A Fourth to Remember

Arnold Lake, 2018. Everyone was there. It was the ten year anniversary of the One Way Inn. We were partying to celebrate how much we had partied over the decade. There was a band which was fun, and everyone was giddy with alcohol and people to talk to. And we were celebrating a very special place for the lot of us. Uncle Eric gave my brother Adam a mason jar of moonshine, which he drank way too much of (all of it, maybe?).

Once the party started to teeter off into the night and folks began their stumble home, we decided to go for a midnight walk around the lake. Cory, Adam, Randi, Charity, Jordan, and myself stepped off on the adventure together. It was a new moon, so there was absolutely no light. When we walked, we couldn’t see the difference between the trees and the clear path ahead; it all blended into one impenetrable darkness. We had to follow the stars between the trees to stay to the path. Every noise in the dark was a jump and clench on someone’s shoulder.

It was quite the opportunity for a scare so, sticking to character, my brother Cory drunkenly stumbled his way into the woods, slinking behind the group to spook us with strange noises somewhere close but unseen in the darkness. It worked the first time or two, but we quickly realized that it was Cory. Before we could scold him and make him rejoin the group, he was lost in the woods by himself. (I think he got bit by a yellow sack spider that night, too. I remember his ankle bulging for a few days that trip.) And also by then, Adam decided he would have some fun.

I think he got lost immediately.

So it was me, Charity, and Randi clinging to each other in the dark. Jordan was there too, but I don’t remember much of his part in this whole thing except at the very end.

We went back and forth a bit about whether or not we should be worried for Cory and Adam, and if we should let them drunkenly stumble around the woods alone at night. Eventually, we decided we would walk around the lake and see if they were back at the cabin. So we did. They weren’t there. We got in the car, and Jordan drove us nearly all the way back around. Standing on the side of the road only a handful of lots away from the Red Camp where we stayed was Cory and Adam, shirtless (for whatever reason) and staring blankly at a small white house on the hill.

Jorden pulled up the truck. I got out of the car, and asked Cory what the hell they were doing. He turned to me, and a crazed look glazed over his eyes.

He went off with fervor about how this was an old abandoned cabin that used to belong in our family but hasn’t been owned by anyone in a really long time. Uncle Eric was telling him about it at some point that trip.

“So?” I asked.

“So! It’s abandoned. Look!”

I looked up at the house, and, sure, it could use a repaint and maybe a deck job, but it wasn’t in bad shape. There was a light source that I could see, and from the way it shone it looked like a candle.

“Well go up and have a look then,” I said to them, encouraging either brother that would take the bait.

Adam did. He walked up the wooden steps built into the hill to reach the house, and when he got to the top he froze. Then, he turned around, pale as a ghost, and sprinted down the hill. He ran several yards past Jordan’s truck. Then he stammered about whatever it was he saw — I either don’t remember what he said or there wasn’t anything to remember.

We got back to the Red Camp to talk about what we saw and come up with a plan. The back and forth dissolved to the most likely possibility (forgoing the supernatural): that if it was anything, it was probably squatters inside that supposed-to-be-abandoned cabin. And that cabin used to be in our distant family’s! We wouldn’t stand for it.

Adam and Cory riled each other up as brothers do, and one (maybe both) of them grabbed a wiffle ball bat. Randi and Jordan tagged along, probably to be the parents of the group, and Charity said fuck it and went to bed.

I just wanted to see what would happen.

We started walking toward this cabin that we’re about to fight “squatters” in, and I’m looking at it coming closer. Still a dozen meters down from the cabin in question, Jordan shone his light into the woods revealing a rickety old shack once painted white.

“Um,” he says. He stops walking and keeps the light on the house. “Guys, isn’t that the abandoned old cabin?”

Cory looked up into the woods where Jordan shone his light, and I really wish I had a better view of his face in this moment.

“Yeah,” he says, bobbing his head with enthusiasm. “Isn’t that the one we’re talking about?”

I fell to my knees with tears running down my cheeks from laughter. I think I peed.

Imagine if Jordan hadn’t shone his light on the real abandoned cabin. Adam and Cory would be trying to exonerate a couple assault charges for attacking innocent people in their own home with wiffle ball bats.

A drastically different ending it could have been.