Unnatural Lover Boxed Set #1

  "Did they ever figure out who was up there?" Tony questioned, but the man answered in the negative.

  "Nope. They just fixed up the floor nice and sturdy this time, but nobody'd stay up there after that. I reckon that's why the new owners rent it out to city folk like yourself who don't know any better about the place."

  "New owners? They didn't own the place when all this stuff happened?"

  "Nope. I heard somebody bought it about a year ago and were planning on using it for some business." The storekeeper leaned over and looked over the young man with a careful, steady eye. "If I were you, though, I wouldn't stay up there during the night. I don't see why those strange noises won't still be there just waiting for that sun to set."

  "Well, thanks for the info. Oh, and you said they found a pit beneath the floor boards. Did they ever figure out how deep it was?" Tony recalled that part of the story with some interested. It closely mirrored Amanda's mention of noises and the thing bursting out through the floor boards.

  "They tried dropping in some rope with a rock on the bottom, but they didn't have enough to find it," the businessman replied.

  "Well, thanks for the info. We'll be sure to get out of there before dark," he reassured the old man, who nodded but couldn't return Tony's smile.

  When Tony got into the car, Amanda was curious what had taken him so long.

  "Were you asking for directions or something?" she asked him.

  "No, but I did find out more about that cabin of yours," he explained as they pulled away from the gas pump. He repeated everything the old man had told him, and when the tale was down Amanda was very quiet. Tony wondered if he should have told her what he learned. "You want to stay in the car when we get there, or maybe hike halfway up?" She shook her head.

  "I think it'd be worse being left alone anywhere around that place," she told him. Amanda wrapped her arms around herself and shivered. Her eyes nervously glanced out the window as the dark trees sped by. Beneath their great limbs lurked deep shadows. Her voice dropped to a soft whisper. "Even from here it feels cold."

  "I could always turn up the temperature," Tony joked, but she didn't laugh. He smiled and carefully wrapped an arm around her shoulders. He gave her a gentle shake, and she glanced up into his face. "We'll get this over with and never come back again, all right? We just have to see what's up there, and then we'll come right back down."

  "You mean you have to see what's up there," Amanda countered, but not in an annoyed voice. It was more defeated than angry. She turned away from him to stare down at her hands in her lap. "It's because you don't believe me." Tony let go of her shoulders and put both hands back on the wheel. He stared ahead and thought about the conversation he'd had with the storekeeper.

  "That guy's stories back there were pretty convincing," he admitted after a long moment of silence between them. "I mean, he really believed what he was telling me, even if I wasn't so sure about those old stories." Amanda's next words struck Tony so forcefully that he glanced over to her with fear in his eyes.

  "When we get up there, you might believe."

  The pair spoke little on the rest of the card drive, and in the space of an hour they were parked in the lot. Tony looked around in curiosity, since he'd never been to the area himself, but for Amanda there were no more charms. The shadows along the trail only held dread, and every chirp of a bird or squirrel caused her to start. Soon her boyfriend led her over to the path, and she wouldn't go up unless they were side by side. She neither wanted to lead nor be left behind, as both options caused her to imagine that thing catching her.

  Tony didn't mind so much until the trail started narrowing, and they constantly bumped into one another. He also noticed that though the sun overhead spoke of warmth, the air around them was cool. He would have chalked it up to the thinning air, but his senses told him that no, that wasn't the reason. There was some other explanation for the chills that ran down his spine, and he dared not admit to himself that it was the stories Amanda and the old man had told him.

  After hiking the first half in silence, Tony couldn't take it anymore. He needed sound to comfort his ears.

  "So you see much wildlife up here? You know, any deer or bears?" he asked her. She shook her head. The air around them was so oppressive she couldn't manage any more than that in reply. "Maybe we'll see one of those up hear. I warn you, though, if a bear starts to chase us I can run a lot faster than you can." It was meant to be a tease, but again his joke fell flat. Her lack of reaction was almost like she didn't even hear him.

  That's when Tony noticed the noise in the air, or rather the lack of sound. He hadn't been sure why he wanted to strike up a conversation, but as silence descended upon them again he realized it was because everything around them had gone quieted to nothing. The birds no longer chirped and the squirrels no longer scampered about flinging insults at them. Nothing moved save for when a soft, chilly breeze blew by them. He wrapped his coat around himself and pressed closer to Amanda. She didn't mind.

  They reached the lonely cabin at about midday. The pair stopped at the top of the trail and looked out upon the building standing in the middle of that barren land. Though the sun was directly overhead, shadows peeked out from beneath the long eaves of the roof. The door stood wide open like a hungry mouth inviting them inside to satiate its appetite. Amanda clutched onto Tony's arm. He was glad to feel the contact of another human being, and he wondered how Amanda had ventured to stay even one night in such a haunting place.

  "How'd you get away from that thing?" he asked her. He didn't mean to sound so convinced of her story, but looking at that cabin made him believe in any hideous tale. She nodded to the right.

  "I tried to go through that window the first time, and the next morning I got through it," she told him. He stepped toward the location, but she held him back. Tony turned and gave a start at her face. She was pale and trembling, and her eyes were wide as saucers. Her lip was mauled near to bleeding by her biting teeth and the depths of those eyes pleaded for escape from this place. "Please don't go near that thing. It might get you."

  "I won't go out of sight," he promised. He wasn't going to waste an entire day of hiking without even trying to look around the place.

  Carefully Tony removed himself from her grasp and edged his way toward the cabin. He came up to the corner and looked around to the east side of the building. On the ground was a large amount of broken glass, just as she'd said. He stepped closer and was struck by a detail missing from among the shards. Though he himself had seen the injuries caused by the window, there was no blood on the ground or glass.

  "Tony, let's leave here," Amanda pleaded from afar. He turned and noticed she'd stepped a few yards back. Even from this distance he could see she was shaking like a leaf. "Please?"

  "Let me just check inside, and then we can go," he promised her. Amanda desperately wanted to rush up to him and pull him back from that cursed place, but her feet wouldn't listen to her. They absolutely refused to edge closer toward that awning mouth of a door.

  Tony went around to the front of the cabin and glanced inside. The space was full of deep pockets filled with shadows, but through the two windows he managed to see the bed and fireplace. The covers were torn off the bed and lay crumpled on the floor. In the hearth were the remains of the fire Amanda had built. The rug innocently lay on the floor. Against the voice screaming in his head to run away, he cautiously stepped inside.

  The kitchen to his left still had Amanda's foodstuffs on the counter. Those appeared to be undisturbed, so he aimed his inspection on the floor where Amanda had told him the thing had appeared. His ears were alert for the slightest sound and his body was tense as he knelt down beside the rug. The first hint that something wasn't quite right here was when Tony noticed the dust on the floor wasn't quite right. The far corners had an even half inch along the floor, but the space in the center had been entirely cleared. He turned to glance out the door to Amanda.

  "Did you sweep this place?" he ye
lled to her. His heart beat a little bit faster when she violently shook her head.

  Tony turned back to the floor and ran his hand along the strange trails. He could clearly see the shoe and sock prints made by Amanda, but these were different. They wound their way through the years of dust and piled high or brushed aside the dirt. These unusual, sliding markings focused on a point on the floor, but also wound their way over to the bed. He moved over to that piece of furniture and stepped over the fallen covers. There were bits of broken glass from the window sill to the floor. He stooped down and picked up one of the sheets, and a cascade of glass shards rained down onto the floor. That must have been the sheet Amanda used to break the window.

  Tony suddenly stiffened. The hairs on the back of his neck jumped up, and he slowly turned around. His eyes stared down at the old, swept boards. He swore he'd heard something beneath the floor.

  Outside Amanda stood shivering against the indescribable fear which screamed at her to run back down the path. She couldn't-wouldn't leave Tony behind. Her boyfriend had disappeared into the depths of that monstrous cabin a few moments earlier. She couldn't see nor hear him moving around in there, and through her terror she found her voice. It was full of panic.

  "Tony!" Amanda yelled.

  Great was her relief when Tony stumbled out. His face was ashen in color and his body trembled so violently he had trouble stumbling over to her. She caught him in her arms and her soft embrace seemed to steady him.

  "What did you see?" she whispered to him, as though the very rocks would overhear their conversation.

  "I just heard something, that's all. Maybe some mice," he admitted to her. She didn't believe him, but the next words made her to joyous to care about his little lie. "I-I think we should go," he told her.

  "I think we should never have come here," she countered, but not in a mean way. His face told her he'd seen enough to convince him of the truth in her story. For that she was glad.

  The couple turned their backs on the old cabin and swiftly made their way back to the car. Not once did they look back, nor to the sides. Their safety lay in front of them, and their steps were so hurried they stumbled several times over logs and rocks. They hiked down the ten miles in record time and it was only an hour later that they found themselves back at the vehicle.

  Amanda was so relieved to hear the woodland sounds and see the car that she broke from Tony's grasp and ran up to the vehicle. She wrapped her arms across the hood and rubbed her face against the hot metal. It never looked so good nor felt so blissfully wonderful as it did then. She was more than ready to hop into it, but with the cabin far behind them Tony had regained some of his courage. He even ventured a glance back at the trail.

  "I don't know what's wrong up there, but we need to tell the owners not to rent that place out again," Tony told his girlfriend. She thought that was a gross understatement.

  "I think they need to burn it down and fill that hole in," Amanda countered. She'd be the first one to light the fire, and a fire it would need. Nothing else would have the same purifying effect as a hot, burning flame.

  "That's definitely something we shouldn't be telling them. Hell, anything we saw or heard up there needs to be kept quiet. If we start telling stories about something like a sludgy shadow monster attacking you, they're liable to put us both away," he pointed out. He gently took her shoulders and looked into her eyes. "I know this isn't going to be easy for you, but you have to forget whatever you saw up there." She opened her mouth to object but he shook his head. "No arguing about this, Amanda. You know as well as I do that they'd just think the stress of the doctor's results caused you to hallucinate or something."

  "But you believe me, right? You think I saw something, don't you?" Amanda was so desperate for him to believe her that she clung to him as though he was her anchor to sanity. Perhaps he was. Either way she was relieved when he nodded his head, though his expression was grim.

  "Yeah, I think you saw something, but I don't know what it was," he agreed with her. He glanced back at the quiet path overshadowed by the branches of the trees. A shudder ran through his body when he recalled the strange noises he had heard beneath the floor boards. "To be honest, I don't think I want to find out."

  "Neither do I. Can we just get away from here?"

  "Yeah, but I want to stop off at the gas station again. I want to ask that old guy some questions," Tony told her. She would have agreed to anything that took her far away from that trail which led to the solitary cabin.

  The pair got into the car, and Tony was noticeably quick in pulling out and driving off. He looked back through the rear view mirror, and no view ever looked so good as seeing the trail disappear from sight. They drove in silence in the distance to the gas station, and the old man behind the counter was openly pleased to see they both had returned. Amanda even came into the story with her boyfriend, and managed a smile at the storekeeper. She didn't want to be left alone again, at least not until they had more distance between them and that horrible place.

  "Find what you're looking for?" he asked Tony when the young gentleman stepped into his store.

  "I'm not really sure, but I was hoping you'd be able to tell me some more about that cabin and the woods around it." At Tony's request the old man's face fell.

  "I don't know why you're all interested in that place. No good ever came of it," he argued.

  "You mean what you've already told me or is there more?" Tony wondered. The old man frowned and pushed away from the counter.

  "I mean if you know what's good for you you'd leave well enough alone and go back to where you'd come," the storekeeper shot back. Amanda pulled at Tony's sleeve, and her voice quivered when she pleaded with him to leave.

  "It's all right, Tony, we should just take his advice and leave here. We're not going to come back here any time soon, anyway."

  "If'n you're smart, you'd not come back here at all. Once you've messed with what's up there, there ain't no good in you coming back," the old man told them. Tony didn't miss the allusion to other happenings.

  "So others have ran into something up there and lived to tell the tale, as they say?"

  "You young folks don't know what you're dealing with," the storekeeper insisted. "You should just get on out of here and never you mind what happened to them other folks."

  "What other folks? What happened to them?" Amanda spoke up. Her eyes were wide and her hand on Tony's sleeve trembled a little. The old man was sorry to see her shaking so, and he vehemently shook his head.

  "Never you mind, miss. It isn't anything to worry yourself over. Just get on out with your man here and don't look back."

  "Sir, my girlfriend here saw something up at that cabin that attacked her. We're begging you here to tell us anything you can about that thing up there that's hiding beneath the floor." At Tony's information the old man started, and his eyes darted over to Amanda with a new understand in them. His expression was full of both pity and abhorrence. His voice dropped to barely above a whisper, but still it rang out int he quiet, lonely store.

  "Is this true, miss, what he says?" Amanda nodded her head, and she clung harder to Tony with both hands. The old man closed his eyes and forlornly shook his head. "A great pity in you, miss. A great pity."

  "Instead of your pity, why don't you tell us what you know? That might actually do something for her," Tony shot back. He was angry at the lack of cooperation and fearful for his girlfriend's safety.

  "I just knows some older stories that my grandpa told me when I was little. Never could find anything else who knew them, but I figure they'd all passed on or got away from whatever's up there." He invited them over to a couple of chairs grouped for the purpose of storytelling. When they were all comfortable, he continued. "That cabin up there's well over a hundred years old, maybe two hundred. It was one of the first trapping spots around here on account of that spot being one of the few open areas around here. Everything else lower than that had to be cleared of trees as wide as my arms can r
each." He spread out his arms to show the width. "So there it got built by one of them mountain men, some man by the name of Arkham. That's where they get the name of the mountain from. There's only one old tale that he disappeared not more than a month after finishing the place. Just up and left his hides and everything."

  "Maybe he was attacked by the natives?" Amanda suggested. The first inhabitants in the area had been known to be unfriendly toward the first settlers. The old man shook his head.

  "He was on pretty friendly terms with them, what with their trading deals being fair for both sides. He just up and disappeared, so other men took it. It was a group this time and they didn't have no problems between them except they'd always have to go down the mountain for a few miles when they needed supplies on account that the Indians wouldn't camp anywhere near the foot of this place. Said something about the place being evil or something."

  "So this place has always had something off about it?" Tony interrupted, and the old man nodded.

  "Yep. Never a time when there wasn't something mysterious going on up there. What with the animals and trees not liking that area, it was downright spooky for most folks. After that group of fur traders darn near caught all the animals on the mountain, they cleared out of the place and it stood empty for a few years. The animals started coming back as well as they ever did, and people started hunting them for sport. People still knew of the old, sturdy cabin, so they made that into a sort of public place for anyone to stay and hunt so long as they had the place clean when they left."

  "Did anybody disappear during that, other than the man you already told me about?" the young man wondered.

  "To be honest, it's hard to tell. A lot of tourists started hearing about the place from some of us around here, and pretty soon we had strangers up there all the time. They'd ruin the place and it'd have to be cleaned up. Sometimes the hunters would mark a day for them and come up there to find there were people there." The old man's voice dropped a little and he noticeably shuddered. "Sometimes they'd go up there and find some things, and nobody was there."