The Cabin

The thermostat by the bedroom door reads 71°F but the bitter winter weather still permeates the thin windowpane as you stand by the heater, stuffing plaid shirts into a worn-out hold-all for the trip ahead to the log cabin in Wisconsin. In a short let-up from the sharp rattle of hailstones upon the roof in dire need of repairs, you can hear squealing tyres and a wheezing car engine struggling up the snow-ridden driveway of your ailing father’s dairy farm.

You drop the sweater in your hands, nudge your boots out of the way, and venture to the front room to squint out the window. You peel the curtains back, careful to avoid coffee stains and cat hair from the resident mouser, and glance out. You can just make out a number plate but glaring headlights obscure the exact digits. Looking over your shoulder to the ticking grandfather clock above the fireplace, you rule out it being your father. It’s only noon and he’s not due back until Sunday night. That means only one thing: Dan, your partner of thirteen months, is early.

He’s never been early in all the time you’ve known him, not even by five minutes. You mull over this thought as you watch him turn the engine off, hop out of the truck and yank up the hood. He fiddles around inside and you crank the window upwards. He doesn’t even flinch as the weather goes south again and batters him. His beige Shearling with its woolly lining, now the headlights are off, does nothing to keep him warm or dry either. It’s drenched in seconds.

“Dan!” you yell into the freezing afternoon. Your voice doesn’t carry down to the Chevy, so you heave the window shut and cross over to the front door. Pushing it open, you watch as a pocket of snow tips over the first step like a win on a coin machine. When you follow the snow down to the front path, it crunches underneath your toes, seeps through your thick black socks, and pools under your toenails. Yelping, you stop in your tracks and curve your hands around your mouth. You already feel like your skin is turning blue. “Dan, come inside! You’ll catch your death!”

“In a minute!”

He carries on and you find yourself questioning whether the obstructive feet-high heaps of snow and charcoal grey clouds obscuring the countryside for miles are really grounds for driving three hours to spend one weekend in a log cabin in the middle of nowhere. To top those off, Dan’s engine clearly isn’t fit for purpose. The sensible option would be to stoke up the fire in your own front room and barricade yourself in for the two days you should be away in Wisconsin. It’s cosy here, the refrigerator is stocked full for the next week, and so is the standing freezer nestled in the pantry. There’s plenty meat in the freezer, beers in the fridge, a few carrots left over from last night’s stew.

But still he labours away.

You puff out a breath which fogs in front of your nose. Taking it as your cue to retreat inside, you hurry on in and return to your bedroom to finish packing. Dan finally enters and shouts through the little farmhouse.

“Engine sorted! You ready to go?”

“Not yet—maybe we postpone until spring?”

“What? No, I’ve already paid in full. We’ll be fine.”

You nod stiffly and zip the hold-all up. Shoving it aside, you drop onto the bed and peel your socks off. Tossing them onto the radiator, you pad over to the wardrobe for a new pair. Tugging them on, you then nudge your feet into the work boots you chucked aside earlier and lace them up roughly. Grabbing your bag, you tear out of the bedroom and dump it by the front door. From there, you see Dan nosing around. Your head tilts and chestnut locks sprawl down over your chest. Wandering in, you clear your throat.

“Whatcha eyeing up? Dad’s ornaments?”

He snorts. “Maybe we can get ‘em valued and buy somewhere.”

“Please,” you retort, rolling your eyes. “He’d haunt you from beyond the grave if you even tried it. And so would I.”

A smile ripples across his lips but his eyes are guarded. He brushes past you and snatches up your bag. “We’d best get going. Hit the road before it gets any worse. With any luck it might calm down on the way.”

“I don’t know.”

He cuts you off with a wave of his hand. His dismissal of your uncertainty rubs you up the wrong way. He’s so chipper, so enthusiastic, but you can’t shake your worry. It takes root in your stomach. There’s something wrong, but you can’t place your finger on what it is—or even if it’s real. Maybe his confidence is well-founded. Maybe you should hope for the best like he does.

“Trust me, it’ll be great. I’ve got a surprise for us when we get there.”

“Well, if you’re sure—”

He flashes a million-dollar smile and gestures to the door. He pushes it open and you slip past him, warmer now you’ve got your jacket and boots on. You spare a look over your shoulder while he locks the door and tosses the keys to you. His grin is almost infectious. He disappears to the trunk as you clamber into the passenger seat and crank up the heater.

Seconds later, Dan climbs into the driving seat and starts up the engine. His right arm snakes behind your seat and he strains himself to see out the back windscreen. The Chevy lurches six times as he reverses out. Your temple knocks against the window each time and your fingers knead sharply into your knee, chest constricting as acid tingles into your throat.

He casts an occasional glance in your direction but offers little in the way of assistance; not that it matters much. After the initial struggle and despite the snow and sleet on the main road, the highways are much more of a breeze than anticipated. Showers of rain come and go, but it all fades after so long as your eyelids droop and your head cranes forward. You feel your chest rise to your second chin and fall again. Your breath rasps but soon, all you see are shapes in your head as you collapse deeper into a dream you won’t remember when you wake up.

When you come to, it’s to a blur of white skies and grey sleet roads whizzing past. You rub your eyes with the base of your hand and squint ahead. Dan gradually reduces pressure on the accelerator and draws down the left indicator. He slows enough for you to make out a mile sign with the number seven in bold and directions to the log cabin. He steers left, up the side road and follows it as it winds between two fields of mud stretching out for several acres a side.

“Nearly there?”

“Ten minutes, maybe.”

You nod. Your entire body is still heavy and you can see orange circles behind your eyelids when you blink. The pick-up jolts a few times and you’re positive that at the very least the tyres will be scuffed. The worst-case scenario will be Dan having to drag a pair of spares out of the trunk to fix it, but this access road trounces the one leading to your own place back home by a hundred.

Up ahead, another sign comes into view. It’s hand-printed, slightly shabby around the edges but clear enough to read. Ballantine Lodge. You perk up as the cabin materialises. It’s quaint but looks like the roof has been redone recently. It looks fresh in comparison to the rest of the unassuming building.

The Chevy soon pulls up on the east side. The engine judders to a halt and Dan hops out. He disappears into the cabin with the bags, and you tug the car key from the keyhole and wander towards the door. Your eyes fall onto a woodpile behind the truck, causing you to stop. An axe sticks out from the pile. On first glance there’s nothing remiss about it. On second, it is unnerving and unsettles your tummy. You go cross-eyed just staring at the rusty blade.

Something draws you closer and as your fingertips reach out to touch it, a voice snaps you back to reality. Your eyes flicker over to the three steps up to the door and discover Dan watching you with a hint of amusement in his own eyes. The right corner of his mouth twitches.

“Plenty of that in here. Come on.”

At first, you say nothing and glance back towards the axe. You can’t see your own face in it, and that adds to your growing sense of alarm. He’s never mentioned the cabin is effectively abandoned. Maybe it’s just… crossed wires? A misunderstanding? Maybe the owner—maybe this is his own winter retreat and he lives the rest of the year out somewhere warmer. God knows you want to, sometimes.

Eventually acquiescing, you abandon your thoughts and trudge to the door. Thumping your boots against the banister, you kick them again before entering the cabin. The last thing you want to do is add to any possible damp inside. The cabin hardly looks spick and span from the outside, especially not if that woodpile is anything to go by.

The hinges creak as you shut the door and wander through the maze of corridors and unfamiliar rooms. Ahead of you lies two identical doors on the right, and as you nudge each open and peer inside, you find a cramped bathroom with a detached hose, wallpaper peeling in the corners, and a detached sink with a new bar of soap – lavender, you think – sitting in front of a window that hasn’t been opened in years. The second door reveals a bedroom with crimson drapes, a four-poster, and a rickety bedside cabinet. Stepping out, you leave the door ajar and carry on back to the entrance, following the noise of cupboards slamming and a tap running.

You turn left by the front door and enter a cosy living room. There’s a basket by the fireplace stocked with wood, and more behind the fireguard. Three chairs are dotted around the room and you notice that sections of them have been patched up and other parts scratched, you imagine by a feline. Through a separating window, you see Dan’s shadow dithering around the kitchen and hear a harsh whistling. Wandering through, you scrape back a chair and observe as a teapot starts to boil on the stove. Dan pries his way through the freezer as you lean back and hook your right leg over your left.

“Anything you fancy? We’ve got chicken, pork belly—the old man’s labelled it all.”

“Maybe later. What else is there?”

He wrestles around some more, yanks out a leg of venison and brandishes it as if he’s just won the Nobel Prize for some new category: uncommon things you find in your freezer. Maybe you’ll nominate him to appear on Family Feud.

“You’re mad.”

“If you only knew.”

Rolling your eyes, you haul yourself up to attend to the teapot, but he waves you back down. Setting the leg aside, he grabs a towel and hoists the pot off. He sets it on a slate coaster and then snaps up two mugs, pouring water into each, some squeezed lemon, and a teaspoon of tea leaves. You tear your eyes from his hand and run them down his back.

“Very kind of you, sir,” you hum and accept the offering when he sashays over.

“Only the best for my girl.”

You take a sip and then blow over it lightly. There’s something bitter about it but you put it down to the lemon and take a larger gulp in an attempt to acclimatise to it quicker. About half-way in, Dan speaks up.

“How about you go have a rest while I prep dinner? I’ll call when I’m done.”

“No, that’s—”

“Go on. Enjoy the rest of your tea in bed. There’s plenty more for later.”

Hesitant, you nod and claim the mug. As you stand up, you feel a little woozy, but you push it aside and shuffle to the bedroom. It takes three gulps to finish it, but as you gain ground in the front hall, you stare into the teacup and frown. Tiny pockets of white powder stain the tea leaves but you know he didn’t put sugar in. You never take sugar. Everyone knows that. Your hand trembles and you feel a faint tremor in your knees, increasing fast until you can’t hold yourself up. You hit the ground and your hand smashes into the broken shards of porcelain. A sudden searing tear runs down your arm and you become aware of the suffocating stench of iron before your eyes fog up and everything blacks out.

White spots fill the darkness behind your eyelids and you hear white noise in your ears. It’s like static as your muscles begin to wake, though they remain unbearably dense as if you’re captive under water, the volume goes from nought to a thousand. Groaning with what little strength your throat permits, you try to flex your fingers. Your lids part and it takes what feels like a lifetime for your vision to hone in on anything beyond blurred shapes. There’s a wardrobe by the foot of the bed, but you can’t remember if you saw one when you arrived—or where you even are, for the first few torturous minutes of consciousness. To your right, there’s a window. To the left, triggering a crick in your neck, the rickety table – you remember that – and a door with a ball handle.

Your brain pounds and fragments start to come back. None of the images, or the screams, make sense. The only thing you can fully see is you screaming for help, but you don’t recall any such thing. Struggling to heave your legs off the bed, you stumble and catch yourself first on the cabinet, and second at the door handle. You start to twist it, and then it hits you square in the face: the powder residue in the tea. The tea he insisted you drink at the cabin he insisted on travelling to. There’s something about venison, and—an axe? As your memory seeps in through empty cracks, you feel sick with fright. You freeze by the door and listen until you’re positive the cabin is empty. You go to twist the handle, but the front door swings open and you clamp both hands over your mouth. Minutes tick away and you look for another escape. You tip-toe to the window, but tiny spatters of blood, like someone’s coughed it up, leave you reeling. There’s more on the pillows that you swear weren’t there before.

The teapot whistles once more, and you steal your chance at escape. Padding out of the room and down the hallway softly, you edge the front door open and fling yourself out into the snow. It freezes your toes and air bites at your shoulders and knees. You look down and realize he’s stripped you down to a simple night-gown. Bile spills from your throat and you hear a voice behind you. You can’t help but scream, and take off despite the snow crunching under your bare feet, blistering toes and drawing blood. You disappear into the woods and don’t stop running until it’s dark out and the forest is silent. Ducking behind a tree, you quiver and try to warm yourself by rubbing your arms.

Every now and then, you peer back in the direction you came from, each time seeing something different. The snow is stained so deep with blood that you wonder where it ends and the earth begins. Your head crooks and you puzzle over it. None of it is yours. You’d have to be dead, you think, for that much blood to be spilled. You also notice something else—something lacking. Footsteps. You’ve been running for miles, but you’ve left no prints behind? That’s impossible, isn’t it? Isn’t it?

Stepping back, you think back to the screams, and wince as your arms suddenly ache. Glancing down, you see bright red handprints so deep into your skin that you’ve turned green. Dan’s face looms over you in your head and you scramble to deny the horrific thoughts pulsing through your head. It can’t be possible.

And then the back of your left ankle catches on something rough and you topple over it. Body splaying over the ground, you yelp and gaze slowly rises to stare at the objects in front of you. One, the rusty axe from the cabin, but … soaked in blood and brain matter and matted brown hair. The other, abandoned beside it, damp and covered in soil, a thick spade. Your chest tightens. Just inches away from the spade lies a mound of mud and snow, complete with a sprig of out-of-place lavender.

Crawling onto your knees, you force yourself to breathe through the scalding pain in your neck and start to dig with your bare hands, no longer caring about the cold running through your veins. The deeper you claw downwards, the more you start to uncover, but you stop four or so feet into the forest floor and tears spring to your eyes. Your boots stick out, along with the red nail varnish that’s been chipping from your fingernails for days. Pushing on, you find the bracelet your dad gave you for your eighteenth. Soon enough, the full picture emerges, and you crumble.

This isn’t just a mound. This is your grave.