A logger by day and a miner by night, this was the life of Justin Thatcher, or Thatch as he was commonly called. A robust and sullen man, he worked because there was nothing left for him. His wife and two daughters had passed away during a forest fire. He survived the blaze with major burns on his right arm that crawled up to his chin. His beard covered most of the burn around his neck as well as a pendant necklace he wore that belonged to his youngest daughter Farah.
His logging crewmembers were early risers. They worked from when the sun climbed over the last rung of the ladder to paint the sky with light and stop when the sun was highest and hottest. His crew would say, “Thatch keeps mostly to himself but does a hell of a job,” or, “If you wanna get work done, best be paired with Thatch.” They saw him start an hour early on Thursdays with a manic like behaviour for no conceivable reason. Their boss once approached Thatch one early Thursday to address his concerns about Thatch’s harmful behaviour. He returned with a bloody nose and whimpered, “Thatch is best to be left alone during those hours.” Since that day anyone in Thatch’s presence oozed fear and avoided him.
Thatch’s manner as a miner was no different than him as a logger. He remained quiet and stern. If anything he was more hellish if you asked Harold who worked with him in both crews. He’d say he seemed possessed, on a mission driven beyond the gratification of pay and respect, beyond what any sane man would work for. His body was a slave to a corrupted mind that did not belong to him. Harold, most of all, was frightened of Thatch because he saw him twice as much as the next lad, but he had no choice, he needed both jobs to support his family of six.
Thatch had two hours in between his logging and mining job. Those two hours remained a mystery to everyone except to Fred Stanton, or Jackal, his closest friend on the mining crew, but hardly that. When asked what Thatch does during his two hours, Jackal would look over to Thatch and see if there was ever any approval. He never received any inclination or assurance and hence never told a soul about what he did during those two hours. That was until one day when the crew took Jackal to a pub, sat with him by the inglenook, drank some spirits and then Jackal barked.
“Aye, I feel sorry for tha lad,” he’d start as he slurred his words. “His only two hurs off and he spends it by that rivurh, that rivurh by the… ummm… the glade,” he continued as his friends ordered him another whiskey on the rocks. “You know the one where families go campin.” A sudden silence stunted the crew as they were huddled around Jackal while he told the story. The mens’ eyes widened and their breathes slowed as they exchanged glances with one another at their sudden realization. Thatch spent his two hours at the river next to the glade where his wife and two daughters had passed away.
The next two days Jackal was absent from his mining duties, “most likely because of intoxication”. Harold became curious when he saw Thatch staring at the drill where Jackal worked. His stare was freakishly demonic. His eyes did not blink and were bloodshot. His lips and ears were burnt a dark red. Then, as if breaking character on stage, he’d be back to his usual self, minding his own business on his side of the mine.
Harold’s curiosity and fear kept him up most nights. An image of Thatch’s satanic glares at the mine and his manic like behaviour conflated in Harold’s mind distorting in all directions trying to piece together the puzzle that is Thatch. Finally after two days he had enough of the sleepless nights and sought after Jackal to see if everything was all right, which was quite out of character for Harold.
Harold’s curiosity led him north of the logging camp to a small fishing village called Hampte. Jackal lived alone in a cabin just a hundred yards north of the village. Harold’s heart thumped louder than the miners swing against the rock and the loggers’ swing against bark as he walked the dirty stone path to Jackal’s cabin. The front door was painted red and the windows stained a brownish hue but what was most peculiar were the twenty pails filled with water that were scattered around the cabin. The buckets confused Harold as he mustered the mental strength to knock on the door. No answer. He knocked again producing the same result. Harold peeked into the cabin from the tainted window. Inside he saw a neat bed, a desk with a lit lamp, a fridge, a radio, a TV and a carpet. It seemed reasonable to assume Jackal was not home apart from the lit lamp. He tried knocking once more feeling brazen for how far he’s come, but most likely because he knew he would not have to venture further into the cabin, which would have reignited his fear. Again no answer. As he turned to head back home, his protective fatherly instinct kicked in making him check the doorknob to see if it was locked. It wasn’t. The door slowly creaked open from the slight nudge Harold produced out of shock. His heart raced again. His palms as wet as if he dipped them in one of the buckets of water and his mouth as dry as the cold autumn air. Harold inspected around the cabin and saw nothing to offer his mind an excuse not to enter. And so he did.
As his hand left the doorknob it felt sticky. He looked at his palm, which now had marks of red on it. Even his knuckles from when he knocked earlier had brushes of red. A fresh coat of paint, he thought to himself. The inside looked identical compared to when he peeked through the window. From outside he thought the lamp was electric but there were no plugs, it was a fire lamp. Jackal must have left recently, he thought as in a cabin it was dangerous to leave an open flame unattended. The wind gusted outside and howled against the old cabin, scaring an already uneasy Harold. He looked outside through the window and to his surprise he saw someone walking towards the cabin with two buckets in their hands. Odd. He thought it was Jackal returning from the river with buckets of water. His pulse relaxed temporarily until the shadowed figure was close enough to the cabin to be identified as Thatch.
Harold’s throat dropped down to his gut and he panicked. What on Earth is Thatch doing here he thought as he became slightly faint. Harold noticed Thatch’s bloodshot eyes and burnt lips through the window when Thatch was within a couple of feet of the cabin. Harold quickly hid under the bed. He was silent apart from the beat of his heart, which was loud enough that it felt like it was deafening him. He heard the sound of the buckets when Thatch dropped them on the ground. He lay there worrying Thatch would come inside. He didn’t. Eventually Harold pulled himself out from under the bed by gripping the carpet and thrusting upwards, slightly moving the carpet out of its position. He got up slowly with expertise similar to a newborn learning to crawl. He looked out the window searching for Thatch. What he saw propelled his fear into overdrive. Thatch was forty feet away staring at the cabin while walking backwards toward the river with two new empty pails. His stare was equally demonic as the stare Thatch gave to the drill at the mine. Harold wanted so badly to return home that he hit himself for coming here in the first place. He planned to wait until he could not see Thatch anymore but it was getting dark. One last peek outside showed Thatch to be about two hundred feet away. Before leaving Harold made sure everything was in order and identical to what he saw when he entered the cabin. He looked down at the carpet and bent down to adjust a flap he created earlier when he got up from under the bed. As he lifted the carpet he saw a hatch and a rectangular outline on the wooden floor. A trap door.
Harold, already terrified, did not want to discover what was under there and turned for the door after fixing the carpet. Thump. The noise paralyzed Harold in place. It came from the trap door. Harold turned back and looked at the carpet. THUMP. Harold, startled by the noise, sprinted out of the cabin and towards the village like a gazelle after hearing a gun shot.
Harold returned home later that night after buying a bottle of rum from the local shop. He knew he was not going to sleep any easier tonight and needed something to take his mind off of what he just experienced. With his wife and kids already asleep Harold began downing the rum until he was warm in the belly and dumb in the mind. He passed out on the couch.
Harold, a little groggy, returned to work the next day; Friday. The smell of petrichor slightly nauseated Harold. He went into the logging shack to get his saw. As he picked it up the handle felt a little sticky. He looked down at his palm and saw a brush of red similar to Jackal’s cabin door. Terrified, but slightly comforted by the fact that his logging crewmembers were outside, he turned for the door and was ready to approach Thatch to ask why he was at Jackal’s cabin yesterday. He opened the door that led out only to be surprised by the presence of Thatch. He stood there and stared at Harold, his eyes bloodshot and lips burnt.
“Thatch…” Harold said trembling, ‘Thatch… is everything… um… all right?” No response, just a stare that felt like it was burning two holes through Harold’s chest. “Thatch buddy, I’m just going to go out now and do my job,” he said praying Thatch would move out of the way. Thatch blinked, relieving the bloodshot eyes to healthy white as Thatch turned to his side to clear a way out. Harold quickly exited the shack. He feared for Jackal’s life after he asked a fellow logger where Jackal was only to hear, “out sick again.”
Harold asked his logging members to join him after the shift to check up on Jackal. Only Scott agreed as the rest went to drink their pains from their brutal shift away. Scott was the weakest of the bunch and perhaps the only reason he agreed to come was because he did not drink and lived alone.
Harold knocked thunderously against the door to Jackal’s cabin, the paint finally dry. The buckets of water were all empty and stacked. No answer. “Where is he?” Harold sighed to Scott.
“Was he not here yesterday?” Scott said frailly.
“No, that’s why I wanted to come back today,” Harold snapped back. The door was now locked and the fire lamp was not lit inside. Harold picked up a rock and smashed the window completely to provide enough space to crawl inside.
“Harold, what on earth are you doing?” Scott shouted immediately regretting coming with Harold.
“Help me up!” Harold darted back. Scott pushed Harold up through the window. Harold quickly opened the door to let Scott in.
“Well now that we are in, what are we looking for?” Scott asked nervously.
“That,” Harold pointed under the carpet toward the hatch. Harold bent down, slid the carpet out of the way and opened the trap door. A pungent odour radiated outwards and engulfed the cabin. Scott fainted immediately. Harold was looking at Jackal’s seared body floating at the top of the water filled cellar, his furtive eyes were burnt to a crisp.
Harold woke Scott by nudging him and screaming, “We have to leave!” When Scott awoke the two of them ran towards the village. Scott was in utter disbelief and vomited twice while they ran, both because he was out of shape and the smell of rotten flesh was still lingering on him.
The sheriff of the village contacted local detectives to investigate the cabin. Harold and Scott spent the night in the sheriff’s house before heading home in the morning. Harold’s family would think nothing of his nightly absence as sometimes Harold would drink late after a mining shift and fall asleep at the bar.
Harold and Scott ate bacon and eggs for breakfast prepared by the sheriff’s wife. They thanked the man for his hospitality and for his wife’s cooking. Harold and Scott left for home both exhausted and petrified as to how the night unfolded.
When Harold arrived home a sudden surge of adrenaline coursed through him as he noticed his front door painted red and empty pails stacked at the side of his house. He ran to the door struggling to unlock it as his hands trembled trying to find the right key. His impatience forced him to shoulder the door. Clouds of smoke filled the house and it smelled like burned charcoal. He screamed, “Patricia! Elaina! Cohen!” He ran to the basement where the smoke was coming from. He dropped to his knees, panting and crying in front of his wife’s and five children’s torched bodies floating a top of water filled tubs. His youngest daughter Elaina had Farah’s pendant necklace around her neck. Painted red on the wall was a message, “Sorry I tried to save them.”
“DAD, HELP ME!” Thatch’s youngest daughter yelped from under several burning trees. “DADDY, IT HURTS!” she continued screaming. Thatch’s wife and oldest daughter had already burned to death from the fire. Thatch was swinging against the trunks using an old axe he would bring during the family’s Thursday camping trips.
“Daddy is going to save you!” he tried to reassure his daughter even though he knew it was hopeless. He continued chopping at the trees that barred his family under fire and smoke. He could not hear his youngest daughter anymore. The fire had spread up to his right arm slowly boiling his skin and neck. Eventually he managed to drag his family out. He carried all three of them to the river in a desperate attempt to save them. He walked into the river with his wife and two daughter’s seared bodies as he stared at the forest fire in front of him. His face burnt and his body soulless as he stared into the devil’s eyes while the devil laughed back.
Thank you for reading. It's my first short story on my quest to write a few novels. If you enjoyed I will post more.