Welcome to the fifth chapter of Sunday Shorts, your weekly dose of fictional short stories written by yours truly. If you missed the others, you can read the archives here. This story idea comes from Reddit’s r/nosleep: a place for authors to share horror stories. This is the first part of a three-part series.
If you’re reading this, please send help—immediately. I’m lost in a cabin with my fiancé and daughter somewhere in the Sam Houston National Forest. Our last known coordinates were 30.633100, -95.243397. We’ve since traveled due west about three miles before we stumbled on this abandoned cabin. We have no food or water. My phone’s battery is almost dead and there’s next to no cell signal.
God, I hope this message goes through…
We’ve been stuck in the forest for hours now. I’ve tried like hell to get us out, but the path that led us here is gone. Whatever way we take out now leads us directly back to the cabin. I know that sounds crazy, and it’s driving me fucking mad. Sorry—I shouldn’t use that language. It’s just…this was supposed to be a relaxing day hiking through the forest that ended with me proposing to my girlfriend, Erin, with our six-year-old daughter, Ella, by our side.
It started fine. The late afternoon sun hid behind the trees drowning out the Texas heat. We hiked for two miles with the buzzing bees and singing birds to a secluded spot on the bank of Lake Livingston. I packed a picnic dinner of homemade lasagna, extra cheesy, and Caesar salad, extra croutons—all Erin’s favorite. I trusted Ella to hold the engagement ring in her pink Barbie doll fanny pack, quite the responsibility for a six-year-old, but she’s always acted older and wiser than her age.
After we ate dinner, the sky faded into a burnt orange with fiery red clouds as the golden sun rested on the treetops, casting the perfect sunset as Ella slipped the ring into my back pocket, like we had rehearsed at home so many times at home. Once she tapped me on the shoulder, I knelt down on the sandy shore with Ella by my side and asked Erin to spend the rest of her life with us. When she tearfully said yes, the three of us hugged there on the lakeshore as the cicadas sang their evening songs. It felt as nothing could ruin our perfect little evening.
Good things only last so long.
Erin grabbed my hand as we started our hike back to the truck. I felt her fingers fiddling with her engagement ring, like a tongue that can’t help but run itself across a set of freshly clean teeth after the dentist. I squeezed her hand three times, our secret way of saying I love you. Ella ran ahead chasing fireflies.
Thinking back, I have to admit I felt the hairs on my neck perk up, almost like something was watching us. It was getting dark under the treetops, and even though I’d walked this trail dozens of times I felt myself losing my sense of direction. A loud rumble roared in the distance and a breeze blew a chilled air through the swaying trees. A distant howl followed. Coyotes, I told myself. I quickened our pace.
What should have been a thirty-minute hike back at the most turned into forty-five minutes…then an hour. I could feel Erin’s apprehension that something might be wrong, but she didn’t ask. Ella was too preoccupied chasing fireflies to notice. Hell, I didn’t want to admit it myself. What kind of man gets his family lost in the woods? I let Erin and Ella walk ahead and pulled out my phone to search the park map. No service. Of course.
I flicked on my phone’s flashlight to search for any signs or trees or markings that looked at all familiar, hoping to get any sense of my bearings, but the light was hardly powerful enough to cast light more than a foot off the trail. I glanced ahead for the girls.
“Erin! Ella!” I yelled. “Where are you?”
Nothing.
Chirping crickets grew louder, as if to warn each other of the danger nearby.
“Erin!” my voice pierced through the trees. Finally, a voice came from ahead.
“Here! Here! We’re here. Sorry. Little miss Ella had to go potty,” Erin said, her soft voice nearly drowned out by the crunching leaves and broken branches.
“Daddy, I peed in the forest!” Ella exclaimed proudly.
“Way to go! You’re on your way to becoming a true outdoorswoman.”
“Just like you, Daddy!”
I hesitated. Not hardly, little girl. Let me get out of this mess first.
“Miles…” Erin finally said, a strong dose of hesitation in her voice. “Don’t you think it’s time we get home?”
Yes, it is, I wanted to tell her, but we’re lost. Not exactly the vote of confidence I was hoping for this early in the engagement. But I couldn’t lie. Clearly, I had no idea where we were going. Clearly, it was getting dark. Clearly, I needed to come clean.
“Listen, we must have taken a wrong turn, and I’m not exactly sure where we are,” I finally said out loud.
I looked at Ella who was chasing fireflies, too embarrassed to look Erin in the eyes. She must have sensed my despair anyway because she perked up with an energy that made everything feel like it was going to be okay. I loved that about her: her can-do attitude that we can solve anything together.
“Okay, well let’s figure this out. We can backtrack, right? We can follow the path back to the lake and start over. Have you checked the map on your phone?”
“I have. No service.”
“Damn. I was afraid of that.”
She pulled out her phone. It was dead.
“Okay, so we backtrack to the lake. Think you can get us back there?”
“Maybe…I’m not quite sure where we are, to be honest.”
“Well, we’ve followed the trail this far without any turns so how hard could it be? Let’s go.” She grabbed my hand and squeezed it three times.
I wanted to share her enthusiasm, but something didn’t feel right: the air was cooling quickly; through the treetops, I could see lightning flashes an ominous white glow through the graying sky; and as we walked through the mighty oaks whose branches looked like strong arms that would snatch us up at any moment, I felt as if something was hiding in the shadows, watching our every step.
The path felt like it was a miles-long circle on a road to nowhere. Ella grew tired asked to ride on my back. It wasn’t long before I heard her little snores rumbling in my ear. Erin kept up the pace, but it was getting dark and we both were getting tired. I periodically checked my phone hoping to hold a bar long enough to call the park rangers. Our luck was dwindling by the second: we had no service, we were losing light, we were flat out lost in a national forest. How had such a perfect evening come to this?
By a stroke of luck, the trees finally opened and we reached a clearing where the heavy trees gave way to an open field that showed an oddly bright gray sky for it being 9:18 at night. The field was filled with tall grass and almost a perfect oval carved out in the dense trees.
Sitting in the middle of the wild brush there was an old cabin. It littered with broken boards and dusty windows, but if we were going to be lost in the middle of the forest then maybe it was our lone chance for hope for the night. I looked at Erin.
“Do you see that?” I asked.
“You can’t be serious…”
“What choice do we have? We’ve been walking for hours. Ella is asleep. We’re exhausted.”
“Miles, we are not staying here. Look at this place.”
As we walked closer, we saw the dirt-caked windows. Cobwebs filled the front porch.
“What choice do we have? We’re lost, Erin. What are we going to do?”
“Keep walking. We could be five minutes from the truck.”
“Erin!” I said, my voice rising in anger. I was frustrated, angry at myself for putting us in this position. “We’re lost. We’re tired. We need to rest. We can start our search back tomorrow.”
“What if someone lives here?”
“Look at this place. When do you think the last person stayed here?”
We walked up the creaky wooden steps. The red paint had struggled to hold on to the aging wood around the patio. The wooden door, if you could call it such a thing, barely hung to the doorframe.
“Hello!” I shouted, opening the dinky door. “Is anyone in here? My family and I…we’re lost and needing a place to stay.”
There was silence. The dusty smell of stale dirt struck my nose. Erin sneezed. Ella, the poor tired girl, kept snoozing on my back. We walked into what appeared to once be a living room. The graying clouds shined enough light to showcase the cabin, casting lights on spider webs that reached the floor to the bowing ceiling. A decrepit red couch rested against the far wall. A fireplace filled with spiders held two untouched logs on a rusted iron grate. A darkened hallway led back to what appeared to be two rooms.
“Hello!” I shouted again. “Anyone here?”
A gust of wind blew and slammed the front door shut. Branches scraped against the outdoor windows. I won’t lie…it scared the shit out of me. Erin grabbed onto my arm; Ella finally woke up.
“Daddy, where are we?” she asked.
“A cabin, little girl. We’re staying here for the night.”
“Daddy, it looks yucky in here.” She squeezed my neck tighter.
Erin found an old oil lamp sitting on a wooden table sitting next to the couch. “What are the odds you think this works?” she asked.
“Unlikely based on our luck,” I said, tossing her a lighter.
Sure enough, the damned thing lit right up.
Spiders and cockroaches ran across the wooden floor as the light cast throughout the room. As we made our way through the house, a long bang echoed from the front door.
BANG! BANG! BANG!
I froze. Erin stared at me with the widest eyes I’d ever seen. Ella had a vice grip on my leg.
“Miles…” she whispered. “What do we do?”
BANG! BANG! BANG!
“W—who’s there…” my voice quivered.
BANG! BANG! BANG!
Erin slowly walked to the window.
“MILES!” she screamed. “HE’S GOT A GUN!”
“Take Ella to the bedroom,” I said, nearly throwing her off my leg towards Erin.
I pulled out my phone that struggled to hold a signal, the battery hanging at one percent…
I’m not a spiritual man, but I said a prayer.
“God, please let this message go through…”
About This Story
If you’ve never visited Reddit’s r/nosleep, a subreddit dedicated to horror stories, it’s a wonderful place to spend a lazy Sunday getting lost in some really phenomenal stories. Part of the schtick is that the author of each story must remain in character, so to speak, in the comments and with all replies, which really adds to the authenticity of the scare.
Credits This Week
IF YOU’RE READING THIS, PLEASE SEND HELP (PART I) was written by me, Matt Keyser. The podcast was voiced and edited by me, too; music and sounds courtesy of Patrick Lieberkind, various_splatbot, ffmaer, Tritus, burghrecords, michael-db, sagetyrtle, junkfood2121, lextrack, sonidosreales, nosebleed-cinema, soundsforhim, soundscapes55, larradle, daboy291, and nachtmahrvtv of freesound.org.
Must Reads
Ted The Caver: (HIGHLY RECOMMEND!) This story follows the journey of Ted, a cave explorer who, in 2000, embarks on an adventure into a place he only describes as Mystery Cave with a friend to explore beyond a tiny hole. “Not a spectacular cave, but since neither of us had been caving in awhile it would be nice to go to any cave,” he wrote in his journal that chronicled the expedition extensively. He includes pictures and even illustrations of the cave. What starts off as an innocent caving expedition turns into anything terrifying adventure of a man who goes too far.
Something walks whistling past my house every night at 3:03: Everyone who lives in this unnamed neighborhood has the blessing of good fortunes: winning radio contests; getting a big, unexpected promotion at work; or, in the author’s case, her little sister surviving the early days of life against all the odds. But it comes with one big stipulation: don’t look outside when the whistler walks past your house. If you’re new to r/nosleep, here’s a good dose to get you started.
ICYMI
An excerpt from last week’s Sunday Short:
“You have to help me,” it said.
It must have sensed my confusion.
“Your daughter is a monster.”
My daughter? Sweet Emily, the nicest, most caring girl I’d ever met?
Read: MY DAUGHTER — THE MONSTER?
Thank you for reading this chapter of Sunday Shorts. I’ll catch y’all next week with part two of IF YOU’RE READING THIS, PLEASE HELP ME.
Cheers! 🍻
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