A Night They’ll Never Forget…

Below is a short story written for the Halloween special edition newsletter. We advise that this story may not be suitable for anybody under the age of thirteen.

Sam and Peter stopped to catch their breath for what seemed like the hundredth time that night, halting Joe’s wheelchair dead in its tracks as they did so. They had each taken turns to help Joe navigate the rough terrain of the Hiawatha National Forest for the better part of two hours, trudging through all kinds of rotting leaves and broken twigs in the process. The three friends had driven down from Munising, Michigan on a whim earlier that night, in search of an elusive cabin they’d heard dozens of dark tales about. 

As they stood in the calmness of the night air and began to regain some semblance of composure, they heard in the distance a faint, yet unusual sound, different from anything they’d heard up until that point. It sounded, for all they could tell, like a low, dull humming noise; mechanical almost, with the echoes it produced reverberating off the pocket of Sugar Maples that surrounded them. 

“What the hell was that?” Peter whispered, unsure of whether he should even be asking. 

“Your guess is as good as mine,” replied Sam as he grabbed the back of Joe’s chair and gave it another heave forward. 

“Maybe we should turn back,” said Joe, suddenly worried about where it was that they were headed. 

“What? And let all of this be for nothing? It’s alright for you who gets just to sit there. We’re the ones literally breaking our backs here pushing you,” Sam snarked. 

It had been Joe’s idea to come in the first place, so there was simply no way the other two would let their efforts to help him go in vain. Besides, they were just a few hundred meters from the old cabin and they were planning to stay there until daybreak before heading back to the car.  

Right as they neared the edge of a clearing that led to the old cabin, the heavens above them abruptly opened and a torrential downpour began. Along with the sudden deluge, huge cracks of lightning illuminated the night sky and lit the remainder of their route and ferocious rolls of thunder dominated everything. 

“Great, that’s just what we needed,” shouted Peter over the loud sounds of both the tremendous thunder and the heavy rain pounding off the forest canopy above them. With a greater sense of urgency, Peter nudged Sam out of the way before pushing down hard on the back of Joe’s chair, lifting his front caster wheels off the ground, and shoving him forward with all his might toward the cabin. 

By the time they reached the cabin, they were soaked wet through to the bone. Peter and Sam fumbled to hoist Joe’s chair up onto the cabin’s porch and underneath the shelter of its crumbling roof. The cabin looked nothing like they were expecting. One of the windows at the front was smashed, there was graffiti on the doorway, panels missing from the left-side wall, and several large holes in the ceiling allowing a great deal of rainwater inside. Not to mention the front door was practically hanging off its hinges and there was a distinct smell of decay emanating from within.


“You said it would stay dry out tonight!” exclaimed Joe, staring at Peter as he did so. 

“My dad said it would be… how could I know it would piss it down like this?!” Peter replied. 

“I’m so cold I can’t feel my feet…” said Joe, chiming in with impeccable comedic timing.

“Quit joking around Joe,” Peter retorted, “that’s not the reason you can’t feel your toes!”

After a minute or so Sam approached the entrance with slight trepidation, before proceeding to prop the door upright so that it could easily be pushed open.  As his hand gripped the rotting wood, no fewer than a dozen woodlouse scurried between the whites of his knuckles, down towards the cracked floorboards.  Unphased, he continued to lift, and once the door was open the three slowly entered, being careful not to tread on anything that may be alive, hiding in the sheltered, damp darkness. The late Midwest summer meant there was also the genuine possibility of snakes to contend with.  Sam led the way, closely followed by Peter, as Joe took the rear, his wheelchair’s progress jarred by the uneven dips and cracks in the decades-old floor. 

Peter closed the door behind them and immediately reached into the bag he’d been carrying on his back and searched for his phone so that he could turn on its flashlight.  What lay before them was nothing short of carnage. Ahead, they could see an upturned dining table with three broken chairs scattered around it. The kitchen cupboards were all open, with half of the contents inside strewn all around the floor and on top of the filthy benches. A few of the cupboard doors were either broken or missing altogether, and the space where an oven would have been was now filled with rotting produce and trash. The area dedicated to the lounge area featured two beaten-up armchairs, one of which had the back of it slashed open and its inner stuffing ripped out. There were bits of broken glass all over the floor and on many of the surface tops. More trash could be found shoved underneath the broken coffee table, and there was animal excrement in all four corners of the living space. Ultimately, the place was in a very sorry state – unsurprising given that the only folks that tended to venture out to these parts were unruly teenagers and local drunks. 

(CONTINUED FROM NEWSLETTER…)

The three were just about to have a cliche ‘now what?’ moment when the sound that they’d heard earlier out there in the woods, returned. Only this time, it was louder. Much louder. It sounded, in fact, as though it was right above them, and accompanying this terrifying noise was a definite sensation of vibration beneath their feet. 

“I don’t know what the hell that is but it sounds way louder than it should,” Sam whispered. 

“It’s probably just some old generator nearby, don’t worry so much man” Joe responded. “It’s not as if we’re the first to come here, is it?” 

The front door behind them creaked and groaned as a gust of wind blew leaves and raindrops up against it. Several of the leaves flew through the smashed window beside the door and blew onto the floor in front of them. 

“I really don’t like this, but if we’re really going to stay here then we should try and get a fire going” Peter suggested. “It’s only going to get colder and I’m not freezing myself half to death!”

“You’re right” Joe replied, “but just look at this place… can you honestly see anything we can use?”

“Not really” Peter admitted. “Why don’t you and Sam take a look around and see if you can find something while I clear out the fireplace?”

The pair began leafing through all the trash that had been left on the cabin floor, trying to accumulate as much paper as possible to use as some sort of fire starter. There were piles and piles of old magazines, newspapers, discarded food containers, drinks cans, dirty clothing, and perhaps most alarming of all, obvious signs of drug paraphernalia. 

“There’s no use to this!” Sam blurted out. “There’s no dry wood outside, and even if we find enough paper and trash to use as fire kindling, how are we supposed to keep it going once it’s lit?”

“Are you sure it’s not just worth us braving the weather and trying to make our way back to your car?” Joe asked more in hope than anything else. 

“Nah, man… it would take us two hours to get back, maybe more. It’s almost 1 a.m., we may as well just wait for this rain to pass and try and head back as early as possible in the morning.”

No sooner had the words left Sam’s mouth than they heard the deep humming noise again, only this time it was different still.  Unlike when they’d heard it earlier, the humming noise above them was now refusing to stop. Instead, the noise traveled across the ceiling, moving from the right-hand corner nearest the window to the left-hand side of the cabin where the ransacked kitchen was situated. Accompanying the humming was a series of tapping noises, gradually getting louder with each passing second. Once the sounds of humming and tapping did eventually stop, after what felt like an eternity, the trio barely had time to look at one another before a small dusty phone, which none of them had noticed sitting by the entrance, let out a loud ring. 

The moment lingered longer than felt natural before eventually Joe gripped the push rims of his chair and motioned forward toward the phone, picking up the receiver before the eleventh ring had time to sound out. 

“Hello…?” he croaked, with some significant fear now causing his voice to catch. 

“You shouldn’t be here. You need to leave. All of you.” replied a low, raspy, male voice. 

“Who is th…” Joe began, before *click*, the phone line cut out and the messenger was gone in an instant. 

“Someone knows we’re here” Joe shouted, turning to the others as he dropped the receiver down onto its cradle and spun his wheelchair around. “They must have followed us here. We need to leave. NOW!”

Both Peter and Sam just stared, dumbfounded, as if not listening to a word Joe had just said.

“Are you listening to me? We need to get out of here. Quickly!” he pleaded. 

Then, without saying a word, Peter slowly raised his arm, pointing towards where the phone was, his mouth gawped wide.

“What is it?” Joe muttered in confusion, turning back once more to follow the line of Peter’s finger. There, hanging directly beneath the phone was its wire, loose, chewed up, and very much disconnected.

Joe felt his blood run cold. His rapidly beating heart was now very noticeable in his chest.  

‘How was this even possible?’ ‘This is insanity!’ Thoughts whizzing through Joe’s mind at a million miles per hour. But before he could even act impulsively and move to leave the cabin they heard a soft tapping coming from the front door. 

The three were frozen in fear, none wanting to confront whatever was waiting for them on the other side of that thin, beaten-up door. Around thirty seconds passed and the tapping sound started again, this time with a more definitive firmness. Eventually, Sam was the one who was brave enough to step forward and turn the door handle, letting in a stiff cold breeze to accompany the already frosty bite infiltrating the cabin through the gaps in the broken windows. 

As the door swung open the three boys each held their breath, gripped by absolute terror. It was unclear at first just what it was they were staring at. Where they had anticipated seeing a person, or worse still, a creature, there was instead a thick dense fog floating about five inches off the ground and taking up enough space to comfortably fit two people. The cloud-like apparition was darker near the top and formed a cavernous pit into nothingness – transcending deep into the void, blocking all that could be seen behind it, yet allowing the viewer to gaze for what seemed like miles into its void. Near the bottom of the foreign miasma, the black vapor-like substance that made up its main body appeared more sparse and thin, like a gloomy mist, partially transparent, hovering in place. 

The mist hung in the air for several seconds, pulsing gently, as if inhaling and exhaling, while the boys remained transfixed, stunned, and immovable. After some time, the pulsating darkness began to move forward toward the trio, yet they were unable to muster even the slightest flicker of a reaction. Joe tried to say something to the others, but his throat and tongue were stuck rigid. At the same time, he realized that his entire body was experiencing the exact same sensation – caught trapped, and simply unable to move even an eyelid. As if stuck by a sudden burst of realization, it was at that moment that he registered his breathing as being incredibly labored due to an extreme tightness in his chest. Were the others experiencing this too, he thought? He’d not heard a peep from Sam or Peter so he had to assume the answer to his internal dialogue was grave. 

The black, heavy vapor was expanding and had now engulfed all three boys as they remained planted in the positions they’d been in when Sam first opened the door. The sensation was colder than anything they’d ever experienced, so cold, in fact, it was searing their skin. Suddenly, mercifully, right as it felt like the last semblance of life was being ripped away from them the phone let out another of its shrill rings. As the sound broke the silence, it was accompanied this time by a bright, warm flash of light coming from somewhere above. No sooner had the mist begun to consume them, than it was gone again. Dispersed in an instance, leaving no trace other than victims it just tortured. Sam gulped hard and sucked in the cold night air, in a desperate attempt to fill his starved lungs. Beads of sweat dripped from his forehead from the pain. He gathered himself and then turned to look at the others, only they were nowhere to be seen.  That all too familiar feeling of panic set in once more; or was it more a case of it had never left?

Unsure of what to do or where to go, Sam slowly walked outside the cabin and made his way onto the sodden dirt directly in front of the porch. Everything was deathly quiet all around him, harrowingly so. The rain had ceased its relentless cascade sometime early, and the smog had dissipated. It hadn’t registered with Sam at first, but after a little while he felt the sensation of squelching underfoot. Why he was now suddenly barefoot, he couldn’t explain, perhaps the mist had taken his shoes? It was just another bizarre circumstance of this terrible night. He looked down and where he had expected to see damp sodden earth, he was met with something far worse and far more disgusting. There, squeezing their way between his toes, were hundreds of worms, wriggling violently – flailing left and right as each took it, in turn, to emerge from beneath the others. Worse still, these worms had teeth! Sam could barely compute all of this as he stood there, frozen in fear for the second time in less than half an hour. He looked out in front of him and what he saw took the heights of his fear to a whole new level. Not only were the worms beneath his feet right there in that area, but they surrounded him – for as far as the eye could see. 

It wasn’t until the pain of the worms sinking their teeth into the webbed gaps between his toes became unbearable that Sam finally jolted to his senses. He threw back his head, puffing his cheeks, and blew hard and fast as the unmistakable beginnings of a panic attack crept upon him. He turned and ran back to the cabin’s porch, forgetting for a second that the others were no longer there, and dismayed all over again when he remembered. Around and around he spun, in a dazed confusion, fight or flight mode well and truly maxed out and waging an internal battle inside of himself. Adrenaline seared through his body as he tried to decide whether to sprint in the only direction he knew, across the sea of worms, or stay put and hope for Peter and Joe’s return.

The choice, however, was not for Sam to make on that fateful night. As he hesitated there, on the porch, the worms that inhabited the clearing where he’d moments earlier just stood, began to part and divide themselves, as the ground around him started to shake violently. Loose bits of timber that had previously been precariously hanging from the roof, began falling to the floor, as the final shards of glass from the windows closely followed. In the worms’ wake, they revealed a deep pit, plunging into the depths of the earth, growing wider with each passing second. At first, it looked as though smoke was rising from within the cracked ground, but pretty soon it became clear that the dark mist that had inexplicably presented itself at the cabin door earlier had returned and was heading toward Sam with great speed. 

He tried to scream but no sound came from his mouth. His eyes bulged as the smog enveloped itself around him, crushing his torso and neck as it did so. It seeped its way into the corners of Sam’s eyes, inside his nose, his ears, and finally his gaped mouth. The feeling of tension that had gripped his upper body now did so from within, as his sight not only began to cloud like the black airborne soot around him but became one with the mist. Darker and darker his vision seeped, and with it, so too his thoughts and memories. The excruciating fear he’d felt for the past however many minutes was rapidly subsiding, and in its place, his mind filled with nothingness. 

Sam became the mist. 

— — — — — — —

It was three weeks to the day since the boys had been reported missing to the local police. Two officers from the Alger County Sheriff’s Office had received a tip-off earlier that day from local High School students, informing them that there was a popular hang-out spot deep in the heart of Hiawatha and that the missing teens may have been heading there on the night they disappeared. Now, several hours later, the officers were combing through the derelict cabin, looking for potential clues.  They immediately picked up on the ominous vibe that the cabin presented, despite it still being daylight outside, and they were in no way intending to stay any longer than was absolutely necessary.

“See anything noteworthy?” grunted the shorter and more rotund of the two police officers.

“Nah, nothing yet. You?”

“Not a thing. How about we dust the surfaces for prints?”

“Sure, why not, though there’s probably hundreds of potential matches in here. But at least we can leave with something, and trust me, leave is what I want to do… this place doesn’t feel right.”

As the second officer finished his sentence a gentle humming noise from above them in the attic started together with a low-level rumbling sensation underfoot. The pair looked at each other in surprise and the shorter cop motioned that they should head outside to investigate. As they headed for the door the second officer stopped abruptly with nothing but confusion etched on his face. 

“Hey… come look at this…”

In front of them, hanging on the wall by the door, were three photographs of different people, all dated September 1959 and each looking slightly older than the next. 

‘Our Cabin – Nige, Sarah, & Worm: September 1959’. 
‘Our Cabin – Todd & Misty: September 1959’. 

The final and most recent-looking photograph read ‘Our Cabin – Peter, Sam, & Joe: September 1959’. 

“Holy shit! Ain’t those the kids we’re meant to be looking for? But… this is dated over sixty years ago…”

Before another word could be spoken between the two officers, their conversation was interrupted by the loud, unmistakable sound of a telephone ringing beside them. One of the officers immediately picked up the receiver and put it to his ear. 

“Hello, this is Officer Ford from the Alger County Sheriff’s Office. May I know who it is I am speaking to?”

“You shouldn’t be here. You need to leave. Both of you.” replied a low, raspy, male voice.