by Sergio Gomez
Cover design by: Teddi Black
Interior design by: Megan McCullough
For Derrick, who has been there for me since the beginning.
“It seems to me most strange that men should fear, seeing that death, a necessary end, will come when it will come”
–William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar
Prologue
A nervousness was working itself into Nadine Lang’s stomach as they drove deeper and deeper into the woods. It had been growing ever since they turned off the main highway and started down these narrow dirt roads between densely packed trees that seemed to never end. Everything around them was getting more lush and greener by the minute, giving new definition to ‘wilderness’ for folks like her and her husband.
Maybe I should’ve searched for ‘second most secluded cabin,’ Nadine thought. A weak smile formed on her face, but she was only half joking.
Her husband must have been just as unsettled, because he was driving faster now, as if in a hurry to get to the cabin. The road they were on was nothing more than a layer of pebbles between the trees to show drivers where they should go. If a car came from the other way, one of them would have to back up until they found a place to pull over to let the other one pass. At the speed Stephen was pushing the Rav4, Nadine wasn’t so sure they wouldn’t slide into the trees first, though. Especially around all of these curves.
“Stephen, maybe you should slow down?” Nadine said.
She saw her husband’s face flush red as he grimaced. It was a facial expression she was very familiar with nowadays. Nagging Nadine. That was what her first serious boyfriend in college used to called her, and even several relationships and a marriage later it stuck in her mind. Nadine shrunk in her seat.
Stephen took in a deep breath, then said, “Sorry. Just hungry and tired.”
He’d driven the entirety of their trip, with only one stop in the afternoon in which they filled up the vehicle with gas and filled their stomachs with greasy cheeseburgers that tasted like cardboard. But he recognized that she was right. He was driving too fast. Stephen let his foot off the pedal, and let the SUV drop down to a comfortable thirty miles per hour.
“I’m ready to get there already,” he said, looking over at her with a weak smile on his face.
“Me too,” she said, picking up the directions that were on her lap.
According to the Google Maps printout, they were only thirty minutes from Lakewood Cabin. With the moment of truth coming, she hoped more than ever that it would look like the pictures on the website. But really, what she was hoping for was that the place would somehow fix the problems between her and her husband and save their marriage from falling apart altogether.
Her mind turned to the surprise lingerie she had bought specially for this trip…the outfit she had hung all her hopes on to be spicy enough to reignite their passion for each other. It was a silly and farfetched idea, but all she had was hope.
The SUV stopped at the top of Lakewood Cabin’s driveway. A squirrel running across the porch banister froze, identified where the foreign sounds were coming from, then scurried up a column and over the front awning before disappearing across the roof.
“Wow,” Nadine remarked, admiring the beauty of the massive cabin before them.
Next to her, Stephen was already getting out of the car. Without taking her eyes off the cabin, she unlocked her door and stepped out. The gravel crunched underneath her sneakers, and it was so quiet out here that the sound echoed through the trees.
This place was even better than she’d hoped. Better than the website made it out to be, too, because the pictures online couldn’t capture the sweet scent of cedarwood the summer breeze carried through the air.
Camp Lakewood stood two stories tall, made entirely of logs. At the front of it was a deck large enough for a picnic table on one side and a porch swing on the other. An awning made entirely of wood protected the furniture from the elements of the weather.
Around the perimeter of the cabin were bushes with plump berries that were too vibrantly colored to be anything other than poisonous. Further out from the porch, in what could have been considered the “front yard,” there was a pit for campfires with a metal barrel that held skewers and utensils for roasting.
Large trees with nuts and fruits growing on them towered over the cabin in a semi-circle, making it feel like Lakewood Cabin existed in a pocket isolated from the rest of the woods. It was the perfect private place for an author to retreat into to finish their latest manuscript, or that a family would rent out to get away from suburban life for a week of summer leisure.
Nadine was thinking about those steamy romance novels she’d started reading a few years ago, when things between her and Stephen went cold in the bedroom. A common theme in those books was for the protagonist and her lover to go into a cabin deep in the woods to have passionate sex, and Lakewood Cabin was exactly what she imagined when reading those scenes.
“Oh, Stephen! Stephen, isn’t this wonderful!” Nadine walked around to the front of the SUV to see what her husband’s reaction was, but he wasn’t on his side of the car anymore. He was at the back of the vehicle, unloading, and hadn’t heard a word she said.
“Nadine, can you get the door for me, please?” he said, coming up the driveway toward her carrying a cooler.
“Yeah,” Nadine said, feeling the magic of the moment deflating because he hadn’t even bothered to take in the sight for a second.
One of the reasons they’d come out here was for him to be away from work, but here he was, doing some form of work anyway.
Nadine trotted to get ahead of him. She took the keys from her purse and opened the cabin door. An expansive, rustic interior dominated by a fireplace taking up almost an entire wall greeted her. The place was somehow larger than the outside suggested it would be. Several antique-style lamps with dark green shades were placed around the main room, breaking up the monotony of the wooden walls and floors. On one wall hung an elk’s head with great big horns and dark eyes that were eternally staring at nothing. If there was ever a place to kick back, drink some tea, and read a novel, it was here.
“This is quite the place,” Stephen said, coming up behind her with the cooler.
“Isn’t it marvelous?” Nadine said, shaking her head in disbelief. She was sure this was some dream, that she’d fallen asleep watching the trees rush past the window, and she’d wake up still in the SUV any minute now.
Of course, that didn’t happen.
“Good pick,” Stephen said, setting the cooler down.
Nadine looked over at him, and he looked back at her. For a second, she thought he was going to kiss her, but he didn’t. He just blinked and turned away.
“Let’s unpack some, then you can cook us up some sausages,” he said, heading out the cabin.
“Okay,” Nadine said.
Her voice was meeker in the expanse of the cabin. She didn’t think it was possible, considering the lie behind the word when she was using it with him. ‘Okay.’ Everything was always ‘okay’—even though it wasn’t.
But here she was, in the middle of this large rustic cabin, finding out it was possible for her to sound meeker.
After unpacking and eating sausages in potato rolls slathered with mustard and topped with sauerkraut, Nadine and Stephen Lang went into the master bedroom. The room kept the same decorative theme as downstairs, a rustic, cozy place to rest. There had even been a buck’s head hanging over the bed frame, which Nadine took the liberty of storing away in one of the closets. Stephen had laughed at her for that, and it felt good that she could still bring some joy to him.
Nadine changed into her lingerie while Stephen stripped down to his boxer briefs, then they both crawled underneath the covers. The ro
om must have had good airflow or something, because despite the eighty-degree weather outside, it was chilly in here. Almost like autumn. The sheets felt cool against their skin when they moved under them to a spot that hadn’t been touched for a good while.
They’d been cuddling in silence for a good thirty minutes now, but it hadn’t turned into anything else. Nadine had her head against his chest and was playing with the salt-and-pepper chest hairs with an index finger, while Stephen had his arms around her. Even though they weren’t speaking, neither of them knowing what to say, it felt good to finally have her husband’s attention all to herself. No cell phone, no laptop, no television. Just them two lying in bed together.
For a moment it seemed like before, back when they were younger, back before Stephen’s company had expanded to the size it was. Before the silent dinners together and the empty I-love-you’s before bed.
Stephen was a partner for a digital marketing company that had clients all over the world, and in the last few years their clientele had exploded. The company started taking in jobs from Sweden, India, Russia, and so on, which meant dealing with each and every time zone around the globe. Some nights he’d have to stay up until four AM on a conference call with clients from Japan or Malaysia, and then have to wake up at seven AM to make a call to someone out in London. There was no set schedule to his work, so he was always connected and busy with no time for anything else.
The money was nice, but the life had started to drive a wedge between him and Nadine, and he knew this, but he couldn’t pull himself away from it. He believed that at a certain point he would make enough money to make up for the emotional neglect, but the more money he brought in, the further he moved the goalpost.
When he first had that thought, he realized he was an apple that hadn’t fallen far from the tree. Being the son of a restaurant owner, he knew a thing or two about being on the receiving end of emotional neglect from a loved one—but he still couldn’t pull himself away from work. And it was that guilt of knowing he was no better than his father that made him agree to this getaway in the woods. This was his attempt at compromise, at reconciliation.
Now that he was away from work and lying in bed with her in this quiet cabin, the guilt was crushing him worse than ever. He stared up at the ceiling fan, watching the wooden blades spin around to try to distract himself from the ill feelings, but it didn’t work.
It was his fault they’d gotten to this point, to the point where they needed some elaborate trip as a last-ditch effort before the big D word would enter the conversation. He kissed the top of Nadine’s head and rubbed her back between the shoulder blades. It was as close as he would come to admitting he fucked up to her, because again, he was a fruit that hadn’t fallen far from the tree. His father had never been one to apologize, either.
Nadine lifted her head up and kissed him on the lips. She tried to make it longer than a peck, and as much as he wanted to go along with it, the guilt settling in him was too much. He pulled away.
He felt like he would be cheating her out of the passion she was looking for if he forced himself into it, like he was paying someone with a counterfeit bill or something.
Stephen shook his head at her. “Not tonight, Nadine.”
“Aw, come on Stephen,” Nadine said, her eyes watering. “I thought the whole point of this trip was for us to be…I don’t know. Romantic, or something like that.”
He would’ve laughed if he didn’t feel so bad about everything. “I just drove nearly seven hours, Nadine.”
She sighed and slumped back down onto his chest. The truth was, she wasn’t in the mood either. The lacey lingerie didn’t even make her feel sexy. It was doing the opposite, actually. She felt like she was wearing something meant for someone younger than her, someone with a better figure. She thought about getting up to change back into regular underwear, but decided it wasn’t worth disrupting the moment. Because in the back of her mind, she feared this would be the last time they ever did this.
“We haven’t decided how long we’ll be in Hawaii next month.” Stephen said, hoping that a change of topic would bring her spirits back up—and his, too, for that matter.
“We haven’t,” Nadine said. “Have you thought about it?”
Next month, their eldest son was getting married. It was a destination wedding at the Big Island, and Nadine knew this was a bother to Stephen because it meant being away from work again. It was surprising to her that he’d agreed to this trip so close to the date of the wedding.
“I was thinking no more than a week,” Stephen said.
“A week. Sure. That sounds fine to me.”
They both went quiet after that. Stephen continued to watch the wooden fan blades spinning on the ceiling. Nadine rested her palm against his right pec and listened to his heartbeats.
Outside, the sun was almost below the horizon as day gave way to twilight. The moon could just be seen as a washed-out crescent against the purple sky. Early-to-rise crickets were chirping in the bushes, singing so loud it traveled up to the master bedroom and filled the silence between Nadine and Stephen.
However, the silence was starting to become uncomfortable. Nadine stirred under the covers to rustle them, for no reason other than to make noise. She opened her mouth to bring up Hawaii again, but froze when she heard a loud bang.
The sound came from downstairs, and through the open window at the same time. It was something from the front of the cabin. Some unknown thing in the middle of these empty woods.
Nadine felt Stephen’s heartbeats kick. She looked up at him, seeing the same fear that tingled along her spine.
“Wh-what was that?” Nadine whispered.
He shook his head. “I don’t know.”
Another bang.
The wind. Maybe it was the wind. Maybe they’d left the front door open and the wind was banging it against the frame. Or maybe it was the screen door. It did look a little crooked, now that she thought about it.
Nadine moved off him and Stephen got up. She started to get up out of the bed with him, but he put an arm around her waist. “Stop. Stay here. It’s probably nothing but I’ll go and make sure, just in case.”
“Okay, but come right back. Otherwise I’m coming to find you.”
“Yeah,” he said.
He stopped at the door and grabbed a broom leaning against the wall. It was something the landlord left as a message to renters to remember to clean up before leaving.
Stephen turned to her, shrugged, and gave her a thin smile. “If it’s a racoon, I’ll need something to beat him out with.”
Nadine returned the smile, but it felt thin.
He left the room.
Nadine saw the hallway light come on. She drew up the covers close to her body, and waited for her husband to come back, straining to hear anything moving outside.
If they were anywhere other than the middle of fucking nowhere, he wouldn’t have let his imagination run as wild as it was as he climbed down the stairs.
The first floor of the cabin wasn’t even that dark, it was more like everything had taken on a purple hue rather than black darkness. But in the back of his mind was the fact that he and Nadine were likely the only people within miles of this place.
I shouldn’t have agreed to this damn trip, he thought, but then another wave of guilt crashed into him. He’d been a bad husband. A terrible husband, actually. He had no basis to complain about his wife’s attempt to save their marriage. Stephen let these guilt-ridden thoughts take over his mind. In some ways they were better than the uncertainty of what he would find out downstairs. The guilt he was at least familiar with.
He reached the bottom of the stairs and flipped a switch on the wall. The old-fashioned lamps flooded the living room with light. He saw the front door was closed tight.
Lights on. Door closed. He got his bearings back.
What he’d said to Nadine before leaving the room was probably right, it might’ve been a racoon or some other animal trying to get in.
Hopefully nothing bigger than that, he thought, relaxing. He loosened his grip on the broomstick.
Now that he was back to normal, he noticed his mouth was dry. He figured he may as well grab some refreshments while he was down here and started for the kitchen.
He went down the short corridor, made the bend around the wall that put him in the kitchen doorway…and stopped when he saw the refrigerator was open. Light spilled out, revealing someone standing in front of it, partially blocked by the fridge door and partially hidden in the shadows.
His toes went cold. No else should be here except him and his wife.
“H-hello, can I help you?” he asked. Maybe it was the landlord. Maybe someone else was renting a cabin up here and got the wrong place. Yeah. That must be it.
“Hello?” Stephen asked again, louder this time. Thinking the person might not have heard him over the noise of them clattering around the beer cans and foodstuffs they’d stocked in from the cooler.
The rummaging stopped, and the unexpected visitor froze. Stephen had been reaching for the light switch on the wall, but now he froze too, fear creeping in as he waited for what this intruder would do next.
For a few breaths, neither moved.
Then, the man rose up, holding the fridge door open, still lost in the shadows.
“Hello!”
“Uh… Yeah. I’m sorry, but you can’t…can I help you? Who are you?”
“Shh,” the person—a man—said to him, raising a finger to his lips.
Stephen threw his hand out to the wall, slapping the light switch on.
What he saw twisted his stomach in knots.
The guy’s face was dry and cracked. Patches of it were peeling off like old wallpaper. The eyes, dark as obsidian, were set too far back into their sockets.
With his next breath he realized that it wasn’t the man’s face he was looking at. No, no. It was a face, but a face over a face. A mask. One that looked like it was made from actual flesh. No matter how he much he tried he couldn’t shake the idea that this intruder into their cabin was wearing someone else’s skin.
