A new short Horror/Parody read for you by me! I decided to keep this recording in its rawest form as I plan to do more campfire style stories in the near future. I like it. Storytelling isn't always perfect, but it's always fun. I hope you enjoy!
What's in the box: a short, fun, scary story.
What's it about: an unsuspecting family stumble onto an abandoned cabin with a light flickering in the window, and a whole lot of agony trapped in the basement.
Reading level: teen and up
Style: campfire read/audio and video
Cover photo taken by Nick McDade
Cursed Words
By Jeffrey Arce
The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window.
Dusk was just beginning to set in as they were returning home. That morning started a bit dreary for a day celebrated as the longest one of the Summer. Now they were trudging right into the shortest night unprepared for what lies ahead. Samantha followed close to her father, despair plaguing her ambience. Fireflies swelled like embers against the dark, brightening the gloomy night, if only a little. The forest was quiet. Twigs snapped, and gravel crunched beneath their feet, but beyond that there was only peace and serenity. Not a creature yowled or crooned. It seemed even the crickets had gone to bed early that evening. Michael wondered if the woods could somehow sense their woe. Could it be sentient enough to recognize their loss? Could it feel the death clinging on to them like a morbid perfume? He didn’t know. Maybe he was depressed.
Sometimes when you’re upset, he knew, you can make the unfortunate mistake of believing that the entire world was right there with you having the worst longest day of their lives.
Or maybe the popular phrase “bad-vibes” was a tangible thing, that could be pernicious enough to rankle everything in its path.
Who knows?
Samantha was the first to see it. She glanced up only for a second, trying to navigate the familiar pathway through the hazy beam of her father’s flashlight. She halted, staring off the path into the threaded foliage. Her big brother doubled back to check on her. He was carrying a shovel over his shoulder like some back-country lumberjack with an axe. When he approached her, he stuck the point of the shovel into the dirt and leaned in on its handle. Their father was too lost in his own thoughts to take notice that his family was no longer at his side.
“There’s a light,” Samantha said with the slightest touch of wonder livening her otherwise tepid mood.
Michael followed her gaze. He only saw the butts of bugs winking over the blackness. “You mean the lightning bugs? It’s summer.”
“No,” she sounded frustrated. She pointed again, fiercely persistent, and said, “There, in the window.”
Michael squinted as if narrowing his vision somehow helped to cut through the dark.
“Come on, kids,” their father said, never slowing in his pace. “It’s getting late. I wanna wash up before dinner.”
Samantha wasn’t sure how anyone could think about eating after having to bury Russell. She kept that opinion to herself. Yet still, she pressed, “Dad, stop! I’m serious. A light just came on in that weird house.”
Phillip knew exactly which weird house she was referring to. The old decrepit log cabin has been a blemish on this property since he bought it. And though it has become something of an infamous relic in their small rural neighborhood over the years, it has not housed life since sometime in the late 80’s. It was a tumbledown ruin barely standing on its last leg. The only thing in the world that could ever want to dig into that place is the blade of a bulldozer, which he already had noted in his ever-growing list of things to do.
Phillip let out an exasperated sigh as he turned to look back at them, blinding the girl with his flashlight in the process. It’s piercing glow set her blue eyes and strawberry red hair on fire. She winced as though the very heat of the sun was burning off her face. Her fourteen-year-old brother, however, was unaffected by the light. He only kept searching the wilderness as hopelessly lost as ever.
Not even bothering to entertain the ten-year-old’s alleged discovery, Phillip simply slumped his shoulders and complained, “Sweety, I’m tired.”
“Just look,” she whined morosely.
“I don’t need to. I know the place. Its creepy, I get it. But there are no blinds in the windows, and there are fireflies everywhere. That’s probably all it was that you saw, honey. Now please, let’s—”
“I see it,” Michael exclaimed. “She’s right! Dad look, I think someone’s in there.”
He closed his eyes and groaned, “Nobody’s in there. I’m up to my knees in muck. I just wanna get out of these clothes and relax, you guys.”
“Looks like a candle.” The teenager observed.
Seeing no other way out of this, Phillip huffed and said, “Fine, let’s check it out.”
Michael snatched up the shovel like a cartoon aristocrat taking up his cane.
Phillip cut through the foliage with the beam of his flashlight. The old, dilapidated structure looming behind it stood out over everything like an ugly skintag at the center of a small glade. The logs that made up its foundation were slowly deteriorating from years of abuse by the unsleeping hands of mother nature. Its roof, made up of rusting sheets of metal, haphazardly nailed into place, was beginning to loosen and slough over the edges like a bad haircut. The windows were gone. The front door was gone. The porch was a splintery, gaping, death trap. It looked like a yawning mouth lined with jagged fangs, and yet they were marching right into its clutches. It wreaked with the musty odor of mildew and decaying wood. Phillip quietly cursed his bad fortune.
Shoulda had this knocked down months ago.
Michael led the way, bulling through the thorny brushes, possessed by wonderment. Samantha reached out for her father as anxiety took her.
When Phillip took her hand, he lashed the light across his son’s eyes to steal his attention back. He said, “Hey, keep close.”
That reeled him in. Eagerly, he looked at his father and said, “Do you see it?”
Phillip saw it. There was indeed a yellowish glow flickering inside the vacant window to the right of the crumbling doorway. Just then, he stepped over an invisible threshold that made the hairs on his arm stand up, and raked prickles down his spine. It felt to him like a sickness. It felt like a trap.
He froze in his tracks, seizing his daughter with a protective hand before she could advance further. Samantha gasped as the queer sensation suddenly coursed through her as well. Michael seemed to never have felt it.
Phillip’s jaw unhinged as he carefully studied the haunting structure. He knew it has been standing there in that same location long before his kids were ever even considered, and he was confident enough to believe that it would stay that way no matter how they choose to proceed. Nevertheless, he was apprehensive. He didn’t like it and he didn’t want any of them to disturb it.
“We should go back.”
“Oh, come on, dad,” Michael groused. “It’s just an old house.”
“Yeah, well, I got a bad feeling.”
Samantha pressed close and said, “I did too. That was weird.”
Michael was incorrigible. He inched forward, brushing away his father’s caution to test his luck. He studied the area where the lambent light was pulsing, trying to see around the cabin’s barbed and broken façade which blocked his view.
“We have to know who’s in there.”
He’s probably right. Phillip then grabbed his son by the arm, his focus still channeled in on that cajoling glow inside the cabin. He said, “Stay behind me.”
The fraying floorboards cringed as he set his weight into the bowing wood. His children did as he commanded and fell back behind his lead, taking careful steps. When Phillip was closing on the entryway, he cast the beam from his flashlight into the stygian, cluttered womb of the old cabin. Inside he found a rotting desk snug against a shadowy corner, a turned over trestle chair riddled by termite damage, a tattered couch with its fluffy guts bursting out here and there. Clumps of dust as thick as carpeting draped over everything. Scraps of crumpled paper and scattered pieces of debris littered every visible surface. And there were cobwebs strewn over everything, like it was the spectral adhesive holding it all together.
“Hello,” their father called in, “Someone in here?”
No answer.
Samantha turned her head as if to glance up at him, but she was still focused on that glowing window. She whispered, “Maybe he’s deaf.”
“Maybe he’s dead,” Michael chimed in, holding up the shovel they used to bury Russell like a baseball bat, ready to swing.
Phillip, proceeding with caution, said, “Come now. Let’s not assume anyone’s gender here.”
“Don’t be a simp, dad,” said Michael.
To this Samantha asked, “What’s a simp?”
Michael paused to think about that for a moment. Then he wrinkled his nose and answered tentatively, “Actually, I’m not entirely sure. I think it’s a—”
“Shut it,” their father said.
Just before Samantha was about to follow them into the dusky cabin, she heard something. In the distance, far back behind the woods a dog was barking. She whirled on her heel to have a look.
“Russell?”
That stopped her father. Though he did adore their late pup, a small part of him was relieved that he finally passed on. He was suffering in his final days. There came a point in the weathered old golden retriever’s life where all he wanted to do was cry or bark his dumb little butt off. It drove Phillip near on the brink of madness. Still, he knew his baby girl loved that poor mut to death. No pun intended.
He gazed at her contritely. “Sweety,” he said, “Russell…Russell’s gone now.”
“But I heard him!”
“It was the wind,” Michael offered.
Sullenly she pouted, “It wasn’t the wind—”
Suddenly, a jarring clatter in the next room startled them. They turned to face it. Phillip was on the move again, navigating his way tentatively through the dank living room. He drew near. Just around the bend they could see an opening into the kitchen area. There, against the warped and peeling wallpaper they found candlelight flickering. Creaks and groans shuttered through the floorboards as they went.
“Oh my God,” the teenager cried out, startling both his father and sister. “What the hell is that thing!”
Samantha followed his pointing finger to the desk resting in the corner. She approached an ancient device set on top of it. It sat there, unbothered for ages under a gauzy film of dense spiderwebs.
She said, “It’s like a computer…but where’s the screen?”
Phillip grimaced at their discovery as he joined them. “It’s not a computer. It’s a typewriter.”
“Ooooh,” the girl said with fascination.
Michael put aside his shovel and reached in to pluck the old sheet of paper threaded into its carriage. He was too quick for his dad to stop him.
Savagely, he tore the sheet free, leaving his father to suck his teeth and frown at him. Michael said, “Something’s written here! It says…”
Samantha stood on the balls of her feet to try to see over his arms, as Phillip hovered in behind him. He was curious too. He held the flashlight high to give his son better light.
Together they read, “…and the sound brought them to the basement…”
Michael was not impressed. “That’s it? That’s all it says?”
Then Phillip whipped his flashlight across the floor to unveil all the crumpled balls of paper surrounding them. They saw a dense screed of endless text scrawled on the pages bleeding through every piece of scrap as the light found them. “I think there might be a little bit more to this story, Kids.”
“Good,” Samantha grumbled. “I hate those spinny top endings.”
Michael giggled. “You know that Christopher Nolan made more movies than just that one.”
“Really,” she said. “Did they bomb?”
Again, Michael laughed. “Well, funny thing is…”
Just then there was a loud scrabbling sound. It came from somewhere in the kitchen. Phillip stalked after it. Samantha was at his right, Michael on his left, bat shovel ready.
In the kitchen they found an old iron pellet stove, its exhaust chimney still attached to the wall on their left. The trim around its edges was decorated with floral reliefs that ran along the stove’s four sides like tendrils, coalescing at the base. Its trestles were shaped with the antiquated likeness of a lion’s paws. Next to this was a closed wooden door about Phillip’s height. Samantha began exploring over there. What interested Phillip and Michael, however, was a lone candle alight just before the rotting windowsill looking out onto the porch. Melted wax ran down the half-exhausted candlestick, lapping over the fringes of its silver holder. Where it cooled in tiny puddles on top a small, scarred counter they found a book—a journal.
Phillip levelled his flashlight and picked it up. His son drew in as he opened it. The book was sticky with cobwebs, and its stiff spine whined ever slightly in protest.
“What’s this,” Phillip said as he began scrutinizing the frenzied writings preserved within.
“What’s it say,” Michael asked, intrigued.
Phillip’s eyes scanned the passages studiously. After a moment to digest it, he at last answered, “It’s his journal. The guy who lived here…before. Looks like he was a writer of some sort. According to this he was suffering from a terrible case of writer’s block after a…prompt challenge left his imagination stunted.”
“What’s a prompt challenge?”
Phillip was thumbing through the pages. He took note how increasingly chaotic the handwriting had gotten toward the end where it all just abruptly stopped in the middle of the journal, leaving the rest of it blank and untouched.
“It’s a kind of creative writing exercise,” Phillip decided.
Meanwhile, Samantha was examining the door behind them, wondering where it might lead. She reached out for the rusty knob when something slipped out from beneath the door and slid between her feet. She knelt to retrieve it: a very old newspaper clipping, it was stained yellow with age. She picked it up from the floor and read.
“He gave up his job,” Phillip continued, pulling more information from the mysterious journal in his hand. “Says here that he spent most of his life savings procuring this property, hoping that a change in scenery might help to clear his mind.”
“Sounds like he was obsessed.”
“I think he was,” Phillip agreed. Then he flipped to the last entry. Another chill raced down his spine as he recited a passage.
“…it haunts the woods… It dwells in the cabin…”
Michael asked, “what does?”
A fair question.
Samantha was still squatting over the floor, reading the newspaper clipping she had just found.
Writing Contest!
Participants have the chance to win up to
$5,000 in prizes!
We are looking for only the scariest stories.
All entries must begin with the following prompt:
“A lonely cabin in the woods is abandoned for many years, until one day, a light comes on in the window.”
That’s strange, Samantha mused.
Suddenly, the door towering over her mysteriously unlatched and slowly drew open, its rusty hinges whining along the way. Samantha clutched the scrap of paper to her chest and stood, gaping at the inky void there on the other side. She saw stairs descending into complete darkness. Just as she was about to retreat, she heard an animal down in the depths growling.
Russell?
Though circumspect, she crept closer to the threshold. She leaned in, hoping for a clearer look at what was down there. A susurrus of strange voices seemed to be stirring at the bottom. It was like a tribalistic cult of witches chanting imprecations under a cloak of shadows. But there was more to it than that. There was conflict. The raspy voices were arguing… clashing.
One had said, “Perhaps it’s a ghost?”
Another spurned, “No, that’s too predictable.”
“Maybe the candle is some kind of allegory,” the previous voice offered again.
“Don’t be naive!”
Suddenly, an amorphous appendage exploded from the void and coiled around her legs. It lassoed her up, ripping her off her feet and immediately began dragging her down the stairs. She let out a blood curdling scream. Her father and her brother spun around at once. The door slammed shut before they could get to her.
“SAM,” her brother cried.
Instinctively, Phillip tried twisting the knob, but it wouldn’t budge. Then he rammed his shoulder into the door thrice, but it wouldn’t give.
“Let me try,” Michael said nudging his father aside.
The boy threw the point of his steel shovel with all his might into the latch of the door, loosening only splinters. After a couple of whacks, an anxious Phillip snatched the tool from his son’s grip, trading it up with the flashlight. He tried hacking at the door with a loud BANG! BANG! BANG! But it was useless effort. The door was impenetrable.
Samantha was crying, squirming, and thrashing as the black, slimy tentacle continued to climb up her thighs. She caught ahold of one of the steps and heaved, fighting the creature’s overwhelming strength. It was a kind of strength that came with vengeance. It was a strength that would lose grip on reality before it would ever dare let go of her. But how could it? Samantha was the closest thing to an original idea it could hope to find in a dozen decaying generations.
Samantha looked back at it from over her shoulder. It was hideous. She saw it with her mind rather than with her eyes. It felt like great loss, and doubt, and failure all rolled up into one smoky entity. So desperate it was to solve the impossible puzzle that plagued its very being, it would dare throw anything it could grab at it, even a child. Anything to escape its grasp. Samantha began to wonder what she herself would throw at it now to get away.
Her fingernails felt like they were about to break off as she scratched at the steps to resist its pull. She heard the voices quarrelling behind her again.
“Could the cabin be alive,” One voice husked.
The other then rebuffed, “Yeah, I’m sure nobody’s ever thought of that before!”
“Maybe it’s a monster. Maybe it baits its prey with the light…”
“Maybe you’re an idiot!”
Their curious squabbling only served to terrify the girl ever more.
“Daddy,” she screamed, tears sluicing down her face, “Help me, please! I’m scared!”
“I’m coming, baby,” Phillip promised as he jabbed and jabbed with the shovel, his son joining him by kicking at the door as hard as he could.
Samantha was seconds away from losing her grip. In that fateful moment she thought only of Russell. She remembered how his golden, fluffy chicken’s butt bounced gracefully up and down as he went loping after a ball or a Frisby. She remembered how he always looked like he was smiling at her, with his silly tongue lolling to one side. His playful puppy-dog eyes loving every moment of life with Samantha and Michael. He was so whimsical in life that he seemed almost like a cartoon. But he was real. He was beautiful. He wasn’t twisted by tenacious agony. He wasn’t ugly and grotesque like this thing pulling at her feet was. I guess I’ll be seeing him again soon, she supposed.
A beast snarled above her head. She looked up to find Russell and his feathery coat billowing over her. He appeared as a translucent phantom, lunging at the monster in the dark with gallant impetus.
As the ghost-dog arched over her with its claws drawn and its jaws ready, she heard the whispery voices screeching incredulously, “Saved by her dead dog?”
“No! That’s cliché!”
“Not even death can break their eternal bond…”
“It can’t be…”
Russell pounced on the snake-like appendages around her legs and sunk in his teeth. He ripped at it until a screaming hiss came writhing from out of the darkness. Then, the girl was free. She sprinted up the stairs as fast as she could, not bothering to look back.
The toxic voice rattled behind her, “it’s banal!”
Its counterpart retorted, “using fancy words won’t help!”
“This is a terrible twist!”
“It’s overdone!”
“That won’t work!”
Then, as the door flew open and Samantha leapt into her father’s unsuspecting arms, they both collapsed to the floor. The creature downstairs roared, “NO! NOOOOOOOOO—"
The flame from the candle blew out from the breath of their momentum, leaving only a wisp of smoke clinging to its charred wick. And then, the forsaken log cabin went quiet and still. The kitchen was dark again. The monster in the basement dissipated. The phenomenon was vanquished.
Samantha was laying on her father’s chest mewling in his embrace. He tried to slow his breathing as he soothed, “It’s okay. You’re safe now.”
Michael ran up on them and asked excitedly, “What happened? What did you see?”
Samantha wouldn’t be able to answer that question if she had a thousand years to try.
They gathered themselves and retreated from the cabin, hurrying swiftly out of that place as if it were on fire. All Phillip knew for certain was that he needed to get that shack demolished first thing in the morning.
“I don’t know,” Michael protested. “That was kinda cool, I think we should keep it.”
Both Samantha and Phillip glowered at that response.
Michael shrugged his shoulders, “What?”
Later, Samantha would try to piece it all together in her head. She found herself flummoxed by the implications. Curious, she tugged at her father’s sleeve and asked, “So, the person that used to own this place…he somehow got so absorbed by his obsession to win the writing competition that he eventually became…whatever that thing was in the basement?”
“Seems to be the case,” Phillip said contently.
“Duh,” Michael put in.
Samantha was mystified. “But…that doesn’t make any sense.”
Phillip took a knee so he could be eye to eye with his daughter. He set his hands on her shoulders and he said, “Sometimes, sweety, the best stories—the most successful ones—rarely do, and that’s why writers are getting replaced by AI.”
She mulled her father’s revelation over for a minute in her head. Then she acquiesced. Smiling brightly at him she said, “I love you, Daddy!”
Phillip blushed as his little girl leapt into his arms for a deep, long embrace.
“Awe, I love you too, honey.”
While she was hugging him, she saw a fluffy pup with a golden mane flanking a wall of shrubs far off in the distance. A halo of static electricity was swimming around his head. The dog stopped in his tracks to look up at her. That familiar smile and lolling tongue appeared overjoyed to see her.
She whispered, “Thank you, Russell.”
As if to answer her, Russell barked her way three times. The sound came shrouded by a dissonant clash of fabricated tones, like the twisted sound of a corrupted audio file on the internet. But Samantha didn’t mind. She still believed it was Russell coming back to say, “I love you.” That thought warmed her heart.
In truth, however, her ghost-dog was only doing what ghost-dogs love to do best: bark their dumb little butts off.
Screech!
—bark their dumb little butts—
Screech!
—bark their dumb little butts—
Screech! Wabble-wabble-wa—
The End.
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