THE CABIN

THE CABIN

That Spring evening a light wind-blown mist filled the air. It was not raining. Not really. The ceaseless breeze carried a chilling dampness and the sweet fragrance of cedarwood smoke. Low clouds obliterated the moon and stars. Night was coming on fast.

A one-room log cabin stood as scarred and worn as the rusty bark of the incense cedars towering overhead. Rays of golden firelight flickered out through three crude windows, one in each wall enclosing the hearth. It glistened off beads of moisture on the moss clinging to the surrounding trunks. Lit the cold iron handle of the well pump. The wind gusted and pinpricks of mist sizzled against the window panes.

Lester Ames did not mind. Inside it was warm and dry. He sat in his ladder-back rocking chair, absorbing the heat that radiated from a generous blaze in his blackened stone fireplace. He had built the cabin himself. The foundation and chimney stones he had hauled from the river in a rickety old wheelbarrow. The logs were sawn from cedar and fir. The floor planks and roof beams he cut from pine on the whirling chain of an Alaskan mill. That damned saw had cost him his left thumb. It had all taken a very long time to build.

Now he had nothing but time. Almost cozy, Lester thought, the corners of his mouth ticking upward with the thought. It pleased him that he could do everything slowly. At his own leisurely pace.

From his chair beside the hearth he surveyed the intimate room. The shifting flames lit the rough pine floor with a drowsy light. A dreamy yellow glow that made it difficult to distinguish the cracks and knotholes from solid wood. The firelight fused the planks into one solid covering. A ghostly yellow blanket spread across the floor. A pulsing orange shroud draped every object in the room. The crude, unpainted bookcase and the books within. The solid old oak table and primitive typewriter (perhaps the last still in use). The unlit lantern. The stack of manuscript pages. His bed crowded into the far corner with the poles of its headboard glowing like a Japanese torii. A gate of heaven. Or perhaps a gallows frame. Lester yawned and watched the shadows dance and kiss. Shadows which, even in the darkest corner, played in the fire's warmth. He turned his rocker to face the fire and watch his dreams in the naked flames. In this cabin, even the fire seemed in no hurry to burn.

It seemed odd to Lester Ames that he should be content to live alone far from other humans. He was not by nature a hermit. Not really. He drove his rusting red pickup into town regularly to buy groceries and gas and check the mail. He worked odd jobs, carpentry mostly, when he could find labor where a left thumb was not required. And he had friends. Well, mostly acquaintances. But most everybody around knew him by sight. He had lived here long enough. But he was an anachronism. Lester knew that. A throwback to simpler times. But what he did not understand was why.

He yawned again and stared into the fire, dreaming. Time left nothing scarred as it drifted through the cabin.

-1-

Abruptly Lester jerked awake. His tee-shirt was damp with sweat. Bright coals radiated heat from the fireplace. A sharp pain shot down the left side of his neck. His back was stiff. Damn! He had not intended to doze off in that high-back rocker.

He had dreamed of an earlier time and place. He stood in line at the little walk-up hamburger stand across Bancroft Street from the law school. The bronze letters on the building's fortress wall were half obscured by branches. Beneath the trees students tossed a frisbee. Catching and throwing in long graceful arcs. The afternoon sun shone hot. He was waiting for someone. He had always been waiting for her.

Lester buried his face in the crook of his arm. He stood up and stretched. Rolled his head on his shoulders. He turned to consider the cabin door. Something had awakened him. Had someone knocked on the thick plank door? Or was it only a part of his dream? He had not heard a motor. Nor a car door slam. Yet still . . . it would be easy enough to tug it open and check outside.

What was that sound? It was more than fog drip from the cedars. Suddenly an unfamiliar hope rose in his chest. Hope for who might be out there. An irrational hope, yes, yet time's slow passage, which left him untouched in the cabin, would have altered things outside. Rearranged the possible. And had he not stayed up late into the night quietly waiting for just such a gentle knocking at the cabin door? There was another sound. Lester heard footsteps crunching up the gravel path. They stopped. He held his breath. There was a soft knock at the door.

Lester sprang to the door. Paused. Gripped the smooth carved handle with both fists and tugged. It squealed open.

Before him in the cold and miserable night stood a visitor. A small figure in an oversized parka. The one he had been waiting for. She was actually there before him. For a long time Lester stood still, not daring to move for fear that she might evaporate into the mist.

Softly she spoke, "Hello Les. Guess you weren't expecting me."

Ah, but he had been.

"May I come in?"

"Yes. Of course. Please. Come in." He swung the door wide. "You must be cold. Sit by the fire."

He took her heavy parka, the fur collar shining with droplets of moisture, and hung it on a nail by the fire to dry. Turned to look at her. She was lean and tan with long black hair flowing down her back. The fire, blazing more brightly for her, cast yellow highlights onto her raven hair. He had never seen a more lovely vision. She was just as he remembered her, seated in the rocker by the fire. Gazing eagerly up at him.

Lester poked at the fire, tossed on another log, then pulled the desk chair close beside her. "I was hoping you would come," he said.

"I wanted to talk to you." She turned her face to the fire. "I felt I had to come talk with you."

"I'm so glad you did. I have much to say to you, too."

But neither of them spoke for a long time. They sat side by side and imbibed the peace of the small cabin. They were in no hurry to begin. After all, they had all the time in the world out there.

"Les?" she whispered at last.

"Yes, my darling?"

Fright glinted in her dark eyes. "There's something not right . . . about this . . ."

"Shush." He put his arm around her. Held her close.

"What is it?" she insisted, squirming. She lifted her fingers to the side of her face. "What's wrong?"

"Let it be," he spoke too quickly. Drew a breath. "Try not to think about it . . .," he tried to whisper her name. To comfort her. His mouth hung open. Lester could not remember her name, though it was engraved upon his soul. His eye caught a name tag clipped above her left breast. Like the nurses had all worn at the hospital. Large black letters carved into white plastic. But try as he might, he could not make sense of them. He could not read the words that were written there.

As in a dream, he thought.

Lester knew something had gone terribly wrong. The more he tried not to think about it, the more he found himself swimming away, upward toward the light. Toward the hellish red glare above. Away from the dark thing that tried to hold him in the depths below.

-2-

Lester's eyes fluttered open to the bright burning embers of the hearth. "Mariah," he whispered out loud. Mariah was her name.

His tee-shirt clung damply to his chest. He was slouched in his rocker, his head canted painfully to the side. His back ached. Damn! He had never intended to doze off like that.

He had been dreaming something beautiful. Something that left him warm inside. Relaxed. Fulfilled. He was waiting for someone. Mariah. He had always been waiting for her. She had come, rapping on the cabin door. She had come inside. Sat with him silently by the fire. A silly dream perhaps, but one that filled his heart in that uncompromising way that only a dream can.

Until it all began to unravel.

Lester ground his knuckles into his eyes. Slowly he stood, a bit dreamy still. A bit unsteady. Lightheaded. Mariah is gone. In that unholy hospital bed, sprouting tubes and tags and electrical wires, she had wasted away and died. He had been holding her hand. Her fingers were cold and limp. Unfeeling. Unconscious. Her body was shutting down. She drew in a gulp of air. Seemed to stop breathing. He waited, summoning no one. She took another quick gulp. He waited. Then another. The pauses grew longer. The gulps shallower. Then one final gulp of breath. And never again. Bathed in the unforgiving fluorescent light of that strange morning stillness, he welcomed her release from suffering. From the horror. Yet he had wept. Oh he had wept.

He had buried her beside a new white azalea in the little pocket meadow beyond the cedars. The "family plot," the paperwork had called it.

He turned to consider the door. Had he heard a faint rapping on the thick planks? A tap, tap, tapping at his chamber door? Or had that only been a part of his dream? No one was out there, of course. Not Mariah. Not Lenore. Not anyone. It was an absurd notion. Yet still . . . what would it hurt to tug open the door and check? Open it and step out into the darkness.

Ah, but what evil might such darkness bring? Suddenly he was afraid. Afraid of what might be out there. Afraid to welcome what he had been waiting for. Afraid of again finding nothing at all. Heads or tails, he was bound to lose if he were to open that door.

In stocking feet Lester padded unsteadily to the door. Paused. Placed one palm on the smooth carved handle and the other against the rough planks, trying to feel what might be on the other side. A vibration? A radiance? An aura? He felt nothing but the dead wood.

Something scratched on the door, and Lester lurched backward, almost falling over his empty boots. His heart leaped. His pulse triphammered. His breath was caught somewhere deep in his chest. It had sounded like a bony knuckle on the door, though it might have been just a branch clawing against the cabin wall, driven by the soughing, moaning wind. But when he breathed again, he drew in a faint aroma of rotting flesh. The sulphurous smell of something long dead.

From beyond the door came an ugly sound. The sound of something being dragged through the duff. Grating and whisking across the gravel path. He did not go to the window to look. The night outside was as black as an empty grave. Lester stood there trembling, rooted with fear, until the dragging sound receded, moving away toward that little pocket meadow and the long-dead azalea.

He did not open the door. He squeezed shut his eyes.

-3-

Lester awoke in his rocking chair to the hot glow of the fireplace. His tee-shirt was clammy with sweat. A sharp pain shot down the left side of his neck. His back was stiff. Damn! He had not intended to doze off. His heart was pounding. What a dream! An intense, convoluted dream had left him unsettled. A dream nested within another dream. And another. A recursion of dreams. He could no longer remember the details, but he was trembling.

He rubbed his face in calloused palms to clear the cobwebs. Stood up and stretched. Rolled his neck. His spine crackled. The pain eased a bit. He turned to consider the cabin door. Something about the door. No one was out there, of course. It was an absurd notion. Mariah? What the hell had he been dreaming?

Yet still . . . it would be easy enough to tug it open and check outside.

The door squealed open. He stepped out into a night as black as an empty grave. Pinpricks of moisture still rode the drifting mist. But it was not really raining. There was nothing out there. As he had known in his rational mind. Nothing at all.

And what will happen, he wondered, when I awake from this dream?

-4-

Lester awoke.