It was a new area for my uncle, Father, and cousins and I to deer hunt, but my cousin Joey insisted that he’d found an old abandoned cabin deep in the upper Peninsula of Michigan that would serve as a worthy replacement to our usual campsite for our annual fall deer hunt.
Of course, I shouldn’t have started consuming our usual table fare of Vienna sausages and Slim Jim’s before we even arrived to the cabin and our week began, because, as you can imagine, I was quizzing my cousin as we pulled into the dilapidated dirt driveway to the place whether he’d seen an outhouse at this “gem in the woods”.
He shrugged his shoulders as I did a tuck and roll out of the suburban before it was even fully stopped and made a beeline for the area I couldn’t survey behind the cabin. Sure enough though, there it was!
It even had the old half moon cut out in the top of the door. I only noticed this minor detail because I could have sworn I saw the door slam shut as I rounded the corner of the cabin, but my bowels had me in too much a state of emergency to give much thought to that detail.
As soon my drawers dropped and my cheeks felt the rough oak lumbar, the sickly intestinal concoction made its escape and my whole body began to relax.
I did find it odd that there was a seemingly new roll of paper already there, but I was simply satisfied to have narrowly escaped an embarrassing alternative.
Once I emerged from the den of stench I immediately noticed it was suddenly dark; like middle of the night dark. We had pulled into the place at 3 pm.
I started yelling for my family, but soon came to a hush when I noticed that the cabin was gone and in its place was a series 6 boulders in circular pattern with stone slab in the middle.
Within seconds I began to hear a series of footsteps approaching so I quickly hid behind a pine tree.
38 men appeared out of the woods wearing clothing that looked circa 1880s. They almost seemed like everyday business men from the area dressed in their finest, except they were carrying torches and dragging a man up to the slab with a linen bag over his head.
Once they arrived at the slab, they threw him hard across it and ripped the covering off of his face. I about thought I was losing my marbles when I realized that the man resembled my great great Uncle Albert who had been famously known in our family for having disappeared on a hunting trip himself over 150 years ago.
Our facial resemblances were uncanny in person. He was my blood and that was for certain!
He began screaming as the other men held him down and I watched in numbing unbelief as one of the seemingly dignified men unveiled a flint knife and carved my relatives liver out and took a bite out of it. If that wasn’t bad enough, the rest of the men also partook as they passed it around and around in a circle until it had bed. Fully consumed.
My kin, laying there and bleeding out raises his head slowly and somehow took notice of me. He didn’t seem shocked, he just gave me a knowing glance as though he knew who and from where I came and yelled as though we were the only ones around, “When you get to where you need to be, young man, RUUUUUUUN!”, while eying the outhouse.
This of course gave away my presence, to the cult-like group, and so, with nothing to lose, I made my way right by them and plunged back into the outhouse.
As soon as the door slammed shut, I saw daylight poking through the half moon and slowly opened the door again.
The cabin was back, but this time it looked brand new as though the lumber had just been sawn for building it at the bend of the 20th century. I heard voices inside and as I cautiously peered through the window, I saw a few dozen men crowded in a circle around an old dining room table.
Sure enough, their faces were covered in blood, and another man who resembled me lay, this time lifeless on the table.
Once again, I made my escape back to the outhouse, but, also once again I found myself in the darkness of night when I re-emerged. This time, it appeared to be the 70’s and they hadn’t even began carving into, you guessed it, a man that had to be my relative before I fled back to the mysterious crapper (heroic I know). But I did notice as I slammed the door that the man holding the knife looked just like my cousin Joey, I mean exact age and everything.
I honestly can’t tell you how many times this sequence repeated itself. Over the course of what had to be (or felt like) days I witnessed all kinds of timelines; the 1700’s, the civil war era, the 80’ and 90’s even. The same scenario played out everytime though; someone who looked like me was having his liver removed and consumed by a guy that looked like Joey along with dozens of fanatical men.
I had given up all hope of regained my own timeline or sanity when it finally happened, I opened the door and there standing in front of the outhouse was my cousin Joey in his camo jacket.
Obviously my slightly longer hair and unshaven face gave me away, because, before I could even utter a word, my father and uncle flanked me from the sides and grabbed my arms.
“When will the others arrive, my Lord”
“At dusk, as usual, my servants”, “Joey replied.
As they drug me towards the cabin, I caught my father’s gaze. I could have sworn there were budding tears in his eyes when he whispered to me.
“Now would probably be the time to let you know that you were adopted”