at the table, and Earl was nowhere in sight. I then noticed that Renard had a black eye, and a busted lip. Earl had beaten the shit out of him. I asked him what had happened, but he refused to speak. God, he just looked… cold with anxiety and horror.
The look he had on his face really reminded me of the look my pa would get sometimes, when he wasn’t out of it on whiskey or gin. He’d been in the Little Turtle War. Saw some gruesome shit, but never spoke a word of it to me or my ma. Not even when I was a man. Still wouldn’t say a single shred of what happened. Of what he saw. Or of what he did.
Let me say that he was another reason that I made me shy away from the war effort going on right now. I didn’t want to end up like him, didn’t want my family to see me that way. Broken and angry. Scared. Unable to look at the world anymore without covering my eyes with a veil of the bottle.
I heard the backdoor swing open. I then saw Earl lumber into the living room, and once his eyes fell upon me, his hateful snarl turned into a look that really conveyed that he’d just pissed his drawers. My grogginess dissipated and was replaced by rage, and I charged at him and slammed him into the wall.
I demanded to know what he told Renard to not tell me about. He just blabbered and swore at me, so I punched him across the face, kneed him in his festering beer belly, and then threw him to the floor and then he finally broke.
He told me that he’d accidentally shot a native girl. I was confused by this, and told him that weren’t any wild natives left in New Hampshire. But then he told me that she looked different to the natives we know, and in fact didn’t look like any person he’d ever seen before.
I looked over at Renard, and saw that he was looking back at us. He told me also told me that she didn’t look like any man or woman he’d ever seen before.
Confused, not to mention scared as hell, I demanded to know where it had happened. Earl told me it was down by the creek a couple steps away from the hill the cabin is on. He’d shot her five times, and then bullied Renard into helping him bury her beside the creek bank.
Earl started ranting about how it wasn’t a big deal. Saying she shouldn’t of been snooping around the bushes watching them. And then he told me that it wasn’t an accident. He was worried she’d go and tell the rest of her band about us, so he shot her to death to stop that from happening. I fucking kicked him in his throat. Dumbass. Fucking, stupid, worthless dumbass. They should of just gotten their asses back here and then we should of gotten on our horses and rode the hell out of here. No need to shoot her to death.
My head started feeling funny again, my legs started to wobble and I then fell onto my knees. Earl, pushed himself to his feet and then the fucker kicked me in the head. The last thing I heard before my vision went black was the window smashing and Renard screaming.
When I woke up again on the floorboards, everything was dark. And quiet. Quiet as the reaper’s approach. I was completely alone. My vision was fuzzy, so I gave my a eyes a good rub to get them going. And then I noticed just how damn cold it was in the cabin. The fireplace was was dark. And the front door was wide open. Well, more like on the floor in pieces.
Then, the pungent smell of blood seeped into my nostrils. I glanced around, and saw Renard laying on the table. I slowly got to my feet and approached him. His throat had been slit, and his eyes and tongue had been cut out. I just had to hope that those last two things had been done after he was dead. But I had a nagging feeling that it wasn’t the case.
He shouldn’t have had to suffer for Earl’s sin. The penance should have been solely on that selfish prick’s head. But in a few seconds time, I would find out that Earl was paying his due, severely.
I grabbed Renard’s hat and put it over his face. And just prayed that he was somewhere better. Then I slowly approached the gaping doorway and peered out. The horses were all laying on the cold, reddened ground. Their mouths, and their throats, wide open. One of them had been cut so deep, that its great head was just attached by a flimsy thread of cold, pale skin.
Poor beasts. They needn’t have had to die for what Earl did. Renard was quite fond of one of them too. Friendly little horse she was. Goddamn you, Earl.
I then heard a shrill scream come from somewhere behind the cabin, and soon noticed that it belonged to Earl. God, it was just ear-splitting, filled with pain and deep, primal horror. And then his scream was silenced abruptly.
I should’ve just ran like hell right then and there. I was awhile from the nearest settlement, but goddamn I should have just listened to my instincts and ran. But I didn’t. Earl was clearly terrified and in pain, and well, underneath all my fear and confusion, there was burning hate and vindictiveness. A part of me wanted to watch him suffer. And, I am sad to admit, that part of me won out.
I silently snuck around the house and peeked around the corner. And I saw hell.
Earl had been stripped, his pale skin exposed to the cold fingers of the night. He was laying, no, more like pinned to the floor. Great, wooden spikes had been forced through his hands. And his feet had been tied to either side of a large rock that had also been forced partway into the ground. And another rock had been shoved into his mouth, blood leaked from either side of his lips.
And then my attention turned to the people surrounding him. Earl weren’t lying when said how different they looked. They really didn’t look like any people I’d ever laid eyes on in these lands before. Native or settler. These people were just different in so many ways. Especially in their primality. Even more so than the wild natives. Like ghosts from the stone age.
They were all beige-skinned, and thickly-browed with sloping faces and wide, flat noses. Their hair was long, bushy and as black as the night sky above. Animal hides concealed their skin from the night-air. And their eyes were big, and silver-blue like the moon.
There were two men, both of them fucking huge. The taller one looked to be almost as tall as a Grizz on its hind legs. He was standing by Earl’s head, and the shorter one, who was a wearing a bone necklace, was standing at Earl’s feet. Sitting off to the side was an ancient-looking woman, and beside her was a younger looking woman, and besides her was a girl who looked to be about fourteen or fifteen moons old. Beside her was a little boy, who looked to be around the same age as my youngest son, seven or eight years old. He was cuddled up against the girl, and she was resting her head on his.
Another woman appeared on the scene. She was younger than the old woman, but looked older than the young woman who was sitting between the old woman and the teenage girl. In one hand she held a wooden bowl filled with simmering hot coals, and in the other she held a stick with with a glowing hot end.
The woman placed the bowl of coals on the ground, and then she walked over to Earl’s head and knelt down. She raised the stick and plunged the end of it into Earl’s right eye, and his eyeball sizzled and smoke emitted into the cold night air out of his socket. He tried to scream, but couldn’t, so all that came out was a faint, gurgling squeal. The woman then plunged the stick into his left eye and burned it to a crisp, and then she sneered and threw the stick away.
The woman then got up and walked over to the bowl of hot coals and picked it up. Then the taller man reached into his bear-skin robes and produced a large knife that looked like it was carved out of obsidian. He then walked around to Earl’s side, and knelt down, and cut a deep gash into Earl’s thigh. And then cut another gash into his Earl’s bicep, and then his side, and then his other thigh, and finally across his belly.
The man then returned the now blood-soaked blade back into his robes, and returned to his place at Earl’s head. The woman then knelt down again, and placed the coals on the floor. She then reached into her robes, and pulled out a cloth and wrapped it around her hand. Then with her clothed hand, she reached into the bowl and picked up one of the dimly glowing coals, and shoved it into the gash on Earl’s thigh. She stuck these smouldering coals into all five of Earl’s wounds. All that came out of his mouth was a hissing screech.
Smoke billowed out of his now charred wounds, up into the sky to the orange, crescent moon like vaporous snakes. Like all his insides were on fire.
Earl finally went quiet. I guess the blood loss and shock had finally done him in. Or maybe he was suffocated by the rock shoved into his grimy mouth. How painful his last moments must’ve been. But to be honest, I didn’t feel bad for him. At all. Asshole deserved every second of that.
They all stood there, staring at him as he lay prone on the ground, still smoking. In their silver-grey eyes I saw many things. Rage. Hatred. And above all, grief.
Then I felt something pierce my side. I glanced down and saw an arrow.. Turns out there was another one. I turned and saw another man walk out of the treeline. He looked a bit younger than the other two men, still a big fucker though. Looked like he was about twenty or twenty-one years old.
The other ones were all staring at me now. I stood there, frozen, blood gushing down my leg from the arrow wound. The young man glanced at the others, and the man with the bone necklace gestured for him to come over to them. Then the old woman, the younger woman, the girl and the boy stood up. The taller man went about removing the wooden stakes from Earl’s palms. And the man with the bone necklace untied his feet from the rock. The big man then slung Earl over his shoulder.
The old woman whispered something in a language completely incomprehensible to my ears. Was never too good with learning new languages, I’ll admit. Then they all turned away from me and started walking down the hill to the woods. I watched them until they all vanished into the darkness beneath the trees.
Fearing that they’d come back for me, I managed to hobble over to the cellar and locked the door. Then I hid myself amongst the barrels. I found this little book on one of them. I guess Renard took it with him for some reason and then forgot about it.
I doubt I’m gonna last much longer. The damn arrow cut me pretty deep. Mostly been writing in this to distract myself from the fact that I’m probably not gonna see my family again. Always promised myself that I’d be there for my boys more than my Pa was for me. To never leave my wife’s side without good reason. To always try to be home as much as I could and not pissing away somewhere.
Should I curse those people for what they’ve done? No. The only person I’m cursing is that worthless, piss-drinking trash, Earl. Thanks a lot you useless waste of a man. If I end up in hell, I’ll just be happy as can be to know your down there with me and I get to watch you screaming for eternity.
Those people were fucking vicious. But, can’t say I blame them for what they’ve done. They don’t think like us after all. They have a different way of doing things and grief is a powerful thing to feel after all. Especially when a loved one’s life’s been taken by someone so callously. Its not like they were bothering us before Earl just went Earl and did something stupid and cruel.
Renard should’ve just been more careful when he was scoping out some new hunting grounds.
If I’m not still here when you find this little book, please tell my family of what became of me. If they aren’t around anymore and this book gets found like hundreds of years later, just try to find my descendants and tell them instead.
I just hope there’s still gravestones, and that there’s enough room for my own.
I closed the journal and let it fall on my lap. My skin was clammy and as a pale as milk. My mouth dry. My eyes unblinking. I slowly processed everything that I’d read. All that gruesome horror. And all that sadness.
When I got home I put Henry’s journal on the coffee table and just went upstairs and laid on my bed. Doubt I’ll be getting any sleep tonight, after that nightmarish shit-show I just read. Just who were those people? And are they still around or have they vanished into history?
Either way, I need to show this journal to everyone. And then hopefully, Henry’s descendants might finally be able to know about what happened to him. And I fucking hope Earl’s having a swell time down in hell right now.