text: [Themes: horror, horror]
  
  Bill Ingersoll
  
  © 2020 All Rights Reserved / Published October 2020 / Photos by the author
  
  > BEGIN
  Many miles away there's a shadow on the door
  
  Of a cottage on the shore
  
  Of a dark Scottish lake—
  
  —Many miles away.
  
  —— The Police——
  
  > Next page.
  
  > Next page.
  he last thing either of you expected to find at this remote lake was a cabin.
  
  "Are you sure we're still on state land?" Amy says.
  
  There is doubt in her voice — not in the existence of the structure, because obviously there it is about a hundred feet away. The accusation behind her question is that you've strayed off your intended course and made an unplanned detour onto someone's private preserve.
  
  But you know better than to be baited by that; the two of you have hiked so deep into the Adirondack wilderness that there is no private property to wander into. "No, this is Shingle Shanty Lake," you say, "right where the GPS app says it should be."
  
  "I thought there weren't supposed to be any cabins on state land, though." Your girlfriend is clearly tired and short of patience; it has been a long hike, with the threat of rain looming closer. Both of you had known you'd need to find shelter soon, or be caught outside in a potentially torrential downpour, therefore the last few miles had been completed under pressure to finish as early as possible. The stress of the last hour is now reflected in her tone.
  
  That being said, Amy does have a point about the cabin. "There's not supposed to be," you agree.
  
  "What does your phone say?" Amy says, referring to the GPS-enabled hiking app you've been using to navigate.
  
  With your thumb you activate the screen. You already know what it says, so you extend the phone toward her so she can see for herself.
  
  "It just says there is a lake at the foot of Deadman Mountain," you explain. "And here we are."
  
  The lake is just a short distance away from where you're standing, but so far it has barely captured your attention; the unmarked spur trail that led you here, and which had clearly once been an old driveway, has brought you first to the edge of the clearing where the old camp stands unexpectedly. This is hardly some rustic old log cabin of the kind Abe Lincoln might call home, though: it is sided with evenly-cut lumber, painted a mineral shade of red, with square cinder blocks forming the chimney. It is a humble but otherwise modern structure, made with materials bought from a lumberyard.
  
  Amy barely glances at your phone; all day she's been more than happy to critique your choice in routes for this year's big October backpacking trip, but she clearly did no research of her own. You know perfectly well she has been merely following your lead, indulging your desire to spend the long weekend on a forty-mile loop through the wilderness. Her only requirements, vaguely stated and implicitly understood, were that this trip be an escape from current affairs: at no time should an antiviral face mask be required, and never should the word "trump" be uttered unless someone is playing a game of Pitch.
  
  Nevertheless, ever since the two of you left her old, black Jeep Liberty back at the Deep Creek trailhead seven hours ago, she has been letting you know the many subtle ways your choices have been disappointing her. And to be fair, the first ten miles of your planned loop have not been well maintained, and you have not seen any people since the hike began. "Social distancing" is one thing, but the complete absence of people is disturbing in ways you hadn't anticipated. Usually there are footprints in a wilderness trail, no matter how remote; this one, though, has seemed completely abandoned and forgotten, cluttered with fallen logs and overgrown with saplings. It gives you the impression you're the first two humans to venture this way in at least a year.
  
  Thus the presence of a cabin, however humble, seems all the more anticlimactic. You put your phone away to avoid draining the battery more than necessary.
  
  "Do you suppose anyone is here?" Amy says, shrugging under the weight of her Osprey backpack. You presume even this adjustment of her shoulders is intended as a rebuke: the two of you have been standing in this small meadow, overhung by a half-dead crabapple tree and shaded by the puniest of poplars, for several minutes, unsure of what to do or whether you should even be here.
  
  "I don't see any smoke coming out of that chimney," you say.
  
  The old driveway splits at the point where you're standing. The way to the left leads down to a spot where you can see a marshy corner of the lake. Right leads to the cabin, perched atop an open knoll. It is late afternoon, and this is the time of year when you need to continuously adjust to the ever-shortening days. Still, the clouds beyond the cabin to the west — the direction from which storms frequently pounce in the Adirondacks — are disturbingly dark. Rain is imminent.
  
  "Shall we go up and check out the cabin?" you say.
  
  "You mean go inside that thing?" Amy turns to you so you can see her disapproving expression, the furrowing of her long face framed by dark hair.
  
  "Sure," you say. "I mean, unless you want to stay out here and get wet when those clouds open up."
  
  "Isn't there a campsite or something?"
  
  "I don't know. I've never been here before."
  
  "We could look around," she says.
  
  "Yeah, but that's a pretty mean-looking shower slipping over that mountain," you say nodding toward Deadman, which rises like a black silhouette above the cabin. "And that roof looks pretty inviting right about now."
  
  Amy sighs but says nothing further. Again, it's a non-verbal signal that the sum of your plans so far today has led to this unsavory consequence.
  
  > Next page.
  Between the two of you, there is a reliable two-man tent at your disposal; its fly is rolled up near the top of her backpack, and yours contains its body and poles. If the threat of inundation weren't so immediate, then yes, the plan had been to scout out a place to set the tent up. After all, that's the standard operating procedure for any backpacking trip, especially at a lake where no state-maintained lean-tos are available. Being public land — protected under the aegis of a constitutional amendment no less — the presence of a cabin should be a legal impossibility. The fact that one exists here at a place named Shingle Shanty Lake makes even less sense, especially when this cabin is sided with dimensional lumber and roofed with metal sheeting, with not a shingle in sight.
  
  "We should at least check it out," you say.
  
  "I dunno. Maybe we could camp right here."
  
  You look around at this patch of open ground, where the untended driveway diverges. No vehicle has wheeled its way here in years, if not decades; the driveway is overrun with the browning stalks of goldenrod, already dying for the season. The ground beneath you is hard, and there is no sign anyone has camped here before. It is not the typical woodland campsite, shady and redolent with the sweet scent of balsam fir, you had anticipated for this region of the Adirondack Park.
  
  "Those clouds will be here before we get the tent set up," you say. "When the shower passes, we can look for a better place to camp then."
  
  Your girlfriend looks at you long enough to see the skeptical raising of her eyebrows. "Well all right then. Let's check out this cabin by the lake."
  
  You soon learn the cabin has three doors, not one of which seems frequently used; the path to the door closest to the cinder-block chimney is blocked by a knot of goldenrod and red-stemmed dogwood. A tall growth of weeds surrounds the entire structure, and upon closer inspection you discover the grounds are littered with pieces of hardware: rusted sections of plumbing, twisted bits of roofing, the shattered remains of a white plastic barrel (the original purpose of which is not immediately apparent). A section of sheet roofing, partly bent and spotted with patches of rust, lies flat on the ground, daring you to step on it to reach the side door. You don't discover the third entrance until you peep around the font corner of the cabin; it is gaping wide-open onto a weather-beaten deck, sagging unhealthily under its own weight.
  
  "It looks like somebody was tearing it down but then gave up," Amy observes.
  
  "They didn't get very far," you say.
  
  Curiosity compels you to see the inside of this place. You step gingerly across the sheet metal to the side door, which is accessed by two wooden steps. The first droops slightly when you place your weight on it. A storm door with an aluminum frame pulls freely outward, and the wooden door behind it offers no resistance when you gently push on it.
  
  "It's not locked," you say, although what you see inside is sure to skeeve your companion.
  
  Perhaps you came to this place seeking wild scenery and the primitive experience: wave-broken waters lapping at the foot of spruce-shrouded slopes, the last loons of the year wailing from distant corners, the smoke from burning maple infiltrating your flannel shirt. This cabin, though, is an unexpected curiosity, and despite its deplorable condition you are drawn to explore it. Without hesitation you cross the threshold, entering the ransacked remains of a bunk room. Four bunks still remain, with a pair each to your right and left, but pale spots on the floor and walls show where more once stood. Clothes hangers dangle uselessly from a bar, and the faux-pine wall paneling has been smashed as if by a sledgehammer.
  
  "Honey, you should see this," you call out, but so far Amy has declined to join you.
  
  A hall leads out of the bunk room, bisecting the cabin's floor plan. There were once rooms on either side, but now only bare two-by-four studs define the edges of these spaces: the room on your right was completely smashed, its floor now strewn with plaster, wood chips, a rotting tree branch, a bucket with a rusted-out bottom, and (most curiously) a decapitated water faucet from a bathtub. The room to the left was clearly once the kitchen, but only because the sink fixture remains. Whatever stove haunted this space in years-gone-past is now vanished; the sink itself is full of discarded hardware and rusted cooking utensils that will never again be washed.
  
  "George? Sweetie, you in here?"
  
  It's Amy's voice, coming from somewhere up ahead. You complete the trek down the hall, your boots grinding on pieces of shattered paneling. The passage ends at a large room occupying the entire far end of the cabin, capped by a floor-to-ceiling picture window overlooking a growth of young balsam trees. Two picnic tables mark the half of this room that once served as a communal dining area, and a ratty recliner marks the half that used to be the den. Beside the Naugahyde chair is an open door, and beyond lies the sagging deck you saw a few minutes ago. Amy is standing in the door frame, the dark clouds over Deadman Mountain behind her.
  
  "Isn't this place cool?" you say, kicking aside a piece of broken window glass.
  
  "Go to hell," Amy says.
  
  > Next page.
  Behind her you can hear an odd swishing sound as the approaching shower rushes across the lake. The storm that had been chasing you past the foot of the mountain is now making its lunge.
  
  "You better get in here!" you say. "Unless you want to get soaked."
  
  "There's moss growing on the floor!" Amy protests.
  
  "I'm not saying we make an offer to buy the place!"
  
  When the shower reaches the deck, she overcomes her last hesitation and steps into the large room with you. The door is wedged wide open behind her, and one of the windows has been shattered, but the walls seem sturdy enough to hold the watery beast at bay.
  
  "It smells dank!" she says.
  
  "Let's sit over here until the storm passes," you say, gesturing to the picnic table farthest from the door. Amy steps tentatively toward it, watching as you unbuckle your backpack and drop it gently onto the floor beside the table. She is about to do the same, but then stops mid-action.
  
  "Are those mouse turds?"
  
  "Probably," you say. "You can't expect absolute cleanliness. This is just a shelter."
  
  Amy is not buying it, but she looks around and sees there are few other options. She sees the smashed walls and all the debris strewn across the floors. "What is this place?"
  
  "Somebody's old hunting camp, I imagine."
  
  "But way out here?" she says, fishing her water bottle out of a side pocket of her pack. "And what happened? It looks like somebody took a sledgehammer to the place and then ran."
  
  Indeed, that seems as plausible an explanation as any. The storm outside is a real soaker, and though the cabin is disgusting and worthy of condemnation for any number of code violations, you're glad for the temporary convenience of its roof. Amy, of course, is seeing only the negative. This is the way your relationship has been for several months now: you thankful for what few lucky breaks you can find, your girlfriend of six years afflicted by a feedback loop of pessimism, as if doing everything in her power to drive a wedge between you, just to watch you squirm.
  
  "What happened to your leg?" you say.
  
  "My leg?"
  
  "Yeah. You're bleeding."
  
  She looks down and sees the two spots of blood soaking into her pant legs as if for the first time.
  
  "It looks like something bit you on the calf," you say, shuffling down the bench of the picnic table to be closer to her, negating the fact she intentionally seemed to put a few feet between you when she sat down herself.
  
  "I can't imagine what," she says, lifting up her pant leg to examine the skin underneath. Something has pricked her twice, less than an inch apart.
  
  "Looks like a snake bite," you say.
  
  "What snakes? It's too cold this time of year. Right?"
  
  She rubs the spot, smearing the blood with her fingertips.
  
  "Does it hurt?" you say.
  
  "No."
  
  "That's odd."
  
  "I have no idea what could've done this." She drops the hem of the pant leg, dismissing the wound. "Wait— I hear water dripping. Does this roof leak?"
  
  You hear the sound too — not the splashing of water hitting water, like a bucket placed as a quick remedy to a pesky leak, but the dull thud of water falling on a flat, wooden surface. And almost as soon as you notice this sound, the trickle becomes a continuous stream waterfalling onto the patch of moss on the floor. It is not difficult to find the source: above the moss is a gaping hole in the ceiling, revealing the roof rafters above.
  
  "There's hole in the roof about the size of a grapefruit," you report, craning your head under the collapsed portion of the ceiling and seeing the breach above the rafters.
  
  "That figures," Amy says.
  
  "At least it's dry where we're sitting."
  
  "I hate this place."
  
  You don't respond; it was only by chance you found this cabin, and you claim no responsibility for its condition. Amy's complaints aside, seeking refuge in here is infinitely better than trying to set up the tent in the middle of a downpour.
  
  Loath to return to her side, not in her current mood, you decide to inspect your surroundings more. The first place to draw your attention is a shelf beside the picture window, just beyond the indoor waterfall.
  
  "This is quite the collection of whiskey bottles," you say, stepping carefully around the puddle on the floor.
  
  "I don't suppose any of them are full?" Amy says, rummaging inside her pack for something, not looking at you.
  
  "Nope. Bone dry," you say. "But recent — not nearly as grody as anything else I've seen so far. Do you suppose someone else has been here?"
  
  "Like who?"
  
  "I don't know. Somebody must know about this place besides us; maybe hunters come here."
  
  "I would think hunters would have higher standards than this."
  
  "Some people would find this place kind of cool," you say. "To them it would be like a giant lean-to."
  
  "Men are gross, then," she says, pulling out a wool sweater and holding it carefully so it doesn't touch any part of her surroundings before she pulls it over her head.
  
  You ignore the taunt, wishing to do anything but argue now, not this weekend. This was supposed to be four days of happiness, maybe even a resurrection of the glory days when the two of you felt comfortable in each other's company and eagerly sought out adventures such as this. You watch her putting on the sweater, but when she sees you she looks crossly back at you, as if you are invading her privacy. Instead, you look for something else to occupy your curiosity.
  
  The diversion your attention settles upon turns out to be yet another room, this one a small closet-sized space near the picnic tables. The floor is cluttered with debris, leaving no room to stand. But there is a mirror affixed to the wall, edged in chrome, and the shattered remains of a porcelain toilet.
  
  "Do you remember the comedian Gallagher?" you say.
  
  "Who?" Amy says from her spot on the picnic table bench.
  
  "You should look him up on YouTube."
  
  "Um, sure." The flatness of her response seems calculated to you, like she is intentionally resisting your efforts to pique her curiosity.
  
  "He used to smash things on stage, as part of his act," you say. "He called it the 'Sledge-O-Matic' or something. Judging by the looks of this toilet, Gallagher's been here for sure."
  
  Nothing else you've said so far has provoked much of a reaction, but Amy's eyes widen at this news.
  
  "So where am I supposed to go?" she says plaintively.
  
  > Next page.
  s it turns out, Amy meant this as a serious, pressing concern.
  
  At the mention of the toilet, which sat in pulverized pieces inside what had apparently once been the bathroom, she professed an immediate need to use just such a facility.
  
  This one hadn't been usable for some time, you pointed out.
  
  But hadn't you seen an outhouse? she asked, her voice almost imploring you to give the correct answer.
  
  You hadn't noticed, but if this place had running water back in its heyday, why would they need an outhouse?
  
  But she needed to go now, she insisted.
  
  You weren't exactly sure what it was she wanted from you.
  
  Her needs couldn't wait, though, and with a huff she fished out her toiletry bag from the top of her pack. She informed you she was heading out into the rain to take care of business, and her tone suggested you were somehow to blame. You sat beside your two packs on the picnic table bench, watching her don her rain jacket and venture down the hall toward the remains of the bunk room. The aluminum storm door banged shut behind her, the looseness of the sound suggesting a lack of tension on its spring.
  
  This was nearly half an hour ago now, and there has been no sign of Amy since then. Obviously, you are growing concerned — even despite her attitude problems of late. There was a time you loved her, and she seemed to return the favor without placing barriers between you. There was even a time when a situation like this — taking shelter from a fall shower inside a creepy cabin in the woods — would've been a shared adventure. Your girlfriend may now act like your relationship has grown toxic, yet she clings on; as for yourself, the best you can do is coast on the inertia of your love and hope your patience wins her back.
  
  You had hoped the shower would just be a passing thing: coming, going, and then allowing you to enjoy a peaceful night in the woods as intended. It might be convenient to spread out the sleeping bags on some dry corner of the floor, but clearly Amy wouldn't consent to such a plan. Not that it couldn't work: you've been pacing the cabin while you wait for Amy to return, and while the ceiling in that one corner has collapsed, and while you've found another section of ceiling in the bunk room that has become discolored by moisture, there is plenty of dryness elsewhere. The picnic tables, for instance.
  
  Amy's failure to return, however, is puzzling. It's not like she chose now to just abandon you and walk away from your relationship: this lake is too remote, and she left her pack on the picnic table bench. All she took with her was a bag containing a weekend's rationing of toilet paper and some hand sanitizer. This leaves other, no less disturbing options: Is she sick? Did something happen to her? Your imagination conjures an image of Amy tumbling headfirst into some ancient well she never saw in the darkness.
  
  The course of your nervous pacing brings you to the old deck and its soft, weather-beaten boards. The rain is beating against it, abating somewhat but still a solid shower; you step out onto the deck anyway to see if there is any information that can be gleaned from it.
  
  Once this might've been a scenic spot, with views across Shingle Shanty Lake in two directions. The cabin was built on a knoll high above the water, at a spot that had probably been chosen for its view. Deadman Mountain rises to the west, its spruce-forested top raking the dark clouds and perhaps teasing more rain out of them; turning ninety degrees to the left, you can see the peaked silhouette of Cloudcap Mountain several miles away. Only a few glimpses of the lake itself can be seen in either direction, though; in the years since this camp has been abandoned, the balsam trees edging the knoll have shot upwards to obscure the views.
  
  More importantly, however, is the fact there is no sign of Amy from this deck. And if she doesn't return soon, then it may be too dark to find her way back.
  
  You step back inside the cabin before the rain has a chance to seep into your clothing. The two backpacks are still sitting next to each other on the picnic table, currently enjoying a greater measure of closeness than the people who should be bearing them. You have been resisting the temptation to open your pack, knowing you should be ready to leave this place the moment Amy returns and the rain lets up. The fear, though, is that by then it might be too dark to seek out a proper campsite: Amy's own delay may force you to stay here, the one option she'll want to refuse outright.
  
  In fact, the daylight has already grown quite dim. Maybe you don't want to preemptively unpack, but you are going to need your headlamp. As you paw through the upper pouch in your pack you hear footsteps across the panel of sheet metal outside the bunk room door. Finally! Amy is returning.
  
  But the door never opens.
  
  You stretch the headlamp around your skull and turn toward the cruddy hallway, slowly stepping down toward the bunk room. The wooden door was left open, only the storm door closed when Amy left, and this is what you find now. Being careful not to step on one of the exposed nails left carelessly behind when the bunks were ripped out, you step up to the door and crack it open.
  
  "Amy? You out there?"
  
  There is no response other than the tapering rain and the sound of a roaring stream somewhere in the distant wilderness.
  
  "Honey, is everything OK?"
  
  Nothing.
  
  But you are certain that you heard something a moment ago, and that it wasn't just some chipmunk or field mouse. Is Amy playing some kind of prank on you? If so, it would be completely out of character for her; she never has been the type for jokes.
  
  > go outside and look for Amy.
  You push the storm door open the rest of the way so you can step outside and try to track down Amy. Your leading foot makes contact with the first of the two wooden steps...
  
  But the rain has made the surface slick, and your boot slips off into space before you can steady it. Your hand clings onto the door handle like it were a lifeline, and you attempt to shift your weight back onto your other foot, the one still inside the bunk room, before you completely lose your balance. It's too late, however: the momentum of the slip is carrying you forward, and when your good foot stumbles you begin a butt-first plummet down the steps. The palm of your hand snags on the handle before gravity wrenches it from your grasp, just as your tailbone collides with the first riser. You can feel the board bouncing under your weight, but it stops shy of snapping apart altogether.
  
  You remain frozen for a full three seconds as if to confirm the fall is over. Then pain asserts itself on your consciousness: a serious bruise at the base of your spine, and a cut on your hand you're not even sure you want to look at. The moisture trickling down your palm might be rain, or it might be blood.
  
  Gently you rise from your unplanned seat, unsure of how well your body will cooperate. To your relief, though, and despite the sharp discomfort you feel, no bones seem to be broken; indeed, it might be best to keep moving and forget the bruising pain inflicted on your tailbone. You gently open the hand that had been injured on the door handle; the pad of soft skin below your fingers has been scraped raw by the door, but not lacerated. There will be no need to amputate, you try to joke to yourself. It's not funny, though.
  
  So is this what happened to Amy? Did she slip and fall on these same steps, injuring herself worse than you? And is she now stuck in the rainy woods, too lame to return on her own? It's as good a theory as any, but for one flaw: When Amy left the cabin, there was no commotion other than the slamming of the storm door.
  
  If there was a problem, though, wouldn't Amy want to be found? Even if you can't see her, she must be within earshot.
  
  "Amy? Are you all right?" You listen for a response, but there isn't one.
  
  "Amy? Sweetheart?"
  
  The darkening woods are your only answer, water dripping from branches that just a few weeks ago were still heavy with leaves.
  
  This is so not right. It is like your girlfriend were never here, like you had been imagining her presence the entire day. Or like she had been here, but now she has simply vanished. You're sure those were footsteps you heard a moment ago, the sound that first drew you to the bunk room door; not the pitter-patter of little paws, but something larger, with a deliberate pace — at least for the two noisy steps the walker made across the piece of metal roofing lying prone before you.
  
  Or was it just your imagination? Because now that you are standing out here, with nothing to account for what you heard, you no longer feel so sure. Maybe instead of tracking ghosts around the cabin, you should focus your search a little more directly.
  
  To take care of the "business" Amy needed to do, she would usually find a private spot in the woods — screened from view, but not far away. Looking around in the dim evening light, there is an opening in the trees across the yard. Is something stirring over there, or is it just the sound of waves on the shoreline?
  
  > search the area immediately surrounding the cabin.
  You can't easily dismiss those sounds you heard: two distinct footfalls across the metal, matching the steps an adult human would make. But then nothing afterward, though, other than your own painful crash. The more time passes since you heard those steps, the more your overactive imagination wants to read additional details into the memory of them: were they going right-to-left, or left-to-right? Coming or going? Approaching the cabin or moving away? You know better than to dwell on any of these false analyses; the more you think about them, the more tainted the memory becomes.
  
  Nevertheless, it is the only concrete clue you have to work with, especially since Amy seems unwilling — or unable — to respond.
  
  There is still just enough daylight to see your way around the cluttered and overgrown yard surrounding the camp, but you'd appreciate the additional clarity offered by the LED bulb strapped to your forehead. You reach up and flick on your headlamp; a small spotlight shoots out into the drizzle, raking the tops of the dead goldenrod.
  
  "Amy, I know you're here," you say, scanning the yard with your little beam of battery-powered light. "Just talk to me. Pretend you still like me."
  
  The silence seems deliberate now, as if this were a game of Hide-and-Seek that she is dragging out for too long a time, for reasons you can't even begin to figure out. The weakening rain shower is still the noisiest thing out here, the drops pelting gently the metal roofs of both the camp and a nearby lean-to shed. An owl calls from somewhere across the lake: Who cooks for you? Who cooks for you A-A-A-ALL! A barred owl, uttering its long-familiar syllables.
  
  "Amy, this isn't funny!"
  
  The sound of something rustling behind you startles you, but when you spin around all that you see are a trio of yellow-brown leaves falling into the weeds.
  
  Get a grip, George!
  
  You can feel the bruise on your tailbone setting in, and moving around might help dissipate that pain. And besides, whatever you heard is no longer standing on this piece of sheet metal — only you. Earlier, Amy had entered the cabin through the open door overlooking the deck, so you decide to circle around that way, nearly tripping over a coil of cable partially obscured by the weeds. This time you catch yourself, but heaven knows what you might've landed on had you fallen again.
  
  The deck is just as empty as it was when you last saw it. No steps lead up to it from the ground; to enter the cabin, Amy must've hoisted herself up on her hands. The structure comes to about waist level on you; the boards look eroded by the weathering process, the smooth finish chipped away by too many years of exposure to both sun and snow, the grain of the wood now forming raised ridges in the gray surfaces. The nails that held them all together are beginning to pop out, the heads now an eighth of an inch above the wood.
  
  Still, there is no sign of your girlfriend — or anything else, for that matter. Maybe you're just chasing the paranoid fantasies of your worried brain.
  
  > go back inside the cabin.
  The only thing you're going to get out here is wet: the rain is dampening your shoulders, and even the short trek around the corner of the cabin through the brush is soaking your hiking pants. And if for some strange reason Amy is playing games with you, then you're already losing just by wandering around like a fool. Maybe you don't know where she is, but she should certainly know where you are. Perhaps the best option is just to sit tight and let her come to you, in her own good time.
  
  You back up against the deck and place both your hands on its edge, preparing to scoot yourself up onto it. As soon as you place your weight on your palms, though, your scraped-up hand objects painfully: you can feel one of the rusted nail heads irritating the wound. You can't complete the motion fast enough, and in your haste the seat of your pants snags on a nail of its own. The pocket is half ripped off before disengaging with the nail.
  
  Well this sucks!
  
  Stepping carefully back into the cabin, avoiding the remaining nails as well as the broken glass, you reach back to assess the damage to your pants. An expensive pair of clothing, ruined by an inch-long gash in your behind. Add this to the persistent ache to the base of your spine, as well as the raw burning sensation on your hand, and this has clearly not been your best ten minutes.
  
  It occurs to you that it might be wise to clean up the scrape on your hand, especially considering the contact the shallow wound just made with the rusty nail head. There ought to be something in your first aid kit you can use, and the activity of tending to yourself might be a healthy distraction from your concerns.
  
  Then your headlight beam falls upon the picnic tables, revealing a startling development.
  
  The backpacks have been shredded. Both of them, sliced in the way you might cut into a baked potato, random contents strewn across the floor, including the down stuffing from at least one sleeping bag. It is like she took a knife to the packs and hacked at them in a wild frenzy, occasionally missing and slicing the table instead. All in the few minutes you had been outside looking for her.
  
  This is going too far — beyond a practical joke to the realm of vindictiveness! What the hell has gotten into that head of hers? What could you have possibly said or done to her to warrant this kind of treatment?
  
  "Amy, this is no longer funny!" you shout at the walls. "I'm tired and hungry, and I feel like crap! Now get back in here and let's behave like adults again!"
  
  At first you think there is once again going to be no response, that you are shouting in vain to someone who has decided to stop speaking to you. Then you notice the third door to the cabin, the one located in the smashed-up kitchen. It had looked securely shut when you first inspected the place, but it is now swinging open — as though it has been recently used. There must be wooden steps there, too, because right now something is walking down them, causing the wood to creak in sequence.
  
  No one speaks, though. The only sound is a soft, beastly grunt — and for the first time it occurs to you this might not be Amy you've been trying to find.
  
  With a chill vibrating through your body, you turn off the headlamp. Then you step around the wall of bare studs into the trashy remains of the kitchen, no longer certain what you're going to find. Spiteful girlfriend acting on some long-festering grudge? Mysterious stranger trying to spook the witless intruder? Black bear absconding with a pair of untended backpacks full of food?
  
  Entering the room, the cluttered sink is straight ahead, with a wall to the left that hadn't been completely smashed when this place was abandoned. A garden rake dangles from the sheetrock, its metal teeth embedded in the plaster surface, and a mouse-eaten box of Triscuits sits in a pile of scrap wood below. A word has been scrawled in capital letters across the wall, below the rake:
  
  The letters are black scratches, as if written with charcoal. You have no idea what it could possibly mean — or whether it was even there the first time you examined this room.
  
  But does it matter? Whatever you heard descending those steps is now moving away through the brush outside the door!
  
  > grab the rake, in case you need to defend yourself.
  Nothing about this situation seems right, and regardless of who (or what) is out there, this intruder has destroyed your backpacks — and maybe even inflicted harm on Amy. You have no choice but to follow, but you're not about to do so without the rake in hand. It might not be an axe or a shotgun, but it's the closest thing to a weapon you can find.
  
  The garden rake looks solid, certainly more intimidating than any of the broken kitchen knives left behind in the dry sink. You grab the long wooden handle and pull, but the steel teeth are maintaining a firm grip on the sheetrock. THILYKOTHERIUM you read again. A warning? A code? It looks like Greek or Latin, the type of taxonomic name a researcher might assign to a genus of wild animals; maybe a team of ornithologists were here, recording an encounter with some rare species of sparrow.
  
  As you work the rake head out of the wall, you worry that the process is taking too long, that your mysterious intruder is getting away. By rocking the handle the sharp metal teeth work their way free, allowing you to heft the rake in your hands. Now you can go see what's out there.
  
  The door is slowly swinging closed in a draft of air, so you kick it open, the headlamp still off. You step carefully onto the back steps, your aching tailbone still a fresh reminder of how this went wrong last time. These steps are larger, though, and more solidly built; despite the rain, the risers are less slick.
  
  At the bottom, you are waist deep in goldenrod and dogwood, the rake held horizontally before you. The shower is tapering to just a drizzle, but there is still much drippage from the surrounding trees as the last light of day exits the woods.
  
  Before you is the driveway that led you to this place. And moving straight through its brushy growth is a shadowy figure, about as tall as you are but otherwise of indeterminate identity. The only thing of which you can be certain: this ain't no black bear.
  
  "Hey!" you shout to the figure. It stops but doesn't turn. "Why did you shred my stuff? What'd I ever do to you?"
  
  Still, there is no response. The figure just stands in the open, as if waiting for you to approach it. Who is this guy? A cranky hermit, stealing to survive? Some fugitive from the law?
  
  "I'm looking for my friend," you say, taking a step forward. "Have you seen her? She—"
  
  That's when the figure turns. There is not much you can see in the gray light, but for a second, while the silhouette is in motion, you can make out a willowy profile that almost looks like Amy herself. But Amy this is not: the body looks fur-covered, as if a cat had learned to walk upright. It sees you standing in front of the cabin holding the rake and lifts its head to the night. The howl it unleashes is feral, hungry; menace is its message, rolling through the forest like the yowl of a coy-dog.
  
  You shudder as a reflexive response, but then immediately regret the involuntary show of fear — if you appear vulnerable, this... thing is likely to react accordingly. Without thinking you raise the rake above your head and shout back — not an actual word, just a fearful noise of your own that you hope proves you're not going to be an easy target. The figure turns and runs into the woods, and before you can check your action or consider alternatives you are giving chase.
  
  > pursue the creature.
  his is the problem, though: you're just a frightened and anxious boyfriend armed with a garden rake, pursuing a creature that by all rights shouldn't even exist. What exactly do you plan to do? Gouge its eye out with the teeth, crack its skull with the metal head? And if all you manage to do is annoy this... thing you've just seen, then what's Plan B going to be?
  
  You have to suppress the notion you didn't think this idea through. By all appearances, what you just saw was a predatory creature. And a fairly big one, too, with an apparent axe to grind against backpacks. It's chilling shriek was one of the most unpleasant sounds imaginable in the animal kingdom, as if perfected through the course of evolution to paralyze its prey with terror just at the sound of its voice.
  
  And yet when you showed intent to fight back, it darted away. Whether it did so out of fear or as a tactical retreat to a better, more defendable location remains to be seen. But while you have the advantage, you might as well drive it out of here.
  
  The thing had disappeared into the woods directly across the clearing, just yards from where you and Amy had first beheld the cabin. What's over there? You haven't the foggiest clue. It does occur to you, though, that your quarry probably knows this area quite well, and the route of its escape was not chosen at random.
  
  Standing at the edge of the open area, you peer into the shadowy forest. It is getting so dark now that the creature could be standing forty feet away and you might never see it. The fact you can't hear anything matching its size and speed is concerning too; this tells you that it has either sprinted out of earshot already (unlikely) — or (more likely) it only went so far before stopping to make its stand.
  
  George... That's you, isn't it, George?
  
  The sudden sound of Amy's voice, not only after the passage of so much time, but at this precise instant, is startling.
  
  You spin, scanning your surroundings, as it is not entirely clear where the sound is coming from. "Amy? Where are you?"
  
  Here, George, except... I cannot say what has happened.
  
  You pivot back around toward the woods, but still see nothing. "You need to tell me where you are, babe. I want to help, but I can't see you."
  
  I'm... right here?
  
  That's not helping very much. "Honey, it might be best if you lie low right now. There is... something strange going on. Kind of hard to explain."
  
  I don't have control anymore, George.
  
  That's a rather odd statement. What could that possibly mean? "Amy, honey, I swear I can hear you loud and clear, but I don't have the slightest idea where you are."
  
  It's me. I'm right here.
  
  "Sorry, I don't mean to be a pain, but I can't pin down the location of your voice. It sounds like you're everywhere all at once."
  
  I need help. I don't know what's going on.
  
  You look into the woods, in the direction where the strange creature had fled. It was bizarre, it was fearsome, but it may very well be completely gone, because you cannot see nor hear any signs of its presence.
  
  > You've got to make sure that creature is gone for good.
  "Amy, I know this is not what you want to hear," you say, "but we're not alone out here. Something's been stalking us, and I need to drive it away first."
  
  Its me. I'm watching you.
  
  It doesn't sound like she understands. You adjust your grip on the rake handle, hoping this fugitive from the Home Depot is up to the task at hand. Keeping your eyes focused on the shadows ahead of you, you try not to let this odd conversation with Amy become a distraction.
  
  "I need you to hold tight, OK, honey? I'll be back for you in a minute."
  
  George, I think you're in danger.
  
  "We're both in danger. This is why I need you to be quiet while I take care of... this."
  
  It knows where you are. I've lost all control.
  
  Control? She mentioned this once before, but you have no idea what she means by it; the statement seems just as odd as the fact you can hear her so clearly, and yet you still can't pin her voice to a specific point of origin. Did she hit her head in the dark, dazing herself?
  
  "Ssssh, it'll be all right." But as you tighten your grasp on the rake handle, it occurs to you this reassurance could be just as much for your benefit as it is for hers.
  
  A twig snaps somewhere ahead of you, and you decide this is the moment to make your lunge. It might just be a chipmunk gathering nuts in the dark, or it might be that "Thilykotherium" thing written on the wall of the cabin. You will never be able to tell for sure. But this whole night so far has been bizarre beyond belief, and for once you want to be the one taking a decisive action.
  
  Amy's voice fills your ears like a running commentary as you swing the rake: No, George. I don't want to kill you. It knows where you are. I do not have control. But you don't have the time to parse the meaning of these words: the toothy head of the garden rake has struck a body in the dark, and when you hear the shriek you know exactly what it is you've hit.
  
  The creature is merely a shadow among shadows now, although perhaps it's better this way; if you could actually see the thing, its appearance might have that chilling effect again. The owl-like shriek is painful enough, like a sonic knife wielded against your eardrums. The creature is trying to grasp the other end of the rake, and you know if it does you'll be defenseless. So you thrust it forward, between its own grasping claws, and you feel the metal head striking something hard and bony — like a skull. The next shriek that fills the damp night air is one of pain, and then you hear the sound of feet backing away, deeper into the forest.
  
  > follow and finish it off for good — or at least ensure you've scared it off.
  Amy's well being is important, of course, but you've just scored a point against this whatever-it-is and now's not the time to cede the advantage. The retreating footsteps sounded cautious, not like a full-on capitulation, and you won't be able to guarantee Amy's safety until you're sure this thing is either brained by the rake — or made to sufficiently appreciate you as a physical threat to its own safety.
  
  Therefore you employ the same strategy that worked so well just a moment ago: lunge forward, swinging the rake. But this time you find only empty space.
  
  As if in response, the creature shrieks again — but from well ahead of you in the woods. Is it as frightened of you as you are of it, as they say of most wild creatures? Or is it taunting you, daring you to follow?
  
  The one thing you know for sure is that you'll never be able to relax so long as this creature is on the loose, patrolling the woods surrounding the cabin. And this must be your short-term goal, right? —to survive the night, make it to morning, and then gather what's left of your gear and skedaddle with Amy at the best possible pace to someplace safe. The first step in that plan is to drive away this primal threat, if not wound it so badly it no longer sees itself as the most frightening force in the forest.
  
  So, feeling the thrill of the chase and seeking to assert your mastery over the moment, you return the creature's shriek with a scream of your own. Then you remember the headlamp strapped to your forehead and reach up to flick it on. A cone of LED illumination turns the trees ahead of you into ghostly gray shadows — telegraphing your location, yes, but hopefully also instilling a deer-in-headlights reaction in all that falls within your path.
  
  You don't see a pair of reflecting eyes, but there does seem to be a well-worn track ahead of you, leading deeper into the woods. Surely this is what the creature is following, and so you charge forward in pursuit, dodging tree branches and leaping over fallen logs, prepared to wield the rake again at the first sign of danger.
  
  The track leads over the top of a broad knoll in the forest and seems to dissipate just before reaching a thicket of young spruce. You pause, listening for sounds in the woods and looking for visual clues, but not finding much to work with. The creature is no longer filling the forest with its horrific, nail-on-proverbial-blackboard shrieking, nor can you hear its footsteps.
  
  As you turn about, the headlamp beam likewise follows your gaze like an erratic lighthouse in the woods. You see no sign of that creature, but the cone of light does reveal something else: the silhouette of a car, of all things — gray and dull, its paint long since rusted away. It's been many miles since you've last seen a drivable road, but then again there's a dilapidated cabin not too far away, so apparently at one time people were able to drive to this remote place, and maybe this is one of the vehicles that once brought them here.
  
  With no other definitive objects to find besides this relic and the surrounding trees, you step toward the car. The fenders are its most striking feature, telling you right away that you're dealing with something that's probably been rotting away here since before you were even born. Round headlights, stylized front grill, and an overall 1940s vibe. A shield-shaped badge affixed between the radiator grills shows a picture of a sailing ship, the Mayflower from Massachusetts history; it takes a creative leap of your over-stimulated imagination to link that scene with the name Plymouth, which had indeed once been a brand of automobile.
  
  But the back end is smashed up, as if the car had been totaled in a rear-end collision and then dumped in this isolated place. Your light shines through the shattered windshield to the skeletal remains of the steering wheel and dashboard, imagining the possibility that someone died in that seat, back before seatbelts were common and when "airbag" meant someone who talked too much.
  
  George, you shouldn't be here.
  
  Amy's voice is just as cool and stilted as before, but you jump at its unexpected reemergence.
  
  "Honey?" you say, spinning around, wondering if your girlfriend has been following you all this time.
  
  My... jaw hurts? You've angered it. I don't have control.
  
  Her voice is clear, even if the words themselves are bizarre. All day long she had been bitchy, but now she's just... flat, emotionless, and cryptic as all hell. With a habit of turning up when you least expect it.
  
  Of course, you see no sign of her.
  
  George... help me?
  
  It's a weak, plaintive statement, dripping with vulnerability. This time you don't respond. When in the last year — maybe longer — has Amy needed your help? Hasn't her emotional distance made it clear to you that you have been little more than an accessory in her life, a project she took on once but later forgot the purpose? You have been somebody she continues to associate with as if out of habit, unwilling to let go but also distinctly aloof, like someone trapped in the space between the feminist ideal of true independence and the basic need for male companionship, seeing these as non-compatible extremes she has been unable to resolve.
  
  So... now, tonight of all nights, she needs your help? Things are not as they seem, you are beginning to realize. A moment ago you had an entire conversation with her, and yet you could never pin down the location of her voice. Perhaps she was never there — perhaps you had imagined the entire exchange.
  
  I don't want to kill you. It knows where you are. I do not have control.
  
  This is not Amy. There is no possible way she could be here now, talking to you without being seen. These are not even words she would say to you.
  
  Still, there seems to be nothing here besides you and this wrecked Plymouth. The only sounds not in your head are those of the drips of water from the rain-soaked trees.
  
  I do not have control, George. I don't want to kill you. I will remember you.
  
  That's when you realize there is something else here: the sound of something breathing, on the other side of the car.
  
  > confront whatever is there.
  It could be something as harmless as a deer fawn hiding from your headlamp, or it could be that weird creature you briefly saw by the cabin just before striking it with your rake. But whatever you hear breathing on the opposite side of this Plymouth, it can't possibly be Amy.
  
  George, you are in danger. Please run. I am not in control.
  
  Ignoring Amy's incorporeal voice, which sounds like it comes from nowhere-and-anywhere because, as you now realize, it exists only in your head, you take the rake by both hands again and step around the wrecked car — quickly, before the breather can react and run away. You fully expect to find something normal there, like maybe a fox or coyote, but no, your original suspicion was correct:
  
  The cat-like creature is crouched beside one of the rotten tires, glaring angrily through the beam of your headlamp.
  
  Before you can fully process the information it leaps.
  
  George, I— Amy's voice starts to say, but it cuts out the moment the rake head makes contact with the creature's gut. For a moment its murderous intent is deflected by the force of your blow, which was really just a reflexive reaction that happened to get lucky. The creature rolls away into the wet leaves, twice now feeling the bite of the rake. You might feel sorry for the pain you've inflicted, if the tips of all four limbs weren't a collection of dagger-like claws, each a steak knife more than capable of slicing and dicing someone like you into pieces; a short-order cook at a diner is probably less endowed with cutlery than this strange beast.
  
  Your lucky blow has stunned the beast, but you haven't dimmed its primal hatred. If anything you've probably stoked it, given it all the motivation it needs to rip open your jugular — although it had already seemed so motivated the last time you met. After rolling off the end of the rake in pain, it continues rolling across the ground until finally back in a position to spring to its feet, shrieking as it does so. And there you are, still squarely standing on two feet and wielding the garden rake. Once again you have the momentary advantage, the upper hand over something that has shown every indication it intends to kill you, for perhaps no other reason than it is a hunter and sees you as vulnerable prey. And if it gets to its feet once again, your advantage will be negated.
  
  So just as the creature is springing from its roll, you are swinging the head of the rake down towards its skull.
  
  —don't want to—
  
  Amy's imaginary commentary has been an ongoing presence inside your brain, as if you are carrying inside you a traumatic guilt about her disappearance. But this subconscious version of her seems more intent on warning you about something, and only vaguely aware of the actual circumstance before you.
  
  The creature, too, seems unaware of the rake's trajectory until it is too late. The row of steel teeth make contact with its brow and knock the beast of its feet again, before it had been able to make its pounce. It falls to the ground once more, this time limply, the fangs still bared mid-snarl. The twitching muscles make you nervous that it may be preparing for one more attack, so you swing the rake down against its head again. The blow snaps the steel fixture off the wooden handle, but it also removes a small chunk of the creature's skull. It lies dead before you, its feral rage snuffed out by your quick reflexes.
  
  But at the same time, Amy's voice inside your head goes silent too.
  
  You stand there for a moment, still holding the headless rake handle, your lungs now making up for this burst of self-preserving activity with heavy gasps for air — as much to fill your bloodstream with oxygen as it is for the emotional sense of relief that at least one aspect of today's ordeal might be over. You hiked over ten miles to get here, you haven't eaten anything, and you still don't know what happened to the real Amy. But at least the thing that destroyed your backpacks and was stalking you in the darkness is no longer a threat.
  
  As you regain your composure, you pace around the other side of the Plymouth, worried that the site of the creature's fractured skull might cause you to heave at the moment you're trying to steady your nerves. You focus instead on the dripping water, the rain that collected on the last of the beech leaves, still dripping long after the shower has passed. The sound is so simple, so pure — and with Amy's disembodied voice banished from your head, each drop now seems so loud.
  
  The longer you keep away from the body, however, the more surreal the events of the last half-hour seem. Seriously, what did you just kill with that garden rake? And why didn't anyone on Instagram warn you beasts like this exist in the Adirondacks?
  
  Fractured skull or no, you need to take a closer look. So you step back around the old car, finding the body with your headlamp beam.
  
  Except that instead of a creature covered with brown fur and armed with deadly claws, it's Amy you now see lying dead on the ground, her skull fatally cracked open.
  
  You fall to your knees in horror, your sense of reality shattered with the panicky dread of what you might've just done. What did you just beat to death? Whose voice were you hearing? Has something here put you so out of your mind that you've lost the ability to distinguish the difference between reality and fantasy? Is it just because you haven't eaten dinner that you feel so light-headed?
  
  Despite the cold, and despite the dampness and every other discomfort, you maintain what amounts to a vigil all night long between the Plymouth and the object that very much resembles Amy's naked dead body, hoping that this has all been a feverish dream from which you will soon awake. That would be the only way anything that has happened here would make sense — certainly more so than "werecats" and the possibility you have brained your girlfriend with a garden rake. If you were to go to the authorities and report the events of the night as you remember them, no one would believe you. Therefore you desperately need to wake up and have all this be a dream, and for Amy to be very much still alive.
  
  As the hours advance through the night and into the morning, the battery in your headlamp fades into impotency, leaving you in the dark as you sit with your back against the vehicle. Everything seems lifeless: your source of light, the wrecked car, the leaves that have all dropped from the trees for the year.
  
  Amy.
  
  And when you do awake in the morning, it is only to find that you are in the same place, under the same circumstances. The clouds that soaked the forest last night have cleared away, allowing a brilliant sunrise to light up the Plymouth an everything around it. Everything you remembered and wanted to be a bad dream is still there, now illuminated beautifully by the light of a new day.
  
  And thus the evidence is clear: you are a murderer.
  
  > But before you go, check out the image gallery first!
  Image Gallery
  
  This story is based, more or less, on a real place... although to the best of my knowledge, none of the events described here have ever occurred. The following images are modified from my original photos, all taken during various visits to the real "Shingle Shanty Lake" and its cabin in 2020.
  
  Interior of the cabin, where moss grows on the floor under a giant hole in the ceiling.
  
  "Shingle Shanty Lake"
  
  The old Jeep Willys truck
  
  Yet another abandoned vehicle, now stranded from the nearest drivable road.
  
  And perhaps the best picture:
  
  The Thilykotherium, as rendered by my 9-year-old nephew, Adam F.