The Lodge: Night and the Nightmares

It was Christmas Eve and we decided to visit my parent’s house. It was half a day drive so we started around noon so that we reach before dinner. My wife, as usual, kept her frown and my five year old son, as usual, was excited. Everything was going well and we must have covered half the distance, when we got a flat tyre. No problem, I had a spare. Or, I thought so. It turned out that even the spare was flat. I told my wife and son to wait in car while I go get help. I waited near the road to get a lift. Lucky for me, I got a ride which dropped me to a gas station in about an hour. I got the tyre fixed. It was getting dark when I reached back. So finally we started moving. I must have driven for two hours, when the fog got very dense. I was also very tired due to extra travel and needed a rest. But there wasn’t a place to stop by. After driving for another half an hour, I saw a man walking down the road. It was weird since I had not seen any place to stay. I stopped and asked for a lodge. The man had a deep voice. He said something that I could not understand. It was very cold outside and he wasn’t able to articulate properly. He gestured asking whether he could come in. I reluctantly let him in. For the first time I noticed him. He had a scar across the face. He said that he is also heading towards a lodge, which is only place to stay nearby.

As soon as I laid my eyes on the lodge, I knew it was a bad idea. There was nowhere else to go, so we entered the lodge, three of us. I did not notice when the man disappeared, not that he mattered now. While I casually looked around for the man, my son screamed. My wife and I ran inside the lodge. My son saw the lodge owner and got startled. The lodge owner was a living impression of the witches you hear about in fairy tales. She chuckled seeing my son frightened. She opened a room for us and fixed some dinner for us. My wife and I had not spoken a single word till now. This was obviously worse for her than going to my parent’s house. My son had not recovered from his fear yet. I tried to soothe him but he was not able to sleep. I gave him my camera so that he could look at the photographs from our earlier trips. I was very tired and fell asleep quickly.

I heard a sound of a woman crying; not crying, sobbing probably. Then some screams, more like suppressed screams. I opened my eyes; there was nothing so I slept again. I heard a deep voice, like that of the man on the road. “Where did he go?” I thought in my sleep. I saw him near the door. I opened my eyes, but he wasn’t there. This has happened with me before, when I was a kid. In dark, the mind makes the images that you are afraid of. I slept again. I felt stabbing pain in the chest and woke up. I was sweating. I drank some water and felt normal. When I was about to sleep, I saw that my wife was sitting near my son’s bed. I asked her if there was anything wrong. She did not reply. I thought she had fallen asleep while sitting there, so I got up and touched her shoulder. She was not sleeping, but she did not look back either.

I called out her name; it was as if she was in some kind of trance. I was already trembling having seen the images earlier. My tongue twisted when I called out her name again. She did not respond. I could hear her breath getting heavier. From where I was standing, I could not see her face and I did not have courage to take a step further. There was a mirror on my side. I looked into it and was able to see half her face. My knees lost their strength and I dropped on the floor. That scar. The scream; so loud that I had to put my hands on my ears. She held my son in the air. Blood was dripping from her face. It was like her face was eaten. Her body was fighting with itself. The old woman chuckled. She wasn’t there. My son had woken and was chuckling like the old woman. I had lost all control over my legs. The stabbing pain was increasing every second. In this entire struggle I could reach a knife. Amidst all that fear, I thought it was very convenient that I could reach for a knife in this situation. I threw myself at her and with all my strength stabbed the knife in her back. She let out a scream in a manly voice. At the same time, I saw a scar building up on my son’s face. He was chuckling. He jumped on me and i raised my hand with the knife. This was probably the longest nightmare I had that night. My heart was pounding heavily when I got up. My wife and son were sleeping peacefully. A little too peacefully I thought. I decided to give it one more chance.

My head was swinging. Sunlight was burning my eyes. I took half a minute to be able to see. The old woman was standing on the door screaming at top of her voice. The man with the scar came running. The next thing I saw was blood on my bed. It was my wife’s blood. She was stabbed to death and so was my son. I kept shouting to police that the Scarface and the old witch had killed them, but they did not listen. I came to know the reason why they were not taken in custody later at the court hearing. The judge directed people to go out of the court. A video submitted by the police was to be played in the court and apparently it was so gore that it was prudent to not let people see it. Apparently my son was playing with buttons and left the camera on recording mode. Again very convenient, I thought. The video started playing. We three were sleeping when I got up, picked a knife and first stabbed my wife and then my son. I shouted that I did not do it. They were convinced that I was lying and by now I was convinced that I was mentally disturbed.

I requested the judge to allow me to attend the funeral, before going to the prison. I was handcuffed and was taken to the cemetery. I wanted to see the faces once before burial. They opened the coffins for me. My eyes got wide as I saw the faces. I started screaming “The scar, the scar”. But ofcourse no one else could not see it.