Hope

The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window. As Jeff Hunnisey approached the property he had left to rot, he recognized the candle to be a storm candle from when he was a kid. Growing up, his father had kept them below the sink in the kitchen in case of emergencies. In his eighty-three years, Jeff had never been curious as to what those candles looked like illuminated. Now he would never have to wonder. Someone had lit the candle and made themselves at home in a cabin that was barely held together by rusty nails and tired wood. Jeff found himself less worried about the trespassing and more worried about the liability of them being in such an unsafe place. An unsafe place on his property and how he would be responsible for anything that happened to them.

He made no attempt at being quiet as he marched toward the cabin. Being late November, the trees on the property had all shed their leaves, and Jeff had no concerns for ticks as the creeping winter had already brought many cold nights. His boots crunched through the leaves and he felt the heavy quiet of the night every time his footsteps broke the silence. He paused a couple of times only to cough in an attempt to clear out whatever the hell was in his lungs. Not even three weeks had passed since the words malignant and cancer passed from his doctor’s lips and into his ear. Jeff felt mostly good, but hated the damn cough that accompanied his doctor’s diagnosis. As he drew closer to the cabin, he could hear the faint sound of a woman’s voice. He listened intently in an attempt to make out the conversation she was having and who she was having it with.

About fifty feet from the cabin, he saw just how close the candle was to going out. Barely holding on, it was surrounded by the other candles from his father’s hazardous weather stash- all of which had burned out not long ago. One candle to go. Last one standing.

Jeff was finally close enough to hear what the woman was saying, and his feet stopped in the middle of the woods with a final crunch of a stick. Her voice was soft, almost a whisper, and Jeff was quite certain that at her current volume she was talking to no one other than herself.

“Happy... birthday to... happy birthday to...”

Her voice was broken. She spoke softly through sobs as she cried to herself. Jeff felt heavy with concern, but a different feeling weighed heavier and it stopped him from taking another step. He couldn’t place it, but he knew immediately something was very wrong. The hesitation that froze him in place started to dissipate after some time and he felt himself take another step toward the cabin.

At the front door, there was no sign of forced entry, and Jeff could not remember if he even had bothered to lock the condemned building. It was dark, but the lone candle coupled with the moon illuminated the room enough for Jeff to see a dirty woman in the middle of the room, hunched over on the floor.

“Happy birthday to- to... happy birthday to...”

Jeff took a dangerous step into the cabin, knowing the planks could splinter and drop him into the crawl space below, then stopped. Blood. There was so much blood. Jeff looked around the cabin as his old veins pumped adrenaline, pressing his aging heart to its capacity. His pupils expanded as he peered into every corner, only to find the room empty of anything other than storage, dust, the woman... and of course, the blood.

“Happy birthday to... happy b-birthday to...”

The woman continued to rock on the floor, seemingly unaware of Jeff and his presence. Jeff allowed his lips to part, dry until he licked them, ready to speak. “Ma’am...”

The rocking stopped. The woman stopped crying. Jeff felt himself holding his breath and watched the woman’s form on the ground in front of him, unmoving. Everything felt still in the room and Jeff dared not to break the stillness that had come over the moment. The woman ended the standoff as she began to rise and Jeff exhaled through clenched teeth. The woman was facing away from Jeff. He could tell she was dirty, but what he first thought was mud, he now realized was the same wet blood that covered the room. As she slowly turned to look at the elderly man, the candle in the window made one last flicker against the wind before burning out. The only thing left to see by was the moon.

Her face was covered by long dark hair and her ivory complexion was easy to see against the dark backdrop of the room. Her hands were stretched through the sleeves of a dress and held a bundle, wrapped in a blanket. Jeff stood facing the woman, unmoving, when she suddenly collapsed. He rushed forward, wrapping an arm around her. In his old age, he was fast enough to lead her to the ground, but not fast enough to stop her from falling. He brushed her hair from her face and found her to be young- probably in her early to mid-twenties. Jeff couldn’t help but draw comparisons between the young woman and his granddaughter and felt his heart break with concern as he jostled the woman in an attempt to wake her. She would not wake up.

Jeff looked around the room again and saw a glint of light reflected on the ground. As he peered through the darkness, he realized it was a knife. His eyes traced the trail of blood from the knife to the woman lying unconscious in his arms and saw her midsection wet with blood. He felt for a pulse and found nothing. She was dead.

The night was still again. Quiet. Jeff held the woman on the floor. He chewed the inside of his cheek, contemplating what he should do until he broke into a coughing fit. He had to let the young woman go, trying his best to rest her gently on the ground before standing up and proceeding to hack for the better part of a minute. He felt sweat drip onto his upper lip and wiped it away with his handkerchief. He breathed hard and deep, spitting out a few coughs that straggled from the fit and continued to use the handkerchief to wipe his forehead that beaded with sweat. Jeff cleared his throat and turned to leave, stopping when he saw the blanket bundled on the floor. His breathing slowed and he worried for what would happen next.

He watched the blanket for a moment, in constant observation for any sign of life. It did not move. He moved toward it, bending over and hissing out a grunt as he collected the bundle in his arms.

It was light, it was formless. It was empty.

Jeff held the blanket and stared back at the lifeless woman on the floor of the cabin. There were things he did not know about her, that he could never and would never know. He would never know her name was Abigail Chandler and she was twenty-eight years old. He would never know that Abigail was infertile, but wanted to have a baby more than anything else. He would never know how she found his family’s cabin or why she chose to go inside. He would never know how she had acquired the hope that eventually killed her and made her try to cut a baby from her stomach that was not there. Jeff would never truly know that hope was what he took away from the woman when he left the cabin that night.

Jeff began the trek back to his home on the other side of the property with full intentions to phone the sheriff the moment he stepped through the doorway. Somewhere along the way, however, he was overcome by the cancer in his lungs and collapsed to the soil, coughing and spitting phlegm onto the dead grass. His back lurched and his eyes threatened to pop blood vessels as the coughing raged deeper and harder than he could withstand. Unable to breathe, he choked and swallowed any air he could get in between coughs and wondered if there was any hope for him and if he could recover from the cancer this late into its development. He dropped flat onto the grass, turning over to look up into the night sky and recover before heading the rest of the way home.

Looking at the stars he thought about treatments and became unconvinced that it was too late for surgical removal as his doctor had suggested. There was always the hope that things would improve with medicine and he could recover. As he breathed deeply, he thought about the woman on the floor of the cabin and how she had cut into herself... maybe she had the right idea. Maybe cutting the cancer out himself wouldn’t be so bad. At least, Jeff hoped it wouldn’t, but hope is what kills you.