December 17, 2012

No. 272

Way out, past Guardsville, there is a lone cabin at the edge of the river. Nobody has ever gone that far into the woods to see it, except for the time Lorne Johnson lost his canoe paddle and got swept downstream.
He came back with what might be our only description of the place. Certainly, though, the story has been embellished since the first telling.
They say he saw it on a Tuesday. I can tell you right away that this doesn’t make sense. I know for a fact that Lorne meets his girlfriend, Kelly, on Tuesdays, and that she won’t go within a mile of the river. She thinks it’s dirty.
He spoke of a single lantern hung up outside the door, and some kind of monster shadow behind the boarded-up windows. Yes, a shadow behind windows that are covered in wood. I told you, this town will do things to a story that would make your mother blush.
There might have been singing, or eerie music, and Lorne claims it wasn’t in English. I suppose that’s fair. We’ll give him that one.
Since he managed to make his way home, two weeks later, and after fighting off such dangers as lights and shadows, Lorne says that he thinks he’s being followed. But only ever on Tuesdays. He thinks it’s the “Dark Lady” who lives in the cabin, but we all assume it’s just Trisha, his Friday girlfriend.
Oh, and I almost forgot to tell you about the other part of the story, where there’s a pulsating glow in the sky, and “huge-normous” “snake-tracks” in the ground. I usually try to leave that bit out when I recount the tale to company, because I heard it from Reg Dalton, and he’s even less credible than Lorne.
What we can safely assume from all of this is that, at some point in his life, Lorne has seen a cabin, or cabin-like structure, that he knows what a song is, and that I should probably move, because the folks around here are plum crazy.  

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