Good Halloween Eve to you, my friends! I hope you have been enjoying the ghost stories this week.
I have another treat in store for you: a strange, spooky tale by author and blogger Dustin Fife. We thought it would be fun to do a post swap for Halloween! Dustin's blog is a fantastic read, with stories that touch the heart and spirit of all of us traveling this earth. He's funny, thought-provoking, caring and a fine wordsmith. I hope you will zip over and check out his writings. (There's a link to his site in my sidebar too.) Dustin's story about a weird cabin adventure is sure to raise the hairs on the back of your neck. Read on!
The Cabin on Vantage Road
Are you a
believer in the supernatural?
I’m not.
Or am I?
Every time this here skeptic (me) wants to roll my eyes at someone’s story of
ghosts or ghouls or aliens or vampires, I remember that day…
I was
seventeen-years-old. My dad pulled a boat behind a suburban, two hours across
the Cascade Mountains to Vantage Washington. It was a common camping spot for
us; a nearby convenience store carried pop rocks and baseball cards. There was
a playground standing atop wood chips, complete with rusted monkey bars and
love notes sprawled on the back of the slide. There was also a swimming pool
with a deep end (10 feet) and a bathroom that smelled like an expired outhouse.
It was a
kid’s dream. (Not the outhouse part…but the rest of it).
Perched on
a hill, surrounded by desert shrubs and deciduous trees, stood a cabin. We’d
never stayed in that cabin before (as far as I can recall), but it seemed we
were moving up in the world. Gone were the days of wind sweeping our tents into
the highway while we skied in the lake. No, we were high rollers that vacation.
Dad pulled
the boat next to the building and with the efficiency of a nomadic army, we
unpacked our bags and entered the cabin. The door creaked as it swung on rusted
hinges.
“I’ve got
top bunk,” I said and leaped inside, throwing my bag atop the bunk bed. Nick,
my little brother’s friend grumbled and dropped his gear on the bottom bunk.
The entire structure was made of wood that had long faded to gray with cracks
haphazardly closed with wood putty, rusted screws, and/or duct tape. No air
conditioning, no electricity. Just the creaky door that swung ominously in the
wind.
Eeeeek. Eeeeeek.
Something felt off about the place. It was that feeling you get
when you know you forgot to do something, like you left the oven on. You know
in the back of your mind that something terrible could happen, but it’s distant enough that you can
forget it. But all the while, you know that if you ignore it, the inevitable
only draws closer and closer and closer, until…
Boom.
What was
the feeling?
I shook my
head. No matter. Yet the rumble of my stomach remained.
The sunlight faded and we stood next to a crackling fire. The
scent of burning wood followed me like a midnight shadow. Cough cough, sputter, gag. It chased me, haunted me.
If I only knew the real haunting wouldn’t come until later.
I stood to
go to bed. Austin, my little brother stood with me and held out a fist. “Rock,
paper, scissors?”
I scoffed.
“Too late, dude. You’re sleeping in the Burb.” (Slang for “suburban”).
He glared.
“Fine.”
I climbed
up to the bed and closed my eyes, waiting for sleep to caress me into
unconsciousness. But she was a stubborn caretaker, that one. I shifted and
turned, fighting to find a comfortable position. My dad, Nick, and my sister’s
snores filled the silence. Sleep came to them. Why not me?
Nothing.
So I
shifted some more. Still, nothing.
I resigned
myself to laying on my side, staring between the rails of the bunk bed. The
wind howled and whistled, tossing the sheer curtains of the window. Moonlight
shone through, hypnotic.
Something
was off. What was it?
Silence.
That’s what it was. Except for the snores of those inside the cabin, there was
nothing. No crickets, no hum of distant cars…
Nothing.
My breaths
came faster. My mouth went dry. The cool breeze seemed to turn to ice.
And that
feeling returned–nagging in the back of my mind with haunted whispers.
Okay. I
was going crazy. I closed my eyes, promising myself I wouldn’t open them until
morning.
Silence.
I felt
something–some primal sense that someone watched me. But that was silly.
Everyone was asleep.
Don’t open your eyes.
I shut
them tighter. That feeling of being watched returned, like a wolf breathing
into my face. I had to look–had to prove to myself that it was nothing, that I
was only imagining things.
Nothing
was there, dude. Open your eyes, see it’s nothing and chill out.
Fine.
That’s what I’d do.
With one
final breath, I pried my eyes open and stared at the gauzy windows.
My body
went ice cold. I trembled, struggling to let out the scream that bubbled in my
throat, begging to be released, fighting the tightness that would consume me if
I didn’t just let. it. out!
I
screamed.
Standing there, with the fabric of the curtains passing right through her bodywas a
little girl, no more than eight years old. She stared at me with vacant
eyes–dead eyes.
My dad
jumped from his bed. “Wh–wha—what? What happn? Whas gone on?”
“I-I-I-I,”
I pointed to the window.
He turned
to look.
And she
was gone.
“I-I-I.”
My dad
barked something unintelligible and lay back down.
And I was
alone. So pitifully, miserably, terrifyingly alone. I couldn’t be there
anymore. i had to get out of there. I jumped from my bed and went to the Burb.
The door light flashed on and Austin shielded his eyes. “What the heck, dude?”
“G-g-ghost.”
He
grumbled and turned over. I crawled in the front seat, intent on sleeping in
there.
“Dude,” he
said. “What’r you doing?”
“Sleeping
in here.”
“Fine.” He
gathered his blanket.
“What are
you doing?” I asked.
“Sleeping
in the cabin.”
“No!” He
couldn’t do that. If he did, I’d be alone. And probably die a horrible terrifying
death.
“Then you sleep in the cabin. Just leave me alone!”
I sat
there, paralyzed by indecision. Do I sleep next to the ghost? Or alone?
Alone it
was.
Austin
stormed off in a huff and I remained alone.
Alone.
Alone.
The rest
of the evening passed uneventfully, except for, perhaps, a trickle or two of
urine down my legs.
The
following morning, I endured the jests of Nick and Austin who were convinced I
was pulling their leg. (Really? Me pull a prank? Never!) We spent the remained
of the day on the Columbia River, knee-boarding, water-skiing, and
wake-boarding.
I tried to have fun. But all I could think about was
what waited for me in that cabin. The dread of the night to come followed me. I
tried to push it to the back of my mind, where the memory of it remained as
nothing more than a pit in my stomach.
For
dinner, we ate in a local diner walking distance from the cabin. It was a
50s-style diner, with red booths lining the walls and swivel chairs right at
the counter. We sat at the swiveled chairs and ordered our food. I chewed on my
french fries, thinking of that girl.
We were
served by a brother and sister, about my age.
“Hey,”
Austin asked them, “what’s with the haunted cabin?”
I punched
him.
“You see
the girl?” the guy asked.
My eyes
widened, but I tried to hide my surprise. “What girl?”
“The ghost
girl. About 8-years-old? Blonde hair? Holds a cat over her forarm?”
I hadn’t
seen a cat, but everything else was spot-on.
Should I
feel better about this? Should I feel somehow validated that the locals had
heard rumors of a haunted cabin? That I wasn’t crazy.
Maybe. But
instead, it turned my stomach in knots. Up until that point, I could believe it
was a trick of the light or that I had stayed up too late the night before or
that the roasted chicken had done funny things to my visual cortex.
Not
anymore. I was in a silent panic.
“Sleep
well,” the female local said as we left the restaurant.
As we
walked back, my stomach twisted tighter and my fingers trembled.
“Austin,”
I said. “You. Me. Burb. Tonight.”
He
scoffed. “If you’re in the burb, I’m in the cabin.”
But I
couldn’t be in the burb. I couldn’t spend another night alone.
“Please?” I said. And, truth be told, I sounded really pathetic. My voice must have trembled and, if
I had any less self-control, I probably would have cried. A desperate plea from
brother to brother. Surely, the bond of brotherhood couldn’t be broken with
such a desperate plea.
“Nope,” he
said. “Suck it up, big boy.”
But I wouldn’t sleep alone. Instead, I told Nick he was sleeping in the top bunk. I’d remain in
the bottom bunk where I couldn’t even see the window. I’d turn my back to the
ghost, lock my eyes shut and keep them closed no.
matter. what!
That was
the plan, at least. Funny how plans never work out.
I remained, back turned to the window, trembling. Don’t open your eyes. Don’t
open your eyes. Dad’s
breaths turned to snores.Then Nick’s. Then my sisters.
I was
alone.
My body begged to move, shouting for a change in positions. Don’t move. Don’t open your
eyes. Just fall asleep! The agony
of remaining in that one position intensified like I was sitting on a bed of
coals.
Move move move! Open your eyes. Open your eyes. Open your eyes!
A guttural sound echoed outside the cabin’s door, like the moan
of a zombie.Roooooomphf, Rooompht, Roooooooooooooooooomphtuf. A light flicked on. I yelped.
“Nick!” I
shouted. “Stop messing around. Stop it Nick!”
“Dustin’s
got type II schizophrenia,” he said. “He not only sees things, he makes sure
others see them too.”
“Tell me
your kidding!” My voice trembled, coming out as a choked cry.
“I don’t
even have the flashlight!” he shouted.
I looked
beside my bed. Right within arm’s reach was the source of the light–my dad’s
coleman’s flashlight.
It was on. I was the only one within reach. I was the only one who could have turned it one.
But I didn’t turn it on.
I reached forward and felt as if my hand were reaching through a
pit of snakes. I grabbed the flashlight and flicked it on, then off. On, then
off. And considerable force was
required to turn it on, mind you. These things just didn’t turn on
accidentally.
“I’m outta
here,” I said. I went outside to the burb and crawled inside. Austin pitched
another fit, but I threatened to pound him if he left. “Stay here and protect
me, dag-nabit!”
One good
thing did come as a result of that second night–my family believed me. Once I
convinced them I wasn’t holding the flashlight, and once they realized I had no
way of making that weird ominous sound, they acquiesced to my non-craziness.
The only
person that remains a skeptic is myself, I suppose. In the years since, I’ve watched
Host-Hunters International, Fact-or-Faked, and a host of other TV shows. It’s
amusing really. As I sit on my couch with a bowl of cereal, I watch these
people with their Ouija boards, infrared meters, and EVPs. I laugh and I mock.
And
yet…it’s not until the show concludes that I realize my uneaten cereal remains
in its bowl, soggy and warm. I look at the clock to find two full hours have
passed and I hardly breathed.
I’m a
skeptic. It’s all bunk. It’s all hokum.
Or maybe
there really is something out there.
And they're all hot!
Hi! I’m Dustin. I am a novelist, podcaster, YouTuber, and blogger. I write science fiction, as well as stories about everyday humans with everyday struggles. (Think Humans of NY meets Chicken Soup for the Soul.) I’d love you to visit my website and read some fantastic stories, or subscribe to my weekly podcast. I'm looking forward to connecting!
