By Maria Bligh
The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but tonight, a candle burned in the window.
29/12/24: The candle was burning for me.
A full moon watched as I crunched across the frozen ground. I didn’t silence my approach. They knew I’d come.
Through the window, I surveyed the scene.
Five friends in a circle. Three girls, two boys.
Angie and Alex on an old sofa, oblivious to any insect or rodent life inside. ‘The Two As.’ Born within minutes of each other. Their two families lived under the same roof in mirror-imaged, semi-detached houses. Deeply in love, it was accepted that they’d marry and raise the perfect family. Alex had a bright future ahead in the town’s top accountancy firm. He even looked clever in his “Buddy Holly” specs with short back and sides while the rest of us wore our hair as long as we could. Angie’s sole ambition, to be his wife.
Kate & Gary leaned against a bench. Fiery personalities, their relationship was on and off more than a rodeo cowboy. Still, we all knew they’d last the distance.
Kate planned to study law. Gary was apprentice in his father’s garage. We envied him for making money, owning a car and having longer hair than the rest of us.
Then there was Julie, the love of my life.
I shivered in the cold night air, contrasting with the cozy scene inside. It was time for me to join my friends.
As I entered, a blast of warm air hit me. The aroma of the cabin’s wood mingled with the smell of the paraffin heater. It wouldn’t pass safety rules today, but in an abandoned cabin in 1974, who was checking?
I sat on the floor beside Julie, my arrival barely acknowledged as Gary was in mid-story.
I loosened my scarf against the heat. Not removing my coat. I wouldn’t be there long.
With a quick grin, Julie took my hand. I savoured the feel of her smooth skin, wishing we could avoid moving to the inevitable conclusion of the evening.
Looking down, I saw Julie’s watch approaching 11.48pm. Suddenly, a deathly silence descended, the candles extinguished and the heater’s blue flame flickered and died. Moonlight flooded the room with a cold glow.
I kept my eyes down.
“Look at me, Frank.” A command from Julie and for one bittersweet moment, I looked into her baby blues before her face began to distort.
I watched as Julie’s body crumpled inward, crushed by an invisible force. There was a chorus of snapping bones and her head flipped back, splitting open her neck. A plume of jugular blood formed a fountain that splashed a dark stain onto the ceiling. She froze in that grotesque pose. For a moment the only sound was her blood dripping from above – her life force trying to return.
Gary’s anguished screams broke the silence as hair and flesh were ripped from the right side of his face. Whatever invisible force had hit him also crushed his right eye socket, the eyeball exploding as if stamped upon. His scream gurgled as blood filled his throat. His right arm was torn from its socket, left hanging by a sleeve. The carnage stopped and Gary slumped in a bloody heap.
Right on cue, Kate began spluttering and thrashing wildly, her skin turning white and her lips blue. There was no water but Kate was drowning. Her eyes widened and body became rigid as her heart arrested.
From the sofa grew an intense heat. Angie & Alex, together from birth, screamed in unbearable pain. The Two As mirrored each other in death as their skin began to crackle and contract, splitting open to allow fluids and fat to pour out. These bodily juices fed the fire that consumed them. Their skin’s contraction caused their limbs to distort. Their hair singed away. Their eyelids and lips shrank, creating horrific death masks. And all the while, screams like you’d never wish to hear.
Long after my friends were granted the mercy of death, their bodies continued to “burn,” but I wasn’t obliged to observe any longer. The guilt of 50 years only forced me to watch until each of my friends was dead.
I collapsed to the floor as sobs shook my frame. Each year, my revulsion never lessened. Nor did my guilt.
29/11/74: We loved going to the old cabin in the woods. Not many knew about it so it became our place.
Gary brought an old paraffin heater from his Dad’s garage and supplied the fuel. There were some sparse furnishings so we supplied candles, matches, booze and smokes. And some cool sounds.
We’d pile into Gary’s six-year-old Zephyr, three on the front bench seat, three in the back. Gary would belt along the narrow lanes, over the old bridge, slowing when we reached the dirt track to the cabin.
That Friday, I was in the mood to celebrate. I’d passed my driving test. I wasn’t old enough to drink – aside from Gary, none of us were, but hey…
As some of us worked Saturdays, we packed up around 11.30pm. I begged Gary to let me drive, keen to try my new license. Gaza saw how excited I was so he relented.
It was a clear night and the road surface twinkled with a thick covering of frost.
Gary slid Bachman Turner Overdrive into the 8-track. You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet kicked in. Gaz cranked the volume and wound down his window. Kate, behind him, did the same.
With Julie at my side, controlling 2.5 litres of V6 engine, wind in my hair, the alcohol and music made me feel invincible. I pressed down the accelerator.
Rounding the bend before the bridge, the nose-heavy vehicle decided to teach me a lesson. The rear end began to float, skidding into a spin on the frosty surface.
Time switched to slow motion. I read the date on the Christmas Fair poster as the Zephyr ploughed into the pole before I was slammed against the opened door and flung clear.
The bonnet crumpled into the pole and the heavy engine was shunted into my Julie. The roof thrust her head backwards, the metal splitting her throat wide open.
As Julie’s blood fountained, the screaming Gary was thrown through the windscreen. He hit the wall which scraped away half his face and one arm.
I didn’t realise Kate had been thrown through her open window as the car spun, straight into the freezing river below.
But the worst fate befell the two As. Trapped in the back by the displaced front bench seat they had no chance. Alex’s lit cigarette ignited the now damaged paraffin can that carried our heater fuel. Although empty, the fumes ignited, fed by the car’s combustible materials, they quickly engulfed Alex and Angie.
My friends’ horrific deaths were down to me and I escaped with scratches.
29/11/2024: I’ve lived with the guilt for 50 years. Every year it feels worse and like another I took from them. They never got to fulfill their potential, realise their dreams or grow old. Every year on 29 November, I pay my penance.
Maria Bligh is one of the co-owners/editors of The Write Site. She lives in Sussex, UK, with her musician husband and two cats and is deeply involved in the creative arts of writing, music and painting.
