Want to know what Evelyn’s two biggest fears are? Snakes and stumbling upon a dead body.
Weird, right? Maybe not the fear of snakes, because everyone is either afraid of snakes or knows someone afraid of snakes. But Evelyn always wondered if the fear of just randomly coming across a dead body was rational. She was an accountant, and her occupation really didn’t put her in a likely circumstance where she’d enter a room and whoops – there’s a dead body. She kept that fear to herself.
But Evelyn was an avid hiker. And every time she set foot in the direction of the groomed trails she so loved to roam, she worried about whether or not she’d see a snake. Or a dead guy. Or a dead girl. It was a thought that always surfaced while she was tying up her hiking boots or packing her bag full of water, snacks and first aid supplies. It was an inky black thought that crept up from the muffled subconscious within her brain and made its way slowly to her forethought. It would make her shiver, and she would tuck the scary thought back underneath the curtain dividing the conscious from the subconscious. She loved the forest too much to let her fears trap her inside the house.
After her recent divorce, Evelyn moved back to her hometown, which was a tiny little town bordered on the north by the Huron National Forest. The town was so small the residents joked that in just one blink you would miss it altogether as you drove through it. Her house was tiny and outdated, but it was up to code (just barely) and cost little to heat. And not far from her property were groomed ATV trails where she explored on evenings or weekends to keep her mind off of things like work and the ex.
There were snakes in these woods. Everyone knew this because most people who lived in the area have seen their share of snakes in their basements, in their yard or in their sheds. And so there would be snakes in the woods, too. Evelyn was walking from her car to her front door when she saw her first snake at the new house – a harmless garter snake – and felt like she was going to faint or have a heart attack or both. She dropped her paper bag of groceries, hauled ass to the front door, clumsily shoved the key into the keyhole and turned it so sharply she nearly broke off the key inside the lock. She frantically turned the handle, slammed open the door and slammed it shut quickly behind her, leaving the groceries on the ground and the key in the door until she could calm her heart rate and breathing enough to retrieve the items – once she was certain the snake was gone.
It was only a matter of time before she’d see one on a hike. She had a feeling she’d see something small out of the corner of her eye, or hear a tiny rustle next to her, and when she turned her head toward the stimulus she’d see the dreaded snake. She told herself she’d just have to deal with it if she wanted to be out in the woods. She was not going to let that fear keep her from enjoying all of the other non-snake things in the wild.
But the thing about a dead body is that it wouldn’t move or make noise so she wouldn’t be able to prepare herself. She would just be walking and see something somewhere that was different from everything you’d normally see in the forest. She would go inspect this strange thing, not realizing until she got very close that the thing underneath the tarp or behind the brush pile was a dead human. A person who was no longer living. Someone who was probably murdered in cold blood and just left to rot.
Evelyn knew that a dead person can’t hurt you as a live person could. A dead person no longer thought or felt or moved. The body just is. A collection of cells that rot away once the blood flow stops. A feast for carrion birds, maggots and possums. The body was not going to stand up, look at you with eyes no longer there, and chase you through the woods. Evelyn didn’t believe in ghosts or dark magic or zombies. It wasn’t so much the dead thing that scared her.
She was afraid that whatever living thing that brought death to a newly-discovered corpse would be hiding nearby. And that it was a person. That the murderer was nearby, watching the body rot away. That the killer would be satisfying a morbid obsession of watching a human rot to the bone, just hoping that an unsuspecting victim would meander by. Evelyn had an irrational fear that the mere act of seeing a dead body in the woods would conjure up a crazy pervert to suddenly appear behind her to issue her own slow, torturous death.
She tried to tell herself that was silly. A murderer wouldn’t keep watch on a body they had dumped secretly in the forest. Murderers dump bodies in isolated places so that they wouldn’t be caught. They’re different from arsonists who set fire to a building then somehow weave their way into the crowd of innocent onlookers so that they can watch it burn, probably to pleasure themselves to the imagery later (or who knows, maybe even right then, while standing in the shadows near the crowd of panicked people). Murderers don’t really hang around waiting to get caught in the act.
Right?
So snakes and dead bodies were the two things Evelyn was most concerned about spotting on her trips in the woods.
Evelyn was not concerned when on a particularly long hike she came across an old cabin. She had passed by without seeing it on her way outward from home, but on the way home, she spied it off the trail on her left. It was tucked within a thick cluster of trees and underbrush. It looked very old, probably built nearly 100 years ago. There was no evidence of modern conveniences such as electricity or running water, as there were no telephone poles for miles around and underground cables were not run out this way. There probably was no running water as evidenced by an outhouse that was just a short distance to the back and left of the building, and there was an old artisan well with a pump handle in front of the cabin. The narrow, overgrown two-track trail that led to the cabin was spanned by a rusty chain fastened to two trees with a faded NO TRESPASSING sign attached at the middle.
Intrigued, Evelyn stopped and stared for several moments at the cabin. It was strange to see a building out here. She didn’t think people were allowed to have buildings on Federal land. Was this the home of a conservation officer of long ago? Was this an old rustic cabin that used to be rented out by the US Forest Service? It was definitely something she’d look into once she was home that evening, seated comfortably in front of her laptop with a frozen dinner and a fruity, girly beer of some sort.
She pulled a digital camera out of her jacket pocket and took a few pictures of the cabin from the trail. Fascinated with her recent discovery, she decided to ignore the NO TRESPASSING sign and get a closer look at the cabin. She looked to her left and right, just to make sure no one was around to witness her planned transgression (although, quite frankly, if she’d seen someone on the trail she’d be more concerned about being alone in the deep woods with a stranger than she would be about that stranger tattling on her to the police).
Seeing no one, she stepped right over the low-hanging chain with the sign and picked her way carefully through the ferns and brush and fallen branches to the cabin. She was only a few steps away from the cabin when she noticed a strange smell. It was partly familiar to her, as she recognized the smell of rotting wood, carpet and other household materials from other old cabins she’d been in on various vacations. There was another smell she couldn’t pinpoint. It smelled kind of like rotting garbage and something stale. She wasn’t sure what was going stale, that’s just what it smelled like. It was something she’d never smelled before. It wasn’t a very strong smell, so it didn’t raise any red flags.
The cabin had an enclosed front porch with windows. Attached to the outside of the front windows were screens that had seen better days. The screens were mostly intact but were covered with dust and pollen. Evelyn thought this was once a lovely porch in which to sit and read a book during the day.
Evelyn lightly brushed off one of the screens and let the dust and pollen settle before getting right close to the screen. She cupped her hands around her eyes and peered into the porch.
It took a few seconds for her brain to register what her eyes were seeing because it was so horrific.
That rotting smell was coming from the residents on the porch. There were two rocking chairs and a love seat on the porch, all pieces of furniture old and rotting from old age and Michigan humidity. And on the furniture were rotting bodies – one on each rocking chair, and a third slumped over to one side on the love seat. All were in different states of decomposition, but Evelyn didn’t know enough about such things to estimate how long each person had been dead. She noticed the flies next, and maggots churning in the softer parts of the body on the loveseat.
With an icy feeling that enveloped her whole body, Evelyn realized she was facing one of her biggest fears. Times three.
Trying not to puke or lose control of her bladder, Evelyn dropped her hands and turned back toward the trail. She had taken her first panicked step toward freedom when she heard something crashing through the woods on her right. She turned and saw a large man in old jeans and a faded plaid shirt coming around the corner of the cabin and charging at her at full speed.
Evelyn couldn’t stop the scream which felt like it started in her chest and hurtled itself out of her vocal cords. She reflexively shut her eyes tight at the horrific sight but continued to dash for the trail.
It didn’t take her long to trip and fall, opening her eyes on the way down to see the ground rising to meet her. She landed on her hands and knees and immediately tried to scramble up to standing but never made it. The crashing sound was upon her and so was the sound’s source. She turned her head to her right just in time to see a big, brown boot shoot itself toward her head. That was the last thing she saw before the darkness overcame her.
Evelyn didn’t know where she was or what had happened to her when she first woke up. It took a few seconds for her senses to return to her. The smell hit her first. That rotting, wretched smell. Where had she smelled that before? Then the memory struck her. This is the smell she noticed right before discovering a porch full of dead people in the middle of the woods. Only now the smell seemed ten times as strong. She next noticed that everything seemed dark. At first she thought there was something over her face, but then she heard the crickets and spring peepers and realized it must be dusk and the sun was setting. She tried to move, but something kept her from being able to lift her arms or her legs. With a panicked cry, she realized she was tied to a chair, like an old metal chair that would pair with an old metal kitchen table.
The sound of her cry and attempt to move alerted her captor, who entered the room where she was. It was very dark, and Evelyn could only see the outline of the man in the murky gray light invading the porch through the windows.
The man reached toward the door he just came through and struck a match. He swung the match slowly in front of him to light an oil lamp sitting on a table Evelyn now saw between herself and the captor. The table that must belong to her chair.
As the light came alive within the lamp’s glass globe, Evelyn looked all around her to take in her surroundings and look for a way to escape. She realized she was inside the porch with the dirty screens. She was on one side of the porch, and on the other side, past her captor, were the three rotting bodies she saw earlier. The flies were not around, maybe because it was dark, but if she strained hard enough she’d be able to hear the maggots smacking and popping their way through the freshest corpse over there.
She opened her mouth to scream but gagged on the smell. After she dry-heaved she opened her mouth to scream again when the man raised his right hand to silence her. Stunned, Evelyn decided not to scream. The flickering light from the lamp danced across his face. The dim light revealed a man with an angular face with deep-set eyes and lips pressed into a thin line. He was standing about four feet away from her, just staring at her.
Evelyn started to plead with her captor, promising that she won’t tell a soul about him or his dead friends if he would just please let her go. He let her blubber for a few minutes before reaching for a roll of duct tape and something round on the table. She hadn’t noticed any of these things before when he’d first lit the lamp.
He walked to Evelyn and dropped the roll of tape onto her lap, where it just sat there on its side since she couldn’t move her body enough to toss it off her lap. He brought the round object toward her mouth, so she stopped talking and pressed her lips together and shook her head violently back and forth.
His free hand shot out and grabbed Evelyn’s hair tightly right at the nape of her neck. He was very strong and kept her head from moving. She almost yelped in pain but realized just in time that to do so would mean her mouth would open and receive whatever he held in his hand. He was very smart too, so he covered her nose and mouth forcibly with his hand and the object inside his hand, which she realized was a balled up dirty rag. She could feel her lungs start to burn with the lack of oxygen, and all she wanted to do was draw in air, even putrid death-filled air.
When he sensed that she was panicked enough to gasp for air once released, he removed his hand and sure enough, Evelyn instinctively opened her mouth to draw in a breath. He crammed the dirty rag into her mouth to muffle her screams, then made fast work of picking up the roll of tape and winding it securely across her mouth and around the back of her head.
As she tried to scream and stared up at him with bulging, tearful eyes, he leaned over to put his face close to hers. His lips peeled back across a mouthful of chipped, uneven teeth and he whispered, “Trespassing is a sin, you know. If you don’t believe me, you can ask those fine folks over there. They were trespassers, too. Just like you. I think we’re all going to be good friends.”
Then the man stood up and walked back into the cabin, taking the oil lamp with him. He closed the door softly behind him, and all she heard were his soft steps fading away into the dark abyss of the cabin.
It was then Evelyn realized she was going to die here, just like the others.
She guessed her fear of finding a dead body wasn’t irrational after all.
[bctt tweet=”OCTOBER TERROR 2018 Short Story Award – Entry #50 ‘Evelyn’s Biggest Fears’ by Kimberly Wolkens – Enjoy all this terrific, disturbing material you have in your hands, lots of horror stories at your disposal for your dark delight and vote!” username=”theboldmom”]
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