Matt and Rose had their mini vacation planned out just to relax over the weekend and spend quality time together from their respective works schedules and busy life at their cabin.
Rose suggested it and Matt thought it was a great idea as they hardly see enough of each other and when they do they were busy bent over their computers clicking and typing away. Their lives had never been so complicated as Matt was just made senior partner of a prestigious law firm and Rose is the brain of a wall Street firm. Both had a successful career but not a balanced life at home. So taking the weekend off sounded like a great idea. Matt even joked about their vacation as been their own “Camp David” retreat.
The air in the woods was refreshing they could hear the birds singing, the sound of the stream and they could feel the tranquility of the environment as they walked towards the cabin after they had parked their car. The cabin looked peaceful seated amongst over grown flower plants, it was fenced round and had a small red gate. After unpacking their luggage, rose went to prepare dinner while Matt went to gather more woods for fire.
It was getting dark outside as rose paced round the dinner table worried. She constantly checked her watch and looked outside the window expecting Matt to walk in any moment. Finally she heard footsteps and the door opened. “Where have you been? I thought you were lost in the woods?”
“ I’m sorry honey, is just that I saw this beautiful view and I decided to get you some of it since we decided on not bringing our cell phones here so I couldn’t capture the view.”
He then brought out a flower and presented it to Rose. Rose, still fuming took the flower from him and smelt it. Then she smiled and thanked Matt for the flower but after close careful observation of the flower, she froze.
“Honey, what’s the problem it seems as if you have just seen a ghost.”
“Matt, where did you get this flower?”
“Down the stream close to an old graveyard. Why? You don’t like it?”
“This can’t be happening….”
“What can't be?”
You know how I told you this cabin has been in my generation and was passed down to me........there is a Legend about a Shaman who on his dying bed cursed the land because big mining corporations with deep pockets ravaged and destroyed the land in search of gold and some of the inhabitants were forced off their lands while some were paid off. It took the help of another shaman after many years to perform a ritual at the grave site of the shaman that cursed the land to stop the unexplained deaths that occurred in the land afterwards. He completed the ritual by planting a rare flower plant at the graveyard which symbolised peace. And no one was to cut from that plant.”
“C'mon! Don’t tell me you believe in all these crap. You are a logical person for crying out loud. We are here to have fun and nothing will get in the way of that.”
Tap, tap…..there was a knock on the door. Please help me!!!
Matt quickly opened the door and saw a scared middle aged woman “ Ma'am, what’s the problem?” The middle aged woman standing in front of their door looked scared and out of breath as she leaned against the door post to catch her breath. “Please, hurry, my husband needs help. He lost control of the car and we crashed into a tree trunk. Please help him.”
Matt, Rose and the woman quickly rushed down to where the vehicle was. Only for them to turn and saw that the woman was not with them to give them direction of where the car was. “Where did she go to? Did we leave her behind?”
“Its not possible I could have sworn I saw her running by my side a second ago” Rose said.
They quietly turned round and did a quick search of their environment for the strange woman. “You go right, I go left and we meet up here. Exactly at this place.”
Matt, was searching the woods for the strange woman or any sign of their car or husband when she heard Rose screaming for help.
Matt ran to the direction where he last heard Rose screamed. “Hey! honey, hold on I’m coming.”
Matt continued on the path and could barely catch his breath as his heart pound hard against his rib cage. He stopped when he noticed he had been going round and is now back to where he was initially.
“This can’t be right!”
Rose was quitely checking for the strange woman in the woods when she bumped into something in the dark. With the help of the full moon's light she gently used her hands to trace the object and realised it was the strange woman lying flat on her face. “Ma'am, are you okay? You had us all worried out there. Please don’t cry everything is going to be just fine. She gently turned the woman towards her........what she saw staring back at her was not the strange woman but the most horrifying creature she had ever seen. She got up quickly after pushing the creature away from her and ran for dear life. Despite the leaves slapping her across the face, thorns and branches scratching at her, rose ran without looking back as she could sense the creature was behind her and gradually closing the gap between them.
She quickly took a turn and immediately collided with Matt. Who was running from that direction. They both screamed, out of fear and pain before they realised they were not in immediate danger.
“Head for the cabin.” Yelled Matt.
They both started on the direction to the cabin. Immediately they got in the cabin they shut the door, locked it and leaned against it. “ That was close. I think something was after me then I heard you screamed. Hope you okay?”
Matt hugged Rose tightly.
Rose was shaking all over and couldn’t complete a sentence as she ended up blabbing. Matt could see the terror in her eyes and wished he could take it all away.
Suddenly from beneath the floor of the cabin broke out scorpions, maggots and bees. Rose screamed on top of her lungs while Matt tried swatting them away from her.
“Matthew, we’ve got to go back and restore the flower now!”
“What are you saying? So you mean all these is my fault?!”
Matt barely finished his sentence as a branch protruded from the open window and pinned him against the wall and continued to crush his throat against the wall. Matt could barely breathe or speak as he struggled to break free from its hold. Rose was covered to her knees with insects as she screamed out and tried to pull Matt down but to no avail.
She quickly rushed towards the dinning table stepping on the insects along the way. She grabbed the flower from the dinning table and ran out from the cabin and down the path leading to the stream. She didn’t stop from the pains of the stings she got from the scorpions and bees that clunged to her until she got to the graveyard and started looking for the shaman's headstone. She saw a fresh footpath and some broken twigs leading to one of the head stones. She moved closer in that direction and saw the shaman’s headstone with flower plants curled round it. She quickly began to look for the stem from which Matt plucked the rare flower. From a distance she could hear the howling of a wolf and as if an army of men were running towards her clearing every obstacle on their path. Rose sniffed and wiped the tears from her eyes as she located the stem and with a shaky hand she placed the flower on the stem and it simultaneously merged back as if it was never broken off and immediately a deafening silence overshadowed the whole area.
Rose ran back to the cabin and found Matt on the floor coughing hoarsely trying to clear his throat and take in air as much as possible. She broke down in tears as she knelt down beside him and pat him on the back. “its going to be okay now. We are fine.”