[HR] The Cabin

Another turn past Carbondale. Not a single gas station. Not one. Just a sea of towering firs on both sides of the road, silently seeing me off. Realizing my Prius was running on fumes, I eased off the gas on the wet highway being drenched by October rain. You'd have to be a complete idiot to leave Denver on an almost empty tank and only notice it on the way back. It was all because of Sybil and her damned cute little nose. I couldn't call this woman a beauty, but she appeared in my life at exactly the right moment. Back then I was going through rough times, and my marriage was falling apart. I was angry at myself, terrified of facing a frightening reality head-on. Every day time moves faster and faster - before you know it, it's slipped right through your fingers. A string of ugly fights at home, and there I was, slamming the door and tearing off toward Aspen, heading for our little cabin in the woods. What soothes the average American? Peace, solitude, the smell of pine and gunpowder on jacket sleeves. Shooting my favorite rifle genuinely calmed me down - my license allowed it, and the nearest neighbors were God knows how far away. During one of my trips to renew the license at Mr. Lang's office, I ran into his assistant. Who turned out to be his daughter. Sybil Lang - a blonde twenty-three-year-old girl with bright eyes, wearing a short rust-colored sheepskin coat that didn't suit her at all. On our second meeting I managed to get her out of it, something I deeply regretted now. It was time to end this little adventure; a stone in my chest reminded me that I still loved Janet and that I should try to save the marriage. Once again I'd driven out to the foot of Red Hill to explain myself and draw a line under this foolishness. And every time she'd unclip my belt buckle and prove that the breakup could wait.

"Let's tell them! Let's tell them! Let's tell them everything!" - some pop singer chirped her latest one-hit wonder from the car speakers. Fat chance. Irritated, I switched to another station, where Freddie was once again singing that the show must go on.

"It doesn't have to, pal. You've been dead a long time," I thought sadly, and turned the radio off entirely. I'd listen to nothing but the rain and hope for the best. Unfortunately, I knew this road well and understood that the nearest gas station was at least an hour away - I'd definitely stall before making it home. Spending a rainy night stranded on the highway in a dead Prius was not an appealing prospect. Truth be told, I already knew what I had to do, but kept putting off accepting that simple fact. The turn into the forest was coming up. Without much enthusiasm, I made my choice and headed into the depths of the nature reserve, where my father's wedding anniversary gift was waiting for me.

I loved this cabin, whose roof I could already make out in the dusky forest. The branches of the nearest firs stroked its roof as if trying to wipe away the drops of rain that had worn out its welcome. I hurried out of the car, looked with displeasure at the untended clearing, and strode purposefully across the wet leaves, pulling my jacket up over the back of my head. Inside the cabin I was met by the same familiar smell of damp. Locking the door out of habit, I tried to make out the room around me. Time had taken its toll - the house was over fifteen years old now. Nothing had changed since my last visit. The same tiny kitchen with its perpetually leaking refrigerator. The same wobbly table and the same creaking floor. Good thing Janet couldn't hear the way the bed occasionally creaked beneath me and Sybil. That would have broken her heart completely and made her wonder whether I was a good person. Was I?

"Let's tell them! Let's tell them! Let's tell them everything!" - the catchy little tune started playing in my head.

"Shut up!" I snapped out loud and realized how quiet it was around me. Only the rain drumming on the roof tried to help drown out my anxious thoughts. In the dim light I felt my way to the edge of the wooden bed and sat down to catch my breath. Perhaps I'd wait out the rain here and then head out to the highway for help. Yes, that's exactly what I'd do.

The damp and cold kept nagging at me until I decided to go out for firewood and get the old fireplace going. But a sudden knock at the door snapped me out of my thoughts.

"David! David! Open up! It's me, Ike!" said a voice from outside. Isaac Farmberg - a good friend and bowling buddy. He used to get annoyed when we laughed at his sometimes dopey expression, but we always assured him it was nothing personal. All in all he was a good-natured, sociable guy who was never opposed to partying through the entire weekend. He didn't lose heart easily. Even when the doctors gave him that fateful diagnosis.

The door rattled in its frame. Someone was yanking the handle insistently.

"You going to let me in? What, you're not happy to see me?" the voice said cheerfully from outside.

I would have liked to be happy to see Ike. But five years ago I threw a handful of dirt onto his coffin.

"Go away," I barely managed to say, unclenching my teeth. Ice-cold horror had seized me completely. It felt as though whatever was outside fed on fear. The seconds of silence behind the door seemed like an eternity. I was already begging myself to wake up, but in response a muffled chuckle came from the other side. I could feel it smiling.

"How can this be, Jimmy? What about a friendly hug?" said the man behind the door in a coaxing voice. A man?

"Leave me alone! Go away!" I pleaded, backing up. I didn't even recognize my own voice.

"Oh, I'll go! But first you're going to open this damn door and we're going to have a little chat!" hissed whatever was behind it, in Ike's voice. I tried to pull myself together and took a deep breath.

"What do you want from me?"

"Now that's more like it!" it burst out laughing in the pouring rain.

"Just go ahead and tell her! Tell everyone!"

I had completely lost track of what was happening.

"Please stop…" I said quietly, the first thing that came to mind.

"So you've decided to corner the market on causing pain?" Ike inquired. The voice was his, but the intonations were so vicious that I couldn't wrap my head around Ike being capable of such spite. He yanked the door threateningly, but otherwise the house seemed immune. As a last resort I could barricade myself in the basement. But from what?

"I have a shotgun. Don't make me use it," I said uncertainly. In response, an explosion of raspy laughter came from behind the door, soon ending in a strangled gurgling. After coughing and spitting, Ike said:

"Do you really think that could hurt me more than those damn metastases?"

I said nothing.

"Just tell her, buddy. Share your secret," Ike said suddenly in his usual pleasant voice. For a moment I was transported back to the good old days when he'd say "you've got this" and put a hand on my shoulder. My thoughts were jerked back by sharp pounding at the door, accompanied by a wild roar:

"Tell her! Tell her! Tell her! Tell her! Tell her!"

I covered my ears with my hands and, squeezing my eyes shut, sat on the edge of the bed hoping it would all be over soon. My head was pounding. I felt like I was losing my mind. My sanity was slowly deserting me, and the vibration of my shaking hands had already started making me nauseous. Then everything went quiet at once. Cautiously lowering my hands from my head, I even noticed the rain had stopped. A ringing silence in the almost complete darkness. The outlines of the wooden cabin's walls no longer seemed so familiar and cozy. They were black wooden beams of my trap. From a far corner, the glassy eyes of a mounted deer head glinted on the wall. Right now I felt like shooting that smug face.

"Jimmy?" came a frightened voice from behind the door. Frightened, but no less frightening.

"Jimmy, you there? I have nowhere to shelter from the rain. I'm soaked to the bone."

"This isn't funny!" I cried, clutching my head again.

"God knows how lucky I am that you happened to be here, Jimmy," sighed whatever was behind the door. Now the voice belonged to Reverend Robert Watson. His Sunday sermons radiated kindness, meekness, and love. I was ten years old when I used to run to that little church in my free time. Its atmosphere was something like meditation for me. I'd never forgotten the reverend's kind but tired eyes.

Never forgotten, because thirty-five years ago he gave me one last smile before humbly setting off on his final journey.

"You wouldn't deny me your hospitality, would you, Jimmy?"

I decided to stay silent again. You mustn't indulge your hallucinations. Were they hallucinations?

"It's not right to turn away someone who devoted his life to healing human souls. I didn't deserve this from you."

"You're dead. Go away."

"Have I disappointed you somehow? Was I not kind to you?" the reverend's voice asked, hurt. My heart tightened. The last thing I wanted was to offend this man. But what remained of my rational mind told me perfectly well that what stood behind the door was not Reverend Robert at all. And not a human being.

"You know the parable about turning away from virtue," the reverend's voice said. "For virtue you'll find a thousand excuses and reasons to say no, yet you always find time for sin. I know. I know it all too well."

"Please go away."

"Just tell her, Jimmy. Confess and you'll feel better."

I stood up and approached the door.

"Turn around right now and go back where you came from!" I said through gritted teeth, clenching my fists.

"Your voice is firm, but your spirit is weak," came the reply.

"Get out."

The reverend's voice fell silent, drawing in air with an angry hiss. A hand descended on the door from outside and the voice said:

"You will burn in Hell. You miserable, lying piece of filth."

The sound of retreating footsteps on wet leaves. Possibly the most soothing thing I could have heard right now. I tried to gather up the shards of my composure, but my trembling legs gave me away as a man who had completely lost his mind. Pressing myself against the cold wall, I slid to my knees quietly weeping, trying to hold myself. Cold. I was so very cold. I don't know how much time passed, but when I glanced at the window, deep night was staring back at me. I might even have seen the sinister face of the moon if it weren't for the spruce forest surrounding the cabin on all sides. I wanted so badly for this to be a dream that I slowly got up and shuffled on cotton legs to the washbasin. Perhaps I should splash water on my face and wash off the remnants of the horror I'd just witnessed. Would that work?

Turning the tap, I heard only the drawn-out song of dry pipes and no water. Not a drop. Nearby, the gun cabinet - its lacquered surface glinting meaningfully in the dark - stood ajar. Had I really sunk that low?

"Everything's going to be all right," said a voice suddenly from behind the door. It was the voice of my grandfather, whose heart attack had taken him away prematurely, just before my fifteenth birthday. I took hold of the cabinet handle and slowly pulled it open with a creak. On the top shelf, practically glowing, sat a meter-long Remington Express. I wrapped cold fingers around the barrel and lifted the weapon. Two and a half kilograms of pure fury. In all our experiments with the guys it had shattered glass bottles with ease and punched clean through tin beer cans. No wonder its nickname was "deer slayer." With the gun in my arms I walked unsteadily toward the door.

"I miss you," said someone in my grandfather's voice. The childhood I'd spent listening to his captivating stories was gradually fading, but his warmth and care - those stayed with me forever. And now something standing behind this door was trying to erase and taint all of that.

"Don't you want to open the door and shake my hand like in the good old days?"

The barrel hung lifelessly in my hands. It was pressing on the sorest spot, squeezing my heart in its vile fists. Tears sprang from my eyes again.

"You died," I whispered.

"We don't have much time. They're already coming," muttered my grandfather's voice from behind the door.

"Leave me alone! You're not him! You're gone!" I shouted. I couldn't have imagined a worse nightmare. I was ready to do almost anything to make this torment end. For a moment silence fell, as though whatever was behind the door had hesitated. And then it laughed. Nastily and repulsively.

"You pathetic sniveling son of a bitch. Scout camp didn't make you a Boy Scout! Life didn't make you a man! You'll die like a cowardly wretch!" it spat out, hurling the words. Each syllable echoed like tearing flesh.

Then it suddenly started hammering at the door, screaming:

"Tell her! Tell! Tell! Tell!"

A black silhouette appeared in the window, coughing in Isaac Farmberg's voice.

"Open this damn door!" he choked, drowning in blood.

Someone started banging on another wall.

"Burn in Hell! Burn!" shouted Reverend Robert Watson from the other side.

In another window a thin child's hand appeared.

"Give me your hand, Jimmy! Please!" squealed Sammy Wilde, who had drowned at Boy Scout camp, from outside the window.

"I hate you! I hate you!" Caroline - who had died in a car crash - beat her hands against the outer walls. In the midst of this cacophony of screaming, pleading, and cursing, an old radio in the corner of the room suddenly switched on.

"Let's tell them! Let's tell them! Let's tell them everything!" - the annoying pop singer chimed in again, echoing the screaming dead outside.

"Turn that crap off right now!" my neighbor - the alcoholic who'd choked on his own vomit - hammered on the wall.

"You have no choice!" shouted Ike.

"She's going to find out! She'll see! Everyone will see!" shouted the neighbor.

"We already know everything!" laughed Ike, spitting.

"That body in the trunk," said Sammy.

"You never told me about her!" Ike said, hurt.

"You're a real scoundrel," sighed grandfather.

"Is she prettier than me? Is she, you bastard?!" Caroline screamed.

"You will burn in Hell!" cried Reverend Robert. Their voices merged in unison and became terrible music, a malicious drill boring through my consciousness. I could no longer make out words - I heard screams of rage, a waterfall of blood, the sound of tearing flesh, and the pounding of hammers on raw meat.

I was too tired. I had endured all of this for far too long. It was time to end it. With trembling fingers I found the rough trigger, and with the other hand carefully directed the barrel into my mouth. Cold, bitter metal, and unstoppable teeth tap-dancing against it. I shut my eyes and turn off the music.