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cemeterygatesmedia · 6 years ago

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“A Dark and Desolate Recurrence”

by Brhel & Sullivan

“At this rate, we’ll never get out of here,” said Teddy Mealer, gritting his teeth as he yanked the steering wheel of his compact car and laid on the gas. His Prius, as it turned out, wasn’t built for blizzard-level conditions in the Catskills, and he was reminded of it every time his engine roared in a vain attempt to retreat from the large snowbank.

“Don’t say that, honey,” replied Margo, Teddy’s wife. She looked out at the snow piled up against her window and was trying not to panic. It was a vision of white on all sides of the car; each window was suffocated by snow, with only a hint of an opening out of the rear window.

“I don’t think you understand, babe. I can’t move. I think we’re stuck here.”

“Are you serious?” She nudged the handle on her door, then proceeded to yank it and kick at the door before her husband restrained her.

Teddy shook his head. “You’re wasting your time. I’ll keep trying, but I don’t think it’ll do any good. We’re packed like sardines.”

Nearly another half-hour had passed, and Teddy was still unable to free the car from the clutches of the cold, white mass. He punched the steering wheel in frustration. “We’re nearly out of gas. We’ve got to get out of here soon or we’ll freeze. Or worse, there’s the whole carbon monoxide thing.”

Margo took her cell phone out of her purse for the third time in as many minutes, but she couldn’t get any kind of signal. “Teddy, I’m scared. What are we going to do?”

“I don’t know.” There was a newfound weariness to his voice, as if the dread that his wife was fully immersed had finally caught up to him.

Margo was about to throw a fit when she heard the roar of another engine. She looked outside to see the headlights of a large, black pickup with an attached plow pull up behind their car. The front door opened and out stepped a bearded, middle-aged man in a brown parka and dungarees.

“Ted, I think this guy’s going to help us out!” Margo beamed. She took her husband’s hand and squeezed it in excitement.

“Thank God!”

They watched as the man retrieved a chain and attached it somewhere underneath their car. He then returned to his truck and gunned it in reverse. Teddy and Margo let out a mutual sigh of relief when their car slipped out of the snowbank and onto the road.

The man got out of his truck again, detached the chain from their car, and threw it back onto the bed. He stopped and looked inside at the couple for a brief second before getting into his vehicle. Teddy and Margo watched as their Good Samaritan drove away.

“What a nice man,” said Margo. “He didn’t even ask for anything. Didn’t even wait around for a thank-you.”

“People out here look out for each other,” said Teddy. “That’s a good guy, there.”

Teddy went to drive away, but the car wouldn’t move. They were out of the bank, but the vehicle was immobile. “Son of a bitch! What now?”

Margot was agonizingly silent.

“The rear axle might be broke. Shit. Why’d that guy have to leave in such a hurry? I mean, he was a big help and all, but where’d he go?” said Ted. He forced his door open and looked down the road, but all he could see was a dense, white snow fog. He examined the rear of the car and, sure enough, the wheel was crooked because the axle was broken.

Teddy returned to the car and sighed. With their gas tank almost empty, the couple decided that they would have to leave the Prius behind and seek shelter. They stepped out of the vehicle and were instantly struck by the frigid, winter air. Luckily, they only had to walk for a couple minutes before they noticed a small cabin set back just a few hundred yards from the road. They decided to head for it and ask whoever lived there if they could come inside.

Teddy and Margo soon arrived at a modest cabin. There was a small porch attached to the front, on which sat Adirondack chairs with snow piled up on each seat. A wide, stone chimney jutted out just off to one side of the porch, many of the stones having fallen to the ground nearby. They stepped onto the porch and wood cracked beneath their feet.

Teddy knocked repeatedly on the door, but no one answered. He turned the doorknob and it felt like it wasn’t locked.

He called out before they ventured inside. “Hello? Is anybody home?”

No one answered. The icy wind howled through the evergreens behind them.

“I guess not,” said Margo.

The cold snapping against their faces, the couple had no other option but to enter. As they passed through the doorway, they were immediately taken aback by a sharp musty smell.

“Ugh, Teddy. That smell. Who the heck lives here? Don’t they clean?”

“I don’t think anyone’s lived here for years. Or it might be a poorly kept hunting cabin—this is deer country, after all,” said Teddy. He looked around. They were standing in a small living room which had a loft area above. There was a TV and a sofa, which was adorned with a blanket, on which was stitched a grey wolf howling at the moon. A large mirror hung over the sofa.

The living room led into a kitchen with a modest-sized refrigerator and stove, and a table for two. The kitchen had the sole working light on the first floor, which hung from a string, and shone into the living room. Cobwebs covered every corner and piece of furniture in the cabin; crunchy leaves and various forest debris were scattered about the floor.

“It’s like they just ran out and left everything behind,” said Margo.

Teddy found a book of matches inside a kitchen drawer and used it to light a fire in a small wood stove in the corner of the living room. Dry kindling and enough wood for the night was conveniently set near the entranceway. He took a seat next to Margo on the sofa and they held each other, warming up until the room was a bearable temperature.

Worn out from their ordeal, they quickly passed out on the cabin’s sofa.

Margo wasn’t asleep twenty minutes when she tapped Teddy on the shoulder. “What’s that noise?”

There was a heavy pounding on the loft floor above, as if someone were stomping around. They listened with intense curiosity as one set of footsteps traveled down from the loft, followed by a second, heavier set.

Margo tucked her head into her husband’s shoulder. “Oh, my god—somebody’s inside. Maybe the owners came home…”

“Don’t you think they would have come in through the front door? Maybe saw us on the couch and woke us up? Why would they be running up and down the steps?” said Teddy. “It might be some rats, or raccoons, or something. Who knows what openings or broken windows there might be in an old, forgotten place like this?”

Teddy was about to lay his head back against the cushion when he heard someone scream. It was that of a woman, and she kept repeating the same thing in a frenzied tone, over and over. “No, no, no!”

Neither Teddy nor Margo moved. The screaming continued, traveling from upstairs to downstairs, growing louder, more intense with each passing minute. This continued for another ten minutes, when suddenly, as if someone had flicked a switch, it stopped. No more screaming, no more footsteps. The sound gone, all they could hear was the creaking of the house and the whistling of the wind outside.

“What was that?!” whispered Margo, her face tense.

“I don’t know. It sounded like someone being chased around. But I didn’t see a thing.”

“Teddy, is this place haunted?” Margo couldn’t believe she was asking such a question, or that she half-considered it to be a possibility.

They discussed leaving the cabin for a moment but realized they still couldn’t venture outside. Not at least until morning. The snowfall had waned, but the wind had picked up quite considerably.

Hungry, and unable to sleep, they searched the kitchen for food. Margo opened the refrigerator and nearly vomited at the pungent, death-like smell that wafted out. Undefined molds lined the drawers and compartments. She quickly slammed the door.

Teddy had a little more luck. He managed to scrounge up a couple cans of fruit cocktail from a lower cabinet that was less than a year past expiration. He found a can opener and they shared the meager portion.

Their bellies as full as they would get for the night, and the cabin now comfortably warm (and quiet) Teddy and Margo climbed the stairs to the loft to explore. The closet light held the only working bulb in the loft, and it shone a comfortable glow into the bedroom. The bed was unmade, and it looked as if the sheets had been thrown on the floor in a fit. A pair of panties and a pair of boxers were strewn with some other faded articles of clothing.

“It looks like a couple lives here. Or should I say ‘lived’ here,’’ said Teddy.

They flipped the mattress and dug a clean, moth-bitten bed sheet out from a dresser, then laid down together. They were sound asleep minutes later.

“No! No! Oh, God, no! It doesn’t mean anything! I love you! Oh, please don’t hurt him!”

Margo let out an awful cry as she awoke, the shrill woman’s voice again filling the cabin around them. She looked at her husband’s watch. She and Teddy hadn’t been sleeping twenty minutes.

“What the fuck is that?” asked Teddy, now wide awake beside her. “I’m going to check it out.”

“No,” said Margo, throwing herself over her husband. “Please don’t leave me.”

This time, they heard the pounding all around them, coming from the staircase and traveling toward the bed. The couple screamed as the bed lifted off the ground a few inches and then crashed back down to the floor. The footsteps traveled from the loft and all the way down to the kitchen, and possibly the basement. This time, the chaos ended with a loud “crack,” as if someone had fired a gun. Then another “crack.” Then silence.

Tears streamed down Margo’s face. “Let’s go. Oh, God, let’s get out of here!” She hopped out of bed and ran down the stairs, ready to bolt out the front door, but Teddy chased after her and blocked the doorway.

“Where are you going?” he asked.

“Ted, this place is haunted. I’m scared!”

He held her tight by the shoulders and nodded. “Okay, okay. I believe you. I think it’s haunted, too. Some repetitive haunting is going on here. I heard about this kind of thing watching all those seasons of Ghost Stalkers. Someone who dies under extreme circumstances often ends up repeating the events leading up to their death. I think someone might have been murdered here, and it’s playing out like the cabin has the awful memory imprinted on it.”

“Then let’s go! Why are you standing there if you know what’s coming!”

“Because it’s a goddamn blizzard out there, and we’ll die if we spend an hour out in it. It’s two in the morning and we’re miles from anywhere. Nobody’s going to stop by. That nice guy with the truck is long gone.”

“So, what do we do, Teddy?”

“I don’t think the ghosts can harm us. They’re dead and simply re-enacting a scene; we’re just observers,” said Teddy. “Those poor bastards. Could you imagine being forced to re-live the same horrible event, over and over?”

Realizing the bed in the loft played a major part in the haunting, Teddy convinced Margo to return to the couch on the first floor. They weren’t going to get much sleep anyway.

Every few hours the haunting commenced. The bed in the loft, the pounding footsteps descending the staircase, through the living room and into the kitchen. Then the basement gunshots. But Teddy and Margo weren’t exactly in a better position in the living room, as it turned out. As the night wore on, more chaos unfolded. They watched in horror as objects flew across the room—clothes, pillows, books. They were forced to duck, and dive, as heavier objects arced through the air—a lamp, dishes, and at one point even a small television.

Teddy held close to Margo beneath the wolf blanket; they were too frightened to keep stoking and tending to the fire. They both shivered as each hour the horrors seemed to escalate. It was a form of torture, one they dreaded more as each minute passed, knowing that the next repetition would be more intense, more violent.

Teddy was nodding off during one of the lulls between repetitions—the sun just beginning to make its presence known through the dirty windows—when Margo let out a wild scream. He watched as his wife was lifted into the air. She clutched at her throat, trying to tear away an invisible set of hands. Her face was straining and turning a horrid shade of purple. He jumped up and threw his body into the phantom perpetrator. Teddy connected with the unseen force and Margo fell to the floor, gasping for air.

When Teddy looked up, he caught site of the reflection of a man in the mirror over the couch. Although it was dark—with only a little light coming into the room from the bulb in the kitchen—he could have sworn it was the same man in the brown parka and dungarees that had helped tow their car out of the snowbank.

Footsteps pounded down to the basement again. Followed by the two gunshots that ended it all, but this time a third shot rang out, just moments later. That was all the Mealers could take. They ran outside just as the sun began cresting over the mountains. The storm had passed, and the air was noticeably warmer.

“I think I figured out what happened,” said Teddy, out of breath from his exertion. “The man who lived there killed his wife. The underwear on the floor? I think he caught her in bed with another man and chased them around the house. It all ended in the basement, where he shot them both, then himself—the third shot.”

Margo merely nodded as they put distance between themselves and the cabin, postholing through the deep snow. She didn’t care who killed who; she just wanted to go home.

“I think the guy with the pickup was the one who killed them,” stated Teddy. “Honey, I think we got pulled out of that ditch by a ghost!”

They made it back to the road, hoping they could flag down a passing motorist and hitch a ride into town. As they neared the scene of their accident, they were surprised to see the car was no longer sitting where they had abandoned it, as it was firmly lodged in the snowbank. They stopped dead in their tracks when it was clear that the same black pickup from the night before was pulling their Prius free.

“Honey, that ghost. He’s back again,” said Margo.

They stood silently, watching as the man in the brown parka and dungarees exited his truck to retrieve the chains. The man then peered into the driver-side window of their car, shook his head and jogged back toward his truck—shouting back over his shoulder, “I live just up ahead. I’ll go call an ambulance!”

Margo and Teddy walked over to the Prius after the truck tore down the road. They couldn’t believe their eyes. There they were, sitting in the front seat, their faces ghastly white.

“What is this Teddy?! Who are these people?” Margo’s lip quivered. A nasty wind chapped her face. “They look like…”

“Us! That’s because it is us, honey. We’re dead. That guy was the killer. See him driving away? He’s going to go find his wife in bed with another man and kill them both. Don’t you see? He returned home early because he was going to go and call us an ambulance. He didn’t know we were dead. We’re just like him, repeating our final episode…”

Brhel & Sullivan are co-authors of Corpse Cold: New American Folklore and Resurrection High.

#ghost story #winter #creepypasta #horror #fiction #horror fiction #cemeterygatesmedia #brhel & Sullivan #ghosts #catskills #new york

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