November 2nd, 2020. You might not want to read this one. It's way too scary for you. What are you thinking?? I got plenty of other stuff you can read. Come back to this one when you're grown. Hey man. Come on. Take it easy. Get on outta here. If you are grown, like me, I hope you got your nightlight on.
“Are you sure we should even go? We could find something to do around here.” Hannah said as she read the local NEWS headline while trying to suppress a small wave of anxiousness.
“We’ll be fine.” Rachel shrugged it off while downing her last bite of scrambled eggs and glass of orange juice before grabbing her keys and heading for the door.
“Then we’re leaving as soon as we get out of class on Friday before it gets dark, so you better be ready.” Hannah responded.
“Alright, alright!” Rachel neglected to clean her dishes because she left a little later than usual on Sundays because traffic on campus is not as busy, but she is always late anyway. The apartment complex where Rachel and Hannah live does not allow pets (they wouldn’t be able to afford a pet even if it did). In order to make up for all the time she doesn’t get with her beloved dogs, Boo Boo (partly beagle, partly dachshund) and Sadie (mostly dachshund), Rachel works at the Charlottesville Albemarle SPCA just a few minutes from the University of Virginia campus.
Rachel always marveled at the intelligence of the animals, but especially the dogs and she enjoyed training her dogs back home and teaching them to shake and play dead. She loved her job almost as much as she loved the dogs that lived there. Frankly, she doubted she would make it through college without it, not only because of the source of income, but more importantly the simple joy and peace of mind that comes with petting and caring for a dog.
With all the stress of college, being away from home, and everything they’ve been hearing in the news, Rachel had a couple times a week to hit the reset button, take her mind off things, and re-energize while surrounded by her loving canines she gets paid to see. Sure, the shelter has cats too, but Rachel has always been more of a dog person. Her family has always had a dog since before she was born and she has never gone more than 9 days without petting one- that one summer camp she went to in middle school, but her parents decided she needed to come home early.
UVA was on the verge of Fall Break and the students were awarded with a three-day weekend. Hannah sat on her balcony trying to get as much homework done as she could before the weekend when they planned to drive to their Uncle Jake’s cabin on Smith Mountain Lake.
Even though most of the family rarely visits the cabin, seemingly due to some undisclosed disapproval or disdain of Uncle Jake, he is quite fond of his two nieces and loaned them a key so they could have a peaceful weekend away from school if they so chose…so long as Hannah and Rachel promised to answer, only to their friends that ask, that the cabin belongs to their parents and not to their Uncle Jake. They both thought this was strange, but a simple request for a cabin on the lake to themselves.
They had gone to the cabin a few times in their first two years of school and of course brought a couple friends with them from time to time, but now in their Junior year, the two sisters had yet to make a trip out, mostly because they hate the drive, but maybe more so due to the news they had been seeing about frightening things occurring in some of the towns along the way.
It was only a two-hour drive (two and a half if you take the scenic route), but they always dreaded the drive. The route required driving long, winding roads up and down and around the mighty Virginia mountains, always being sure to get gas before they left in order to avoid the small, sketchy stations, and staying closely attentive to their GPS in order to map their way through the labyrinth of narrow and secluded dirt roads throughout the dense, endless forests that were hidden down below the surrounding mountains. Rarely did Hannah and Rachel ever see more than one car on the roads at a time, unless they were lucky, but most of the time they almost wished they were the only one. For these reasons, they never drove to the cabin at night.
Hannah continued her desperate attempt to get her work done so that she would have plenty of time to pack and prepare for the drive. As she sat on the second story balcony of her apartment, she couldn’t help but worry about the upcoming weekend and the drive and the horrifying news stories so close to home replaying in her mind.
Her mind began to slowly stray further and further from her once comfortable position in the fall breeze and the sunshine, leaving her behind to go into a dark and almost paralyzing mental state. The sound of the birds and the breeze flowing through the trees began to fade to silence and her mind unleashed itself to race out of control. Sharp chills ran down her spine like frigid nails and her body tensed up painfully rigid. She hopelessly tried to reel in her escaped mind, but it was too far gone. Now drowning in fear, her chest was clenched tight around her rib-cage and lungs, her heart pounding at her chest for oxygen, but it was as if she forgot how to breathe. Gasping for air, she grabbed the handrail and looked out onto the changing campus landscape.
She always loved the autumn leaves, sometimes wishing she could be beautiful and free, without worry or fear like they were. The trees had already begun to change from their happy, bright and warm, summer green color as the ruthless winter cold barged into their lives harassing their leaves and slowly killing them, turning them yellow to orange and then finally brown as the merciless wind, once their friend, beat the leaves over and over and day after day until they could hold on no longer to their family tree which provided them life and sanctuary just a couple short months earlier. The strong and incessant wind forced them into gravity’s irreversible clutches only to receive facades of small glimmers of hope as the wind would disturbingly purport the leaves by lifting them back upward towards the trees with calm gusts for only a brief moment before ultimately falling to the cold, hard ground to die.
The leaves would now lie on the unbearable dead grass and concrete ground of their hell below the tree, helpless to be crushed and abused even more by the trampling students and nightly frost, their life slowly evaporating into the heavens as the days and nights become colder, the sky more gray. The sun, once comforting and uplifting, now blocked out by the depressing, dark clouds, softly fades to black as the leaves left wishing for a quick, painless death to end their hopeless misery, can hardly remember the beautiful, warm life they once had.
Hannah awoke from her sleep on the couch as Rachel returned home from working a long Sunday shift at the animal shelter. Hannah quickly remembered what happened out on the balcony but decided not to tell her sister. She didn’t want to add extra worry about the trip because she knew Rachel had been looking forward to it and could really use a weekend off from work. Hannah passed out on the balcony but came-to sometime after the sun went down. Shaking from the cold, she had made her way to the couch, shivering, and instantly fell asleep from exhaustion. She didn’t know what to make of her flash vision of the life cycle of the campus leaves, but she felt a new surge of courage from having made it through it on her own.
Hannah and Rachel finished their breakfast (they always ate breakfast together because that’s what they do as a family when they’re home), they grabbed their backpacks and headed to their Friday morning classes. Rachel took the car because her class was farther away, and Hannah usually walked.
“Remember, we’re leaving at three o’clock sharp.” Hannah announced, feeling significantly more optimistic about the trip regardless of the cold, cloudy weather. She decided a relaxing weekend on the late would be the best thing for her. Rachel responded with a thumbs up, closing the car door behind her. Hannah was surprised to find her sister packed and ready to go on time. They loaded their bags into the trunk of the 2011 Nissan Altima, topped off the tank at the nearest gas station, and began their weekend escape to the lake. Rachel insisted they listen to podcasts about serial killers to feed her odd interest on the subject. Hannah, the driver, complained that a podcast about Ted Bundy would be too scary considering the eerie and gloomy weather. Hannah drove the curving road that ran along the top of the mountain in silence.
An old pickup truck with no tailgate, struggling up the incline, drove slowly in front of her and she found herself frequently taking brief glimpses to her right because she liked to admire the endless miles of mountain range and forests. She tried to imagine what it looked like before, when the trees were full of green and reflected the warm orange hue of the setting sun creating a stunning collision of color with breath-taking beauty as far as the eye could see. She looked out to see the now brown trees becoming bare and empty, a dreary fog sat idly around them, and the sun was dulled by the sky which was only a massive sheet of gray.
She began to think to herself about how easy it would be to get lost in those woods when suddenly she was violently jarred into the present moment. A wood pallet fell from the bed of the old truck and Hannah ran it over before she even saw it. They found a place to pull off the road to discover the front fender had come loose and the right front tire had been punctured by a nail from the pallet. Rachel had changed a tire once before, so she quickly jumped into action because the sun had already begun to fall behind the mountains. Before they knew it, an hour had passed and their dread of driving under the darkness of night had come. Hannah, shaking from the cold, tried to hold onto her sanity as well as the flashlight on her dying phone as Rachel tightened down the last nut on the spare wheel. Hannah picked up the speed now that there were no other vehicles on the road, and they drove in silence hoping they would have no other issues to slow them down. They were well over halfway with only the labyrinth of old dirt roads to traverse in order to reach the cabin.
Hannah’s forearms began to burn and her hands sweat as she gripped the steering wheel as tightly as she could. She lost count of how many left and right turns she had made desperately trusting the GPS, hoping it would lead them to safety. She wished they hadn’t come. All the dirt roads looked the same and felt claustrophobic by the trees that hung over them like skeletons. She continued on the ominous road, peering over the steering wheel, straining for visibility as the headlights barely shown through the dense fog. Rachel made sure the doors were locked as she stared out the passenger window trying to remember anything that looked familiar, there were no houses, no cars. She started to lose faith in the GPS.
Hannah screamed and slammed on the brakes and the car slid left and right before finally coming to a stop. Terrified, they looked out the windshield in front of them and out from the forest on the left side of the road, slowly limped what appeared to be a dog. It was a golden lab, he looked beat up and dirty and it was clear his paw was injured. He winced in pain with every step then stopped in the middle of the road to lay down.
“I’ll be right back!” Rachel said as she opened the door.
“Hurry up!” Hannah stayed in the car with the engine running.
She watched from behind the steering wheel as Rachel scanned left and right peering into the trees. Rachel’s hair stood on its end, as she made her way through the fog to inspect the dog. His fur seemed to be cut randomly with sprigs sticking out all over his coat, like it had been done on purpose, and the headlights exposed bits of mud and gunk that had infused themselves to the dog. Confused, Rachel tried to coerce the dog back to the car when an instantaneous shot of adrenaline blazed through her body from head to toe as a sharp, loud whistle pierced her ears and into her soul.
The dog bolted across the road and into the woods on the other side without a hesitation or a limp. He was gone. Rachel quickly turned to the car, both doors were open. She didn’t see or hear anyone. Horrifying fear violently gripped her as she tried to run. She tripped on the gravel and fell to her knees in front of the car. She saw men’s footprints in the dirt. Blood ran down her leg and tears fell from her eyes as she leaned into the car to find her sister was gone.
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