Don't Open the Door
A horror story — trapped in a cabin in the woods
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The cabin had no phone signal. We knew this before we arrived — the listing had said so clearly, and we had thought: perfect. No distractions. Just three days in the mountains, clean air, complete silence.
The silence was the first problem.
Not the natural silence of an empty place, but a particular quality of quiet that seemed to press against the windows from outside. Mara noticed it first. 'It's too quiet,' she said on the second evening, sitting by the window while the light failed. 'There should be birds. Insects. Something.'
There was nothing.
That night I woke at 2 a.m. to the sound of footsteps on the wooden porch. Slow, deliberate, moving from one end to the other. I lay completely still and told myself it was an animal — a deer, perhaps, or a fox. Animals walk on porches. This is a normal thing.
The footsteps stopped outside the bedroom window.
I did not look. You should understand that I made a conscious decision not to look. There are things you cannot unknow.
In the morning the porch was empty. There were no prints in the mud below the window — but there had been no rain either, so the ground was hard. I said nothing to Mara.
On the third day, we found the old photographs.
They were inside a kitchen drawer, beneath tea towels and a broken torch. Black and white images of the cabin — clearly taken a long time ago. The same building. The same trees. But in every photograph, standing at the edge of the treeline, was a figure.
Always at the edge. Always looking toward the cabin.
Always the same figure.
Mara said we should leave. I agreed. We packed quickly, not talking much.
At the door, I looked back once. Through the window, at the far edge of the trees, something was standing still.
We got in the car. I drove until we had phone signal, and then I drove further.
I have not looked at the photographs again. They are in a bag in the boot of the car. I keep meaning to throw them away.
I haven't yet.