My wife has finally gone to bed. The girls have been in bed for hours now. It’s just me, my glass of whiskey, and the dead silence of the night. Here I can relax for the first time in four days. It’s been nothing but hiking, hunting, and fishing this last week in the Rocky Mountains of Pagosa Springs, Colorado. Tonight, my father let us borrow his cabin in the woods for our last night here. My wife, my two beautiful girls, and I talked around an open fire and watched the shooting stars until early morning. Now I have finished my drink and should probably hit the hay, I have lots of driving to do tomorrow. All of a sudden, I hear a noisy banging on the cabin door. Who would knock on my door in the middle of the night? I angrily grab my axe and snatch my lantern as I burst open the door. I see a young boy, no older than the age of ten walking down the porch steps. “What are you doing disrupting me at this hour, boy?!” I furiously whispered at the child. Without saying a word, he looked up at me and then dashed into the forest. I started running after him. The cool breeze of the night attacked my face as I kept running deeper into the forest after the boy. My stamina began to fail. My breathing got heavy. I couldn’t run for much longer. I started to slow down, trying to keep my breath and energy alive. Out of pure luck, I hear a stick snap followed by rustling leaves. The boy tripped and fell on the forest floor. I power walk up to him and scream at him, “What in the hell are you doing boy? First you disrupt me and my family in the middle of the night, but then you just run away and make me chase you deep into the forest?” The boy just stared back up at me. I took a second and realized I might have been scaring this little kid. I take a deep breath and talk a little more calm and collected, “Why would you do that?” The boy finally spit something out, “My uncles told me to!” He yelled. I took some time to process what he had said and then I asked, “Why would they tell you to do that at this hour?” The boy said, “To get you out of the cabin.” I felt my heart drop and my body loosen as I felt scared and exposed. I looked around as I sensed the feeling that I wasn’t alone, but all I saw was the black forest. When I thought I couldn’t get any more creeped out, I heard a laugh to the left of me. I stared into the darkness while profusely sweating. “Is that your uncle?” I asked the boy in a high pitched nervous tone. “One of them,” the boy replied. Then I heard another laugh to the right of me, this one was the creepiest. Scared for my life, I turn to the boy and scream, “What have you done?!” He didn’t reply. I screamed even louder, “Why did you want me out of the cabin?!” He still didn’t answer. I heard the same two laughs to the right and left. I turned around and started sprinting from the direction I came. The same laughs kept playing over and over as I ran. It sounded like they were keeping up with me, but all I could see was darkness. I ran and ran but couldn’t see my cabin. I kept running. I swear I came this way, I thought to myself. I couldn’t find my cabin, though. The amount of fear I possessed helped me keep running even though my energy was gone. I was about to start sobbing. I could not find my cabin. I turned to the left a little and then ran some more. The laughs still stayed right to the left and right of me. I took a hard right and kept running. The laughs didn’t stop, and they still kept up with me. I ran. My cabin was nowhere. “To get you out of the cabin” kept playing in my head. The laughs didn’t stop. I still kept running, but my cabin was gone.
Legend