Real Monsters

The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window. Mercedes Rey was the only witness.

The woods behind her childhood home had often been her refuge. Mercedes would slink away to find a sun speckled spot beneath the canopy to lay a blanket and read whenever the bickering noise of home was too much. She had begun this, freckled-faced and undeveloped, when she was only nine-years-old. Back then she had fantasized about the small cabin at the bottom of the sloping hill. Maybe she should live there, no one else did. She could fix it up, plant some flowers and live alone in the woods, like a fairy tale. The forest and its creatures would be her new family.

For years, she returned like clockwork, unpacking and spreading the tattered quilt where the trees parted just right. Reading book after book and dreaming of the day she would move out of the violent chaos of home. It wouldn’t be long now. She was 17, and almost free. Mercedes rolled over onto her stomach and cracked the spine of her novel, her long dark hair cascading down her back. What had once been fantasy stories of fairies and wizards was now replaced by mysteries and thrillers. Stories that brought a shiver to her spine and made her look over her shoulder. Maybe that explained why she no longer had fantasies about living in the old structure that sat nearby. Or it could have had something to do with the rumor she learned in the 7th grade about a haunted civil war cabin in the woods. Back then, she might have been a little unnerved when she realized this was probably ‘that cabin’ but as time went on, Mercedes learned she enjoyed ghost stories as much as any of her other fiction and it didn’t bother her.

On page 178 Margot Kelly was entering the ally alone. It was dusk in New Orleans and there was a serial killer on the loose. Margot was a brave woman, intent on finding her sister’s killer. A shadow moved behind her but she didn’t see it. Her intuition felt the danger prickling at the nape of her neck though, and she rushed into a local spot, through the side-door, nearly knocking over a waiter carrying etouffee and gumbo. She had escaped certain doom in the nick of time and she wasn’t even rattled. She made Mercedes feel empowered to be brave as well. That was probably why when the sun dipped low in the sky, Mercedes didn’t pack up and head for the warm glow of the lamps in the formal living room that would ironically welcome her home.

There were reasons she should probably actually go - news of ‘Two Local Girls, Missing’ had made headlines just last week but Mom, Mark and brother, Enrique would all be home tonight and there would be no way to finish her book with all the quarreling. She lived in fiction to avoid reality ever since the day mom married Mark, so when reality struck a chord with her fiction, it just added ambiance. Enrique was 16 months older than her and for reasons she could not understand, had not left home. If she was the constant subject of their drunk stepdad’s scrutiny, and had the right to leave, she would have been gone. She thought maybe Enrique felt the need to protect mom, which was noble of him. She only felt the need to avoid Mark. No one ever came back here, so Mercedes reasoned her spot was probably the safest place in town.

She switched on the flashlight she carried in her small backpack and continued as the light left the sky and a dusty blue covered the trees. Margot was busily trying to tell the local sheriff she had seen the killer. He was ignoring her though. Why were fictional men the same as real men? Didn’t these authors, with their ability to create anything, want something more than the tragedy of reality? Or maybe it was just inescapable, even for them. Perhaps she should read romance- those guys are nice, right? Mom had thought Mark was nice when she married him. But he wasn’t. In fact, Mercedes was convinced that there was something very, very wrong with him.

She was carried away into her own thoughts now and had missed the content of the entire page even as her eyes had continued to travel down the paragraphs. She was re-skimming to find the spot where her thoughts had departed the page when she felt the prickle. This one wasn’t for the fictional characters though, this one was for her. The chill ran down her and something felt incredibly wrong. She pushed herself up and slung her long leg beneath her so she sat in the center of her camp facing the cabin. It was dark all around now. She hadn’t felt afraid of the dark in a long time but now that she had left the pages, she realized the blackness of the sky, like soulless eyes, as it enveloped the forest and her along with it. She slid the button on her flashlight off and sat frozen. It might be better not to announce her location with a beacon. Then she saw the flicker, the small effort to light the vast night. It belonged to the window of her old companion.

Sweat beads gathered on her brow but she wasn’t hot. No one had been in that house for years. 8 years it had sat there, her silent neighbor. She had given the structure very little thought in recent years but now someone was in it and all she could do was think. She wondered if she had left reality for some hybrid version between real life and her book. Perhaps she should walk closer to take a look. After all, that is what Margot would do.

Mercedes gently lifted herself from the ground and stood in the center of her blanket. She blinked at the darkness and the glowing orb of light in the small window frame as she tried to slip her shoes on her feet. If she had still been reading about fairies perhaps this might have felt like a magical experience. But five or so years had passed since she retired that genre and now she assumed there would must be a murderer in there. Would a murderer light a candle in the window though? She shook her own head at the thought and marched off the blanket. Be brave, she thought.

Each step that brought her closer added more anxiety to her gut. Her heart raced and pounded in her ears, until even the crickets couldn’t drown out the sound. She needed to see inside the cabin without being seen. She had spent nearly a decade in these woods without an encounter of any kind. No one knew she came here, not even her family. Up close, the cabin was nothing more than some old boards in the shape of a box. Indeed, it was a civil war cabin buried in these Virginian woods, long forgotten. Her neighborhood had been developed in lots adjacent to what might have been something to preserve as history, completely obliviously.

She had reached it now, placing her hands delicately on the mossy logs she guided herself around the back to the other side of the building, hoping to find another window, one without a light. The old glass of the window she found was nearly opaque with a dusty film but the flickering light of the candle illuminated the figures inside. These were not ghosts. At least if they were, they were solid and not at all like the translucent figures you’d expect.

The larger figure, a man, was moving methodically around a smaller figure that appeared to be sitting in the center of the room. The voice was muffled, but eerily familiar. The second voice whimpered. Mercedes shifted where she stood and a twig broke under her foot. The man’s voice paused and his face seemed to direct itself towards her. The goose bumps ran down her arms and legs like electricity through a wire. She thought she would pee on herself but she didn’t dare move now. She stifled her own breath as if he would hear it. She willed her heart to stop, certain that the thudding was audible.

He returned to his pacing and low muffled speech. Mercedes let out her breath slowing and sucked in another. She was dizzy. This was really happening and she was the only one who knew it. The man shape drew back his hand and slapped the smaller figure which slumped in the seat. Mercedes gasped and reached to cover her own mouth in shock. She retreated back into the forest and headed frantically for home. She would call the police.

A sweaty gnarled mess of black hair a scratched skin emerged from the woods at the edge of her own cul-de-sac moments later. She had deviated from her normal path in an effort to take the most direct route home, and ran, in the pitch darkness, leaving all of her belongings in the woods behind her. When she entered through the front door, she didn’t hear anything but the low hum of the TV in the family room. Where was everyone? In a panic she ran through the house. She didn’t call out for anyone for fear of agitating Mark. When she reached the landing at the top of the stairs she could hear the shower water running.

“Mom?” Mercedes whispered softly through the cracked bathroom door.

“I am in here, baby” Elena answered.

“Mom.” Mercedes repeated breathlessly “Where is Mark and Enrique?”

“What is the matter, mi amor?”

“Mom. Please. Where are they?”

“They are not here. Mark had to work late. Enrique went to the movies. Where have you been? Are you okay?” she looked at her daughters ruffled appearance with concern.

“No. Listen, Mom. We have to call the police.”

Elena turned off the shower knob and pulled her towel in but stepped out before drying herself at all. The look on her face was of horror.

“Mi amor, que pasa?!” She pleaded.

“Mama, I was in the woods. I was reading and I saw, I saw…”

But before she could complete her thought she heard the front door open. Mark was home. Mercedes didn’t know why she didn’t want him here for this, but now he was.

“Mom, listen, I am not kidding. Someone is killing someone in the old cabin in the woods”

Elena pulled the house phone off the base and clicked the talk button to dial 9-1-1 but there was no dial tone. She looked inquisitively at it.

“Old piece of garbage” she said as she slammed it back down.

Mercedes looked at the phone on the base and walked slowly from the bedroom door to the banister and looked down to the foyer. The voice. It had been familiar. Then she saw it. Mercedes was struck with a wave of nausea. Her blanket and book. She had left them, along with everything else, in the woods. She had been afraid to return to her camp, for fear of being seen. It seems she was more than seen. She was discovered.

Mark appeared at the bottom of the stairs.

“Is there something the matter, Mer-ce-des?” he drew out her name in a taunting tone.

“No.” She responded curtly as she immediately retreated to the bedroom with her mother, locking the door behind.

“Mom,” she issued in a breathless attempt “Mark. It is Mark.”

“Yes, dear. I know, I heard him come in”

“No. Mom. He is the one I saw in the woods”

“What are you talking about Mercedes?”

“There isn’t time! Where is your cellphone?! Please!” Mercedes began to search the room desperately.

“Honey, it is in the kitchen, I think. But, what are you saying?”

Now on the verge of tears Mercedes opened her mouth to explain when the lights went out and she could hear the gentle whine of the electrical appliances slowing to a stop. It was as black as the woods in here too now.

“What in God’s name?” asked Elena.

“Mom.” Mercedes whispered “It is Mark. He is a killer”

“No way my love” consoled Elena.

“We have to get out of here!” Mercedes continued as she felt her way to the window, her face stinging as panic rose. As she rolled up the blinds the street light illuminated the fact that they were the only ones without power.

“Mom look!” she gestured to the street lamp, “He has flipped the breaker on us. We HAVE to get out of here, please listen!”

“Okay Mercedes.”

Using the dim light from outside to see, Elena yanked back her comforter and pulled the sheets from her bed and began tying the soft gray material from the fitted sheet to the flat sheet.

“I saw this in the movies, I will hold it for you while you climb down. I will just wait for Mark here and when he finds me I will tell him you went crazy. He won’t hurt me. You run and get help.”

Mercedes couldn’t tell if her mom fully believed her. This attempt to help felt like she was patronizing, but she would have to accept it for what it was.

“Mama, you are not safe though” she pleaded her to understand.

“If you stay and this escalates, if he knows I know too then he will hurt us both”

This made sense to Mercedes. Elena hugged her tight and shooed her to the window just as Mark began knocking at the door.

“Elena?” he inquired sweetly. “The power company is on the way my love. Have you seen Mercedes?”

She nodded at Mercedes urging her to make her exit.

On the ground moments later with a sprained ankle from an unfortunate landing, Mercedes hobbled to her neighbor’s and borrowed their phone. The police arrived a short time later and though Mark had left the home by then, he hadn’t made it far.

Mercedes couldn’t quite bring herself to go back to her old reading spot. She would need to find a new place to read. One truth Mercedes had learned of herself was that she was brave, like Margot, and even though she was too late to save the girl in the cabin, she had found the answer to the mystery of the two local girls missing. The gruesome truth of the cabin was that it was indeed haunted. Not with ghosts like the old stories had claimed but certainly with a very real evil. Mercedes decided, fictional monsters are scary, but the real ones are much, much worse.