The Bog Part Two

After discovering the cabin, the soon realize they wish they hadn't.

Welcome to part two of my short story ‘The Bog’. It has been a lot of fun bringing you this story. If you need a reminder of what happened in part one, you can click the link here -

The Bog - Short Story

Photo by Olivier Guillard on Unsplash

The Bog - Part II

Hearts skipped a beat as they all turned to the door, fearing the presence that awaited them. Only to breathe a sigh of relief spotting it was Hector’s hand pushing the door open. They stared at him, annoyed, but he played it off, knowing they would eventually do the same.

“Don’t give me that look. You all know if it wasn’t me, one of you would have tried the door.” He smirked.

Jenny rolls her eyes, disagreeing with his assessment before turning to Emma, whose palms were sweating. She knew this secret would eventually spill, yet she was unprepared for that date. She took a deep breath, evaluating her options before interjecting before they had a chance to ask her again.

“I’ve been here before.” She blurted.

The others stared, waiting for her to expand on her statement. Henry folded his arms in anticipation of her answers. Emma cold feel their eyes staring her down, drawing focus away from the interior.

“I found it the second year we came. I was going to tell you, but when I got back, you were all having fun and had found your thing to do.”

“So, you kept this cabin are your thing?” Chris interjected.

Emma nodded in acknowledgement as she picked at her nails, feeling guilty for keeping her secret. The mood had changed, and they could all feel it, but no one wanted to address it. Instead, they stood in awkward silence.

“Are we going to go in or not?” Hector broke the silence.

Henry turned to Emma and asked.

“What’s inside anyway?”

Emma looked up, her eyes watery from her perceived guilt.

“Oh, I don’t know, actually. I never went inside. I used to sit on the porch and watch the swamp.” Emma chirped.

“And no one ever came out?” Jenny stuttered in disbelief.

“No.”

Hector didn’t need any more convincing as he rubbed his hands together in excitement. He was the first to cross the threshold and enter the cabin and let out an audible gasp.

“GASP!”

The others were quick to follow, curious to know what surprised him and were themselves surprised by the interior greeting them. Outside was a rustic cabin exposed to the elements but tended to with care. Inside, the cabin consisted of one large room more akin to an Aladin’s cave. Along the walls were bookshelves filled with books coordinated by the spines. Separating each section with book nooks that caught Chris's interest.

He pulled one out of the shelf, amazed by the intricate design. Each nook was a miniature terrarium featuring a fantasy landscape as the decorative background, with the focal point being a figure posed and constructed with impeccable detail.

Jenny and Emma were intrigued by the animal heads mounted along the wall between each book self. There were six animals spread throughout the cabin. Emma had gravitated towards the Zebra, mesmerized by its glass eyes. Jenny was drawn to the head of a brown bear posed as if they died mid roar. Teeth on full display.

The centre of the cabin, however, was different, matching the rustic nature of the exterior. Grey stools surrounded a pit that hadn’t been used in some time. Around the pit were decretive wreaths made from wild-flowers and other natural ingredients. Hector knelt to get a closer look drawn to the strange beauty at odds with the decorated walls.

His hand reaches out to touch one made from twigs and moss when a disgusted shrill from Henry forces him to stop.

“Is that hair?”

“What?” Hector asked.

Henry pointed to the centre of the pit where there was a brown clump. The clump was, in fact, a braid of hair cut and discarded. They had all joined Hector and Henry to closley examine the braid.

“What the hell is this place?” Chris asked the group, knowing their answer.

Jenny shook her head, disgusted by the sight.

“That’s not natural. Who cuts off their braid?”

They all stared at each other, knowing the answer. No one cuts off their own braid and leaves it in a pit. No one who wasn’t involved in the occult, they all thought to themselves. The thoughts crossed their mind, but each was too afraid to say it. this was some sort of satanic ritual, and they stumbled onto the aftermath.

“Maybe we should get out of here,” Chris commanded without much conviction.

While the braid had scared him, he was more curious than scared. He wanted to know who’s place this belong to and why spend so much time decorating the walls, color coding the books, organising the animal heads in a distinctive pattern only to have the centre of the room look barbaric in comparison. There was more to this place than they realised, but the others didn’t care, and he knew that.

“Chris is right, we should head back to the tents.”

“Forget the tents, Jenny, we should get the hell out of here. Tell the police what we found and never come back.” Fear echoed around each word Henry spoke.

Henry didn’t wait to hear the others respond, storming out the door with haste. Hector was next to follow, having been the first to enter thinking entering was a joke, he left believing it was anything but.

“Hey, Henry, wait up.”

Emma could sense tension rising between Jenny and Chris, and while she wanted to stay. She knew it was best not to stand in between them.

“I’m just going to wait outside.”

Emma stepped past Jenny as she made her way to the door but inadvertently walked through the pit and damaged one of the wreaths encircling it. She had hopped they hadn’t noticed, but the crunch under her feet cut through the tense silence filling the room.

“Emma, what the hell? That could be evidence,” Jenny shouted.

“I didn’t mean to, I just want to get out of here. This place is giving me the creeps. Outside was fine, but inside, something feels off.”

Jenny knew what she meant, there was an uncomfortable feeling surrounding them. Like there was a presence watching them from all angles. She hadn’t brought it up before, brushing it off as her conscience ramping up her guilt about breaking into someone’s cabin, but the sensation persisted. Intensifying after Emma broke one of the wreaths, as though the wreath was a vial that had now been broken.

“I’ll come with you. forget the tents; let’s just get out of here. Chris, are you coming?”

Chris turned to Jenny, and his expression told her everything she needed to know. He wasn’t ready to leave, but she wasn’t willing to wait for him.

“We’ll meet you at the exit, and we’ll go to the police together,” Jenny told him, holding back her fear.

They left Chris to himself; he wasn’t ready to leave, fascinated by the decor on the walls. The book nooks looked intricate and intentional. Ther was something uncanny about the figure he couldn’t put his finger on. He wanted to give them another look before leaving. He knew that once the police got their hands on the cabin, it would be the last time he saw any of this. He took another nook of the shelf, this one had a futuristic design, skyscrapers accessible by hover cars with the figure cowering on the ground, fearful of their surroundings and at odds with the scene. The figure looks better placed in a scene set in the 90s, with their baggy shirts and Walkman hooked to their belt buckle.

He gave the nook a closer look and failed to notice the temperature drop and how the pit was no longer empty. In his distraction, he had failed to notice the pit protrude and bulge like a pimple ready to burst. The bugle of dirt pulsated until fingers of dirt popped the growth. Chris continued to have his back turned as the fingers gave way to a hand, to an arm of something humanoid but not human. The arm lacked flesh resembling muscles, but they were made from vines and twigs entwined together. The arm pushed down as they pulled the bog born body out of the pit until they eventually cast a shadow over Chris, alerting him of the first and last time of their presence.

He turned around, catching a glimpse of the creature that now stood in front of him. Staring into its eyes, Chris knew what the nooks were dropping one in shock before letting out a scream.

“NNNOOOOOOO!”

His screams echoed through the bog, but his friends were too far away to help. Jenny and Emma could barely hear him and chose to ignore him than investigate. A discission they would soon live to regret.

To Be Continued.