The Cabin

The Cabin

  Not too long ago, this old cabin wasn’t such a bad place. Used to be a normal place, just like everything else that happened before. Used to be full of happy people, happy things, and happy memories. Mainly, it used to be a vacation home. Often, in the winter time, my family and I would go up and ski or snowboard, maybe even build a snowman or two. Christmas time was magical, with chicken or ham cooking in the oven, the smell wafting into the living room, multicolor packages hidden under a perfectly decorated Christmas tree. Hot chocolate was a standard drink, which my uncle could make from scratch and he would never disappoint. The soft, velvety couch and oak coffee table were accompanied by the elegant decorations of tinsel and miniature reindeer or santas or elves. The fireplace was burning with joy, with everyone gathered around laughing together. This was the way that should be. This was how it was before.
  When you looked at it now, this is what you would see. There is an old white house with the paint peeling off. Overgrown grass and small, barren patches of ground fight each other for extra space on the half-frozen front lawn. On one side of the house there is a window which is securely locked. Bars are on the outside, like prison bars. Instead of the feelings of warmth, comfort, safety, fun and magic, the abandoned cabin emanates feelings of emptiness and claustrophobia. A gutter pipe runs down along the opposite side of the house with slush and water, pouring out onto the ground separating slightly red grass from spent pistol rounds. Mice scurry along, nibbling on the red grass. The roof is broken in several places allowing sunlight to pierce the darkness of the cabin’s hallways and rooms. The once grand and proud fireplace which burned brightly now only holds unlit logs and piles of old ashes. The kitchen has been looted many times over and can only be known to be a kitchen by those who had been there before. Even then, it would be hard to tell.
  However, life has returned to this shell of a cabin in the form of survivors, though their stay was far shorter than the previous owners. They are familiar with this new way of life and restocked the barely recognizable kitchen with canned goods and dried goods. Maybe, for a little while at least, hope may be revived in the old cabin. A little girl wanders about the old house and finds a room suitable for her. She sets up a doll from her life before upon an old, battered dresser used in barricades and its intended purpose. Traces of velvet hang onto the bed in tatters but the little girl is very pleased. It’s her first bed since before and she runs down the wooden floor which echoes through the house. The others are also pleased and carefully set their possessions from their lives before on top of their respective dressers or tables or chairs or stools and think for a moment. Many of them are tired and weary from their long and many times dangerous treks through the desolate wastelands home to the numerous untold horrors not from before. They were never meant to be there in the first place, but those from before were very foolish and thirsted for power. Any way was the right way, no matter how wrong it was. The bitter cold of winter was soon to return as the harsh winds exclaimed and foreshadowed with extensive rain and freezing nights. The survivors decided to try to combat this winter invasion by granting the fireplace with new life. Though smoke billowed up and formed an ominous cloud with the soot and ashes of before, it too came back and gave off lovely heat and sparkled, if not as brightly as before. The food as well, though it was not the chicken and the ham and the chocolate and other delicacies, refueled the survivors with nutrition from canned soup and canned ham and dried fruit from before.
  But whatever is given to you will be taken away from you in order to give again to someone else. That is the cycle of life, which is the cycle of the cabin. The windows may have been barred and the doors barricaded with miscellaneous objects such as chairs, desks, or tables, the roof still had holes in it but without extra wood or a ladder nothing could be done. Fear had taken the place of hope and those who were wise enough to realize that the cabin was no longer safe for them, that the dead would find them and force them into their horde and become one of them. Though this was what had to be done, they had already begun to miss the protective walls, the warmth of the fireplace, and the soft velvet from long ago. And then the need became urgent as the undead were spotted, like flies swarming to honey on a hot summer day. So they had no time to gather their supplies and belongings. They just had to go. And the little girl was sad because she had left her cotton doll on the dresser in her favorite room with the tall ceiling which had no holes and a bed like she had dreamt of before. They all left in such a hurry that the little life that was somewhat restored to the old cabin had been sucked out as if it had never been in the first place. Then, the blizzards came, freezing the dead and allowing the survivor’s time to flee, the last kind act the cabin would ever see.
  Yet, like all cycles, things come full-circle and the old house with the peeling paint and the crumbs from before being greedily sought after by mice from the sewers and mice from the fields, had another set of visitors, these ones less wise and experienced at this new game of life. They were delighted at finding the cabin and searched relentlessly for things from before and had found many such things. A stereo which some could use had a CD still in it with spare batteries nearby. The canned goods which the survivors had worked so diligently for were almost gone in a mere five days. This was a group of partiers, not survivors, who could have sensed that this was not a time to party, but to find a path to safety. Yet the partiers were too excited about the velvet and pillows and the possessions from the survivors to think of anything productive to do. Listening to their music, dining on undeserved food and using wood on a fire in which they didn’t help gather, spelled their doom as they neglected to shut and lock the front door.