IN THE CELLAR

In The Cellar

The wind blew on the log cabin house situated on the slope of a hill. The season was fall and the trees had dropped its leaves coating the ground in a beautiful hazel orange. No one was home at the cabin but a presence could be felt there. There was a feeling that something was leading you in an unknown way and attracting you by making you curious. This made the cabin interesting and a little spooky. The cabin had eight rooms—a living room, a dining room, a kitchen, 2 bathrooms, 2 bedrooms, and a study. Underneath the cabin was the cellar. The cellar was the length of the house and it was not used since the cabin had been purchased from the realtor. The realtor sold the cabin for a bank that took possession of the cabin after the loan to purchase it became default. This was 90 years ago. There was no mention about the previous owners of the cabin. The maintenance on the cabin and its surrounding acres was kept up by the bank. Although it was more than 90 years old the cabin was sturdy and the surrounding acres were always cut and cleared..

The purchasers of the cabin were a couple, a man and wife with a daughter. The cabin was a second home for them and their first visit to see it and stay in it came during the Halloween season. The couple had purchased the cabin after viewing it in a realtors’ magazine. So in the third week of October the family drives up to the cabin for a short vacation that was to last two weeks. When reaching the address and seeing the cabin from their car, the family is pleased with what they brought and is eager to see what the inside is like. The daughter leaves the car first. She runs to the front door and unlocks it then continues inside. She looks around as if she is familiar with parts of the house then goes to the kitchen, next the dining room, and the bedroom that was to be hers. She then looks at the other bedroom that was much bigger and became certain the room she chosen is to be her room.

The daughter name is Mildred. Mildred is a junior in high school and plans to attend college after her senior year. She is an only child and loved by her father and mother very much. And she loves the family time they spend together yearly.

 Mildred leaves the rooms and began toward the front of the house when the door to the cellar creaks open. Mildred hears this and turns to investigate it when her father calls her to come outside. She abandons her interest in the cellar and goes outside to be with her father and mother. Both ask her how it look and feel inside, Mildred says that she thinks it’s cozy. They ask her to help with the luggage and then she can tour the cabin as she likes. So Mildred helps with the luggage and stays within her parents sight until all the luggage is in. Her mother ask both her husband and Mildred if they thought the cabin was slightly too satanic. They both states they think it is perfect. The father, Peter says it’s exactly like he thought it would be and Mildred smiled and said she loved it. The mother, Kathryn says “maybe I need some time to get used to being up in the hills.” After the luggage is in Mildred wants to go into the cellar but her father stops her again and says that they all should go down there together. Mildred disappointed says she’ll wait. She goes to her bedroom unpacks her bags and remove her laptop computer. She plugs it in and goes to facebook to talk to her friends from her high school. She talks with them until it’s time for supper. Next she goes downstairs to have dinner with her father and mother. After dinner, Kathryn volunteers to clear and clean up and there are no objections. Mildred and her Father mentions to Kathryn that they are going in to see what is in the cellar and they wanted to see if she wanted them to wait for her. She says “no but I will be down as soon as I clean up the kitchen.” They said okay then continued to explore the cellar.

The door to the cellar made no squeaks and a light switch that was string hanging from a bulb was visible when opening the door. Peter pulled the light and all the stairs were exposed so that descending them was clear. There were no creaks and loose boards of the stairs. When Peter and Mildred reached the bottom of the stairs they saw some more light switches that were attached to a board. They turned on all the switches and the cellar became alightened room. The first thing that got their attention was the storage of stuff left by the previous occupants. It had accumulated dust and looked older than it was.

Peter went to determine what was stored in the cellar looking as if he did not pay for this stuff stuffed down in the cellar. He came to a book that he thought he seen before but believed this book was the original. He lifted some pages and began to appreciate that it was left. Next he told Mildred to look at some of the stored stuff and see if any of it interested her. She asked him about the book and he told her it would not interest her and that it may be valuable because it looked like the original book written long ago.

Mildred looked through some of the stuff and found nothing of interest, became bored and began to look at things other than the stored stuff. She came to a spot that had a star closed in a circle. She called her father to come over and look. He said the previous occupants must have been cult worshippers and that’s why they lost the cabin. Satan could not pay for it. He laughed and she stared at him as if he was crazy. Next they tried to remove the star but it was not removable. So Peter says leave it he would paint over it later. Mildred said she wanted to read up on it before he painted so that she would have something to do while here for two weeks.

A few moments later Kathryn came down and went to where they were standing. She saw the circled star and went into parables. She told Peter and Mildred, “we must leave this cabin at once or we will never leave.” They both thought she was crazy and Peter said the previous occupants left that thing and it had nothing to do with them. And next he said they were not leaving over some cult sign left by crazies. Mildred laughed and said Mom you can’t be serious about leaving just by looking at that. It is not our star, nor our circle. Kathryn said that she would not come to the cellar again as long as that sign was down there, and that she wanted no part of what they were doing.

So Kathryn went back upstairs and closed the door on Peter and Mildred. Next she locked it. She then went to get some gas that was stored in the kitchen. It was old gas but she thought it would work. She poured it down from the closed door down into the cellar then struck a match and burnt down the cabin. No fire trucks came, nor police. She got into their car and left.