Issue #75 : Rustic Retreats

And this was supposed to be the best vacation in years. The one that would finally let him put his feet up, relax, leave the phone behind and get down to the things that really mattered in his life. He had become intolerable at work and this was going to be the solution. What he had ended up with was this low-brow rustic nightmare, isolated from pretty much the entire twentieth century, with nothing but his thoughts and paranoia over what would happen if he happened to get sick or hurt, and needed a doctor.

Spend a few days out in the country, rent a cabin and relax. Swim a little in the lake, drink some wine, cook out on the grill, leave all of the shit in the real world behind him in exchange for luxuriating in the lap of simplicity. That was the sense he had gotten from the brochure, anyway. Find yourself and what really matters on your own time without the rest of the world to intrude.

Well that part had been accurate, but only because no one in their right mind would ever want to come out here. The drive alone was long enough to deter most people but the fact that the trip itself made you feel like you were engaging in some kind of time travel only made it worse. Each successive town seemed to be a further regression to days of technology and decor long since extinct.

Of course he hadn’t bothered to look at radar images to get a sense of what the weather was going to be like and he was now regretting that oversight. Each night had turned out a violent thunderstorm, winds so strong that at times he was afraid the entire cabin was going to lift up out of its foundation. The temperature in the place would see-saw between frigid cold and balmy hot.

And then there was the cabin itself.

The place was a complete wreck, one of the worst rental deals he had ever come across. The door to the basement was hanging off its hinges, dishes in the sink, clothes scattered all over the kitchen. He had been finding little personal items all week long. There had been a deck of cards and a few poker chips under the tv, a portable DVD player of all things and underneath the couch, he had found a battered photo of a young couple, “Kyle + Cheryl” scribbled across the back.

If it was possible for a house to somehow walk in from out of one’s nightmares, this was it. Furnishings that looked a century old, smell of rotting food, mold and mildew and the fact that he hadn’t had a single restful night since arriving here, and it wasn’t just because of the horribly uncomfortable bed. Nightmares, the likes of which he had never even known were possible had been plaguing him since the very first night. He would wake up and be convinced that someone was in the room with him, leaning over to watch him sleep and had just flitted away when he opened his eyes.

The feeling of being observed was constant, like a sentient draft that would come through and brush past him. He would walk around corners expecting to find someone standing there, reaching out for him. Doors were opening, all on their own. He would discover windows open that he knew he had never touched. He only went up to the second floor when he really had to, as the giant mural of the old man up on the wall was standing guard over anyone who walked upstairs. It was disconcerting to feel so judged by an intimate object.

This was his last night. Finally, the time had come to get out of here. He would have left days ago, but the drive home was a long one and he didn’t have the money to spring for hotel rooms between here and there. Everything would be all right. Just a few more hours until sunset and he could leave this dump behind and never look back. For once, the prospect of a burger at the local greasy spoon and a night on his lumpy futon seemed almost—

Someone knocked on his bedroom door.

Joel jumped up out of bed, the pillow held crushed in his hand as if he intended to do something with it. Something rattled against the window and he turned to look. As he did so, another draft rushed past him and from behind him, he could hear the door being thrown open. In the reflection of the window, he saw a man standing there, tall and reedy, with a large brimmed straw hat on the head. He spun around to face the newcomer.

The doorway was empty.

He tried to catch his breath as the sound from the window resumed, as if from repeated blows from an invisible source. He turned back to the window and saw the glass rattling back and forth. There were tiny spots of clouded distortions appearing in the glass and he bent in to look closer, his blood running cold at the sight of hand prints, condensation from a child-sized palm being left behind. His voice hitched in his chest to scream when he saw another reflection in the mirror, this time of a dozen or so dark figures in the room, the size of children, shambling towards him and the last thing he saw before the power in the cabin blinked off was the sight of their arms reaching out to take him into their embrace.

Photography by dSavannah George / dSavannahCREATIVE

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