greatshift

The Cabin, Part 1 (Patreon exclusive)

Published: June 20th 2024, 10:00:03 pm

We had found the cabin on an off-brand room-sharing site. Ryan had said that the cabin seemed nice enough but the site itself was “sort of sketch.” However, the price was right, and we were three guys who had just graduated from college eight months ago without a lot of savings and just needed a break from our new jobs.

We arrived in the early evening on Friday night and used the app to unlock the door -- a little surprising considering it was remote enough to not have internet access, but I suppose it was some sort of Bluetooth connection. We weren’t there long and had just started to settle in when we heard the door begin to unlock again.

I jumped to my feet to find a woman standing there sneering at me. “What are you doing in our cabin?” She snarled.

“Are you the owner? We rented it for the weekend.” I said as I showed her the app.

“No, we did,” She replied while showing me her own phone.

We argued like this for several minutes before Ryan picked up the landline in the house to call the number associated with the listing. A man answered promptly and said he’d be right over to sort this mess out. We hadn’t seen any other cabins for miles, and I was fully aware of the sorts of scams people pulled with double bookings. Somehow I imagined the b*tch who arrived at the door was thinking the same thing. The six of us all sat there in awkward silence as we awaited the owner.

He arrived sooner than any of us expected, and our silence turned into arguing over each other. When we finally allowed him a moment to speak, he shot us a smile that was eerily haunting and that I should’ve noticed was foreboding. “I assure you all there is no error,” He said, “It’s all exactly as I intended.”

Then everything went black.

I awoke in the basement of the cabin, and the first thing I noticed was that I now had long, painted fingernails...